This story has to be my single greatest endeavor. I began writing it as a series of interlinked short stories before I began work on Blobland Radio and when writers’ block stuck me I put it aside to concentrate on the comic until I could work out what to do with the story once more. This may have been the worst thing I could have done with it, since the story soon became an insurmountable hurdle – I simply couldn’t grasp what I wanted to do with it or where I wanted to go with it.
The opening of the story has had so many rewrites that to list them all would fill this page. Suffice to say the comic you see here is not the first version of the opening, nor the second, nor the ”seventh”. It is, however, the version I’m sticking with, for good or for bad. I hope it has been worth the wait.
Pie Noon, part 2
This is the first chance to see how Nob Mouse and co have developed as characters in the eight years since they last appeared in a comic. Despite not being able to overcome the hurdle Pie Noon represented until now I did not stop drawing the characters in sketches and numerous attempts to produce this story. As a result, my technique has developed and the characters look a little more solid now. I think it makes them look a lot better.
It’s worth noting at this point that while Nob Mouse now looks drastically different to how he looked in most of Series One you can see the development from the amorphous, fuzzy blob design to the new, solid design as the series progresses. Nasties! is where his solid shape first develops and his new nose shape arrives in episode six of the same story.
Bricky has the most significant change of look, having gone from a lumpy-headed brick shape to looking more like a yellow house brick. The new design makes him seem more ‘real’, I think.