Back in November 1984, I was pleased to produce the regular comic strip, Matt and the Cat which appeared in Transformers comic (Marvel UK), this leading on to a new 23 page Humph the Cat comic strip. See link below. However, every strip has its beginning and the characters, Matt and Humph equally had their starting point. For that we've got to go back to me walking into the feature editors office at the Bradford Telegraph and Argus in March 1979. The original plan was to sell to editors, Mike Priestly and John Hewitt a cartoon strip entitled, Wishy, Washy and Wig. Whilst John didn't go for this, he did notice a small inked cartoon of my eldest son, who at the time was just two and a half years old. Somewhat taken with this, he told me that if I was able to adapt the character into a daily strip, he'd accept it. This I did rather quickly, resulting in the first Matt strip appearing in the newspaper 18 April, 1979. Just for the record, the Wishy, Washy and Wig strips did go on to appear in comic book format in the young readers title, Plus Comic, with editor and children's writer, Andrew Wooding.
Seeking to follow the style of such great strips as Peanuts, the Matt strip appeared as a daily for six years with the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, and later with The Manchester Evening News. Whilst both older sons had had influence on the strip, the cat with it's silly big feet 'n' cheeks left his paw mark. The following posts show just a very small few of the many produced during 1979/85.
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