Punchycards!

A brief interview with one of our Stars from User Experience.

Lets face it I just like drawing cats…

Some real punchycards!

I’ll tell you all about them in a few days..

Hope you all enjoyed User Experience– but enjoy it fast! As I’ll be pulling it offline in ONE WEEK! I need to preserve an Air of Mystery for the Book!

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25 Comments

  1. Ian Bosley on September 26, 2013 at 6:16 am

    This comic has ruined my cat’s life.

    The poor beast can’t approach any member of my family now without being subjected to wildly faux-foreign accents and likewise undignified behaviour. She’s a mere shadow of her former self, and given that she was Siamese to begin with, that’s really saying something.

    I hope you can sleep at night. LOOK HOW TRAUMATISED KEETY EES!

  2. Mathieu Gariépy on July 14, 2013 at 5:14 am

    I hope the cats will become permanent characters in your comics. Maybe not as main characters but as a pleasant background. Great idea!

  3. Skauthen on June 17, 2013 at 11:14 pm

    More cat comics, please.

  4. Telzey Amberdon on April 13, 2013 at 4:36 pm

    I had a cat many years ago who used to like to put his front paws on a wall over his head and streeeeetch out up against it, paws pressing the wall. We had a table with a tablecloth that touched the floor, and one day I saw Indy (named for Indiana Jones) eying the tablecloth. He looked at the tablecloth, perpendicular to the floor, glanced at his favorite wall to stretch on, then looked back at the tablecloth. I knew exactly what he was going to try to do next, and he did: he went over to the tablecloth and attempted to put his front paws on the “wall” it made, over his head, to give a good stretch against it.

    Naturally, it being a tablecloth and not a wall, he fell right through on his face. He was wrong about the qualities of the tablecloth vs. the quality of the wall as a support for stretching, but I did get to see the wheels turning in a cat’s head as he actually tried to figure something out.

  5. Timothy M. Thomasson on April 11, 2013 at 10:28 pm

    Longtime reader first time poster,

    Methinks that if a sub comic (is that even a term? Well it is now :)) about the “kitties” of the difference engine were to come into exsistance that invarably the creation of a user interface resembling a small furry rodent would follow in the pocket universe. (“The Right Angle Tracing device or R-A-T allows us to use fundamental geometric figures to aid in printing vast tables of numbers without errors”)

    Can anyone explain to me why one of the cats is apparently from James Joyce’s Ulysses? (In particular Episode 4 Calypso http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/4/ ) Apparently in Mr. Joyce’s world cats do not say “Meow” but rather “Mkgnao” or “Mrkgnao” which I’m completely bewildered as to the correct pronouciation of.

    I actually would be worried about mathmatically savant felines because at some point the equation would come down to: Place Cats own – Humans = More tasty things to chase and eat!!!!!

    Ohh dear I can see it now, the cats becoming “organized” “Purrr wes not working unless demands of labor union is met” Babbage vainly trying to convince the cats that if poets and street musicians were out of the way there would be catnip and tuna for all and poor Lovelace attempting to perform actual science and calculations amongst the resulting chaos.

    If I had any sort of art talent I would love to try and write this out… the cats constantly coming up with new ideas trying them out then discarding them because they don’t actually wotk or more commonly they do not provide more of “the things that taste good and make noise” only for said idea to be adopted by their human “owners”.

    Alas artistic ideas and temperment I may sometimes have but talent I do not.

    • Stephen on April 13, 2013 at 1:47 pm

      The “gn” is from Italian. The use of “r” as a vowel is actually characteristic of cats (and Czechs). You can re-spell it as “Mrknyao” if that makes it easier to interpret.

  6. Susan on April 8, 2013 at 9:25 pm

    Kitty + Computer + History = Geek Catnip.

    Your kitties are enchanting and I would like to see much, much more of them; perhaps in their own little side storyline? They have that perfect balance of cold-bloodedness and cuteness. You know, where they present you a mangled (and tortured over several hours) mouse, but you still can’t resist them.

  7. David M. MacMillan on April 7, 2013 at 7:04 am

    Lovelace&Babbage, Ltd. need to sell catnip-infused punchycards!

  8. Stephen on April 6, 2013 at 2:02 pm

    I love the kitty – all kitties (except the savage one who used to live next door) and that one in particular. The hand-seizing game is known as Biting Cat in this house. And a kitty with an integral transform really is precisely designed to appeal to me! Thank you for being so clever and drawing so delightfully. I have enjoyed all your work so far and look forward to the book.

  9. Soup von aren on April 4, 2013 at 9:04 am

    Punchycards!…

    Punchycards!…

  10. Nexxo on April 3, 2013 at 7:02 pm

    Am I the only one who hears Kitty speak with the same sort of voice as Gollum?

    (Freakily accurate portrayal of cat psychology, by the way!)

  11. SimonJM on April 2, 2013 at 12:38 pm

    Love the keety! I am glad I am not alone in falling for the cutesy “awww, look at me aren’t I cute, come stroke ma tummy …” routine ;)
    A t-shirt with the keety is bordering on an essential item!

    I look forward to the book, which is going to be another ‘must-have’; I am usre my bank manager will understand (I’ll show him/her my “we need coffee” t-shirt to prove it!).

  12. Kitty (really!) on April 1, 2013 at 9:45 pm

    I love the realistic cat presence – “Get off! Get off”” is heard more often around my house than mundanities about the weather. Also, many footies in all directions. The thundering fur-producing herd would like nothing better than to shred a nice stack of punchycards. If anyone wants to adopt a nice leedle bleck vision-impaired puddy, I’m fostering one….

  13. Telzey Amberdon on April 1, 2013 at 4:31 am

    I really really wants a leetle bleck keety now! And I already have The Four Kitties of the Apocalypse so I really do not need another. It would mess up my awesome title for them. Maybe what I really want is a poster or illustration or tee shirt of a leetle bleck keety. Something someone could sell in their store.

    BTW, I assume the running “kitty identification” gag is a salute to this famous internets comic:

    http://xkcd.com/231/ (“You’re a kitty!”)

    • Bella Green on April 2, 2013 at 4:04 am

      Your black kitty will of course be named Mr. Black, or Shinigami, or some other moniker of Death. Then you’ll have the complete set! *beams with happiness*

  14. Emma Bull on April 1, 2013 at 3:35 am

    You fell for the “soft belly” routine? *shakes head mournfully*

  15. Robert Heterodyne on April 1, 2013 at 1:50 am

    I sense *sniff sniff* punchycardcats! A new website/spin-off project/breafast cereal!

  16. Anon, a Mouse on April 1, 2013 at 1:27 am

    Try to fit those on a USB!

    My parents still hang up a christmas wreath that my dad fabricated from paper punchcards and spray-painted green…

  17. Hadyn on March 31, 2013 at 9:57 pm

    Yeah those punch cards look a lot like ones I saw at the kimono museum in Kyoto. I assume it’s the same system as the Jacquard Loom

  18. Martin on March 31, 2013 at 6:29 pm

    I was wondering if those piles of Punch Cards were Jacquard Loom Punch Cards…

    One of the first inventions to make use of Punch Cards…

    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom

  19. Carolyn on March 31, 2013 at 6:23 pm

    Those must be French cats, hired off the Jacquard factory. +3 for more kitties in comics (me, Morgan, and his temporary sister Tillie).

  20. Rico on March 31, 2013 at 6:19 pm

    So is that a foreign cat, or is that just typical cat accent I’m hearing? If the latter then I’ve been talking to cats all wrong.

  21. Therru on March 31, 2013 at 6:18 pm

    I take it you’ve met a few cats. :)

    My own cat is, of course, an angel. She loves haing her tummy petted and never eats my punch cards.

    Also, best of luck with The Book!

  22. John on March 31, 2013 at 5:41 pm

    Cartoons! Action figures with little enamel cards! More, more more!

    I was getting worried, though, that there was going to be page upon page of notes sourcing the kitty’s dialogue. Not that it would have been disappointing, just…cause for concern.

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