I have no idea why this koala is wearing a teapot on his/her head. But if there’s a funny caption that can round this off into a screamingly funny joke, then that’s where your job comes in!

Doc Rat’s surgery is trying out some new telephone headsets. Unfortunately, Gizelle seems to have upset a spider. Just how and why I’ll leave up to you!

From today, Doc Rat is back to its usual pattern. I hope you were entertained by the my alternative presentations daily, while I was engaged in other things.

I want to thank the people at Eurofurence 24 in Berlin for making such a wonderful event with their hospitality and imaginations. I was also pleased to meet others in the UK. 

And now, back to business…

Here, dear readers, is the update on the Doc Rat (Platinum Rat Productions) studio. All relocated, set up and working. 

Now, I’m on a month’s holiday in Britain and Germany, including EuroFurence 24, in Berlin.

And now, here a fascinating thing. Have you ever wondered just how far back in time Doc Rat goes? Well, I dipped into my vault of early work and made compilations of the single panel gags. They haven’t seen the light of day since their original magazine publications as early as 1995. But you may spot many of the jokes as ones that later reappeared in the Doc Rat strips we know today.

Please enjoy the upcoming procession of gags detailing Doc Rat’s humble origins. And after that, it will be definitely back into new works from the canon.

Caption competition 078

 

On the bright side, I have managed to create a new caption competition. Click here to have a go! 

 

Here, dear readers, is the update on the Doc Rat (Platinum Rat Productions) studio. Having moved office from one building across town to another building, followed by another move across corridor from one room to another, I’ve finally got the furniture shifted, boxes re-opened, wires and plugs connected, and am now making a major marathon effort to build up a four-week bank of Doc Rat for your enjoyment. I thank you for chilling out with the past four weeks of character sketches.

But here’s the fascinating part: Have you ever wondered just how far back in time Doc Rat goes? Well, I dipped into my vault of early work and made compilations of the single panel gags. They haven’t seen the light of day since their original magazine publications as early as 1995. But you may spot many of the jokes as ones that later reappeared in the Doc Rat strips we know today.

On August 20, I will be departing for a month’s holiday in Britain and Germany. That explains another reason for the pressure: I’m  hurriedly making my preparations for EuroFurence 24, in Berlin.

Please enjoy the upcoming procession of gags detailing Doc Rat’s humble origins. And after that, it will be definitely back into new works from the canon.

Caption competition 078

 

On the bright side, I have managed to create a new caption competition. Click here to have a go! 

 

Dear readers, at short notice, the Doc Rat (Platinum Rat Productions) studio has to relocate. This is going to turn my schedule upside down, in the month that will also see me making my preparations to attend EuroFurence 24.

So, with great apologies, for the next four weeks there will not be my usual Doc Rat strips. In their place, I will present you an endearing character sketch a day. Thank you for bearing with me.

Caption competition 078

 

On the bright side, I have managed to create a new caption competition. Click here to have a go! 

 

Dear readers, at short notice, the Doc Rat (Platinum Rat Productions) studio has to relocate. This is going to turn my schedule upside down, in the month that will also see me making my preparations to attend EuroFurence 24.

So, with great apologies, for the next four weeks there will not be my usual Doc Rat strips. In their place, I will present you an endearing character sketch a day. Thank you for bearing with me.

The regular strips of Doc Rat are going to take a pause for a bit – for three weeks, to be precise. Various commitments have taken precedence over my drawing board time, the most important of which is my part in the running of ConFurgence 2018, from 23rd to 25th February. The principal guest of honour will be the wonderful artist, photographer and animator, Joaquin Baldwin. I do thoroughly recommend you consider making the journey to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, for our annual anthropomorphic convention, one of these years. You won’t be disappointed. 

In the meantime, even though the regular strips will be on pause, dear readers, fear not. You’ll still get a daily offering, a sort of scrapbook from the Doc Rat sketch vaults. Every day will be a new surprise. Then, on Monday March 12th, we’ll rejoin the wolves and the rabbits as they toward the climax of our current story.

More news about what’s coming up in 2018 will follow. 

 

Pat the Tiger is a massive fan of the Richmond Tigers AFL football club, in the game we call Australian Rules football. Pat and his partner Pat the Dog have just been watching their mighty Richmond Tigers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) for the Grand Final. They’ve been shouting themselves hoarse. 

RICHMOND WINS THE 2017 PREMIERSHIP!  For the first time since 1980!

Pat and Pat are ecstatic. It’s going to be an exhausting night of celebration for both of them! 

 

Click on the picture to be taken to the competition page. Then send me the funniest caption you can think of, and if yours makes me laugh the most, you’ll win the actual picture itself. Get to it.

Some people have had trouble getting the caption entry machine to work. If that happens, please just e-mail to me on :

Here are the three strips from the Doc Rat story showcasing our smiling Tasmanian devil who sells these dubious burgers from the hospital’s fast-food servery. You personally may or may not think that such an outlet has a place in a hospital, but that sort of thing does happen. (Legal disclaimer: This is a general fast food parody and is not meant to comment on the attributes of any particular company or products.)

And we have a new winner, from May/Jun 2017

Alun Rundle, Newport, South Wales, UK

 

Here it is.

Okay, a little late, I admit, but better late than never. 

Jarrad is going for a run and demonstrating that he won’t be held back by a touch of exercise-induced asthma.

Click on the picture to be taken to the competition page. Then send me the funniest caption you can think of, and if yours makes me laugh the most, you’ll win the actual picture itself. Get to it.

Some people have had trouble getting the caption entry machine to work. If that happens, please just e-mail to me on :

And we have a new winner, from Mar/Apr 2017

Philip McCarty, Owens Cross Roads Alabama, USA

Thank you for a genuinely funny joke that made me laugh out loud at my computer. 

The prize will be on its way to you soon.

Click on the picture to see this joke and all the honourable mentions. 

 

The Doc Rat archives

If you want to read Doc Rat from the beginning, until recently you would have been disappointed to find it absolutely empty from 2006 to 2014. I am working now to restore that. Every week, I load another twenty strips into the archive page, and I’m pleased to report that at this moment it’s up to DR0340, which first came out on October 12th 2007. As it takes an hour out of my working day to do it, and as I work on Doc Rat one day a week, then twenty a week is all I can manage.  There’s some good reading to be had, at this stage.

Don’t forget that Doc Rat is also on Facebook and Twitter, both the latest ones and those golden oldies from ten years ago. 

 

Jenner will be at Anthrocon 2017

I will be attending Anthrocon, in Pittsburgh PA, June 29th to July 2nd,  2017. Keep an eye out for me where you see Bill Holbrook, of Kevin and Kell fame.

I really look forward to meeting everyone who can make it there. Certainly if you’re already planning to go, then look me up – we can share a sketch and a story or two.

 

I will be attending Anthrocon, in Pittsburgh PA, June 29th to July 2nd,  2017. Keep an eye out for me where you see Bill Holbrook, of Kevin and Kell fame.

I really look forward to meeting everyone who can make it there. Certainly if you’re already planning to go, then look me up – we can share a sketch and a story or two.

Jenner had a great time at ThronesCon 2017

While I’m at it, I must tell you about ThronesCon 2017, a Game of Thrones convention that was held here in Melbourne on the weekend of May 20th and 21st. I had a wonderful time talking, laughing, telling stories, and also selling sketches and my limited-edition prints. As you see in the illustration, the con scheduled four of the cast performers to come to Australia. Although one had to cancel due to sudden unavoidable reasons, we still had great congeniality and conviviality from Dominic Carter (Lord Janos Slynt), Miltos Yerolemou (Syrio Forel) and Ian Beattie (Ser Meryn Trant). 

When I can, I’ll give you all a better look at the caricature artwork.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update June 7th 2017. Here’s a better look at my four caricatures from ThronesCon 2017, Melbourne, Australia.

I read Richard Adams’ Watership Down in 1978 at the age of eighteen, and for me it was, alongside The Lord of the Rings and Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, one of the influential books that shaped my dreams and imagination for a decade.

For someone who emotionally connected with anthropomorphic animal fantasy, on me it scored a direct hit. This was because it took itself deadly seriously whilst still maintaining an animal-simple world view. Life was uncomplicated, beautiful, sometimes desperate and sometimes deadly. It was the raw, vital essence of living, distilled with the complexity removed; it felt like undiluted existence Although its origins were Adams’ tale-telling to a couple of children, the final version of the story in the book of Watership Down was that of a child of nature told adult-to-adult. I have never found this vibe captured in any book I have read since – Watership Down is unique.

Not only did I fall for it utterly, it so chanced to happen that I travelled on holiday to England at the end of that year – the first time I, an Australian, had ever set foot in the ‘motherland’. This was a Watership bonanza for me. The movie had just been released, and as I rode on the London underground for the first time in my life, I was treated to the sight of huge posters on the walls, depicting a rabbit blackly silhouetted against the setting sun. This was a stunning image. A closer look showed, subtly placed behind the foreground plants and grasses, a wire snare around his neck strangling him to death. This vouched the production’s credentials – it would be a story that would pull no punches. When I stayed with family friends in Gerrard’s Cross, with access to strolls through the woods of Burnham Beeches (a world both alien and familiar to me), I was then finally able to go to the local cinema to watch the animated feature for the first time.

It was all I could have hoped for. They had made as good a movie of the book as anyone could have expected in the real world. I bought the picture book of the film (you couldn’t buy actual movies in those days. folks) and later the LP album of the beautiful musical score.

For the crowning glory, I took a train to Newbury and spent a day hiking from there to Whitchurch, through the heart of the actual Berkshire countryside in which Adams had set the story. And which, I may add, the film makers had painstakingly depicted, location by location, in their background art. This even included the actual building of Nuthanger Farm, a private residence that played a central part in both book and film. The down, the power pylons, the railway, the church yard, all were there. That month of my life was a thrill that will never quite be matched.

I don’t think Adams thought of Watership Down as a children’s book. But do I think the producers of the film felt compelled to market it as such or face commercial failure. As a result, we had the strange instance of the principal characters of a ‘kids’ flick’ tearing one another’s throats out and bleeding to death on screen. I think all that proves is it wasn’t really a kids’ flick.

This left parents with the uncomfortable dilemma of whether or not to take their children to it. I remember the next year, back in Australia, my aunt and uncle asking me whether I thought it would be frightening to my niece, who I think must have been about six at the time. They were concerned because she had recently watched another animal movie, ostensibly for children, from which she had come away traumatised – silent, clinging, cowering and refusing to speak. I sat her down and pulled out my picture book. I gently showed her some of the beautiful scenes of the rabbits and the countryside. And, admittedly, the fighting. And the lacerations. And suffocations. And strangulations. And exsanguinations. And… by the look on her face I reached the firm conclusion that if my little niece had been terrified by one single scene in some other animal movie, then perhaps a screening of Watership Down would not be for her.

I told my uncle and aunt it wouldn’t be a good idea to take her to the cinema. They thanked me for my counsel.

Oh, and incidentally, what was the original movie that had terrified the daylights out of her? The Tales of Beatrix Potter, as performed by the Royal Ballet. I never did find out why.

 

FOOTNOTES

• I was inspired to write this post in response to a segment about films that caused childhood traumas, broadcast by Nick Hodges on the excellent on-line channel History Buffs.
• Jasmine Jaegermond’s maiden name was Down. I named her after this book.

The winner for the November/December 2016 caption competition is Yvonne “Catbunny” Pawtowski.

 

 

Catbunny surprised me with a rather off-beam entry – it was such a departure from the obvious that it made me stop and think. I love the unexpected! Of course, you get the Eighties pop culture reference, I hope. See this entry and the other suggestions that won special mentions by clicking the link HERE

 

 

…and the winner for the January/February 2017 caption competition is Brian Coe.

 

As always, I most enjoy a submission (and as it’s about a suppository, I really don’t want to call this one an “entry”) that adds an extra idea to the whole of the joke. The picture and caption together should give a better end result than the picture alone. 

See this and the other entries by clicking the link HERE.

Congratulations, Catbunny and Brian, your prizes will soon be on their way to you. 

 

 

 

New competition for March/April 2017

Here’s the next one, to get you thinking. Remember, if you win the competition, you win the artwork. I don’t care how many goes you have at it. Try some obvious ones and some off-the-wall ones. Just go to the competition page HERE.

Some people have noted they have had trouble submitting their caption through the form. This seems to happen with some platforms or devices. Don’t be discouraged, just send it to me through the CONTACT page or e-mail me directly on 

 

 

 

Convention appearances:

Jenner will be attending FURDU on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, from 5th to 7th May, and ANTHROCON in Pittsburgh PA, USA, from 29th June to 2nd July. 

Thanks for being patient during the short spell while I caught up. I’m sure you’re all waiting to find out what exciting events happen next!

And thank you for the letters of support. Onward…!

New caption competition

Use your imagination to come up with a funny caption. If the entry form doesn’t work, please just send me an e-mail through the contact form or at  

Jenner was at ConFurgence 2017, Melbourne Australia, January 6th – 8th.

 

It is with a heavy heart that I press the pause button on Doc Rat for two weeks. Many tribulations have weighed down my progress lately, including computer malfunction, and although I hadn’t planned for it to go this way, I have had to decide that health and sanity are important things for me to value if I am to sustain Doc Rat in the long run.

So, this is just temporary. You’ll find out what happens to Daniella in exactly two weeks, because Doc Rat will commence again on Wednesday January 4th, 2017. Hang in there, rat fanciers. 

Jenner

Jenner will be at ConFurgence 2017, Melbourne Australia, January 6th – 8th.

The winner for the Sep/Oct 2016 caption competition is Rob Falconer.

 

 

 

 

The competition for Nov/Dec is now open.

 

Jenner interviewed about Doc Rat