A question for Roger...

[Rob Baker]

...that a friend of mine, who's a bit of a Beau Peep anorak, has asked.

This series is from week beginning 01/12/2014:-




This series is from a few weeks later (week beginning 29/12/2014):-





Strip 3 here (un-numbered) looks like it belongs to the first set of strips about Mad Pierre.  Normally 6 strips make a week's story line -- this appears to have been an extra one slotted into an un-related story about Hamish. They're all very funny as usual, but I, er, my friend, was wondering why this was...   

[Roger Kettle]

No idea! Next question...
Seriously, Rob, I noticed the "rogue" Pierre strip at the time but can't fathom how it got there. It certainly wasn't from the series you show here. As you say, we produce six strips for the week and they're all present and correct so I'm presuming this strip came from a series published ages ago. How it got into the Hamish series is beyond me. Something weird must have happened at The Star but I have no idea what.

[Rob Baker]

Cheers Roger.  I found the rogue strip -- it was published in June 2011!  I wonder what happed to the missing Hamish strip 4680?
Incidentally, I was rather surprised to find out that Mad Pierre appeared in only one series in 2014, none at all in 2013, and again only one in 2012. 
I have far too much time on my hands...

[Roger Kettle]

Rob, I guess the dwindling appearances of Mad Pierre are due to the limited range of the character. After nearly 37 years, it's not easy to keep writing strips about Pierre punching Beau for, shall we say, the most trivial of reasons. Basically, the set-up has always been "Beau says something innocuous and still manages to upset Pierre and get a punch in the face". There was a Coronation Street actor called Nigel Pivaro (he played one of the Duckworths) who, I'm told, was a big fan of Mad Pierre. I'm both flattered and disturbed...

[Diane CBPFC]

The reason why there is a rogue strip is because...Mad Pierre "knocked it into next Tuesday". Ta Da.

[Roger Kettle]