We met while working at D.C. Thomson in Dundee. I was writing stuff like Beryl The Peril for The Topper and Andrew was a letterer/illustrator in their art department. We became friends and hatched our escape plan into the world of strip cartoons.
Thie second question is a variation of the more usual "Where do you get your ideas from?" and my answer is the same. I sit down and think. There is no magic formula. Some characters work and develop over the years and others fall by the wayside. When I first came up with Beau Peep, I was simply looking for something geographically different and by some weird thought process, ended up in the desert. Then the Foreign Legion. Then some inividuals who shouldn't really be there. I don't really enjoy talking about the process of writing cartoon strips---I don't understand it myself.
