Originally published 27 January 2010

'Big fish, small fish, cardboard box' is a dance, akin to the Birdies Dance or the Macarena in that it goes with its own song, and is especially designed so that anyone, no matter how talentless, can twitch rhythmically along with it. It involves just moving moving your hands, big fish (open your hands wide), little fish (bring them closer together), cardboard box (turn your hands parallel to each other to mimic a cardboard box). The moves originated with rave culture in the late 80s, as it was a dance anyone could do no matter how drug-addled, and has now become a children's party song.

I was experimenting with colours in this strip. Eventually I decided that big bold hues weren't right, and gradually moved towards a more muted palette. An occasional blast of colour is useful, but used as a background like this, it's overpowering.

Smith is coloured the opposite way to most comics. My characters are mainly white, so the colour has to be put into the background. This gives the required contrast and makes Smith and Jones stand out better. The other thing that has to be taken into consideration is that the colours should not clash with Jones's beige points. Hence the muted colours.