Ralph Kidson is the creator of Captain Dolphin, Sad Animal and Envelope and Stick. He's also the funniest cartoonist in Britain. Around the late nineties, his unique work inspired a cult readership, the sort of cult that sometimes accidentally pee their pants when laughing. Maybe.

His recent booklets include "Doctors' Waiting Room", a work of masterful observation, cracking comedy skills and hidden manifesto for alt. comics distribution. "Animal Jobcentre" followed directly and in much the same way records the ludicricousness of the everyday through his unique "RalphieVision". "Dalek Home Guard" arrived fairly shortly after. Here, Ralph uses the the language of "Dad's Army", a classic British sitcom about WWII troops, to create a bridge between old and new and dark and comic-lite interpretations of the Daleks. (Update: Or so I thought. Having seen the trailer for this week's 'Churchill's Daleks' episode of Doctor Who, I wonder if he might have had foreknowledge of it's content.)

I bunged a few pairs of briefs in the wash, and sat down to ask Ralph some questions about his work.

Andy Luke: I was wondering if you could clear something up for me? I heard a story from Pete Ashton that you produced a comic on a door, with hinges acting as staples. This apparently was sold at the art auction at the Caption comics festival one year, with the buyer having some difficulty getting it onto the bus..

Ralph Kidson: It wasn't a door, not as big as that! Me and a guy called Rich Smith (Teenage Suicide) got together to make a giant free-standing comic for one of the 'Sofa' Brighton small-press group's gallery shows. There were about 3 or 4 of these shows in the mid-90's...anyway, it was Rich's idea, I blame him. We went and bought about 10 big ( 4 foot high, I'd say,x 2 foot wide ) sheets of plywood, painted 'em white, let 'em dry, then painted a really awful comic on the 'pages', plus a cover and back-cover. It was 'bound' I think by just drilling 2 holes in the side of each sheet, then tying 'em all together with cord or string.
We set out to make it as offensive as we could, with lots of babies and grannies and wheelchair-bound folk being slaughtered in a supermarket, lots of swearing, references to Satan etc., in the hope that a local newsman might wander in, see it, and write an inflammatory piece about the show corrupting the minds of young Brightonians or something. Bit of publicity, get the punters in...but no-one batted a fucking eyelid!