A Pinch and a Punch.

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month (and all its variations and attachments). Where does that come from? I googled around to find the origin of that old saying and found a lot of people asking the same question.
Back in '96 when we were doing the last volume of Bacchus I had come up with a couple of characters named Transom and Mullion. There had been a tradesman in the house fixing windows and he had used the technical terms for the upright and horizontal in a window or door construction, at which point my mind left the matter at hand and my eyes probably glazed over. When you're galloping at high speed, writing a monthly book, you tend to sweep up everything before you and absorb it into your story. So I thought, Transom and Mullion, two characters who are always at cross purposes. Later I noticed the Hood's henchpeople in the Thunderbirds movie had those names (more wordplay since hood in Britain can mean the roof of a garage etc.), and they may have been in the original '60s series too, and if the names weren't used long before that I'd be surprised.


Once on paper, characters start to write themselves and these acquired a sado-masochistic relationship, and so, galloping at high speed from one month to the next I had them act out the first day of the month ritual in all of its violent potential. Pete Mullins, who worked with me in that period, always drew these two, and you can see his line is much cleaner than mine. (click for a larger reading version)

From Bacchus vol 10: Banged Up