The Life of Nob T. Mouse is one of the oldest web comics still on the Internet.  However, it is not considered to be one of the longest-running and many comics that have begun after it have far more episodes under their belt.  The series was created by writer/artist Zoë Robinson, based on characters she created as a distraction at school in the late 1980s.  Nob T. Mouse himself was part of a series of card games styled on ‘Top Trumps’ in 1988 and may have existed earlier.  Since the debut of the Series Three stories, Zoë has occasionally shared the task of writing the series with cult sci-fi author Jennifer Kirk.

The series debuted in December 1996, when Welcome, Mr. Nob was written during an exam revision break.  The comic was quickly followed by a handful of other stories charting events in the life of Nob T. Mouse (the T stands for ‘The’) and these were all scanned onto computer to be uploaded onto a website for the creator’s school friends to enjoy.  At this point in time Zoë Robinson, the series’ creator, had never heard of the concept of a web comic but managed to make one anyway.

The comics were produced on an ad hoc basis with no overall planning or design.  They were produced on spare sheets of A4 paper using a pencil to sketch the comic, a biro to ink the lines and coloured pencils to provide colour and highlighting.  Dialogue would then be inked onto the artwork in biro and the comic would be scanned for display on the website whenever Zoë remembered to do so.  Delays between a comic’s completion and its publication on the Internet could be significant, the record being held by Nob & The Pies, which was produced in 1997 as part of Zoë’s GCSE Art and Design project but not uploaded until 2007.

The new comics are all hand-sketched on A4 paper in pencil before being scanned for inking and colouring on computer.  Comics are now produced regularly, with new episodes appearing on Mondays and Fridays.  Unlike many web comics, The Life of Nob T. Mouse runs separate storylines at once.  The Monday comics appear in long form and often feature ongoing storylines while the Friday comics are in three-panel format and generally favour the joke-a-day approach, shunning continuity and ongoing storylines for quick gags.

Continuity between stories exists by luck more than planning because of a decision by the creator to subscribe to the Quantum History model of time.  This is a theory that events do not need to follow on from one-another, although they are likely to due to the effects of probability.  For a clearer discussion of Quantum History, please see its dedicated page on this website.

Recurring characters

Nob T Mouse

The owner of Café Nob and the mayor of Blob City.  Nob Mouse is a part-time adventurer and de facto leader of Blob City’s residents. He is not a mouse and does not look like one, despite his name and claims to the contrary in the first story.

Bricky

Bricky is a yellow brick and the waiter at Café Nob. He is notable as the only monosyllabic character in the series, having only ever been known to say “Pop” yet all the other Blob City residents can understand him perfectly.

Franky

Franky is a hat-obsessed, ball-like creature of limited intelligence and unlimited curiosity who hosts a popular show on Blobland Radio, Blob City’s premier radio station.

Frederick Rabbitt

Frederick is a big-eared, pink creature that lives in a Castle Frederick, located somewhere outside Blob City but close enough to be visible from the city centre. Frederick is the series’ main recurring villain and is hell-bent on either stealing or destroying all the pies in existence, depending on the story.  See Quantum History for a potential explanation for this change in motive.