I believe that the picture below is the first picture of Pete, or indeed any carnivorous plant, that I drew. It was drawn a couple of weeks before the strip started, and was such an obviously nice character, that I developed him a little.
Once I started the strip, I needed other characters, so I named, and introduced another character I had drawn before - the much abused worm. Looking at them now, I wonder what sort of state of mind I must have been in when drawing them. Especially as the hole in the 1 Ton weight wasn't drawn by me but by a kindly soul who was trying to rescue him.
The scientist was first drawn on a birthday card I made for Mary-Ann a couple of years ago. He was carrying a huge present, unlike me ;). The ladybird and ants were invented soley for the cartoon. Especially the ants. If I had known how fiddly they were to draw, especially in crowd scenes they wouldn't have made it. Nasty little beasties...