Category: Blog

I am really excited to be travelling up to Seattle this weekend for Emerald City Comic-Con.

I’ve already had a dozen or so folks drop me a line to say they’re coming out specifically to say hi, which is great. Were you among them? If so, we are now bestest of friends.

This convention looks like it’s going to be pretty awesome. Webcomics in the house include Sheldon, PvP, Penny Arcade, Starslip, Schlock Mercenary, Real Life, Unshelved and Evil Inc.

I’ll be in booth #306 with the Blank Label Comics guys…signing stuff, selling books and originals, and generally being Mr. Funtime Goodlaughs. [Important note, though: I’ll only be there Saturday, so make sure you come out then.]

To offer extra enticement, Sheldon original comic strips will be on sale for $25 off. So if you were thinking about getting one — now’s you’re chance. (Have a specific one you want? I’d strongly recommend
you e-mail me to make sure I bring that one with me.)

See you at Emerald City Comic-Con!

For those following along, here are the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 previous installments of our Saturday-only storyline.

…the three-month point!

I didn’t expect it to stretch out this long, but I’m havin’ fun with it.

Usually, when reporters write about webcomics, it comes off as “Bang! Zoom! Comics on the Web?!?” Coming from the print world, they have no clue how people are making a living online.

But Time magazine actually wrote a fairly insightful article on the future of comic strips. Check it out

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Growing up, my pop was a fantastic handyman around the house. Sure, he was a brilliant surgeon and doctor, but that never kept him from the get-yer-hands-dirty kind of work. He’d hang drywall, or build fences, or swap out water heaters, or change tires, or re-roof a house…or any honest bit of work he could get his hands on. And I always loved and admired him for that.

But the amazing thing was that, for a brilliant guy, his toolbox — heck, his whole dang garage — was a mess. You could never find anything in there. And as an anal-retentive kid, it drove me nuts. “Dad,” I’d ask, “do we have a wood chisel I can use?”

“Oh yeah, I have a whole set of chisels. They’re out in the garage.”

Which, of course was a futile statement. You could look, if you chose, but those chisels were lost to the world…by the mere fact that they were in that garage. Archaelogists, way in the future, would find them with delight underneath six boxes of National Geographics, various unused gate hinges, and some Christmas decorations.

Growing up, I always told myself that my garage would be different. My garage would have those hole-peg thingies where all the tools had little white outlines. My garage would let you find the right socket wrench at a glance.

But somewhere along the way, my plans didn’t work out.

Yesterday, as I was building a deck, I realized that my tools had jumbled together. They had taken on the appearance of installation art: stacked in a way to represent man’s inhumanity to man…I guess? It was a beautiful artistic expression, but it was also an absolute mess, and I couldn’t find a dang thing.

Took me thirty minutes to even find my wood chisels.

And that’s when I realized it: the Harry Chapin song “Cats in the Cradle” had come true: my garage had become my father’s garage. My stack of tools had become my dad’s.

And an even bigger realization hit me: I am gonna drive my sons absolutely nuts.

…And I got the biggest, dopiest grin on my face at that. I can’t wait to tell them to go look in the garage. The torch shall be passed, pop!

As I’m toonin’ in the studio today, I get a call from my buddies Bill and Gene over at Unshelved.

After pleasantries were exchanged, they threw down the gauntlet: Would I, they wanted to know, be cartoonist enough to accept a challenge? A week of competition between our two strips, where we’d both have to write six days of material on some everyday, innocuous, uninspiring subject matter? Say…plastic coffee cup lids?

They — confident, bestrident, mocking in their tone — assumed I would not answer the call. But I said to them what I say to you now:

Cry havoc, and unleash the dogs of war!

(Be there! April 2nd! Two strips enter! One strip leaves! Hopefully mine! But maybe not! It’s possible this could prove to be a bad decision on my part!)

One of my favorite Gramp-related toons from past health-kicks.

“Boo”.

For those following along, here are the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 previous installments of our Saturday-only storyline.

It’s interesting, because customer feedback reports and consumer satisfaction surveys have actually cleaned up the dealer-affiliated used-car business. They’re not at all as skeevy as they once were. And even cable and phone guys have gotten (a little) more prompt in their scheduling. (A little.)

But boy…you walk into a gym like Ballys, 24 Hour Fitness, or LA Fitness…and they’re on top of you like a vulture on week-old road kill. Everything is a special-deal-today-only-but-don’t-wait-sign-up-now offer.

And there’s something more intimidating about it than your usual salesman: because not only are they givin’ you the hard-sell, they’re givin’ you the hard-sell with 24-inch biceps and thighs that are the size of your chest.

Those guys scare the Pop Tarts outta me.

Dear Sir:

Though I am amazed and inspired by your presence at the gym, I wanted to take a minute to offer some constructive fashion criticism.

Let me first stress how impressed I am at your ability to get yourself to the gym. Especially in this, your 125th year. You are an inspiration to folks young and old.

But brother, the dolphin shorts have got to go.

Even during their heyday in 1979-1982, I’m fairly sure Dolphin Shorts were pretty roundly made fun of. They are, after all, only three-inch swaths of fabric.

But here you are, in 2007, rockin’ them Dolphin Shorts like the Bee Gees just dropped “Saturday Night Fever”. And on an EFX machine, no less. Wow.

So, in closing:
– Points for getting yourself to the gym
– Negative points for the Dolphin Shorts

In Friendship,
Dave Kellett