If you own a cat… or better yet if you are owned by a cat you have gone through this ritual… every morning. Hemi (best cat in the world) does this every morning. I have decided that he thinks he’s Lassie and we have a extremely clumsy kid named Timmy living in our neighborhood. Fortunately Hemi seems to forget all about Timmy when he gets a bowl of canned food. Canned food is the important part, since the dry food is still sitting in his bowl.
Thanks to 24 Hour Comic Day, I have a number of strips ready to ink and finish. Being on Fall Break right now I’m working to get most of them set up, but to get a reasonable schedule set, I’m going t o try to switch from “Whenever I want to publish” to Tuesday’s & Thursdays. We’ll see if I can keep that pace going with work. I’m still learning the new interface to publish, so I may need to work out a few bugs… If Hemi would get off my keyboard.
I do apologize for only having two comic strips out this week. The week was really filled with Dr. Who cache prep and with all the the caches now sent out waiting to be placed, “Creativity Project 2011” is coming to a close. I am happy with its conclusion and am looking forward to seeing where and how they are being placed. Now I just need to get a bunch of other drawing done (some for the Dr. Who caches, some for GeoWoodstock), then again with Hemi around I may not get as much done since his favorite place to rest is on my hand. Maybe Cecil is onto something.
Happy Weekend everyone!
Hmmm… Cecil’s been busy with other things (caching trips and the like) so he finally decided to audit (bad word around this time of year) his progress on the various plans & schemes he has running. This is what happens when you don’t have a reliable right hand minion…
As far as other plans and schemes, the Doctor Who Cache Series should be ready to go in a week! I heard back from my marvelous friend Cherie who was creating the stickers and have lined up 11 fantabulous cachers to become “companions” and take care of these caches adding a little something to each to make it uniquely there own. Look for them soon, I’ll post as they are published- all I can say is how excited I am over how this is turning out. The caches will be coast to coast… That is one of Cecil’s plans that hasn’t gone wrong… yet.
I’ve still working through getting articles together for IndianaGeocaching.com, a website I took over just a few weeks ago. So Cecil might be having troubles, but things seem to be going well right now. Oh wait, taxes are due soon aren’t they, and midterms? I think Hemi ate my calendar…
As I have been known to watch some of these crazy “Hoarding” shows I find it unreal some of the conditions people subject themselves to, but also their pets. It does seem in some cases theses things almost feel staged… but then again I grew up in a suburban house with (at on2 dogs, 5 or 6 cats, 2 hamsters, 6 guinea pigs, 2 goats, a bunch of chickens & over 100 rabbits, nope, no hoarding problems in MY family!
In case you missed it I was not raised during the era of “Self Esteem” In most cases I figure at some point someone will shout about emperor having no clothes or something like that. This is one of those cases.
The first comic convention I applied for “Professional” standing was C2E2 last year. I applied as a “Professional Educator” Having taught for over 20 years, it seemed like that was a match. I stretched myself a bit for New York Comic-Con with a bit of fear, dropping the “educator” and was accepted. This year at C2E2 I continued with just being a comics professional. I was happy, but decided I might want to tempt fate.
If you read my blogpost about the “Year of No” you would have seen me say I was not planning on attending the San Diego Comic-Con this year since the ticket system had become a mess. I tried, and failed and wrote the whole thing off. Then I saw someone gloating on Facebook, that they had “professional” standing so they didn’t have to worry about anything. That post stayed in the back of my mind for a while. and I decided “Nothing ventured, nothing gained” and looked into what it took to be considered a “pro.” More than the other conventions I had been granted “pro” status- this time I had to prove it beyond just listing a website. About a month ago I submitted some examples of my work and then the waiting game began. Tonight at about 7:44 PM yesterday I received an email confirmation that I had been granted professional status- I’m still in shock. Like I said… raised in a time when “self esteem” did not exist. You might call me a cartoonist (thank you) but I still have issues with if I am “good enough.” Heck- my parents still don’t read this comic.
What does a Professional Badge mean? I get a 4 day badge (with preview night) to the San Diego Comic-Con, that’s about it. Sue- doesn’t get one, & Cecil… he sneaks in. Now the fun part starts- I need to find lodging, a flight, and a car (for Sue). Fortunately, today is the last day of school before Spring Break so all I’ve done is add a few things to my to do list.
Oh, and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
No, not the Batman villain, what that crazy rabbit lady says in “Goodnight Moon.” It is kind of funny that I do a comic about missing Hemi (which I do on a daily basis- miss Hemi, not a comic) and then I head off some place and need to have Hemi visit the “Kitty Spa” again. This weekend C2E2 calls. This was the first convention to actually call me a professional (last year- their inaugural year), but I am looking forward to it and having some fun. I’ll still be attending a few sessions on comics in the classroom, along with webcomics. This year no Jeff Smith to thwart my attempts at getting an autograph, no Neil Gaiman… but I’m sure it will be great. I’m staying a bit closer to the con than last year (I was a winner in Hotwire roulette), but with the possible nice weather I will probably do some caching. I have a little time to figure out what I will be doing and what I need to get for my classroom (or my office- I still love my Skottie Young “Flying Monkey” I got last year). I’ll try to get an update posted each night- but I’m not guaranteeing anything.
As for other projects- the Dr. Who cache series is getting close to completion. I have each of the 11 doctors inked, along with a modified TARDIS design that should work a lot better on the decon container. Now I just need to meld the two together and do a sample cache page. I have decided to create a special cache for those who find one of the eleven doctors- doing a cache where you needed to find all of them, just seemed too complex and knowing what I’m planning difficult… then again my plans might change before the first one gets set out.
I am also working on a painted ammo can that should be finished (now that report cards are done) in the next couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to filling it and setting it out.
Hope you all have someone (something) to smush and sing silly songs to- have a great weekend!
This being the scheduled last comic for 2010 I really want it to be the best work I have done this year and a benchmark for what to expect in 2011, unfortunately I have run into a bit of a snag…
Hemi decides that the concept behind today's comic might not be sound.
I’ll try to figure out a work around, but we might have publish tomorrow. Thank you for your patience.
For those of you who have been following my tweets this week you might have noticed that I have posted either on twitter or Facebook a couple of photos of Hemi helping get out this week’s comics… the amusing one was as I was trying to add the greys to today’s strip and yes, Hemi sat directly on my keyboard & actually pushed some secret string of commands to turn off the USB ports! (That’s my story & I’m sticking to it).
Hemi "helping" make sure that he is portrayed correctly... or something.
