Behold! The amazing gravitational powers of cats!

And we’re back with a post! It was a wonderfully refreshing feeling, last week, when the idea for this popped into my head. I’d been so overwhelmed with the new job, inspiration had been thin on the ground. I feels good to be drawing again.

As for the extensive grey-scaling, the simplicity of this piece lent itself well to that treatment. In fact, I’d wanted to fully color it, but didn’t have time to do that and post if I was going to catch my bus.

In-store play music, at least at a store that sells music and has a limited, corporate selected slate for you to choose from, is an exercise in slow torture. (Or in the case of the %#$@ing Ting Tings album, very fast torture.) No matter how good or bad an album may be, you will come to detest it. Yet you will know it by heart, find yourself picking out favorite tracks, singing along, and, inevitably, missing it when it’s gone.

A recent family email chain knocked loose this idea which had been kicking around my head a while back.

Still working to re-find my technical groove. Also fiddling around with hand lettering again. Getting my blacks to look right after editing in Illustrator is just such a hassle–and I think I’ve found a pen I don’t mind lettering with. But it’s never anywhere near as clean. So it goes…

This is very nearly verbatim, from what I recall. Suffice to say, I did not get the job. Would have made going to my gym impossible anyway. Still waiting to hear about the job I want opening up. Then I might actually be able to work on comics in the morning. Then I might actually be able to get anything done at all.

At work I’ve been compiling notes for a seriously “burned out retail employee” bit. If it weren’t for the bills…

Apparently, I’m allergic to guinea pigs. This was news to me.

First comic done in the new office!

And we’re back from the break! The house is mine, it’s (mostly) unpacked, and while carving out serious drawing time is still a bit of a challenge, I’m actually at the point where I can work on comics again.

So, what you’ve all been waiting for–more cat and bird jokes!

As if the truth of this needed any more proof than it’s going up a week after New Year’s–a week after the unmarked second anniversary of the site. Personally, I feel like I hit a serious sophomore slump last year in terms of artistic output and progress, and it would only be further disheartening to look back at last year’s goals and see how many continue to dance beyond the horizon.

But even aside from the real life stresses and busy-ness eating up my life, there’s also the logistical problems of moving–the part where things go into boxes and become inaccessible, the part where maybe the office needs a touch of paint before being set up, the part where the internet may or may not be handily available right away–that impinge on updating the site.

So, for this year, I do expect more better things, particularly if my work schedule changes as I anticipate. Though the drought will continue for the immediate future, we’ll be coming back strong soon.

See you in February.