"Look At The LIGHTS!"

   Resurrected the occasional side-feature to the strip: "Nuggets Sketchbook" is basically just a scan of the original doodle straight off the pages of the journal. A bare minimum of digital tweaking is done, some simple shading + cleanup along with reconfiguring the composition.
   This has been a stunning season for aurora displays, but the window of opportunity is beginning to close what with the inexorable increase in daylight. Now we instead are treated to a great, burning orb in the sky, which some of us pale denizens emerge squinting from our cabin caves to bask in the warmth like so many deprived zombies.

   One thing that has really humbled this jaded Alaska resident is the sublime experience of sharing the wonder and magic of the Northern Lights secondhand, as expressed through the rapturous descriptions of tourists, who in many cases have traveled thousands of miles in the hopes of capturing what so many of us up here take for granted. Logistically on par with attempting to get a view of Denali, for each of the many disappointments there are also the trips of a lifetime, and it makes one appreciate the commonplace, or for what so many folks no longer bother to look at anymore.