My Xmas panel (previously teased out here) that ran in last year's Sundays section (subscribers "get it" first). It's also doubling as this year's Xmas card, which gets handed out in person, and mailed out to inlaws + the handful of relatives still alive or not on the shit list. At least the ones who send me one first, so I don't have to do the requisite detective work finding out where they get snail mail.
Actually that always just reminds me how most folks are grown-ups by now and thus have had a house for many, many years where they've since lived and raised a family, and haven't moved around like a migratory peasant. Ah yes, the twenty-fifth of December, where I get both of the year's most depressing events over with both in one day.
But seriously, folks light up when you actually hand them a card, as in a tangible, physical object that manifests and encapsulates all those feelings into an actual thing that they can throw away later. One of the meta-reasons print media is still the main, original "platform" for my work is how I deeply appreciate the opportunity to directly give readers a sort of a "card" via the newspaper. Which they can still throw away.
Here's also a bonus watercolored version I know, it's confusing, as I leave the freshest material unreleased on social media, usually staggered a year later or at least a few month after it appears in print (Instagram posts are mostly scheduled two years after publication). Membership, or in this case, subscription has it's privileges. Still on the scale of specialness, nothing beats the real thing, especially while doing a demo and making something appear for the first time.
... plus a bonus teaser of what'll appear in print this weekend. Stay safe folks, and thanks for reading: CHEERS
You get depressed because you haven't achieved certain aspects of a particular kind of adulthood, but I get depressed because depression itself robbed me of my creative fire years ago. You have made art happen on your own behalf and opened the world of art to a multitude of students. It was a stroke of tremendous luck that I met you in 2006 and that you took me under your wing. I watch your career with respect for your skill, knowledge, and work ethic.
ReplyDeleteHey thanks for that - means a lot. I've long appreciated the random connection the few of us still have in that most fortuitous encounter - much of which I unfortunately can't remember many details of, as I discovered this last trip back trying to fill in some missing blanks (as one is wont to do more and more these days). Be good to connect again, as nothing wold cheer up a couple depressed cartoonists than in-kind company - my what a cheerful thought.
DeleteAnd the following/first couple new posts of the year cover and convey a lot more hopefulness, and situational satisfaction. Just gotta figure out a way back into editorials - that's a tough challenge in light of current events. My anger is just as much a dead-end as depression, like it isn't already enough of a struggle just to come up with ideas and do drawings in response.
PS: And anyone who's ever read YOUR blog knows how creative any kinda mechanical repair can be.
Getting older and evaluating our lives is hard enough without the various shitshows gyrating around us. Hard enough to look back and say "Shit, why didn' I...?" and then look ahead and ask, "and what the fuck am I gonna do about that?" Thanks for the hat tip to mechanical repair. Our repair shop has relied on improvisation a lot, perhaps more than most of the places now catering only to the most modern of the modern. It keeps getting harder as equipment gets more dependent on precisely matched perfection.
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