Tag Archives: fox

Dragon Comics 97

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How about just a postcard, maybe?

How about just a postcard, maybe?

Souvenirs get expensive actually. I used to bring the kids things, but they already own so many things. New things that were actually in my budget (and I go away at least 4 times a year) just ended up in already existing piles of things, forgotten minutes after they were received. Postcards, though…postcards I approve of. You can get lot of postcards for a little bit of money (it’s a good idea to travel with your own stamps, though: touristy places are usually out, and it’s not always easy to get to a post office) and it’s always nice to get real mail, especially when you’re a kid and no one sends you mail.

I have pretty much every postcard anyone’s ever sent me, which is a decent number of postcards, but, being mere scraps of paper, they still fit in a single milk crate, with room left over for another couple of decades of postcards. I imagine that I’ll want them toward the end of my life. Every once in a while I dig through them for a bit, but mostly it’s nice to just have a box of tangible proof that people think of you from time to time.

Dragon Comics 85

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Contrails are clouds formed when water vapor condenses and freezes around small particles (aerosols) that exist in aircraft exhaust. Some of that water vapor comes from the air around the plane; and, some is added by the exhaust of the aircraft.

Contrails are clouds formed when water vapor condenses and freezes around small particles (aerosols) that exist in aircraft exhaust. Some of that water vapor comes from the air around the plane; and, some is added by the exhaust of the aircraft.

This is a webcomic.

That is all.

Dragon Comics 76

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It's like deciding to ignore your lungs's need for oxygen.

It’s like deciding to ignore your lungs’s need for oxygen.

You know how you sometimes have these eye-opening dreams where everything seems infused with wonder and meaning and there’s some kind of message or idea you want to carry back to the real world but once you wake up and try to explain it to other people, even if you can actually remember the dream in its entirety, you still can’t communicate the deep and sublime feelings that it instilled in you as you slept? It’s like that.

My 2 guest essays ran on Panel.net in the last couple days: the first one is about world-building and the graphic novel Aya, and the second is about reading comic books to a blind person. It seems like people liked them and I will be writing more in the future. Pretty excited about that. I’ve also been trying to keep my book review blog updated. I probably only read about 2 adult books a month, but sometimes I read 10 or 20 kids’ books.

This week I have a bulletin board to create, too. Everything depends on whether I have to serve jury duty, though. Ug. I really believe in democracy and the right to a trial by jury, I just don’t like being personally put out to ensure that it happens. I hate the courthouse and I hate being awakened too early and I hate being bossed around and I hate being forced to sit in merciless plastic chairs in huge rooms packed full of strangers. Jurors should be allowed to serve online. I would be much less uncomfortable if I could watch a trial on my laptop in bed.

Dragon Comics: Guest Comic 1!

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I'm so tired I can't tell if this looks right.

I’m so tired I can’t tell if this looks right.

A couple months back, the Fox asked if I was interested in fan art of my comic. Oh, my goodness! Who wouldn’t be? He said it was OK to save his drawing for a day when I just couldn’t get a comic out, and this seems to be that day. I have a massive headache, I’ve hardly slept all weekend, and I’m so tired I can barely thing, so here it is: Fox Comics!

The Fox is a rather talented writer and artist. He certainly has the “bizarre realities that can only exist in comics” down to an art. There’s a little joke between us here, as he is of the opinion that if it tastes good, you should eat it, while I have been largely sugar and gluten free for about 5 years. I’m not saying that I never have a piece of cake, but generally I eschew carbs in general, and flour and processed sweeteners most particularly. I just feel better that way. So, although we are very good friends with many things in common, his “Eat all the things!” attitude clashes with my “At least 80% healthy” diet.

I love the drunk-looking cupcakes, the flying pie, and whatever is going on between the tiered cake and the fork. Green Jello kind of freaks me out, though.

If you are on Furaffinity, you can see some more of his drawings here, but you have to register with the website to get at the content.

Most of this afternoon, I was concentrating on my first professional photography gig! The model was a bit shy at first but opened up and was soon enjoying herself. We were shooting for about 3 hours, including some short breaks. Originally, we had planned to use a my friend’s swanky house in the suburbs for half the shoot, and then hike a bit into Saguaro Park West for the second half, but we ended up getting so into it that we never left the house. I think the client is going to be very happy with the results.

Dragon Comics 60

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No bears were harmed by anyone other than themselves in the making of this comic.

No bears were harmed by anyone other than themselves in the making of this comic.

I’m not a perfectionist, and I’m not vested in maintaining total control over the end of the process: my work is deliberately and lovingly flawed, and printing and shipping is up to someone else. LIke I said yesterday, marketing and sales are sort of beyond my bailiwick, and what bare interest I muster in the process only reflects a desire to continue spending 40 hours a week drawing and writing. (Obviously, I’m lucky to have The Man to support me in this endeavor, not to mention no small degree of class privilege.)

This comic is offered lovingly in honor of my friend, the bear, who creates marvelous and superlative designs, which he reproduces himself on delicate merchandise in custom colors. Each piece, and the design painted and engraved upon it, must be completely free from defect before he signs, wraps, packs, and ships it. Himself. His work is exquisite. We’ve been friends for over 20 years, and he lives 3 1/2 miles from here, and the only time I’ve seen him in the last 6 months has been in his booth at an art fair.

From a financial perspective, clearly I’m going about this all wrong, but it just sort of hit me last night that finally, after a lot of years adrift (thank you very much web content for search engine optimization) my life has finally aligned itself with true north on my heart’s compass. Life is not perfect, but all the important pieces are engaged and the sun still shines in the daytime.

For the bear, if he reads this, I think your way is successful too. You make a good tortured artistic soul in thrall of his cruel and lovely mistress and I hope you don’t take this the wrong way. You are a funny, grumpy, lovable old bear with whom I have not hung out in a long time. Text me.

Dragon Comics 51

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Why I otter...

Why I otter…

Apparently people are enamored of “the machine.” Personally, I think it’s kind of a mean-spirited device. It gives you *almost* what you want, but not quite, because it delivers the thing you want in such a way that you almost don’t want it anymore. You would be better off without its generosity.

At any rate, a machine this powerful probably can’t be destroyed, although it can be stored in the guest bedroom with all the craft supplies and exercise equipment you never use, buried under antique furs and baby toys and ugly prints inherited from long-dead great-aunts. Dragon’s Cave, unlike my house, offers unlimited storage space, so there’s no question of setting the machine on fire on the front lawn.

Just so you know, the otter will share the doughnuts with the fox and the girl and the boy. He can’t eat that many doughnuts himself. Although I suspect the real otter would have no problem taking doughnuts from a kid for the sake a big laugh. But I’m sure he would give them back later.

I feel like the fox is as much a victim of this prank as the little girl, but something about the way he’s drawn suggests that he knew this would happen and he’s in on taunting the kid. But that’s not the kind of fox he is, I swear. I wanted to give him the punchline in panel 4 but nothing sprung to mind, so there it is. He’s just watching, feeling relatively certain that the otter is just messing with him and will dole out the doughnuts soon enough. Also I like the kid perspective: the girl did suffer, as only a child denied is capable of suffering.

Dragon Comic 50

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Halfway to something.

Some things are just over her head.

Some things are just over her head.

It’s late. I’ve been drawing all day while gorging on gingerbread and forgot that I’d never scheduled this post even though the comic was drawn last weekend. Also today I sliced off the top millimeter of my left thumb with a knife. This never happens. I never cut myself with knives. Tin can lids, broken tiles, shards of glass, sure, I injure myself with those things all the time. But usually I’m in total control of a kitchen knife. Now my thumb is a minor inconvenience, I’m sick from too many cookies, and it’s late.

 

Dragon Comics 49

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In relationships where one partner is more resilient than the other, it's not uncommon that the weaker partner can gleefully say and do things to the stronger partner that would be devastating if the stronger partner said or did to the weaker.

In relationships where one partner is more resilient than the other, it’s not uncommon for the weaker partner to gleefully say and do things to the stronger partner that would be devastating if the stronger partner said or did to the weaker. Emotionally speaking, that is. 

As mentioned last week, I actually enjoy being suspended by the ankles, but there’s a limit to everything, particularly inversion, which can become dangerous in certain situations over long periods of time. There are many benefits to inversions, and I’ve even heard yogis suggest something to the effect that every minute of ones life spent in inversion adds an extra minute of right-side-up time to life. Of course, I’ve also had veterans assure me that, after a certain point, inversions can be deadly. So let me reiterate: after a minute or two, the health benefits of inversions are limited to inversions you accomplish using your own muscles, under your own power. Being strung up by the ankles and left for dead is not healthy.

Of course, neither is laughing at your friend’s inadvertent misfortune, regardless of how hilarious their situation might appear to you, particular if you are reminding them about something that happened years ago, and especially if you actually played a rather large part in their situation. Just remember that.

Meanwhile, the poor fox is pieless and in serious danger of starving to death.

Dragon Comics 48

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Having trouble seeing clearly? Wondering if you need a new perspective on life? Try hanging upside down by the ankles to see things in a different way!

Having trouble seeing clearly? Wondering if you need a new perspective on life? Try hanging upside down by the ankles to see things in a different way!

Those who know me know I love being upside down. Before hurting my wrist, I spent a lot of time in handstand. Now I have a rather lovely inversion table that some strange person put by the dumpster at my friend’s condo, which said friend then retrieved and gave to me, because upside down! It decompresses your spine and fills your brain with blood. I find it very relaxing, although, apparently, many people find it terrifying.

I’ve joked about the Andy Kaufman test before; I always think my ideas are funny, and have no idea if other people will find them so. This comic cracks me up, but definitely ranks high on my list of ideas that I suspect will not amuse others to the same degree. See, Dragon thinks the pie in the face gag is hilarious, so hilarious that Dragon will willingly take a pie in the face. But Dragon doesn’t get a pie in the face. Instead, Dragon gets a small rainbow flag distraction while a robot arm ambushes Dragon’s ankle and hoists it into the sky. Meanwhile, the fox is still primarily concerned with the absence of pie.

OK, explaining it doesn’t help.

Either it’s funny, or it isn’t.

Dragon Comics 44

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And we’re back!

We all know that feeling. Thus concludes this treaty on gluttony as a cultural imperative.

We all know that feeling. Thus concludes this treaty on gluttony as a cultural imperative.

A couple years back, the Fox, The Man, the Cats, and I were driving to Tucson from Death Valley and I had the clever idea that we should stop for lunch in Las Vegas. Specifically, I thought the Fox, who had never been to Sin City, would get a kick out of the buffets. Stupidly, we chose the cheapest one on the strip, which, at the time, was Planet Hollywood.

I didn’t even feel like I ate that much much, but apparently I did. The Cats and the Fox were perfectly happy to nom all the things. The Man and I did not fare so well. The man literally threw up. I was not even so lucky as that. All I remember is lying on the floor of a casino bathroom crying because I wanted to throw up, but couldn’t, and then finally demanding that we leave Las Vegas immediately, so that I could vomit on the Hoover Dam.

Sadly, I was unable to effect reverse peristalsis on one of the greatest modern marvels of the 20th century. Instead, I spent 7 hours crying to myself.

Since then, I’ve only eaten myself into a stomach full of angry bees once. Typically, I’m pretty moderate about what I eat; even if I eat a lot, I rarely eat things that my stomach can’t tolerate. As I was completely sick this Thanksgiving with a perfect storm of what appeared to be 3 separate microbial invasions, I couldn’t have overeaten if I tried. We’ve been really conscious about not cooking too much food, not going overboard with the Thanksgiving meal, for some years now. Still, hanging out with the Cats and the Fox, I am offered a lot of opportunities.