time machine

I wasn't able to complete that time machine in 2009, so I guess I'll have to find out what happens in 2010 in real time.

the great mug experiment

Dear readers, you are aware of the ongoing tragedy that is my kitchen sink. It is a place where mugs go to die. The sad broken drinkwear are discarded but never forgotten. Well, the good people at www.cookware.com heard my cry and allowed me to try something different on this bolg. They sell all manner of fine kitchen goods, including Rachel Ray cookware, and they have generously offered to supply me with new mugs in exchange for a review.

As an avid tea-guzzler, I will be able to quickly determine whether these mugs are up to the task. I look forward to the trial. As should you! For you will be able to read all about it right here.

Stay tuned!

friday robots: merry amoeba!

Just in time for America's biggest holiday, Friday Robots are here! Today they look more like amoebas, but you know what they say about the traditional Christmas Invertebrate.

Two versions, because I just couldn't decide:

rashida jones, i could've drawn your comic book

Rashida Jones has written a comic book. Not exactly new news, but pretty darn exciting nonetheless. What's it about? Just check these stories to read more about it.

But that's not what I'm here to talk about. You see, Rashida, I am a cartoonist. I happen to draw a daily comic strip which has three strong female characters. Ranger Dee is about the same age as your protagonist. Although she is merely a Park Ranger, not a CIA spy, she still has plenty of style.

Were you too shy to ask me to draw your comic book, Rashida? That nervousness is completely understandable. Cartoonists are perceived by the public as stand-offish, off-putting, gruff, bed-wetting party-poopers. But none of that is true. We get a bad rap from the liberal media. Not all of us live in cardboard boxes under the freeway. We bathe regularly, clip our fingernails, are good at making eye contact. Some of us even get married!

In fact, I would have been honored to draw your comic book. Maybe, since it looks like you've got this project covered already, I could get on your "short list" for the next opus. Don't worry about setting or characters or even story; I'd be happy to "brainstorm" with you. We could work it all out at one of Portland's many late-night coffee joints.

Think it over; take your time. You can't rush art, after all! In this crazy mixed-up world, sometimes comics are the only thing that makes sense.

obama beats the airlines

I only wish "beat" meant pistol-whipping them.

Almost as good: our Benevolent President, in his Infinite Wisdom, has ordered airlines to allow passengers to disembark from planes that have been stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours.

This is taken from the above-linked article, but I think it bears repeating here:

Airlines will be required to provide food and water for passengers within two hours of a plane being delayed on a tarmac, and to maintain operable lavatories. They must also provide passengers with medical attention when necessary. [...]

“Airline passengers have rights, and these new rules will require airlines to live up to their obligation to treat their customers fairly,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.

In terms of the airlines, I'm all for more regulation. Regulate them to within an inch of their lives. Why? Because that's exactly what they do to us, from the moment we step inside an airport until our bedraggled living corpse is carried by our family out the other end. I have luckily never lived in a totalitarian state, but I imagine that is what America would look like if it were run by the airlines.

The heads of the airlines should have been made to accept this new regulation on bent knee. They should have been forced to thank the President for forcing them to treat their paying customers decently.

I recently saw Ray LaHood on The Daily Show, and he mentioned the promise of high-speed rail. If this does indeed come to fruition, and I hope that it does, a byproduct may be that airlines see that comfort in long-distance travel is possible.

America is supposedly a capitalist society. Why, then, does it require our government to step in to correct huge, long-term mistakes made by gigantic corporations? From the banks on Wall Street to the Big 3 auto makers to the airlines, when a corporation gets big enough it stops listening to the market because it believes it cannot possibly fail. I think the Greeks had a word for that. The market supposedly makes the best possible choices, but with big business there is no alternative to the one crappy choice we have.

one dish too many

The other night I broke another mug while washing the dishes. I only seem to break the mugs I like. It may seem like a minor tragedy, but I'm sick of its recurring nature. How much longer until I only have terrible, misshapen mugs? What will my morning routine look like when I open the cupboard only to see mugs staring balefully out at me, hoping I won't use them for fear of being "washed" into the garbage can? I feel like an incompetent mafia hitman. I only hit the wrong targets.

What angers me most about this situation is the fact that a solution already exists. It's called a dishwasher. Dishwashers are sanitary, automatic and I happen to enjoy the sound they make while they're cleaning my dirty dishes. It's a win-win. But as I am merely a cartoonist/blogger (euphemisms for poor/wretched), I have no such electric device in my kitchen. I only have a big sink and a faucet that throws as much water on me as it does the dishes I'm cleaning.

I mourn the passage of a good mug today. The fact that, somewhere out there, a dishwasher would have had room for it makes the grief even harder to bear.

Rest in peace, tall mug. You will be missed.

dylan theory (how much longer?)

Listening to the new album by Dead Weather, I noticed they included a (pretty sweet) cover of Bob Dylan's New Pony, from the Street Legal album.


Doing a little research (yeah, I Googled it), I discovered this little gem of a video that features Jack White accompanying Bob on the tune One More Cup of Coffee. I also found out Bob has a Hank Williams project (a la Mermaid Avenue) in the pipeline and Jack is one of the performers on that.

My theory? I bet Bob's acoustic guitar is buried in the mix of New Pony. There is absolutely nothing in the liner notes or online that I could find to substantiate that. I just got this feeling, you know?

friday robots: we all live in a...

These robots were inspired by a vintage Yellow Submarine poster.
Although I wouldn't attempt to climb inside one of them to get to Pepperland. They look dangerous.

first foldy comic

My friend and sometimes tablemate Kenan created a form called the Foldy Comic. It's pretty simple: take one 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, fold it five times, and draw on it. Each time you unfold the paper it's another panel, until you reach the last (full) page.

I created my first foldy comic and Kenan was good enough to include it on his Foldy Comic website. You can read it in digital form right here!

Since they are, in fact, designed to be physical objects that you open and read, I can mail you one. Email me your address and I'll send one out. I am asking for a donation of $1 to cover the cost of paper and postage. Seems fair, right?

Now I need to think of another one to draw!

merch

Once again your friendly neighborhood blogger is here to remind you that he is, in fact, living below the poverty line. You see, the poverty line is way up there, and I can just make it out from where I'm standing.

So why not check out all this cool gear for not-quite-last-minute gift ideas?

Books! Falling Rock book collections are handsomely bound and perfect for the nature enthusiast in all of us. Not enthused about nature? These books are printed on paper, which is made from dead trees.*

Shirts! CafePress has enabled me to slap Friday Robots and select other designs all over their stuff. Isn't that nice of them?

Thanks, and come again!




*Actually they're printed on recycled paper, but you don't have to tell.

r. crumb's ed abbey

This post can now be viewed on my website.

adaptation of a classic

Robert Crumb became famous for his family-friendly erotic comics and, later, for championing ancient blues musicians nobody remembered. He is known for the high quality of his drawings and for the amazing speed with which he can produce them. It seemed, in the past few years, that he was slowing down. Now we know why. Crumb spent the past five years on an illustrated Genesis, the first book of the Bible. And oh, boy is it ever good.
You get to see Old Testament God in all his angry glory. All the violence and sex from the original has been lovingly illustrated in this remarkable adaptation.

Having never sat down to read Genesis before, I didn't know quite what to expect. Yes, there are the pages of "begats": Crumb mentions that the writers of the original text most likely wanted to pinpoint their lineage and trace it back to these illustrious and important characters. What was, on the written page, just a series of names, is now a family tree. It's remarkable.
One of my favorite parts of the Bible as a kid was when people would interact with God. I mean, what are the rules of etiquette for that? You're talking to the creator of EVERYTHING. At first, there is only deference:
Eventually Abraham gets enough courage to barter with God. God wants to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but Abraham talks him down. Abraham doesn't want God to destroy the innocent along with the guilty, and God proves he can be persuaded. In this version, you get to see Abraham, after speaking with God, hurrying back home with perspiration on his brow. Was he nervous? Heck yeah.

This edition - which should be called the Crumb Bible - uses the illustrations to give the stories context. You've got shepherds, and farmers, and the ancient Egyptians. Here they are all rendered in a realistic (well, sort of) manner. Their stories always seemed, to me at least, distant and disconnected. Crumb has done no less than put them into context by showing us how they lived. You see the desert the people called home. You see their dwellings - usually no more than tents - and their clothes. You see their facial expressions!

Most importantly, there is no overt attempt to show the text from a present-day perspective. It's simply the stories, illustrated. I can't imagine how much research went into making it seem that transparent. This gives the stories themselves more power. Their meanings are left open to the reader, just like in the original.

goodnight moon: the movie

This post can now be found on my website.

friday robots: recycled design friday!

This Friday Robot was used before, but I made some brand-new drawings of it because I liked it so much. I might even summon the courage to ask it out someday. In the meantime, here's your dose of robots this fine Friday:

CAVES ROCK

Excuse the pun.
I've been to three caves in my life, all of them awesome: Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota, and Kartchner Caverns and Colossal Cave in Arizona. Well, four, if you count the lava caves in Oregon.

Caves are just weird. They can have their own complete ecosystems, and oftentimes are completely cut off from the world directly above them. Who knows how many caves remain undiscovered, lurking beneath our feet with their mystery and treasure.

I finally got around to doing a strip that takes place entirely within one of Falling Rock's many caves. I hope to revisit this idea again soon. Caves are ripe for jokes.

Wait, are they? I don't know. I do like drawing 'em, though.

obama's good year

It used to be that kings and queens were considered at least part deity. The Americans did one good thing right away by establishing that the President was fully human, acknowledging the fallibility inherent in each of us.

At times the President would become a part of our national mythology. Washington and the cherry tree, Lincoln holding the country together with nothing but his beard, Teddy Roosevelt punching Spain right in the face. These stories are part of who we are as Americans, but we never make the mistake of saying (as much as we wanted to) that George Washington had descended from Zeus.

Then Nixon came along and made it okay to view the President as someone out to get you, kind of like a Boogeyman. The President was not only fallible but potentially worse than the average citizen. This is a perception that successive Presidential candidates fail to alter every four years.

I’ve championed Barack Obama since before he even announced he was running for President. I saw in him some of that mythology that has been missing from the White House since, I don’t know, FDR. I was sick of the run of Presidents who, at best, could be called place-holders, and at worst gave us two wars, the worst financial disaster in 70 years, and ignored global warming and those pesky "anti-torture" agreements.

I couldn’t say I was proud of any President who served in my lifetime* until now.

President Obama is doing exactly what I elected him to do. Hope? Change? Yes, on both counts. In March he signed wide-ranging conservation legislation called the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act, adding new national parks, increasing the size of existing parks, and increasing protection of wilderness areas around the country. In May, he nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. She is the first Hispanic justice and the third woman to serve on that court. Oh, and let’s not forget the nation’s first national health care package, which Obama is currently pushing through Congress.

Besides those accomplishments, Obama spends his time putting out the fires from the bad old days of his predecessor. Acknowledging that global warming is not some liberal fever dream, he’s actually putting money into programs that will help us curb our greenhouse emissions. Funding stem cell research that may one day allow us to cure some of those “incurable” diseases. Appointing people to his cabinet that don’t actively hate this country.

It is the combination of big and small acts that has made Barack Obama’s administration a success. Not yet a year into his Presidency, Obama is proving that he will be there for us like Bruce Springsteen is there for Mary.

Before I go, I want to comment on the unfortunate news that President Obama will be sending more troops to Afghanistan. I’m never for war. There have only been three wars in our country’s history that have been completely necessary.** But if it’s between leaving Afghanistan to the warlords and the triumphant return of the Taliban, or finishing what we started lo those years ago, I say we stay and try to clean up some of the mess we made.

“Cleaning up the mess we made” probably should have been Obama’s campaign motto, because that’s what he’s doing and what he will continue to do for the next seven years. In spite of this handicap, Obama has been quietly bringing about the positive change he promised, moving us forward while rectifying past errors. And if that’s not totally awesome, I don’t know what “totally awesome” means.




*Except Jimmy Carter, who was in office for three months after I was born.
**The War of 1812, The Spanish-American War, and the War on Drugs. Duh.

building a bigger boat

I thought I'd introduce you, my dear readers, to each other. Where do you come from? Well, according to this map, you come from all over the place.102 countries, to be exact. The regions underrepresented are Africa, Greenland, and the Middle East. I can't understand why this blog does not appeal to them, as my comic strip takes place in a fictitious National Park in the American Southwest. I guess you can't please everybody.

Thankfully I've got almost all of Central and South America locked up, West and East Europe, and New Zealand and Australia. Of the 18 billion people who live in China and India, I got 59 visitors in the past year. Score! Sweden, who I famously courted for a while, paid me respect 42 times. I'm happy to report I have 466 fans in the UK, better than the 314 who made the trek south from Canada.

I wonder what Iran (5 visitor) and Saudi Arabia (11 visitors) think of this blog?

I was surprised that Brazil (157) outdid Mexico (50) by a wide margin.

My most loyal international fans hail from Brazil, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Thanks guys!

The top 5 countries for visits (excluding US):
1. United Kingdom
2. Canada
3. Germany
4. France
5. Brazil

What about my American fans?
With a whopping 5,435 hits over the past year, America can't get enough Falling Rock. Excluding friends, bitter rivals, family, and people who misspelled "amazon.com", that leaves about 34 hits. Just kidding! I'm sure there are many, many Americans who read Falling Rock on a weekly, monthly, or even centennial basis.

Every state in the Union sent at least one representative to Falling Rock over the past year, including the District of Columbia and one called "not set." I actually got more visitors from "not set" than from North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, or Delaware.

The states whose visitors linger longest include Indiana, Iowa, Wyoming, Nebraska, Maine, and Kansas.

A special shout-out to Ohio (135) where I went to college and where the prestigious Cartoon Library & Museum houses the complete original drawings of Calvin and Hobbes.

I am continually impressed with California (599), who shows me that while financially bankrupt, they will never be bankrupt in the heart.

Whaddup Pennsylvania (152) and Massachusetts (150)? I've hardly spent time in either of those states, but they are my long-distance buddies. Thank you.

As to the states who arrive at my site and flee in terror without spending even a second there (Alaska, West Virginia, North Dakota), I pledge to do you better in the coming year.

Top states for visits (AKA my favorite places):
1. Arizona
2. California
3. Indiana
4. New York
5. Colorado
6. Oregon
7. Texas
8. Illinois
9. Florida
10. Wisconsin

friday robots

Robots today, as well as a warning for those of you artists playing with the idea of moving to Oregon.


That artist had to fend off an otter attack right before the picture was taken. Also, he had to gnaw off both legs due to infection. He replaced them with carved wood. 1851? This quote could have been ripped from today's headlines. That's the way we roll in the Beaver State.

more to buy

I updated my CafePress store! New designs, including Pigeons: Gettin' the Job Done and a few new designs based on Friday Robots.

Shop now.

As always, if you see a design you like on a shirt that you don't, email me and I'll fix you right up.

just in time for the holidays

Still have gaps in your gift-giving list? There's still time to order one of my books for that special someone in your life. Imagine how happy they will be when, instead of getting that polyester Christmas tree sweater that'll just molder in the closet all year, they unwrap a hilarious comic strip collection! Falling Rock is funny all year long.*

Just follow this link here and you'll be instantly transported to the book order page on my website. Choose from three Falling Rock collections or my pirate comic, Dancing with Jack Ketch.



*This statement was not approved by the FDA, the FBI, the CIA, the CDC, or the BBC.

one time I almost went to Jamaica

It was a surprise that I was not able to book the plane tickets online. After all, I had always used the internet to purchase plane tickets. Calling the phone number listed in tiny type on the bottom of the web page would only result in a long wait on hold, followed by an unhelpful salesperson who is angry that you didn’t book your tickets online like the rest of the civilized world. Right?

This was a few years ago. I was booking two plane tickets, one for me and one for my wife, to visit my wife’s family in Ohio. Simple enough. Except every time I went to buy the tickets, the price shot up.

After checking three or four different websites, all with the same result, I finally broke down and called the airline. Assuming I’d be on hold for forty minutes, I found a magazine and sat down in our most comfortable chair.

Amazingly, the call went right through. A woman with a thick Jamaican accent told me she would like to help make my reservation. Well!

Her phone demeanor was impeccable. I gave her the flight information, and we waited for her computer to spit out the numbers. We made small talk. As it turned out, she was actually in Jamaica.

Then she spoke the words that almost changed my travel plans completely: “Why don’t you go to Jamaica?”

She had me there. Why not? I did a quick mental calculation. Would my wife’s anger at not being able to see her family outweigh the surprised happiness at finding out we were going to Jamaica?

Stalling, I asked, “How’s the weather there?”

“Good,” she lilted. “It’s always nice here.” I could hear the surf lapping against her desk. Her eyes were shaded from the warm sun by a Blue Mahoe tree. “How is the weather in Cleveland?”

“Pretty crappy,” I admitted.

By then the information about the Cleveland flight had arrived at her screen. She told me the details. Like a coward, I purchased the tickets.

Dear readers, I am sure I made the right decision that fateful day. Besides, everyone knows Cleveland rocks.