Love: Exciting and .... "Mew."

Long time, no blog.  I know.  I blame the holidays.  All of them.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, National Chocolate Cake Day, National Kazoo Day.  And this year, Penguin Awareness Day & Inauguration Day were on consecutive days!  How could I be expected to get anything done?

Okay, you caught me.  Sheer sloth is my only excuse.

Well,  I was also working on these Valentines, to help everyone celebrate the traditional day of love & lovers.  Available for purchase, right now, chez my Etsy shop.  (I worked in some French, there, to make it more continental, and romantic.  Did you notice?) Your sweetheart would love a hand-painted, hand-crafted Valentine.  I just know it.

These are available in convenient necklace form, as well, but I'm still working on posting all of them. Keep checking.

Amazing Grace

A History of Cleveland, Ohio in 50 Objects, #1 of a Series: The Letter 'A'

A couple of months ago, the New York Times ran a feature entitled  "A History of New York in 50 Objects," a selection they hoped "could embody the narrative of New York." They were inspired by the BBC's "History of the World in 100 Objects," and I in turn have been inspired by them. 

Probably any city or civilization could inspire such a list, but Cleveland ... well, it's so goofy and so sober and so cultured and so vulgar in turns that I can't imagine the list ever ending. 

But the beginning?  The beginning is easier.

To be updated whenever I feel like it.  Another part of the "30 Days of Comics" effort.  Now I'm only two behind.  

30 Days of Comics: Scars.

Click to enlarge.

So, somebody had this great idea: "30 Days of Comics," modeled after National Novel Writing Month.  Cartoonists draw 30 comics in 30 days.  Okay.  As I say, it's a great idea -- but 30 Days of Comics takes place in November, which is also NaNoWriMo.   And this year, I was determined to do NaNoWriMo.

Well, I'm a day behind in 30 Days of Comics, and now 2 days behind in NaNoWriMo.  We'll see what happens. 

You can check other cartoonists' progress during the month of November by searching on Twitter.

This comic was inspired by an art prompt from a forgotten source.  (Sorry about that.)

"...the trees don't die, they just pretend, go out in style, and return in style: a new style."*

Black marker and colored pencil, drawn on the back of an appointment reminder from my doctor.  (If you look closely, you can see the map with directions to the clinic showing through.) For some reason, I've never been good at keeping a sketchbook, but often use scrap paper, the envelopes from junk mail, etc.

Found this hastily-drawn sketch buried under piles of papers around my computer; had forgotten about it.  It's from last autumn, and the subject may need some explanation.

In late October --it must have been the afternoon of Halloween, blue skies, puffy white clouds, golden autumn leaves all around-- I was driving home from somewhere, when something caught my eye.  I glanced over, and jumped when I saw what seemed to be a couple of small ghouls.

You know, just raking the leaves in a front yard, like suburban ghouls do.

It was only after I'd passed by that the scenario arranged itself in my imagination:

"Now, before dinner, and before trick-or-treating, I want you two to get those leaves raked."

"Mommmmmmmmm!"

"I mean it -- now get to it."

"Can we wear our costumes while we do it?"

(Pause.) "Well, not the whole thing.  You can wear your masks."

"Yaaaay!"

I'm glad I found this little sketch.  Seems appropriate for the first weekend of fall. 

Don't know how these kids will disguise themselves this Halloween -- I can't even quite remember where I saw them  -- but for one instant, this is what they were.

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*From the poem "Leaves" by Lloyd Schwartz

23 Years, 4 Homes, 5 Cats, 2 Dogs, and 1 Mustache, To Say Nothing of Some Truly Regrettable Hairstyle Choices On My Part

No, it's not just you.  It's crooked. 

Today is our 23rd wedding anniversary.  There are not enough words in the language for me to tell the world how much I love my husband, or how lucky I am to know him, and what a truly good man he is.

So here's a silly drawing instead.  (Little-known fact:  Silly drawings are, in fact, the traditional present for a 23rd wedding anniversary.)

Vote Goat!

My design for my friends Heather & Ken's 3rd annual invitation-only "Goat Day" celebration.  

What's Goat Day? 

As Heather says, "Wait, you don't know about the traditional observance of GOAT DAY? How sad for you. But we can fix that.

"Come play with adorable new baby goats. Try your hand at milking a goat if you want, or not. Sit on the porch and drink sangria. Play the ukelele. Bring food and/or drink to share. Eat a motherlovin' smoked turkey. Take a walk in the pastures or woods. Go nap on the hammock."

Heather and Ken's dogs will also be there. Many of them are smarter than most people, but most people don't hold that against them.  (Incidentally, Heather maintains a blog entitled Raised by Wolves, and if you're at all interested in dogs, search and rescue, livestock, farming, biology, or life in the country, you should be reading it.)

But mostly Goat Day is designed to capitalize on the fact that baby goats are the cutest thing God ever made.  (Well, maybe they're in a tie with puppies.)  This year, the cuteness will be well nigh unbearable, as Heather now has dwarf Nigerian goats, and their brand-new kids are ickle widdle twee little sweethearts.  I met two of the new baby goats a couple weeks back.  I picked one up.  It looked up at me with twinkly eyes and let out a barely audible "maaaa-aaaaa-aaaaaaa," and it was all I could do to keep from running to our car, tossing it into the back seat, and taking it back home with me, fish-tailing out Heather and Ken's driveway as I raised a cloud of gravel and dust. (Eventually, though, I suppose I'd have to come back and get my husband, and the whole incident would just become embarrassing.)

At any rate, Heather's calling this year's Goat Day "Goatterdammerung," but I'd completed this design before I knew that. Frankly, I was childishly entranced by the fact that "Vote" and "Goat" rhyme, and didn't want to wait another four years to take advantage of that fact. 

Some year, I hope Heather decides the theme for Goat Day will be "Goat Day: Electric Boogaloo." 

Meanwhile, t-shirts in a variety of styles and colors are available.  I'm mindful that I'm posting this on the day the Republican National Convention is getting underway.  Goats are adorable, intelligent, curious, independent, and loyal ... in short, seemingly everything most current Republican politicians are not.  Irony.