I’m wiping tears of joy from my cheeks as I type this because I have found one of my Holy Grails.
Back in the 80s there was a little sitcom called Married With Children. In one episode, Kelly got a chance to star in a rock video by a band called the Guttercats. During the video, the band lip-synched to one of their songs, and I absolutely fell in love with that song. I had to have it, but I assumed that the Guttercats was created specifically for the show, and that the song never really existed (they only sang a few verses).
Life went on, I grew up (somewhat) and moved on to other things, but that song stuck in the back of my head ever since I heard it.
Many years later I found out that the band was indeed real. Awesome! I’ll just get the album. But alas, they never made any albums as far as anyone could tell. I resigned myself to the fact that I would never have that song. I’d have to settle on my memories and the occasional repeat of the MWC episode on TV.
I started searching the web a few years ago, hoping that out there in cyberspace, just maybe, a full version of that song existed. I found nothing…until today. Apparently some wonderful soul was in the possession of the Guttercats demo tape and kindly uploaded it to a popular file sharing site. The song I’d been seeking for almost twenty years finally had a name; Decoy Woman.
My friends, I don’t have much in life. I don’t have any money in my checking account; I don’t have any savings for the future, but dammit, I have a copy of Decoy Woman by the Guttercats on my iPod right now.
Can I get a whoooa Guttercats!? 03-decoy-woman
If you’ve been watching the news then you’ve seen how global warming has ravaged much of the US. Here, where I live, global warming has plunged temperatures to minus 15. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen negative degrees without the aid of wind chill.
Thankfully, Henry Waxman said that congress is on the case (thank God!) He said he “will move quickly and decisively” to push legislation to limit greenhouse gases and get this global warming under control.
I hope they act quickly because my car is frozen to the ground, and if this global warning gets any worse, we could be headed for another ice age.
Okay, I generally don’t like asking for donations. I’d prefer to sell something cool like books or t-shirts. However, I’ve recently suffered a computer breakdown. My monitor went out in my primary computer, and since it’s an all-in-one iMac, it’s a more complicated fix than just going to the mall and picking up a new monitor. Right now, I’m doing my work on an old laptop.
Anyway, I’m shipping my computer out to be repaired. They told me it shouldn’t be more than $150, which isn’t too bad. I realize the economy is really bad, and there are certainly more worthy causes than a broken computer (and we’re all strapped for cash) but if you’d like to help out a poor cartoonist, I’d appreciate it.
I put a donation widget on the sidebar, and I promise to keep any future begging to a bare minimum.
There’s no doubt that Charly has some serious mental issues, but how does he stack up against Darrin, star of the great comic Imagine This? In case you don’t know, Darrin has a nice collection of stuffed animals, and a plant, that he converses with on a regular basis.
Lucas Turnbloom, creator of Imagine This, has posted a poll asking the readers who the bigger nut job is. Check it out and cast your vote.
A friend of mine sent me this picture this morning. Can you guess what it is?
It is a hard drive!
From the description:
In September 1956, IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive. The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data.
It’s cool seeing how far things have come. Thanks for the pic, Lance!
Thursday’s and Friday’s strips will both be up on their respective days, but later than usual.
One of the great things about doing comics on the web is that it’s fairly easy to change something when you come up with a better idea. I changed the punchlines on two recent comics. Nothing drastic, but I think they work a little better. The first one I changed is the January 2nd. strip. I decided to use the same line Charly used in a previous strip because it just sounded better to me. I also altered the punchline on the December 23rd. strip. Again, nothing major, but it works better.
As you can see, I’ve made a few changes to the site. I updated the banner and changed the color. I felt that blue represented the “blue” mood of the strip, so that’s why I went with it. I’d like to make the main body of the site a little wider, but it took me about two hours just to figure out how to do the banner and change the background color, so I’ll have to do a little more reading on website design.
Also, I’d like to announce that I’ve been asked to join Palace in the Sky. They’re generally thought of as a collective for Sci-Fi comics, but they’re expanding to include more humor strips. They already carry the awesome strips Croaker’s Gorge by the very talented Steve Ogden, and Marooned by the great Tom Dell’Aringa, so I’ll be in good company. If you haven’t done so, please check them out.
As for Tall Tale Features, I’ll still be there too. Thanks to Mike Witmer for giving me his blessing.
I got possibly the best rejection from a syndicate today. They stuffed my samples in my SASE and sent them back – no note or even a form letter. That’s great for the ego, let me tell ya. It’s like saying, “This sucks so bad, that we’re not even going to bother sticking a pre-printed form letter in it telling you that it sucks. That’s how much we hated it.” (I know, it was probably an oversight because of the holidays, but that’s how my brain interpreted it – always negative.)
Lastly, for this week only, I’m only doing 3 updates; Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’ll be back to 5 days a week starting on Monday the 5th.
That’s about it for now. If you have any thoughts, opinions, misgivings or whatever about the site, give me a shout out: I’d love to hear what you think.
