Today I took a big step: I suspended regular postings of the QlownTown comic strip. After four years of (pretty) regular new strips, first seven days a week and later five, I'm cutting back to a more informal schedule: whenever I feel like it or get to it. This may sound cheeky, but it's actually just self-preservation. I am currently working on four major projects, including a return to the world of kitchen design (which involves a substantial investment in software), all of which excite me and which are trying to grab my full-time attention. A couple of these projects--design and construction of the sets for a musical and the renovation of our "new" old house--are temporary, but are for now big time-taker-uppers. Something had to give, and so it is the least profitable one that goes.

An online comic strip can be a big moneymaker, but only a few achieve that status. QlownTown never managed to reach that level at which other loves would have to be put aside to concentrate on cartoons. There are new ideas I have for the strip which would make it unique among web comics, but those involve research and yet more time to develop. The bulk of profits on the strip come from the general CafePress marketplace anyway; a much smaller portion comes from the website itself linking to the QlownTown store on CafePress, so suspending the regular schedule doesn't affect income significantly anyway.

What I will miss: the challenge of turning out something five days a week that make people laugh--sometimes people I don't even know. I know from reader responses that some readers actually check out the daily strip each weekday morning before they get out of bed. I feel a little guilty that they'll need something else to start their day off right. I hope they'll still somehow find a laugh to fill that morning void. It's the best way to start the day, I think.

I'll miss hearing from people that a particular strip really appealed to them and/or spoke to them. That's a special connection.

And I'll miss making myself laugh. After a cartoon is penciled, inked, colored and uploaded, I have always taken a moment to check it out as it'll appear on the website or in the daily email, and if I still laugh at it, damn, that's a good feeling!

I'm reminded of the lyric of an old song: "This is just adios and not goodbye". That always seemed a bit stupid...doesn't "adios" mean "goodbye"? But I understand the intent: to say this isn't goodbye forever; more a "till we meet again". And that's why this whole decision is more a relief than a disappointment. If I were giving up on QlownTown for good, that would be bad. But to take a break for the sake of recharging and pursuing other exciting endeavors--well, that's something to smile about. Just as I've been doing--and I hope you have, too--for four years.

RIP, CDS

I seldom blog. When I do, it tends to be a burst of several in a week, then nothing for months. So many blogs, so little time...I don't want to waste anyone's time unless I have something to say about something I really care about. Otherwise, I'd write sitcoms.

But my favorite comic strip, Cul de Sac, ended yesterday, and I must pay homage. The strip centered around Alice, a sometime precocious, sometimes clueless preschooler, her antisocial older brother Peter, and an assortment of odd and wonderful classmates, friends and teachers. The parents appeared occasionally, but the strip was really Alice's.

Many years ago, I wrote and recorded four songs and an outline for a musical stage version of Calvin and Hobbes and sent them to Bill Waterson, in the hope that I could get permission to at least try to bring this great cartoon to the stage. Well, Mr. W had given his editor instructions that no proposals for any merchandising or other adaptations of S&H were to be forwarded to him or considered at all, and the project died with a rejection letter from said editor. At least two of the songs showed great promise, I thought, and the heartbreaking ballad He Never Pulls My Hair Any More would've brought down the house. I grudgingly resolved to write a strip about an anarchic little girl myself and adapt that to the stage. I drew a character I liked, even named her--Becca--but never seemed to get her right from any angle but one. And I work better with one-shot ideas; using the same character every day would have been difficult if not impossible. The idea died and I went on several years later to create QlownTown instead.

It wasn't until just now that I realized that Richard Thompson had created that very strip.

My first impression of the comic was that it was sloppily drawn. Sometimes the line outlining Alice's head would run right through her nose. He didn't seeem to bother to take the time to erase a second, sribbly line that wasn't as perfect as the one he'd finally drawn over it. Perspective was sometimes an adaptation of the real thing.

The humor grabbed me first. Some days there was no punchline, or one might laugh at the third panel and the fourth panel would serve as an epilog to the main story, a natural continuation of the scene, even though the high point occurred earlier. There were times when the children spoke with wise, adult polysyllabic words, and other times they "spoke as a child". But Alice was always Alice, Peter was always Peter, Kevin was always her hapless bucket-headed friend. Thompson glided from one approach to the other flawlessly. And I fell in love with the art. So free, so sketchy; adult skill combined with the free and random style of a child's drawing. I used to wish my drawings were perfect; now I wish they were looser. And he colored them with a watercolor effect that made me think of a children's book.

Thompson has Parkinson's, and he has decided to retire the strip because it's becoming too difficult to draw. In the cartoon world, this is like Pavarotti losing the ability to sing, or Frank Gehry being unable to design architecture,  or Meryl Streep having to quit acting. For those of us who love cartoons that combine wonderful art with wonderful writing and characterization, it is a terrible loss. Like Charles Schultz before him, Thompson never stooped to portraying kids as cute moppets who elicit an "Awww" with the innocent, cute, harmless and saccharine things they unwittingly say. He showed the world from the skewed perspective of a child, which is sometimes mean, sometimes clueless and sometimes sideways-logical.

There are strips that I put in the pantheon, the uppermost hierarchy of all-time great comics. Pogo. Krazy Kat. Calvin and Hobbes. The Far Side. And Cul de Sac.

It was only syndicated for four or five years, a very brief time compared to fifty plus years of Peanuts or BC. A phrase from the title song in Camelot comes to me: "For one brief shining moment."

For one brief shining moment, there was Cul de Sac.

Titanic

I'm in rehearsals for a production of Titanic - The Musical. (No, this is not a joke; no, there is No Jack or Rose in this production---almost all the characters are actual people who were on the ship; no, it's not a light-hearted, upbeat Broadway-style musical; yes, it's a sometimes funny, ultimately tragic show with wonderful music and an epic feel.) As with any show, rehearsals tend to be mostly fun, with a lot of support and sharing among the actors and directors, and there is also a fair amount of hard work---learning lines and music, hitting the right notes, focusing on performance, character, and blocking. But this show has an added dimension: we're dramatizing the true stories of real people who suffered through a horrible experience. The majority of them died.

We've all researched our real-life counterparts. Some who lived in real life die in the show, and vice versa; some are a fictional blend of several real people. But it's all a fairly accurate presentation of the real event. And therein lies the difference from most rehearsal experiences. We all recall at various times during the process that the events we're portraying are real. When there's foreshadowing in the lines--for example, Ida Strauss's husband (both of them will die in the second act) offers to go get her coat to protect her from the cold, even though he fears he'll get lost on such a large ship, and she sings,  "No thank you; I'd rather freeze"---we know these two real people actually drowned. When my character--the ranking officer on the bridge when the ship struck the iceberg--apologizes to the captain for the accident, I know I'm playing a real person. I can imagine what he might've felt, and it hits harder because it really happened to a real human being.

Yesterday, we blocked the scene where we load the lifeboats. We officers were on the upper level of the stage; passengers stood with us, and the ones who would ultimately survive were allowed down to the main level, where benches awaited, representing the lifeboats. Once the "boats" were full, the rest of us onstage were the ones who would perish. I imagined the distance from the upper to lower level as it would have been that night in the north Atlantic: four to five stories down. The magnitude hit me. By the time we all sang together, survivors below and the doomed above, there were tears in some eyes. This was just a rehearsal, mind you, with people trying to remember their lines and blocking and vocal parts, and still the tears came. It has been half-seriously suggested that we should sell boxes of tissues in the lobby.

I have always been fascinated by the Titanic story, and have happily found several other "Titaniacs" among the cast and crew. Others have joined us, and there are emails almost every day from someone involved in the production who has discovered a new graphic comparing the size of the Titanic to a car, bus and airplane, or a link to a new museum opening in Belfast, or "gin and Titonic" ice cubes (yes, the macabre goes hand-in-hand with the serious). All this will mean, I hope, that our performances will be infused with an extra layer of intensity; that perhaps the audience will feel the realness of these people a little more.

Several people have asked me, why do such a tragic piece? Why even write it? Those questions might just as well be asked of any Shakespearean tragedy, or great American drama such as Death of A Salesman or Long Day's Journey Into Night. Or the James Cameron movie. This play is almost an opera, with grand themes and epic emotions. That it is based on a true story that continues to fascinate people a hundred years later just makes it that much more heart-wrenching. And people love a good cry. It can be cathartic to blubber over someone else's troubles.

So, during the next few weeks, I'll continue to experience deep emotions at certain, sudden moments even as I am, paradoxically, carefully molding my performance to entertain others.

The ultimate goal is to move the audience. But on this show, I get to be moved myself as well.

Car labels

I was grumbling to myself yesterday about the "universal" symbols used on car dashboards for the control knobs, buttons and switches. In an earlier, less-inclusive time when it was assumed that everyone who bought a car in America spoke English and when auto manufacturers could afford to more thoroughly tailor their vehicles to different countries, there were words on the controls. I put "universal" in quotes because that's an alleged function that the little pictures frequently fail to serve. I assume a little circle of fan blades would likely mean that the fan is on in that position. But what does a circle mean? I assume it's zero, but it could also mean an open duct blowing air.

We used to own two cars that used the O on the heating/AC system, but one was a filled-in white O on a dark background, while the other was a filled-in black O on a light background. If I used my wife's car for a day or two, it'd take several days for me to remember what it meant when I got back in my own car. I would figure---logically, I felt---that if it's white lettering or symbols on a dark background, that the symbols are meant to be read as one would normally read black letters on a white background---so a filled-in circle would mean the vent was open (black hole). But on one of the cars (and to this day I don't remember which) that meant it was closed.

It becomes even more of an issue when the symbols are tiny. A miniature "wave" that means airflow is on may become clear to a car owner after a few weeks of driving his or her own car--then the controls become second nature. But what about the person renting an unfamiliar car? Or the guy borrowing his brother's truck for a day? He goes to turn on the fan while driving, glances down, and sees some sort of horizontal shape but can't make out what it is.

I decided yesterday that at some point I might print up little labels on sticky, durable paper that I could mount over the annoying little symbols. They would say understandable things like RADIO ON, RADIO OFF, FAN HIGH, etc. And then it struck me: why don't car companies do that for us? It would hardly cost anything to add a sheet or two of durable, self-stick plastic labels with words in several languages. They could be waiting in the manual that comes with the car. A chart showing where each tag was to be placed on the dashboard and/or doors would be right on each sheet; thus, one would have the option of seeing words on the dashboard. And if you sold the car at a later date to someone with a different primary language, the new owner could stick different labels over the first ones.

Savvy dealers could even ask each customer if they would prefer words, and if so, would offer to install those words before the new owner took possession.

Maybe they could even provide the option of different lettering styles. I could see a funky font in a Kia Soul, or a cool italic style in a Mustang, or Old English in a Mini or a Rolls. They could even be made available online to print out yourself--although cutting the little shapes would be annoying.

One current option that I see is to use an old Dymo label maker--one of those gun-shaped devices that punches raised letters on a strip of self-adhesive plastic. But that would look tacked-on and tacky, and I still prefer incoherence over distractingly ugly.

So I guess I'll just continue to turn the O up to .... when I'm too hot.

Working out

I worked out this afternoon for the first time in about nine months. A woman could have delivered a healthy seven- or eight-pound baby in that time. I didn't deliver anything, but did gain an unhealthy seven to eight pounds in that time.

It began innocently enough. I had a lot of projects going on, so I decided to take a couple of weeks off from working out, just to finish up the backlog. Well, the projects took longer than expected, then there was always an excuse, then I started saying I'll do it this morning, right after I do that thing, and this thing...then it'd be the afternoon and I'd say "tomorrow for sure".  Finally, I reached a point where I stopped pretending and relagated working out to the category of Someday.

Around Christmas, I decided to go in and cancel my membership; I'd start it up again when I was really ready. Then I figured, if I have to go in to "resign" (you can't do it over the phone or internet!), I might as well actually go in and start exercising again. But I put that off for a couple of weeks, and just felt guilt...but did nothing.

At one point a couple of months ago I thought I'd start chopping and stacking firewood several days a week. That's supposed to be very good exercise, utilizing most of the muscle groups. That lasted one day. The wood was down in a gully, so hauling it to the house meant an uphill climb, and my knees were killing me that night. I took aspirin and abandoned the plan. The rest of the winter passed. Spring arrived.

So, today was the day I would finally start in again at the gym. I had to drive my daughter's boyfriend to the airport, so I figured I'd go after I got back. But I had mistakenly thought he was going to the Manchester airport, thirty minutes away, when he was actually flying out of Logan in Boston---an hour trip. And I wasn't ready with all the stuff I'd wanted to load into the car first for my other errands...so I just drove over and picked him up.

Coming back from Boston, I stopped at my wife's office and fixed her chair--luckily, the tools I had originally meant to bring, but didn't, weren't needed. (And, I must admit, I got a gourmet cupcake from a store downtown--the antithesis of working out.)

I headed home and put the stuff that had to go the transfer station in the back of the Bug. Off to The Dump (as I will always call it, even though recyclables go into one place and trash gets put into trailers to be disposed of elsewhere, and nothing is dumped in the landfill any more), drop off the load, and then...on to the Y. Would I actually make it? There had been many times during the previous three seasons when I'd headed in that direction and decided I really should get to work on something more important.

But I went. I stretched (the limits of my stretchability were a source of dismay, but I persevered), did the machines (no free weights at this point; I figured it was wise to stick to machines that would isolate the muscles being used this first time back), even ran for 15 minutes on the treadmill. My wife asked why not twenty? but I reminded her: First Day Back. Take it easy.

I had thought that the pain of this afternoon would be stronger than the rush of endorphins that I used to feel when I was working out regularly, but I was wrong! I left the gym feeling refreshed. The aches I felt were the same as I used to feel in the old days when I'd pushed a little but made progress, and my mood was elevated as it hasn't been in months.

I promised the trainer at the Y that I'll be back tomorrow for the stability ball/bar/mat training class. We'll be moving out of the usual exercise room to the field house...I fear running, jumping and who knows what else will be involved. But I feel too good to stay away.

I think.

Long time

Wow. Someone mentioned yesterday that I hadn't blogged in a long time. I see now that the last one was in June 2011! I only blog when I have something to say; it's sad to think I had nothing to say for almost nine months. But things happen, one puts stuff aside, and the next thing you know, it's the better part of a year.

We've had our house on the market since November. We've had close to a dozen showings, and that's not bad in this market. It's a unique house: superinsulated and built to look old. The thing people have the hardest time grasping is that you can heat a house in New England, keeping it at about 74 in the winter (yes, we like it warm!) and still pay less than $1,500 a year. (I just discovered this weekend that, if we kept it at 68F, we would've spent only about $1,200 annually the last two years---but I prefer the warmth.) When I built the house almost 26 years ago, I figured that superinsulation would be more common by now, and that when it came time to sell the house, people would be more or less educated about it.

The fact that they aren't explains a lot about our current fuel prices and maybe a bit about our economy. We've had the opportunity for the last forty years to build millions of homes that would've consumed half, maybe a quarter less in fuel per year. We didn't. And "we" means "not I". I spent $700 extra to superinsulate and tighten up our house when it was built, and our first year's heating bill was $250, so the extra cost was paid back in the first year.  We knew about this stuff forty years ago! It's not magic: just more insulation, tighter sealing-in, a heat recovery ventilator to provide fresh air (which even conventional homes should have--they're built too tight now not to), passive solar orientation, smaller boilers or furnaces and AC systems. The building industry may be the dumbest industry in terms of selling the public the best product. Automakers have been making ever-more-efficient cars over the decades, but do homebuyers ever ask the contractor of the house they're planning to have built, "Is it possible to spend a little extra to cut my heating bills in half forever?" Of course not. They haven't been informed. But that's not really their job. I know, I know--buyer beware. But how about builder beware--or, rather, be aware--of how you could make a little extra money, build a much better house, improve your reputation, improve the environment, and help reduce the cost of fuel?

I could go on, but the main reason for my ranting today is that I'm trying to sell a house that's still ahead of its time, evidently, 26 years later, and people are wary because they're not sure it actually works. Regardless of your political persuasion, won't you admit that if the government (or anyone) had somehow managed to teach people, back when prices were lower, that they could have better houses and help keep fuel prices from rising significantly, that we'd probably be paying less for fuel now? I hate to think that government mandates would have been a good thing, but I hate more that the building industry--people providing families with the homes they live in and pay for, for God's sake--hasn't embraced this approach. People complain about car salesmen and lawyers--if I'm going to be guilty of generalizing, I'll put contractors at the top of my list.

 

Inanity

I attended my niece's high school graduation last night (congratulations again, Dylan!) and encountered a stranger whose motives mystified me.

During the ceremony, there was a loud air horn that sounded repeatedly. It was amusing the first couple of times, but became increasingly obnoxious as it was blown too frequently. After all the diplomas had been handed out, for example, it was appropriate and fun, but after a beautiful, gentle song sung by a group that included several graduating seniors, it just seemed out of place.

As we were leaving and I waited outside the rest rooms for my wife, my attention was caught by a man in a tank top--evidently, he didn't see the graduation as an occasion to dress up at all--walking along a nearby path spouting obscenities as if he were in a private place. Now, I have been known to swear with the best of them, but not in public and not within earshot of strangers who may be offended. I counted at least five uses of the word "f**k" or "f**kin'" in the short time I heard him speaking, and I was far enough away not to hear every word of the few sentences I overheard. Then I noticed the air horn in his hand--this was the same guy.

As luck would have it, we wound up driving out of the parking lot behind a large pickup with dual rear wheels, a string of LED lights along the rear bumper, and a polished sheen that said this was no work truck, but rather an advertisement for how macho the driver was. And yes---I recognized the driver as the same person who'd been shooting off his air gun and his mouth. Then we noticed the license plate: I POLUTE. At the same time, the truck accelerated around a corner, and huge clouds of black exhaust spurted from the long chrome pipes that grew up the rear corners of the cab.

I'd like to think that POLUTE was spelled incorrectly because this guy couldn't spell, which would be consistent with the stereotype I'd already formed in my mind, but I realized that the second L would have been more letters than would fit on the plate. Still, why would you purposely put that on your license plate? Is he proud that he pollutes? Does he not care? I assume he's annoyed by people preaching about the environment and conservation, so perhaps it's just meant as a joke. Still, with everything else I saw this person do in my short experience with him, I tend to believe that he thinks everyone else should shut up and let him do whatever he wants, and/or that he wants to provoke people.

I also noticed some lettering on his rear window. It was hard to read because the letters were white and the sun was reflecting on the glass, but I made out the words "your hybrid", so I'm guessing there was another use of some variation of "f***" and a disparaging comment on vehicles like the Prius we were driving. For a fleeting moment, I wondered if he'd seen us in his rear-view mirror and blasted the black exhaust for our benefit, but my wife correctly said that I was probably being paranoid. Still, I have to wonder why someone would drive a truck that periodically spews big clouds of pollution and then try to draw people's attention to it. What can I compare that to? A person who eats a lot wearing a T-shirt that says I TRY TO EAT SO MUCH FOOD THAT THERE WON'T BE ENOUGH FOR STARVING  CHILDREN? A smoker with one that reads I SMOKE IN THE HOPES THAT YOU'LL GET CANCER FROM SECONDHAND SMOKE? A person (admittedly, like myself) who eats food shipped in from far away advertising that I DON'T EAT LOCAL BECAUSE THAT WOULD ONLY SAVE GAS AND SUPPORT THE LOCAL ECONOMY? (Yes, that last T-shirt would have to be an extra large.)

We are all guilty of doing something that isn't in the best interest of others or ourselves, but how many of us try to draw attention to it, or brag about it? We don't do these things to hurt others, or damage the environment, or waste resources--we do it because it's something we enjoy or covet, and we make the choice, consciously or unconsciously, to indulge ourselves. But to think about it and point it out to others? He even paid extra to have that license plate.

I tired to imagine a situation in which I could carry on a friendly conversation with this guy. Maybe, if I hadn't heard his air horn or breathed his exhaust or seen his license plate, we'd get along fine. But I'm guessing that it's more likely that he would soon say something so offensive that I'd feel compelled to walk away, muttering under my breath that he should go f**k himself.