WWII story

Starting in 1941, an increasing number of British Airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape. Obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful and accurate map, one showing not only where stuff was, but also showing the locations of 'safe houses' where a POW on-the-lam could go for   food and shelter.  Paper maps had some real drawbacks -- they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush.
Someone in MI-5 (similar to America's  OSS) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever.

At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.

By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U.K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, 'games and pastimes' was a category of item qualified for insertion into 'CARE packages', dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war.

Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to     each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were known to exist). When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.

As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add:
        1. A playing token, containing a small magnetic compass
        2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together
        3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!

British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set -- by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square.

Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets. Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since  the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war. The story wasn't declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honored in a public ceremony.

It's always nice when you can play that 'Get Out of Jail' Free' card!

The above is, as I recall (it's been sitting in my "Drafts" file for months) someone else's account of this historical factoid. I make no claim to authorship. But it's a very cool story, don't you think?

Dates

I was at the hairdresser's Friday.

I think men now call their hairstylist a hairdresser, don't they? She's not a barber. For a long time, it was kind of unmanly to say one goes to a hairdresser instead of saying a barber. I cling to very few macho stereotypes, but I'm still unsure about hair cutting.

But I digress. I was waiting to get my hair cut, and my hairdresser said, "I forgot to check what today is". I was going to say "Friday," but then remembered that she has the QlownTown Holiday Calendar hanging in her salon and was wondering what special occasion appeared there. Turns out it was Men's Grooming Day, and we all had a laugh about the appropriateness of my getting my hair cut on that day.

I went to an informal fortieth high school reunion lunch that afternoon--so informal that, out of a class of 177, only eight showed up--and I was glad that my hair was neatly trimmed. After all, try as one might, one doesn't want to disappoint the people one hasn't seen for forty years, does one? I was actually a little nervous beforehand, or so I thought. I realized after the fact that I was just excited to see people I'd seen almost every day of my life for many years. Funny how you can change so much over the decades, yet talk so easily with old friends. Even if we don't see each again for another long span of years, it was nice to check in and see that these people are all right. I continue to care about these people with whom I grew, even though the years have separated us.

There's talk of a more organized gathering in October, and I expect we'll see more alumni then. But eight of us will have special memories to share: "Oh, remember back in August, when we ate at the Yard restaurant and caught up and reminisced? Good times."

Evolution

It's been interesting, these last few weeks drawing QlownTown. I've made a conscious effort to give the characters larger hands and feet, and tweak their proportions. I like when a character like Mr. Katz is shaped unlike anyone in real life. It becomes more fun to draw when the clowns look really silly, and it's closer to the "stretch and squish" rule at Disney. The idea is that cartoon characters should stretch longer and squish flatter as they move, exaggerating natural shapes and movement. It's almost like imagining them made of Jell-O...and as we know, there's always room for characters made of Jell-O.

I've also tried lately to steer away from puns again. I like it better if they don't become the norm, although there are many strips---Shoe, Mother Goose and Grimm and Frank and Ernest spring to mind---in which puns are common and clever. I wish my mind worked more like Tony Carrillo's. He does F Minus: almost every strip has a twisted sensibility. I used to do stuff like that when I was in college. I think you're more open to irony as a student. As you age, life beats you down and you become tired of thinking creatively. Actually, it's just the way I think now. One-liners. But if the drawing style can evolve, maybe the humor can as well. 

Of course, having said that, I have a pun coming up concerning Toll House cookies next week...

Putterer

I had a great weekend this past Saturday and Sunday. I spent most of the time in my basement, cleaning the garage, getting stuff ready to move into storage in preparation for selling our house, and puttering in my workshop. I had one bookshelf that was stacked with projects-to-be-done. It had been accumulating stuff for years. Well, a few things got thrown out, and a few little projects got finished. We now have a miniature copy of a spinning wheel that my grandfather made, and which was in pieces under layers of dust, sitting proudly in our front hall. An heirloom doll's bed that my mother and then my daughter played with is now fixed and ready to store under cover till we have a granddaughter someday.

Saturday night, I sat down to dinner with a grin, and realized I'd loved getting the chance to just putter all day. Fixing stuff, organizing, cleaning, replacing lights...this is stuff I love to do. I guess I knew I was a putterer, but I get to do it so seldom I forgot I was. Now I'll try to make time for it. I gave myself permission to go from project to project, so if I was planning to box up an object and then do something else, but noticed that object needed the paint touched up, I'd jump to painting the object, then box it up and go on to what I'd planned. Did everything I'd scheduled get done? No, but I didn't care. I got a lot of things accomplished. It feels good when we accomplish something.

In the next week, I'll be getting a trailer hitch on the VW Bug, buying a trailer, and moving stuff into storage...and we'll attend a family reunion on Saturday. A week from now, we'll have new happy memories and a lot of stuff out of our house. Ah, accomplishments. Puttering. Satisfaction.

Lucky day

Ever have a day where you run errands and it works out better than you expected? That happened this morning.

My first stop was Home Depot, where I returned a can of paint and some molding. I got a store credit for what I'd paid--but it still felt like a profit because I was suddenly $40 richer. On the way back to the car, I found a five dollar bill in the parking lot. No one around, so I pocketed it and drove to Staples, my next stop.

As I shopped for some paper, I found 100% recycled for less than the price I usually pay for 30% recycled. It's a lower-grade finish, but works fine for my purposes, and I can now add "Printed on 100% recycled paper" to my correspondence. I had a coupon, but it turned out I needed to spend $25 to save $5. I found a couple of folders I needed, a drawing template I'd forgotten I needed, and some hanging folders that will help me improve my filing system. I also answered an in-store survey about a new shredder they're thinking of carrying (which, by the way, was very nice: it'll take 100 sheets at a time, and will even shred paper clips and staples) and received a $10 coupon. So I left the store with $28 worth of stuff that I needed anyway, and only paid thirteen and change for it! With the fiver I found, I was almost twenty bucks ahead.

Sometimes small, unexpected victories are the sweetest.

Vacation

Just back from a week's vacation in Maine. Did all the usual stuff--read a couple of books, swam, visited with family, went shopping, watched the sun set--but with a stomach ache most of the week. Some days were awful---an actual ache that I always noticed, and nausea a few times; and one time I became very sad as I tried to nap up in my room and heard the extended family laughing and splashing down on the lake---but most days, it was just a low-grade ache that kept me subdued but not stopped. I like to have a drink or two on vacation, maybe more than usual, but there were only two glasses of wine for this guy the whole week because of the 'ache. And the whoopie pies that are famous in our family, which we buy daily from the bakery down the street...only a couple the whole week. Very little coffee, even though I love a good cup out on the deck overlooking a pristine scene. I would've liked to at least come home having lost a few pounds---I didn't eat much---but I only lost one.

Yet I still had a great time. Yes, I didn't swim much, and was a lot quieter than I usually am, but just being with all the brothers- and sisters-in-laws, and nieces and nephews, and folks-in-law, as well as my wife and kids and their significant others, is always a treat. You see, there were twenty-seven of us in one big house last week. We do this every year. And we enjoy each other's company the whole time---or close to it. If I was too weak to dive off the dock, there were kids who weren't, and I was glad to just be there with them. If I couldn't have a drink, I could visit with my sister-in-law who was a little loopy and a lot of fun. And if I was quietly reading a book, I could do that on the shore, in the shade, with an in-law or two doing the same in a chair beside me.

The one day I felt fine, I got a little more active, but was a little "iffy" by evening. But what if I'd been home working during my illness? Would it have been bearable? QlownTown might've missed a few days, because I wouldn't have been up to sitting up at the drawing table or computer for hours. So, while I wouldn't recommend being sick on vacation, there are worse things.

We started doing this big family-week-at-the-beach-or-lake about twenty years ago, but I was sick the first couple of years. Bronchitics one year; pneumonia the next. I began to think I'd never go on vacation with the family without being sick, but then I went all those years till now feeling fine. My plan is to never be sick again. The law of averages is in my favor.

I did accomplish some stuff: my nephew Jake showed me a book of cartoons from the Perry Bible Fellowship, a very offbeat strip. (Warning: a number of the cartoons are R-rated.) What I loved about the strips is that they almost always have an unexpected twist on what you expect. I choose not to go in an R-rated direction with QlownTown, but I hope I can back to more of the offbeat, Far Side type stuff I enjoy so much. I wrote down a few ideas, and will try to move some of the puns to a later date and incorporate these new ideas over the next few weeks. It re-energized me.

***

An order came in while I was away for a print of one of last week's cartoons. I went to get it ready to send to the printer, and realized that I hadn't thought about what size the new square panel would be when people bought prints. I decided to center it on an 11" x 14" page. I still haven't decided if I'll stick with the square format, or if I'll go back to the strip, or if I'll just do whatever I want each day. Consistency is a good thing, I guess, but why not just use the format that serves your purpose best each time?

I'm still working on a new project that would be very cool, but that's still a few months off. For now, though, QlownTown is exciting me again. I'm feeling upbeat. I'm even going to try a piece of the blueberry pie that I brought home from the bakery. It may rile my stomach, but I'm getting used to that now, anyway. Maybe it'll give the comic a slightly darker edge, although I'd prefer that if that's going to happen, it happens because I decide to---not because I'm in pain.

By the way: yes, I called the doctor's office. She said it's probably just a bug that's going around. It's been nine days, but I'll give it a few more and see if it goes away. (High co-pays are a good incentive not to overburden the doctor.)

Rope swing

I drew a cartoon earlier this week and was very pleased with myself when it was done. I liked the colors, the composition, the way I drew the characters. I liked that I'd changed my original concept of having the chicken say, "Of course I'm chicken" to a caption explaining the picture. I think that's a drier, more amusing way to do it. That way, the "narrator" is stating this as a logical reason, which I think is funnier than just having the character make a silly pun. (I was going to say "bad" pun, but puns aren't really bad--they're clever wordplay. Shakespeare and I don't have a lot in common, but we both have beards and love a good pun.)

I even traced a Shaker-style wooden box to get the even curve of the rope...I use a compass sometimes, but it's quicker and easier to trace an object when I want a smooth ink line. And I decided that Perry seemed like a good, unlikely name for a chicken. Finally, I liked that I put the chicken in a bathing suit and set things up as if he was just another one of the boys.


Sooo--it's all done, it gets uploaded, it's there in the queue--and then it arrives in my email several days later as the Daily Cartoon. And I see that the rope on the swing is so long, one would smash into the ground before reaching the water.


My first thought was to fix that--redraw that part of the cartoon so the rope is tauter. That would mean replacing some black lines and a few areas of color, all of which I'd do in the computer. But I liked every other element so much, I decided not to tamper with (near) perfection. Maybe I'll do a followup, where the taunting kid who's holding the tire tries to swing and hits the ground. He deserves it.