Fanaticon 2: The Fanaticonning

But first this quick note: Some one found my cooking site by Googling "accursed reed richards." Vunderbar.

The convention is now two days behind me, and I'm still smiling. I'm exhausted and sore and reeling, but I'm tickled with the experience. It was much larger than last year, and I think my table location was better. I sold a ton of comics. I made a ton of money. I drew a lot of cards. And I saw lots of costumes. My Flickr set is here.

All the daunting elements were figments. They came and went and left me unscathed.  Loading was easy. Setting up was easy. Turns out that I didn't feel the need to pee until hour eight, and I held out until hour nine when the show was over. I was brought food by a volunteer (pizza and Catwoman respectively). I sold a card before the sho started, and I sold another right before it closed.

To my relief and glee, my sales pitch for eMMA proved irresistible: This is our female robot mixed cage fighter who inadvertently gets her fight league shut down, and she has to get the title back from a gold-medal winning Olympic werewolf wrestler. It got laughs, and it made sales.

Some details:

• Three stores offered to carry my book in their stores, and that's a stunning option I hadn't fully considered. Of course I'll do it. 
• One crazy woman asked me if I would help her do New Yorker-style artwork for a project. I call her crazy because she made a beeline for my open portfolio pages and said flatly "I don't care about comics" before explaining her desire to find an artists. I offered my card, but I'll tell you now there's no fucking way I'm gonna jump in that. She had crazy eyes, crazy hair, and I'm gonna guess crazy knees as well. 
• Two acquaintances from an online forum stopped by.
• People complained of the heat, but I was comfortable behind my table. 
• Your Sister and sidekick visited very shortly as the crowd and heat wore them down.
• Two different parties came up with e genius idea: Instead of drawing a character on a sketch card, why not draw them as heroes. I took pics with my camera and put masks on them. It makes for a good idea for next year. For almost all the cards, I explained that I would draw it up as they wandered a bit and returned a few minutes later. They accepted happily, except for the last customer who asked to sit and watch me draw. She did, and we chatted about Plastic Man as I drew him.
• One of the volunteers brought me a cupcake as the convention wound down. She mentioned her store could carry my comics as I was walking out the door, boxes in my arms. We said bye, and she absent-mindedly told me her name was Emma. I set down the boxes, said "well, in that case ... ," and gave her a copy of eMMA. She was delighted. How better could my day have ended? What more could I ask? (The deputy slept all Saturday night. Flawless victory.)

I'm glad this was a one-day event. If I tried this at, say, Charlotte's three-day party, I'd be dead and gone. But I might consider sharing a table there next year. I might at that. I'm already writing the sequel comic, combining both hero books. It threatens to be huge.

I attended the museum party the night before and immediately regretted not wearing a proper costume. I had a Fantastic Four shirt, and my hair would suggest Mister Fantastic, but no one seemed to put it together. To costumed attendees the next day said they saw me there and identified my costume. I knew nobody and left a little after nine; I promised Your Sister I'd be home by ten. I don't know how the auction went. I'll call the museum later this week to check on my piece. If it didn't sell, do I get it back?

Pictures of the Day
From the Citizen-Times comes a picture of me selling sketch cards to the sons of a friend. The guy in the white shirt is about to buy the monster comic for his grandson. The crowd was that heavy at my table virtually all day.

You can see the convention layout below. My table pops up at 2:56.

Ready to Rumble

It's the day before the show, and I'm starting to get jittery. I won't sat anxious or worried. I can't say it's all giggly anticipation either.

I talked to another local creator today at lunch. I met him last year at the convention; his table was next to mine, and we were shunted into the far-off corner of the convention. Half our foot traffic was for the bathrooms around the corner. He hasn't done anything for this year's show, but he'll be there tomorrow. He'll sell the same material he had on hand then. He also makes buttons from old comics, and he says he'll make a new batch between lunch and the show. I can't do that. I can't go into tomorrow's show with something left to finish. That would be like not knowing all my lines for a play, and we both know I am militant and neurotic about lines.

In talking to him though, I realized there is one more thing to do, and it's smallish. I need to make price signs for my items. I plan to sell the comics for $2 each (all three for $5) and the sketches for $1. But in talking to this guy, I wonder if I'm doing myself a disservice. Maybe, I'm thinking, I should sell them for $2 too. Just sell everything for $2. At least, I also think, start at $2 and lower it to $1 if sales are slow. But I don't think they will be. These are nice cards, and $2 is nothing for clean work at that size.

I realized that the convention makes prices tricky. We local guys have gone to the big shows -- Atlanta, Charlotte, Greenville, etc -- and we've seen what the markets bear at those shows. But Fanaticon is new, and it created a new communal marketplace that didn't exist in this area before. Unlike the big shows, we creators are virtually all amateurs. We don't have the clear achievement and seal of quality that a major publisher provides. A guy who worked on Spider-Man can set a decent price for artwork. A guy like me has no understood status to latch a value onto. I have to be flexible.

I also have the notion that these first years of my convention work should be very affordable. My comics are experiments in resource organization and scheduling. I always had the three-year plan: make a comic, make a better comic, make the best comic. Next year's title(s) will be beyond what I'm selling tomorrow, and that should (and will) command a better price. Currently, however, I can't justify it, and the cheaper I make it, the more I sell. Getting my name into the local market is more important to me right now than making the most profit. But profit is a concern in the long term. This is a hobby, yes, but not a charity.

I look forward to the show. Really. But I don't look forward to the loading and unpacking. Or, worse, the potential to not leave my station for eight hours. I'll have to rely on my neighbors for bathroom breaks. I bought snacks and will guzzle water in between sales pitches. I've heard from at least two fellow parents who are bringing their kids to see the costumes and take in the atmosphere. I look forward to seeing them in my capacity as small-businessman comic creator.

Anyway, here we are. I drew a comic, drew an auction piece, and drew sketch cards. The solitary craft work is done. Now is the time to gladhand and sell it. Sunday will be the first day outside the consideration of this show I've had since July. Tonight is the auction dance party. We're invited to wear costumes. I have on a Fantastic Four shirt. With that and my hair color, I'm Mister Fantastic. Done and done.

Freaky Picture of the Day
This is a schedule guide for upcoming movies. What are the odds that these two names would appear side-by-side in this order on a TV schedule this week? I have to take this as an omen, right? Like when I saw the the deputy's names in the comic right before he was born?

Putting Things to Bed

It was an odd evening for the deputy. He wouldn't eat dinner, but he did chug milk as if he was a few months younger. He even refused bananas. We considered feeding him solids when he woke up right before midnight (as is his routine) but decided that would rouse him up too much. We nursed him as normal and changed him into an overnight diaper and hoped for the best. He woke up three hours later. Your Sister was bolstered to hear that some babies can't sleep through the night until after they reach one year. She seemed to think we were doing something wrong.

+  +  +

I packed up my convention stuff this morning. It seems a small stack of boxes compared to the amount of work I put into it all. It might take as many as two trips from the parking deck to my table. I am supposedly on the guest list for the museum's com-eve party, but I haven't received word as to how that works. Am I on a will-call list? I called and await word on how I can take advantage of my supposedly free entry as a reward for donating an auction piece.

Newsflash! The museum called to say I'm on the door list. They're encouraging costumes, and I will pass. I will wear my fantastic Four shirt to subtly play Mister Fantastic. My greatest prop is my gray temples.




Picture of the Day
Sound the convention horn(s)!

And You Can Quote Me

We knew the local paper ran press releases verbatim. Press releases have that sales-pitch tone often using exclamation points the way some people use mirror balls to fill up garden space. Exclamation points have no place in newspaper writing except for quotes and sarcasm. I admit I planned for their practice when I rewrote the Fanaticon press release and turned it into an article about me; I thought the paper would bite on a local slant for the story. Not only did they run it verbatim, they didn't contact me to verify anything. I could have claimed to create half the Marvel universe. On one hand, I'm delighted to see my entire article run -- complete with, I think, some fantastic quotes that sell my work, Fanaticon, and comics in general -- but I'm disappointed in the standards of the paper. They have to, have to, have to vet submissions before they see print. A bored prankster could run riot with a email addresses and Mad-Libs article generator.

Also, after having said there was nothing else for me to do before convention, I decided to add a shop to my website. Folks can now buy my comics online via PayPal. I'll take Productive Nervous Fidgeting for $200, Alex.

+  +  +

The boy did not sleep through the night, but we continue to explore options to affect this. Maybe we can feed him solid food during his usual midnight wake-up session. Maybe we can put on the overnight diaper
then instead of immediately after his bath. Your Sister worries he'll continue to wake up in the dead of night as she teaches, but I think his daycare activities will wear him out. He woke up at 4:15 last night and only once. That's much better than other nights, but we can't figure out why he continues to wake up.

Picture of the Day
"Dear paper, I'm quite awesome. And I assure you I'm not a bored teenager pranking the biweekly rag."

Straight Cash, Homey

I went to the bank yesterday to get money for this week's convention. I made a change purse last year from one of those ubiquitous blue, zippered pouches, and I cut out cardstock dividers to separate the denominations. I debated about how much to withdraw and waffled between $100 and $200. The latter seemed overly optimistic, and I figured that if I was doing that well in sales, I'd just recirculate the money I was taking in. So $100 it was, broken up into four denominations. As I stood in line, waiting and waiting for the uncertain customers ahead of me to ask the tellers about seemingly everything involving money and banks, I tried to remember what I did with last year's money. I couldn't recall anything about it following the convention, and I reckoned I put it back in the bank. Why wouldn't I?

Apparently, it's because I'm an idiot because I found last year's stash in the change purse when I got home. My change purse is now overflowing. (Note to any would-be robbers: I'm freshly instructed in Body Combat. I will air kick you in the air face.) Sadly, I will not be able to shop at the convention. I won't have a chance to walk around while the vendor tables are open. But I will be attending a convention in Charlotte two weeks later, and that show is bigger with more offerings.

I also cut up four more artboards to make blank sketch cards in the again overly optimistic notion that there will be a run on wallet-size artwork. But, hey, whatever I don't use this year rolls over to next year.

With this, I really am through with convention stuff. I might make another sketch or two, but I consider that warm-up exercise than a lingering chore. The museum show is three days away. I can only wait. 

+  +  +

The sidekick refuses to sleep through the night, and we are about to strangle him. He awoke at 3 last night and stayed awake despite all Your Sister's ministrations. I got up to take a turn around 4, and he nodded off only to pop awake as soon as he was lain down. I took him to the living room to maybe play himself asleep, but he only sat there. It was eerie. He sat perfectly quiet and clear-eyed for ten minutes. I decided to change his overnight diaper and took him back to the living room to hopefully wind down. I turned off the lights to help him gear down, and that's when I realized we've always put him to bed with the nite-light and heart-sounds bear. Maybe he's over-stimulated.

If he was fully awake in the living room because the light was on, maybe he thinks it's daylight and time to be awake. In the nursery, I turned off the bear and light, and he again nodded off, but this time he stayed out when I put him down. And thus he stayed for another three hours, allowing Your Sister to sleep away the strangling urges. We now have a theory to pursue, reducing our feelings of helplessness in the face of his inability to sleep. If this works, I'm not ashamed to admit I wanna medal for figuring this out. My alarm woke me up this morning, and I let Your Sister sleep while I made coffee and heard the boy sleeping and strutted to the workshop like George Jefferson. Fatherhood: Fuck, yeah.

Almost forgot: He can point to commonly identified objects. You name it, he finds it.

+  +  +

We began our new diets yesterday. I learned how to use the Weight Watchers point calculator, and we gobbled popcorn with abandon.   

Picture of the Day
McDonald's once had a cast of characters. They seemed to have peaked with the Fry Guys.

Body Combative

I have friends from high school who are now certified Body Combat instructors. They needed a weight-loss program, found this program at the same time, became addicted, and now have part-time jobs teaching it. They live about as far apart in the contiguous US as people can, and they get together to attend BC events and camps. They post about it on Facebook from time to time. I saw enough to be curious, and I certainly saw the results. Rebecca, for instance, lost 100 at least pounds. Looks great.

I knew the local fitness club sometimes offered the class during open houses, and Your Sister told me about the latest round of such classes this weekend. We arranged our time around the sidekick, and I went Saturday morning. I thought "open-house classes" meant "introductory classes." This is not the case, and now I am wounded.

There were three instructors in the BC regalia: camouflage and hands wrapped like boxers. I had Googled Boy Combat the day before, and I knew to expect bouncing and fight moves. Not Tae Bo. No, this is faster and harder. I expected that. Everything else was a surprise.

Such as:

1. No stretching beforehand. Maybe fitness classes expect you to stretch before you walk in the door. I have not taken any kind of organized exercise class since Brevard College. That's 20 years ago. I didn't know the class time would not include this. And I need to point out that the club folk were very cavalier about a brand-new face walking in. I approached this as a prospective relationship, a first date maybe. I fully intended to sign up for a class if things went well (Spoiler: Things did not go well). But when I walked in, I had to approach people and ask what we newbies should do. The people behind the counter seemed disinterested, and when I saw the sign-up sheet for newbies, I understood why: I was the third name. That means they either had only three new people this fine morn, or people had wandered by without talking to the counter folk. There was a third possibility that occurred to me later: The "open house" was designed for existing customers to branch out to new classes, and the public were a secondary concern. But I'm a prospective customer. I thought I'd be, you know, aggressively welcomed.

2. Hit the ground running. After a few walk-throughs of punch styles, we were off. This was when I realized that we would not be working our way up to the regular class pace. We would start fast and only get faster. It seems like I was the only new guy there, and let's talk about that noun choice.

3. Don't be the only guy in a class of women. I think I threw off the usual class vibe. Not only was I a stranger, I was male. It's possible they thought I was arrogant about taking this class the first time among all the ladies.

4. Don't exercise up front. The back section of the classroom was nabbed quickly, and I was left working the open space facing the elevated stage and the instructors. That prevented me from watching and matching the effort of my classmates and left me to try to mirror the teachers. That is where the pain was born. Even though they would say things like "kick lower, this is Level One," they would soon say things like "Come on! Harder!" So, mixed messages. I was working on a varsity level from the get-go.

I had to stop a few time when my thigh locked up, and I suspect my fighting stance was too wide. I could also feel my ankles, probably from all the bounces (or "pulses"). Today, my arches are sore, and I blame that on my shoes. I think I would have been fine had I done that work barefoot or in other shoes. These are running shoes, not cross trainers.

Eventually, I had to pull over and stretch, and another class member came over to ask if I was light-headed. I explained it was only my legs, and I immediately 'fessed up. "I wasn't prepared." My own expectations did me in, not their program. I went out to get water and was met by someone with a cup of fruit juice. Word had apparently gotten around, and there was concern that my heart was the problem. Nope, I said, lungs and heart were fine. I just burned out my legs. I noticed we were 40 minutes into the class, and I decided to tough it out. I could shove through 20 more minutes, I thought.

But as we did a move mimicking a kneelift to an attacker's head, I came down bad and rolled my ankle. That was enough. I know that when I get so tired that I get sloppy, that's when I'll get hurt. I grabbed my towel and keys and walked out, thanking again the lady who checked on me. The instructors didn't say a word to me. I don't know if they had any reason or obligation to, but I walked out of the fitness club with no one saying anything to me. Again, I feel like they were underselling the experience, and I'm left thinking I needn't go back.

I want to get in decent shape, and that class might be the way to do it. But if I have to get in shape to take the class, by the time I get into shape, I won't need to take the class.

+  +  +

I finally have a flyer at Malaprop's. I took the flyer long ago earmarked for that store during a lunch break. I was told it will be posted on their board Thursday. That's not as much exposure as I'd prefer, but they do get much more foot traffic than any other place hosting my flyer. True Blue had taken down my coupon flyer, and I gave them a regular one to put up. Apparently they had forgotten about the similar one I gave them weeks back. Anyway, I was assured they'd put up the one from today, and they seemed happy to post Fanaticon material.

I scouted the museum to check parking and loading access. I wanted to see inside, but they are closed Mondays. I instead went by the bank to get my money to make change at the show.

The only thing I would do between now and the show is cut out more blank sketch cards. I assembled my displays. I customized my portfolio spine, I printed my Monster Comic page for those who buy a minicomic, and I bought the vertical holders for the eMMA comics. That's all there is to do.

+  +  +

Your Sis and I are gonna get in shape. We're adjusting out dinner and dessert portions and committing to moving round more. We got rained out of a Saturday walkabout, but she did bike while I was destroying my legs at Body Combat.

+  +  +

The boy won't sleep through the night, even as we pack him full of more food and get him moving more. This situation is not making for happy parents.

Picture of the Day
Watch the hands, mister.

A New Tactic

The doctor said our deputy can sleep through the night easier if we fill him up before bedtime with food. She thinks we're underfeeding him for his size. Agewise, we're providing the right amounts, but he's taller than average and needs more eats. She said he won't be able to finish the food we provide, but he'll learn to take in more. That will either power him through more play and exhaust him or he'll fall into a food coma.

Last night was horrible. Your Sister went to a county budget meeting (and spoke before a crowd of nearly 500) and handed him to me as I returned from work. He had just taken a long nap, scotching our usual sleep routine. I fed him, bathed him, read to him, and gave him milk. He refused to sleep. I removed his sleep sac in case he was too warm. Still wouldn't sleep. Gave him Orajel in case he was teething. Nothing. Gave him a side of sweet potato to fill him up. Nothing. gave him thawed milk to fill him up. NOTHING. This was now 90 minutes beyond his normal bedtime and haggard and screaming. I thought out loud that I wished we could try the whole night over again. And I realized we could. Except for supper, we repeated everything to see if he'd conk out. Before I could dress him after a bath, she came back home and relieved me. I was exhausted. That was three straight hours of intense baby time.

I repeat our parenting mantra: One and fucking done.

+  +  +

I sent my last projects to the printer: a portfolio spine and copies of the monster comic last page. I'll pick them up tomorrow and buy stands for the eMMA comic. That will be very close to it for convention preparation. 

+  +  +  

The majority of the sweet potato plants I ordered through the mail (from a very reputable seed company) are dead. I shan't do that again.

Picture of the Day

He'll grow into it.

A Bad Night for Doom

Yeah, dinner didn't go so well last night. Your Sister liked it. Not I.

She went to yoga, and I put the sidekick down. She returned with a notice of free classes this weekend at the club, including some faux fighting exercise classes I've been curious about. I'm going to at least one of them; two of my high school buddies are certified instructors in a type of Body Combat/Flow/Something Something.

I occasionally try side kicks to see if I've retained anything from my very brief Te Kwon Do and Aikido classes, and I think I can walk into an introductory class and keep up. If nothing else, I'll use this and the recent gardening and lawn mowing to prepare me for running again. I'm keen on the idea of muscle confusion lately; last year's race was a failure because I only ran.

Your Mom dropped off bags of old race souvenir shirts, and I picked out a dozen or so to wear in the yard. She came by the house to watch The Boy while Your Sis talked to the local priest about baptizing him. I've so far heard no details. Maybe we can make him muy macho if we dip him in gasoline.

I printed out my table display signs this morning. We're inching ever closer.

Picture of the Day
There may not be anyone in there.

Pimpin' Ain't Easy

I discovered Monday that the Asheville Ingles cleaned their bulletin board over the weekend, ripping down all the promo materials including my flyer. I put up that flyer just last week after being told they clean the board at the beginning of the month. This is why I keep a stash in the car, and I put up another one that day. Earlier that day, I put one up at our local Ingles after removing an outdated poster to make space. I felt hinkey about that, but that poster was a) outdated; and b) huge. I have become a ruthless promoter of my material. I also added sample face cards to my website to hype them for the convention.

I finally got a press release from the convention organizers and added quotes and info for my comics. I'll send it to the local paper today. They didn't use the one I sent last year, but my material was used by Asheville papers.

+  +  +

The sidekick is full-on crawling now, blazing across the floors with surprising speed. He may also be teething again.

Picture of the Day
I'm officially addicted to astronaut artwork.

Seeds Are Planted

When Your Sister got back from Asheville, she made the following offer: She would do full baby duty for the rest of the day, and I could skedaddle. She specifically mentioned my hope to work on the garden and suggested I tackle it when she got home. I deferred, citing the heat, and said I'd do it after we made our grocery run.

And I did. I went out about five and got back in around 7:30. Between then, I planted the new tomato, squash, and sweet potato seedlings. I can't tell the difference between sprouts from the seeds I planted last month and weeds. Also, I suspect I have wild sprouts from last year's garden, including corn shoots. It doesn't look like the celery came up at all, so I retrenched that row and planted snow pea seeds (which, I think, are dehydrated peas). I added a second row for them between the old celery row and my original tomato seed rows.

I squeezed another row of sweet potatoes between my plantings from last week and the garden fence. Potatoes are supposed to be planted in hills so the tubers will have soft ground to grow in. Instead of doing that for this new batch, I dug deep holes and refilled them with loose soil and planted the new potato sprouts in them.

To avoid the confusion between what I wanted to grow and what grew voluntarily, I snapped off sections of dowels rods (used long ago to stake tomato vines) and stabbed them in the dirt next to what I just planted. I also ran string above the pea trenches to distinguish them from the creeping ground cover. They will need trellises as the vines sprawl, and I may buy cheap garden trim fencing to keep them off the ground. I haven't grown them before. When the squash vines die off in late summer, I'll plant zucchini and pumpkin.

+  +  +

I got my convention seating chart this morning -- finally -- and I am relieved both to confirm my table space and the location.

This is the first floor of Pack Place. The blue circle is where I was last year. While it's convenient to the courtyard and the bathrooms {the end of the gray hallway), it was separate from the foot traffic. The bathrooms may have been the lone reason why people shuffled toward us. The red circle is where I am this year, smack dab in the middle of what's traditionally called Artists Alley, the coagulation of folks selling sketches or comics. We're separate from the vendors selling back issues or collectibles (they're almost all upstairs), and I'm near another entrance, meaning I'll see a decent amount of peds xing from those not seeking us minicomic folks.That entrance will be handy when I load and unload my car.

Two Down

I was pulling into the mall for my weekly lunch-break stroll when I realized its Starbucks has a bulletin board. And always on that board are community event fliers. And, in the seat next to me, I had one such flier.

It shouldn't have taken me two weeks to think of posting my comic ad in a place I go to every week, often the same day every week. But it did. Now it's posted. So that's the local Ingles and the mall Starbucks hosting my comic art in the same week. Heady stuff.

Here's the second table display. I'll bolster the colors before printing it.

I'm making altered fliers to post in our town this weekend. I'll attach coupons to them as a reward for making the drive to Asheville.

+  +  +

I watched the royal wedding last night. BBC provides a video-on-demand version that differs from the version Your Sister saw last week. She watched a giddy, gossipy version, and the one we watched is serious and narrative. They identified everyone who arrived at the cathedral, which helps casual anglophiles like me. It's a surprisingly efficient service -- maybe 30 minutes -- and the couple was never more charming than when they chatted casually while standing at the altar. The queen bore no signs of being the monarch; she was simply the grandmother, and she allowed the bride to stand out. It's a small, classy gesture.

One Down

The blank balloon is for the Post-It notes of prices in response to demand.

Your Sister kindly posed for me for the other table sign. I still need to draw that.

In a related story, fan-favorite artist  Adam Hughes announced he will no longer do convention sketches. He's tired of giving away or selling for moderate prices commissioned artwork at conventions only to see them go on eBay for thousands of dollars. His decision opened a debate in the online comicsverse about the practice of "flipping" con sketches for profit. It's not very likely with my stuff, but this happens all the time for professionals who draw at conventions. When I get sketches at conventions, I always ask them to dedicate to me; this kills any potential flip value and assure them I will keep the art.

Put Them in the Ground and Command Them to Rise

Maybe two months ago, I ordered sweet potato sprouts online. Planting potatoes ain't easy. It's hard enough to find regular potatoes to plant. I've only seen one local outlet with seed potatoes, and it runs out quick-like. I snagged about eight pounds of golden spuds back in March. They sprouted two weeks ago and seem to be going gangbusters, unlike everything else I planted.

You have to get the right kind of potatoes to quarter and plant; store-bought potatoes are apparently dead ends that won't seed. Yet they sprout eyes, and those become potato shrubs, right? Not according to gardening scuttlebutt. I had no idea farming was so rife with theories and rumors. Don't even get me started on full-moon planting. It's bad enough fighting gnats, I don't wanna worry about werewolves too.

I was informed by the online farm store that the sprouts would be sent to my zip code when the time was right to plant them, and the dirty carton was in my mailbox yesterday. A note suggested planting immediately, and I did. Unlike the majority of garden plants, potatoes require raised beds. I made one long ridge the length of our garden and split it in half to house both types of potatoes. You plant them in loose soil and top the dirt with mulch. We'll see if my potato luck holds out.

Picture of the Day
The initial artwork for a table display. eMMA will have a word balloon announcing sketch prices.This is a light pencil transfer for artboard.

Yes, It Sucks. Fix It.

I had to scramble all last week in secret maneuvers regarding my comic book -- my freshly printed comic book, of course. My freshly printed comic book with a fucking typo on on the cover.

I didn't notice this until about five hours after picking up all 150 copies, and it just happened to catch my eye as I was heading into Ingles for coffee. This was the photo I took just fatre I got the comics into my car that morning.

The belt is supposed to read SCRAP, but a coloring error created an additional line in the A and turned it into an H.After fuming about my stupidity for a good day or so, I debated reprinting the whole comic again with a corrected cover. That would be expensive, of course, and I imagined having to hear from convention customers when they saw the mistake and helpfully pointed it out and allowed me to eat shit all day long. Didn't wanna spend that money, didn't want to hear that noise. And then I realized I might have a practical fix in hand: sticker paper.

Thanks to my new desktop printer, I felt confident I could print large numbers and with good color fidelity. If I could match the color on the cover stock with my sticker paper, I could patch the offending line. Yes, it would require 150 applications of small blocks of carefully calibrated color swatches using an X-Acto knife.But it would save me serious coin, and this kind of repetitive hand work would drum into my head to need to proof once more than I think necessary. And that's what I did.

The calibrated color stripe on sticker paper, a sample slice to be cut into segments to cover the offending line, and the weapon of choice.

One of the stickers adhered to the knife en route to the cover.

Almost there.

A repaired cover. Only 149 more times until I was done.

I told Your Sister about this only because I moved the operation to the kitchen to watch the sidekick with one eye. She came back from her Friday high tea/wedding party, and I had to explain the mess. I think she was dismayed about the typo and flabbergasted by the manhours needed for the fix. And really, it's not that bad. Once I discovered I could match the color at home, the labor seemed minor. The time flew by as I fixed bundles of ten comics at a time, and now it's done. I'm happy to undertake an old-school craft method to tidy up the comic. I'm sketching artwork for my table displays, and I hope to have all the artwork done by the 14th, one week from the convention.

I stopped by the town's new comic store Saturday. They're not open yet, but I hope to display a flier there with their permission. Also, I can give them a stack of Fanaticon cards to sell the show. The timing on this is boggling: the town's first comic store within a month of my appearance at a nearby convention? BOGGLED.

Also, my photo stands for the table display arrived Friday. That's almost all the table items I need.

+  +  +

I took Travis to his first roller derby bouts Saturday night, and we sat behind the benches. It's a whole new sport when you can watch the strategy unfold. Also, we chatted with both city's team members and drank lotsa local beers. We agreed that roller derby should be a collegiate female sports. It can get sponsorships and would attract a varied audience.

+  +  +

We took the sidekick to a birthday party Sunday. He continues to gravitate toward wheeled items he can walk behind. He approached and petted a big dog with no fear despite many, many sloppy dog kisses. His mother was horrified.

Good Night, Bad Night

Your Sister was feeding the sidekick when I got home, and she was finishing up to leave for yoga. That left me and the boy to try again. I let him play and crawl around a bit. Eventually he told me when he was ready to pack it in by trying to climb up my legs. I bathed him and took him to the nursery with a bottle of milk. We read a little. He's good at turning pages when prompted. Before we could make a second run through the baby animal book, he turned into me and cuddled up. He was done. I fed him a little, but he wasn't into it so much. Maybe 2 ounces. I scooped him up, and he flailed with sleep spasms. He calmed down by watching the ceiling fan spin, and his eyes slowly closed, and he was asleep with his mouth wide open. I put him down, and he slept for a few hours. I cuddled him back to sleep around 9 and gave him a few more ounces before we went to bed. It was a much better night than Tuesday. And it proved I can again put him down for the evening. Victory.

Then the storms came in. We are fine. The house is fine. But it was a long, long night of hail and constant lightning. As I drove to work, the downhill we jogged Sunday morning was covered in debris suggesting it was covered in water throughout the night. That's a buncha water. Didn't lose power though. That's amazing. And the sidekick slept through it all. I am currently powered by coffee. I also am wracking my brain to come up with Mother's Day ideas for Your Sister.

I'm trying to add Amazon shopping cart to my website to sell the minicomics, but Amazon doesn't make it easy. Neither does PayPal. I changed my PayPal password in the wake of the massive Sony PS3 network hack that has continued to leave the gaming system without online access. That's a major selling point for the Sony system, and millions of folks are in danger of fraud and identity theft.

Easter Weekend Conversation-Related Picture of the Day
Here's Andrew Garfield (whom you saw in Social Network) as Peter Parker. He seemed very tall in that film, and Spidey is usually a small guy.

Moving Picture of the Day
Tarsem, the director who made such a splash with REM's Losing My Religion video and later The Cell, has directed a film that mixes Clash of the Titans with 300. 

Flier Distribution Report

I took my lunch break to go to the Asheville downtown area to post my 8x11 flier in con-friendly stores. I went first to Malaprops, which displays a sign telling us hopefuls to hand our fliers to the front desk. I did so and was told they clear out the bulletin board every week. They do not maintain a "to post" folder of fliers for future events. And they don't clear the bulletin board on the same day each week. I decided to come back the week of the convention to post my flier. I didn't even get to the question of which one -- coupon or non-coupon -- to hand them.

True Blue, in contrast, has a "to post" folder for their TWO events displays: the interior bulletin board and the window storefront. I gave them both types of fliers, and they seemed keen on my notion of a roller derby/convention double header in the civic center.

I took the auction piece to the museum, and they seemed thrilled with the gesture. Didn't even look at it. Because I donated a piece, I'll get into the auction party/dance/kibbitz fest free. It feels weird releasing the piece into the wild. I haven't made a piece for an auction before. It's somewhat standard in comic conventions, but I haven't been on this side of the tale before. I had to assign a value to the piece for tax receipt purposes, and I settled on $70. Given my level of polish, I think that's fair.

I hit the comic store, and they took a coupon flier and appreciated the idea of randomly removed coupon slips to imply demand. I last went by Ingles and was told they clear their board at the end of the month. I'll wait until next week to post a flier there. Then I scurried back to work.

I looked at downtown with new eyes, seeing all potential display spaces. I'll post fliers on lamp posts with the band ads closer to time.

I'm now working on the table display. I need to pick up some pamphlet stands to hold the comics, and I need to make signs for the sketches and comic prices. I can use some items I bought for last year's table.

+  +  +

I had a bad moment with the sidekick last night. He wouldn't eat. He turned his head and cried to protest. It's food he likes -- sweet potatoes -- and he seemed to refuse out of whim, not out of fatigue or diaper. I got frustrated. I eventually ditched the spoon and crammed bites into his mouth with my fingers. Your Sister objected and took over.

I didn't think I was being mean. I've previously taken to holding his head steady to feed him, and we've both squirted him to focus him on the task at hand. But my interactions with him on weekdays are fewer now. I feed him supper and bathe him. That's it. Your Sister puts him down with nursing, and I have a few moments with him in the mornings. We don't have the number of connections that he does with his mom. We're on a simpler and limited exchange, and when I see him at night, he's sleepy and often cranky. If I didn't get food in him, I'd get bumped. If I did it the way she didn't like, I'd get bumped. I have a very small window of success and a limited time to figure it out. How did she get him to eat? By waiting him out. I was impatient. I'll do it better tonight, if she'll let me.

The thing that I most appreciate about this kid -- the thing I wish I could replicate -- is his natural ability to treat each day with a clean slate. No matter how bad the previous night was, he holds no grudge the next day. I have too many grudges. I have a grudge orchard. I'm not proud of this.

Picture of the Day
Lady Gaga and a classic Disney villain. I'm not what I'd call a fan of Gaga, but I love the production on her songs. As pop music becomes indistinguishable from house music, her material at least has an edge that surpasses Katy Perry's, who plays cheeky and coy. Gaga funnels anger in her songs, and I gravitate toward that, but she's not afraid to enjoy herself. Perry, in contrast, wants us to watch her enjoy herself. She's an exhibitionist where Gaga is a showman. There's a difference.

Epiphany

While making sketch cards to sell at the convention, I realized I didn't much care for the Captain America sketch I did.

It's almost exactly the image I had in mind, but it came out weak. That mouth is distracting. It gives me "eh."

So I decided to try another angle, and it came out stronger, more dramatic.

And then I realized it was similar to the Wonder Woman I drew.

And I thought how easy and kinda fun it would be to make all the sketch cards from the same angle.  Like, say, Batman.

And now I have decided my con sketches will have this theme. I can sketch out the head template and fill it in with requested characters at the show. I can call them "head shots" or "face cards." This could be good.

I made the fliers, complete with random missing coupon slips, and I hope to put them in stores Tuesday during lunch. I'll also make some to post in stores around our house.

After the exhaustion of completing and printing the comic, I'm now jazzed again for the show. I have comics and a sketch gimmick.


Mad Rhymes of the Day
If one were a Beasties fan, one might hear their new album free right here.

Beware My Power ...

We did very little after you left. The sidekick staggered around the deck with the panda roller, and I made additional sketch cards by slicing up art boards. We made a pizza and watched Doctor Who.

I still plan to pass around the fliers Tuesday, but now I intend to remove a few of their detachable coupons to suggest demand. The convention just released their schedule with parties the night before and immediately after the convention, including a drag show at Scandal's. I'm thinking I'll skip that; the drive home is too high a price for that time of night.

Moving Picture of the Day
The first true trailer for Green Lantern has been released, and it's impressively impressive.

Warner Brothers enjoys the success of the Batman franchise in cartoons and films and toys, but they only recently realized they have a giant library of hero materials in DC to make use of. Green Lantern is their first foray into the film genre Marvel has dominated (we won't count Jonah Hex as it was a western and a dud). This plays up the cosmic scope of the GL franchise, and that's something Marvel doesn't dabble in as successfully. It also looks like a lot of money was thrown at the film, giving comic fans the confidence that Warner and DC are really trying to reach the hero-film audience. Reynolds makes a credible-looking Lantern, and I'm glad they went with the Hal Jordan character. Earth as a handful of Lanterns, but Jordan is the most recognizable.

In the Home Stretch

I tried to scan the Avengers art yesterday and noticed the scanner's bundled software looked different. I hate this software. I access my scanner through Photoshop, so I don't need that other, ragamuffin software.This particular program is helpful to a fault. Whenever I open the scanner hood, the program boots up. But this week, that program's interface looked different, apparently having updated automatically via the wifi. Looked new, acted the same. Did nothing for me. And it scuttled my scanner access.

I couldn't activate the scanner through the program or Photoshop. Unplugging the scanner and plugging it back in didn't help. Using Windows to uninstall the software didn't help; in updating the software, the necessary files were moved, and Windows couldn't find them to erase. I had to find the files and delete them and find the driver online and install that. Now the scanner works via Photoshop and the bundled software is gone. Win-win, but I don't need that heart attack at this stage of the artwork. I told you the magic aura of machines is fragile.

I saw a proof copy of the comic this morning, and it looks pretty good.

They can't offer bleed on the cover, and that creates a margin of white on the art that I wanted to run off the page. That's a minor complaint, and one I can address in the next comic. The interior art looks better than last year's issue, and overall it's a good printjob. I'll have 150 copies by the weekend and was assured I'd have plenty of time if I later thought I needed more copies. I now need to make the fliers to put around Asheville, and the big job there is figuring out how much of a discount the detachable flier coupons will provide.

I'm also about 95% done with the Avengers art.

Picture of the Day
And here tis. On a whim I added Spidey peeking over Hulk's shoulder.

Don't Be Broken

The boy is no longer in the original baby seat. He is too long. We bought a new upright seat that surrounds his sides. It's a lush, tall convertible seat that will allegedly fit him until he's about three years old. No longer can we hoist the boy in and out of the car inside a handled chair. While this means we don't have to carry 30 pounds of boy and plastic, we also lose the convenience of a hammock. I doubt he'll be able to sleep when we move him now. He rode in it twice this weekend, and he didn't complain. He did however forget how to sleep through the night. Last night, blessedly, he managed to crash hard and sleep the whole way through.

+  +  +

I reassembled the lawnmower, and it cranked up the first time. There are fewer joys to begin springtime. Winterizing a mower involves draining the oil, cleaning the air filter, sharpening the blades, and changing the spark plug. The machines are designed to be fixed up this way, but machines can't be trusted to work the same even if one only removes and replaces the parts. There's a magic aura destroyed when just one component is adjusted, and only the creation of a new functional aura will allow the machine to work.

I had to mow the lawn to catch up to the neighbors. They had all cut their grass, and ours looked like an abandoned lot. No longer. Now it's clearly the domain of a sensible, upwardly mobile nuclear family. Between this and some garden work, I got in a slight workout. Once the comic art is all done did, I'll use the time before my morning commute to water the garden and run.

+  +  +

Speaking of comics and machines, my scanner is kaput. Suddenly and totally. I'll have to play with program installs and removals. It's only a year old. I also had to order a second battery for Your Sister, as the one we just received does nothing. I wonder if she charged it enough, but we're sending it back regardless.

I took the comic files to OfficeMax, and they assured me of a quick turnaround. As in, it could be all printed by this weekend. I stammered my way through the conversation with the clerk; I didn't expect to be so rattled to be at this point in the process. This is the part of the comic production that's out of my hands.

Pictures of the Day
Pre-made sketch cards for the convention. Still don't know how much to charge for con sketches. Maybe a dollar. If I have any brains, I'll affix a business card to the back of each sketch.

The first Spidey sketch I made was instructed by Your Sister to live on the fridge. And so it does.

Sad Emails

The local theatre issued a surprising email a few days back. For years, they've hosted a new-play competition in two ranges: the classic three-act play and the one-act. The play I directed was that year's one-act winner. This contest is national, and the theatre takes it seriously. They produce both plays in the appropriate venues; the one-act gets a luncheon performance with the playwright, and the three-act gets a full run with the theatre. It's the most ambitious effort the theatre undertakes, and they get good response from hopeful writers.

But this recent email suggests that may be over. The theatre announced they will not offer a new play performance this year. Citing the lack of a director (for which I may have been solicited recently) and a cool reception by patrons to past winners, the play won't be produced. I wonder how that will affect future submissions to the contest; a production of the winning play was surely a draw for hopefuls. I still hold that they should cut back on the number of shows each year and avoid burning out actors and directors. It seems, each season, they are forced to announce cancellations and a policy to rearrange tickets sold for canceled shows. That has to crimp season ticket sales.

+  +  +

I got an email from my ex a few days back saying her mom, my first mother-in-law, died. I hadn't spoken with her since 2001, and our final words were unhappy. She was of the mind her daughter and I were fated to be together and would reconcile magically if we were patient. I objected, saying any possible reconciliation would require her daughter to step up and act like an adult. She was nice to me, and I suspect she was relieved her daughter found a guy who treated her well. When her daughter and I reunited in the mid-'90s (after she cheated), she said she did a dance of joy. She and Your Sister met only once, at my first wedding. I may have pictures of them together. The only time I talk to my ex is when some one's near death. It doesn't make me enthused to crack open her emails when her name appears in my account.

+  +  +

The sidekick didn't sleep through the night, but he did allow me to put him down and read to him. That's progress.

Picture of the Day
Mister Rogers is a mean art critic.

You Will All Fear My Bat Bomb

Our usual routine for the sidekick is to wind him down around 6:30. He gets Prevacid and Vitamin D, a change of clothes, milk (from the bottle or tap), and a cuddle for sleep. That changed in the last few weeks as he's eaten more solid food. This means he's taking in less milk, and Your Sister is making less. Because she doesn't have to pump as often, there's less milk for me to feed him with. That obliges her to nurse him at night to put him down. He would often wake up after an hour, and a quick cuddle would put him down again. A few hours later we would wake him up, change the diaper, and top him off. And he'd usually wake up at least once throughout the night.

Recently though a few changes have helped him sleep through the whole night. First, because he's outdoor more often, he gets an evening bath to slough off the sunscreen. Then we put him in special overnight diapers -- thicker, more absorbent -- before Your Sister nurses him. Lastly, we don't wake him up. The hope is that his increased day activities (including his new skill of crawling) would wear him out for longer sleep. All of these seem to work. For the past two nights, he's slept for nearly 11 hours.

But because Your Sister has been the one to put him down so often, he won't surrender to sleep without her. He used to allow me to put him down after a bottle. We now have to tag-team him to sleep, and I worry this will make miserable our future babysitters. We need to train him to trust me again even if it means a later bedtime.

+  +  +

I traced the Avengers art and will start inking it soon. I also bought artists "trading cards," blank tiny squares of artboard. I'm going to make sketches on them and sell them cheap at the convention. Some will be drawn beforehand, others I'll do by request at the show. I bought three packs at the downtown art store, True Blue, and was informed they've sold like hotcakes lately. The clerk asked if I knew why there is sudden demand, and I told him about the convention. He hadn't heard about it, and that doesn't surprise me. The convention is relying on radio ads this year, and their visual promotion is greatly reduced. I fear (as does the local comic store owner) that this is a bad gamble, and turnout may suffer.

Well, I at least will pick up the slack with my own fliers and posters about town, including True Blue and the comic store. Wherever I see fliers for bands, Imma gonna put up my ad, using the rejected art for the collector card. I'll also send in a press release to the local paper again. Hopefully, if they're smart, they'll turn it into local-interest story with a small interview. They didn't do that last year, despite the press release I sent them. Last year, I didn't know what to expect at any stage of this. This year, I'm on solid ground, and I intend to make a significant push before and during the show. I intend to be a major local presence.

Picture of the Day
You will all fear my Bat bomb!

Blood Don't Want No Help, Blood Don't Get No Help.

The red blood cell donation appointment was for 8:45 Saturday morning. The local drive organizer called me a few days prior to make make the appointment, and I had already decided to show up to give the larger donation. I had done it back in December, and they need as many folks as they can get.

When I showed up at 8:45, I was given a sticker that had my name on it and another sticker that identified me as a double donor. If I had any more stickers, I would look like a TGIFriday's waiter. I was directed past the pint donors to a special section for double donors. I was told I didn't even need a number for the normal deli system for registration and donation. This was VIP service. I was summoned to a station and asked for my donation card. Within three minutes I was told I couldn't do the big donation. I was one day inside the mandated window between donations.

Apparently this happens often. The organizers jump the gun, ignoring the Red Cross deadlines or forgetting how to count. This local organizer is gung-ho, as I learned when I last made an appointment. I think the area charities compete for the biggest blood drive, and the Red Cross is so desperate for blood that they put up with these hollow scheduling shenanigans. But I was there and sitting in the nurse's station, and I figured I might as well give the usual pint. It was done quickly as always -- I bleed free and easy -- and I ran into my buddy Travis as I ate Swiss Rolls. Breakfast of champions, right there.

A teacher buddy came over that afternoon, and we three talked divorces and failed relationships over beer. Your Sis and I watched Good Night and Good Luck, the Murrow/McCarthy film, and I took the boy for a walk through the neighborhood. I did that again the next morning while Your Sister went to church. And I watched him Monday morning during her ENT appointment.

She was told the vertigo is symptomatic. Nothing irregular was seen or surmised, and she was told to call them if it happened again. If it does within the year, they'll do an MRI. Otherwise, if she's no longer nursing, she might get strong steroids. She's mostly fine now.

I talked to My Mom about plans for the summer and mentioned our second thoughts on taking the sidekick to DragonCon. Would she consider watching him for a few days? She was delighted at the idea. Giddy. I think She's already planning on it.

I am within a day or two of closing up the comic. I've made PDFs of the pages and proofed it and worked on the copy for the inside covers and maybe finalized the cover. The Avengers pencils are done, and now I need to trace and ink it.

I reassembled the lawnmower and started watering the garden with liquid fertilizer. I just ordered sweet potato plants from an online catalog.

Picture of the Day
The cover as it stands today.

Little background on the cover blurb: One of my earliest comics was Magnus Robot Fighter about a future man who fights robots. I wanted to tip my hat to that.

I'll post some preview panels to Facebook within a few days.

Mixed Signals

Turns out Your Sister's ENT appointment was in Asheville, and she discovered this when she arrived at the local office instead. She'll now go to the right office Monday, and I'll keep the sidekick at my office while she get a lookover. She was able, however, to make a school meeting to interview principal candidates.

The county doesn't know what the next school year will look like until the state passes a budget. The town is warning employees that school staffs may be cut, but the local board members are on record as opposing teacher cuts. That's reassuring. The state is also debating a bill that would let homeschoolers and private school students play on public-school teams. Our county already allows this if the students take a certain number of public-school classes, but the new bill, as it stands, would allow them to play if they otherwise never step foot on a public campus. And that's the shit of horses.

If the jersey says "Ox Hoof High," how can someone not attending Ox Hoof High be on the team? How do they represent the school? If one need not attend to play, then I assume I can sign up. No, playing on a team (and ultimately competing for athletic scholarships) is a privilege offered for following that school policies, including attendance and grades. If you reject the school, you also reject its afterschool programs. In for a penny, in for a pound. Otherwise, stay home.

Picture of the Day
This is where I am so far with the museum artwork. It's tight in some places, weak in others. I'd like to have the pencils done by this weekend so I can ink. I 'm still working on polishing the comic and want to take that to the printer by next weekend. That will give them a month to do the job.

I'll bet money that the museum asked for original art donations assuming they'd get whatever was lying around the artists' studios. Maybe a portfolio piece, maybe an elaborate doodle. Now that I know this is an auction, I want to give them art that can bring in the most money. I think some folks will make the mistake of donating material with limited appeal. I mean, I could give them a sketch of eMMA or Focus, but who knows who they are? Why would they spend more than $10 on that?

However, if I use established characters, there's a greater chance the fans of those characters will pay top dollar. Hence, the Avengers. Also, the piece features the four Avengers movie franchises -- Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America -- and Hawkeye, who appears in at least one of those films. That could attract even casual collectors of original art or those who want to bank on the success of the two films this year and the Avengers film next year.

So what we have here is a classic Avengers line-up facing the first Avengers foe, Loki, Thor's brother. He's holding a Cosmic Cube, one of Marvel's cosmic-level thingamabobs that make big messes. Marvel loves these things -- the Ultimate Nullifer, the Infinity Gauntlet -- but the cube is the simplest for comic fans to grasp. It's a cube, and it makes wishes real. It's not good for bad guys to have, and Loki is about to bust it out.

Here's the original sketch and the artboard drawing as it was this morning. It still needs the tweaks.

Drawing Hulk doing the Hulk thing is a singular joy.

New Projects

We're still doing daily notes for the sidekick. We chart diapers and meals and small achievements. We've done this since she went into labor. You might remember that I grabbed a pad and jotted down the time since her water broke, and those notes grew through the delivery and recuperation, and just never stopped taking the notes. Your Sister is considering using these to star a book on childrearing. I have two initial reactions:

1) I know she loves writing nonfiction, stretching back to her university research papers. She's got documentation at hand. The boy is content to play by himself for an hour at a time. She has opportunity and motive. If this was a criminal scheme, she'd be Ma Barker.

2) She's ready to go back to work. I think her brain is starving for projects beyond the routines of cleaning and feeding the deputy. Her recent dizziness didn't help.Now that it's fading and he's more self-contained, she's got the itch to get to work.

Not that the childrearing books we have are bad, you understand. But they're dry. They also constantly mention all the ailments a baby might suffer, and it makes us paranoid. We think a baby book can prepare parents without panicking them. We fell victim to that a few times and felt like schmucks when we realized we were paranoid.

She asked if I knew how to get a publisher, and I mentioned the various magazines for wannabe writers at bookstores. I also said some pitches to publishers or agents involve forwarding the first chapters of a book proposal. That way the people who decide to buy a book know the writer is serious and capable. And I think she should sit down and find her tack and voice to see if she wants to see this to the end. She might burn out. I know I skirt that line when I work on projects.

The boy is starting to imitate. He can approximate small words like "belt."

I sketched out the museum art on an 11x17 board, and it went fairly well. I intend to make a detailed pencil drawing before tracing and inking that on another board. So far, this looks pretty good.

Picture of the Day
This is what 25 comic pages on art boards look like.

New Additions

Memo: If you want to make yogurt in a crockpot, and the instructions tell you to insulate the pot with blankets, you must turn off the pot first. Otherwise, the plastics on the pot shell melt, and the yogurt burns onto the pot glaze.We now have a new crockpot. Yogurt was successfully made last night.

We also have a new printer. I was tired of questing for the cartridges for the Epson, and I got an HP printer that appears to use commonly found cartridges. Now I can make comic proofs at home. It's allegedly wireless, but seems to require a connection to a computer that's on for the wireless to work. That doesn't sound wireless.But it prints, as a printer should. And now I must dispose of a printer in addition to other old hardware. Like the crockpot we chucked yesterday.

Your Sister feels good enough to drive now. We see the ENT tomorrow.

Picture of the Day
I contacted the museum, and the requested original artwork will indeed go for an auction, and the bidders become eligible to win a trip. This is a really nice promotion for the convention. I've got my artwork idea roughly sketched. This is the classic Avengers lineup taking on Thor's brother Loki. Now that the party is an auction, I'm getting competitive. I want one of the high bids.

Earth, Give Me Your Nutrients

Your Sister is better but still a bit woozy. The medicine made her sleepy(-ier), and I minded the deputy for most of the past four days. He's eating meat which we mix in his veggies, and his milk intake is much reduced. He has begun bouncing to music, whether it be a steering-wheel toy or Lady Gaga (that was this morning). He is also waving on command. As he becomes more mobile, he's falling more as well. He's constantly bruised or scraped despite our best childproofing efforts.

I started the garden this weekend. The tiller I rented was cheaper and weaker than the one I normally rent, and I shan't get that one again. It was useless. I mixed in 14 bags of manure on the soil, totaling 700 pounds of poo that I threw around. I also earned my first sunburn of 2011. After four hours and a long shower, I discovered two seed packets I forgot to plant: snow peas and pumpkins. I'll save them for later in the year, when it's cooler and I am recovered. I gots the aches, but they are valid and worthy of hanging on my mantle. This is my first real workout of the year, and I intend to build on it  now that the comic is all but done.

Speaking of which, I learned the museum hosting the convention next month is holding a party the night before and it requesting art donations from those selling books at the show. Including me. I have until May 6 to give them a piece of artwork, and I'll make a new one for the show. I suspect the art will be auctioned for charity, but at least for a time, I'll have art hanging in the local museum.

Just as I try to make proofs of my comic at home, my printer is virtually kaput. I'll be looking at new ones this week. It's gotten more difficult to find ink for this one too, and I've been looking at an upgrade for a while.

Last night was WrestleMania, the biggest wrestling PPV of the year, and I drank the pint of Winter Ale you gave me last year. Twas good.

We started watching The Tudors, Showtime's series on Henry VIII. Netflix Streaming is marvelous.

Picture of the Day
This is the costume for the new Wonder Woman TV series. Pants make sense, but these don't look right. Maybe they're cut too high. Also the eagle breastplate is much too small. Still, a new WW TV show!