This is today’s SQUIRRELOSOPHY panel.
I did this cartoon nearly two weeks ago. It seems eerily appropriate today considering all the horrific crap going on in the country.
We’re all falling, and have resolved ourselves to the fall…sad, huh?
Over the next two weeks, the comic strips will not be so comic. We lost Izzy. And while she wasn’t a character I used that much in the strip, she was a character in our everyday home lives. Losing two animals in little over a month is not easy. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone. I felt the need to take this first strip and give some explanation of what’s going to happen. There are a lot of readers out there that don’t get their daily Bob through this website – so just posting to this blog wouldn’t help them.
I realize that life stinks sometimes… and the things we have to endure, especially when it comes to loss, stink. I thought it necessary to explain the next series out of respect to the reader.
I want to be clear. I HATE doing sad strips. But life throws you a loss… and you have to deal with it in a way that gets you through.
We’ll get back to the funny after we get through the not so funny. Thanks!
So… super fan Kristopher Torrey finally went and did it. He took the wonderfully bold step to make Bob the Squirrel a forever piece of himself. Kris and I have been emailing each other back forth almost from the very beginning of the strip. He posted this photo of his new ink last night on Facebook and I couldn’t be more honored.
Kris posted this comment to explain more:
As a bit of background behind this. I first came across Bob they squirrel comics on yahoo when I was deployed to Kuwait/Iraq in 2003 while in the Marines. I read Bob comics everyday and it helped keep me all there and helped me deal with some personal issues. I even went as far as drawing Bob on my helmet cover. After I got back I wrote frank and thanked him for creating Bob and how he helped me out. Over the years frank and I developed a friendship. Frank helped me through my first divorce, the loss of my son, and my second divorce. I tried to be there for frank when he needed an ear when times were tough for him. Bob and frank have been a very important part of my life for 12 years and many more to come. To me it was a great honor to make Bob my first tattoo. Though I know the day will come that frank will lay down his pen, Bob will forever be with me and an important part of my life.
An absolute stone cold honor to have a bit of my work on this man’s shoulder. There are a lot of things I tend to take for granted sometimes… we all do. It goes without saying that the one thing I never take for granted is the loyalty of my readers. I consider it a privilege to occupy a little moment of time in someone’s life. And you never know when that one little bit makes a whole lot of difference.
We had to say goodbye to another member of our fur family. Izzy was the demonic cat with a heart of gold.
She loved everybody… except Bob and Lucy. The real Izzy was litter-mates with Tommy. Lezley adopted them together when they were still kittens. They were together for 14 years.
We didn’t know how Izzy would react after Tommy passed. For a while, she seemed fine… maybe thinking that he’d be back. But as the days turned into weeks, she must’ve figured he wasn’t returning.
Her health declined pretty fast over the last 10 days. She wouldn’t eat, drink or use the litter box. She just stayed in her little cubby hole. We’d check on her regularly, hoping she’d snap out of it… but she never did.
I never put much stock in the notion of someone “…dying from a broken heart.” Until now.
RIP Izzy.