Category Archives: blog

the end of styles?

IS THIS THE END?

Today I begin the Sideshow banner/carnival art style of my ongoing family styles series.
I’ve been posting images to this series since last August. I had no idea what started then would become what it is now.
I’ve done a lot. I’ve learned a lot. But in that process, I’ve let things slide… as we all do. We’re human after all.
Maybe my time (at least two plus hours a day every weekday ) would be better spent on other aspects of my work: revamp the website, re-examine the strip, figure out life in the strip… etc.
Make no mistake, I LOVE doing these pieces… maybe I love them too much? (is that possible?)
This series may end up being the last I do for a while. I don’t know yet. I’ll see how I feel creatively, physically and mentally once this series is complete.
In the meantime, keep checking them out…
Stay safe.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for continuing to support me, my family and my work.

Categories: art blog illustration illustrations laugh life

strange times…maybe

Very strange times…

There’s a lot of fear out there right now.

There’s also a lot of arrogance.

I’m not sure which one is correct really.

You pick things up…

…but you wash your hands BEFORE AND AFTER you pick those things up.

I don’t have a clue as to when this “new” normal will become the “old” normal. Estimates range the range of ranges. Days, weeks, months… everyone knows and no one knows.

Lives will be lost. Lives will be ruined. Lives will start over.

I’ve stopped using phrases like, “I wish we could go back…” because, we can’t. Even my fantasies aren’t safe from reality.

I still hope though.

Maybe hope is a fantasy too… but I’m trying to keep reality away from that one for now.

Maybe hope is arrogance. Maybe hope is motivation. Maybe hope is a religion with no deity.

Maybe I should just shut up and be thankful for the days when the happy moments outnumber the sad, angry or hopeless moments. Even if it’s one more…

Maybe I should just shut up and draw the squirrel… the embodiment of fear and arrogance that smells like peanut butter and has a big fluffy tail.  He’s probably a little hope too…

Categories: blog coronavirus thoughts

A tail of a milestone comic strip squirrel

6,000 squirrels

I suppose today is a milestone comic strip.

Today, March 4, 2020 marks the appearance of the 6,000th Bob the Squirrel comic strip. No bells or whistles… in fact I only started really keeping track of the number after I hit 5,000 a few years back.

But, using modern technology (and my obsessive compulsive nature of keeping good dated backup files) I’ve dug up every previous milestone comic strip.

Strip #5,000 – June 8, 2017

Not much to say about this one… I did put together a giant GREATEST Hits show for this one. Took a lot of tape and Funtac to put that show together.

Strip #4,000 – September 12, 2014

Our wedding was in October of that year and I was keeping our plans and anxiety alive and well in the strip… and pretty much in real time. It all worked out to be an amazing day…

Strip #3,000 – December 11, 2011

I was closing in on ten years of Bob the Squirrel at this point… and I questioned if I should continue doing the strip.  I had a small, loyal fan base, but the likelihood of the strip being my only job was looking like a longer and longer long-shot. Should I quit and try something else that maybe would benefit me financially? Or did the squirrel talk me out of it?

Strip #2,000 – March 22, 2009

We were in our new house just under a year when I drew this. This was also when I was really into the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream pints. Lucy’s favorite was Pistachio Pistachio … I would get a spoon and feed it to her right out of the container. I tell Lez that she should have known what type of guy I was by witnessing that act. She had every opportunity to grab Lauren and run… 🙂

Strip #1,000 – June 20, 2006

I wasn’t sure if I should include this one… despite it being the 1,000th strip. This may sound horrible… well, it DOES sound horrible.  I sometimes forget that I was married once before… and that I had a whole other life in a whole other city. But, I did… and I have the strips to prove it.  And really, aside from a few bits of clothes and my drawing board, the strips are the ONLY things I kept from that life.

So, that’s the strip… thousand by thousand. Hope we’re all around for the 7,000th – which, barring any life complications, should be appearing November 29, 2022.

Categories: blog bob comic history ideas illustration laugh life love self-critique Show thoughts

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Speaking of…

I can’t hear you.

Today’s strip hits more closer to home than usual.

Back in the old days ( the early/mid 1990s) when I truly figured out what I wanted to do with my life, art school was a much different animal. Marketing yourself as an artist was lightly touched upon, but it wasn’t really stressed. I mean, we were students still learning our craft… why learn how to market something you’re not exactly sure you’re good at?

So.  I suck at marketing myself. I said it. I finished my undergrad in 1997. In the 23 years since that cold day in May, I’ve gotten about 10% better at it. Which explains a lot.

It doesn’t matter how great something is if no one knows it exists. That much I do know.

I’ve never had a huge problem with public speaking. Give me a room with 1,000 people in it and I’ll talk with no problem. Some butterflies of course, but nothing that would paralyze me. I actually prefer that to one-on-one speaking. I never shook my childhood shyness.  I’ve gotten much better of course… because it was necessary. But, if I have an opportunity to avoid it, 96.432% of the time I will.

Bob is not, or will ever be as big as even the dot on the letter ‘i’ in “GARFIELD”. Some of that could be from the art. Some of that could be from the writing. But I would bet that MOST of it is from my inability overcome that crippling fear of nothing. The inability to be bold. The inability to… insert your own idea.

It’s all me. The work speaks for itself… but no one hears it in an empty room.

 

 

 

Categories: blog Uncategorized