Category Archives: life

SQUIRRELOSOPHY-Black Friday Yesterday

This is re-posted from today’s SQUIRRELOSOPHY…
Black Friday on a Tuesday

It’s that time of year again.  A time when the Black Friday deals fill the joyous air with bargain flavored atmosphere.  Thing of it is, the Black Friday deals started way before the day they’re named for.  What the what?

Even though I am a squirrel, I like to consider myself a learned student on what it means to be human.  I mean, only someone who ISN’T human could have that type of perspective, right?  Is it really worth the deal to crowd yourself, shoulder to hostile shoulder into retail space with homicidal aspirations to get a dvd for $1.99?  Seriously? I could understand if you were starving and you have to push and fight for a loaf of bread… to keep yourself alive.  But, seriously?  I am willing to roll over you for that cheap television.  I will fight you to save some money.

What is wrong with you people?  Ease up.  The more successful this is, the earlier it will be.  Christmas shopping next year will start two days before Halloween.  You know I’m right.

So, Hopefully the scratches and bruises on your body aren’t that bad.  Ice that bump on your head and have a turkey sandwich.  The leftovers will be in the fridge earlier next year.

And, because I am a total HYPOCRITICAL SQUIRREL, be sure to check out Frank’s JINGLE BOB original art sale   and the Holiday Custom Art Offer.  Exorcize some of that black and blue Thursday and Friday out of your system by purchasing some original art.  I guarantee it’ll make me think that much more of you. 🙂
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And be sure to check out the latest Bob the Squirrel and Squirrelosophy collections: at one point, the kid had A LOT of potential and that’s one way of doing it… along with all the other Bob the Squirrel books… if you haven’t already.

Categories: art ideas illustration laugh life

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Reflecting on SQUIRRELOSOPHY: Year One

embracing your inner squirrelOn October 12, 2012, I launched squirrelosophy.com. I did not have a master plan, a thesis or a mission statement. The only thing I did have was a bunch of little things that didn’t quite exactly fit into the flow of my daily comic strip Bob the Squirrel.

You can see an awful lot in a reflection… especially a very clear one.

I started posting these extra panels of Bob expressing a view on bobthesquirrel.com in April 2012. I genuinely had no aspirations to make anything out of it…other than being a bit of a bonus for the daily readers. Maybe, one of these more timely panels would rope someone into reading the daily. They were going to be “whenever I felt like it” panels… no set schedule. But the ideas kept hitting me, some while I was in the middle of drawing another. If you do what I do, you know that when inspiration sends you down a raging river you need to go with the flow for as far as it’s going to take you.

A raging river can turn into a dry river bed in an instant.

By late September, it was pretty clear that I had to do something about this. There was a feeling that these single panels could take away from the strip. I didn’t want that, but drinking from the inspiration well was addicting. So, I started SQUIRRELOSOPHY. It was as separate thing from the strip…completely separate. That’s fine, but that also meant more work… two sites to maintain, two flows of content to maintain, two of everything. Oh well, I’m no stranger to hard work, right? I did graduate school full time with a full-time job, full-time strip and full-time family, right? Granted, at one point I though my stomach was going to rupture from the stress, but I lived through it, right? A website? Piece of cake.

Uh huh. Yeah.

It has decidedly NOT been a piece of cake. Not a cupcake, a brownie bite or even a cake crumb. It has been hard, stressful and minimally rewarding. It is an extra set of monthly costs and one more piece of time carved off of Frank’s day.
I have not promoted squirrelosophy.com as well as I should have. For that matter, I have NEVER promoted bobthesquirrel.com as well as I should have. And yet, eleven years later, the comic strip is still kicking, while many of my contemporaries packed it up long ago. Over the last decade I’ve thought of Bob the Squirrel as the best comic strip that no one has ever read… not only as a bit of sarcastic banter, but to make myself feel better for the lack of “putting it all out there”.

Along the way, I have earned (yes, I say ‘earned’) countless loyal fans…fans that have been with me through this journey. I am constantly in awe knowing that I’ve earned a little bit of their time every day. People that have been supporting me through art purchases, book purchases, making comments, telling me how they can relate and just reading every single day. It is an honor.

It has NEVER been easy. I’ve thought about packing it in myself on a few occasions. Board up the doors and windows and leave it. Move on to something else before this life ends… before it’s too late to have another choice. When I feel this way, and It always seems to be around the milestone moments, I think not about the hard work that will be off my plate, but the people who won’t stop by the site to read everyday. I think about how this comic strip, this sarcastic, crabby, pain in my ass squirrel has been with me for over one-quarter of my life. How, in 2007, when I was in the darkest, most desperate place in my life, he literally SAVED my life. I didn’t tell my problems, to a counselor, to a relative… I talked to Bob. He was (and is) there for me whenever I needed him or not needed him. That’s is how REAL he is.

The worst days of my new life are still a thousand times better than the best days of my old life.

I’m going to give squirrelosophy.com another year. If it doesn’t seem to be working out, I’ll close it down. This doesn’t mean that I will be any less devoted to it than I already am. I will not intentionally derail it to close it down… if I wanted to close it down, I would obviously just close it down. I owe it to my fans and I owe it to Bob.

Here’s to another year.

Categories: art laugh life love squirrelosophy thoughts

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Where do your ideas come from?

Where do the ideas for your comic strip come from?

Rome, NY, today, lunchtime.
I pull into my driveway…get out of my car, walk to the corner to retrieve the empty trash cans and recycling bins.  Upon gathering said receptacles, I look up, about to turn and head back up the driveway.

But, not today.

When I look up, something caught the corner of my eye.  Two rapidly moving objects.  UFOs? No. My neighbor’s dogs…running on the lawn across the street as if they didn’t have a care in the world…as if, the gate to their yard had been left open.  Sure enough, it was open.  I’m not usually the one watching a dog run by… I’m usually the one running after the dog… who shall remain nameless.. LUCY.  Almost by instinct, I drop the cans and do a Usain Bolt across the road toward the happy canines.  Did I look both ways before crossing the road?  Of course I didn’t.

The family across the street has a gigantic lawn…with a small pond next to it.

Where do you think the dogs were headed?  Yup.  The pond.

Now, ordinarily, these two dogs bark and bark and bark at me through the fence.  Remembering this, I approached them with extreme caution… wishing to retain all ten of my fingers.  I pleaded with them to stay away from the pond and follow me back to the safety of their yard.  Shockingly, my powers of persuasion were in exemplary shape today and I was able to herd the AWOL canines back across the road.  One of them, I assume as a sign of gratitude for my selflessness, left a biological deposit under the cherry tree on my front lawn.  When the pipes of his Milk Bone highway were clean, he contently trotted back behind his fence.  I tied the gate shut… putting my shoe tying expertise to good use in the process.

I knocked on the front door of the neighbor’s house.  She answered.  As I began recounting the tale of my humbly heroic lunchtime crusade, a voice from the inner reaches of the house rang out…

“Is that BOB THE SQUIRREL?”

No sooner did the sound reach my ears, there, standing before me, was the mother of my neighbor…seemingly awestruck by my presence.
“I just LOVE Bob the Squirrel!  It’s the first thing I read in the paper everyday.”  I coaxed a smile out of my face and thanked her warmly.  She extended her hand out, wanting to shake the hand that draws Bob.

” I can’t believe I met Frank Page!”

My neighbor, knowing how ordinary I really am, but refusing to pop the bubble that presently was her mother said, “I’ll get his autograph for you later.”

We laughed again, I was thanked again and just like that half of my lunch was over.  A small price to pay for the safe return of two animals and being made to feel like I was Bill Watterson.

And this, my friends, is where comic strip ideas come from.

Categories: ideas life love

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John Glenn revisited…

This is a post I made on the 50th Anniversary of Astronaut John Glenn’s Mercury mission.  I thought I’d re-post if for the 51st.

today marks the 50th anniversary of john glenn’s mercury mission…America’s first manned orbital flight in space. there should be no question in anyone’s mind that john glenn is a hero. the word ‘hero’ gets tossed around an awful lot…in some ways i think it’s meaning has been diluted…but that’s another talk for another post.

John Glenn

photo courtesy of NASA

i have been a space history nut for as long as i can remember. when i was a kid i wrote to nearly all of the early pioneering astronauts. some of them actually wrote me back… sending brief notes and even photos. i realize now how truly special that was…but then i just thought that that is what those guys were supposed to do. those letters made an overweight kid who wore glasses and liked to draw feel like i was as strong as they were in their prime. it was great. unfortunately, through moving and time, a lot of those letters and photos were lost. i still have some, but not nearly what i once had…

which leads me into being stupid.

i had an autographed picture of john glenn. i got it when i was 11 years old. mr. glenn was a u.s. senator then. i just wrote him a letter and a few weeks later there was a return note and glossy black and white 8×10 of him in front of his mercury spacecraft. at the bottom there were the words “Best Regards, John Glenn” in brand new sharpie scrawl across the bottom. that pic meant the world to me…i was so excited that i went out and used my allowance to buy a picture frame for it. it was real, it was from john glenn and it was for me.

years later, in need of some cash, i took that picture out of the frame and sold it on ebay. this is one of the BIGGEST REGRETS i have in my life. there are many reasons for this regret… but the top three are:
1. i do not remember what i needed the money for.
2. i do not remember how much the picture sold for.
3. i do not understand why i would sell something that meant so much to me and was a part of the waning years of my childhood.

i sold a piece of history, my history, at an electronic garage sale. whatever i got for it couldn’t possibly be worth what i lost in mailing that image out of my life. i didn’t realize that at the time, but obviously i do now. i guess i can be thankful that i had something like that for a while anyway.

so if you have a few spare seconds today, think about mr. glenn and what he did 50 years ago. he willingly strapped himself into a tin can on top of a re-purposed intercontinental ballistic missile and was shot into space. would you have the guts to sit on top of a controlled explosion built by the lowest bidder? what he did was new. almost everything about what he did was unknown… but he did it. just like when i sold that photo…only difference is, i doubt mr. glenn has any regrets.

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