Three Oldies But Goodies (Annotated)

I think these will be the last of my old cartoons that I’m going to post.

It’s been fun looking back at my old work. It’s been fun comparing my old stuff to my new stuff. I think I’ve learned a little about what areas I need to buckle down and pay more attention to.

But I think now—after today that is!—I need to stop looking back to the past and start concentrating on what’s happening in the present and what’s up for the future. (At the end of today’s post I’m going to have a little note about the present . . .)

Okay. On to the old cartoons I still like.

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One time a friend of mine named Jerry and I decided to throw a party. For various reasons we used an apartment that belonged to two women we knew. As Jerry and I spent the day getting stuff to eat and drink, re-arranging furniture, disconnecting and re-wiring stereos and televisions and making sure that the tape of “An American Werewolf in London” that we’d rented worked, the two women spent the whole afternoon trying on every combination of every piece of clothing that they owned or could borrow and asking us if they looked okay and then ignoring anything we said and deciding for themselves that nothing they owned or could borrow made them look good. This cartoon was a tribute to that afternoon:

This is a real woman named Heidi, and she said this about one of her strange dates. I just documented the moment for history:




IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The following cartoon uses the name ‘Susan.’ I picked the name randomly. This cartoon is NOT in any way a commentary of any kind on any of the women I know named Susan. All the women named Susan that I know are wonderful, warm, sensitive and cool women:

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This morning I had a fifteen or twenty minute opening in my morning to-do stuff, and I decided to put the time to good use by doing a quick sketch. This is what I came up with:

Now, this week I’ve been open about how I like some aspects of my old work better than my new work. But in the past the images I’ve made have taken big chunks of time. Putting them together has been work. It’s only very recently that I’ve been able to off-the-cuff do something like this under a little time pressure. And I’m pretty happy with this.

I’m trying to get better at a lot of stuff. (Most importantly I’m trying to be less crazy.) However, there are some things I’m happy with. Writing is going well. And I’m happy with my sketching.

I just wanted to end the week with a smile, rather than worrying about the past.