To pooped to pop.

I am currently building a retainer wall for a friend and have been too tired by the time I get back home to even think of anything funny. The retainer wall is to keep dirt from migrating down a hill side against a wooden privacy fence. This involves moving about 40 cubic yards of rock and dirt, constructing a 4 ton retainer wall laying down about 4 tons of cobble stones and then fixing the fence.
Currently it is 36 degrees and looks like snow is coming in and am not looking forward to moving all those big rocks today but if I don't do it, it won't get done by it's self.
Funny thing in doing stuff like this is when you start digging in someone else's yard you can come up with the darnedest things buried. Yesterday I uncovered a 16 foot long, 12 inch by 4 inch timber next to the fence. That thing has to weigh at least 150-200 pounds and the only way I can move it is to cut it in half.
Time to head out so until later.

The chase is on!

When my kids, Dan and Steve were little bitty guys, we used to watch all the wild animal documentaries on PBS. Since Animal Planet and Discovery were not yet on the scene all we had was stuff like Wild Kingdom. While watching those exciting chases of the lions and zebras or what other poor smuck got stuck with the roll of the dinner for the lions, I often wondered what it must have been like behind the scenes. Today's comic strip takes a look at what I think really happens in those Wild Kingdom animal chase scenes.

More squiggly lines

Today's comic strip examines commercial placement. I for one would never step that low! The idea of being paid to add some sort of logo or product in one of my comic strips is just plain wrong. But on the other hand some of my little characters do not have as lofty ideals as I do.

Whatsamatta U.

All my Italian-American slang I learned while watching the Sopranos, campy old mobster movies and old sitcom like Welcome Back Carter. The Sopranos and American Chopper television shows gave the American corporate ladder climbers lots of insight on how to succeed in business and how to "Fuggeddaboutit". The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show made the Whatsamatta U famous though I figure the only place you will find any graduates from that almamatta in this comic strip.
Today's comic strip for April 16, 2011.

Today's comic strip.

Where do the ideas come from?

I wonder if anyone stops to think what it is like to write site gags for cartoons day after day. Don't get me wrong I love the challenge. As one gets into this hobby or career one tends to develop ways to see things as other do not.
Today for instance I am working on a gag pertaining to Sam the wild life movie maker giving Percy the lion on what to do during the shooting of the scene. And there I am drawing out the concept and realize I didn't know what the new movie cameras look like so I pulled up Google images for the new movie cameras. As I am drawing the camera I decide to add Zak the bear as the guy who holds up the chalk board that goes click and pencil in his thoughts about primadonna actors and bang!! A brand new gag hits me like a bolt of lightening!
Sometimes ideas hit me while I am a sleep and wake me up at 2 or 3 am when I have to tell my wife who of course is asleep. She sort of wakes up and says,"That's nice." and goes back to sleep.
Ideas for gags usually happen when you least expect them or while you are working on something totally unrelated.
I once read that there are exercises to build up your gagability (brand new word) or the ability to build or create gags or jokes. In that same book the author said that most gag are in groups of three, gags have to have a surprise ending and since our life styles are changing with new inventions the gags usually refer to the here and now. Today a joke about a hand crank telephone would not work nor would most people under the age of 30 know what one would mean when stating that a phone was slammed down.
There are quite a few people who seem to think all the gags and jokes and books have been written but how can that be when I am not done yet?

HE MAY BE FAT AND BALD BUT..HE ALSO NEEDS A SHOWER.

Some times looks can be deceiving. Look at Colombo & Monk the television detectives. Sometimes we can look at a project and think in our mind, what a piece of cake! Only to find out weeks later that the little project was connected to other things and to fix the original problem you ended up fixing all the other attached things. Stanley Tenor is a take off in sorts of the television shows the Sopranos and the Flintstones with a dash of the Three Stooges.
A little back ground of Stanley Tenor. Ten years ago today he turned 40 years old, working as an accountant for a Mutual funds company in New York City. He was single living in the basement of his mother's home and had not ever been on a date with a woman in ten years. He never had a driver's license and had never been out of New York City. He had worked in the same department for the last five years and had sat at the same work station or cubical for the past five years. In other words Stanley was in a rut. The day after his 40th birthday he did not show up for work and no one noticed he was gone for a week. The day Stanley disappeared his mother was making him his same breakfast she had been cooking for him for the past 40 years, Oatmeal and a glass of orange juice. She placed his plate in the same spot he had sat at for the past 40 years and thought it odd that Stanley was not in his seat at 6 am like he had been for the past 40 years. I wonder where that boy is? she thought to her self and just as quickly put the thought out of her head. Later on that day she noticed his breakfast had not been touched and wondered, "I wonder," and went down to Stanley's bedroom in the basement of his mother's home.
Timidly at first she knocked on the bedroom door, no answer. "I do declare.." says his dear old mom. Slowly Stanley Tenor's mom opened the door and peered into the empty bedroom. Actually the room was quite full of Stanley Tenor's former life, a life full of regret and disappointment and rejection.
Where was Stanley, thought Stanley Tenor's mom? Where indeed had he gone. He had simply vanished leaving behind all his clothes, all the things people collect over years of waiting and waiting for something to happen and it never happens.
One might say that Stanley Tenor finally found out what so many people never do come to understand.
Before going to bed the night before Stanley looked at his tired rejected face in the mirror, slowly turned around and looked at all the things around him. "This is your life Stanley Tenor", a small voice said out of the darkness. This is my life? This is what I am? This is what I have to look forward to? This is my future? At that point Stanley started to cry, softly at first and then the tears started to flow.
Looking at his "things", his "Life" a thought began to form in his brain. Stanley had finally came to a realization that if he did not change, he would start dieing tomorrow on the first day of the rest of his life and the first day of his 41st year. What had he done in the past was gone and what he did from this moment forward was his future.
Did his job really matter? What did Stanley have to stay in this life for? No one even said good morning to him at the coffee shop where he got the same cup of coffee every morning on his way to work at the very same time each day. No one sat with him at lunch, no one invited him out for a beer after work any more and no one even remembered his birthday at work. Face it Stanley he said to the mirror, you are nothing to anyone. With that thought in mind Stanley Tenor, who lived in the basement of his mother's house and worked in a cubical in a mutual fund company on the 60th floor of a really tall building in mid town Manhattan, vanished. Stanley Tenor who used to sit for eight hours a day five days a week in front of a computer monitor in a 6X6 cubical with security cameras monitoring his every move simply disappeared.
Three days after Stanley Tenor disappeared, Stanley Tenor's mother reported to the police he was gone, two weeks after he had vanished several of his co-workers wondered if old Stanley "What's His Name" was out sick.
Where was Stanley Tenor? His mother was in a dither and could not understand why her son Stanley Tenor would leave all his things as though he had simply walked away from all the things that were important to him.
Stanley Tenor had left his former life and had gone to the air port paid for a one way ticket to Africa in cash. There was absolutely no record that Stanley Tenor had boarded that plane that night ten years ago and found himself whisking away to Africa. Why Africa, Stanley Tenor? What did you expect to find in Africa Stanley Tenor. We probably will never know what it was that Stanley Tenor expected when he started his journey into the unknown because as lots of us old guys know...Sometimes what happens once a person starts a project is a discovery of the unknown and you end up at a totally different place than where it was you thought you were going.
Stanley Tenor as I have just discovered, represents my own life as he does so many people. We start a project like I have this comic strip and over a period of time it evolves and becomes something else all together. Funny how each of my characters I have created are actually a small minute part of my own self.
Stanley Tenor has now been living in the jungles or as they now days call Rain Forests, amongst the great ape or the lowland gorilla. After a few years they trusted him so much as to make him part of their family. After a few more years Stanley Tenor former lowly accountant with a New York City mutual fund company and Stanley Tenor who used to live in the basement of his mother's house was now the family leader of a group of Lowland Gorillas. Stanley Tenor is quite happy these days and never plans on going back to New York City to live once more in his mother's basement.