Blógünder Schlock

I skipped out on Penguicon this year (it’s my favorite out-of-state convention), and it’s probably a good thing. All of Tuesday night was spent making trips to the bathroom to shout at the porcelain, and while this sort of thing usually kills a day or two, I was still running a fever and losing precious sleep Friday night, and stumbling around all achey like a zombie on a no-brains diet on Saturday.

Penguiconners, I missed you this weekend, and for this you should be thankful. Whatever I’ve got, you don’t want.

I colored two pages of Bonus Story before falling ill, and then, in spite of the illin’ an’ chillin’, I actually managed to bang out a week of comics on Friday and Saturday. They’ll probably need touch-ups when Smart Howard checks back in for work Monday, but most of the heavy lifting is done.

I know, I know… the buffer is supposed to give me time off for sickness, but with book deadlines crushing me, and conventions coming in May (Hello, Leprecon!) I really don’t want to lose a week just because the new entrees from Panda Express thought so much of themselves they demanded I taste them twice.

When I called my friend Bob Defendi to let him know I couldn’t join his game Wednesday night, I told him I probably wouldn’t be eating at Panda for a looong time to come. “The taste of chinese food on the way back up is one of those memories that just won’t let go,” I said. Bob told me that would be a great first line for a book. It made me laugh, but laughing still hurt a lot.

Sorry for the huge quantities of “Too Much Information.” I’m sure you’ll agree (to complete the song lyric in the title of this post,) “these are the things we can do without.”

It’s always hard to leave a convention, and Ad Astra was no exception. Sunday seemed very, very short, especially by comparison to Saturday. I only had three events, and at the end of the third one (my signing session in the Dealers’ Room) Sandra and I were supposed to hook a cab to the airport.

The first of my events was a weird one: I was to do a reading from some of my work. I decided to read the “Tub of Happiness” bonus story, occasionally (but only occasionally) showing the pictures. I suppose the fact that this succeeded marks my humor as verbal rather than visual. You just have to read the text right, and make a few funny faces.

This was followed by the “Art of Comedy” panel, in which several of us discussed how we be funny. I love having this discussion at conventions, especially when there is a good selection of other humorists present, as was the case at Ad Astra.

Interestingly, one of the anecdotes I shared as an example of the “wrong joke for the audience” came back to haunt me just yesterday. Word got back to one of my friends that I’d told a story about something that happened at Dragons Keep, and he asked me to tell the story again. Unfortunately, the story’s point was about taking care not to unduly offend your audience, and the audience at the time included some of the very people offended during the original event. Ah irony, when shall I escape your salty, metallic clutches?

That last hour of Ad Astra was super hectic. We were all packed except for a few leftover unsold items, so it should have been pretty simple… except that a few of the people who discovered my work during the convention realized I was leaving sooner than they thought, and I was swamped with book-signing right up until the end.

It’s a nice problem to have.

EDIT: in case you missed it, the original “filler strip” for April 1st, 2008 is thumbnailed here…

I went seven years, nine months, and twenty-one days without missing a strip. That’s not such a bad run. But I guess with all the convention travel, I neglected to finish the work on today’s installment. I’ve forgotten to upload before, but until now I’ve not forgotten to color.

I would have caught that if I hadn’t been so very, very tired all day.

Anyway, I’m still half-asleep, but I figure you fine folks will forgive an indulgence. I threw together a placeholder image and put it up (there’s a first time for everything) and I’m headed for bed. Please be patient, you’ll get the April 1st installment soon enough.

In fact, it’s probably already there. I mean, by the time you’ve finished reading this blog post, the animation should have cycled through to your precious Schlock Fix.

Happy All Fools’ Day.

I’m never going to be able to convince any of you that this really happened.

First… my cul-de-sac is full of snow. The plow came by and pushed the big piles out, but the whole street-surface is snowpack. (In these conditions I will regularly back out of my driveway (which is opposite the cul-de-sac entrance) by zipping into the slick in reverse, cutting the wheel hard, and doing a moving 180.)

Second: yesterday there were no cars parked along the curb in the cul-de-sac.

Third: You’re not going to believe this, but the UPS guy came by yesterday, wheeling into the cul-de-sac at about 20mph. He cut his wheels hard, gunned the engine, and did a three-quarter donut around the edge of the cul-de-sac, powersliding his rear wheels through the one remaining snow-plow-pile.

Now facing back out of the cul-de-sac (and still moving at a good clip) he drove away WITHOUT DELIVERING PACKAGES.

From a response to a comment today in her Live Journal:

The necessity of eating is annoying. I wish we could just choose not to eat except for special fun occasions when there are cookies.

–Sandra Tayler

I love this woman.

While Jeph Jacques, Rich Stevens, and I have never been on the same panel of cosplay judges, I think Randy Milholland has captured the outcome of such an event with this installment of Something Positive.

Oh, dear. Just thinking about this strip has brought back some… um… touching memories.

I got an e-mail from a fan
who complained that my rhymes didn’t scan
I clicked on “Reply”
and told him “I try
to get as much information into that last line as I possibly can.”

My brother Randy designed a neat software tool that will analyze your interests and build your dream-home for you.

Mine has a tower and a griffon-roost.

1997. The term “weblog” is coined. Netscape is the browser of choice for 72% of users. Titanic crashes into theaters. And David Willis posts his first “Roomies!” comic.

It’s now called a blog. Netscape hit an iceberg of its own. And we still love “Shortpacked!” — the popular daily comic that arose from Willis’ first comic production.

On the Web, ten years of regularly-updated entertainment is a significant achievement that precious few can boast. Blank Label Comics is proud to salute David Willis as he celebrates his tenth anniversary in webcomics.

To help celebrate, here’s a Top 10 List of the all-time favorite storylines year-by-year from David Willis:

• 1997: “Obligatory Flashback Sequence”
• 1998: “Sexuality and the Modern Joyce”
• 1999: “Beer Necessities/No Regrets”
• 2000: “Puppy”
• 2001: “Guess Who’s Coming to Denver”
• 2002: “Round Two”
• 2003: “The Best I Could Do”
• 2004: “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
• 2005: “Mrs. Greg Killmaster”
• 2006: “The Drama Tag”

Congratulations, David!

By Sandra Tayler

There is a story of a couple who had their car towed to a mechanic because the engine had seized up. The mechanic asked the husband when he’d last put oil into the car. The husband said that his wife put oil into the car. The mechanic then went to the wife. She assured him that her husband put oil into the car. Thus the car died for lack of oil.

This story is extremely pertinent today. Howard and I both assumed that renewing the schlockmercenary.com domain name was taken care of. The registrar company knew that it wasn’t, but all of their contact information was 7 years out-of-date, because the last time we renewed we paid for 7 years.

Fortunately our domain registrar has a policy of holding on to accounts for 30 days past the end of registration. I made a phone call this morning and paid up to renew. I’ve updated all the contact information and I’ve marked in red on my calendar when I need to be thinking about renewal again. It won’t happen again.

Many thanks to the fan who posted a link to the hard IP address so that people could still find the comic. Even more thanks to the fans who emailed to make sure we knew something was wrong. And to the couple of fans who actually called on the phone to offer help, thank you very much. We didn’t need the help this time, but it warms my heart to know that there are folks out there who care so much.