It occurs to me that as much as I’ve been enjoying cartooning full-time, there are a few things I miss about working for Novell.

1) The money. I made between three and four times what I’m making now.

2) The people. I had great co-workers, and that had all sorts of benefits. Even standing around the mythical water-cooler and griping was enjoyable. I still count these people among my friends, but I don’t have much opportunity to see them anymore.

3) Did I mention the money. Mostly I miss the “lifestyle” stuff — eating out, buying shrimp and steak for grilling on the weekends, renting cool movies three or four times a week, seeing first-run films at the theater, and of course making those “impulse purchases.” I remember when I could spend $100 on something nifty and not worry about it. Sandra would scowl, and we’d budget around it, but my discretionary “impulse slush” was always there. By contrast, these days there is NO impulse spending. I know I can get a cheeseburger for less than a dollar, but even when I crave it, I know that there are better uses for that dollar. That’s half a gallon of milk, or a sesqui-dozen eggs.

Oddly, I don’t miss the actual WORK at Novell one little bit. I was good at it, and I got props, kudos, and meager fame for being good at it, but now that I’m not doing it, I’m not missing it at all.

(Note: If I ever have to chow down on the Humble Pie and head back into the I.T. industry in order to make ends meet, this Journal entry may disappear from view. It won’t look good on a resumé.)

Last night I put Patches to bed. This is Sandra’s job, and Patches knows it. He asks for me at bedtime, because I’m where “lap” happens. That’s “lap” as in “sit on Daddy’s lap and watch trailers on the web,” and it keeps him out of bed for that extra ten minutes. Well, I put him to bed, and he screamed. He called out for me — ME, not Mommy. I went in to him, hugged him, and put him back down. He eventually (10 minutes?) settled in and went to sleep.

Sandra then pointed out “You’re fast becoming his favorite person.” I refuted this — Patches still wants Mommy first when he’s sad or otherwise in need of comfort.

Sandra countered: “He plays with you. He ASKS you to play with him. He’ll play with me if I offer, but he never asks to.”

And then this morning, between strips, I wandered into the family room. Patches handed me a hamtaro and insisted that I run it around the Duplo ramparts, and I realized that Sandra was right. This little guy, and to a greater or lesser extent ALL my kids now have a measure of trust in me they never had before. They trust me with their imaginations. They want to Play With Daddy.

Dear God, I want this to last. I’ll draw ’till my hands fall off for this. I don’t care about the money, and I’m not afraid of the Humble Pie. The stuff I miss about Novell can stay missed. I just want to retain Favorite Person status. Going back to being “that big person who stays here at night” would kill me.

–Howard

I’ve figured out how long to let grits stand before serving them: as long as it takes to squeeze five oranges, and fry two eggs.

Breakfast this morning ROCKED.

–Howard

In Eric Burns’ generously complimentary Best Practices Websnark, he comments on how maintaining a buffer and working ahead is a best practice. (He also names me “king of Best Practices,” rendering my adverb-adjective combination “generously complimentary” an understatement fit for the Papacy of understatements, but let’s not mince words)

In the commentary below the blog some very legitimate questions are raised about working ahead. Can cartoonists who work ahead be spontaneous? Can they interact with their audiences? Can they be as off-the-cuff funny as JIT (Just In Time) cartoonists? Is the Best Practice of maintaining a buffer at fault for making syndicate comics so uniformly stale?

I don’t seek to answer those questions here — I’m just pointing out that they get raised, and they’re valid. I’ve been woolgathering on the subject ever since the snark aired.

This morning I realized why, for me at least, the buffer is so important for the QUALITY of the strip, as opposed to the sheer QUANTITY required for unbroken daily updates over the course of four years.

Yesterday sucked, buffer-wise. I got two strips pencilled and inked, and I WANTED to get seven. I got stuck on what should have been an easy row, but the pencilling just wouldn’t flow. I mean, I could have scratched some faces out and inked them, and had the deadline been a critical one I would have. Depressed about my failure to deliver the goods (to me, not to you… you GOT your goods last night) I went to bed hoping the morning would bring a fresh look at things.

Well, it did. I sat down this morning and a fresh look at the script resulted in pencil work that was funnier and better story-wise than anything I could have forced out yesterday. Sure, I still WISH I’d been able to do this yesterday, and I’ve got my work cut out for me TODAY if I’m going to meet my goal for buffer-building this week, but I haven’t allowed that goal to compromise the quality of the strip.

If I were pencilling, inking, coloring, and uploading one strip per day, every day, then on the days when I’m uninspired, unfunny, and non-productive, you’d get crap instead of Schlock (an ironic turn of phrase, I know). And now, I’ve got stuff to get back to. A stack of scripts awaits my freshly-perspectificated (no, it’s not a word. Sue me) pencils.

–Howard

One of the reasons I sit next to my daughter in Art Class is to keep her focused. She’s been in this class for almost a year now, and went through a rough patch where she was making trouble instead of making art, and it’s good to see her off that particular patch and making art again.

One side-effect of sitting in a room full of 10-year-olds is that I get to listen to them converse. Mostly I remain silent, smiling to myself as I remember the kinds of inanity that sprung from MY lips 27 years ago. One conversation, though, required my commentary:

Apparently a few of the kids have a friend/acquaintance at school who has undergone chemotherapy, and has lost all her hair. One of the boys was insensitive enough to remark rather honestly (I thought) “she looks kind of silly with no hair.” The girl sitting across from him started working him over with a fairly inexpert version of the “you need to be more sensitive about how others look when they can’t control how they look” lecture.

I interrupted her without looking up from my artwork: “people with no hair DO look kind of silly.”

I didn’t say anything else, and I never looked up. The kids giggled, apparently amused and bemused at the thought that a person with a particular trait could make fun of that trait, and with completely deadpan delivery, no less, and the conversation veered off in other directions.

Hopefully they learn to do it themselves — being able to laugh at yourself allows you not so much to deflect scorn and criticism as to negate its effect altogether. Cruel little 10-year-olds stop making fun of you when they find out that A) you’re better at it than they are, and B) it doesn’t bother you. I hope their bald friend learns it too. She’s got a tougher row to hoe than most. Being a bald, fifth-grade girl… I shudder at the thought.

–Howard