The Schlock buffer has slid below 10 again… clear down to 7, in fact, but I’ve actually made some critical progress. See, over the weekend my usual image editor, LView Pro, went wonky on me. The brush tool would no longer paint. While I’m relatively sure this is the sort of thing that can be resolved with a simple re-install, the discs weren’t handy, and I figured I was pretty close to knowing Photoshop well enough to be able to do Schlock coloring with it.

So I killed several hours on the learning curve, and finally reached the point where I could do everything in Photoshop I used to do in LView pro. Then I cranked out a week’s worth of updates, and Monday’s comic is the first of those.

Photoshop is not only more powerful (I knew this), but it’s also more fun to use. Time permitting, you’ll start seeing some slightly fancier coloring in future strips. But not on Monday’s strip. Or Tuesday’s. In fact, I don’t think you’ll see much special until, oh, Saturday.

That said, LView pro appears to be a better tool for reducing the images for the web. I’m not sure why this is, but after going through all the bicubic and bilinear reduction options in Photoshop, I couldn’t get small Schlock strips as readable or as clean as I could with LView Pro. That’s okay. The wonkyness is in the brush, not the resizing of images.

Schlocktoberfest is completely colored now. I’m glad to have it behind me, and I’m ready to charge ahead with the next chapter in the story.

–Howard

My Kimmel tape arrived from jmaynard. I would have watched it last night, but I was still plowing through the Season Four CSI DVDs I borrowed from chalain.

If it weren’t for my friends, I don’t think I’d get any entertainment at all.

Speaking of free entertainment, some of you may recall my railing at Pete a while back. Whether or not MY griping had anything to do with it (and I’m suspecting “not”), Sluggy has been wonderful lately. It’s been updating regularly, and the updates have been BIG. Verrry nice. Okay, there was filler yesterday, and that bugged me as much as ever, but with all the griping I did before I figured it was only fair for me to say how much happier I’ve been.

Keep it up, Pete.

–Howard

Titles really are arbitrary things.

When Rick and I founded Sanctus Records, we were just business partners. When we incorporated, I became CHIEF OF OPERATIONS and he was CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER. It was arbitrary, though. We each knew what work needed to be done, and we did it. At the time I was pretty excited, however, to be able to print up a business card that had me listed as the Chief of Operations of a record label.

At about the same time, Sandra and I incorporated so that our business ventures could be separated from our family finances. Out of necessity one of us “had” to be the CEO. We picked me. She became the Chief Financial Officer. Again, arbitrary titles — I did what I did, she did what she did, and for all the plumage on the business cards it was still just the two of us.

At Novell in 2001 I was doing most of the planning for, and advising on all the key decisions pertaining to a product line worth more than 100 million dollars. My title was “Product Manager.” Eventually I was making most of the decisions myself, and leading a team that was doing all the planning and advising. By then I was a “Product Line Manager.” When we held calls with analysts our Analyst Relations team kept introducing me as a Director. This always amused me, while boosting my ego at the same time.

For a little while I coveted that title, “Director.” It really wasn’t that much of a change in job description from what I was already doing, but in retrospect that title also carried with it some implicit commitment to Novell that a part-time cartoonist is unlikely to make. Being promoted to Director would have been a Bad Thing for me, because arbitrary though the title was for most folks, the people in Human Resources put lots and lots of stock by things like titles. Of course, when I left there were a number of people who thought I already WAS a director. Arbitrary.

I’ve had business cards for my cartooning business for quite a while. They do NOT say “Howard Tayler, CEO of The Tayler Corporation.” If I print up cards for Sandra they won’t say “Chief Financial Officer.” They’ll say “Business Manager,” or maybe something clever like “High Priestess Responsible For The Miracle Of Turning Jokes Into Food And Rent.” Any cards we print will be designed not to satisfy vanity, but to communicate something important. Like “I can write things that will make you laugh,” or “I’m the one to talk to if you want to buy a slice of Howard’s time.”

Could I be a “real” CEO? Absolutely. I might not have the chops to run a billion-dollar corporate empire, but I KNOW I can run something 10% that size. And I know I don’t want to. I mean, I suppose I’ll go ahead and take the job if Schlock Mercenary becomes a hundred-million-dollar business, but if you’re shopping around for an executive to lead your $30 million startup company, I’m NOT your guy.

I’m a cartoonist. Sure, sure… I’m also a husband, a father, a Sunday-school teacher, and a writer… but to the world I am a CARTOONIST. I’m going to keep telling myself that, too. I fully intend to feed my family WITHOUT having to adopt a title that has the words “manager,” “director,” “chief,” or “vice” in it.

Toast is a magical food for me.

I walk into the kitchen thinking “hmmm… I’m hungry.” A quick scan of instant comestibles reveals little — our budgets are a little tighter than they used to be. Then I see the loaf of bread. Toast is a favorite of mine, so I drop a slice of bread into the toaster, depress the plunger, and turn back toward the rest of the kitchen.

At this point my expectations are heightened. My stomach KNOWS that my brain has made a meal decision, and anticipatorially begins doing those stomachy things it does to get ready for food — even if that food is just going to be a snack. Meanwhile, my brain gets those stomachy signals and thinks “hmm… somebody thinks it’s mealtime. We need REAL food.”

So I begin digging through cupboards again. Fast-food options are few and far between, and the pressing signals from my belly only serve to increase the sense of urgency. I root around, search, scour, and then see the loaf of bread. At this point I’ve forgotten about putting the toast in, so I head over to the bread loaf, and right about the time I’m picking it up, POP! It’s TOAST!

“Oh, look! TOAST!”

It’s magical.

The frightening thing is that this happens almost DAILY to me. Even knowing I do it, it still happens. Just this evening I depressed the plunger, scraped a plate of leftover pork-and-beans into my cake-hole, and as I was thinking “gee… this needs a second course. Something light, like maybe–” POP!

“Oh, look! TOAST!” Right there when I need it.

I expect toast will only become more magical as I grow older and this attention-deficit absent-mindedness morphs into full-blown senility. Then again, I may end up starving to death standing next to the magical toaster because I’ve forgotten that bread and depress-the-plunger are required spell components.

–Howard