Got little to nothing accomplished yesterday, and need some time to myself, so I played hooky from work today. (Technically, I'm resting my back, because it is bugging me a bit, but I'm resting it by doing stuff at home, instead of sitting around at work. Anyway, you get the idea.)

Laurie has officially decided that she's going to try to put up with the place for one year, as long as we spend that year actively working towards going somewhere else. So I can finally stop fretting about that for a while and concentrate on getting some stuff done ... as well as unpacking the stuff we need to have out to be comfortable here for a year.

Since I was on an errand in the neighborhood of the Starbucks where I used to work, I went in while I was over there and got myself a drink. Part of it was because I wanted the drink, but part of it was also to remind myself that at least I didn't have to be there at 5:00 a.m. this morning ... that made me feel a bit better. :)

All in all, it's been a nice mental health day so far ... now if you'll pardon me, I've got to go draw some SJ strips so there will be one, say, tomorrow! :)

Catcha later. :)

-The Gneech

While it's a truism that having expensive art materials can't make you a good artist, it's also true that having cruddy materials can certainly make you a bad one. Case in point, I haven't been able to find any of my bristol of choice lately ... there's just a big, empty slot at the art store where it normally sits.

So instead, I have to use an inferior type ... and I hate, hate, HATE it! It gets grooves from the pencil point, making erasing largely a pointless endeavor, and there's so much "tooth" in the paper that ink just goes GLOOOORRRRP into a big, fuzzy blur of a line. And this is supposedly 2-ply smooth bristol!

The weird thing about it is, that both types are made by the same company; they are both Strathmore 100 lb. smooth bristol. But the good stuff has a brown cover, and the crud has a yellow cover; in terms of marketing, that's the only difference that I can see.

Oh well. The net result of all this is that it took me all day to do SJ for the rest of the week, because I had to clean up the mess caused by the cruddy bristol. So here's a piece of free advice to all would-be cartoonists out there: GET GOOD PAPER! DON'T USE THE CHEAP CRAP!

Catcha later. :)

-The Gneech