Oh The Distance Is Not Doable

As soon as my daughter realized she could see her own face in the preview window when we Facetime’d, it was all over. I get maybe a half an answer to, “What did you do at school today?” before she just starts mugging for herself and making animal sounds. Eventually I stopped fighting it and realized if I wanted quality time with my kid while I was on the road, THIS was going to be it.

One of the hardest things about traveling for conventions is leaving my family behind. Skype and Facetime make it somewhat easier, but it’s still a drag. I have some friends famous/popular enough to get invited out to conventions as guests and since most if not all of their costs are covered, they often get to bring their families. I think when Kiddo is a bit older, I’d like to take her to a summer convention. Let her see the weirdness of her daddy’s job first hand. Maybe she can run my credit cards for me or grab the right sized t-shirts. Or maybe she can stand in line for 6 hours to get me a $45 hotdog while I stand in a different line for 6 hours to get a $45 coffee. Perhaps I’ll just put up a sign that says, “Cute kid will draw you a picture for $10.” It would probably be the most profitable con I ever did.

Harry Potter fans: Check out my wife’s new Wizard Duel necklace! She’s also got a Kissing Pacman necklace and Game Of Thrones house necklaces for House Targaryen, House Stark and House Lannister.

COMMENTERS: Has Skype/Facetime/Video chat/etc changed your life at all? Do you have any particularly clever uses for it? Sometimes I get my cartoonists friends on Skype and just leave it running while we’re both working. It’s almost like having a co-worker. Weird.

The Bell Curve

Having a small child is like having an iPod with a very short playlist. Like 3 items are on this list AT MOST for MONTHS at a time. Also, that little repeat loopy arrow button is checked. It’s checked as hell. There are weeks when you would kill for all 3 items to be in random rotation on the playlist, but instead it’s just the 1 and the iPod has nearly infinite batteries and is able to achieve optimum volume at all times. For several months now, the Frozen soundtrack has been the ONLY item on the playlist that is a metaphor that is my human daughter child.

Luckily, the Frozen soundtrack is something I enjoy (in relative moderation… as I have recently learned). My daughter’s singing is also something that I enjoy. My daughter enjoying things and expressing her enjoyment of those things is ALSO something I enjoy. This confluence of enjoyable things sounds like it would leave me in a state of pure elation at all waking hours of the day. That is… often not the case.

The honesty in the comic above is that just when I think I can’t take any more of her belting “For The First Time In Forever” it loops back around from earsplitting and annoying to incredibly cute and heart warming. Regardless of where I happen to fall on the curve at any given time, I make sure to tell Kiddo that I like her singing. Luckily she seems to have inherited the old man’s sense of pitch, so her singing is LOUD but in tune. Another thing I’ve noticed is that she’s inherited my gift/curse for voice mimicry. I cannot sing a song without doing the original artists inflections, accents, tone, etc. She appears to be the same way, and it honestly makes me super proud. Not that this is some amazing gift, but just that it further illustrates that pieces of me are alive and running around inside of her brain.

COMMENTERS: What do you kids have on repeat ad infinitum? What did you have on repeat as a kid?

Full Grown Froze Bros

Bro, do you even Frozen? I’m really getting sick of all these “Fake Frozen Kids” wearing all the Frozen shirts and buying up all the Frozen dolls and dressing up in Elsa costumes and POSING like real diehard ~~Frozeholes~~ Brozen* (what REAL, ADULT Frozen fans call ourselves) and just clogging up the genuine fandom with their poser bullshit.

CONVENTION TIME! Emerald City Comicon in Seattle (March 28-30, 2014) with David Willis in the webcomics section right next to Cyanide & Happiness.

My first ever solo ECCC panel: It will be all about The Experiment and I need BUTTS IN SEATS! SEATBUTTS! You GOTTA COME to this panel. I am also doing a live drawing panel with my Cyanide & Happiness friends. More info on both panels HERE.

My wife made a Kissing Pacman and Ms. Pacman necklace. Also available in double Pacmens or Pacladies configurations. She’s also updated her Game Of Thrones house necklaces to include House Targaryen (in addition to House Stark and House Lannister).

COMMENTERS: What “thing(s) made for kids” do you genuinely enjoy more than adults are meant to?

[*Thank you, David, for reminding me.]

You And I’ll Just Use A Little Patience

With this comic, I might be foretelling my own future since I will be at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle (March 28-30, 2014) with my good friend David Willis and I don’t expect we’ll actually get any work done since we’ll just be holding hands and singing “Let It Go” into each other’s faces all weekend. Assuming we take a couple of brakes to rehydrate and let our pipes rest (yes PIPES… shut up), we’ll be in the webcomics section right next to Cyanide & Happiness.

Also I will be putting on my first ever solo comicon panel! It will be all about The Experiment, and I am SUPER excited. I did a version of this talk at Bumbershoot this year and it went over really well, but in order for it to be successful I need BUTTS IN SEATS! SEATBUTTS! If you’re coming to the con, Seattle Fancy Bastards, you GOTTA COME to this panel. I am also doing a live drawing panel with my Cyanide & Happiness friends. More info on both panels HERE.

Just in tine for Valentimes, my wife made a Kissing Pacman and Ms. Pacman necklace. She would also be happy to make it in double Pacmens or Pacladies configurations. She’s also updated her Game Of Thrones house necklaces to include House Targaryen (in addition to House Stark and House Lannister).

COMMENTERS: When are you the least patient? When others are freaking out with impatience, when are you the only one keeping their cool?

Use Your Environment

I usually watch movies on my iPad when on an airplane, and I would always get a sore neck trying to stare down at an uncomfortable angle when the iPad was sitting on the tray. I eventually devised a system (not unlike the one portrayed in the comic above) that involved a piece of string, a… squeezy drawstring thing(?) and a folding wire book stand [see it in action HERE]. Depending on the type of plane I’m on, I can usually toss this contraption on the seat in front of me without the seat’s occupant noticing.

Above all else it keeps me somewhat comfortable in what is essentially the most uncomfortable place in (or above) the world, and prevent me from looking like the twisted, contorted, misshapen business golem next to me who’s trying to make all the colors pretty on a very important spreadsheet with the laptop sitting on his sternum, the screen resting flat on the tray and his elbows angled up at his ears with his deformed, birdlike talons pecking away at the keys of his… probably a Lenovo or a Fujitsu or some other corporate issued business bullshit laptop.

COMMENTERS: How do you maximize your travel comfort, or rather minimize your travel misery (since that’s really the best you can hope for)? Do you go full PJ’s and slippers? I bet you do. You totally do.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW!!!

1) I will be at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle (March 28-30, 2014) with my good friend David Willis and I will be putting on my first ever solo comicon panel!

It will be all about The Experiment, and I am SUPER excited. I did a version of this talk at Bumbershoot this year and it went over really well, but in order for it to be successful I need BUTTS IN SEATS! SEATBUTTS! If you’re coming to the con, Seattle Fancy Bastards, you GOTTA COME to this panel. I am also doing a live drawing panel with my Cyanide & Happiness friends. More info on both panels HERE.

2) Just in tine for Valentimes, my wife made a Kissing Pacman and Ms. Pacman necklace. She would also be happy to make it in double Pacmens or Pacladies configurations.

She’s also updated her Game Of Thrones house necklaces to include House Targaryen (in addition to House Stark and House Lannister).

3) Part 3 of an interview I did with The Anglerfish is up now! Here’s their Tumblr and their website.