It was hard figuring out what part of this conversation to put into comic form. Something about discussing my own mortality really tickled me. I sent the form back to HR and said “Thanks for bringing this to my attention” and the HR lady responded “Just glad I haven’t needed to use it!” I guess we all have a sense of humor about death. Probably because it’s really scary.

Twice in the past month, I’ve heard people say “I only want to live to be 70 (or 80 or whatever)” and I questioned it both times. Me? I’ll go as long as I can. Maybe that’s an immature thing to say. We’re supposed to come to terms with our own mortality. After all, that mortality rate is up to 100% these days. Anyway, my argument is this - Living is basically all I do. It’s pretty awesome, and I don’t see why I should hope to hit 75 or whatever and then call it quits. Let’s be a little more ambitious, people! We can at least shoot for 100. Yoda made it to 900 and he seemed alright.

That being said, I won’t be disappointed if I don’t make it to the century mark.

I’ll be dead after all.

In my salad days, I had little interest in sports. I played in my fair share of junior leagues - baseball, basketball, tennis, golf - but one by one, they fell by the wayside and were replaced with more sedentary hobbies - trombone, guitar, piano, video games, primitive internet videos. During my college years, however, an amazing transformation took place. I rediscovered sports. Not by means of participation (unless you count intramural kickball, which I do), but from a spectator’s point of view. I’m not really sure what triggered it. Maybe it was my college basketball team’s exciting drive to the final four my freshman year, maybe I attached myself to Chicago sports to get the occasional scent of home while I adjusted to a new city, or maybe some kind of boy instinct finally clicked on.

Whatever it was, it eventually led me to start dabbling in fantasy sports. I’ve always been a big fan of games, and I once heard someone describe fantasy sports as “Dungeons and Dragons for Jocks”. That seemed like a line I was willing to walk, and later on that path would lead me to playing more sports and more Dungeons and Dragons. But as far as fantasy sports go, a handy rule of thumb I discovered is that no one cares about your fantasy team unless they are in your league or they are, in fact, you. I may have bent this rule in today’s comic, and I apologize if you find the subject tiring, but hopefully I’ve dug a little deeper than how well my teams are doing. You also may be surprised to discover that there is such a thing as fantasy golf and fantasy celebrity.

In case you’re not familiar with fantasy celebrity, as I understand it, you pick a number of celebrities and then you get points based on how many headlines, magazine covers, entertainment show pieces, etc. are done about them. I haven’t actually played, but if an opportunity arose, I’d give it a shot. It basically comes down to this - I like games. Also, if “pigs” is an option, you better believe they’ll be on my team.

Lastly, as far as flu pandemics go. I’ve lived through a few at this point. Swine flu doesn’t concern me too much. It sounds pretty nasty if you are unfortunate enough to get it, but it also sounds like there are vaccines and awareness is pretty high. My only worry at this point is that one day there will be an outbreak of something that isn’t so easily controlled and I will not pay any attention. The media has desensitized me toward pandemics.

I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by this bird. I’ve seen him a handful of times hanging out on our balcony. He’ll sit there for ten or twenty minutes, then go on his way, but he’s been back a few times. I’m hoping he wants to hang out all summer. It’s good to see a non-pigeon bird in the city sometimes. James is welcome on our balcony any time. As long as he doesn’t poop too much. Then he has to start paying rent.

So here’s the comic I promised. I drew this by candle light last night. I’ve been reading some Jeffrey Brown comics lately and I decided to try out this cross hatch shading style he uses for night time scenes. I think I like it better when he does it.

I forgot to mention the strangest part of the whole power outage fiasco. Around 2:30am, the electrician called me back. Naturally, I ignored this call. I was in bed. After he called back three more times, however, I decided to see what’s up. Here’s what I can remember of the conversation.

Me: Hello?
Him: Hi, this is ComEd.
Me: Okay.
Him: Your meter got turned off?
Me: Yeah.
Him: We need to get in the electric closet to turn it back on.
Me: Right.
Him: Is it open?
Me: I don’t think… I mean… I haven’t heard anything since… you were here.
Him: But we need to get in.
Me: To the building?
Him: Huh?
Me: Do you need me to let you in the front door?
Him: No, we need to get in the closet.
Me: It’s locked.
Him: Can you unlock it?
Me: No, the maintainence guy has the key.
Him: Is he there?
Me: No, he’s offsite. He’ll be back in the morning.
Him: Oh, we’ll have to come in the morning.
Me: Yes…

I thought we had established this earlier in the night after we decided we couldn’t force open the closet door with a screwdriver. Which, by the way, I still think was awesome. Also, when we agreed he should come back in the morning. This conversation drained what was left in my phone’s battery which was also the only object in the apartment that still operated as an alarm clock. I still woke up on time, luckily. I thought maybe the phone call was a dream, because it was so stupid, but I checked my phone logs and sure enough, there were four calls at 2:30am and a voicemail.

Anyway, the power came back and I made cookies today. Hooray.

In any case, the lack of power made it difficult to scan and ink the comic.  I diverted the last of my laptop’s battery power toward charging my phone so we could call the various people that would eventually get the power back on around 8am this morning.  So the story has a happy ending.  Power just in time for me to make some coffee before work.  Coffee I intend on enjoying right now.  So, I’ll probably post a new comic tonight.  It’s hilarious.  I assure you of that.

I was flipping through my archives and I got a kick out of the old journal comics, so I decided to do another one. I dunno if I’ll keep up any sort of schedule, but this one was fun. Plus, it’s baseball season again, and I like drawing while I watch the White Sox. It’s like milk and cookies for me. They go together.

Anyway, I hope y’all are doing well. Take care!

So, my little break from before didn’t really lead to me getting any drawing done this weekend. I simply have not felt like drawing the past week or two. So I’m giving myself some more time off to figure out what I want to do. I’ve been bouncing around an idea for a longer form story in my head for a while, I’m just not sure if I can execute it properly. This comic is fun, too. I just don’t know. Maybe my life isn’t structured in a way to allow me to draw this much. Anyways, I’m gonna go read and try to figure out what to do next. Thank you for reading thus far. I’ll keep you all updated as to what my next move is.

I apologize that I had to break this one out of my archive today. I’ve been pretty busy at work lately, slightly longer hours than usual and a lot more work. I’m not complaining, but my brain has been kind of pooped lately. Anyways, I’m giving myself today off to recharge the batteries and hopefully I’ll get some drawing done this weekend and get everything back on track.

This was comic 15 of a short series I never fully published. I was drawing it basically to see if I could draw three comics a week and to try and flesh out some ideas. The characters themselves didn’t really stick, but eventually evolved into Mike and Emily whom we are all familiar with today. I always liked this exchange, though. I think I took it from an actual conversation my roommate, Mike, and I had. We’re so crazy!

Here’s a bit of history on economic depressions…

If you’re actually interested in the meltdown of the global economy, I can direct you to some trustworthy sources of information. I’ve been doing a bit of research on the topic, hence, this story arc.

Perhaps you don’t care. That is a-okay. Truth be told, my life has not changed much in the last year. I hope you are doing well, too. If you’re looking for a fun escape from terrifying reality - other than comics - I can direct you here.