I never attended a “swingers” party, as we in the rock and roll business call that “gigging.” I have heard of putting your car keys in a pile and you pull out a set and get that guy’s wife/girlfriend. Rather sexist if you ask me. I ended up with our lead guitarist’s left overs most weekends. What is it with girls and lead guitarists? Didn’t matter, I just enjoyed myself. The drummer got what was left over from me, so he had that going for him. 😉
Drawing a spit-take is not all that easy… having never done one before that is. Then the damn lines get covered up by Lorraine. I wanted to leave her out, but hey, it’s Lorraine… Getting Jeff’s cheeks puffed up while maintaining “his look” was a bit of a challenge too. Then I went all out and showed his eyes. Hard to show him “wide-eyed” most of the time with those golden locks in his face. And he spilled his beer, which turned out rather “thick” too…
Today’s title is pulled from Boston’s second effort “Don’t Look Back” from 1978. Most of the songs on side 2 of the vinyl release (records for you youngsters) were put there by guitarist and group leader Tom Scholz as he was not pleased with them. Boston had been put under a lot of pressure to release a second album as their first album is to date still the best selling debut album of all time. So, naturally the record company wanted a follow-up. Scholz is infamous for being a perfectionist and apparently a grand pain in the ass. He got pressure from fellow band mates to get the album done and so he pushed the songs he didn’t like to side 2. By the time Boston released their third album in 1986, Scholz had gotten rid of most of the group save lead singer Brad Delp. I bought Boston’s fourth album in 1994 (I guess 8 years is what it takes for Scholz to produce an album) and gave up on them after that as the “magic” was gone.
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Discussion (19) ¬
Swinging always sounds like fun when you’re talking about other people’s wives. I just have a hard time sharing. 🙂
Yeah, swing parties were not big for my generation. They were more for the folks from the 60s who had now gotten married, gotten jobs and become part of the “system” so to rebel, the had these sex parties. The 60s folks were all about “free” sex, or love, and commune style living was very popular. With that gone by the 70s, these “hippies” had to do something with their time, so “Dude” ranches and the like popped up so these folks could go have their kicks in private now.
Not my bag. Now, 3 or 4 couples in the locker room showers was my generation. We just didn’t swap partners (as much). Slippery when wet for sure…
🙂
I couldn’t do a swingers party. I’d probably end up with Saggy Maggie or someone – and yeah, I’d have a hard time sharing as well 🙂
Yes, your “partner” had to be willing to get involved in one of these parties or it would be quite the embarrassment all around. You’d end up sitting in the corner all by yourself watching others “do it” and thus this is why they created porno movies.
I’m with you, sharing my wife is not bag. 😉
Gigging? No wonder Quagmire always says Giggety Giggety Giggety.
Quagmire would be from the 60s for sure with his sexual drive! 🙂
We musicians use the term “gigging” but apparently it is also some sort of fishing term too? Not sure as I have never fished. Fishing is like hunting sober… why bother.
🙂
Tom Scholz is truly an inspirations to us multi-instrumentalists
RIP Tom Scholz
Not sure if you meant the RIP for Tom’s career or not… but it was lead singer Brad Delp that passed away in 2007.
Scholz single-handily did more for the home recording industry then any other person I can thing of short of Les Paul’s inventing multi-track recording. EVERYONE, including yours truly, bought a 4 or 8 track reel multi-sync recorder to record their bands with. TEAC and TASCAM made a ton thanks to Boston’s first album being recorded almost entirely in Scholz’s basement. The man is genius.
But as a creative genius, Tom was also a perfectionist and took that part too far. Boston lost millions by not cranking out the tunes in an even fashion (an album a year was pretty much the pace back then). Tom ruled the recording sessions and ticked off the other players (who were merely there for live gigs, as Scholz dominated the recording of the other instruments). Genius or not, Scholz was not a team player and that was his ultimate “demise” in the music industry.
But as we’re finding out via Bud, the music industry is not all that it is cracked up to be.
🙂
Oh, man, I’d want to have those five minutes back if I were Jeff.
Yes, let me finish my sandwich before making big announcements like that! 🙂
yeah, I never did a spit-take either… but now I want to give it a shot!
Challenged excepted! I’ll be looking for it in the “pages” of Z&F! I find keeping true to the characters “look” was the hardest thing. I could draw puffy cheeks and pointy lips, but it didn’t look like Jeff for a long time. So I cheated a tad and showed his eyes, hoping to distract from his look even more.
Seems to work, and thinking about your parents having sex isn’t bad enough, but thinking about them SWAPPING partners is even more shocking.
🙂
wow…. there is something that I would never want to learn about my folks.
Yeah, parents having sex is one of those things you just NEVER want to think about… ever.
🙂
Byron — that’s a funny kind of beer glass, isn’t that the kind they use for champagne cocktails? Or maybe he only thinks its beer because the family is so rich they drink their “beer” out of “big bottles” haha!
I am not sure what style that is called, but here is a picture of it…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/59833804@N00/1528922252
We used those in college all the time… you felt like Knights of the Round table or something drinking out of those glasses. I may not have captured the total feel of this glass, but they are cool for beer!
Spit take was fine, but I have a suggestion on the spilt beer.
When you spill beer on a counter, what does it look like? I know you wanted to show the amber color of the beer, but in truth it just looks wet. It’s dark, with some reflections where it catches specific light sources. If you really want to show the beer color, you can hint at it by making your amber color on a separate layer from the bar top, and then multiplying it. This will hint at the color of the beer, and give you the darker look you need. Also, since you are looking through a clear, refractive substance, you are much more likely to have light edges than shadowed. (Though I’d probably stay away from this entirely since it’s way too easy to make your spill look taller than you want this way.) Finally, beer sitting on a counter top isn’t going to have “flow lines” in it, and beer in the action of being spilled is still going to be coming out of the cup.
The last panel is better with Lorraine in it. 🙂
An alternative to the spit-take for the reaction to “too much information” I’ve always found effective (as a reader, can’t draw for toffee myself) is the one used by Berkley Breathed in the old “Bloom County” strip. Smile on lips, big, odd-sized eyes and “bamboozles” around the head. See the strip where Lola Granola admits to already knowing about the Birds and the Bees to her rather naive mother before her, Lola’s, attempted marriage to Opus for an example.
Damn and blast English’s lack of a reflexive pronoun.