…To the show that never ends. Well, it will, just not anytime soon.
Happy F**kin’ New Year! I’ll be brief but my life since we last chatted has been an utter sh*t-show. Mainly dealing with my wife’s brother’s death on Christmas morning. Plus internal family stress that we all experience, but it was cranked to 11 due to the passing of my wife’s brother. I won’t go into detail, but you all can imagine the crap I’ve dealt with.
So the two months I was going to take off to start up a buffer for the comic never materialized due to all those other incidents mentioned above. So, I’m moving the restart of the Taking On New York story until March 1st. We’ll kick it into overdrive in time for St. Patrick’s Day celebrations.
BUT WAIT!!! THERE’S MORE!!
There will be a steamy Valentine’s Day pin-up that is already done and in the pipeline to be posted early February 14th. I think you all will dig it as it’s something I’ve had requested MANY times over the past 15 years, so get ready for that.
Above is the Plan 9 rockin’ out poster I’m working on. NO… they will not be naked. That’s how I start all my characters. I get the anatomy correct, then I draw in their clothing. I’ll have that done here in the next few days, or so.
I know many, many folks have it much, much worse than me, so I can’t complain. But I still do. Life has felt like a “Highway to Hell” of late. It is getting better, and I’ll keep the pedal-to-the-metal on this highway in the meantime.
Not a good way to bring in the holidays, I feel for you as I am sure many others do. on the other note I am looking forward to what ever drawings you feel you can push out, I do like the somewhat naked drawing you provided us today 😉 I hope everything works out better for you from here on out !
Thank, man! Things are improving. It helps getting back to drawing and interacting with readers here. That helps more than people know.
As I think about it, I may do a version of this with the gang naked and post it with the “Sunny Acres” nudist colony comics. I would change the expressions to make them a tad bit uncomfortable performing nude.
Getting paid has a curious way of expanding your personal comfort zone 😉
I am very sorry to hear that life has been a big compost heap, and the loss of your brother-in-law his turned the volume on that up to 11. Of course we can wait, with such beautiful promises of more content we understand, but we also care about your mental health as well as your art. Please take care of yourself and your family first, we will be here when you’re ready.
Thanks, Drew! Just posting about it here helps release some of the anxiety and stress related to the events of the past couple months. I’ve learned to take my time and things get done when they get done.
I’ve said the same thing quite a few times, there’s something cathartic about laying your poroblems out in front of complete strangers on the internet that you don’t get even with close friends or family. It sort of lightens them a little bit if that makes sense.
I think it’s the act of writing them out that helps you more than anything else, like the old practice of letters written but never sent, by writing you unconsciously think of ways to lessen the problem and accept the reality.
Or maybe not, I didn’t take Psych in University and slept through most of the Philosophy half-course I did take 😉
I’ll start by saying I’ve said the same thing a number of times too and that is without this comic and its readers, I would have been a goner. I don’t like to bring the conversation down too low, but during the worst of my depression era, I had constant thoughts of ending my life. Luckily I had a good therapist who kept track of me.
But to a happier tone, the point is, this comic is part of my therapy. Interacting with you all helps me a great deal. So, long story short, I agree with you that, for some people, airing your issues publicly can be helpful. Note: I’m no therapist either, so what works for me more than likely won’t work for others.
Funny, just now the lyrics “letters I’ve written, never meaning to send” popped into my head, completely unbidden, they have a different meaning in the song, or at least I see them just a little differently, but the idea of unsent letters is still similar. Odd, the song isn’t one of my favourites but it does make a good tempo changer on a late night show 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbqxbGm9hBI
They seem like ghosts of themselves right now. Hang in there…but I think I’ve said that before.
Ha! Yes, they do look like ghosts! Which is good, as I’m really digging that CBS series “Ghosts” so I don’t mind the analogy.
2022 was a dumpster fire for almost everyone, I’m sorry to hear of your loss 🙁
I died once myself (luckily just for a few minutes) not long before xmas so I’m hoping this year might be better for everyone and last year wasn’t just a warning shot to all of us…
Holy crap! I’m glad you’re okay! I won’t ask about details but I can only imagine the pain you must have gone through. I suffered two minor strokes in one day back in 2017 and it most certainly was a warning shot to me. The cardiologist on my final day in the hospital looked me in the eye and said “The next event (stroke) is the big one and you won’t survive it.” I replied back to him “There won’t be a second event.” And so far I’ve kept to that promise.
Again, hope you’re okay and that 2023 treats you, and everyone else, a tad better.
Blod clots both lungs, dropped like a rock with no warning whatsoever when one blocked the bloodflow back to the heart off, ‘the widowmaker’ it’s called, then with complete and utter bullshit luck, I hit a stack of boxes of things that were waiting to be put back in the pantry square in the middle of my chest and according to the Dr’s that knocked it loose enough that normal operations could resume, mostly.
Blood thinners seem to be working for now to prevent new ones but it’s going to take up to six months for the existing clots to ‘dissolve’ on their own and there’s aleays the chance one will break up into just the right sized pieces.
Luckily the insurance policy just renewed for both of us, so now we can go back to waiting to see who gets to collect 😉
This may however explain why most people in my family drop dead in their tracks at an early age, some in their 40’s, others just around my age. If any live much longer than this though, they usually make it to their 90’s so there’s that.
Jeff is a castrato seems he lost his loins unless he’s wearing speedos, g string, jock strap, thong or some other kind of underwear. As for Bud if he’s is turned to Buddit bras are not a agent of evil you put them on backwards to hook them up (strapless prefer). Then swiveled so the back is back and the front is front bodysuits are another option but I have small tits so I don’t need a bra. Meanwhile folk singer David Cosby and hockey legend Bobby Hall died last month avoided saying anything since you’ve lost so many beloved souls. It’s too bad Mr Stucter the teacher in the TV show high school USA parody of Archie. Mr Stucter help us face morality just like Marsh who has a hard time facing it with a less than helpful dad though he ruins Casandra’s sweet 16 spoiler a gay relationship is involved. While poor Brad normally the school bully befriends a lobster calls the creature who screams like a girls when thrown in a boiling pot Eatty. He has Eatty served to him boiled red realizing death isn’t hilorious “Eatty noooo.” Mr Stucter hires some sexy supply teachers love dresses as a sexy teacher for Halloween so he’d be great employer for me. Anyway Alfred E Newman of Mad magazine could give some you some inappropriate humor Bare Giles from man versus wild versus Winnie the Poo beloved children’s book character. After Bare steals Winnie’s salmon Grawl and a real whaling with one battered Bare. It’s been comfort that Alfred E Newman of Mad with those amusing parodies can cheer one up in a dark moment.
For me, humor is one of the best medicines. When I am feeling down, I eventually stop to take some deep breathes, then watch something funny. I book mark some funny videos that always make me laugh and that helps the brain settle down… at least for that moment.
I remember Bobby Hull very well as he played for the Chicago Blackhawks and he was on the local news a lot. On the same day he died, Cindy Williams of “Laverne & Shirley” and Lisa Loring, the original Wednesday Addams on the 1960s “Addams Family” TV show both passed away on January 30th.
I have wrapped my head around the deaths in my life in the past year and have made some changes in my life to help re-focus my energies. In my next post, I’ll chat about that.
They do say that as you get older you start to lose your senses.
The first one I lost was my sense of decency, when the sense of humour goes, I quit.
I read and watch a lot of humour and try to share it when I can, for example, the featured video in this installment instantly had me singing Bob River’s “Highway to Bellevue” and then I binged on a bunch of parody videos and movie covers 🙂
Day wasted ? hardly, I felt great at the end of it.
If you don’t laugh, you cry, which of course reminds me of yet another one…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpfcPe_aFwk
One of my neighbors and I went on Halloween as Wednesday Adams and Cassy we enjoyed ourselves so it’s sad that Lisa Loring died . Even saw the netfix TV show Wednesday her room mate was a sweet happy soul despite being a werewolf but managed to get along with Wednesday. Burt Backerack who wrote 1970s for the Carpinders died it seems they are dropping like flies. Hope to see your pin up at least she won’t freeze her tits off burrrr spring makes more sense. The small wood land creatures are smarter than us they have romances in warmer weather or in burrows so they don’t freeze off there paws. Hopefully your town won’t be too cold to wear a strappy or strapless dress and the flower ladies won’t freeze in fishnets and heels.
Hang in there, Byron! And thanks in advance for the Valentine pin up. I know it’ll be worth the wait!
Well, now that I’ve played it up, I hope it is as good as I think it is. And thank you, I am hanging in there!