"Squid, Bob, & Other Things"

If it wasn't for the physical evidence we've had over the years, The Giant Squid would have fallen into the catagory of such legends as "The Lock Ness Monster" and "Sasquatch". But there's been credible tales for centuries of these gigantic, rarely seen deep sea creatures attacking ships, battling with whales and even remains washed ashore. So...everyone knew they actually existed, but no one had ever filmed one in the ocean. Finally that's been accomplished by a Japanese crew. Here are some startling photographs.

Well, this cooler weather certainly has made my cat ("Bob") feel great! For the past few days he's been extremely active, running, chasing his toys around, playing with a tape measure and getting into general mischief to the point of being a bit of a pest! In fact, here on my day off from work he had me up at 5 AM tearing about the house. Rotten Critter, but one can't help but laugh at some of his antics. (Just look how "smug" he is in the above photo.)

In other things, I've had a couple people ask me over the years how "exactly" do I draw one of my comic strips? That is, do I do a complete panel-by-panel break down first? Do I do the story completely in roughs, then go back and redraw the whole thing the size I want it? They, never having done this, were simply "curious".

Personally, I've done comic strips every which way. I've done the before-mentioned methods, as well as writing it out as an actual story, then going back and adapting it into a comic strip, and even had a period there where I'd create the story from merely some idea I had in my head and did each panel, write, pencil and ink them, seperately, and then combinding into a complete tale. The last method takes the longest time to do though and you really have to be careful about your spacing of panlel on the pages. These days, when I actually DO one of my rare completed strips, it's more of a combination of all of the above.

And..in regard to my post of a few days back on "The Challenge" to do a full sketch book again with new characters, I've gotten close to 40 different ones in the current book. Everything in this one is in pencils so far. Really, I may stop for a bit and try to work out one of these new characters into strip form. I've done one that I really like, and have jotted down a buncha notes for a story that seems to be just "writing itself". This occasionally happens with some of my work. I'll hit upon an idea and it seems to just roll along like the tale's already been prewritten for me and easily materializes upon paper. (Usually, they're my best work.)

And in auction wins of late I've won a full run of my favorite work by Eddie Campbell: Bacchus, the god of Wine! Finally! Been trying to find the last 20 or so issues I've needed for a long time, and this lot I won of 73 books is not only that full set, but all of his appearances in Dark Horse Presents as well, plus a signed copy of Egomania (the successor to the Bacchus series). Gonna have a lot of duplicates, but perhaps I can sell them as a "lot" as well to make back some of the $ I put out for this set. (Wish I could find a proper "captain's cap" as I'd dress up as that character come this Halloween!)