you can always learn things. even on sick days!

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Have you ever had an activity that was forever tainted by sickness? I know it’s a bit irrational, but I’m talking about the way you do something while sick and never want to do that thing anymore when you are well again. For instance, I never again tried to watch The Prisoner. More recently, I stopped playing the game Atom Zombie Smasher even though I was very addicted. I got sick, spent the night tossing and turning, and had wild, AZS-themed dreams wherein I couldn’t get the music out of my head. Ever since then I haven’t touched it. [November 28, 2011]

the "hands" step is for advanced artists ONLY

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The second panel is amusing in retrospect. Take a look at whatever’s on the front page, versus this one. Over time, the eyes have drifted further apart and definitely gotten smaller. I couldn’t say exactly why that is, but it seems to make characters more endearing (or “cuter”, I suppose) and a little less intelligent. The overall effect is, I feel, a little less “threatening”, as though my stick people could ever appear threatening in the first place. The Japanese have a good handle on cute, non-threatening characters — I’m probably influenced by that. [November 28, 2011]

maybe we should give it a try though, just to see?

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This comic is based on an actual conversation I had while I used to be an educational assistant at the local high school. Part of my job was to work with a student with Asperger’s Syndrome. This individual had a lot of fairly wild ideas, like becoming an international diamond thief or somehow granting himself superpowers via “cat DNA”. I attempted to be the voice of reason and also to keep him on task.

One day, he strolled into the computer lab and wondered aloud if there were any thunderstorms forecasted for the weekend, explaining that he was planning to harness said lightning in order to re-animate a deceased relative of his. I responded that this was not a good idea. Of course he demanded to know why, and though I wanted to argue that it was “wrong” I found myself unable to properly explain how I knew that.

In the end I had to take the “it just won’t work” line, something I did fairly often (even though sometimes I really felt like a buzzkill). [November 24, 2011]