announcing the triumphant return of bucket & dog!



updates will be posted on the shortpants press funnypants page! older strips are still up at bucket & dog's original page. and coming soon to funnypants, portly sadly, by jason robards, and hugh & bot, by drew crowley! w00t!

we just got the word from one of our clients - old glory bbq in DC - that they entered some of their bbq sauces in a competition, and won some awards! hooray for them! one of the awards they won? second place for LABEL PRESENTATION. for the label i designed for them! :D



i feel all puffed up and proud. today's a good friday. :)

happy release date! the liar is officially for sale. :D

happy presidents' day! and also happy my thirtieth birthday!! w00t.

i woke up this morning with a sleep-addled thought that i had squandered my 29th year by not savoring 29 enough. crap, i thought, here i am thirty and i didn't really appreciate 29. but then as i was showering, i remembered that i had bought beer last night, and when the checkout lady carded me, she said, "oh, tomorrow's your birthday!" and i said, "tomorrow's my THIRTIETH birthday" because i figured she was about as good at on-the-fly maths as i am.

"get outta town," osco lady said, "you're not thirty."

"'fraid so, that's what you get when you minus 1976 from 2006," i said.

"i would have guessed early twenties, TOPS," said osco lady, thus earning her a treasured place in my heart forever.

i've been pretty damn productive lately. i've just finished my latest comic book, which is officially released on wednesday, because comics can only come out on wednesdays. it's a law. it's a federal law too, it's not just a state thing. here's a shot of the cover, with which i am pleased.



also, i've apparently written a song. dave and bj were over yesterday to play some music - we're officially a band now - and we put together a song based on a poem i wrote years ago. it was crap as a poem, but it makes a deliciously creepy little tom waits-y song. it's called "annabelle anneke" and the refrain goes like this:

and i cry for annabelle anneke/watching the ships drift out to the sea/
and i die for annabelle anneke/she loves her spirits much better than me.

so far 30 is pretty ok. :)

here's a bit of a teaser, a few panels from page 30 of my new comic book. :) i have 5 more pages to finish, plus the end leafs and the cover. it's a lot of work yet, but i'll still make my february 22nd release date.

i've been pretty obsessed with the danish muhammad cartoons controversy these past few days. maybe unhealthily obsessed.

for anyone who hasn't been keeping up with it, back in september, a danish author was complaining that he couldn't find anyone willing to illustrate a biography he wrote on muhammed. a daily newspaper caught the story, and asked its stable of 40 editorial cartoonists to contribute cartoons of muhammed. as an exercise on censorship and self-censorship, apparently.

twelve cartoonists responded. their cartoons ranged from reverent to gentle teasing to outright insulting. denmark's muslim population was shocked. not only is it offensive according to most islamic tradition to depict the prophet at all, but relations between most of denmark and its muslim population were already strained.

islamic groups demanded apologies from the cartoonists, the paper, the danish government. as the debate escalated, other papers printed the cartoons. arab countries recalled their european envoys, some of the cartoonists received death threats and went into hiding, gunmen surrounded the EU offices in gaza. saudi arabia is staging a successful boycott of danish products, muslim protesters are burning european flags, and the editor of france-soir just got sacked for printing the cartoons in his paper.

i'm conflicted about the whole thing. on the one hand, the original solicitation and printing of the cartoons seems like it was meant to intentionally incite denmark's already disadvantaged muslim population. throwing gas on the flames of an already tense situation seems irresponsible and insensitive.

on the other hand, some of us westerners hold the right to free speech and press pretty sacred too. the european papers aren't bound to observe muslim laws, should they have to apologize for violating them? should their governments? isn't this about freedom of the press, and an open debate of relevant issues? as a comics artist, i get a little jittery when i hear about comics censorship, much less cartoonists getting death threats.

i really don't know how i feel at all, except that i'm amazed at how much furore has been caused by a dozen cartoons. certainly much worse has been said recently in opinion letters, editorials, tv and radio interviews. but it took twelve little ink drawings to set all of western europe and the middle east on fire.