Well, this is a pickle.

I had a lot of comics in the works, and having not learned my lesson in February when one computer went kaput and took a comic with it, I continued to not use paper and just tonight noticed I lost about 700 files of comics in progress, reference photos, fan art requests, and who knows what else.

I think the universe is trying to tell me something.

The comic was my therapy, and so figure how long I’ve gone without that, multiply it by how long people have been waiting for fan art from me and square it by all the days I didn’t get outside this year, and well, I’m not in a great place mentally at the moment. The cats and Puppy keep me alive, I’ll be fine. I shouldn’t have to explain why losing my artwork hurts, to quote the late great Sean Connery in Medicine Man, “Haven’t you ever lost anything?”

We have top men working on the issue.

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

A tuxedo cat sits between two tuxedo kittens. They are all looking at the camera with their ears perked.

You know I couldn’t leave them be.

To be fair, she brought them into the basement, I just followed her in with a litter pan, bowl of water, plates of food, a radio, some boxes, lots of crunchies….

I really didn’t mean to bail on the comic, but drawing on a phone is weird when you have to keep an eye on where the kittens are and assure the mom that the big silver kitten is really a sweet guy and it’s just that all the cool toys were his up until now. A bit of déjà vu except The Fluffy One is totally cool about all the cats he has to deal with now. So many stories to tell.

Wakanda Forever

The Ninja twins declare they are going to skate from selections from the movie Black Panther. The Slinky One is dressed as T'Challa, The Fluffy One is dressed as Zuri, keeper of the heart-shaped herb. The Fluffy One admits to bringing catnip and while he wants to leap a lot at the halfway mark for maximum points, The Slinky One is getting cold and wants to go see the Black Panther movie.

A flashback to 2018 in honor of the king. This year is so cruel it now took Chadwick Boseman and I can’t deal with that. He’s younger than me, for one thing. My heart goes out to his family and all the kids who saw T’Challa and believed they could do anything. That part of him stays. He never yielded.

Surprise!

“A little privacy, please.”

Well, the comics will be a little late.

(I am following the advice of Alley Cat Allies and leaving them be, but…well, it’s going to be interesting for a few weeks.)

I haven’t even introduced you to this lady properly! Um, here she is!

What We Did On Our Summer Vacation, Part 3

Sketches of me and what I did on my summer vacation. 1. Finding my Mum on the floor and pointing out she fell. "Yeah," my Mum's feet say. "Called 911 on my mom," is the caption. 2. "Met more cats," is the caption over me lifting a window and seeing a pile of kittens with their mom, the fluffy calico. 3. "Talked on the phone," is the caption under me holding a phone and saying, "I'd like my mum back, please." 4. A badly drawn me holding a grilled cheese out to my Nan is captioned, "Made grilled cheese." "But I wanted a waffle," my Nan says. 5. "Learned to cook chicken," is the caption under me lifting something into a pot of boiling water and saying, "I'm sorry, meat!" The Puppy looks on and says, "Don't poison me." 6. I'm holding a phone and grinning, with the caption "Blacked out my userpics, fixed everything!" 7. "Busted Mum out of rehab," shows my Mum using a walker to get to my car, which is on the sidewalk outside a building as I run with her suitcases. 8. I present Nan with potato salad. "Yum!" Nan says. 9. I look up with binoculars as cats curl around my legs. "Looked for a comet," is the caption. 10. "Made so much potato salad," is the last caption, where only my eyes are visible behind a mountain of potato salad.

My summer has been busy, but here are some highlights. This comic took me weeks to make.

I am planning to make a lot of these drawings better. In fact, this is how all the comics start out. But for now, this is what we have, and if you’ve never checked out the alt text to the comics, now would be a good time.

Or do you prefer these kind of comics?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. (Also I don’t think blacking out my userpics for a few days fixed anything, but I think you know that, too.)

Anyway, the comic seems to be a Saturday comic now. How about that. For what I have planned, the next two weeks need to have two comics or else I HAVE FAILED.

I am opening voting on which bit of this comic you’d like to see more of, give me a direction to go in the future.

What We Did On Our Summer Vacation…preview or part 2?

A crudely drawn sketch of what The Fluffy One did on his summer vacation, with him stretched out in front of an air conditioner, getting nose kisses and finding love from Babycat, seeing the Three Mousketeers in the backyard and asking, "What the fish?" then loafing in the sun and missing his brother. The last sketch is of him having a smacky fight with The Kitten.

…what is this crap?

I know I was planning silly drawings, but this is ridiculous!

Universe, give me time to draw, and I will draw more detail.

Stay tuned.

What We Did On Our Summer Vacation, Part 1 of 7

The Slinky One and m'Man loaf on grass in the sun, looking at a tiny kitten on a blankie. Nearby another kitten plays in the grass. "Okay, how come these baby cats keep showing up here? I dunno what to do with a baby cat except cover it with a blankie and put it in the sun, that's what I like." m'Man, elbow over a box, says, "I'll go find him some m'lick. I like a nice cold bowl of m'lick." In the distance, Tookie climbs down a tree declaring, "Hang on, I'm the bestest babysitter!"

Cats know how to have a good time.

Hello, how have you all been? This is the comic you’ve waited over a month for, and I haven’t worked out the layout yet, but wait, did I just make a comic about kittens in the afterlife? That’s not funny.

STOP SPEEDING DOWN STREETS.

The rest of this month we’re going to catch up on what everyone else has been doing on their summer vacation, and look at it this way, we got the horrible part out of the way! Unless you count the art in the next six comics as the true horror. Think drawing really fast because that’s all I got time for right now. You’ve been warned.

No social media until I get some comics made!

A woman wearing a shirt that reads "Science!" waves. Text reads no social media until I get some comics made. A smile face and the initials LBN are underneath.

I mean, I have some made, I just have to finish them and maybe have them look better than this, but what do you want from me? I haven’t drawn in a month!

I cut everything else out, so checking if my friends and family are okay is next. Be okay, people! Wear masks and social distance so I don’t come and break your kneecaps! I mean unfollow you. Or avoid you. Wait, I’m already doing that. Don’t mind me. You do you.

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