Monday, November 19, 2012

Drive to Obsolescence

To assuage my gnawing guilt for not blogging enough (day job, worked all weekend, etc. etc.), today I reach back to a little obscurity I posted to the Web in 2007. I did this comic for a website started by a friend in the hopes it would build a neat community where creative people could share their work. It didn't. Probably fewer than a dozen people have seen this.

This sketch of an actual conversation with my girls dates to their freshman year of college. They've since graduated (with honors!) and I wonder if they remember it at all. Regardless, it still holds true.






 

From now through the end of the year, I'll likely be huddled deep in the Work Cave. Just want you to know it's not you, it's me. BTW, I still have every intention of making a fun little zine of "The Adventures of Old Time-Traveling Brian" but need to string together a few hours to finish my last bits on it. Soon, I hope. That would be a satisfying accomplishment.
 
Thanks!
 

7 comments:

Jim O'Kane said...

This is silly, but the takeaway I get from this? "Wow -- Karen's driving and Brian gets to ride!" I'm always driving, everywhere. The Captain likes being the passenger and having me for a chauffeur, so it's a rare occasion when I get to relax in the right seat.

A "getting old" anecdote: when I bought my Massachusetts house in 2005, I remember looking at the kitchen counter and seeing what seemed to me to be an entire shelf of prescriptions and nutritional supplements. And I thought, "the owners must be really old to be taking that much stuff every day." Fast-forward to 2012 and my own pile of nutri-ceuticals and blood pressure nostrums occupy the same kitchen real estate. Circle of Life and all that.

Brian Fies said...

Ah, that's my daughter Robin in the front and Laura in the back. Karen must've had to work that day. She still does her fair share of driving, though, so your takeaway holds.

I'm convinced that the Circle of Life, as brutal and unsentimental as it is, has a sense of humor.

Anonymous said...

*cough* About that. Hey, Dad...?


Nah, today isn't the day for that either. Not quite yet. :p
-L

Brian Fies said...

Aren't you supposed to be working?

See you Thursday!

Sherwood Harrington said...

I did this comic for a website started by a friend in the hopes it would build a neat community where creative people could share their work. It didn't.

For those who would like to see the flop, it's here: http://talkingponies.com .

Unknown said...

I keep meaning to ask, and please note this is not one of those "you know what you should do?" kinds of questions, but have you ever thought of experimenting with a four-panel "Mongoose & Cobra Hour" strip, maybe with a penultimate silent panel? I realize it was a one-joke gag in WHTTWOT but pondering the Spy vs. Spy potential of such a thing has intrigued me since I first saw the panel in the book.

Brian Fies said...

Thanks, Sherwood, and thanks for the site.

Jim, what a fun and tremendously obscure question! The "Mongoose and Cobra Hour" was just my riff on the Roadrunner and Coyote, and I'm afraid if I tried to do any more with them I'd only end up recycling 60-year-old Warner Bros bits involving giant horseshoe magnets and rocket roller skates. But I always thought Cap Crater and the Cosmic Kid had a lot more mileage in them and could've imagined doing more of their adventures, maybe in a retro 50s or 60s style, had there been any interest or demand. I detected none; except for the Christmas poem I did a couple of years ago, I think the boys are retired.