250 Words on Stingers

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

For most of my early life, I had a phobia of bees and wasps. It started with a wasp sting when I was very young. After that, if a stinging bug got into the house or car, I full-on panicked.

I later learned that bees are sociable and industrious, and have no beef with me as long as I let them be. I can peacefully coexist with bees, and happily watch them buzz about our lavender.

Conversely, wasps are evil assholes.

The summer after I graduated high school, my dad and I did an Outward Bound rafting trip on the Green River. Outward Bound expeditions were reputed to be a true test of wilderness fortitude. Ours was easy. We ate and slept well, and floating down the river covered most of our ground for us.

Everyone took turns cooking and cleaning. One dinner, my job was stripping chicken meat from its bones. A whirling cloud of wasps descended on the chicken and my goo-slathered hands, but I couldn’t disappoint the team. Fighting through blind terror, I finished the job, unstung. 

At the end of the journey, we sat around the campfire sharing what we’d discovered about ourselves. Campers spoke movingly about experiencing nature and transcending handicaps.

I talked about deboning chicken. People laughed, but I meant it. Preparing that meal was the bravest thing I’d ever done. Wasps largely lost their power to panic me, although I still feel a spike of adrenaline when one sneaks up on me. Assholes.

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Cartoon-a-Thonning

I was improbably set up at the first table visitors encountered entering the museum's Great Hall. I'm holding a portfolio of some of my art because I enjoy explaining to folks, especially young artists, how my drawings become books. I like to demystify the process. Write and draw your story; the rest is details. Immediately behind me was illustrator Eric Martin; to his left was comic book artist Brent Anderson; and to his left was cartoonist Tom Beland.

I spent the afternoon at the Schulz Museum with a flock of other cartoonists to celebrate Paige Braddock's 25-year career as the head of the Schulz Studio (hired by Mr. Schulz himself the year before he died). The museum has one of these "cartoon-a-thons" every few years to mark special occasions, and they're always fun. Cartooning is a solitary profession so I appreciate a chance to catch up and talk shop. Plus I talked about comics with some nice people and sold a few books. That's a real good day.

Heroic local independent bookseller Copperfield's stocked many participants' books, including "A Fire Story," so I sent people to buy it there.

An angle on the Great Hall over my left shoulder. The hat in the foreground graces the head of Brent Anderson.

My friends Amber Padilla and Mary Shyne, with Brett Grunig and Emily Martin at the next table over. Amber did a story for the same "Marvel Super Stories" anthology that I did, so I sent three people who bought the book from me down to have Amber sign it as well (she was not offering it, so I wasn't stealing any sales from her.) Mary has a new graphic novel coming out soon that looks terrific and I expect will do very well.

My wife, Karen, took this photo of me talking with Brent Anderson and Tom Beland, two of my favorite (and very different) comics stylists.

I was especially looking forward to meeting cartoonist Julia Wertz, whose work I've been a fan of for years. I knew she had moved to the area a while back but we didn't cross paths until today. Turns out she'd read my stuff as well, and we're scheduled to do a panel together at a small con next month, so good thing I met her! Made my day.

Cartoon Art Museum (CAM) board chair Ron Evans chats with Justin Thompson while Lex Fajardo leans into his hard sell. Ron was there to present CAM's prestigious Sparky Award to Paige Braddock, but she didn't know that yet.

Lex interviewed Paige in the museum's theater about her life, career, and time with Peanuts. It was a really nice retrospective, including a look at her long journalism career, during which she drew the illustration of Martin Luther King on the screen. I especially appreciated her insights into character-based cartooning. Paige was genuinely surprised and touched when Ron Evans gave her the Sparky Award at the end, and immediately credited her team for their hard work. Also, her blue blazer matched the color of her eyes, which I thought was a real heads-up play on her part.

Cartooning at the Schulz

HEY KIDS! Here's a fun thing some cartoonist pals and I will be doing at the Charles M. Schulz Museum next Saturday afternoon: a Cartoon-A-Thon to celebrate Paige Braddock's 25 years working for Peanuts (that "working for peanuts" joke is very old but I still love it) and General Excuse to Get Twenty Cartoonists in the Same Room.

Unless I'm mistaken, Paige is now the only person at the Schulz Studio who actually worked for/with Mr. Schulz. In fact, she's the artist who laid out the very last "Peanuts" strip that ran on February 13, 2000, the day Schulz died.

I've done these Cartoon-A-Thons before and they're always a hoot. I committed to it long before a nationwide demonstration was scheduled for the same day, so while I am at the museum talking about comics, sketching pictures, and selling books, I'm counting on the rest of you good freedom-loving folks to hold the fort. I will man the ramparts with you next time. 

Hope to see you at the Schulz!

Color in Practice

I've been corresponding with a student doing a master's dissertation who asked me about the use of color in Mom's Cancer. Honestly and immodestly, this isn't the first time an academic has asked about that. I liked my reply enough I thought it would make a good post about how I approach making comics.

The question was basically: why is so much of the story black-and-white, and how did I decide where and how to use color? I said: 

I have a lot of respect for black-and-white art as a medium, in the same way that critics respect black-and-white photography or movies. It’s a different medium with a long tradition, with its own rules of visual storytelling that are different than those of color.

Honestly, it was also faster and easier to not color all the pages. Back then, trying to document my Mom’s illness and treatment as it happened, I was in a hurry. 

Color has a very specific meaning and purpose in Mom’s Cancer. It is similar to the way color is used in the movie “The Wizard of Oz,” where Dorothy famously walks out of the black-and-white ordinary world of Kansas into the Technicolor fantasy world of Oz. In my book, color indicates that something out of the ordinary, subjective, or unreal is happening. It is first seen during Mom’s transient ischemic attack (TIA) as light blue spots that are meant to suggest the phenomenon is happening inside her head rather than actual blue bubbles floating through the room. Fantasy sequences, like the superhero fight, are likewise in full color. 

I also used golden-brown sepia color in the sequences that looked back at Mom’s past, to instantly signal to readers that this flashback was different from the regular storyline. My favorite use of color in the book is a very subtle example toward the end, when my grandmother’s casket is colored sepia, indicating that the past is being literally and metaphorically buried, and the flashbacks are done.

In general, color is an often ignored and underutilized tool in graphic storytelling. If you’re just coloring the sky blue and grass green, you’re missing half the fun! Different palettes can set a mood, establish character and place, convey emotion, and guide a reader’s attention and feelings in ways they don’t even realize. More cartoonists should think harder about color and do more with it!

250 Words on the Prisoner

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

The Prisoner is the best TV series I’ve ever seen. Not my favorite, although it would be near the top of that list, too, but in terms of artistic intent and execution, smart use of the television medium, innovative storytelling, and good fun, it’s outstanding.

Patrick McGoohan conceived, produced, and starred in the 17-episode British series, which was first broadcast in 1967. I saw it a decade later, when U.S. public broadcasting stations picked it up. 

McGoohan plays an unnamed government agent who angrily resigns, goes home, gets gassed, and wakes up in the Village, where he’s called “Number Six.” The boss of the Village, Number Two, wants information. The inescapable hamlet is populated by shiny happy people who may be prisoners or guards. The game is afoot! 

The Prisoner is a very ‘60s meditation on individuality, collectivization, conformity and dehumanization. You may think you’re free, but maybe you’re as much a prisoner of your own self-made village as Number Six is of his.

One reason The Prisoner is special to me is that my mother and I watched it together. We puzzled over the meaning of every episode, debating the characters, themes and subtext. I saw another side of Mom: she had some serious literary analysis chops! 

The Prisoner is an admittedly weird series that wouldn’t be right for everyone—it’s the ancestor of shows like Twin Peaks and Lost that kept viewers off-balance and guessing—but it was right for Mom and me, and that made it great.

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250 Words on Manly Models

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

My biological father left my life when I was 3 and my stepdad entered it around age 10. I think those years between are important to a boy figuring out how to be a man. My grandpa and uncle did their best, but they had their own lives and concerns, and didn’t know what to do with me after it was evident I wasn’t destined for baseball.

Although I grew up in the era of heroic Space Age astronauts, I didn’t know enough about them personally for them to shape my conception of masculinity. I wasn’t interested in their ethics, values, or approaches to life. I just wanted to grow up to do their job.

Make-believe men filled the gap. Batman (both comic book and Adam West), Superman (both comic book and George Reeves), Captain Kirk, the Lone Ranger, Zorro, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and similar characters taught me the ways of manliness. 

I could have done worse.

Fictional heroes distill a culture’s highest ideals into easily digestible archetypes. They were paragons with few flaws, which made them impossible to live up to but not bad guides. They taught me the importance of loyalty, bravery, and grace under pressure. Protecting the weak, defending your principles, controlling your passions. 

That’s a good list!

I never felt I missed anything being raised by a single mom, although I know she worried about it. I had my fictional mentors, while she was a living model of courage and strength I witnessed every day.

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Hands Off!

Karen and I with our homemade signs. Karen hand-lettered hers. I suggested she make the "P" stand for "Poopyhead" but she didn't go for it. I did NOT hand-letter mine, but I did draw and watercolor the penguin.

Making good trouble in downtown Santa Rosa, Calif., today as our little part of the "Hands Off" rallies happening in some 1400 cities across the country. Hard to estimate how many turned out, but we filled the town square and the sidewalks on both sides of three city blocks. Maybe a few thousand? Not the hundreds of thousands who demonstrated elsewhere, but a nice group of witty people with a lot of positive energy. 

We ran into several friends because we know quality people. Someone on Facebook cautioned about posting photos of people at these events without their permission and, while I'm not that paranoid, isn't it a shame that we even have to give a thought to the government rounding up protestors and shipping them to secret prisons? That's why we're there. Anyway, I won't out them in this post, but if you were one of those friends it was great to see you.

Look: I have no illusions that a few thousand people in my hometown are gonna change the world. That's not the point. Community, fellowship, letting other people know they're not alone and we have their backs--that's the point. Pebbles make an avalanche.

Makin' trouble. Woot. I pointedly wore my red, white and blue Fourth of July shirt to reclaim its iconography for the good guys. RIght-wing fascists don't get a monopoly on patriotism or the flag.

My view for most of the event, across the street from the park at the center of town, Courthouse Square.

A long shot down Third Street. I was standing on the right side of this street about halfway down when I took the previous shot; Courthouse Square is out of sight to the left. This was just a fraction of the folks who came out today.

250 Words on the Leader of the Pack

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I carefully observe my little dog, Riley, trying to figure out how her brain allocates its resources. 

It’s around 50 percent food and treats, 25 percent pee, 15 percent poop, 5 percent guarding her territory from any bicyclist or cat that wanders past, and 5 percent a sense of affection for the apes she allows to love her on her terms.

That deal’s OK with me, but I try not to fool myself that it’s more than it is.

I often recall my writer friend Mike Peterson’s observation that a dog’s extraordinary sense of smell must make the world feel like being on psychedelics all the time. Riley and I have totally different experiences walking around the block.

I got one insight into Riley’s mind a few years ago, when I helped a neighbor close her broken garage door. My fingertips momentarily got caught between the hinged panels, and I let out a yelp before yanking them free. From a couple hundred feet away, Riley rocketed down the street like a fur-covered torpedo, ready to fight demons by my side. 

“I’ve got your back, boss!”

That kind of courage and loyalty earns a lifetime of unrequited belly rubs.

I do tell Riley how much I appreciate her many contributions to the team. Dogs are dogs and people are people, and anthropomorphizing doesn’t do either of us any favors. But as inscrutable as her mind is, I’m certain we’d both fight fiercely for our pack. I’ve got your back too, pal.

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NOTE FROM BRIAN: I wrote this essay a while ago and randomly assigned it to post today; it is a very sad coincidence that Riley died last week following a bout of congestive heart failure. She was a month shy of 13. Riley was a terrier mutt that someone had left tied to a bus stop when she was a pup, and we gave her the best home and family any dog could have had. 

My wife, Karen, read today’s essay and told me to edit it to read, “Riley devoted 50 percent of her brain to loving her Mom.” That sounds about right, if not low. 

George Carlin said that getting a pet means "you are purchasing a small tragedy," and here we are. For being such a small dog, she leaves an enormous hole. 

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Dr. Bryant Lin and Stanford

My friend Elaine messaged me this morning to say, "Your book is on TV!" And so it was, in a story by ABC's San Francisco affiliate, KGO TV, about Stanford physician and professor Bryant Lin.

I know Dr. Lin and have spoken to his students a few times (and am scheduled to do so again next month). He is a cancer researcher who has a very serious, probably fatal cancer himself. The knowledge and passion he brings to teaching the subject is extraordinary. 

One of the most gratifying and surprising outcomes of writing Mom's Cancer is seeing it taught in medical schools such as Stanford. I did not anticipate that at the time--wasn't even on my radar. Mom would have been thrilled. 

Here's the KGO story, which is definitely worth 5 minutes of your day:

250 Words on Immortality

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Most stories about immortality are cautionary tales whose moral is “be careful what you wish for.” Living forever, we’re told, consists largely of ceaseless boredom and ennui.

Sounds like sour grapes to me. I think I’d handle it well.

“Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon,” wrote novelist Susan Ertz, but I excel at rainy Sunday afternoons. I’m very good at doing nothing; if I feel boredom coming on, I’m also good at finding something to do.

I should define my terms. My vision of immortality doesn’t include invincibility. I could still be killed falling off a cliff or getting hit by a Cybertruck, but absent mortal trauma I wouldn’t die. Also, learning from the mistake of the mythological Tithonus, who forgot to read the fine print and won eternal life but not youth, I wouldn’t grow older. My DNA would simply stop making copying errors, which many gerontologists believe accumulate into the condition we call “aging.”

I imagine I’d read a lot. Master some trades. I’d keep a diary and send volumes to the Smithsonian a century at a time. Live in exotic places long enough to settle in and learn the language—maybe 50 years—then move on. I expect I’d become detached. It’d be hard to care about immediate problems, people and politics after you’ve lived a few centuries. I’d be a quiet loner.

I’m already halfway there!

Forever is just an infinity of rainy Sunday afternoons.

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250 Words on Dexterity

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I used to be ambidextrous. When I was a kid, I wrote the left half of a page with my left hand, then switched the pencil to my right hand to write the right half of the page. My third-grade teacher declared that the laziest thing she’d ever seen and made me write right.

My handedness hardened into a hash. I write and draw right-handed but play most sports left-handed and left-footed, although I bat and golf (if I golfed) right-handed. I can paint with either hand; I think my left just lacks the muscle memory and fine motor control of my right. My left eye is dominant—good to know for archery and astronomy. My wife, Karen, marvels that I can flip pancakes both ways.

That ambiguity makes me flexible but can also lock me up. I once stood frozen in the kitchen trying to remember how to open a jar. Neither hand felt correct.

Because I’ve enjoyed, studied, and worked in both science and art, people sometimes speculate that the right and left halves of my brain are more interconnected than most. Maybe, but I’m doubtful. As I understand it, the “rational left brain/creative right brain” generalization is overblown. There’s a lot of slosh and overlap between the hemispheres’ functions. 

It is true that doing science and art feel similar to me. Both involve discovering patterns and expressing new connections using the tools in your toolbox, whether those are math and scientific instruments or ink, paint and paper. 

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The Ides of March Already?!

The Ides of March are a noteworthy date in world history and an even more important date in our family's history: it's when my daughters changed my life by going to the trouble of being born. Happy Birthday, Chiquitas! Dinner, cake and presents are waiting.

(Photo taken when they were 18 months old. They're all grown up now.)

Whose Story Is It?

My friend Matthew Noe pointed me to this thoughtful essay on what a writer's obligation should be to real people who appear in their stories. I've faced that question myself so I left this response on his post, which I thought worth sharing in a post of my own.

It's an interesting and important question, especially for those of us who occasionally tell nonfiction stories. 

As mentioned in the piece, I think the first responsibility a writer owes to all the real people in their story is to get it as right as you can. I treat everything I do as journalism (even my fiction), and aim for accuracy while understanding that objective truth in human interactions can be impossible to know and everyone has their own perspective. Sometimes people tell me I got it exactly right; other times they say, "Well, that's not how I experienced it, but I understand how you did." I can live with that.

Also, to put it coarsely, you have to decide who and how much you're willing to betray. People live their lives in your presence with no expectation you'll be recording and broadcasting the details. Nobody is always at their best. I believe Alison Bechdel has talked about that in relation to her mother and family.

I often cite the example of my graphic novel "Mom's Cancer," in which I was not willing to betray my mother. If she hadn't supported the story, or it had caused her a moment of concern or anxiety, I would have killed it and no one would have ever seen it. On the other hand, I decided to include my stepfather in the book regardless of what he thought of his portrayal, which wasn't entirely complimentary. So you have different levels of pain you're prepared to inflict and take, and I urge memoirists to think that through before publication. It's one thing when it's on manuscript pages in your desk drawer, quite another when it's printed in thousands of books around the world.

With both "Mom's Cancer" and "A Fire Story," the predominant response I get from real people who appear as characters is some measure of gratitude for telling their story. Many are indifferent, a few are even sort of proud of their "celebrity" and brag about it to their friends. I can't recall anyone getting upset. Partly that's because I'd never use a book to deliberately make someone who's peripheral to the story look bad or settle a score. Villains (incompetent doctors, bureaucratic insurance weasels) are anonymous composites.

That's a line I draw that other nonfiction writers or memoirists wouldn't. Everybody's got to figure out where their lines are and ask themselves, "Can I live with the consequences?"

If it helps you sleep at night, there's always the quote by Anne Lamott: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”

250 Words on Life Drawing

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

People sometimes ask how much art I’ve studied, and the answer is as much as possible in high school and college. Art was hard to fit into a university schedule because studio classes were three hours long, but I did what I could. Otherwise, I’m self-taught.

The best, most useful art class I ever took was life drawing. That’s drawing naked people. I strongly encourage anyone interested in visual arts to do it.

For me, the value of life drawing was breaking bad habits and learning to draw what I actually saw rather than some preconception I imagined. It was the sort of environment where on Day One the instructor looked over my shoulder and said, “Ah, you’re a cartoonist.” Not a criticism, just an observation. Cartoonists draw contours, the outlines of things. That can be a start to good art but is far from the end.

The lasciviousness of sketching nudes evaporates fast. A body quickly becomes interesting shapes and shadows connected in challenging ways. In fact, the best models are those who don’t fit stereotypical beauty standards. Scrawny, fat, or wrinkly people are a delight to draw. 

It’s also an artistic legacy stretching back centuries. Artists have always depicted nudes, through the Renaissance to the Greeks and earlier. How do yours stack up against Michelangelo’s or Rembrandt’s? (Not well.) Good life drawing reveals us to ourselves.

I believe the real trick to art is seeing what’s truly there. After that, all you have to do is capture it. 

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Genius/Time

My Top Three List of History's Greatest Explosions of Genius in the Shortest Amount of Time:

1. Isaac Newton, who in 1666 (while hunkered down at home avoiding the Great Plague) invented calculus, optics, the laws of universal gravitation, and basically most of what's now called classical physics.

2. Albert Einstein, who in 1905 published papers on the photoelectric effect (which won him the Nobel Prize), Brownian motion, E = mc^2, and the special theory of relativity in a span of six months.  

3. Dolly Parton, who in 1972 wrote the songs "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" on the same day. 

Other candidates are welcome in the comments!

Recommended for Women's History Month

Mom's Cancer got a nod as recommended reading for Women's History Day/Month from a blogger and English literature teacher from the Philippines, A. Eleazar. I love the breadth of his other selections, ranging from Jem and the Holograms to Pride and Prejudice. That's fine company to be in. 

Eleazar and I corresponded a bit, and I appreciate his passion and wide-ranging interests. I was also struck again, as I often am, by how worldwide the worldwide web really is. I routinely talk to people in the Philippines, India, Japan, all over the planet about my books. Take a second to reflect on how remarkable that is. 

Thanks for thinking of me, A.!

The Intellectual Life #26

Photo source: Potterymakinginfo.com

A Peek into the Intimate Intellectual Life of a Long-Married Couple, Part 26:

Karen and I were watching TV last night when we saw a commercial for the weight-loss drug Wegovy. Karen noticed that one of its fine-print side effects was "clay-colored stool."

Karen: What color is "clay-colored?"

Brian: I don't know. Clay comes in a lot of colors.

Karen: Brown.

Brian: Gray.

Karen: Beige.

Brian: Yellow.

Karen: Terra cotta.

Brian: Naturally.

Karen: What are you supposed to do if you have clay-colored stool? Call your doctor?

Brian: Glaze and fire it.

This has been a peek into the intimate intellectual life of a long-married couple. I'm not proud of this one. 

Crossing the Streams

Since Trump's inauguration, I've been watching poll aggregator 538 for just this milestone: a larger percentage of Americans now disapprove than approve of him. Individual polls report a scattered range of results, some more positive or negative than others, but 538 weights and averages a lot of polls to reach something like a consensus. 

Trump has crossed the streams.*

Although smart readers who are politically astute and well informed may marvel that Trump's numbers are anywhere near this high, I accept them as a clear snapshot of the electorate's mood. Inexplicable, but clear. Democrats are a minority party in Congress, powerless to do much more than inform, protest, persuade (which I wish they would do more of) and occasionally filibuster, so it's evident to me that little is going to change until Trump's own people--both voters and legislators--start to sour on him.

Which won't happen until they feel the pain.

I don't wish misfortune on anyone, but I think it's more likely than not. If prices rise, if unemployment soars, if the Stock Market tanks, if farmers can't sell their soybeans or afford new tariff-inflated tractors, if VA hospitals close, if Medicaid is cut, if budget battles shut down the government, if Social Security is threatened, if an epidemic or natural disaster hits and no one comes to help, if a Russian cyberattack takes down the power grid, if more of the factories scheduled to create thousands of local jobs under Biden's Inflation Reduction Act are canceled, if Red States finally realize they rely a lot more on government handouts than the Blue States that pay for them, if Republican politicians continue to be jeered out of their own town hall meetings, then maybe things will change.

Some folks, especially those low on compassion and empathy, simply won't care until trouble hits home.

Good people just have to hold on, resist, and help each other until they do. I don't really see any other way around or through it. 

Trump's numbers will bob around and may even float back up momentarily, but in the long run I think he has nowhere to go but down. He will never be more popular than he is right now. 

In Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, a character described how he went bankrupt: "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly." I wouldn't dare hope, but also wouldn't be surprised, to see Trump's political fortunes do the same.

.

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* Ghostbusters reference. Crossing the streams is bad.

250 Words on Little League

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

I played Little League baseball when I was around 7 and 8, a stereotypical right-fielder distractedly counting the clover while balls rolled past me.

My handicap in baseball was that nobody ever taught me the rules. Coaches just assumed we knew how to play the game. 

One of my first times at bat, I didn’t understand how I could be called out on strikes when I hadn’t swung at the ball. Another time, I managed to make it to first base when the next batter hit the ball to second, so I turned around and headed back to first. I saw no reason two players couldn’t share one base. Why not? The coach had to drag me off the field to laughter and red-faced humiliation.

I grew up convinced I was uniquely terrible at baseball. My awfulness at the sport colored my entire self-image. 

Then, as an adult, I found myself in a neighborhood ballpark with time to kill, so I watched a bit of a Little League game. In a flash, I realized that almost all 7- and 8-year-olds are terrible at baseball. They ran the bases backwards and toppled over as balls dribbled between their feet. They stunk!

It was an epiphany. I realized I hadn’t been a uniquely terrible baseball player at all. I’d been ordinary. Average. It’s not an exaggeration to say that watching those kids bumble about the diamond recalibrated how I thought of myself. A weight lifted. 

“Ordinary” and “average” were a big relief. 

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The Planets Align

There's much talk about planets lining up these days, because they're all in the same half of the sky and make a pretty sight. The arc of Venus to Jupiter to Mars is cool. You might also catch Mercury and Saturn, although they're faint and near the western horizon (beneath Venus). In addition, Uranus and Neptune are in the line-up, but you won't see them unless you have a fairly hefty telescope.

So that's neat and worth a look if you care. But I'm also seeing online predictions of doom, as the combined gravitational force of all those planets rips the Earth apart. Earthquakes, volcanoes, dogs and cats living together . . .

Don't be stupid.

Here's a page on the subject from a book I wrote but don't expect to ever be published. It was a book-length science comic; we hadn't quite settled on a title, but in my mind its working title was Don't Be Stupid. 

I still think the book has good information and an important message, so why do I consider it dead? I was just finishing it in 2017 when the firestorm that destroyed my neighborhood also destroyed all the original art, reference material, and permissions to reprint copyrighted material that I'd compiled for it. In the years since, some of its content has become obsolete.

I also emerged from the fire with a different attitude toward my work. I wasn't the guy who wrote that science comic anymore. I did A Fire Story instead. And truth be told, I had no public reputation as an expert whose opinion was worth listening to. A science comic by famous physicist Brian Cox would get a lot of attention, one by cartoonist Brian Fies would not. I also suspect it wouldn't have sold well, mostly because the people who'd need a book whose theme is "Don't Be Stupid" would be too stupid to know they needed it.

I expect I'll still do something with it someday. Maybe in occasional dribbles like this. 

250 Words on Hope and Squirrels

 

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

Friends and readers know that my neighborhood burned to the ground in the 2017 Tubbs wildfire. For quite a while, the place was a sterile gray ruin. Then, slowly, life returned.

Deer appeared, venturing up from a nearby creek. They were regular callers even before the fire, but we also got rarer visitors: rabbits, foxes, coyotes. Crows were the only birds for a while, except for the hawks and vultures wheeling high overhead.

We rebuilt, as did many of our neighbors. Gradually, streetlights turned back on and fences went back up. Commensurately, wildlife sightings went down. But as we landscaped, other life returned. Bees and hummingbirds to the flowers. Finches, juncos and towhees to the saplings. Quail to the shrubs. 

We still have no squirrels.

In the pre-blaze days, squirrels were common enough to be nuisances. Rats with good PR. They need trees of a certain size to nest and scamper in, preferably in large thickets. More than seven years after the fire we still have none, and probably won’t for at least a decade. I see squirrels in nearby neighborhoods that survived the fire and try to convince them to follow me home. None have yet accepted my offer.

The first day I see a squirrel back in my yard will be a joyous one. I wonder if I put too much weight on it, as if that will be the final sign that both the land and we are healed, when I know very well neither will be.

* * * 

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250 Words on Gluten

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

My wife, Karen, has to eat gluten-free. It’s not always easy, but there have been unexpected benefits.

It made us better cooks. Gluten, in the form of wheat flour, is hidden in many prepared foods, so we cook from scratch much more than we used to. The result is invariably tastier and fresher than whatever we might have pulled off a shelf.

Mexican and Indian restaurants are a dream, Italian and Asian are a challenge (soy sauce has gluten). We’ve found many good pasta options—look for noodles made from a blend of rice and corn flours rather than straight rice or oddball substitutes such as chickpea. Boil it al dente so it doesn’t get gummy.

Gluten is the protein that gives yeasty dough its stretchy, airy quality, and there is no decent alternative. We’ve had some tolerable pizzas with gluten-free crusts, but none great. Likewise, palatable breads are difficult, but not impossible, to find. 

We judge gluten-free foods on a scale. The gold standard are those so good we’d eat them even if they weren’t gluten-free. We have favorite brands of pretzels, pancakes and muffin mix that fall into that category. Next are foods that are adequate enough, like pastas and cookies. Anything worse, we don’t bother.

I do not eat gluten-free. Indeed, I am an enthusiastic savorer of gluten. But whenever I go without for a while, and then scarf down a couple slices of bread or pizza, my gut feels the difference. If I’m gassy, blame gluten. 

***

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Wasting Dam Water

I've just returned home from a quick trip to and from southern California via Interstate 5, a flat straight freeway through some of the most productive farmland in the nation. Dotted along the route are many signs like these, reading "Newsom: Stop Wasting Our Dam Water!" and suchlike.

I expect all those parched farmers will be editing their signs to read "Trump" after he recently ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to release 2.2 billion gallons of water from California reservoirs to fight fires in Los Angeles, despite the fact that there was no way for that dam water to get to L.A. It just flowed out to the Pacific, where it will do the farmers' crops no good during the hot dry summer to come. Trump literally did the thing on the sign. 

Yes, they'll be rewriting them any day now . . .

I am 99% sure that Trump believes water somehow flows downhill from the Pacific Northwest to L.A. because Canada is above California on the map. I am completely serious. 

(Photo credit: KBAK-TV in Bakersfield, because I thought it imprudent to take photographs while driving 75 mph.)

250 Words on Tough Jobs

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

“There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”
—attributed to Ernest Hemingway (but maybe not actually by him).

The Tortured Artist is an archetype. Creativity is agony, but that agony yields exquisite beauty. 

Well . . . maybe if you’re Hemingway, Van Gogh or Plath.

I had other careers before becoming a professional cartoonist in my forties, and one perspective I gained from that late start was that a bad day writing and drawing is better than most good days doing those other jobs. 

I see it like this: In a previous career, I was a journalist. If I got a story wrong, I could ruin a life or a business. Later, I was an environmental chemist. If I did an analysis wrong, I could endanger public health.

One of my sisters was a registered nurse. If she made a mistake, a patient could die.

A college friend analyzed terrorism for the CIA. If he made a mistake, thousands could die.

Making art takes thought and skill but it ain’t curing cancer or fighting terrorists. Don’t be too precious about it. If I have a bad day writing or drawing, I toss my disappointments into the bin. I’d like to do it well and be successful, but if I fail? Nobody dies. Nobody cares. Nobody gets hurt but me. 

Create art or don’t. If it’s such agony, find something else to do. The world will still spin and life’s too short.

* * * 

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Enjoy Beautiful Lake Illinois!

My delight of the day comes courtesy of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who called a press conference to announce that he was changing the name of Lake Michigan to Lake Illinois, and that his state would be annexing Green Bay, Wisconsin "to protect itself against enemies, foreign and domestic."

It's expert trolling that only slightly exaggerates the ridiculousness of the actual federal policies, which I think makes it very effective. Autocrats hate being laughed at. I'm laughing.

A Suggestion for Troubled Times

I go light on politics online because Internet arguments don't change minds and few care what I think. Still, I think it's worthwhile to clearly state where one stands from time to time, and I have what may be a helpful approach for some of my friends . . .

I am as distressed, anxious and enraged as any intelligent American who's mourning our apparent national suicide. I can't think of any time in the history of the world when a dominant empire simply decided to take itself out at the height of its power--to threaten its allies, cozy up to its enemies, and withdraw all the peaceful levers of soft power (USAID, CDC, WHO, NOAA, the G20) that make it a leader. It's inexplicable to me.

Here's the problem: if I stay revved up about that continuously, I don't get anything done during the day and I don't sleep at night. Me being anxious and sleepless doesn't do anything to help the good guys or stop the bad guys.

Here's my solution: engage during the first half of the day. Read the news, Heather Cox Richardson, Rebecca Solnit, half a dozen writers I follow on Substack. Give money to causes, contact my representatives, work up a solid knot of stress and agita.  

Then disengage during the second half of the day. Stay off social media. Write my little 250-word essays, work on my art and new books I'd like to get published someday. Watch funny YouTube videos and TV programs. Read books. Try to go to bed with a clear mind.

This is a new approach for me but it seems to work. Every day I try to get a little something done to defend my country plus a little something done to nourish my career and soul. That, in addition to our regular work for the local food bank and other do-gooders, seems like a balance I can live with.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Democrats simply don't have the votes to stop the carnage, so nothing's going to change until Republicans' constituents start to feel the pain. They will. Then, as Ms. Solnit wrote this morning, I think the challenge will be not to say "I told you so" but "Welcome."

250 Words on Musical Appreciation

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Tuesday until I run out of good ones.]

One of my life regrets is that I have little facility or deep understanding for music. 

I’ve tried. I can’t sing. I played violin for a bit when I was very young, then picked at guitar through my teens, but showed no aptitude. I don’t think I’m tone-deaf but I may be tone-impaired; simply tuning an instrument was a struggle because I couldn’t really tell when two close notes sounded the same. I think if I’d stuck with guitar I could've become a competent player, but no more. Never a musician. 

I love classical music and took deep dives into Beethoven and Bach in college, which became slogs of sheer brute force memorization. Harmonics, counterpoint, the circle of fifths: music theory might as well have been quantum theory, which I actually understood better. Those two classes taxed me more than most physics coursework did.*

And music composition? Sorcery!

Watching a good musician play fills me with admiration and envy. They’re not thinking about where to put their fingers or how to move their hands. It’s all muscle memory—playful, expressive, intuitive. Beautiful.

I think I know what that feels like when I’m doing art, particularly using a brush to ink or paint. I’m not conscious of pressing hard or light, moving fast or slow, or how the medium will flow. It just does what I want it to. It’s my instrument and sometimes I can make it sing. 

And sometime it surprises me. I bet musicians get that, too. 

.

*I expect some smart readers to point out how music actually is physics, with mathematically related vibrations and such. Yes, I know. I don’t find that as helpful as you might think. Why does a major chord sound triumphant while a minor chord sounds sad? How does a composer weave melodies together to tell a story and, while they’re at it, know to play some notes with an oboe and others with a trumpet? How can a song make you cry? That’s the ineffable magic. 

***

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POW! BAM! LumaCon 2025!

I had a terrific Saturday at my favorite little comics convention in the world, LumaCon, organized by librarians in the town of Petaluma, Calif., to promote reading and creativity. Admission is free, and it's a family-friendly event for people who like comics, manga, anime, fantasy, science fiction, cosplay, and related tomfoolery. 

I love it for a few reasons. One, I get to see my cartooning friends, some of whom are shown in the accompanying photos. Two, I love the energy of the event: everyone is there for fun and love, and these days that feels necessary. Three, I get to sell some books.

Fourth and foremost: I love to talk to young people (and some older ones) about making comics. Most people don't give much thought to how stories get published. It just seems like something that other people somehow magically do. But it's not magic, it's a process. I like to show my original art beside the printed page and describe how I turn THIS into THAT. I make the point that if you fill two sheets of paper with words and art, fold them in half and staple them in the middle to make an eight-page comic, you're doing pretty much the same thing I do. I have fancier toys, but that's not what's important. You told a story only you can tell. THAT'S important. 

I think demystifying the creative process matters. Every comic, painting, song, novel, etc. you've enjoyed was made by a real person. No tricks or shortcuts, they just sat down and did the work. I know that at least some kids need to hear that because, when I was young, I was lucky enough to see some original cartoon art and meet some published writers, and it meant the world to me. If they could do it, so could I. 

And if I could do it, so can you.

That's my pitch, anyway, and I met some young (and older) people at LumaCon who seemed receptive to it. That's why I keep going back. 

In addition to the friends I got photos of, I touched base with too many others to list. I enjoyed quick greetings with many and quality conversations with a few, with promises of "We've got to get together soon." I'd like that. 

Thanks, LumaCon! I hope to catch you next year.

My set-up. I accidentally arranged my table with my nonfiction books on the right and my fiction books on the left (or, as I sometimes called them, "my serious books and my happy books") and it turned out to be a nice way to talk about them. I'll remember that for the future. My portfolio is open to two pages of original art that became the two pages from my Avengers story in the "Marvel Super Stories" anthology on the table in front of them. I like to talk about process. I sat beside Maia Kobabe (on the right), which is interesting because Maia's book "GenderQueer" is the most banned book in America and yet I always overhear two or three people telling Maia how it saved their lives. Go figure.

An overview of the main LumaCon room. Notice all the young people sitting at tables and peddling their art. That's one of this con's main missions. I took this photo standing on a stage with tables for kids to glue together craft projects. Other stuff happens in the lobby and a few side rooms. It's a friendly full house. The LumaCon organizers don't track attendance, but I'd guess 2,000 or more people came over the course of the day.

A vaguely helpful signpost in the lobby.

The Art Room, which was nothing more than a quiet place with paper, pens and crayons for people to draw with. Isn't that terrific?

Some finished drawings pinned to the wall of the Art Room.

The Bake Sale! Every comics convention needs a bake sale. The kids at the table to the left sold baked goods, while the kids behind the window in the back wall were serious culinary students turning out legitimate food. I enjoyed a fancy chicken sandwich as well as a cup of mac and cheese with bacon.

Inside the Cosplay Room. Pros, semi-pros, and kids with cardboard boxes over their heads. Everybody's welcome.

A trio of cosplayers. I didn't notice the head peeking through the neck of the character on the left (Khonshu from Moon Knight) until just now. Smile!

Luckily, I did not witness this Dalek exterminating anyone.

My friend, cartoonist, and Schulz Studio staffer Denis St. John.

The creative couple of Emily C. Martin and Brett Grunig. We have comics in common but I really wanted to talk to them about printmaking, at which they are experts. Brett even teaches it, and it's something I'd like to get better at. 

Maia Kobabe in intense conversation with my friend, cartoonist, and Schulz Studio editor Lex Fajardo, with creative powerhouse Gio Benedetti (in yellow-sleeved shirt) at the table behind them. 

Librarian Nathan Libecap, one of the core group of high school and public librarians who put on LumaCon, and make it just a bit bigger and better, every year. The blue flannel shirt in the background is on cartoonist and Schulz Studio Creative Director Paige Braddock. 

As much as I enjoyed my day, walking down an aisle and finding Steve Oliff was the highlight for me. In some circles, Steve is a giant. He's won multiple Eisner and Harvey Awards, and is known primarily as a colorist. In fact, he was one of the first artists to do digital coloring in the early 1980s. A pioneer. Steve is also a few years older than me and grew up in Point Arena, on the northern California coast, and when I was a teenager his name was whispered in reverent tones at the local comic book shop as "the hometown guy who turned pro." That was a big deal. So I had a chance to babble all that to Steve, and I think he appreciated that not only did someone there know who he was but seemed familiar with his entire career. Being able to talk to someone like that as a peer is a real treat.

Rain did not dampen the enthusiasm of kids for pummeling each other with swords, pikes and maces under the covered walkways of the Petaluma Community Center. Astonishingly, no casualties were reported.

My last photo is dedicated to the librarians, not just for putting on this event but for being heroes of civilization in an increasingly hostile world.