This was inspired by true events. My wife played the part of Conrad.
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Hey everybody. Day-job crunch time and family visiting mean updates this week will be a bit irregular, but I don’t think I’ll out-and-out miss one.
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Well, the last thing you saw from me was that there would be no comics ’til today or Friday, and an explanation of why. This is just a brief update to let you know that it will be Friday, and that I haven’t forgotten about the strip or dropped off the face of the earth.
Kara is fine, our Christmas was wonderful, and we’re almost back to “normal.” There’s the smallest of chances that it will be Monday before you see another update. I’ll post either confirmation of that, or a comic, on Friday.
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Greetings all!
It looks as if the comic won’t update ’til next week.
My wife has spent some time in the hospital. She originally went in because she was having trouble breathing. That was taken care of in about two hours. Because she’s pregnant, and also because of how her asthma and blood pressure historically interact, they decided to keep her over the rest of that night and the next as well, just to monitor.
Obviously this means I’ve been taking care of her and Nathan instead of drawing or working, so no comic tonight for sure.
This leaves our Christmas travel plans up in the air for the moment, depending on the scheduling of one of the (fairly standard) tests they’d like her to take. If we still go ahead with our travel, you won’t see any comics ’til Wednesday or Friday of next week. If we have to nix our travel and stay home over the holiday weekend, I may use some of the time to post something early next week, but of course I have no way of committing to that yet.
The bottom line for me is that Kara’s breathing was taken care of almost immediately, and that her blood pressure is OK. Everything is fine, and I can easily take care of the rest.
Unfortunately, this forces you into a position of having to wait around for comics while I do. Which is a major bummer for me, because the comic right before Christmas was one of my favorites.
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Overthinking It Follow-Up: “Inspiration vs. Imitation”
by Daniel on December 7, 2011 at 4:16 pmPosted In: Blog
This was shared with me by a dear friend of mine. (Since he or she didn’t share it here, I’ll decline to compromise his or her identity. This puts me in the enviable position of coming up with a nickname. I will henceforth call him or her “Curly Tongue.”)
He or she mentioned that it was “tangentially related to a recent Fresh Fish post, and interesting.” It’s arguabley more than tangentially related, and it certainly has some very valuable thoughts.
I think the individual points that relate most directly to my post are “3. Diversify your inspirations” and “6. Just because it’s not illegal doesn’t mean it’s ethical” in conjunction with “7. Everybody knows everybody.” But it’s definitely a must-read for anyone who would consider themselves a beginner in any creative endeavor.
└ Tags: Overthinking It
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I read these two stories (stories one and two) on The Daily Cartoonist earlier today, and of course they follow the David Simpson controversy earlier this year (part of which is chronicled here).
I’m glad to see the benefit of the doubt at the end of the first story, and in the quote from Bob Mankoff (New Yorker cartoon editor as well as one of the cartoonists potentially “stolen” from). The creative process for cartoonists is such that an idea can come from anywhere, then percolate ‘til it’s almost unrecognizable from its original form. Hence, it’s often difficult to trace an idea back to its origin. Hence, it’s difficult to tell original ideas that have gone through this process from ideas you saw fully formed years ago and that came to mind when you were thinking about a particular topic. Once, Charles Schulz even ran two cartoons a few months apart that are panel-for-panel the same – He had the same idea and forgot he’d already run it. So clearly something like this can happen innocently. And of course, the mantra that “All Artists are Thieves” (a quote from Glen Keane that I believe was paraphrased from other sources) definitely permeates this entire conversation.
But controversies like this have definite lessons for any cartoonist, and they suggest some things that professionals should plan for. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
└ Tags: Overthinking It
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