Good morning readership,
I want to first tell you that you are my best friends. This comic is my air-hose while diving penniless for those pearls with only a knife and a breath. You readers are the buoyant bubbles that bring me wobbling to the surface. You know everything will be fine in the end. Every time I hear someone is enjoying what we are doing it's like a kiss on the cheek from my middle school crush. Autumn? No, there was another one, with dark hair. I've forgotten her name. She wore either dark purple or green stockings everyday, and was very neat which was important to me at the time. I have an image of her in French class gripping her daily planner on a rainy day. Though occasionally Autumn would whisper into my ear which made me dizzy.
The most recent comics have been about memory and the strange passage of time. As a kid I was stupid enough to believe, after someone showed me a clock, that time flows evenly. It took me a long time to get over that and to realize that though the clock counts time evenly, that doesn't mean it flows evenly for me. I've been losing a lot of time lately and am surprised by the seasons. Just this week I'm ready for last spring.
David and I will be at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda this weekend. Just like Otakon we don't have a booth because we are poor, disorganized, and have nothing to sell anyway. But we'll be around, speaking with people, handing out fliers.
If you like what you're seeing on this free website devoid of ads there's two things you can do for us. Give us a little money through paypal, or vote for us in this contest. I don't think we'll win because our readership is modest, but still.
We’ve been late lately. We’re trying to fix that.
Here is the first part of a book series I'm developing for gifted lonely children. I'm hoping David will illustrate them.
King of Young Planet Earth vol. 1
KING OF YOUNG PLANET EARTH:
Receives a telephone call
The king spends his money early, eats dinner alone, hears the maid tapping lightly on the other side of the tapestry, receives a telephone call served on a silver platter.
"King here." He knows how to respond to solicitors.
"This is the Entry Level Ballroom Dancers Club."
"Do you have my reservations?"
"We cannot grant you special treatment."
"But I could offer you the remaining gold and silver in my coffers"
"Do you know the Two Step, the Charleston, the Lindy-hop, or Tango?"
"I have other things to offer."
"Then it's beginners class for you."
Lately, his meals had been sparse, a grape, an apple slice. A chance meeting with an intelligent woman was all he needed. But the castle walls viewed from his balcony seemed so confining. The remaining ivy removed this week by the gardeners had been a large project, and scraped away the brass which had gleamed on the lion's paws beneath the gate.
He could begin to do his own shopping and pick the same tomato as a pretty girl, accidentally laying his hand on hers, finding his way back to her body. But this was naive fantasy. Sleep would never come. And he might look to the orchards in the west, and the greenhouses where he grew the royal figs. Each warm year made them sweet. An internet start-up shipped them for large profits during the holiday season which was approaching and he had not taken a look at the books.
His son Chesterfield, shoved along like a shopping cart, had an uneven tuff of red hair and eyes that drooped even when excited. In the evenings, they took a tour of the castle parapets, using a fire exit left propped open by a piece of square insulation. They threw parachute men off the roof, but were scared to go too close to the edge. There was a tv in the main parlor but it was outdated now, and the screen had gone green.
A flock of grey birds had come to rest in the trees that lined the way to the gate. And the sounding of the hinges brought them rustling in the air before they settled, though sometimes they picked the field. Chesterfield went out to meet them in the puddles.
Named after his father's favorite dog-- Chesterfield, Chesterfield loved Chesterfield and the two were now inseparable. Chesterfield the dog, who was named after his father's favorite cigarette, would now only come to the king when fed.
Though the king had quit smoking long ago, he kept a carton wrapped in a pillow case beside his bed, and smoked two sticks a year, one on Chesterfield's birthday and one on Chesterfield's birthday.
In the puddle the two Chesterfields harassed the birds until they retreated into the trees. There the creatures decided to make no more noise until the pair would leave them. But instead Chesterfield the boy began throwing rocks into the branches hoping to dislodge a spare bird or two. When this was unsuccessful he resolved to climb the tree though it had no branches low enough. He kept and firm grip on the bark and retested his options, refusing to acknowledge how unplanned his attack was.
That night they had microwave macaroni and cheese dinner in the palace planetarium. Not really familiar with the constellations, or even ready to understand that they sat in metaphor for the night sky and the wandering planet earth, the pair liked the room because of the low lighting and the cool fresh air. Also the projector could play video tapes really large of their favorite cartoons, stretched to fit the sphere, though the points of light that someone had stuck on the ceiling interfered with the image.
-Dale
