Oh, shit! Bet you didn’t think I’d hitcha with the Greenday!! Well guess what?? Today I finished the second chapter of Petrified Girlfriend! Yes, yes, I know I “finished” it back in the spring, but take a look at what I’m talking about. Here are a few sample panels that my cohorts at the Center for Cartoon Studies (the poor saps) got at the beginning of May.

And now, here’s what you, the faceless masses (my reason for living!), will get to smudge between your grubby little fingers come this Autumn.

That’s all for now! I’ve got other things to do! Away with you all, I’m a very busy, very…very powerful, and very important man!!

Things are happening! If you follow my Twittles diligently enough, you may already know that last week I was going through a bit of despair. I didn’t think I’d ever work on this comic, or maybe any comic ever again. I was lonely and bored and only wanted to drink gin and play video games. I think this was mostly because nothing could live up to the spectacular weekend before it.

There was delicious barbecue with grilled potato salad and grilled tomatillo salsa. There was jumping in the river and taking in the view down the Connecticut River Valley. There was a three-hour walk to the town’s outer limits. There was Rock Band the game and going to Indian food. It was all great. And it was all part of my stalwarts, my rocks, Caitlin and Todd, coming up to visit.

At any rate, now I’m coping. Partially by talking to myself. Today I cheered Lee Marvin when he ended a Western with a really cutting line to a robber baron. Yesterday I got tough with my pens, and with a guy on the radio who wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

But, the more crucial part of my recent spat of not hating myself is as I mentioned first; things are happening! Yesterday I finished revising the second chapter of Petrified Girlfriend, “The Forest Primeval.” If you’ll recall, I was working day and night on this back around April. I let it stew and fester a couple months before coming at it with the clinical gaze of an editor, and now that awful deed is done. But, before I can flip you all a third issue of Oak & Linden, (featuring, of course, this very same chapter), I’ll be adding some gray tones to the piece and also making some little shorts. What would Oak & Linden be without shorts?? Anyhow, it should drop in September.

And speaking of Todd, and talking about collaborating with him and Dan, and Colin, did you notice Wilma Whistlepig putting on some weight up there? How do you like this, with the drawing at the top, where you want it? Where you can skip the blab blab blab?

These are the notes to myself I have taped above my drafting table. They’re normally squeezed between triangles, a cutting mat, T-square, and some ellipses and curves I never use any more but keep crucifying from long thin nails in each new apartment of every new year.

I think of these missives to myself in the voice of a coach (except for the little one, but we’ll get to that). Specifically one who’s red haired and balding (with a fierce patch of curly neck hair, macheted below his neckline every few weeks). A baby faced and small lacrosse coach/admissions councilor. One with a soft voice that could, through fiery intensity, be brought to a tenor roar. Usually this was in furiously despairing disappointment, but every once in a while it was in uncontainable, genuine excitement. His name’s Sam Gaudet and he would always wear a bow tie to his day job and at games, but like a real jock, I always called him Coach.

That’s the thing I miss most about high school: having a coach. He’s a man that every committed student athlete is a little bit in love with. We look to them for approval like cats that kill rodents and present them to their masters. We’d never admit how much we care about Coach’s reaction. And we’re jealous of his attention, like rival siblings. The other thing I miss is caring about hip hop. Which is why I thought it was still worth posting that little scrap that predates the motivational posters in my studio space.

Lately I keep finding myself in conversations about fashion’s tendency toward revivalism and pastiche. It seems especially commonplace in the last decade, but it ain’t a new phenomenon. Before the ’00s riffed on the ’80s, the ’80s was really into the ’50s. It took us the last twenty years to try to forget that bellbottoms made a comeback in the ’90s, but it was the Roaring Twenties that sported ‘em first. So, granted, these things are cyclical. But! Here’s a little nugget of late-night wisdom for you: they’re also political.

Okay, okay, maybe I’m not blowing your mind here. Yes, you may have already noticed that women wore gigantic, man-shaping shoulder pads both times they found themselves trying to muscle into the office, in the ’40s and the ’80s. But check this out, I think you can predict what era will be in vogue for a comeback by who is in the White House. Eisenhower and Reagan both hated Commies and glorified the notion of a clean, orderly suburbia with plenty of time-saving gizmos and great new stuff to acquire. Change the Commies to Evildoers and it’s easy to understand how the ’80s were so huge in the ’00s. The Obamas/Kennedys-era fixation with long, sharp silhouettes and solid colors has already been discussed enough.

How about, let’s try for a bit of a stretch. Teddy Roosevelt and LBJ both replaced assassinated presidents. They also both used their executive might to take on too-big corporate interests. What was all the rage with hippies? Cowboy stuff! Fringe, leather, big facial hair. It was positively turn of the century!

Well, aren’t you glad we got through that? Are you just here to look at the pictures anyway? Alright, then. This I drew on the Greyhound some time. It’s Don Rosa (as best I could remember) at a barbecue in Charlotte, thinking about Scrooge McDuck (who looks something like that?) who’s thinking about money. Well anyhow, the point is they have similar hair and glasses and mouths. Gahd, cut to the picture already!!