Lately I’ve been watching my mega-pal Kevin finishing up what will surely prove to be the sickest comics anthology of 2011. I mentioned it once before, and seeing more work coming in for it, I’m increasingly giddy for its springtime release. Its called Visions of the Aporkalypse, and it features plenty of Swineclopses like that guy up there. Kevin’s been dropping previews on his blog, including two pages from mine own entry. I’m so excited!

Here’s some more piggies. Pot bellies have the most personality and babirusas are even grosser than warthogs (sometimes those upper tusks grow into their heads!!). That’s what I learned.

Yes, it’s another Buchwald sketch. I did it a while ago, and I’m still pining to get going on a Big Buchwald Project that’s looking farther and farther off. This drawing also demonstrates some loose, free, quickness that I seem to have lost for now. Yeah, I know that back leg is a little weird, but I still prefer it to what I’ve been up to lately.

I just keep thinking how much I wanna simplify things when I get to that Next Big Project. Time to Speed Things Up and Get Things Done. None of us is making a career out of comics, so why kill ourselves over it? Oy. I should stop now. Jeeeeeeee-zooey, we haven’t had one o’ these posts in a while, have we??

What’s that I hear? Do you think Mr. McFeely is here with today’s speedy delivery?? Oh boy, neighbors, I hope it’s a video about how they make something we all love! What’ll it be today? Crayons? Maybe rocket ships??

“Aheheh, sorry neighbor, but today I just brought some slides.”

Oh, that’s alright. I’m sure they’ll be very interesting.

“Well, uh Fred, not too interesting. You see, I couldn’t get into a factory this week, and all I got was a tour of one corner of the Telegraph Studio at the Center for Cartoon Studies.”

Telegraph! Cartoons! That does sound interesting!

“You see, Fred, this is Pat Barrett’s corner of the Telegraph Studio. You can see from his wall that things are heating up on Petrified Girlfriend chapter 3: Invasive Species!”

I don’t know what that means, but allllrighty! And what’s that, that daisy chain there?

“Each of the second-year students at the Center for Cartoon Studies (or CCS) has a space at the Telegraph. It’s in the former cafeteria of the town’s original phone company building. Well, one of the students, Josh Kramer, instigated that paper chain. Now it’s making its way through the studio with a lot of help from Beth Hetland.”

OK. I’m sure this is about to get very interesting.

“Here we can see a closer look at some of the pages on Mr. Barrett’s wall. Peaking up at the top-left of his drafting table is a floor plan he made for the imaginary apartment where much of his comic book adventure story takes place. He says it’s really made drawing scenes a whole lot simpler. When he needs to fill in a background, he just looks at the map. Then he’ll draw the furniture as its positioned in his diagram.”

I’m sorry, I fell asleep.

“Oh, that’s OK, Fred. Just one more slide to go.”

That’s fine. Take your time, Mr. McFeely.

“This is a table shared by Mr. Barrett and his dear pal Ben Horak. They lived together last year, and this photo that Mr. Barrett marked up certainly demonstrates who was the Felix and who the Oscar in their relationship! Did you notice that Lego race car sort of pushing into Ben’s half of the desk? And there’s the sex change gun from the hit comic anthology Nymphonomena!”

Gosh, that really is special. Well, thank you, Mr. McFeely, I’m sure we’ll be seeing you again soon.

“Speedy Delivery!”

Bye, neighbor!

Poor Wilma Whistlepig sees Satan lurking around every corner. Who can blame her for hiding out a little longer? Good thing it’s still hot fun in the summer sun down on the farm.

Groundhog Day is one of my favorite holidays, by the way. For one thing, there’s no history of war, or genocide, or human sacrifice involved. There’s just plain old Pagan longing for spring to hurry up and come. It’s also great because nothing really happens, but everybody still talks about it. Sure, you probably forget it’s even coming, but on the second day of February, everybody’s gotta know what Punxsutawney Phil and Staten Island Chuck had to say about their shadows.

And, could the wilds of North America provide us with a more perfectly comedic rodent to act the part of wintry barometer? The way they scurry across the ground, their little fat bodies looking like fuzzy waves cresting and falling, just can’t be beat. And then, once they get to chucking wood, forget about it!

Here’s a throwback: Anyone remember I am the Last VCR?