Whattaya know, but my alter ego has gone branding-crazy. His thirst for market saturation has taken him so far as to brazenly co-opt a national drinking holiday! Surely, this is a new low for marketing.

I know I said that I wouldn’t blog for a while, but it’s St. Patrick’s Day, and in certain ethnic circles, you get a pass from your Lentin Resolve on St. Patrick’s Day. I’ll probably blog once or twice more before Easter, too, concerning the MoCCA Fest. I’ll be there, April 9th & 10th at the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Ave. It’s a good time to mention that location, history fans, because during the Civil War, the New York 69th were known as the Irish Brigade. Remember that, in case Alex Trebek ever asks you about it in the form of an answer. Anyhow, I’ll be there with Beth Hetland, Josh Kramer and Ben Horak. I challenge you to find a lovelier set of young cartoonists.

I’m not normally a fan of St. Patrick’s Day, even though it is my Feast Day. I’ve often felt that it’s too centered on perpetuating a stereotype of the Micks as all-day, fightin-mad, fall-down Drunks. Kiss Me, I’m Irish. Irish for the Day. Yaddayadda, all these beer-branded green T-shirts just so some bros can pregame on the commuter train and get hammered before 10:00 in the morning.

This year, though, for some reason I’m excited. I’m pulling out the Clancy Brothers tunes, and visions of blood pudding are dancing through my head. And so I’ve drawn you another faux-vintage little holiday web card. It’s just for you, The Whole Internet.

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?

It’s “the holidays,” and it’s been lovely, but I wouldn’t want the internet to think I’d forgotten it. So here I am, with another short-term memory-drawing of the north country. It was funny passing by the same spot the next day and realizing how different the construction of the bridge is, and how there are bigger, uglier buildings just past it. But, isn’t that the great part about memory? The relevant parts stick out. I’m really enjoying doing these landscapes in this way. I think it has a lot to do with cartooning, and with only including the pertinent details. If I ever teach a class, I’ll probably make my students do some memory sketching. First I’ll show them Laura Park, who does a lot of it.

In other news, my whirlwind tour of the New York metro-area is drawing to a close, and it makes me sad. Caitlin and I extended our Christmas stay in Connecticut, due to that big snowstorm the entire Eastern Seaboard is talking about. One of my oldest and dearest friends was staying there, with my parents, and blended right in, an extra sibling, just like he used to when we were kids. That was lovely.

The other day a bunch of us took the commuter rail down to Grand Central. It was the day after the storm, and the train was packed. My dad had to go to his bank, my sister to the French Consulate, my Chad (that’s the friend I mentioned) to Brooklyn, along with a friend of his who joined us on the train. Caitlin and I took the subway over to Penn Station, and never emerged to the light of Manhattan. We just got straight onto a New Jersey Transit double decker train and took it to her grandmother’s, where we’ve been the last two days. Upon arriving in New York, neither Caitlin or I felt the Country Mouse sensation that I’ve had when emerging from a day’s travel on Amtrak directly from Vermont. There was none of that “gorsh, there sure are a lotta pretty people…an’ boy do they move fast!” kinda thing. I don’t know if it was the buffer of some days spent in the suburbs, or the familiarity of the commuter line, or what, but it just felt comfortable and right.

I’m looking forward to our approaching weekend stint in Brooklyn. I miss the old borough, and haven’t been back since August. I’m worried that I might never live there again. I can’t stop thinking about what I’ll do, and where I’ll be, after graduating (unless I fail) from CCS this coming May. I know I’ll stick around in Vermont for a while, but I don’t know for how long, or how I’ll be paying my loans. Ah, the future! There’s nothing like the New Year to make you obsess over your plans, is there? Welp, that’s my life. Sorry to get all reflective on yas.

Oh golly, I guess I forgot I had a blog. I’m in Charlotte now, at Cait’s parents’ house, and I’m watching Star Wars on TV (“Only a master of evil, Darth”). We’ve got Legos and preg-os, so basically, things couldn’t be better. Since last I wrote, we’ve had a kegger at my “frat house,” a lovely night out at Union Hall in Brooklyn, and I made a header for Joe Kopta’s blog.

Guess what else I forgot. I used to post doodles! Here’s a page from back in September.

Well yesterday while I was on a Greyhound from Vermont to New York, I started to hate all humanity. One guy was working his entire respiratory system up through his trachea a couple seats behind me. I was surrounded by iPhones and got squished by a pain in the ass college kid (am I really already hating college kids?? I’m only 24! I’m a college kid!!!) from Hartford on. Actually, this isn’t the first time college kids boarding at Hartford have driven me crazy on a holiday weekend ride. And having taken the train so much recently, I now know just how small the seats are on a bus. They’re tiny. At least for a somewhat tallish person they are. No legroom, no elbow room. Basically, I was feeling crotchety. Then the bus took the scenic route through the Bronx on down to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Lord, how I wished I was on the train. But, since there is only one train from White River Junction per day, they were all sold out for this week  by at least a month ago.

Anyhow, when I finally got to the Port Authority, I found my cell phone too dead to even let me look up Caitlin’s work number. Typically, I either don’t pack my charger or my underpants. This time I packed my underpants. I went to the Authority’s pay phones to try to 411 the New Yorker, found the first phone emitting a high-pitched tone normally used to torture detainees at Gitmo. The next was simply silent. The third asked for 50 cents, but sent my quarters right down to the coin return slot. The fourth! Took my quarters…and kept demanding 50 cents! Naturally, I banged the shit out of that thing. Then a cop let me know that he probably wouldn’t do that. So I walked the two blocks to the Conde Nast building – why didn’t I do that in the first place? Before long, all was right with the world again. And I started to feel…thankful!

Today I don’t have a drawing to show you guys. Actually, I have a new comic, but not with me. So instead, how about a little schmultz? I give thanks for the Center for Cartoon Studies, for a loving and supportive family, an equally loving and supportive girlfriend, a fluffy cat, all sorts of inspiring, funny friends who aren’t too shy or phony to tell me when and where I’ve missed my mark in my work, and for you, my dear readers, who are almost entirely made up of those people listed!

Dearest friends and esteemedest colleagues, I forgot to post this back on All Hallows’ Evening and I’m sorry. (By the by, Halloween also marked the second anniversary of this blog.) Enough of this nonsense; I give you the latest in a long line of drawing portraits of BFFEA, Zombie Todd!

Too much? Can’t stand to look at that accursed misery any more? Here’s nice Todd

Todd’s a celebrity. He must be cause he has a blogspot domain with his name on it. And he draws superheroes! So I’m posting this as a Celebrity Saturday. See if I care what you think.