John & Belle Have A Blog

78 - 'Owl paints pictures that inspire ...'; Mei Mei self-portrait

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77 - 'No flower's bloom, no whirr, no buzz ...' plus beach girl

Next page. This one is a poetic continuation of the text of yesterday's page so read that one first.

And here's Zoë's latest:

76 - 'Squid's best poems express nostalgia ...'; plus Zoë Invite

Next page. To be concluded tomorrow. A bit of a cliffhanger, I think you will agree. I hope you are on the edge of your seat wondering ... what will happen to the algae!

And here's a little something Zoë designed and executed. Invite to a spontaneous afternoon party. Fine thing, you will agree.

And the inside. We do need to work on our reversals and spelling, don't we?

75 - 'To make a capture so specific ...';

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Zoë is better today. Dentist says she's ok. (Don't know what caused that severe stomach ache last night.) Belle is feeling better and took the kids clothes shopping. We're going back to the East Coast for vacation in a couple weeks. Sporting her cool new duds, Zoë said: "Do you think I'll look like I know who I am, even in New York?" Here she is.

74 - 'Owl feels he is very wise ...'

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Medical update: Belle is still sick but getting better. Zoë got better but tonight she seems to be getting sick again. (We hope her infection from those bad teeth isn't resurging. Tomorrow she goes back to the dentist.) Sigh.

Plus I've got a ton of work.

More kid pics later.

73 - 'In the pages of ancient codices ...' plus 'get well spider'

Next page. This one is length-wise, so you'll have to click through to Flickr to see the full glory:

It's based on the Codex Nutall, if you don't happen to be familiar.

Poor Belle. She's got the flu. Presumably whatever the girls just got over. And Zoë had to have dental surgery yesterday because she has terrible cavities. (She brushes. It does no good.) But Zoë drew mom a colorful 'get well spider':

72 - 'Later, as a janissary ...' plus 'never married once again'

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Good one, eh?

Being the author of a famous webcomic means you get tons of fan mail. For example, today I received a missive that opens:

"Hello Dear New Friend,
My name is miss Confidence, never married once again i am happy to contact you as my friend."

That is genius spam. A spinster named miss Confidence who gets up every morning, considers the lay of the land, and says to herself: 'never married once again'.

How does this stuff get generated? I really don't know. It's not as though it could fool anything. Why bother if you aren't going to do a better job of it?

71 - 'While swimming deep, alone, apart...'; plus 'Look up!'

Next page. A continuation of last night's Napoleonic theme.

Next, some Mei Mei art. She's improving. This one has a nice 'looking up' quality - like Squid, above. Sort of an adoration of the something-or-other quality.

70 - 'A dispatch from Napoleon ...'; plus, The Murderist!

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I like this one. What do you think.

No kid pics tonight. Got a whole pile of scans to scan for later. Two linguistic delights. Belle was playing with Mei Mei, who was playing with her juice straw. She was dangling it from the corner of her mouth. She asked: "Does it look like I'm cigaretting?" (Everything she knows about smoking she learned from old cartoons, I think). Zoë and I were telling a Supersky Heroes story, which took a violent turn, and Zoë asked, excitedly: 'Do you mean there's a murderist loose?!" I think that's the most awesome supervillain name ever. The Murderist.

69 - 'Owl pursues a bold endeavor'; plus Kick!

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Plus Kick! (An energetic theme for the day.)

68 - 'Squid and Owl, as the sun sets ...'; Zoë's home

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Have a very metaphysical weekend.

Zoë's home. Which is good. She has to take 14 mls of this gross white stuff three times a day for three more days. Which is bad. See you all on Monday.

Freedom Beef

Mei Mei can't draw, as you can plainly see. But she sings wonderfully. Example: her favorite music is the Powerpuff Girls mini-rock opera, "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey". Which is, all by itself, a powerful argument for the purchase of The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series [amazon]. Or, if you are cheap, you can watch it on YouTube (part I, part 2). The full transcript is here, for completists and students of the sub-sub-genre of dystopian musicals. Apparently this particular episode was never shown on American TV. Draw your own conclusion about what they thought was too shocking about it.

As I was saying, Mei Mei has the whole thing memorized. She's rides on my shoulders to school everyday and sings quietly pretty much the whole way. She's about the size/weight of a pair of Bose headphones (it's not that we don't feed her, she's just small). And she doesn't have quite the bass range that Bose headphones deliver. But she puts her heart in it.

While we were sitting, watching "Gnomey" for the 254th time, I stuck a microphone in front of her and recorded the whole thing. Now you must understand: this is a very young girl singing quietly to herself while the show itself is playing (you can't hear it, but she can.) So it has more of an absent-minded naivete, compared to the un-mic'ed belting out I am treated to every morning above and behind my ears. But it still seems well worthy of sampling. And so I present to you ... an mp3 high-notes reel from Mei Mei's solo performance of the entirely of "See me, Feel Me, Gnomey".

01townsvillegoingdownville.mp3 (135.4K)

02getsome.mp3 (350.9K)

03rainpain.mp3 (876.2K)

04givemeyourpowers.mp3 (1278.3K)

05notgivingup.mp3 (231.7K)

06normallittlegirls.mp3 (137.1K)

07villainoustreachery.mp3 (222.0K)

08reuniteabovemefathers.mp3 (257.9K)

09hearmethespiritsnow.mp3 (370.9K)

10sunshine.mp3 (189.3K)

11aahh.mp3 (468.1K)

12freedombeef.mp3 (249.3K)

13yinandyang.mp3 (460.7K)

14weakwithoutthebold.mp3 (110.9K)

15getalong.mp3 (704.8K)

67 - 'If nominated, will not run ...' plus 'What, what, what?'

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I'm not happy with the empty election husting/lackluster grassroots crowd illustration. It's too lackluster. I can't help but think my inability to draw is somehow responsible. But the mad science image is just fine. I like it, right down to the curly brain-transfer wire.

Basically, I'm playing to my strengths in designing two characters who basically only roll their eyes and move their curlies around. I can handle curlies and eyes that look different direction.

Speaking of people who can't draw, Mei Mei drew this skull. She explained that it is saying: "What, what, what?" I can well believe it.

Today I started reading Pinkwater's Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror to Zoë, in the hospital. With a little luck, she'll be able to come home before I've read all 100 or so Pinkwater books to her.

66 - 'When Squid essays to do fondu ...'; hospital update

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Zoë is still in the hospital today. I was there from 10:30 to 3:30, then 6:00-9:00. Now Belle is back on duty for the night. We watched rather a lot of Ben 10 and Tom & Jerry. Yesterday, it was several Pink Panther cartoons. I quite like the design sensibility in those, but they aren't that funny.

I read her about 120 pages of Daniel Pinkwater's The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death. That was fun. She still can't eat any food, however, which is not as fun.

65 - Even in a drawing room ...; Zoë's in the hospital

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Poor Zoë. She's in hospital. She couldn't keep anything down and we couldn't keep her fever down or give her the antibiotics she needs. She's ok now that she's on an IV drip. Belle is with her for the night. I just got back. Visiting hours ended at at 8 PM. The hospital is fairly locked down because they are taking this H1N1 thing very seriously. I was a bit late getting out after visiting hours and everything was already locked. I wandered about in some confusion.

She doesn't have H1N1, thank goodness. I read her Dr. Seuss, "The Sneetches". But actually the best one in that volume is the 'Pale Green Pants With Nobody Inside Them' story.