We’ve spent a lot of time recently bonding over the Doodle Pro, a magnetic drawing board. Think Etch a Sketch but with an easier-to-use pen tool.

One of my favorite routines is when E climbs into my lap or lays on the floor next to me as I draw things and ask him to tell me what they are.

“Moww” he says for cat, “ba ba” for bottle, and so on.

All of these things bring a giant smile to his face, which is the coolest feeling in the world.

Soon, I started drawing his favorite TV and movie characters.

“Cars?” E says and I draw either Lightning McQueen or Tow Mater, which elicits a huge smile or laugh.

One time, I drew Elmo driving Lightning McQueen with Tow Mater besdie them. E LOVED it! All his favorite things together! Soon, he began requesting that Elmo always be in every picture with the Cars characters.

As much as he loves the drawings, he loves the Doodle Pro’s sliding eraser even more!

What took me five minutes to draw, he erases in one second with a quick swipe.

Then, he hands me the Doodle Pro and asks me to draw Elmo and Cars again! We repeat this process about a dozen more times.

Usually, he’ll take the pen from me before I can finish. He scribbles and dashes (something he picked up after watching me make cross hatches) over my drawings, adding finishing touches, if you will.

Then he’ll point to the drawing and proudly exclaim, “Cars!” as if he drew it.

Time for some old school drawing

On Wednesday, I decided take some pen to paper and draw another of his favorite characters, Curious George. I figured he would probably appreciate a more permanent drawing.

It was a pretty good George, if I do say so myself.

I handed him the drawing, he looked at it and said, “George!”

Big smile on both our faces.

I told him to go show mommy and he shuffled into her office and held up the paper.

“George,” he said, “daddy (indicating that I gave it to him)!”

It was one of the happier father-son moments I’ve had. I was able to use my drawing skill to make my son happy. E walked out of the room, holding his drawing, while my wife and I talked about something. I imagined him holding tightly to his new drawing, like a prized possession, perhaps putting it with his book collection.

As I was talking to my wife, I heard the unmistakable sound of a trash can lid slam shut.

Hmm, what did he throw away?

I went into the kitchen and saw that he was empty handed. I walked over to the trash can, stepped on the button to flip the lid open and there, on top of the trash, a crumpled up Curious George.

And while I know he didn’t know any better and it wasn’t a personal rejection of my drawing, it stung worse than any critique I’ve ever received.

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Content is copyright 2009 BloggerDad.com. If you are reading this on any site other than www.Bloggerdad.com or your personal RSS reader, then you may be reading it on a site which steals content. And would you trust a site like that?

(Another note: Remember right before the election I teased that my next post would make half of you leave? Well, the election post was actually a way of introducing THIS post, which was supposed to be part of it. THIS is the post I figured would likely cause half of you to leave. You’ve been warned.)

How do you pick which dream to follow?

I’ve got a bucket overflowing with dreams. Inside you will see a series of children’s books, this blog, a regular column, a syndicated comic strip, a horror novel or two, and another two blogging projects on the horizon (one of which will be unveiled this week).

The only problem is that I haven’t got time to make them all come true.

Since starting Blogger Dad a couple of months ago, this blog has opened up new worlds or possibility to me. I’ve met a lot of great people and potential collaborators. This blog has also come at the expense of something, and that something is my comics.

Since I’ve used a lot of time once devoted to comics and turned it over to blogging, I figured I would return the favor and spend some of my blogging time to speak of the comics. I hope you will indulge me.

My main gig for the past eight years has been as a webcomic artist (kind of like a newspaper artist, except you usually don’t make any money at it). I draw a couple of them, the cute and family-friendly Todd and Penguin and the less family-friendly, not as cute, Taking Up Space. The two are as different as night and day as are their audiences. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to draw every comic I’d like to. Truth be told, since I’ve been blogging regularly here, I’ve had trouble working on any of my other comics.

And I miss drawing them.

While Todd and Penguin has been with me longer – since November 2000, to be specific, it isn’t the comic I think about when my pencil finds way to paper lately.

Todd and Penguin has always been my MAIN comic, the one for which I am most known, the one which has the most readers and I get the most email about. Taking Up Space has been sort of the black sheep. I started it in 2002. It was my first published comic, appearing in The Stanford Daily ( Stanford University’s paper for you non-U.S. readers). It’s left of center politically (which drew me some hate mail from some of my regular readers who didn’t like that I hold an opinion different than theirs) and it’s sometimes dark. It has been described by another comic artist as “Peanuts for the new millennium”.

I kind of like that description because Peanuts was a dark comic in its early days. It spoke to the insecurities of its artist, Charles Schulz. It spoke to millions of readers. It conveyed volumes with themes that betrayed the simplicity of the form. As a child, I got lost in the world created by Schulz. As I grew older, I found deeper meaning, and solace, in my collection of old Peanuts comics.

I believe Peanuts was cathartic for Schulz. That’s how I feel about Taking Up Space.

I recently read an old interview with Chuck Palahniuk who advised if you’re going to write, write about the things that piss you off. Those are things which you will write best about. Those are the things which mean something. In other words, that is where your passion is at.

The comic’s tag line is “Unhappy comics for unhappy people.”

The two main characters in Taking Up Space are Jessika, the angry gothy elementary school student (who is also in Todd and Penguin) and her brother, Bobby, a hopelessly optimistic (though unlucky) sort. While Jessika rants and raves at the injustices of the world (from a myopic point of view) and the basic inherent flaws in people, Bobby is more thoughtful and prone to believe in the good of people.

The comic oftentimes makes fun of pop culture though it is just as often likely to explore some of the issues and themes which bother me – those who persecute, those who exploit, and hypocrisy. While the comic leans left, the attacks aren’t on a particular political system but rather specific types of people.

Below are a few examples:

Exploitation by fear mongering politicians and media.

Exploitation by hucksters looking to sell the latest and greatest snake oil. (This should get me some nasty comments given my readership is made up of some of self-help type bloggers.) Let me preface this by saying that this is not a blanket assault on the entire industry (and certainly not MY readers who are among the most honorable people to ever grace the planet!). Hell, I even have a few such books myself (shh, don’t tell anyone). However, I defy anyone to say the industry is not full of sharks and con men looking to exploit people’s weaknesses.

Exploitation by religious leaders who preach hate and take money from those who can afford least to give. The second one earned me the biggest look of disgust from a former co-worker who didn’t at all get the point.

These are the comics from my pissed off inner child.

But there are also elements of love, sincerity, friendship and faith. Take Alexander Rabbit, a naive, happy-go-lucky bunny who checks his mailbox for letters everyday in hopes that someone, anyone will talk to him.

And sometimes, the comics are just plain goofy (or mean, I guess it depends on how you look at it).

And of course I wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t point out the hypocrisy or angst of my own characters.

Taking Up Space is cynical, make no mistake, but at its core beats the heart of a guarded but hopeful romantic. Which is why when I look back on the archives of the strip, I wish I had devoted more time to getting this comic right. Looking back, I can see the days where I was rushing things. I can see the stories which I meant to write but didn’t because I was too tied up in my other comic or work-related stuff. I see a lot of potential not yet realized.

And it pains me greatly that I never gave the time to make it what it could be.

The comic has been very much living up to its name, Taking Up Space.

But with little time, I can’t do it all.I have a hope that all of these dreams I am pursuing, all of this work I am doing and blind faith I have in myself is rewarded and something clicks. If just one of my dreams comes true, then I wouldn’t mind continuing to do the others for no money. But I need to find a way to make a living again at doing what I love.

So I have decided to take a shot at the syndicates for both of my comics. See if anyone wants to buy them. If not, I will likely stop drawing them with any regularity.

I hope this post isn’t as self indulgent as I fear it might be.

as always, thanks for reading.

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As I’ve mentioned before, I regularly draw a couple of comic strips. When I mentioned this in a prior post, some of you emailed me or commented, suggesting that I include comics with the blog. So, here we are, the first journal-type comic for Blogger Dad.

Let me know what you think. Would you like to see this as a regular feature?

Other stuff

I’ve been pretty busy working behind the scenes on a cool new super secret project which I will announce later this week. I’m very excited and can’t wait to tell you what I’m up to and who else is involved!

Speaking of cool things, check out Men With Pens’ new site design!

I want to create a world in which you will lose yourself. Actually, make that worlds.

I’m a writer, a cartoonist and as of two months ago, a blogger. I’ve had moderate recognition with the first two endeavors, having written (and drawn editorial cartoonists) for a newspaper for three years. I’ve also developed a decent sized readership of my comic strip, though I’ve yet to reach out to a syndicate. Blogging is still very new to me, but it feels like a calling. I’ve been pouring my everything into it and am slowly finding a great community.

The problem is, I’ve not yet found breakout success with any of these ventures. You know, the kind of success where you can make a comfortable living doing what you want to do.

Some people have suggested that I concentrate on one area, say comics, and put everything into that. But if there’s one thing I learned from my layoff at the paper in June, it’s to not place all my eggs into one basket. I am filling as many baskets as I can and hoping one of them will have the golden egg. If I can find success with any one of my loves, I will be able to pursue them all.

Rather than follow one path, I intend to create new ones and – new worlds.

I would be lying if I didn’t admit to being scared. Fear nips at my feet and lurks in the shadows, its venomous tongue giving voice to my self doubts.

“Who are YOU to think you can write? Everything good has been done. There are no new ideas, no new ways to say things. You suck. Just give up.”

But I can’t. There is too much riding on this. This is my earliest dream – to create.

Every word I write and each picture I draw brings me closer to turning dreams into reality.

But dreams without time mean nothing. The best and brightest of dreams fade to black without the time to fulfill them. And time is where I keep losing the battle. Drawing comics takes anywhere from two to four hours per strip. Blogging involves not only writing, but commenting and following other blogs. Writing also gobbles away at the clock. In the past two months, (since starting Blogger Dad) I’ve missed several comic updates and have not written much outside of this blog.

In short, I’ve spread myself too thin across three different artistic endeavors. I need to develop a time management system to ensure I can give my all to each of these efforts. My worlds depend on it.

If anyone has any advice or related stories, I’d love to hear from you.

To read another post in which I talk about why I want to create such worlds, click here.

Coming tomorrow: Blogger of Steel, Ron Mattocks of Clark Kent’s Lunchbox answers Eight Questions.

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There, it’s out there. I’m nearly 6 foot 4, weigh just shy of 350 pounds, and excess is slowly killing me.

But I’m far from alone.

Excess is killing millions of Americans. And I’m not just talking about diet here. Well, not in the traditional sense, anyway. Our gluttonous feast of excess extends beyond the plate. We also buy too much, own too much and owe too much. In short, we consume too much.

Whether it be a desire to keep up with the Joneses or our attempts to buy happiness in the form of Stuff, many of us overextend ourselves beyond what we can afford. We live in a consumer culture where we are bombarded with messages to consume.

“Are you unhappy? Buy this!”

“Can’t afford it? No problem.”

Credit card companies and banks made it painfully easy to buy more Stuff – whether we can afford it or not.

People who consume in excess, whether it be of food or ‘stuff’, share a common trait. They are attempting to fill a void in their lives. It should come as little surprise that many people who over consume in one area also over consume in others. We are caught up chasing temporary pleasures with little regard for long-term pain. Whether it be crushing debt or deadly obesity-related illnesses, what we enjoy has its price if we overindulge. Yet, so many continue, living in denial.

We can’t get enough. And it is killing us.

There is a great line in the movie The Fight Club which goes, “The things you own end up owning you.” One can easily substitute the word ‘own’ with ‘consume’.

I have only recently realized how closely the two areas of consumption in my life were connected.

Before I married a frugal woman six years ago, I wasted a lot of money in attempt to fill a void in my life. I grew up in a middle class family, struggling to get by. While many kids around me had all the latest toys, clothes, and goodies, my brother and I made do with less. For one, we couldn’t afford the excesses of other families. For two, my parents are frugal, and know how to spend within their limits. I was miserable. A “poor” (comparatively) kid living among wealthy families. I hated not being able to get the things I wanted. I hated not being able to go out and eat or do things that all the other kids did.

And then I started making my own money…

Suddenly, I was able to go out and eat with friends. I began to surround myself with the things I grew up without. I bought videos, games, CD’s, and tons of books and magazines. I looked forward to payday each week so I could go out and buy more stuff. It made me happy. But that happiness was short lived. There was always something else to buy or another place to go.

Looking back, It pains me that I wasted so much money on ‘stuff’ in attempts to find happiness. And while I was able to stop spending (for the most part), I never lost the taste for it. And the taste, without the ability to spend, left me miserable at times. And what did I do to get past that misery? I ate more food. And like going further into debt, overeating only exacerbates the problem, making the void larger and larger. Until it consumes you.

Without a job, my spending decisions are even more crucial. It’s coming to the point where every purchase I make has to be weighed carefully. The same is holding true for food. While my wife and I used to dine out frequently, my jobless situation, coupled with the expense of having a child, has cut that to a rarity. And as far as eating to fill the void, it’s no longer an option if I want to be around to see my son grow up.

I’m starting to live like my parents did when they raised me. And I’m not completely happy to be back in this position.

Happiness without ‘Stuff’

So, now I HAVE to find happiness in other areas. I’m learning to appreciate simplicity and smaller portions of food. I’m not thinking about what I lack, but rather what I have.
With the gloomy economic scene, I imagine a lot of you are already learning to make do with less and looking at ways to cut your expenses. For those that were caught up in consumption and never really appreciated what you have, I urge you to take the time now. Take joy in your family and friends. Enjoy the simple things as our grandparents (children of the Great Depression) did. It seems a shame that their lessons were lost on so many of us. They knew how to get by on less. They lived below their means. They put their families first. If only we’d all done the same. There is no doubt that we’d be in better shape (physical and financial) than we are today.

Hopefully, we can learn these lessons before we are undone by our excess.

Have you struggled with excess? If so, how did you conquer it?

If you’d like to learn more about Stuff, check out the Story of Stuff.

As always, thanks for reading. See you Monday.

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When I was a child, books provided an escape from a world in which I didn’t fit in. I found my fingers tracing illustrations carefully crafted on pages, longing to be in a world where things made sense. A world where mysteries were to be solved and adventures to be had by children my own age.

One of my favorite series of books was in fact not so much a book, but collections of Peanuts comic strips. I have many fond memories of curling up with old Peanuts treasuries and getting lost in the world which Charles Schulz created. I felt Charlie Brown’s pain. He was a kindred soul who also had trouble fitting in with the people and world that surrounded him. I laughed at Snoopy and his wacky adventures. I wondered with Linus as he explored the human condition and thoughts theological in nature. I identified with Lucy’s misplaced rage.

Each panel, so succinctly drawn, pulled me in with the little things. The way Charles Schulz drew the lines of rain, covering most of the panel as Charlie Brown was stuck in a rainstorm. I felt that rain. The way snow lines flowed in the background, the way a single leaf would fall down from a tree. I was TRANSPORTED to that world and it felt safe and comforting.

So, why am I talking books and comics?

Well, it is these childhood treasures that shaped who I am today as surely as a pen draws a series of strokes which shape words and images. These books made me want to write, made me want to draw comics, made me want to create and bring worlds alive for others to lose themselves in.

Many worlds

The internet has become to many, what books were for me as a child – escape.

The web offers us access to more worlds than we can imagine, real and imaginary. The web also allows us something books never did – to sometimes meet our fellow world travelers. Whether it be chatting with fans on a message board or interacting with the artist themselves, the web opens up a host of possibilities which never existed before.

Sometimes, it even allows creators to meet and author a world together. A marriage of words and images. Two worlds into one.

When worlds collide

I was thrilled recently to discover Writer Dad, another writer who has strong devotion to words and his creations. I was honored when he asked me to help bring one of his worlds to life. While the first story he pitched to me is still in the creation phase, we decided to collaborate on another project he was looking to complete. One which aims to help parents and children through a sometimes difficult phase – potty training.

Told with humor and love, Number One and Two It should help ease some of the trepidation that parents feel about the subject.

Writer Dad tells a little of the story behind the story in his appropriately titled post today.

So. yeah, this is a lot of buildup for what is essentially a story about where your poo goes, but it’s not everyday that you meet someone who you can trust enough to help you build a world. The collaboration, along with the words of others I’ve met in the past three weeks since this blog began, has refueled my desire to create more worlds. Perhaps, maybe even build a world you (or your children) to get lost in.

Here is a picture of the book’s cover. I hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed creating it. You can order the wee-book below or at Writer Dad’s site.

(Special thanks to Jayniebell for the photo of the book sign)