I announced that – as I was too busy – I was quitting DORK TOWER, and that Alina would be taking over.

If you clicked through the links (some of you did not), you’d also have seen that:

(a) Alina announced she was quitting Weregeek, and that Tarol would be taking over, and

(b) Tarol announced he was quitting Goblins, and that I was taking over.

Now, it’s not like any of this hasn’t ever been done before, in the comics world, on April 1. But it was a blast – particularly as it gave me a solid work-related reason to re-read the entirity of Goblins.

So: here’s MY take on Gobins, Tarol’s take on Weregeek, and Alina’s take on Dork Tower:

(The egregious misspelling of Alina’s last name- by the way – was supposed to have been a tip-off that something was amiss. Alas, alack, few people seemed to catch that)

HOWEVER, if you follow Tarol, Alina or me on Twitter (Here, here and most particularly HERE), you may have glommed on to the fact tat we kinda all get on very well together. AND WE’RE WORKING ON A SEKRIT PROJECT TOGETHER! Announcement to come soon. Huzzah, huzzah!
So…stay tuned!

John

So if you follow my Twitter Feed or catch my facebook page, you might have heard tell that I’ll be doing a regular podcast with WEREGEEK’s Alina Pete and GOBLINS‘ Tarol Hunt.

We’re trying to get a few in the can, to work out the bugs and have a bit of a backlog. We’re not announcing what it’ll be called, yet, but I love the name and we’ve grabbed the URL. (Hint: given my Wisconsin residency, it will not be called “Two and a Half Candaians). Thundernerds are GO!

It’s been a far more interesting project than I’d have imagined. And goodness knows, I’m sure adding another “gawrsh what fun!” gig to my schedule that I don’t get paid for thrills the Lovely and Talented Judith no end. But last night was an…odd recording. At least for me: It’s been almost a month since I’ve drawn a Dork Tower comic strip (I was four weeks ahead of the game, for a while there, but spent almost the entire month of October working on Munchkin Zombies – the first full, 164-card Munchkin game in nearly three years). So I was feeling a bit disconnected from my work, as we were discussing it in great, great detail.

Obviously, my life has seen some enormous, and enormously wonderful, changes these past three years, and overall I’ve been quite happy with Dork Tower these last 12 months. For the most part, I’ve kept to the schedule pretty DARNED well, which was one of the goals. Plus, I’ve been mostly happy with the quality of the gags, which was another. But finding time to do it – and to do it well – certainly gets more difficult as Louisa gets older.

Indeed, Louisa is home sick, today, and what little time I’ll have to work on the Dork Tower bible (that some Hollywood folks want – trust me, not NEARLY as glamorous as you’d think) and a new backlog of strips (which I think will be quite good) will come during the Bean’s nap.

DO NOT GET ME WRONG: any time spent with my daughter is magical and memorable, and is to be cherished. Right now, she keeps running into room in as I’m writing this, to hand me pictures of Brobee, Muno and Foofa (from Yo Gabba Gabba) that she’s colored…along with one of Widget (from Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! – my pal Bob Boyle’s show, which is like crystal meth for kids).

For the longest time, if you’d given me one wish, it would have been to develop into the best cartoonist that I could possibly be.

Now, that’s changed. By far my main goal in life is to become the best possible FATHER I can be, to this beautiful little blonde-haired, blue-eyed sprite who keeps running into the room, thrusting crayon drawings at me, and yelling (alternately) “HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY” and “HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEN!” Which is particularly thrilling, as it’s neither my birthday nor halloween.

There are places I want to go, things I want to see. There are cons I want to attend. But there is NO place I’d rather be, than with my wife and daughter. Right now, life is magical, and I don’t ever want to take that for granted.

I just wonder, though…are being the best Dadda I can be, and being the best cartoonist I can be, mutually exclusive?

Probably not.

Maybe I’ll figure that out, sometime.

Possibly one of these days, while Louisa’s napping.

****

It’s National Novel Writing Month (or, as professional authors call it, “November”).

Chris Presta-Valachovic, on my facebook wall, asked “John, by any chance, could you repost your NaNoWriMo strips from a couple years ago? Pretty please? I’ve lost my prints of them…and they gave me impetus to keep going.”

Well, far be it for me to go all Casey Kasem Request Line on your consciousness, and painful as it is for me to look at ANY piece of my work that’s more than a couple of weeks old (srsly)…here you go. From 2007, the Matt Takes On NaNoWriMo series

Muskrat out,

Last Thursday, the Lovely and talented Judith, Louisa (henceforth known as “the Bean”) and I moved house. Since Chez Muskrat was the house I’ve occupied for the last 20 years (the last 15 of them with Judith; the last ten months with Judith and the Bean), this was no mean feat. The word “Detritus” came up more than once. Frankly, I’m still exhausted.

Fortunately, a couple of months ago, I was at MisCon, where I was lucky enough to be on a couple of panels with Alina – a great cartoonist who hails from Canadialand. Even more fortunately, she also turned out to be a really great person, and offered to do a week’s worth of strips to help give me a bit of a break during this period of home upheaval.

I love watching other cartoonists take on Dork Tower, and the best of them – amongst whom Alina is one – give me fresh insight into the lives of characters I’ve known for these last dozen years (Carson, of course, for these last thirty).

So flock to Weregeek.com, follow her on Twitter at @alinapete, and heap praises and thanks upon Alina. She deserves it. She not only came up with some fab, fun Dork Towers (to say nothing of her own world of Weregeek), she’s helped save my sanity this week.

- John