Things to come, here at Hubris-
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I’ve got this framed thing on the wall which looks like a shrine to my own ego. (Not true, of course. This website is the shrine to my own ego.)
Anyhow, this framed thing is, in fact, a teaching aid that grew into the idea for a cartoon art show.
The thing started life as the pile of stuff I showed at the beginning of cartooning classes. It’s the process by which comic strips can be efficiently produced. If you have to produce one for each day of the year, efficiency plays a part in whether you can entertain people properly. If you make your 365 cartoons inefficiently, it’s possible that you’ll start missing more deadlines than I do, and the final product won’t be as funny as comic strips have a reputation for.
It’s pure coincidence that I produce Hubris in the same way I do The Buckets.
The top panel (and I apologize for the color and photo quality. The thing’s behind glass, on the wall, and a lot of it’s in pencil. Plus I was using a crap camera.) is torn out of a sketchbook. It’s got the germ of three or four things that finally made it into strips, and a lot of lines and words that have had no value since. There are also some studies of hands, and a scribble that had been a phone number. Cool, right?
The next panel is a neat sheet that I print out. It’s got the outside dimensions of a Sunday comic printed on it. There are lettering guides printed on the sheet, so I can letter away to my heart’s content. Then erase it all when I realize that I hadn’t spent enough time on the script before I started lettering. It also has marks for quartered panels and for thirds, just in case I need those. They’re printed in blue and red, respectively. On this particular sheet, you can (nearly) see where I worked out the characters, the size of the panels, and all the usual junk.
The following panel is, of course, the final inks, which are done on a nice heavy sheet of paper cut to size and placed on a light table over the penciled page.
The last panel is the way the whole thing printed in the Sunday papers. Fun, huh?
Overlaying the whole photo is a reflection of me holding a camera. Unlike the funny stories that crop up on the internet, I am clothed while I took the photo. In men’s clothing. A whole set of them. Thank you.
You know what’s handy? Having a roll of tape on you. In the same way that I advocated keeping a cheapy backpack full of ropes and straps, I advocate keeping a few rolls of different kinds of tape handy. Duct tape, Gorilla tape, Box tape, Electrical tape, Safety tape, whatever kind of tape you’ve ever had to stop a job to go look for or, more specifically, whatever kind of tape you’ve ever had to throw up your hands and announce to the heavens “What I wouldn’t give for just a little (fill in kind of tape here)”
Here’s my current collection of tape- all dangling from a handy piece of rope that’s got a biner holding the ends together. Good thing to have in the trunk of your car, or the bottom of your camp box or wherever you’re most likely to need it.
Once, I was showing this pile of tape to a pile of Cub Scouts and trying to explain that it’s really good to have with you. They weren’t buying it, particularly, until one of the Boy Scouts from across the hall came in and said they’d broken a window playing dodgeball. Their motto, “Be Prepared”, wasn’t being followed, and they didn’t have a replacement window on them. Or tape. They asked me for tape, which seems odd, since what they needed was another window. Still, I had the tape.
The Cub Scouts saw the tape, and it was good.
Other times, I’ve used the tape to patch tents, tent poles that had cracked, hold a damaged tail light in place until we were done getting where we were going, and various other odd things. On the other hand, when you’ve got a hammer, all problems look like a nail. Turns out that you CAN make a short length of fairly useful rope out of twisted duct tape, if absolutely necessary.
Got Tape?
Look. Unicycle riders get enough stupid comments as it is. This yahoo ain’t helpin’. Click HERE for the story.
Okay, the other day, I posted a Hubris cartoon where Hubris asks Kara if she has a Game Cam set up to monitor for gooses walking across her grave.
For anyone not familiar with these wonderful devices, excellent for monitoring animal movements in prospective hunting areas, or for capturing images of thieves in your backyard, or just for supplying your favorite website with new content, here are some photos from some Game Cams. See if you can spot the creatures and correctly identify them:
Got it? Let’s see how you did:
••••••••
Image #1- Deer. Yes, you did very well! These are deer, often recorded on Game Cameras.
Image #2- Squirrel. Well done! What you didn’t realize is that the squirrel is standing amongst the branch he dropped on the Game Cam a mere hour after it was set up. He eventually succeeded in breaking the camera loose and then pawning it in the nearest town.
Image #3- Giant Patagonian Pillbug. This was quite a surprising thing to find photographed, as they were thought to be extinct nearly 40 million years ago. Who knew Game Cams could advance science so easily? Nobel Prize in Zoology!
Image #4- Wukilar. Ha ha. We tricked you. Without any identifiable background elements, it’s impossible to tell that the creature in this alarming photo stands over six feet tall. Otherwise, you’d have known it in a second.
Image #5- Infant Sasquatch. Yes, it DOES look a little like a black squirrel, or maybe even a skunk, but think about it. If there are adult Sasquatch, then there MUST be infants, and here you are- we assume that the tail falls off at puberty.
Image #6- Gray Alien. You can tell from the spindly legs and oddly organized body that this thing wasn’t evolved for Earth Gravity. The Grays are known to be masters of disguise, too, Not growing antlers prevents them from being hunted, and so the Grays can move among the trees, monitoring hunters for any that look inebriated enough for probing. They’re obviously far advanced over our civilization, you can tell from this photo.
Image #7- Right! Loch Ness Monster. You see from the way the water is moving around it’s neck that the creature must be about fifty feet in length. This is one of the finest photos of Nessie ever. Imagine our pride to know that this was taken in Mississippi, thus bringing the Glory of definitive proof of Nessie to the U.S. of A. Maybe now the Scots will invest in some better cameras.
Image #8- Deer. TWO of ’em! Cool, huh?
Don’t miss out on the fun. Get you a crazy techie game camera/time lapse field cam, just for getting your own overnight photos of things that baffle science! (Or at least baffle those that only have a pop-culture notion of what science might be like) Click on the camera below.
