Tempe Triathlon 2010

Recently, one of three rubber bladders acting as a dam to create Tempe Town Lake burst. They have been in place for 10 years, but were expected to last 30. Now, the blame and correction activities are underway. I cannot imagine that the fall triathlon can continue without a lake for the swimming portion. What if the ensuing political battle became the events for the triathlon? That is the premise of today's cartoon.

CSPAN and Food Network

Do you remember that MAD magazine used to have a feature where they showed someone clicking through TV channels and the ideas seemed related? This is my update on that, where someone clicks between CSPAN for political news and The Food Network for cooking shows.

Two Year Old

Have you ever noticed how often children add an "L" sound to the end of words that end with "aw"? And how some kids struggle differentiating between "F" and "P"? Well, I have, and I decided it should be the topic of a comic.

Powerpoint Expert

My daughter suggested this strip after talking about people that seem to thrive on Powerpoint slides. So maybe there is someone who talks about liking Powerpoint using Powerpoint slides.

Traffic Control

This strip has been planned for months, but I only pulled it from my ideas log today because nothing came to me during my morning commute. And of course, the concept seemed true today, since I was not late and all but one light were green during my drive.

Who We Are

Today's strip started with the first panel as the idea. Having a leader talk about company ideals and those listening misinterpreting the comments. The third panel was the next statement. Then, I thought of the other two panels and decided which one would provide an interpretation that they might actually like.

King James

Oh come on. Haven't you been thinking about this similarity of names ever since LeBron started being called King James? Well, I have.

Broken

The A/C in our building is either overwhelmed by our heat/humidity or broken. Someone yesterday suggested it would make a good cartoon. However, once I started writing it, it seems the punch line determined what the rest of the panels should be about. So, the strip ended up being about things broken instead of just the air conditioning.

Bad is Good

When did language twist to allow the word bad to imply something is good? Or sick to be something good? After thinking on this a bit, I decided that it could be a full comic strip. However, I did not know which words I would use until I started. And even as I created the final "punch line" panel, I changed it to use the words fly and whack. My original idea was to have Mr. Green use skidoo and Mr. Blue to say something about Green not saying what he meant.

Judge

I wanted to find a misdirection for those ubiquitous lawyer commercials on TV. What else could the same words imply? So, the best I could think of was those religious shows where people come on TV and talk about all the things they did when they were younger. They mention the same problems that lawyers seek. Also, I could mention judge in the TV ad and have it work in both instances.

Search Me

The real challenge on this strip was how to ensure you read the Search Me statement with the normal inflection when someone is truly puzzled. I want the reader to recognize the comment was not a call to actually be searched, but one of having no clear answer to the officer's question. Of course, the dentist had to be part of it so I could mention cavity alongside the search statement.

Who's Your Daddy

Another in the vein of things that sound like other things. There is a cafe near us called Hoosier Cafe in which I have twisted the name in my mind to the other words. Today, Mr. Blue and Mr. Green are facing the same confusion.

Solder

Now come on. You must admit solder has an interesting pronunciation. Then. like so many other English words, it is different than other words with similar spellings. So, my mind started to pursue that connection.

Magician Minister

This idea came from my wife, who suggested that the cloth bags with handles used for offering looked like magician's bags. The tricky part to completing this comic was finding the best statements for Mr. Green in panel two. He needed to sound like he actually might have figured out Mr. Blue's reasoning before working towards the punch line.

Reading the Movie

Anytime there is a book made into a movie, comparisons are bound to be made. And the nature of the book almost always means there is material left out because it does not translate well into visual images. Today's strip talks about how a movie inspired someone to read more about it. OK, they did not go all the way to the book, but some reading is better than none, right?

P90X

P90X is a tough workout. Luckily,we took a break over the holidays. We are definitely going through the water bottles, though. So you can tell where the inspiration for this came from.

Not Richard Simmons

Well, we did start doing P90X this week, so that is where the idea came to do a strip about it. I sat down to write it this morning and mentioned Richard Simmons in one of the panels. Then suddenly, I was creating a different strip than planned because I wanted to build on the Richard Simmons comment. My original idea will come out next week.

Coffers

This cartoon came up in exactly the way you might imagine. I actually heard someone mention needing to fill their coffers the other day (hmm, it could have been in the office or on the radio, I cannot remember). Anyway, when I heard it, I imagined people coughing, which then led me to think it might be a clever CoV, which then led me to think about smoker's cough.