Lickyweeks

Of course, I had to have my input on this wikileaks.com stuff that is going on. Am I surprised by the info leaked. Not really. Could it threaten US interests and even lives? Possibly. Does it make good fodder for snarky comic strips? Definitely.

Eleven is Too High

For those of you that do not know much about the movie Spinal Tap, it is a mockumentary about the struggles of a rock group. Anyway, one of the classic quotes from it refers to the fact that one of their members has an amplifier that goes up to 11 (most only go up to 10).

Of course, the comic strip itself has obvious ties to the fear of radiation from backscatter machines.

Wild Turkey

This one started from looking for a comic idea around turkey. Sure, I could have gone the usual "I say turkey but I'm not talking about you" type of theme. However, once I thought of Wild Turkey, I challenged myself to create a cartoon around that confusion. I could not find another way to misspeak or misinterpret alcohol, so I had to misunderstand booze. And the dressing comment was originally "Will there be dressing? No, I'll probably sit around in my underwear." I had to look up the type of liquor it was and the alcohol percentage. I did know I wanted to end with the "100%" comment.

Gowns

A friend at work suggested that maybe we should just wear hospital gowns to the airport now. Of course, that became an obvious topic for CoV and I knew what the characters needed to say immediately.

Thanksgiving in January

All I knew when I came in was that I wanted to do a Thanksgiving-themed comic. So, I Googled "original thanksgiving" to find other dates when it has been held. However, once I started the strip, I decided it should really be held in January if you want to give thanks for presents. Of course, I used Mr. Green to champion for the real meaning of the season.

Ticket

A coworker suggested that I comment on the proliferation of work-tracking applications we have. Every team seems to have its own place to open tickets requesting their resources. I am sure you see this, too, at your workplace.

Badges

Another in the PM Auditor series, but I forgot to put the banner across the first two panels. As you can tell, I took the inspiration from Blazing Saddles.

Code in my Doze

It so happens I do have a cold in my nose. So, I used this as a vehicle to deliver the point of this comic, which was the idea of Faithbook. I toyed with removing the Faithbook reference and playing more with the faith vs face idea. Maybe mentioning wanting a faith healer and Mr. Green saying 'face healer"? In the end, I stayed with my original panels.

Vizzini, Project Auditor

This is another in the Project Auditor series. The problem with some people or movies is that their quotes are too familiar. It can be challenging to fit a quote into a different context. So, I knew I had to use INCONCEIVABLE. A couple of the other quotes were adapted from other characters in The Princess Bride (such as YOU KILLED MY .... PREPARE TO DIEt).

Diet Lunch

I really don't remember where the inspiration for this came from. I do know that I was up letting out the dog at 2:30am Saturday when I thought about it. So, I wrote myself a note so that I would not forget the idea. BTW, can you tell they are in a car?

Nervous About Audit

I think I heard someone on TV say "I get nervous when I'm not nervous." Maybe that crazy cheerleader on Glee? Anyway, I captured that phrase and wanted to build a cartoon around it. So, I decided to continue my audit theme and use it. Once I started, I knew it would need to show up earlier in the cartoon than the final panel. So, I used that famous idea of picturing your audience naked if you are nervous about a speech and tweak it slightly for my purposes.

Vet Auditor

I originally had a different cartoon idea in mind, but decided to make today's comic a vet-themed one. So, I stayed in the Project Auditor arena and used a stock photo to depict a veteran. Once I decided on a vet, I knew what I would do in the final panel. I built the cartoon backwards from the final panel.

Office Space Auditor

Are you reading this comic strip and you have never seen Office Space? That seems wrong somehow. It is a classic tale of the life of working for a large company and working in cubicles.

If this is true, then you will not know that the TPS report and a stapler are jokes repeated throughout the movie. I tried to make Mr. Green provide clever quips for you Non-Office-Space watchers, but even I can only do so much.

What Teachers Learned in Kindergarten

Teachers do hear all kinds of things that their parents never think anyone would find out about. Of course, they never share anything like that with each other. And then, teacher's spouses also hear much of the same stories.

DoWeDUIinAZ

Oddly enough, this idea came from trying to use the word braille as a starting point for a cartoon. I tried to replace the 'br' with something else, came up with jail, and then decided to use the idea of a book for surviving a DUI sentence in AZ.

Wary

I often noticed the misuse of words in conversations. Luckily, this cartoon strip offers me a way to comment on these misuses without having to correct anyone to their face. Let him that hath ears hear. Just don't be wary of my intentions.

Picasso Ancestor

I don't know why I decided to pick on Picasso today. I got up during the night to let the dog out and somehow, I wondered what a cave drawing would look like if Picasso created one. Then, as I created the cartoon today, I thought about what the rest of us think about those weird, disjointed paintings. This is the result.

Airplane! Doctor PM

The two Airplane! movies offer a huge amount of silly conversation ideas. Once I decided to write a series of strips about project documentation audits, how could I not include some dialog reminiscent to Airplane!? I did decide to include a little bit of Airplane! 2 in the final panel as a way to end the cartoon. I looked for a way to include some dialog like the "A hospital? What is it?" "A place with doctors and patients, but that's not important now", but it did not flow with today's CoV.

Voted Today

Actually, I did not vote today. I sent in my mail-in ballot last week. However, I did not want to call this incumbent or incompetent so that the reader would not see anything about the direction of the strip until they were reading it. Do I actually think incompetent and incumbent could mean the same thing? Sure, don't you?

I Quit

Thanks to a family member (who shall remain nameless) to whom this happened. My sister's daughter (who shall remain nameless, I said) had been talking to some students in her principals office. She went to leave and instead entered his closet. I am sure she was making some point to them and not momentarily confused.