Telecommute Timing

Have you ever been on a conference call when someone nearby speaks to you? If you don't push the mute button before responding, people on the call think you are talking to them. Or if you are sharing your screen with the team and you bring up email, everyone can see your mails. This comic came about because they were talking about telecommuting on the radio yesterday. Some people carry on meetings while in the bathroom, or maybe naked after a shower. So, I thought about having someone saying an inappropriate comment without muting their line.

Baroque Organ Dealer

One thing that I do not track in my CoV Idea Log is when I first captured the idea. So, I cannot tell you how long this one has been in my list. As I was scanning it this morning, I decided what I wanted the cartoon to do and wrote it today. Sometimes, I think something might be funny, but I do not know how to present it or what the characters should say that is going to include the twist. I looked for specific organ names or types from the Baroque era, but I did not find anything interesting. Research into the Baroque era did yield polyphonic vs homophonic, so I knew that phrase would be part of the comic.

Why Good Friday?

You've got to admit that only working 1/2 a day makes for a good Friday. This was the cartoon I originally thought I would use last Friday, but then I decided to have one character keep saying nothing but Good Friday, so this one slipped out a couple of days. I felt the best way to tie it in now was by having one person fuss about working the full 40 hours after the shortened week last week.

Multiple Hats

Hmm. I don't actually remember what made me think of this cartoon topic. I wrote it down sometime during the Easter weekend and added it to my idea list. Someone must have said it, but my senioritis is kicking in. I can say that I wrote a draft, but did not like the first ending (which is now shown in panel three). So, I moved everything up one panel and added a new panel four with (I think) a better punchline.

Easter Candy

I saw a news story over the weekend about a man in WA whose yards was decorated with 900 Peeps for Easter. The reporter said that there is often rain over this weekend, so it is lucky for the man that it was dry this year. That set my mind to wandering about the name Peeps and its other common usage in today's vernacular. From there, it was just finding a couple of other Easter-related jokes and that set me up for today's cartoon.

Good Friday

I really did not want every panel to be obvious setups so one character could always say "Good Friday." However, it is not easy to find unexpected ways to have those answers. So, I settled for having him spell good. Finally, at the end, you can see Mr. Green did recognize what Mr. Blue was doing the whole time.

Psychic PM

The biggest challenge on this cartoon was how to represent the psychic. I decided I had to go with the turban and crystal ball. Then, I had to choose an outcome that would obviously be incorrect and yet make you think that, somehow, she had communicated with each. I fully expect the psychic to make a return sometime.

Rolling Down the Aisle

Yes, there was a wedding of a friend this past weekend. Yes, they did have a string quartet playing before, and as part of, the wedding. However, they did not play any Rolling Stones music...that I know of. It always sound so nice with strings, so maybe no one picked up whose songs they were. Anyway, I had to use the Stones because I needed some unexpected titles to make today's cartoon work. More specifically, I knew that I wanted to use You Can't Always Get What You Want.

Cousin Haircut

Many of us get our hair cut by a relative. It doesn't always save us money, since we still want to give them something, but it is nice and we get a chance to visit. Actually, this month, I did not get it cut by a relative, but then I thought of this while remembering that I was not using a family member. I also knew I would end it with laughing all the way to the bank and then having the other person laugh, too.

Balancing the Budget

As often happens, hearing a word sends my mind in a different direction than the speaker intended. I came up with today's topic during a news story last week as Congress worked to prevent a government shutdown over the budget shortfall. The challenge was how to represent them trying to physically balance something.

Cricket Sounds

I have been searching for a way to have a PM ask for something and depict silence like cricket sounds. Finally, this morning, I realized that, instead of it being like true silence and have people imagine cricket sounds, what if there were an iPhone app to do it. The cartoon practically wrote itself after that.

Third PM

Of course, I know that changes in business happen all the time. And I recognize that being a Project Manager is a high stress position. Since I work with the team, it is fair that I take a potshot at the profession as a whole. This is not reflective of any specific project. I needed a forum to talk about the speed with which resource changes occur and then twist it so normal changes happen in an unexpected time frame.

AZ St Wars

I heard about the new pitchforks on the ASU footballs helmets this morning. In local parlance, they are calling them forks. That led to the idea of May the Forks be With You. From there, I knew I had to use that as today's cartoon. I then used the minimal tools available to tweak the Star Wars logo to show AZST WARS. To be sure everyone caught the references, I used photos of Obi Wan and Darth Vader.

Window Company Ad

You know, I don't really know what product or company Kyle Petty was advertising for, but what I heard certainly sounded like cow patty. So, once I had the concept, I needed to decide how to present it and how to hold the twist until the end. Since I used the Opinion Desk format yesterday, it was still fresh in my mind and seemed to fit what I wanted to say. Then, I just needed to add some questions about the name of the spokesperson to the middle panels. And even though I may have a bit of a southern accent, it did make an easy target.

Wimpy Kid

One from my idea file. I could not think of any ideas today, and nothing on the radio sent me off into flights of imaginative fancy. So, I pulled up my ideas and chose one. No need to explain where the original concept came from. One word sounded like the other, so I presented it using an 'Emily Latella" format. Don't know who that is? Google it.

Kitchen Nightmares

I wish I could say what made me think of this topic today, but I don't know. I am sure I saw an ad for the TV program last night, but I do not remember consciously twisting the meaning to a real life situation. Once I started, though, all four panels seemed obvious.

Lollipop Guild

As seems common, I heard a story on the radio that led to today's cartoon. There is a local lady whose child has seven uncommon illnesses and the police suspect it is a case of Munchausen By Proxy. Since Munchausen sounds kind of like Munchkin, my mind took off on how I could present it in either one or four panels. As you see, I decided to use four because I wanted to make sure my reader's remember that the true name is Munchausen so they get the comparison. I know. I should trust you are keeping up with me.

IVS

When I am titling my cartoons, I want to be careful not to reveal the punchline by including it in the title. However, today's title is an acronym. Since it is not real and therefore, not evident, I feel safe that the reader will not guess where I am going without reading it.

This came up in a discussion last night at Chorale practice. Well, vowel pronunciation/enunciation came up, and this was where my mind went.

Meeting Minutes

This one is one of those epiphany-type moments. I woke up with the idea and the character verbiage in my head. I would also expect that the VP will use it in his weekly newsletter because it is a nice, generic business concept.

Dumbbells

I heard some people talking about using dumbbells as part of their exercise routine, and this idea immediately came to mind. Sometimes, though, knowing the concept for the cartoon doesn't lead me to what ideas should be presented in each panel. Then, today, when I was looking for what to write, I thought of the additional comments that would make this strip complete.

April Fool

Of course, I had to do something for April Fool's Day. I investigated the origins of the day, but it is uncertain and so, I could not use that as the basis for the cartoon. Instead, I used today's CoV to lightheartedly poke fun and how we delver bad news by starting with worse news.