An Honest Mistake

Sometimes even mediocre stories can be good if told well.  I'm a fan of storytellers who are not afraid to get creative when it comes to trying to make an OK story better.  One way would be to tell the story out of order.  I know, it's been done - horror, mystery, Seinfeld - the list goes on.  When I created this week's cartoon, I was not really finding it as funny as I was expecting.  I then decided to lay out the panels in reverse order and read the story backwards which surprisingly turned out to be a lot better.

3:53pm:

3:48pm:

3:45pm:

3:42pm:

3:41pm:

I swear this is exactly how it happened too.

Cheers!

Misguidance of Dora the Explorer

I have a serious concern about the lessons being taught to kids these days from popular children's shows.  Dora the Explorer (almost rhymes) lives in a magical rain forest where her animal friends wear clothes and rainbows can talk.  My kids don't live in that world.  We live in Minnesota where animals are forced to wear clothes by their owners and the only rainbows we see are on the backs of Subarus. 

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of parent that expects TV to raise my kids.  But with that said, I don't have a problem with them watching these kinds of kid shows...most of the time.  In one episode, Dora encounters a bunch of snakes in the middle of the road.  So what does Dora do?  She gives them cookies.  She later meets up with an angry bear.  Hrm, I wonder what should be done about this bear.  Oh look, they're all singing a song together!

OK, that's fun right?  But then I started thinking about what would happen if my own kids found themselves in these same situations.  I sure as hell wouldn't want them to try and sing to a bear, or even worse, try to force feed a bunch of snakes some Oreos.  These are not the lessons I'd want my children taking with them the next time they are wandering the wilderness on their way to gumdrop mountain to return a missing hug to the Smiley Time Gang.

So let's recap.  Here's what Dora the Explorer suggests you do if you ever were to encounter an angry bear:

As an overprotective dad, I would not recommend this at all.  Instead, I would suggest the following option:

But since bear hunting in Minnesota is not year round (and the fact that M would kill me if I let our kids carry guns), we're going to have to get a little more creative.

One useful option would be to remain perfectly still and try to blend in with your natural surroundings:

If you have kids, you will know that asking them to stay perfectly still in a life or death situation would be like asking them to NOT eat that ice cream cone they just dropped on the kitchen floor.  Like it or not, it's just not going to happen.

So instead, I thought that kids should do what they do best - create a diversion and run like hell:

Granted the chances of having a blind fold and large stick on hand, plus the fact that dear old dad wouldn't see the bear in the first place is a long shot, but as I am constantly telling M during situations like this, "Point out your plot holes elsewhere!"

Hope this helps...

-Cheers!

Guy Diet

I drink diet soft drinks.  For those of you who have seen my well rounded figure, you would know that it's not because I am health conscience or wanting to keep a trim, well chiseled body .  No, I drink it more for the passion.  It's nice to know that the chemists at my favorite beverage company went the extra mile and added something in there to not only make it taste delicious but also take away all possible calories...not just some, ALL!  Anyone can add high fructose corn syrup and call it "cola", but it takes an artist to craft and infuse a beverage with Fun-o-trine or Sweet n' Happy and still manage to keep it from causing brain damage in 9 out of 10 adults.  That added step I respectfully refer to as "adding the love" to my favorite beverages.

I have recently moved away from the "regular" diets (sometimes with a hint of lime) and discovered Pepsi Max and Coke Zero...or "guy diet" as I usually call them.  These are the same 0 calorie, sugar free concoctions provided by the "regular" diets but marketed more towards the male population.  They are EXTREME, they offer a boost of energy (i.e. an assload of caffeine) and they have removed the word "diet" altogether (Pepsi Max used to be called Diet Pepsi Max).

I started to catch on to the tractor beam-like pull to these two brands when I started noticing footballs on the cans, beautiful women in hot pants and go-go boots telling me I would look so hot drinking "guy diet", and of course the most obvious, the EXTREME commercials and sponsorships.  Unfortunately, I don't have specific examples of these ad campaigns, so I whipped up a few of my own as examples.

I see stuff like this everywhere I look when NASCAR is around:

I'm not sure if it's UFC or MMA or what that they sponsor so I made up my own:

Even my beloved Dallas Cowboys (boy do they suck this season or what???) starred in a commercial several years ago:

I wanted to do four ads in total for this post, but I ran out of ideas.  So I tried to recall what I am typically doing when I am drinking "guy diet" and what that ad might look like:

So the next time you are watching your favorite blood sport on TV, doing something EXTREME, or simply enjoying some full contact sudoku online with friends, pay attention to what messages are being sent to the thirst regions of your brain.  Chances are that you have fallen prey to a "guy diet" marketing campaign and probably don't even realize it.  You have been warned...drink up!

BTW - M, we're almost out of "guy diet".  No Zero and no Max makes Chris a dull boy.

-Cheers!

A Night Out

Sometimes you just need to do what makes you happy:



-Cheers!

Lemon Quickies

Sometimes I don't have enough of a story to do a full storyboard but still some interesting situations that can be shared.  I am tentatively calling these one frame sketches "Lemon Quickies".  Below are a few I've put together so far.  Also, it is snowing here in Minnesota today so I have a feeling I will either be rolling around in the snow with the kids or hiding in terror from the amateurs on the road who forgot, in the 6 short months, how to behave in this stuff.  Either way, I'll be working on a few more cartoons this weekend with the hopes of having them posted soon (M and I are now racing to see who can post the same story first).

I love my family, but there are times when I have to play the bad guy and say "no".  It's not easy to do all the time, but sometimes it just needs to be done.  Here's what the back of my car would look like if I never said "no" to M and the kids:

But to be fair, they are the Yin to my Yang.  M sometimes has to play the bad guy to me or we'd be stuck with this:

We recently found some new cat treats for Sophie and Sabine which are cheddar flavored.  We usually get them tuna or beef or chicken flavor, but when we saw cheddar, we thought we'd give it a try.  Long story short, they loved them!  In fact, they have become rather aggressive when it comes to getting these treats.  Before, they would just sort of ween interest.  Now they turn into monsters who can't get enough...especially little, docile Sophie who will stand in the pantry all day waiting for someone to walk by so she can start screaming for more cheddar treats.  Both cats gave M a scare the other day when they became a little too aggressive:

We've since run out of these treats, and the cats have gone back to "normal" now that they can't smell the inviting scent of delicious cheddar in the house anymore.  We're still not sure if we're going to buy more...

If you read the previous post below, you would know how much of an exciting time M and I had at a recent parenting class.  This was the scene once we came back home from our torturous event:

I personally believe our world would be better off if we stopped listening to psychotic adults that are just like the rest of us and started listening more to what kids have to say.  Here are some words of wisdom from my 3-year old son, Ash:

OK, probably not "better off" per se, but I bet our world would be further up the Utopian scale if we all just had a little more penis food...maybe.

-Cheers

Parenting Class

M and I went to a parenting class recently to learn how to better handle difficult situations with our kids.  We arrived late so I'm not sure exactly what the presenter's credentials were, but I'm sure she came from one of our nation's more prestigious psychology  institutes of higher learning...as a lost cause, incurable case.

It all started innocently enough:

Oops, better change my name tag: 

The first part of the presentation was supposed to start with a short clip from the movie, Parenthood.  Unfortunately, there were some technical difficulties:

And that was it, no actual quotes offered from the film or even any indication of the overall message or why the hell she was trying to show us the clip in the first place...just "parenthood is like a roller coaster".  I can say flossing my teeth is like setting fire to a Starbucks, but I sure as hell better back that analogy up with some sort of an explanation.  Since there was none for this, I let my own mind wander:  Parenthood is like a roller coaster - it's cramped, smells like sweat, the idiot behind you won't stop talking about how the ones at Disney World are "like way better", it's over before you know it, and once you're done you either want to go again or throw up all over your snow cone.  How's that?

So, on with the rest of the presentation...oh wait, not yet:

Wow, this has been an exciting 17 minutes so far, how long is this supposed to go again?  Let's just hope that we shaved off a few minutes by avoiding our movie clip.

Time to change my name tag again:

The rest of the session was spent reading off the slides (pet peeve of mine) and random comments thrown in to further confirm that our presenter was absolutely, out of her mind crazy.  I do a lot of presenting for my job, so I tend to be forgiving when people have to stand in front of a group and talk, but these random "thoughts" were just bizarre.  It was like her innermost psyche took over her voice box and decided to take revenge at that precise moment for decades of abuse and repressed neglect. 

It was awful!  M and I both sat there watching this train wreck that was supposed to help make us better parents and all we could do is check the clock in hopes that "time flies when you're watching someone tailspin out of total control".

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of a purgatory-like abyss, she FINALLY runs out of slides to read.  So in her infinite wisdom, she leaves us with one more nugget of "good parenting" that we should take with us and hold onto for the rest of our lives:

Oh, and I also changed my name tag again:

I hope the rest of the crowd got absolutely nothing out of this session because if they did, we are about to see an army of messed up kids coming through our local schools in the near future.  If there is such a thing as a "DELETE AND DON'T EVER MENTION THIS AGAIN BECAUSE I WILL REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE I KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT" button, I probably would have pressed it so many times that it would have forgotten its purpose in life.

But at least now I know that "stressed" is "desserts" spelled backwards.  I'll have to mention that to the fellas at band practice next week.

-Cheers

Why blog? Why start now?

Both are excellent questions!  This has been something I've been wanting to do for a long time but never had good ideas or a decent concept.  I first started thinking about this many years ago when all my friends started doing their own blogs.  I didn't want to do a "me too" sort of thing, so I let it go for a while.  I then revisited the idea several years ago, but my wife, M, beat me to it.  She has done some amazing things over the past few years chronicling our family's lives.  Anything I could do to copy that would most definitely fall short.  Find out for yourself:  http://comingupcollins.blogspot.com/

So it was just recently that I was thinking to myself that I really should try again, but this time, go a different direction.  I like to tell stories and I like to draw pictures.  Maybe I could combine the two together...but how? 

My friend Jerry says, "Chris likes to spin a yarn..."  I have no idea what that means.  I even tried to Google it once:

But that went nowhere fast.

So instead, I figured I can try to use what skills I have and make the most out of some of the more interesting situations that occur in my life.  After high school and college and college again, I went to art school...two of them actually.  Notice I did not say that I am an artist - I am not.  I went to one school to learn to how to draw and paint and sculpt and do all those amazing things employers love to see on a resume.  The other school was more technical where I learned 2D/3D animation, graphic design, stop motion and video game development.  Again, all the key winners employers love to see on a resume.  Hence, I do not draw, paint sculpt, animate, design, stop motion nor develop video games for a living.  Therefore, I am not an artist...that and I suck at it.

I have had a lot of artistic and narrative influences in my life, but one in particular really stood out for this blog.  I started reading Jhonen Vasquez comics, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and Squee, back in the late 90's while attending art school #1.  Jhonen's dark humor and ability to tell a funny story complimented well the bizarre, but lovable characters he created:

But his true brilliance came in the form of a crudely drawn, often vulgar and misunderstood "doodle" of a character called Happy Noodle Boy:

HNB's "adventures" were always somehow offensive and hilarious in a way that made me hungry for the next story of total chaos...I'm still a huge fan to this day.  Here is a picture of me wearing my HNB shirt during my most recent vacation to the moon:

So what does "Edge of the Lemon" mean and what is its purpose on this whole "interweb" thingy?  Well, the title is a play on words.  Thinking about all the adventure and literary (and lyrical for you Faith No More fans) references to the "edge of the world", I combined that with the saying about "life giving you lemons".  The purpose of this blog is to "spin a yarn", share pieces of my life and hopefully make a few of you laugh in the process.

I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoy posting.

-Cheers!