February Revisited

Let's Go Back To Winter

It’s been a brutal summer here. Brutal comes from the Latin word brutus, which means it really sucks because it’s so hot that I can’t breathe. I guess it got really hot back when people were speaking Latin, because they really nailed that word.

This summer has me actually remembering the winter with fondness, even though it was a horrible winter. Horrible comes from the Latin word horribillis, which means so cold that I will die at any moment.

People say my Latin Derivatives class was a waste of time and here I am proving them wrong.

Missing winter when it’s summer and thinking of summer when it’s winter is a favorite pastime here, which is why I need to live near the equator so I can knock it off. I usually hate February, with it’s limited daylight hours, shortened month, and ability to add a day to itself every four years. It also has no major holidays, unless you add Groundhog Day, which nobody does except Bill Murray.

February was ultimately good to me, though. It gave me every reason to stay inside, draw, and avoid it.

Todd is a man after my own heart. He’s a bit dim and clueless, but aren’t we all? We aren’t? Ok, maybe it’s just me. There have been several times in my life where I was supposed to know exactly what I did wrong, yet I did not. In fact, I still don’t know. I’ve narrowed it down to something I said or didn’t say, or possibly something I did or didn’t do. Sometimes it’s easier to just get new friends rather than figure it all out.

I love it when people don’t want to rehash an alleged crime, especially if I don’t know what it is. It’s much more productive to pledge to do better and move on. Rehashing everything will just show that I have no idea what’s going on. That could be worse than the crime itself.

This has been an idea of mine forever. Ideally, I would visit myself in the past and slap myself whenever I’m about to do something stupid. I’ve done enough stupid things to risk slapping myself too hard and causing my own non-existence, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

Many years ago, I used this idea on Berle, where an older version of himself popped into existence, slapped him, and then disappeared. I need to bring that guy back.

We’re getting into Cyrano de Bergerac territory, here, and I’m all for it. Tabby, of course, is just there for the show, but Berle is actually being a good friend. You can’t count on just anyone to hang in the shadows and wait for you to say something stupid. There are very few I would trust to slap me.

Now we switch to April Bloom. It was inspired by slathered up guys who make my sinuses bleed. They can no longer judge smell. They must be going with taste, because they’re not stopping with cologne application until there’s a thick coat on their tongue.

I worked with a guy who put on so much cologne that he left to go on a break and the next customer accused me of using too much cologne. I calmly explained by yelling, “Me?? That’s the cologne of the guy who was sitting here! Try working next to him!”

Keep it subtle, guys.

This got a ton of hits on Instagram and became so political that I turned off the comments. It stopped getting hits after that, but that’s ok. I don’t want to be the catalyst for a bunch of useless name calling.

But I do love April Bloom’s line “That’s one egg all grown up!” I don’t know what the original line was, but that line occurred to me as I was lettering it. I think April Bloom actually wrote it.

It’s easy to forget that April Bloom is a pretty sharp cookie.

February also introduced Rusty, who became an immediate favorite with some people. I’ve worked with a number of Rustys (Rusties?) and he’s easy to write. There’s a lot less stress about a character who really doesn’t need to be there.

Rusty matched perfectly with Tabby. I don’t think Rusty was like Tabby when he was younger, but he’s been through enough to reach a Tabby level of calmness. I can’t imagine the two having any conflict with one another. They’re too bemused about whatever is going on in front of them.

If we were to do many of the things the founder of whatever company we’re working for did, we’d be fired immediately. A lot of these people became successes because they rolled the dice and took chances. Now that the business is established and you’re just an employee, dice rolling is not allowed.