Ed Mann Walking

Have you ever had so many things to do that instead of starting on any of them you just freeze, completely intimidated by the scope of your responsibilities? I had a long weekend and looking back on it I wasn’t nearly as productive as I’d planned on being. Between this comic, the other sites I contribute to, an upcoming web series, and a multitude of other potential projects- that’s a lot of damn writing staring me in the face from the moment I wake up each morning.

The blinking cursor on a naked, white page is my worst enemy. So much to say… so many ideas… and yet too often I sit at this desk creatively impotent. It seems like it should be so easy to just pick any of these tasks at random and just dive into it- but I have to take a second and give consideration to which ones have the more pressing deadlines, which are going to take the longest to research, and most importantly- the course of action likely to yield immediate and financially beneficial results.

But even when you break things down logically, it doesn’t do much good. Fact is, logic and creativity don’t always see eye to eye. I’d say 99% of the time I know what I should be doing at any given moment. I’d say 30% of the time I follow through on that realization.

The balance between personal projects and stuff that pays the bills is a dangerous tight rope to walk. Indulging too much in one over the other never ends without consequence. Even worse though is when you start to feel like you haven’t done enough of either. It’s the strangest damn thing to feel like you’re going non-stop all day, every day only to turn around and conclude you should have more to show for all of your effort.

Those days suck. Today was most definitely one of those days for me. Good news is every day we’re still breathing,we get another chance.

Take care, friends. We’ll see you next week.

You know this toga kid is serious because he’s holding his gun sideways. True story- when I was a senior in high school my friend threw this party when his parents were out of town and things got nuckin’ futs pretty fast. To the point where some kid none of us knew rode out of the shed on my friend’s dad’s lawnmower and took off down the street. He was completely wasted but still remembered to stop at all of the stop signs.

My friend, the host, was even more inebriated and took a few of us into his dad’s office to show us something. So my life became a gun control PSA as he held up his dad’s double action revolver with a big smile on his face. Everyone else was ooing and aahing and asking to hold it but I was doing my best not to piss my pants. I hate guns. Always have. And all of a sudden my drunk friend (who was already irresponsible sober) was pointing a loaded one straight at me at point blank range.

That wasn’t consciously the inspiration for this particular part of the story but the image of staring at the barrel of a gun isn’t one I’ll ever shake. I got lucky. I got to walk out of that office. Check back next week to see how our characters luck holds up.

When we first started doing character designs and figuring out the look of the strip, Kristen and I discussed “The South Park Principle” which basically means the more cartoonish something appears, the more you can get away with graphic violence. It seems like ever since we caught up with Colin & Bill we’ve been putting that principle to great use.

And believe me, this is still toned down from what I originally wanted to do but there’s enough gruesome stuff on the way. Apologies for not getting this strip up as early in the day as we usually do. There were a myriad of reasons for that but they’re all boring.

Our rankings have dropped a little so please take a second and vote so we can attract some new readers. Not that we don’t love you but you knew our relationship would have to be an open one when we got together. But sincerely, we’d really appreciate it.

See you next week!