au revoir, 2008!

okay...

happy last day of 2008!
goodbye, 2k8--thanks for being a good year!

here's to all the best for all of YOU in 2009!

and thanks to you all for being such loyal friends and readers!



here at perhapanauts central, we're working on figuring out a way to get the book out on SOME kind of regular schedule, be that month-and-a-halfly or bi-monthly or whatever. as you know, perhapanauts no.5 is at the printer and being printed riiiiiiiight...now. no, now. nnnnnnow. anyway, it should finally be on shelves in a few weeks and it is just full of surprises! perhapanauts 6--originally scheduled to be our halloween special (the best laid plans...)--is now on track to be on stands in late february, with our first image trade coming out in march collecting the annual, issues 1-5, and the monster pile-up story!

we're hoping to make 2009 a great year for the perhapanauts! hope you'll join us!



so enjoy that crazy new years eve party tonight! drive and party safe! call me if you need a ride home (except you, ernie, you're too far a way. call a cab. or better yet, call a tow truck; that way your car will be there in the morning!)



happy new year!
smell ya later!
todd

stretching christmas

okay...

well, i certainly hope you all survived christmas.
we did, barely.
lots of running around like crazy picking up last minute gifts and then running around like crazy to spend the early part of the day with sharon's family and then the later part with mine. we gave my brother an ipod so now he's part of the gang, and we gave my nephew call of duty 4, so there are some battles in my future. jake got to have prime rib with grampa, so he was in heaven.

favorite gifts?
is anybody going to play this?
let's everybody log in with their favorite gifts this year!

mine was...oh, how do i choose? i got some nice clothes. and a bunch of cool dvds. and some awesome (sean "cheeks" galloway designed) spectacular spider-man figures! and sharon got me an ipod dock!

and matt and suzanne sent me this awesome book called monster hunt, a guide to cryptozoology. it covers crazy cryptids from six of the seven continents (so far, antarctica has yet to log in...) and, while i knew most, there are a couple of new ones in there that just might find their way into the perhapanauts.
thanks, you guys! awesome present!

speaking of matt--and you should be speaking of him since he an d christian will have, not only a story, but a cover on the upcoming perhapanauts no.7--have you been over to matt's blog lately? if not, you're missing out on some fantastic artwork and THIS great holiday banner...! i love it so much, i stole it and put it here!




to see more of matt's stuff and catch up on his blog, go to;

http://mafus.blogspot.com/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

and here, because i'm not ready for christmas to be over just yet, are a few happy holiday images for you to enjoy...








gotta go!
smell ya later!
todd

leftovers

okay...

between the post-christmas food coma sharon and i (and jake) slipped into last night and the fact that blogger wouldn't let me load any of the following pictures, this is being posted late in the day. sorry, gang.

hope you all had a wonderful christmas/holiday with your family and friends and that today you can relax and enjoy the company and the wonder that the season brings.

now that you know them, i thought i'd post a few more pictures of the kids, a couple sketches that i had laying around.
hope ya dig 'em...

this is a very early, very rough sketch of hank and gretchen that i did at work one day with a ballpoint pen. it must've been done a short time after we got hank. nicole and i used to joke that the two of them would want to steal the car for a short road trip so that they could drive through the drive through at mcdonald's over and over again.



i don't know where this came from. this was pre-93, before we got jake, but i don't know how it happened. i sat down and started drawing and soon it was a picture of gretchen from behind looking up. then the fridge, then the food, then hank. just sorta stream of pencilness.



sometime during my skydiving days, 95-96, i did this birthday card for my good friend, jim waterhouse, who was crazy for it and never had to talk me into it--i was always keen to go--but definitely got me involved.



and here, from 2005--at mike's request--i did this pic for a katrina relief sketchbook.
so very out of my league.


merry day after christmas!
smell ya later!
todd

merry christmas!!

okay...

MERRY CHRISTMAS, PERHAPA-GANG!

hope you got some good loot and are filled with the reason for the day!

here, for a quick christmas blog, are a few christmas cards and such that i got in one form or another--starting with this fantastic
big and choopie card that i got late last night from our pals, candy and jason louis, over in england! YEAH--IT WAS ALREADY CHRISTMAS THERE! THOSE LUCKY STIFFS!!!! jason said that, like any true artsit, candy didn't love it, but i say, shut up, candy! that's beautiful! and funny! thanks so much!




here are a couple others--ho-ho-hope ya dig 'em!














merry, merry!
enjoy the day!
enjoy the family!
smell ya later!
todd

christmas 2007 and 2008

christmas card no.20--2007







okay...

well, as you can see, sharon moved in. and kayla.
truthfully, had it been even a year earlier, i would have said that there was no way that jake could live with a cat without chasing it constantly and, when he was younger still, probably killing it. he was pretty rambunctious. but he is older now and, as i described it once without knowing what i was saying, "blind in one eye and deaf in the other." we're all getting older and that includes my little boy. so kayla has learned which is his good side and which is his bad and tends to sneak past him on the right whenever she can. but she's also become more brave in the past few months, waiting to see how close he can come before he realizes it her. as for jake, he thinks we have a ghost or a ninja--or maybe a ghost ninja--running around.

of course, while sharon's moving in had been the definite highlight of the year--2007 is not one of my favorites for obvious reasons. (i don't wanna get too sad here, i don't wanna make matt cry.) mike and craig and i had one of our most fun and most bonding conventions ever at heroes con that june. we were having a great time, very in synch, throwing around ideas for new characters and comics and making plans that would hopefully get tellos and the perhapanauts some more exposure and give us the time to work on some of these other projects. it felt like the beginning... and then in august, mike left us.
not cool, 2007.

he's still here though. he talks to me. and watches tv with me. and whenever they get catalina into her little 'jumping' outfit on my name is earl, i can hear mike going, "daaaaaaamn!" sharon and i say it with him now. he liked that catalina.

merry christmas, brother!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~





christmas card no.21--2008

well, merry christmas eve, everybody!
i came up with this little gag a couple of weeks ago, but held off on starting on it 'cause i was hoping to maybe come up with something more traditional and unique. and so, holding out, things got later and later. the cards didn't get done until friday and not in the mail until saturday. that's cutting it close.
maybe i should start next year's card in september.

going out today to get two small gifts that i need to do a little traveling for. when i was young and stupid and a bachelor, my roommate, dennis, and i had a credo that if we weren't in the mall at closing time on christmas eve, we had planned too well.

i will be posting some nonsense tomorrow and friday, so if you're home and bored, stop by. if not see ya on monday...

i can't tell you how nice it is to keep this blog, to get a chance to talk to all of you, to count you all as friends.

may i wish all of you the happiest of holidays--happy kwanza, happy hannukah, merry christmas. and peace and love and understanding in 2009!

smell ya later!
todd

christmas 2k6

christmas card no.19 --2006





okay...

2006 was another silly one--i wanted to do something light and fun and whimsical and the idea of jake being dragged along under santa's sleigh was just too much fun not to do! i keep looking at it now and don't know if the flashlight tied to his head with the red gel over it reads very well--it all looks like a mess to me now...
but it got the job done.
life was good--working on the haps' second outing from dark horse and doing a lot of carpentry with jeff. sharon and i were dating and jake was jake.

merry christmas!





and for those of you saying, hey, wait a minute! you skipped 2005. well, that's 'cause i did.

early in 2005, my mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. over the course of that year, she went through countless tests and procedures, sporadic stays in the hospital--for anyone who has been through something like this with a loved one, you know that it is just a year of shit. my mom, who had always been the bright, shiny center of our family, was always sick and losing weight, always learning that that particular method of treatment just wasn't working, always trying to smile while her body was doing miserable things to her.
she was in the hospital for a week and a half in september of that year, and then for almost all of november. in early december, she told my brother and i that she and my dad had talked about it and that she was going to be coming home...for good.
we understood and did everything to make that last christmas as bright as possible--all of us did. she was weak and tired and small and accepted the gifts that we all knew she would never have a chance to enjoy. she passed away a week and a half later, on january 6th, at the age of 72.

my mom was a wonderful person. she was extremely compassionate and caring, always walked into a room with a smile on her face, ready to be positive and helpful. she was sensitive and shrewd and knew when people needed big, out loud support and when they needed the soft quiet private kind. she was encouraging and humorous. she was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, an elementary school teacher, a member of our high school alumni association and of the local choral club. she had a wonderful voice.
most of all, she was my friend. a sensitive kid growing up, she understood and was always there for me. i could talk to her about anything...anything...and i did.

i miss her everyday.





so as not to end on such a down note--my mom would never approve of that--here's a couple of christmas cartoons from some friends...


from our pal, tad stones...





from our aussie pal, matt pott...






brian mulcahy's christmas card
(eggnog came out of my nose!)


2007 and 2008 tomorrow!
merry, merry!
smell ya later!
todd

christmas 2k4

christmas card no.18--2004







okay...

so, 2004 was a fairly quiet year...i guess. i mean, i'm sure that there were all SORTS of crazy things going on, but nonesomuch that they ended up having any real affect on the card.
not a lot of comic book work that year--some marvel age stuff, the precursor to the marvel adventures line--with some marvel age spider-mans and the marvel age team-ups. craig and i had actually started getting the perhapanauts together in late 2002, and had published our little ashcan--the perhapanauts: dossier--CLASSIFIED!--the previous year, but 2004 was when we printed up our perhapanauts not gigantic color special #1 (on newsprint!), so we were having fun with our gang already!
i was also working a lot with my good pal and (incredibly talented) carpenter jeff mccluskey making furniture and doing some light construction and life was very, very good!
after living together for about a year and a half, my brother--also jeff--(and this is funny; both named jeff, both born on halloween, both have sons named tyler...weird)--anyway, jeff bought a house of his own and it was just me and jake again. which was great. usually home all day, when i would come home from working with jeff in the shop, jake and i would go out and run and play for hours. good times...
so this year's card was all about being silly, letting the kids just go on with one of their silly conversations. i did each panel actual size--4 1/4 x 5 1/2--and it was a little small...but that's how ya learn, right? there's not as much blending and layering of the watercolors, things are very flat and basic.

NOTE: due to the ice storm a week or so ago that took me out for a day and my inability to actually count, i'm going to be doubling up on cards tomorrow and wednesday so that you get this year's christmas card posted on christmas eve.
hope that's cool with everybody...!


until then, be merry!
smell ya later!
todd

christmas 2k3

christmas card no.17--2003




okay...

(for those of you yelling "T.M.I.!" regarding my maybe too revealing annotations here, you can skip this next part...)

so to make a very long and very sad story short, things did not work out with kate.
though i was head over heels with her--and she with me--karma does this funny thing now and then.
after all my years of letting my fear of commitment control me and rule my life, i finally felt that i had grown and was ready for a real relationship and be able to give myself to it completely.
kate however...you can say it with me...had this incredible fear of commitment. and a fear of abandonment.
and so she pushed me away. and i was sad again. really, really sad.
but i had jake.
and, though this is sad too, my brother and his wife split up and he came and moved in with me. it was great having jeff around and we grew closer than we had been, being there for friendship and moral support in our respective breakups/heartaches. the other great part of that was that he (we) got his two kids every other weekend and i got to have fun with them a lot more than i would have otherwise. both of them are great kids and i've grown very close with each of them in very different ways.

as for the card--after looking over all my previous cards and other artwork, i was trying to be a little less stiff with the kids in this one, trying to make things a little more organic and more fluid. in these first two panels, jake, trying to be stealthy and sneak like a snake, looks a little too cartoon-y, too amorphous. it was a neat experiment, but not really my style. maybe i'll try going back to it again sometime and should i find more time to draw in the future.


and here are
the answers to
your double-dip
"five for friday"

1. what was rudolph's girlfriend's name?

clarice

2. what was the name of the grinch's dog?

max

3. what is the original title of "the night before christmas?"

"a visit from st. nicholas"

4. what was the rabbit's name in "frosty the snowman?"

hocus pocus

5. who recorded a duet of "peace on earth/little drummer boy" with david bowie?

bing crosby

6. on "miracle on 34th street," what store was kris kringle hired to play santa in?

macy's

7. and what store was their direct competition?

gimbel's

8. who is the only female member of santa's reindeer team?

vixen

9. according to the animated classic "santa claus is coming to town," what is the first name of mrs. claus?

jessica

10. what's the best christmas present you ever got?

?

have a holly jolly weekend!
smell ya later!
todd

christmas 2k2

christmas card no.16--2002






okay...

kate.
after the revelations and sadness--and, hopefully, some small amount of growth--following my split with dani the year before, the spring of 2002 had me coming out of the long, gray winter a changed man--happier, hopefully wiser, much more optimistic. life is a balance and i had been through some bad times; i was ready for the good! i was in a play, made some new friends, and through one of them met a girl--an actress in a different play--who appeared to be everything i ever dreamed of in a girl. we fell quickly and spent all our time together, along with gretchen, jake, and kate's 7 year old daughter.
i was very happy.
until october, when gretchen, who had been slowly winding down, quietly passed away one night while i was out doing a workshop at a local library. i had long dreaded the day that i would lose my closest furry friend--she was my ever-present protector, my partner, my confidant--and the thought of it made everyone around me a little nervous too. i don't think i could've made it through that without kate. she came right over. and dani did too. we cried and hugged and said goodbye to gretchen and after kate and dani left, jake slipped right into gretchen's place as my best friend and confidant. just like that. he nuzzled me and stayed closer to me from then on and as he crawled into bed with me that night, the first time ever, he gave me a look, letting me know that he knew that it was just the two of us now and we would stick together forever.
got the front of the card done, but ran out of time (and talent) on the inside. it was sad to put the halo on gretchen on the card, but comforting to see her right there next to hank, knowing they would be together now.

i'm sorry that so many of these cards come with some sadness too!
they're not s'posed to be. they're supposed to be merry and uplifting.

and here are your
"five for friday"

1. what was rudolph's girlfriend's name?

2. what was the name of the grinch's dog?

3. what is the original title of "the night before christmas?"

4. what was the rabbit's name in "frosty the snowman?"

5. who recorded a duet of "peace on earth/little drummer boy" with david bowie?

6. on "miracle on 34th street," what store was kris kringle hired to play santa in?

7. and what store was their direct competition?

8. who is the only female member of santa's reindeer team?

9. according to the animated classic "santa claus is coming to town," what is the first name of mrs. claus?

10. what's the best christmas present you ever got?


have a merry day!
spread some season's greetings!
smell ya later!
todd

christmas 2k1

christmas card no.15 --2001




this one was both last minute and uninspired.
after about five years of on again/off again, dani and i had split for good in september. about three weeks later, i had a revelation and understood that it was me, all me, my fear of commitment that never let her all the way in. to my life or my heart. still friends, i pleaded for a second chance, but she had had enough.
i was very down for the next few months.
add in 9/11 and mike's and my realization that we weren't going to be able to continue tellos without some money coming in, and i just couldn't find the christmas spirit. mike kept telling me that i had to do a card anyway--he loved 'em--but i think it was nick (cardy) who actually coerced me into it.
i dunno, maybe they were in league together.

christmas is just a week away!
ho ho ho!
smell ya later!
todd

christmas 2k

christmas card no.14--2000





i miss him still.

todd

christmas 99

christmas card no.13--1999





so this one actually had the first two panels side-by-side on the front and the reveal was big on the inside. unlike the previous year--which i felt was creative yet poorly executed--it thought this one was kinda bland, but that it was at least in color.
at this point i can't remember if dani and i were living together or not--for a while we did, then we didn't, then we did. it was all me, fear of commitment...
work was good. mike and i had launched tellos the previous summer and i was paying the bills (and mostly having fun) on impulse over at dc. while not a critical smash here in the states, tellos was very well received in europe, especially france, so while mike and i weren't making any money on the book, we were encouraged by that response.
life was really good. my family was close and my niece and nephew were turning into fun little people. and my own three here at the house were great, although i kinda think this was the year gretchen found a skunk for christmas...!

(and as if it were planned or something...)
smell ya later!
todd

christmas 98

christmas card no.12--1998







okay...

trying to plan ahead for the card, i instead set myself up for last minute panic trying to make our own version of "the night before christmas" rhyme and maintain some kinda syntax. it's a little clunky here and there, and the artwork was rushed and certainly not what i'd been imagining in my head as christmas drew nearer and nearer. i hoped to have enough time to do an illustration for each verse and had, of course, planned to paint all of them.
once again, this card features an off-camera appearance by rodeo frank and i like that hank comes off the more devious of the kids here. that little bunny certainly had his moments.

in other christmas news...how ya doin'? gettin' in the spirit? watching any holiday shows or movies? listening to any holiday music? we've been out shopping a couple of times, but we're certainly not done.
and my nephew, tyler, put together a target gift card from last year and a choopie butt card to make this questionable holiday team-up. santa and choopie?! there's your recipe for disaster.



d'oh!

and the answers to brian's
fantastic fill-in "five for friday"
(thanks again, bri--
you're a lifesaver!)
are as follows...

Who were the narrators of the following Holiday Classic Cartoons

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

boris karloff

2. Frosty the Snowman

jimmy durante

3. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

burl ives

4. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

fred astaire

5. The Little Drummer Boy

greer garson


smell ya later!
todd