Pinniped Party 2 part Eighteen

Pinniped Party 2 part Seventeen

Pinniped Party 2 part Sixteen

Pinniped Party 2 part Fifteen

Pinniped Party 2 part Fourteen

I can't believe this Pinniped Party has reached part Fourteen. Remember when my stories only lasted a week or two? Yeesh, this thing's practically War and Peace.

Pinniped Party 2 part Thirteen

Pinniped Party 2 part Twelve

Not many comments on Disney's Rapunzel--excuse me, Disney's "Tangled" trailer, huh? Oh well. I, for one, will be very interested in seeing it when it comes out this fall.

Here's an odd thing. Yesterday, commenter Debbie spotted my "Elephant of Surprise" cover on a site called "somuchpun.com." Somebody posted it there, but didn't attribute it to me. It's strange, because that's a pretty popular site--part of the lolcats empire. I don't know how to feel, on one hand, I'm happy that someone thinks it's worth re-posting, on the other hand, I feel sorta ripped off. Should I start putting my signature on everything? Big, ugly watermarks? I don't know, I figured I'd have to deal with this sort of thing someday, just not this soon.

[UPDATE: The kind folks at somuchpun got my email about not being attributed, and are now working to get it straightened out. That was very nice of them!]

Pinniped Party 2 part Eleven

Everyone seems to be enjoying the Pinnipeds--I know I am. A Pinniped Party is a real state of mind, very simple, very laid back. There's more to come, things are just ramping up.

I've gotten a few emails about the new Disney Rapunzel Trailer (click through to see it on imdb.) Take a look, what do you think? I mean, it's hard to judge a movie by the trailer (in this case, a really short trailer,) but I'd like to hear your response.

I'm glad we went with the redhead Rapunzel.

Pinniped Party 2 Part Ten

Pinniped Party 2 Part Nine

Pinniped Party 2 Part Eight

Pinniped Party 2 Part Seven

Pinniped Party 2 Part Six

If you've noticed that today's comic seems a little rough, it is because I'm using a different drawing set-up. I'm away from my real computer this week. All I have is a laptop and a very old (very tiny) Wacom tablet--I forgot how tricky those are to get a handle on. Anyway, bear with me. The extremely simple/goofy drawing style seems to work well with the pinnipeds.

Pinniped Party 2 part five

Yesterday's commenters helped write today's dialogue--that's why it has such a gritty, realistic feel to it. Thank you commenters, for participating.

I'm doing a free presentation today (friday) at the OREM LIBRARY at 4:00, part of the Arts in the Park series. I'll be doing an hour-long Q&A/PowerPoint/Drawing extravaganza! So if you are in or around Orem, UT from 4-5--swing by and say hi.

Pinniped Party 2 part four

Pinniped Party 2 part three

I got some neat news yesterday, RAPUNZEL'S REVENGE is going to be featured in the Scholastic Book Fair! I've never had a book go into the book fair before, so I'm pretty excited. I can't wait to see Rapunzel smiling out of the book order forms my kids will bring home next school year.

Pinniped Party 2 part two

They're Ba-ack

A year ago, the blog was just starting out. We started with CHUCK THE LAZY ISOPOD, and then moved onto THE PINNIPED PARTY. You can see it here in the June Archive--you'll have to scroll all the way down, then slowly scroll up, bottom to top to read it. Some day I'll make it easier to go back and read old stories (sure I will.)

Now let's get rolling on THE PINNIPED PARTY 2! I'm pretty sure somebody's gonna get punched in the face!

I Don't Like the Word "Doodle"...

...but that's what you are getting today, a "doodle." I'm fresh out of ideas at the moment--bone dry. I scribbled around on my digital drawing pad and came up with this space-y, tree-y thing. What should we call it?

Oh, by the way, I have slowly whittled down the CALAMITY JACK avatar drawings, I've been sending them out a handful at a time, I've got TWO left! So two of you out there will be getting your avatar portraits soon, in the next few days. In the future, I'll have to be careful with projects like that, I had NO IDEA how many portraits I would have to do.

HATCHET, the Cartoon Cover

I read to my eight-year-old son at night before he goes to bed, just a quick chapter or two. Well, with our latest book, we decided to take a break from the endless series(es) of dystopian/steampunk/clue-finding/dragon-training/world-building books that are so-hot-right-now (ugh) and, instead, read a skinny book called HATCHET (One book! Can you believe it? Not part one of an epic, nine-volume, movie-tie in extravaganza!) HATCHET by Gary Paulsen. Oh, you've heard of it, great!

HATCHET is super awesome. A kid has to survive the wilds of Canada with, that's right, a hatchet. I have to be honest here, I hadn't read HATCHET before. I know it's one of those books everybody was supposed to read as a kid. Somehow, I missed it. It's 195 pages long and it's a great time. My son and I were both totally into it.

When "Brian," the main guy (we just called him "Hatchet,") first crashes into the woods I asked my son what he thought "Hatchet" should do to survive. My son's earnest response was, "He should find some kind of animal sidekick." Good grief.

I like everything about HATCHET (this sounds like a book report) except for one thing: the cover. The cover's kind of boring. My copy has a milky-white drawing of "Hatchet" with something like that "Three Wolves Howling at the Moon" T-shirt superimposed over it. It's pretty lousy. So I thought, just for kicks, I'd do an awesome cartoon cover for the book:

Yeah! Tell me that wouldn't bring in some new readers. Check it out! Spoiler alert! If you haven't read the book, this covers gives away all kinds of stuff--woops!

How does this work again...?

Okay, thanks for all the kind words on JURASSIC WATER PARK! It now stands as a working book dummy! All it needs is a good cover letter and a sample of a finished illustration, and it'll be submission ready. I'll keep you posted if anything happens with it. And if I do a sample final illustration, I'll post it here (I could just cheat and use a spread from THE DINOSAURS' NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, but it's always fun to do something tailored to the project. We'll see.)

Thanks for sticking with it. JURASSIC WATER PARK was the longest blog post sequence yet! That's right, it spanned three months (started it in April, ended it in June) longer than the picture book marathon! Holy mackerel!

For now, I feel like doing some short posts--I mean SHORT. I mean ONE DAY STORIES. I've got some more long-ish stories coming up, but for now, let's go SHORT.

"JURASSIC WATER PARK" 32