Dick Cheney; A Glass Is Half Full Kind of Guy

I think I herniated something.

So I poke around inside; nothing is loose or broken, the mounting springs are fine. The belts are in good condition. Nothing appears to be a toy belonging to the Widget. So WTF? I run a test load of towels. Jesus on a Pogo Stick! There’s a Jamaican steel drum band living in my washing machine! I shut her down before the hyperdrive motivator can fracture.

So then I call in a professional. I explain the problem. I finish up by telling him that I can feel something knocking against the inside of the heavy plastic drum, and that this appears to be the source of the horrific, kittens in the microwave car crash noise. “Uh-oh,” he says. “Does it sound like you have a Jamaican steel drum band in there?” How did he know?!? Because this is a typical issue with my machine, that’s how.

He can repair it though! Its only a $5 dollar part!! But it’s a 3hr job for two men and they

can’t do it in my house, then need to take the machine to the shop because it needs to be totally disassembled. I could buy a brand new machine for the same money.

He said if I was creative I could try and fix it myself. He knows of two different auto mechanics who had the same problem and they did it. They needed access to a professional garage’s worth of tools and it took them an entire weekend, but they did it.

I don’t even know where the oil filter is located in my new car. This ain’t gonna happen. Thank God we just paid off the cat’s leg amputation on the credit card so we can run it back up again! Phew.

Fuck!

Lets see, what else . . . I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but ATOMIC ROBO officially has a publisher. We are stoked! But I can’t say who just yet. Soon though. Soon.

In my remaining two days off I’ve got to do some prelim sketches of the steam-punk cyborgs for ROBO #5 and #6 and I want to ink a page or two from the HEXBREAKERS short I roughed out a few months ago. That will be appearing in an upcoming anthology. More news on that later.

I also have to ink a ROBO poster that someone else penciled. Shit. I’ve been downgraded to a tracer.

It’s a collaborative thing –obviously. Some guy named Finn (who I don’t know, nor do I have a link to his undoubtedly fabulous website) did the pencils. He is doing art for Tim Buckley’s new CAD (Control-Alt-Delete) comic book. Tim and Clevinger are pals, and Tim is running that ROBO ad in the new work with Finn.

I’m still working on it and MAN is it weird to ink someone else’s stuff.

Okay that’s more than enough for now. I leave you with this delightful film. I INSIST that you watch it. You will thank me.

PS: I took the Widget to see the visiting Dinosaur exhibit up at the See Science Center. I won’t lie. It blew chunks. But she had fun.