…unless you’re a cartoonist.
I don’t know about you guys but I find that this time of the year is nearly impossible to keep up to date (hence my cut back to three times a week). With the holidays and the family and the parties and the hook…friends… it seems like any semblence of free time goes right out the window. Not that I don’t love this time of year. Don’t get me wrong. And this year is an extra special one for me and my family.
But as a cartoonist with kids and a day job, my free time is already limited. So December usually turns out to be a blurry wash for me.
I have to admit, I do feel out of my element in the 3x rotation. The difference between 3x and 5x a week is shocking for me. From a productivity standpoint, 3x a week is a cakewalk in the monkey park. But I’ve noticed that it’s harder to write in this mode. With my regular rotation my mind is always on Pinkerton. I’m always in the Pinkerton mode if you will. But with this slower rotation I find that I have to concentrate a little harder to put my brain in Pinker-mode. Does that make ANY sense at all?
I hear ya on the “less time” aspect. December, traditionally, gives me less time and I’ve actually had to upload a comic in the EVENING of the update day(posting a temporary blog entry titled “Happy HecticDays” to reassure readers that it’s coming). Thankfully I update only twice a week, but I color Sunday-sized comics, so I think I’m putting in a daily cartoonist’s hours anyway(about 12-15 hours weekly). Oh yeah, plus I translate the comics to Spanish. I’m so glad that the previous and next comics are both silent(well, wordless at least, the previous one was in a loud night club).
I’m so glad I switched to using a font instead of hand-lettering now. I loved the hand-lettering, but my hand filed a complaint, especially after I denied it its OSHA-mandated breaks. After the second fonted comic, I suddenly realized it was the same font you use. I might continue to use it, but I do prefer to not look like another comic on my links list. The fact that I’m using all-caps and hand-inking the bubbles helps some(plus the fact that the comic itself looks different too). I might try some other tweaks, though.