Duck the collar.

I had to go in disguise to an office downtown. It was only after I got home, took off the tie & put my collar back on that I remembered how taxing it is to wear a leash that doesn't jingle.

Doing it.

I recently got let go from yet another job. It was the same confusing rhetoric that I get every time that I get fired.

"Um, Caleb, you're doing a great job here..."

"Awesome. Thanks."

At this point, I assume the conversation is over and try to get back to whatever it was that I was doing.

"We've never had anyone that has been able [make sales, lift furniture, sort junk, whatever it is that job is] as well as you."

"Sweet."

Again, trying to get back to work. All of these compliments are great but there are things to do. And if I don't do them, no one's going to.

"But, the thing is..."

Uh, oh. This sounds very familiar....

"Everyone here is complaining that you're an asshole."

"What?"

Generally, it takes me by surprise. I guess it really shouldn't anymore. I have pretty high expectations about the work that I turn out. I believe that if we can keep our minds on the task at hand and do our work with care, than we can turn out absolute quality every time. It doesn't happen all the time and their can be minor slip-ups but it is essential that we all try.

For the most part, I have never felt that from any my co-workers in what you would consider a "straight job". Most people that work those types, the button down, tie-wielding, would-you-like-fries-with-that? are the type of people that don't like to think for themselves. They want someone to tell them what to do, they do it passably enough that no one yells at them and then they go home. They're happy as long as they don't have to engage or apply themselves. I hear often from these people, "Hey, slow down. Why are you working so hard."

It kind of upsets me. Why the fuck are you doing a task if you don't care how it turns out? Why are you wasting the time of our employers and customers? And I don't see that attitude from the people that I work with creatively. I'm sure farther into the field there are lots of these fucks that have found themselves a cozy little niche and are milking the clock like suckling pigs. But the ones that I meet with care very much about what they turn out. They care how their products reflect on them because their name is going to be attached to it.

So, I got let go again last week. I was doing a wonderful job, my boss says, but all my co-workers hate me. They say that I'm being an asshole but really I was just asking them to step up their game by doing the best that I was capable of. So I figured instead of crying and scrambling to find yet another straight job that will inevitably crumble out under me in another year so, I'm free-lancing. It's just time.

I've been training for almost a decade, refining my drawing, writing and acting. I understand the creative process. I know how to find inspiration and how to work it out so that the idea becomes fully realized. Now all I need to do is get paid. Sure it will be a lot of hard work, stressful, dealing with the unknown but its better than the feeling that I am in place where I'm constantly failing because I'm surrounded by people that have given up and no longer give a shit. Those feelings are contagious. I had to get out before they finally consumed me.

Please, help. We're coming to an end.

Happy Valentine's Day citizens. I wanted to put out a royal edict to let you know how much I love you all. Our kingdom is grand, isn't it? A new, Danger Circus just moved into town reminding me what a powerful place this has become. They call it Obb World. You should drop by if you haven't already.

Alright, enough with the riff-raff and beating around the bush. I hate to have to do this to you, Elphians, I really do. But this is one of the last pictures from Elphia. The color covered the entire Earth. Did you know that they just created a brand new island off the coast? I'm moving, citizens. I'm leaving my kingdom to go out and live among the people. I'm going to Obbityville.

Please help Mr. O'Shea.

I thought about it for a long time. What does happen when a unstoppable force hits an immovable object? I was convinced that the force would drive itself through the object but that only seemed to work for some types of forces/object pairings. So then I was thinking about physics and how the force meets and divides it. To be an unstoppable force one has to be able to ricochet off of immovable realities.

Best of luck.

The King of Elphia

Pleez help. He didn't level up proportionately.

A friend of mine, the Earl of Delsdale (if you must know), caught (or had caught (it's hard to tell with the Earl as he is quite capable but often lazy for the sake of laziness (no offense, EoD))) a Perfulgeon. He must have had someone else catch it because they didn't seem to notice it's obvious birth defect. Actually, that was probably why they were able to catch it (normally a full grown Perfulgeon can move at a speed of 156 kph in the water); this guy was doing slow figure eights with that sad sack expression. The Earl named him Charlie McFearson because he felt so sorry for him.

Please, help. We almost existed in the same time and space as your world.

I found an old scrap book from when I was living among the humans. Three dimensions is a strange feeling, I'll have you know kiddos.

Please, help. I think I hear it ticking.

Seeing where there is love and where there isn't is really bringing out the loneliness in those left to be black and white. I changed almost instantly. Everyone loves me. I'm not still black and white. The reason I haven't made a public appearance recently is because I've been busy with matters of the state. Of course, I'm in color. My aides will send you a picture soon. In color.

The gates have been opened.

Dearest Citizens, I write you today about a great moment in history. One to be preserved and remembered. You will get to tell your grandkids about where you were the moment you read this post. The gates have been opened! They are now inviting people into :

Please, help! I don't like people seeing me without my skin on!

... unless you're invited. ;p

The Cheat is not dead.

Citizens, lend me your ears. I just finished illustrating The Inventor for Adam Higgins. I am very excited about this because I've been working on it constantly for the last three months and it looks really, really good. I'll keep you all posted about when and where it's getting published. This post is more for a point of reference in case anyone is ever wondering when that book was actually done for the first time. Greetings Citizens of the Future!

Please, help. I've stabbed out my eyes.

I drew this one while dating my last gf. Her birthday was on the exact same day as my mother's. At first I thought it was pretty neat and then I realized how much my mom and I just don't get along. And why. I guess I should be greatful to her. And in a way, I am. Still, I did feel like stabbing my eyes out. That Oedipal thing isn't always the fuzzy bunnies it pretends to be.

Please, help keep me from shooting up.

So this one is totally true. I wouldn't lie about this ever because I am your King and you are one of my loyal subjects. It's been something I've been wanting to get off my chest for a long time. I am so afraid of doctors. You have no idea how much it petrifies to even think about going to see someone in the medical profession. My mind makes up lots of good reasons why it's completely justified. a) Most of them are probably bought off by the pharmaceutical companies, essentially becoming pushers for whatever untested, quick-fix (with a long list of side effects) medications they come up with b) the more often a person is sick the more a doctor can make off of them and in a capitalist society it would make logical to do just short of all you can to keep raking in the dough c) I fr@¢king scared of getting poked by needles. I hate that feeling of little metal thing sliding under your skin. oh, puke! It's making me wiggle in my seat as I type.

Please, help Henry Chinaski.

Some guy with a camera hunted now the drunken muse of the phony beat poet and author, Charles Bukowski. Due to books such as Post Office, Barfly, & Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live With the Beasts, Mister Chinaski has been ostracized from his native city of LA. "I couldn't take the ridicule any more," he slurs in unreleased footage. Henry isn't asking for any monetary sum from you or the Bukowski estate, just that his name be crossed out of every single existing copy of those books. So please, do your part.

http://tympanictheatre.org/

Please, help. It's not blood in my veins, it's ink.

It's like most rap songs where the artist just brags about how awesome they are.

Please, help. I only make good 2nd impressions.

And this one is probably the 5th comic I drew. You can still smell the style developing.

A letter to an editor and other interested parties

I recently sent this to an editor in response to the statement, "I don't get it." It is a statement that has been said to me a number of times since I began drawing the strip. I've never actually so fully responded before and so I when I did I was a little amazed at myself for summing up my vision on this strip, and comedy in general, so well. Read it or not, I was just glad that I wrote it and wanted to share.

The following has been edited slightly from the original to leave the recipient out of the conversation:

"Let me give an explanation of what I do and maybe it will help you understand where I and my comics are coming from. It will not necessarily make them funny to you but at least you'll know. All of [the comics on this blog] are the ones that are more recently released to the public. The ninja fighting the beast (Please, help. Preconception kills.) is one that I've drawn most recently [as of October 2008].

First, I don't try to make jokes when I draw. I think that jokes are cheap and only work in specific instances for certain people. They generally rely on pop culture references or puns. Those type of comics have a very short life span with little-to-no replay value. Instead I try to create as real a scene as possible in my kingdom, Elphia, where the characters have feelings and reactions to the things that are going on around them. There is an inert truth underlying all of them; the laughter does come from trying to be witty but because my audience recognizes that truth in their own life. I'll use the ninja one as an example. We've all faced some insurmountable obstacle that must be taken on in the moment and if we stop to over think it, it will kill us (metaphorically most times but sometimes literally). There is no "joke" there, simply the honest laugh that comes when an audience empathizes.

Second, I see comics as works of art. It is entertainment at it's highest form. You'll often see comics poorly or incompletely drawn because the cartoonist only needs a stage for his funny caption. I try to create a complete image so that this becomes a real world for the reader's imagination. The thing that gives my strip readability is that it's like a photograph into a different reality. It's appealing to the eye. After one sees the initial image there's more for them to see and explore. There are unanswered questions that give the subconscious room to create it's own story. Again, I'll site the ninja strip. The two are fighting at night in open field. The brain begins to fill the details, they've stumbled across each other while the ninja was on a journey. The mountain must be the beasts' home. Any second now the creature's joey will pop out and run around. It is that fact that it is art that make my fans and I come back to view these panels time and again."

If you still don't "get" it, maybe it is because you are expecting this comic to be something that it is not. In this kind of cartoon there is no obsequious, observable punchline. Rather, the joy comes in the digestion of the images and concepts as a whole. You will see in these strips only what you bring in with you.

Still technologically absent

Hi, guys. Please don't cry. I'm really not trying to hurt your feelings here when I say that I think that we need a little space. Right now, I'm kind of dealing with a lot. My machinery feels like it's all busted up & I need to take a little time to get it fixed up. I know the distance is going to be strain; you're going to wonder to yourself if I really like you at all. I do. I really do & I know that if you're just patient & accept that this thing will work itself out then we'll be okay. Okay? Here's a picture that I found to make us both smile.

Please help save me from these fresh-faced tykes.

I really love the font in this one. If you have trouble reading it you may need to download & rotate. Yay! Post 111!!!