I’ll be taking the next couple of weekends off for two reasons. First is I’ll be on the west coast next weekend and unable to do a comic strip and didn’t want to do a “one off” strip this week. Second, it’s time to wrap up the whole River City Hall story and I need some time to finalize how I’m going to do it [Translation:I gots no clue]. This will not be easy and its destined to be disappointing from a creator’s point of view. It’s always hard to wrap up a serialized work like a comic strip. I’ve done it once before and it seems rushed. The reason, I believe, is because you don’t necessarily plan on things coming to an end, although you know they won’t last for ever. Comic strip characters tend to live forever and never age – there are no term limits for the mayor of River City. You create story arcs and set up relationships and conflicts to be visited sometime down the road. You’re just not sure when you’ll get to them.  Then when you do decide to end the story, you realize there is no way you can go back and tie up all the loose ends you left for later story lines.  So you end up doing the ending somewhat “quick and easy” and leave things unresolved and never fully satisfied.  That’s how it was when I ended my first comic strip almost 20 years ago, and that’s how expect I’ll feel this time around as well.  See you in a couple weeks for the home stretch!

I think I’ve mentioned before how much I loved Bloom County growing up and how it made me want to do comic strips.  Well I just came across this great interview with Berkeley Breathed regarding a new omnibus release of all the Bloom County strips.  There is also a link to this video of Berkeley at Comic-con talking about exchanging correspondence with Bill Watterston.  Hilarious stuff.

Just a heads up, if you hadn’t caught a hint of it amidst the current story arc, but I’ve decided to wind things down with River City Hall.  There are quite a few reasons for this, some of which I can share and some of which I prefer to keep private.  Bottomline, however, is that I don’t feel like I can provide a consistent story and a site with current content with all I have going on right now.  Case in point #1 – This is my first blog post in 6 months!

This does not mean the River City Hall Story is ending in a week or two.  Far from it. I have a fairly lengthy story arc to wrap up and I plan to finish it, although getting the strip out every Monday may be tough.  I want to have our characters reach a conclusion in terms of their time in office, and hopefully it is a happy ending.

My plan is to wrap things up over the next few months and keep this site up for a while.  Along the way I hope to add a few more blog posts “with purpose”.  Number one among them will be a “How-to” guide for anybody else that wants to do a webcomic but doesn’t know where to start.  Think of it as my way of leaving a little legacy for this hobby of mine.

So, that’s my plan. As with anything, circumstances could change things a little, but one thing I will commit myself to is finishing the stories of TJ, Ben and everyone else so that people can still come back and revisit the site like picking up an old book.

Some bad news folks: I need to take an extended leave of absence from stripping, comics that is. It’s been a crazy couple of months and it looks to be another couple of crazy months coming up. As a result, my free time is limited to the point where I don’t think I can pay the attention to River City Hall that it requires on a weekly basis.

I know what you are thinking: How much time can a comic strip that comes out once a week take? Well, if you have an idea it only takes an hour or so to draw and put up on the website. However, coming up with ideas takes time during the week, and if you are busy all day, your brain doesn’t have the time to think up story ideas. That’s kind of where I am. With work really picking up and with us deciding to move to a new house this summer, things are going to get crazy and I don’t know how much extra down time I’ll have to devote to the comic strip. I’d rather put out a strip on a regular basis than a couple of strips here and there with no set schedule.

I should start up again when things slow down. When I do I’ll let everyone know and spread the word. Thanks for sticking with us this far.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with no sign of slowing down, so I apologize for not getting up a new strip this week. What’s that? You didn’t notice that a new strip hasn’t been put up? Well, then nevermind.

Anyhoo, here is something cool for all you Tron geeks: The latest trailer for the Tron sequel, Tron Legacy. Joy!

(P.S. – Does this make anybody else wish for a Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski video game?)

Got back from my Vegas trip late on Monday, but I’m just getting around to blogging it now because, no surprise, it takes that long to recover. Overall, it was a great time, and while it goes by too fast, I can’t imagine staying longer. Just like when you are gambling, you have to know when to walk away from the table.

Here is a quick rundown of the trip (taken with my friend Neil) and my impressions:

Getting There – I set up the flight out there so that we would arrive around 7:30 Vegas time. Unfortunately we were delayed in Dallas by two hours with no reason given by the airline. We were not amused. So we just started drinking.

View from our hotel room.

Treasure Island – We decided to stay at Treasure Island. We had looked at staying someplace really nice, but decided to “downgrade” a little bit so that we would have a little bit more money to spend on other things. And frankly, we weren’t going to be in the hotel room very much anyway. TI turned out to be a good choice because the hotel rooms are nice and clean and the location is within walking distance to other casinos where we spent most of our time: The Venetian, the Wynn, Caesar’s, and the Bellagio (the furthest from TI). I think it was a good call. The one major complaint we had was the check-in time. Apparently they had just changed their computer system and none of the people at the registration desk seemed to know how to use it yet. Add to that having only 3 employees actually checking people in and you have a line wrapping around the lobby. We got to the hotel around 11 PM and were finally in our room around midnight. Not what you want after a delayed flight. We were not amused. So we continued to drink.

Oh Craps -Usually I just play blackjack and bet on sports when I’m in Vegas. This time I decided to try something different and focused on learning the game of craps. Well, I certainly learned the game, but it cost me. I ended up staying at tables longer than I should have in order to understand the various bets and watch how others play. There is a unique lingo at the craps table and the various bets and speed of the game can be intimidating. In the end, I learned that you need to walk away when you hit your upper target (won money) or your lower target (lost money) because if you stay at the table the house odds will catch up to you. Fun game, though, and I’m sure I’ll go back to it.

Braised Beef dish from Bouchon.

Grub – One of the main reasons to go to Vegas is for the great restaurants. Most of the celebrity chefs have one or even two restaurants at the various hotels and malls and we hit a few good ones. Top of the list was Buchon, Thomas Kellar’s restaurant in the Venetian. We rang up quite a tab, but it did not disappoint. The only thing that stuck out was our somewhat fumbling sommelier who seemed to know less than Neil about the wine list. We also ate at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill and Sushi Samba. We tried to go to Wing Lei in the Wynn on Sunday night, but we got there too late and ended up eating at another Chinese place called Red 8. One great thing about Vegas is you can find lots to eat at any hour. The first night there I was eating pho at 3 in the morning, which was really 6 am east coast time, so it was like breakfast.

The Aria

Other Entertainment - We spent most of our afternoons working our way from hotel to hotel along the strip. On Saturday we worked our way up the strip to Aria, the new hotel and casino at the Las Vegas City Center. We were very impressed with the job they did and spent a long time hanging out in the hotel bar. We had considered staying there, but some of the bad reviews scared me off. On Sunday we decided to start at Mandalay Bay, where I ended up losing most of my money, and working our way down the strip. We had a drinks in most of the hotels as we worked our way down. I remember getting to the Bellagio and watching the USA’s last goal against Canada in hockey and having the whole bar go crazy. From there, I’m not sure how we got back to TI. I’m guessing we walked. Quite a trek. Oh, also on Saturday we [redacted].

A couple rolls from Sushi Samba.

Overall, it was a really good trip. All the talk about the economy affecting the tourism in Vegas was not apparent when we were there. The place was hopping and people were spending money. The one area that has probably taken a hit is the high-end shopping (Adam Sandler was in Barney’s when we went there. Nobody else was.) In the end, I’ve had my fill of Vegas for now, but would love to get back there again.

Saw this brief interview linked off CNN yesterday and couldn’t help but smile. John Campanelli of the Cleveland Plain Dealer was able to get an email exchange  interview with Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. It appears that the U.S. Postal Service’s release of a Calvin stamp later this year prompted the interview.

There were two comic strips I read religiously when I was young that got me into cartooning. One was Calvin and Hobbes and the other was Bloom County by Berkley Breathed. Those two strips really captured the comic strip as a genre for me. Great characters, great humor, running storylines and beautiful art. When I got to college and saw the school newspaper needed comic strips I jumped at the chance. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. I never had the talent to do it professionally, but the bug never left, as you can see from my decision to do a strip basically for the hell of it.

Anyway, when it comes to comic strips I’m of the feeling that they just don’t make them like they used to, and Calvin and Hobbes is the perfect example of this.

First, my thoughts on the iPad: pretty damn cool. But coming from Apple, that is not saying much which is a little ridiculous when you think about it. There is a weird dynamic going on. Apple fanboys will rave about anything new that comes out from Apple. More neutral observers, who enjoy Apple products, seem to expect them to unveil the cure for cancer every time they do one of their public shows.

From what I have read, yes it is just a really big iPod Touch, but that is significant in itself. A 9-inch touchscreen tablet that runs for 10 hours before recharging has a lot of potential. All the developers out there are sure to come up with some great apps much like they did for the iPhone. The aggressive $499 entry price is a surprise and makes it tempting.

Will I buy one? Not yet, but I’m certainly interested. The sticking point for me and probably some others is I don’t really need it right now. I have a netbook that has a 6-hour battery that allows me to surf the web or watch videos on the go. I’ve got a Kindle that allows me to carry a bunch of books with me when I travel. Would I like those two things smushed together in one neat looking device? Hells yes. Do I need to have those two things smushed together right now to make me a productive technogeek at home and on the road? Afraid not Mr. Jobs. But keep working at it, because I’m sure the 2nd generation iPads will be quite awesome and undoubtedly tempt me with their siren song.

What would I like to see the next go round? Multi-tasking would be nice. 3G connectivity on all models seems reasonable. But what would really do it for me would be if a stylus could be used on it with an app that basically lets me draw my comic strip on it. Then I could do my drawing lounging on the couch watching TV.

One aftermath of the iPad launch that is getting attention today is the apparent rift between Amazon and Macmillan that has prompted Amazon to take the drastic step of temporarily halting sale of Macmillan books on the website. If I had to guess, things are just getting started in this war. I don’t have enough information to really decide what is right or wrong, but here is my initial thinking:

• If Amazon wants to sell new e-books at a loss to promote the Kindle, they should be allowed to. This is nothing new in the business world. Amazon is presumably still paying the publisher and in turn the author their price. Amazon is just choosing to lose some of its own money on e-book sales to get a strong foothold on the exploding e-book reader market. This is a business decision. It may or may not be a good one, but it is one they should be allowed to make none the less.
• If Macmillan wants to try and strong arm Amazon into raising its e-book prices to $15 because it thinks the $9.99 price devalues the books it might want to thoroughly evaluate that line of thinking. Just because you raise the price of a version of a book doesn’t mean people are going to in turn value it more. People will value any product based on the value they see in it not the price the seller puts on it. Consumers will also only pay a certain price if it matches up with, or is less than, the value they put on the product. I think you are going to find a lot of Kindle owners who don’t think e-books are worth $15 or more, even if they are brand new. The thing is, if a publisher wants to push its e-books for $15, there are many other virtual storefronts to try it at. I’d like to see how well they do at it. I almost wish Amazon would give in for a little while just to see what happens. I don’t expect the result will be very good for the publishers, but that is just my opinion.
• The move by Amazon is a bit drastic without any further knowledge about what went on between the companies. Let’s face it, to decide to stop sales of the books is costing both companies millions of dollars. This leads me to think that some kind of threat was made between the companies, because you don’t just decide to lose millions of dollars because you want to puff out your chest. But, we don’t have enough info yet to piece things together. I can’t wait to see how things pan out.

No new comic strip this week. It’s a 3-day weekend and I can think of so many more things I need to do. Plus I need bask in the JETS win for a little while, then it is off to C-ville to catch the Hoos basketball game tonight. We’ll start back up next week where we left off.

So many things going on in the entertainment world this week that I figured I’d put some reactions all in one post. Here we go:

The Bachelor Scandal – Please, make it stop. I don’t watch the show and I didn’t see the whole episode where Rozlyn Papa was kicked off the show. I don’t know who is telling the truth and who is lying between Papa and the show, but I’m guessing it is somewhere in between for both. However, that is not what bothers me. What drove me nuts was catching the end of the episode and seeing how the Bachelor acted stunned and hurt and felt like he had been cheated on. Holy steaming load of poop you have to be kidding me. You are on a show in which you date some 15 odd women at the SAME TIME and you are broken up because one of them didn’t give her undivided attention to you. Just shoot me now.

Conan vs. Leno vs. Stupid Program Directors – I’m with Conan on this one. Not so much with regard to how important it is to keep the Tonight Show at 11:30, but more in terms of how much he is getting screwed.  He finally gets the Tonight Show and then finds out that instead of being the first talk show on at night he has to follow Leno, again. He is doomed to lose viewers because anybody tuning in to Leno is not going to want to watch another talk show after the news. Additionally, you’ve got Leno competing with another network show for the same guests on the west coast. Stupid programming and a big screw job on Conan. Then Leno’s failure causes a revolt from affiliates and what does NBC decide to do? Why not screw Conan again and move his show back so that Jay can start at 11:30 again? Conan owes a great deal to NBC but it doesn’t mean they get to treat him like their whipping boy.

Spiderman 4 Reboot – Earlier this week it was announced that Sam Raimi and Toby Maguire would not be doing Spiderman 4 and that instead Sony has decided to reboot the series. Umm, reboot? Already? You just booted it 8 years ago and want to start over like the first 3 movies didn’t happen? While the last Spiderman had a little too much going on, I thought the first two movies were excellent, especially the first one. Sony is making a big mistake because anything they do will be compared to the Raimi origin movie that is still fresh in everyone’s mind. If the new movie doesn’t take things in a new fresh direction, it is just going to feel like a retread. Boo.