To be fair, no one has asked me much of anything yet, besides the obligatory “how long does all this drawing take you?” query from my mom. I’ll assume there is no undertone of judgment there, or implications of time-wasting and start this little list of questions no one has bothered to ask with that exact question…

How long does it take you to draw one strip?

… to which my reply will henceforth be: does it matter? A lot, a little. Time is such a relative thing, and when I stop enjoying the time spent, I’ll stop posting new strips. How much time does it take to train to run for a half marathon — that other thing I spend a lot of my time doing — each week? Hours upon hours, but then why have hobbies if your going to count?

What’s going on with the bugs and the philosophizing? Why aren’t your cartoons very funny?

I’d like to think I can be funny. But to be honest, comedy is hard. And it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just that I’ve really been focusing this whole effort on two elements: the art and the story… of which both, I realize, are very subjective descriptions for everything on this site. Truth be told, I’m not interested in funny. I’m terrible at telling jokes. And while I bust a gut on someone else’s work, I just don’t see that as my own calling. I’m the guy who watches movies like “The Matrix” or “The Watchmen” for the quirky insights into society and the universe and then kinda tunes out during the fight sequences. I read philosophy and economics books for fun. I record documentaries on my PVR. Did you really think I’m going to draw a funny cartoon? There is a niche to be enriched here, I’m guessing. And that niche is cartoons with a philosophical and metaphysical undertone. Enjoy it for what it is, or move along.

Can I reprint your cartoons?

And while I’m thinking that such a question is a little premature… well, you never know, do you?

Look. You’re here on the web. You know all about copyright and that kind of stuff. And truth be told, I’m fairly liberally minded when it comes to the things I create. I’d even fancy myself bit of an information freedom fighter. Let the content fill the world, equal access to all, and so on and so forth… As such, I have an image in my mind of what constitutes fair use by fans or individuals and what constitutes an over-the-line use of this work. I have bills to pay, but I’m also not naive enough to think you’ve got your own too, and don’t want to shell out just for something that’s gonna give us both a little traffic and cred. If you want to use them on your personal blog, facebook profile, whatever… just drop me a note and share some credit. Easy. We’re cool. Share and enjoy. But, if you are exploiting my work to make yourself (or your corp) some cash, then we need to have a more serious discussion. You know how this works. Next.

(To be continued…)