If you are not embarrassed by your first strip then you waited too long to show it. This is the first strip I drew for Love Sick. Don’t let it get you down. I think I started this way to remind myself of the overall tone of the strip I wanted to create – a stoic melancholy happiness of sorts. Anyway, I promise most of what you will see in future strips is not quite this dark. This strip was not included in the Comic Strip Superstar Contest. The next upcoming strip was however…

What mysterious chains of events are they that bring us together? It is unknown. But there are those that we are undeniably driven towards. Looks like that is just the case with these two – or with Birdie anyway. Let’s see where this goes…

One of the goals I have each time I sit down to draw a Love Sick strip is to do something interesting with the frames. You’ll notice that characters are often braking the frames and I tend to think of the frames as an active character in each strip. Here, the frames serve as the voice of the narrator telling us that there is obviously something between these two. Next comic – a scooter!

Well, you’ve met all the major players in this comic thing – now the action really starts. (If not start here.) Don’t forget you can subscribe to comic posts. And to those that are already are on the list, THANK YOU! If you like it, please continue to spread the word by using that nifty “Share” tab just above this text to the right. It helps a lot. And oh, if you like scooters check this out too. Till next time…

Sometimes words are not enough…

So in honor of his birthday, here is a poem by the genius himself.

Genius by Mark Twain

Genius, like gold and precious stones,
is chiefly prized because of its rarity

Geniuses are people who dash of weird, wild,
incomprehensible poems with astonishing facility,
and get booming drunk and sleep in the gutter.

Genius elevates its possessor to ineffable spheres
far above the vulgar world and fills his soul
with regal contempt for the gross and sordid things of earth.

It is probably on account of this
that people who have genius
do not pay their board, as a general thing.

Geniuses are very singular.

If you see a young man who has frowsy hair
and distraught look, and affects eccentricity in dress,
you may set him down for a genius.

If he sings about the degeneracy of a world
which courts vulgar opulence
and neglects brains,
he is undoubtedly a genius.

If he is too proud to accept assistance,
and spurns it with a lordly air
at the very same time
that he knows he can’t make a living to save his life,
he is most certainly a genius.

If he hangs on and sticks to poetry,
notwithstanding sawing wood comes handier to him,
he is a true genius.

If he throws away every opportunity in life
and crushes the affection and the patience of his friends
and then protests in sickly rhymes of his hard lot,
and finally persists,
in spite of the sound advice of persons who have got sense
but not any genius,
persists in going up some infamous back alley
dying in rags and dirt,
he is beyond all question a genius.

But above all things,
to deftly throw the incoherent ravings of insanity into verse
and then rush off and get booming drunk,
is the surest of all the different signs
of genius.

Is it ironic that I’m a little late with this post? Along with the holiday season our day to day lives are filled to the brim. I’m sure I am not the only one feeling the pressure right now. I hope your day goes a bit better than Birdie’s does today. And if it doesn’t, I hope you have the courage to sing about it anyway – I’m going to.

This is the first strip in a new story arc. It should get us through to the next year – 2010. In it, we can look forward to some great fun and learn about another side to our buddy Sam. Oh, and we’ll get our first glance at Samuel Clemens. If you would like to go back and read the first arc go here. In the meanwhile, thanks for reading Love Sick and if you know anyone else who might like the strip please let them know. I really, really appreciate it.