Preoccupied,

I'm pressed for time, or at least I feel like I am, so can't think clear enough to be really prolific.  Oh, I've had really profound thoughts lately, and there is a lot I've done lately, but I just don't feel I have the time to elaborate today. I'll catch y'all up lately.

Progress is Good. I Challenge You to Challenge Me

 So let's update what has happened this week.  I, like a significant portion of the world population, have a Facebook page, Click for Facebook.  Also Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts.  Just look for Boon Cartoonist or Boondawgoggle.  Well the other day I posted on FB that I was up for a challenge and suggested to my few current followers to post an idea for a cartoon and I'll pick one I like, draw it up, and send the original out in the mail.   The "winner" was a individual that asked for "How about a cool looking groom with a cute bride with gorgeous long dark hair."

 The doodle above is what evolved from that request, and I fine tuned it to a rough, right, and finished it off in Photoshop.  The requester was very happy and I picked up a few more of the coveted "LIKES".

I'm going to do it again on FB. But I'll throw it out to you on my blog as my next "I'm up for a challenge."  offer.

Post an idea in the comments section that you'd like to see illustrated.  If I like it I'll draw it up and mail it to you as well as post it here and FB.

What else has been going on?  After my blog update about the guy who made a video to draw stupid, ugly, kindergarten drawings for a price, see Just Shoot Me! I decided to look into this YouTube thing.  I set up an account and uploaded a few old video's I'd done on my Blackberry.  So now add YouTube to the places I can be seen.  That makes 8 Internet venues and 3 websites.  E-Gads!

My channel is Boon Cartoonist.  Here is one video YouTube Boon Cartoonist.  I may have posted this in the blog previously.  What I didn't realize is video shot on my digital camera is not a format that easily uploads into a video editor, Windows Movie Maker.  Now I have to figure out how to convert them or else us my CrackBerry, which doesn't look very good.  So there will be some experimenting going on.

Also, I've started compiling my list of target markets.  I only have a few, but plan to launch my email marketing campaign this weekend or early next week.  I'm willing to stumble forward some on this to just get it going.  Oh, and I sold another greeting card.  One that hadn't sold yet.  Also I sold a hat from CafePress.com/OneGuyDrawing...well I sold it to me.  I wanted to see what they look like.

So I'd say it wasn't a bad week.  Progress is being made.

Aaaaaarrrrgggg! Just Shoot Me!

I just can't figure it out.  Really.  Luck just has a way of not finding me.  What has me convinced of this today?  I stumbled upon an article today that highlighted a guy who can barely draw a stick man, who started a website (and I'm not even going to give you enough info to find him) but the site promotes that he wants to draw you a picture for a small fee.  He created a video for YouTube, and eventually got on Shark Tank and got funding for it.    Now he is well on his way to a thriving business.

I can't even bare to write anymore I'm so sick to my stomach.

Maybe I'm just too buttoned up.  Maybe I should just throw all caution to the wind.  

St. Patricks Day and Pi Day Holiday Nirvana

Yesterday was Pi Day.  Why?  It was March 14th, or otherwise written 3.14, the number Pi to the first two digits.  I can only remember the first two also as I'm not some sort of math savant.  I was actually a little excited for Pi Day. For the last several years I've shared the holiday with my my kids and wife, and have managed to buy a pie each year to commemorate the day.  Now that's a holiday in my opinion.  Stress free, cheap expression of something fun.

St. Patrick's is another one of those stress free, cheap (if you don't blow a week's pay at the pub).  No cards required, no decorations, no real planning, except to have some item of green clothing clean that day.  Just celebrate it with some beer and corned beef brisket.

I used to really like the 4th of July, but it is beginning to slide to the list of the pain in the ass holidays.  It is starting to take too much planning, money, and expectation of happiness fulfillment.   All that contributes to the pushing it away from nirvana.  The stress level, monetary commitment, and potential for post holiday disappointment because it didn't live up to all the pre-holiday hype.  What holidays come to mind that match these non-nirvana holiday criteria, in order of biggest offenders, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Years Eve, Valentine's, Mother's and Father's day.   All of these holidays have been forever ruined by regular and systematic attempts at one-ups-manship.  I can't even get excited about them any longer.

For me excitement comes from low prep, low cash, low expectations and that is why Pi Day and St. Patrick's are my candidates for holiday nirvana.  Although if we don't watch out St. Pats will start going the way of Independence day.  So no planning, just do it.

Doodle Grows Up To Be Art. Art?

I hang up from some random phone call and realize this doodle has emerged on my scratch pad.  The more I  looked at it the more I thought it was....well kind of artistic.  I've been feeling extra creative lately, but just haven't been able to find the time.  Not creative in the normal sense, but in a way where I imagine pulling out the paints and I see myself creating one off pieces.  Dreaming that they could be used for prints.  Something that has some texture to it.  

Now-a-days everything color I do is colored on a computer.  So in the end I have a drawer full of black and white line drawings.  Nothing relatively permanent.   I can go back and scan any image and color it again anyway I like. 

I got a wild hair up my ass and decided to scan the doodle and pulled it in to Photoshop and mess with it.  And this is what emerged.  I thought it was interesting enough to keep.  And figured what the heck throw it out there to the world and see what happens.  So I'm going to use it as an image for things over at CafePress.com/OneGuyDrawing and GreetingCardUniverse.com/OneGuyDrawing.

It is Insane.  Right?

Help Me Take The First Step.

It's one of those days, where I just didn't wake up on the right side of the bed and it slowly evolved into transitioned to that always nagging question. HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE?

I saw a movie last night, "Over 21" one of those 20's angst, transition from the college bubble to the real world type movies.  That time in your life when you are being thrust from the known; often hated, but oddly comforting, period where life was but a series of steps you followed.  But once you get to the final steps you realize there is no real certainty to any path you choose from then on, which can leave you either with a feeling of complete certainty or complete uncertainty.  

I started out with a sense of complete certainty, but the longer I've been separated by time from those days the more I realize my certainty was probably nothing more than a delusional adherence to what I believed to be the "safe" path, and a stubborn inability to accept the idea that security wasn't the only objective I should of been seeking.

I've never enjoyed any real security.   Which baffles me..  Yea, from the outside it may appear I have security, but it is not a feeling I've ever internalized to any significant degree that I've been able to sit back and say, "yep everything will be okie-dokie forever now."  

The nagging voice always ask, "What if you did this rather than that?" or even more insidious, "Don't dare proceed without a firm plan in place.  The last thing you need is to venture down a path that might not be safe."  So I find myself constantly trying to play chess with life.  I've become anal, or what is it called when you've got to have everything lined up just right.  Trying to control my environment.

I can pretty much say with a very sincere level of confidence that every plan I've made has not come out the way I planned it.  So why plan?  Why not just do and see what occurs? Stumble forward as it is called.  I just can't find it in myself to do that?  That is why this blog continues to be just my ramblings about what I'd like to do with cartooning and not so much what I've done.  I find myself always attempting to gather that last bit of data to provide that needed sense of security that doing something will be the right thing to do.

Help me have the confidence to just take that first step without worrying about the ten steps that follow.

Punny tennis gag ideas

Why Do Other Planet's Moons Have Names and Ours is Just Moon?