For a good time, why don’t you click on over to Google’s Search Caption contest? I have one cartoon in there, and there are lots of others by comics superstars big and small, near and far (Damien Jay, Joey Alison Sayers, Calvin Wong, Lilli Carre and Jim Woodring, just to name a few). I can think of several worse ways to spend the next few minutes than entering funny captions.

In personal gripe news, Google would not allow me to enter the caption “Groupon haircut scam” for mine. They said they’re “trying to keep this appropriate for everyone.” I tried changing “groupon” to “coupon” but it was still a no-go. Then I changed “scam” to “scheme” and it was STILL not happening. So apparently Google thinks haircut is a bad word? I would seriously like to know what gives.

The Bike Basket Pies cookbooklet is now ready! OK, well, to be more precise: the Bike Basket Pies cookbooklet is now ready for pre-order, but they will be shipped by December 1 and that is, like, next week! OK, the week after next week. Whatever, it’s soon! Get one now, won’t you? I’ve actually already tried out some of the recipes thanks to the “illustrator’s clause” and they were so good! Did you know that it is possible to survive on pie alone? 100% true fact.

Related: there will be a cookbooklet release party on Tuesday, November 29 at Pot & Pantry in San Francisco! I’ll be there, as will everyone who’s anyone (you? who are you? someone? anybody? if so, here’s my card–call me).

Unrelated: I made a dachshund pattern. Do you like it? I think it would go great in the powder room. “Excuse me, I need to go powder my long pointy snout.”

I have not been entirely useless these past few months, I swear! This image is proof. You see, I contributed illustrations to the upcoming Bike Basket Pies recipe zine! Natalie Galatzer put together quite the collection of seasonal handheld pie recipes and you are going to want to get your hands holding one of these little booklets as soon as they’re available. Please synchronize swatches and save room for dessert.

(Spoiler Alert: Sorry if the picture is misleading, but there aren’t any recipes for grape and apple pies in the zine. I have never had grapes in a pie, is that because they are too juicy? They put raisins in mince meat pie, but that is disgusting. Spoiler Alert #2: There are no mince meat pie recipes in the zine. This illustration was actually for the intro to the “fall” section, which is where you would turn to if you were going to make a pie from this zine in the next few weeks.)

Sad news came last night that Dylan Williams, our friend and the publisher behind Sparkplug Comic Books, passed away at the age of 41. Dylan was one of the most genuinely kind, generous, and inspiring people I’ve ever known. I can’t think of anyone less deserving of this fate, and I’m trying my best to make sense of what has happened.

A few years ago, my sister and I went to see a psychic (say what you will, but I am and have always been very interested in what would be categorized under “metaphysics” at Barnes & Noble). My sister asked the psychic about her middle son–parenting him was always difficult for her, and in general they just didn’t really get along. I often think about the psychic’s response to her question, which was that they were brought together to learn from each other. A few years after this reading, my nephew was diagnosed with leukemia. The ensuing year of chemotherapy, radiation, and everything related really pushed their relationship to its limits. Fortunately, my nephew recovered and today he is healthy and creative and popular (let’s not lose focus of what is most important!), but I have no doubt that my sister has been and continues to be transformed by having him in her life.

I’ve found much comfort in that psychic’s advice for myself too. For all the difficult people I’ve dealt with, my assorted rejections and failures, and all the terrible, unfair things that happen in the world, it helps just a little bit to think that I’m supposed to be learning something here. I would put Dylan’s passing in the category of a terrible, unfair thing happening, but he has taught us all so much about how to live. I can’t count the number of people he has influenced directly and indirectly to follow their dreams and fly their freak flag proudly. His kindness and generosity are unmatched, and anyone lucky enough to know him while he was here has been transformed by that privilege.

Sorry to go back to metaphysics, but as I was putting Sally down to nap earlier today, I noticed that the color green was all around me. I had put on a green shirt this morning, dressed Sally in green, wrapped her in a green blanket, and was facing a part of her room where I had inadvertently collected a disproportionate number of green items. I also have been noticing a lot of butterflies in my environment today (see the sunglasses in the photo, for one). Again, say what you will, but I can’t help thinking that these symbols of growth and transformation have presented themselves to help me come to terms with what has happened. It feels awful to imagine visiting Portland or going to the next Alternative Press Expo without Dylan in the picture, but I’m so thankful to have known him and am forever changed by having him in my life.

One more tangible way in which my sister and her family have been transformed is that they now do a great deal of fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. If you have any cash sitting around, you might consider donating (Dylan had lymphoma). Or if you have spare marrow (I know you do!), you might want to register with the National Marrow Donation Program. And to support Dylan’s legacy as well as the people he left behind with what are undoubtedly astronomical medical bills, you should definitely buy some comics from Sparkplug Comic Books. (I recommend Passage by Tessa Brunton and Eschew by Robert Sergel, for starters, but he had impeccable taste and anything you buy will be excellent.)

So goodbye, Dylan. I will love and miss you always and I will do my best to follow your lead. See you on the other side, friend.

Here is a design I did for the Uncommon Goods-City Harvest plate design contest:

I lost, and the design that won was ugly. No offense (”none taken”). But honestly, it’s like people have no taste in plates!

Lordy, lordy, where to begin? OK, here: An excerpt from Salad Days has been published in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s online literary journal, Devil’s Lake. It’s mostly not comics, but the talented Melissa Mendes and I both have stories in it. You can read mine here and hers here. If you like what you see, maybe juwanna consider buying the Salad Days minicomic, knowwhatI’msayin’? Mama needs a brand new bag. Seriously, I’m a parent now and I need a bigger purse.

Second: a new episode of Regular Show written and boarded by Kat Morris and myself is now available on youtube (for a limited time?). There’s some stuff I really like in this one, and everyone’s favorite mole Eileen (voiced by me) is featured quite prominently. So please do me a favor and watch “Do Me a Solid.”

Third: I/Salad Days was nominated for the 2011 Maisie Kukoc Award for Comics Inspiration! And then I/Salad Days lost the 2011 Maisie Kukoc Award for Comics Inspiration! But then my husband/The Natural World #3-4 won the 2011 Maisie Kukoc Award for Comics Inspiration! So in a way I won, even though I mostly lost. This is actually the second time I’ve lost the Kukoc. Anyway, here’s the big winner, wearing his prize.

Fourth: Salad Days comes in at #11 on Rob Clough’s list of the Top 25 Minis of 2010 over at The Comics Journal. Eleven has always been a good number for me, so I wouldn’t want it any other way. Truth.

All right, I’m working on the second volume of Salad Days now, so check back in three years for updates!

Hello! I had a baby! Here she is, little Sally, born on January 26 at 9:59 am, weighing 7 lbs 8 oz and measuring 20 3/4 inches in length. Now that we have all the specifics out of the way, can I just tell you that she is super cute? It turns out newborns are very much like high-needs pets in both behavior and appearance, but she is getting more humanoid every day. Godspeed, little baby!

I have also given birth to a voice acting career. I don’t know how long it will be available on youtube, but for now you can hear my voice at around 4:42 in the “Brain Eraser” episode of “Regular Show.” I’m Eileen the mole! She only has one line in this one, but she has much more to say in future shows. ALSO, the very first episode I co-wrote and boarded with Kat Morris, “But I Have a Receipt,” has now aired. It is also only available while supplies last.

All kinds of news up in this! Sorry none of it has to do with comics.

Well, well, well… If it isn’t the day after Christmas and over four months since the last time I updated. Super sorry about that, everybody! I’d say I’ve been busy, but the truth is that I have not. Pretty much the only thing I’ve accomplished in the past month is my contribution to the Secret Acres Christmas present. Can you guess which doll I painted? If not, then you don’t know me very well. Aren’t you impressed with everyone’s abilities? Most of all, I am impressed with the cat-herding abilities of Chris Beckett, who put this whole thoughtful thing together for his dear friends Barry and Leon. From left to right, an army of talent is represented: Eamon Espey, John Brodowski, Mike Dawson, Sam Gaskin, Yours Truly, Sean Ford, Gabby Schulz, Joe Lambert, Theo Ellsworth, and Edie Fake. I’m honored to have my artwork nestled inside theirs.

And speaking of things nestled inside other things: I’m pregnant (in case there’s any confusion, Damien Jay is the father). So I guess I actually have not been entirely unproductive. I’ve been working hard to fatten up the baby and learn all the vocabulary associated with my condition (consider vernix, lanugo, meconium). The baby is supposed to be born around Groundhog Day 2011, and she’s supposed to be a girl. Associated jokes include having to give birth again and again and again (like in the movie Groundhog Day) as well as the baby seeing her shadow and going back in for another six weeks of winter. Fingers crossed that these are just jokes and not things that will actually happen. I’ll keep you posted, and hopefully I will make some comics sometime.

Hi, old friends. Can you believe I’ve been in LA for a month and a half now? I feel like I’ve aged ten years in that amount of time. Making cartoons is tough business! For your viewing pleasure, I’ve posted a picture of myself at my desk, surrounded by all my jizunk that I’m working on. However, in order to prevent you from harvesting this photo to create your own knock-off version of “Regular Show,” I made sure it was not very high quality.

Anyway, things here at the Cartoon Network are going pretty well. Better and better. I feel like I could maybe have used a foundation course in animation (and while I’m at it maybe some perspective and life drawing, too) but, as always, I’m doing the best I can with the tools I have. Fortunately there are a lot of good people here who are more than eager to help a sister out, so that makes the long days and tight deadlines slightly more endurable. One thing I’ve learned is that I’ve been an incredibly lazy cartoonist. If I had put anywhere near this amount of effort and time into my comics, you’d be able to fill a whole bookshelf with my stuffs by now. Hopefully I will be able to work on comics again sometime soon, and then I can harness the storyboarding tricks I’ve learned for my own personal abundance.

Should I report something about comics here? Since this is my comics blog? Probably. Well, here’s something: I’m going to be at APE in October! Damien Jay, Theo Ellsworth and I will be operating the Secret Acres table. You should come on by! I’ll try to remind you a little closer to that date so you don’t have to load it into your smartphone right now or anything.

In an exciting twist of life events, I’ve been offered a position as a storyboard artist (with a substantial writing component) at the Cartoon Network. I will be working on a hot new offering called “Regular Show,” alongside my old buddy Calvin Wong and what I hear is a talented and friendly crew. It’s not on the air yet, but will be soon. My instinct here is to talk about what a huge mistake they’ve made and why I will fail, but instead I’m just going to let you have your own negative thoughts and I’ll keep mine to myself. I’m only hired for a few months to begin with, since apparently being in the biz means doing a constant tightrope walk of employment. Being in the biz also apparently means that you have to act quickly when opportunities arise, so I’m starting in about three weeks. I like LA and already have some friends there, so it won’t be as stressful as if I had to suddenly move to, say, Provo, but it will still require some adjustment. Fortunately my dear sweet friend Emily is willing to let me stay with her for a few weeks and my dear sweet husband and the pet gang are willing to join me down there if it all seems promising. Here’s hoping!

Keep me in your prayers!