The Blight Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas!
And at the North Pole
Santa's sleigh was all loaded,
But his tummy was bloated.

He pulled off his hat and his coat,
Y'all,
And away he did run
To the end of the hall.

He was feeling much better
And hopped in his sled,
When again came the feeling
And he ran to the head.

"This ain't good,"
said he to the missus.
"I've got the runs but
I've got to run!"

"Tonight's Christmas Eve!
The biggest night ever!
I'll never eat jalepeno peppers with raisins and rum-cake chocolate-chip ice cream again!
No, never!"

"You're lactose-intolerant!"
said Mrs. Claus tartly,
"You know ice cream makes you
gassy and farty!"

Then what to his watering eyes
Should he see,
But eight tiny reindeer with
Imodium A-D.

"Take this," said Dasher,
"You'll be fine in a flush!"
Santa winced at the pun,
But he was in a rush.

He downed the whole bottle
And chased it with a cookie,
He hoped that for now
There would be no more dookie.

The reindeer were all hitched,
And the sleigh was all loaded.
Santa had to admit
He was feeling less bloated!

With no time to spare,
They were up in the air.
Destination:
Children's homes everywhere!

And I heard him exclaim
As he shifted in his seat,
"Happy Christmas to all!
And watch what you eat!"

8-Year-Olds Publish Scientific Study on Bees

Graduate students the world over have got to be feeling like slackers right now: A group of 8- to 10-year-old British schoolchildren have published a scientific paper in the peer-reviewed journal Biology Letters.

The paper, written entirely in the kid's voices, found that bees can learn to use spatial relationships between colors to figure out which flowers have nectar in them and which are dry, Wired Science reported. It's not a game-changing finding, but reviewers said the methods were sound, said University College London neuroscientist Beau Lotto, who helped the kids with the project, in an interview with Wired Science.

The paper and a supplemental video are available online. The paper itself features a figure done in colored pencil and a thanks to the local pub for offering free Cokes to the children while they wrote up the manuscript.

The study may be the only scientific paper to contain an emoticon. "We then put the tube with the bees in it into the school's fridge (and made bee pie :) )," the students wrote, explaining how they calmed the bees so they could dab them with paint to tell them apart.

Of course, Wired Science reports, the main goal of the project was to get kids interested in science. On that front, the study was a rousing success.

"Science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before," the chlidren wrote.

Original story

Sketch

Nonprofit Wants to Buy the World's Biggest Communications Satellite

There's a huge satellite for sale and the nonprofit group A Human Right wants to buy it to provide internet access to the unconnected.

The TerreStar-1 satellite is the largest commercial communications satellite ever built—it's roughly the size of a school bus. It was launched by the TerreStar Corporation in 2009 to great fanfare. At the time, Jean-Yves Le Gall, the CEO of Arianespace, the company that provided the actual launching services, said TerreStar-1 would "revolutionize telecommunications over North America" by providing phone and laptop users with a fast, universal voice and data connection.

But the TerreStar Corporation recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it's selling off the TerreStar-1. Seeing an opportunity, A Human Right has started a campaign, Buy This Satellite, to raise $150,000 for the first phase of a three-phase plan to buy the satellite, move it over a country that needs internet access (Papua New Guinea, for example), and then connect it with people on the ground via low-cost modems.

Clemson Wallpaper

My wife made me do this.

More Than A Feeling - Iggy

If you like the song More Than A Feeling, you'll love this rendition by guitarist Igor Presnyakov.

New Purchase.

He does the whole job once you feed the sketches in from the drum scanner.

The only problem now is we both fight over certain pages we'd like to do... And he makes this high pitched whirring sound.

When I Grow Up.

Sneak peek at my recent picture book.



p.s. The answer is Yes, Weird Al is amazing.

Chris Samnee

I just stumbled upon Comic Twart and I LOVE CHRIS SAMNEE'S ART! I wish I could create such a wonderful marriage of black and white.

Superman

Nexus

Jonah Hex

Minimalist JLA

Howling Avengers

Doctor Who

The Scarlet Bride on Kickstarter

I've been involved in a project that's up on Kickstarter.com, a graphic novel project called The Scarlet Bride; or A Bloodstained Romance. Kickstarter is an online funding platform for creative projects. Project owners make a pitch, as through the video for The Scarlet Bride, and viewers like you make pledges to support the project and see it become a reality. If the funding goal is met in the alloted period of time, those who made pledges have their credit/debit cards charged. If the goal is not met, no money is taken. It's a great concept and has allowed several creative projects to get off the ground.

"The Scarlet Bride; or A Bloodstained Romance" is planned as a run of six 22 page comic books, followed by a 132+ page Graphic novel release.


The Scarlet Bride on Kickstarter.com

Fuzzyclops

My son has opened an Etsy store called CreatioNation and is selling his popular Fuzzyclops creatures. They make great holiday gifts!

Raptor Clans - Life of Leaf Clan

My daughter has completed her novel and is now selling copies. If you'd like to order one, please visit her Raptor Clans blog.

Original Dan DeCarlo Art

Original Dan DeCarlo art from Jughead Jones Digest #26, 1983. Click to enlarge.

Tintin and I

"It was obvious to me that Tintin in Tibet had to be the climax of an intense personal drama — played out so movingly by Hergé in the snowy and desolate plains of Himalaya. All I had to do was unearth the story...”

— Anders Østergaard

White Board "Animation"

This is my short demonstration of a white board "animation," illustrating talking points from excerpts of a Malcolm Gladwell TED lecture.