Career Planning

I have been thinking about what I want to be if I grow up. Friend to the masses, popular among certain lower class women, bon vivant, nudist. All of these things immediately spring to mind. (Well, I'm not sure you would call it springing. It's more like a shuffle-step-hop kinda thingy.) Where was I . . . ?

Oh, yes. What I want to be.

I was thinking about becoming a cartoonist. It has certain benefits. You can work in your pajamas. If you're like Scott Adams, you only have to pretend you are smart. You can set your own hours. And some places deliver pizza.

All I need is some basic artistic talent. All I need is some basic artistic . . . some basic . . . Well, I can doodle. It's not nearly as fun as diddling but they're both silly words, anyway.

So, I've been doodling recently. I've been trying to come up with a character everyone can identify with. Or a group of characters that would allow me to explore the complex synergy between them as well as comment upon society's social and moral fabric and the ethical dilemmas each of us faces daily. Or it could be about fuzzy little animals. I'm torn.

I'm not very good at drawing faces. Which is why Picasso never became a cartoonist. And perspective is a challenge for me. Or, at least, that's what my liberal friends tell me. And shading is a drag. So I need to draw something simple yet 2-dimensional. Simple . . . yet 2-dimensional . . . Hey! Is anyone doing a cartoon about Al Gore? Naw! Forget it. I'm not real good at drawing trees, either.

I thought about doing a cartoon about a family of snakes. I think the snake in Johnny Hart's B.C. is pretty funny. So I practiced drawing snakes saying funny stuff to each other. The only problem is that when they talk to each other -- they are facing each other. Which means I have to draw them in profile . . . Guess what a one eyed snake looks like!

So it's back to the drawing board. (Whoa! Now I know what that means! Cool.) I have a few other ideas I'm kicking around and in the meantime I won't quit my day job. Which isn't too tough, considering I'm retired.

Now, where did I leave that number for the pizza guy? And I better get rid of all these one-eyed snake sketches. He might think I'm gay.

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