Note to Self:

When you’ve spent three days drawing this really elaborate library scene for a comic and you’re gettin’ really punchy, do not assume that no one will notice the increasingly silly titles on books. Not only will your loyal-way-beyond-what-you-deserve readers sprain their retinas squinting at “History of the Cosmos–the First 50 Years” and “Chickens of the World II” but they will want to know why. And compare notes with other readers. And sooner or later someone’s gonna ask what bizarre twist of fate allows Ganesh to have both “Alice in Wonderland” and the Rlyeh Text (3rd edition) on the shelf.

I know someone–Ruggels, maybe–once told me that comic readers are a unique breed who will study and speculate on everything, (hence the success of spin-offs from the most obscure tidbits) but I somehow did not realize the extent. But I have learned! From now on, red herrings for all! (Mind you, I’m gratified by the evidence of such attention, but it was a bit of a surprise…)

Also, we’re getting freezing rain here, and yet the little birds are still out at the feeder, fluffing themselves up, a whole bevy of sodden dark-eyed juncoes and a downy woodpecker who’s red spot looks like a lit match against the grey grey grey soggies out there. And the squirrels. I had this mental image of the squirrels as big, daring, amoral, smug bird-feeder raiders (as in fact they have been) but seeing them glumly clinging to wet wire for food in weather that I wouldn’t put a bad-tempered nudibranch out in is rather sad. I feel bad for the squirrels, and the soggy little birds. I wouldn’t want to be out in this. I know they’ve evolved for it in that Darwinian school of hard evolutionary knocks, but still, they look sad.