Hot Dog on a Stick

I considered several titles for this one. Lil' Smokie... based on the name of the delicious, bite-sized sausages I overate in college. American Dog... the title of one of Disney's upcoming animated films. And Well Done Little Dog... with the comma purposely omitted. But in the end I opted for Hot Dog on a Stick, because I admire restaurants that choose to exist only in mall food courts. No sell-out, street-side locations for that employee-humiliating hot dog chain.

On the topic of humiliating your employees... what's with the unfortunate hats? Luckily for us, I already looked into it. Based on the Hot Dog on a Stick website, "the uniform was inspired by a whimsical mid-1960's trend when jockey caps and hot pants were in style." This just in... jockey caps and hot pants were NEVER in style. The site also claims that "the employees say the hats make their jobs more fun." Is that what they say? Just when they thought deep-frying a corn dog couldn't get any jollier, along came the fun-inducing jockey caps?

So anyway, I went with Hot Dog a Stick for my title, because Crispy Terrier on a Flag Pole won't get as many Google hits. Or will it? I drew this for the Avalanche Art Blog. The topic was Dragons. I fear my wife is ashamed of me again... she tends to not approve of my barbecue-themed drawings.

Smokey the Bear

I know a lot about mobsters... for instance, they are bears. Having just read that, I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn that I've never seen a single Godfather movie or so much as a minute of a Sopranos episode. But based on their trailers and what I've gathered about the mob, mob bosses are a lot like bears. They are big, they are hairy, and they kill people who get in their way. The only difference is that mob bosses have guns. Do bears have guns? Just in case, I'm not going camping... as though I needed more reasons not to camp. As it turns out, I'm addicted to toilets.

Little Pharaoh

I loved playing in the sand when I was a kid. I'd build roads and tunnels at the beach for my Matchbox cars or re-create Tatooine's Dune Sea from Return of the Jedi in our sandbox. Boba Fett got lost in that sandbox on several occasions, which is bound to happen to anyone who consistently falls into the mouth of the Sarlacc in the Great Pit of Carkoon. Looks like my childhood sandbox adventures were pretty nerdy.

The recent Toon Club topic was Ancient Egypt. I figure ancient Egypt was a boring place for anyone, but especially for a kid. Aside from the short-lived excitement brought on by a passing plague, there was really only one option for something to do... play with sand. Sure, Egypt's a giant sandbox and should be tons of fun, but seriously... how many times can Boba Fett get eaten? (Technically he can only be eaten once every thousand years. That's how long it takes for the Sarlacc's unfortunate captives to be painfully dissolved inside its stomach).

So I would guess that Pharaoh came up with the idea for pyramids in the enormous sandbox of his youth, and years later he had the drive to see his vision through to reality. Mostly he had the slaves to do it, but he also had the drive. Well, okay - it was the slave drivers who had the "drive"... but those were his.

Back from Disney World

Welcome, blog visitors! You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a while. That's because I spent the last week in Orlando. I took this picture on Tuesday at the Magic Kingdom. If you look at it while sitting in a cauldron of boiling water, you'll feel like you were in Orlando on Tuesday too. I don't love the humidity, but it was a nice vacation all the same. Is it even considered a "vacation" to go to Disney World when you work for Disney? Did I take a week off of work, or did I put in an 80-hour week?

Hey, those of you who follow my blog may be impressed to know that I swam with sharks at Typhoon Lagoon last Thursday. Am I insane? They gave me a snorkel, but I didn't even end up needing it. As it turns out, I can hold my breath for more than 7 minutes when I'm concentrating on not crapping my shorts out of fear. Who knew?

Thank you all for your comments and for stopping by. Come back soon - I'll have something new here in the next couple of days. It's time to get back to drawing after an exhausting week of extensive "overtime" in Florida.

Tyrannosaurus Rex

I cannot spell "Tyrannosaurus." After several failed attempts, I copied and pasted it from another site. As it turns out, I'm just not that bright. But I take comfort knowing that this must be a common spelling hang up, because somewhere along the way everyone started calling the thing a "T-Rex." I guess most people can spell "T," so we stick with what we know.

This week's T-Club topic is The Land Before Time. How many sequels to that thing are there? Forty-three? Forty-four? Somewhere in there... still less than seventy, I believe. Aren't they approaching the land during time yet? How much time was there before time? Oh crap... I just blew my mind. S-Lew out.

Spider-Monkey

I grew up with three sisters and a mom… the only man of the house (as long as you don’t object to using the word “man” that loosely). While my friends were watching The Dukes of Hazzard and The A-Team with their brothers and dads, I was watching The Love Boat and The Facts of Life with the Lewis women. Thanks to this lack of childhood exposure to boyish things, I grew up without much interest in comic books or superheroes… unless you consider Tootie a superhero. There would be a case for that, but I’m not going to make it right now.

This week’s Toon Club topic was Spider-Man… a topic I don’t have a lot of background in. Instead of trying to draw a character who has been expertly drawn millions of times before, I decided to return to my “monkeys as superheroes” theme and draw the Spider-Monkey. I’ll leave the actual superhero drawings to people who know more about Peter Parker than they know about Mrs. G.