Got home last night around 9:45, in time to catch the very end of Paradise Hotel, which I have to admit was a big disappointment. I do not think I will be tuning in next season to see the sequel. No thankyou.

On sunday I am going down to see my folks for my birthday. We are going to go to the annual Scottish fair at the PNC Bank Arts Center in New Jersey. Aliza can't make it, which is a big shame, 'cos I think it'd be fun to expose her a bit more to that kind of stuff. I plan on buying lots of t-shirts that say "Scotland the Brave" and stuff like that. I haven't had any t-shirts like that since I was in high-school, so I think it's high time I replenished my collection.

Still struggling with the cartooning, I have to force myself to sit down and do some work rather than go watch TV or just go to sleep. I have it figured out though, I have no show or con coming up, so I've got nothing to get ready for. It totally helps me motivate when I've got a clear deadline. I don't know how my friend Alex -who's writing a full length graphic novel- does it. I wouldn't be able to work at all if I had to wait so long for feedback.

Anyway, I've managed to get going on the wedding comic. We finished writing it, and I drew the first page in one of those Japanese brushy pens because I had it in my head that it'd make my drawings more "expressive". Turns out it made my drawings more "sloppy", so I had to re-draw the first page. It came out good though, I am going to work on it more later tonight.

When we were writing our story I told Aliza that we were going for a "naturalistic" style of storytelling. Last night she asked me what I meant by that, and I said "it means we're writing in all the boring shit that actually happened in our lives and making it all realistic and shit." When she seemed non-plussed by my answer, I admitted I didn't really know what it means. I'm dumb.

Aliza and I have almost finished writing the script for our little wedding comic that we plan on giving away on The Big Day. I am very happy with it, it has an actual story and everything. It's about how we went shopping for our rings and the discussion we had about what to engrave inside of them.

We would have finished it up last night, but the seven-hour premiere of The Bachelor was on, so Aliza's attention was elsewhere. I'm not criticizing too much, because I enjoy a lot of these "reality TV" shows, but I hate The Bachelor. It's just a bunch of messed up women who're willing to degrade themselves just to be on TV and hopefully be the next "Trista and Ryan". This show is more disturbing than entertaining. At least though, in the preview showing all the highlights of the upcoming season, it looks like at least one of these mentally ill women tries to kill herself because The Bachelor isn't going to pick her to be the one to have a much hyped but ultimately failed engagement with him.

"But Mike", you might say if you knew me really well (and I don't think many people outside of Aliza knows this next fact about me), "you love to watch Paradise Hotel, which is the sleaziest of all the sleazy reality TV shows." And to that I would reply, "yes, I do love to watch Paradise Hotel, even though I am mad at the producers for the awful cliff-hanger they gave us on the penultimate episode."

I can't justify it all that well, but I can at least say this: At least on Paradise Hotel they make no pretense that this is anything but some nasty awful people behaving atrociously for our viewing entertainment. And it has been an extremely enjoyable show to watch. There's no discernable rules or rewards in the show, the whole premise is that for some reason all these attractive, yet despicable, people want to stay on this hotel to fight with each other and deal with lots and lots of drama. The best was when they brought back a bunch of the booted cast-members who proceeded to "get up in everyone else's grill" and fight and squabble and generally give me something worth watching on the TV.

But, The Bachelor isn't as good as that. First of all it's bogged down with all sorts of boring rules and rituals that get in the way of everything. Second, it does have a prize, but the prize makes even less sense to anyone than the one on Paradise Hotel, because the prize is to be lucky enough to "get married to this guy who you met as one of 25 desperate and pushy women on a television show". Wheee!

Well, whatever, I know that if I'm watching some junk on TV, I can't act like my junk is better than some other junk. It's all junk. At least I am getting bored of Fear Factor and Making the Band II is over. Maybe I can come up with more productive things to do with my time...

Currently listening to Tie Your Mother Down by Queen. It's nice having a door at work so's I can play my music without having to wear headphones.

Poor Aliza hurt her neck last night when we were hanging about in bed. She didn't even do anything too extreme, just turned her head quickly and pulled something. It was my fault, I was trying to drool on her. That may sound gross, but if you were there you'd understand that I was only trying to drool on her because she was acting up and biting me for no reason. Of course, if you were there I would have gotten upset and probably smacked you with our iron. We keep it conveniently next to the bed, so's I can step on the plug in my bare feet in the morning and yell.

I ran into an old college friend the other day when I was in Brooklyn for Aliza's shower. It was cool, he looks good and seemed happy to see me. I gave him copies of Gabagool! 4 and 5. I find the comics are a good thing to hand to people when you run into them like that. It's a good shorthand for the whole "what have you been up to?" thing. I don't have to explain, I can easily just show them that I've been up to spending too much money on vanity projects...

Radtke, often reads my blog and seems to get disheartened when I say things like the above. So, for Radtke, I must make it clear that I am only being funny. I know Gabagool! is very worthwhile. I am very proud of it.

Speaking of which, I had a good night last night drawing. I am almost finished with this page that has been dogging me since SPX. I think once it's done with I can get back on track with my usual one page every two nights or so, which I think is a better rate than one page every month. Incidentally, the current page has boobies on it.

Tomorrow I have three parties to go to. I am going to be pretty tired when it's all done because they are all over the place. On sunday we have a wedding. I am psyched for that, I'll get to wear my new suit again. My brown one, not my wedding one. I am not allowed to wear the wedding suit until after Our Big Day. That is when it will be making it's debut. I think the shirt will recieve rave reviews. My Dad told me the other day that fucia was his favorite color, so he should be pretty psyched when he sees me in all my Hot Pink Glory.

Soembody To Love is playing now, so that means it took me about half of Queen's A Day At The Races to write this shit. I better finish up in that case, I have some work to do...

Speaking of which, the office baby just came by for a visit. It was very cute, like an adorable, wrinkled up little old woman.

Things have been moving slowly since the big SPX. Usually after a show I am recharged, but after this particular show it has been different for some reason. It's taking me a bit to get back into the swing of things. I drew four pages in the week or so before SPX, and I've barely finished one since I came back. But last night I had a bit of a breakthrough, things started to come out right again, so I feel good once more.

My pal James is due to have a baby at the end of this week. It is exciting, he is the first high school buddy of mine to have a kid (well, first one that I keep in touch with). A lady at my work just had a baby, and Aliza's cousins both had some too. Seems like a lot of babies around.

So, a few new things. One: I updated the Gabagool Page on my web-site so there's actual content there now. Click here if you haven't yet read Gabagool #3: Rock Soldiers, because this is your chance.

SPX came and went. I couldn't help but notice an air of Carter's Malaise hanging over the convention, but overall it was a good show and I got to meet and talk to some good people. We made some bucks, and sold some comics, and that's the whole point of these trade shows. But still it was fun. And Aliza came which was great. It was her first multi-day show, and she was wonderful.

There was a guy who we'd sold a comic to at MoCCA who makes documentaries who wanted to film us down at SPX. He showed up on saturday and filmed us for a few hours. It went reasonably smoothly, and he got some good footage of Radtke selling the books and a few other things. He came over to my apartment last night to actually do some interviewing.

Originally we were going to conduct the interview at the bar where Radtke and I usually go to write our scripts, but we forgot that they blast music from their jukebox in there. Aside from being loud, it presents a problem of clearances and rights for this guy.

So we left and went to try and find somewhere we could sit outside. We tried a few restuarants, but eventually decided to climb up on my roof and do it. Because yesterday was September 11th, we had an amazing view of the towers of light from my roof-top, but we wisely decided to shoot in the other direction, facing the Empire State Building, so's as to not appear exploitive. I was worried that it would seem weird that we were talking on my roof in the dark, because that really isn't where I usually go to write or even hang out at all, but the guy seemed happy enough with it. So Radtke and I talked until his battery powered spotlight died, at which point I suggested we go film in my actual apartment.

Why didn't we film in there to begin with? you ask. Well, the main reason is that Aliza was down there trying to finish up our invites, and I felt guilty not helping, and assumed that bringing some stranger into our apartment to film me talking about myself might have annoyed my darling bride to be. I was wrong though, she was fine, and we finished our interview in the bedroom next to my drawing table.

There is going to be a good scene in the movie, if it ever gets made, of Radtke seeing the new pages from Gabagool! 6 for the first time. There is a full-frontal nudie picture on the fourth page of the protagonist, Christopher Vigliotti, and I think Radtke was suprised at how graphic, and un-flattering, I'd been with the first ever Gabagool! penis shot. It'll make for good laffs, in the movie and in the comic.

The guy left soon after that and I helped finish the invites. They went out today, all 160 or so of them. And they look awesome, if I do say so myself.

Some good news: I got an office at work. My very own one, with a door and a massive window that has a view of some of the trees in Central Park and also a bit of Carnegie Hall. This is nice. After all these years of sitting in a cube in one of those employee corrals, it's pretty sweet to have some space to myself. I know that complaining about stuff like having to sit in a cube-space is the stuff of Dilbert cartoons, but seriously, that's why that cartoon is so popular, because working in a cube does suck, and people enjoy laughing about how much life sucks.

Other good news: SPX weekend is almost upon us. Aliza and I will be driving down to Bethesda tomorrow with Radtke, our pals Alex and Kristen, and Tony "The Mad Shitter" Consiglio. I've got plenty of Gabagool! #4's and #5's to sell, and I'm pretty psyched about it.

Not feeling great today. The weekend started off well, although I don't really remember what we did friday night. Saturday was spent getting ready for and going to a friend's wedding, and sunday was a barbeque with all the folks (mine and Aliza's). We got back to the city early sunday evening, and sometime between then and last night I slid into a mopey depression which I'm still feeling now. It's mainly because things aren't going great at work, but the cold, rainy, inactive Labor Day holiday probably didn't help.

Reading a fun little book about our nation's Vice-Presidents called "Bland Ambition". It gives a little bio about each one in a very humorous but still informative way. I wouldn't mind being Vice-President. Apparently you don't have to do anything at all, unless of course the president is killed or something. But aside from that, you can just coast for four years and live in the Vice-President's mansion in Washington D.C. I don't think that's what you're supposed to take from reading the book (I think we're supposed to think these were all men of low ambition - thus the clever title of the book) but I'm sorry, the way I feel right now, I don't think it would be such a bad deal.

I need to think of a Queen song that I can dance with my mother to at the wedding. It has to be Queen, I have no choice, but there are no Queen songs that are appropriate.

Maybe "Bicycle Race"...

We're going to start looking for a new apartment in December or January, doing it before the wedding would just be too much to think about. We are going to go uptown, where people act like grownups, and there aren't bags of smelly garbage in the streets, and the guy downstairs doesn't blast "Ziggy Stardust" on repeat in the small hours of the night.

Of course, I don't know what I'm talking about. I am sure that an apartment uptown will have just as many odd "extras" as any apartment in this city. I have never had an apartment yet where there wasn't some odd thing about it that I had to deal with, such as the "second room" we have now where the ceiling is too low to stand up in, or the fact that I had no doors or kitchen in my last place, or the fact that my place in Brooklyn was in what's called a "rough neighborhood". It could be worse though. A friend of mine was telling me last night about a friend he had who was shown an apartment that had no bathroom. Apparently the realtor suggested "joining the gym up the street if you want to take a shower".

The actual responsible thing to do would be to move out of Manhattan, but Aliza and I aren't quite that grown up yet. I guess one day we might move out to the Jersey suburbs like proper people and pay a reasonable rent/mortgage, but neither one of us is looking forward to that eventuality.

The new comic should be showing up any day now. If it shows up early I will have to keep that a secret, because I don't want to make myself ineligible for the "Outstanding Debut" comic at SPX.

Turns out that we are going to be staying to see the Ignatz awards afterall. This makes me happy, because I enjoy awards ceremonies, but Aliza is more wary of it because it's going to make things difficult for us the next day going to work. Oh well, so we have one sleepy day at work, that's no big deal. How often do you get to see a bunch of cartoonists sitting around a hotel convention room eating pigs in blankets and drinking. Not often enough I say!

Today at lunch I thought I would doodle in my sketchbook, which I never do. There's nowhere around that I feel comfortable doing it though. I can't go to Central Park, people will think I am just drawing to get noticed in the hopes that a girl or someone will come over and think I'm fascinating. Obviously I can't draw at my desk. They can't tell when I'm goofing off when I'm on the computer (like right now for instance) but they'd notice if I was sitting and drawing. And even if nobody gave me guff, I'd still feel like they were all thinking that I was thinking that they'd think I was fascinating or something. Makes me too self-conscious.

In the end I snuck out to the balcony on our floor and sat there for a bit. I went back in after a minute though because I was spilling my food all over the book, and besides the people in the offices across the street could all see me drawing and they probably all thought I was an asshole.

Yesterday on the subway a girl got on at 23rd street and sat next to me. She pulled a book out of her bag which has come out recently collecting all the issues of a 'zine called "Cometbus" into one tome. It struck me as such an odd thing to see somebody out in public reading some obscure 'zine. I wanted to mention to her that I had read Cometbus too (though truthfully I've only read one issue where there was a guest writer) because I thought she would also be interested to know that there were other people out there who're familiar with this stuff. I didn't of course because a) nobody wants to be talked to on a subway, b) I got off at 14th street, the next stop, and c) I'm engaged anyway so what is the point of meeting new girls? (Of course there is "d) I was scared and afraid of rejection", but "c" cancels that problem out these days. I now have a more than legitimate excuse for not talking to pretty girls that I lacked in my single days)

Anyway, the one thing that has stuck with me is that it's pretty sad that I think it's such a remarkable thing to see somebody reading a small press comic when they're not actually at a small press comics show.

I can name all of the presidents from McKinley on up and tell you how many terms they served. I know this isn't such an amazing feat, but my friend Rob didn't know things as simple as "who became president after Nixon?" or "How many terms did LBJ serve", which leads me to believe that the average citizen doesn't know that much of their own history. I'm not really any better, like I said, I can only do from Mckinley on up. I can't do any of them before that. It goes Washington - a bunch of people - Jackson - some more people - Lincoln, Johnson (I remember that because of the eerie coincidence of a Johnson following a President who gets shot in the head), -some more people - Hayes, - some people, Cleveland (I think), and then McKinley, etc...

So if you ever see me in person you can quiz me on Presidents of the 20th century and I will amaze you.

There was a blackout. Did you hear? It sucked my balls. The only thing that made me feel better about being one of the last people to get his power back was that my friend's Alex and Kristen also didn't have power the whole time either. That may sound mean, but I can guarantee they'd say the same thing about me.

If friday was the Blackout of 2003, saturday was the Big Wedding Suit Odyssey of 2003. It was a long day, but happily it ended with me getting an awesome suit and a cool shirt and tie to go along with it. It is very slim fitting though, so there isn't much room in it for me to gain weight, so I had to start running again. I don't want it to look like my pants are too tight on the day of my wedding, because then people will think I bought the suit a few years ago or something rather than specially for the big occasion.

Yesterday, amongst other things I watched a little bit of some wedding show on Lifetime, the Network for Women. It was all about three brides of different ages and their weddings. One of the brides was 30-something year old Kathy Griffith from "Suddenly Susan" and "Celebrity Mole". Being that she is a comedienne, she was being all funny the whole time. Like, when the priest asked if anyone knew any reason these two shouldn't be wed she made a big hammy angry face at the crowd and everyone laughed. Then when she said her vows she was being all funny too, like "I'm so glad I found you... 'cos God knows I looked..." and she made another face, and everyone laughed again.

I hope I am not as annoying as that on my wedding day.

I left work a little early last night because there was an Epic Heroclix Battle planned. I was very excited about it, I wrapped all my Gabagool! 5 stuff on saturday and was looking forward to some serious gaming action. And I was not disappointed. I fell asleep last night thinking of Energy Explosion combinations and adding Perplex to Long Range Combat Expert... If you don't know what I'm talking about, then there's no use explaining it, 'Clix is a world unto itself...

It was pretty intense last night though, I am okay waiting a week or so before the next round of the ongoing war we are all engaged in...

Speaking of ongoing things, I was defeated the other day in my never ending Quest to Eat the Weirdest Things I can Find On the Menu. I went to a very tasty brunch place on sunday and everyone ordered Bloody Mary's. They had all kinds of different mixes you could get, so I opted for one that came with all kinds of pickled vegetables in it. It was very strange, it had pickled brussel sprouts, turnips, green beans, everything. The people at the table next to me even leant over to peer wondrously at it and ask it's origin. Anyway, I couldn't drink it, but it was more about having vodka in the morning than all the pickled things. Not a huge deal, I know, but I felt defeated...

New interview with me and Radtke posted at this site called comicsreaders.com

I am the guy at the top of the photo in case you weren't sure. Radtke is the one at the bottom with the red shirt and red face.

Whitey at Optical Sloth reviewed the SPX anthology. He seemed to dig it. Plus he mentioned my name.

Have decided to only print 1000 copies of Gabagool! 5, even though the cost of doing 2000 is a difference of 150 dollars. I think it's unlikely that I'd sell over 1000 copies of the comic before it's time to collect it all up and make an awesome Hedo Dogs graphic novel, so why pay more and have more copies of the comic going unsold?

Did our engagement shoot last night. I tried my hardest to look casual and relaxed, but it's hard to pose in the middle of the street and not feel a little self conscious. Also: my hair is too long, and didn't look good.

Psyched to get the latest comic off to the printer tomorrow. Frees me up to relax for five minutes before coming under fire to get the invites GOCCO-ed up and sent out.

Been working on the cover for Gabagool! #5 (2).

A near complete image of it is viewable here