Nudging Forty

54 comments

  1. ok, i’m hooked on Crumb now, and inspired, even (at 72 i reckon i’m (sigh) past halfway… but would i really want to hobble around for 72 MORE years? bet yer sweet ass i would! my favorite comic strip growing up was Pogo, still is in fact… my earliest lessons in absurdity & language!) Row’r-bazzle!

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    1. I really wish I was more familiar with Pogo than I actually am. My strip of choice growing up was Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts. Actually, it still is. It really speaks to me on a number of levels… Thanks so much for being here, and I’m mighty chuffed that you’re enjoying what I have to offer! 😀

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  5. Love it (as per usual). Going to drag myself away from your brilliant podcasts and absolutely gorgeous comic strips…(so I could try to get some work done) and then when I have finished what I need to do…I am going to indulge myself and carry on listening to crumble casts and reading crumble cult strips. 😘😘😘

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      1. Ah, enjoy it while you can! 🙂 All hell will break lose the day you discover you need reading glasses. I actually thought I was going blind. The doc had to CALM ME DOWN. It happens somewhere between 40 / 43 typically and is called “presbyopia.” The lenses in your eyes harden, and you need reading glasses. And tiny fonts on a Macintosh that cannot be adjusted will drive you BONKERS! 🙂

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        1. Oh yeah, I think that process has already begun for me, and it sure ain’t no fun, I agree! I’m finding it very hard to read the tiny print on medicine bottles now. Kind of alarming when that sort of thing never used to bother me at all! 😛

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          1. Consider going ahead and getting the 1.25 readers. If you shop hard, sometimes you can find them in a Dollar Store. My understanding is that using a tool like the low res readers EARLY in the process can preserve your lenses. (Double check me on this, but I am fairly certain that is right.) And, yeah, it can be downright terrifying! 🙂

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  12. That’s what is happening to my hair, too. Unlike you, however, I am happy to bypass the iron grey stage and move right on to white. See, I plan on being the crazy old lady who messes with people just because she can, and I happen to have hair that gets very big very fast. I imagine myself, backlit, with a shining halo of white hair in maddening disarray surrounding my unimaginably wrinkled face, cackling at small children and their horrified parents on Halloween. Or in the checkout line at the grocery store. Either way.

    This is a great strip and a great podcast. I didn’t see it as procrastination so much (as another venerable reader did). It reminded me of all the times I have been so wrapped up in my own melancholy thoughts that I was unable to think about or even remember the simple duties of mundane life. I’m pretty certain the mundane duties made the melancholy worse, anyway. Perhaps it was just as well that I’d forgotten them. But they always rear their ugly little heads in mockery, don’t they.

    (I promise: not all my comments will be this long.)

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    2. Ah, so you’ve discovered the podcast then, and you’re still here? Now that’s encouraging! I guess I’m not a super freak after all! Ha ha! 😛

      I think you’re on the money by the way. Mundane duties do have a way of making the melancholy worse. At least, they do have that effect on me. Sometimes I have to grin and bear it, and just get on with it, but it certainly isn’t easy. I suspect there are more of us who feel this sense of ennui than care to admit it.

      Your mind picture of your future self intrigues me. I’d say growing older would be worth it just to see what that would look like in reality! Hell, if we’ve got to grow old then we may as well have fun with it, right?

      (Your comments can be as long or short as you like. Reading is my middle name!)

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      1. In reality, I can (sometimes) be a very nice person. When confronted by a child in the grocery store checkout line I usually smile and make silly faces. There have been one or two times, however, when I was faced with one of those horrible little children who just stare at me unblinkingly. The faces I make at them usually put an end to that.

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        1. It’s downright unnerving when children stare at you like that. I usually think, “What? Is there something wrong with my face?” Then I scuttle away feeling like a worthless cockroach. I should probably try your trick some time! 😛

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  15. Hi Tony,

    It’s great to see you back in the blogosphere. Your new home is awesome.

    I LOVE your cartoons. Obviously it’s a passion of yours and I wish you well on your new endeavor. May it be everything, and more, than you hope for.

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  16. I’m so glad you are back:) Your wit and your drawings that make me think…I love it! Forty is what you allow it to be..it’s that state of your heart that matters (on all levels)…

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  18. Let’s try leaving a comment again, since it didn’t work when I tried on your first post. This is wonderful, I really love the appearance of your cartoon-self, and the backgrounds, especially the way you draw clouds are beautiful. It’s a nice little piece, reminds me of all those times I get lost in my mind and completely forget what I was supposed to be doing.

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  19. Oh, and just a titbit for thought: smart puppies don’t push forty, they pull thirty. “Sod the white strands, a pox on all apathy; I mean to climb yon alluring old apple tree!”

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  20. A Singular talent, if you will, is evident here. It’s visually appealing and individually stylized, thought-provokingly philosophical, and has some nice last-panel oomph. Your use of onomatopoeia in sound effects is spot on and a hoot to read.

    I feel as though I’m looking at the next Calvin and Hobbes or Doonesbury, no word of a lie. May the creative muse stay with you always… and, uh, live long and prosper. (I don’t know; that just seemed to naturally follow.)

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    1. I hope they’re good tears! I wouldn’t want to add more grief to someone’s life! 😛

      I don’t know where that line came from either. It just sprang, fully formed, into my head one day. I wrote it down and thought to myself, “I must use that some day.” Note pads are indispensable tools for a writer!

      Well… and a pen too.

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