BEAVERFEST

A friend of mine, whom we refer to as The Queen Beave, started Beaverfest quite a few years ago. It started out with around 8 ladies (I think) and grew to around 40. I'm sure you're wondering what in the heck Beaverfest is? Well, it's a Girls Day/Night out on the Chain of Lakes. Our sausages (husbands/boyfriends) drop us off at the train station where we board our rented school bus (no drinking and driving allowed) that takes us and our coolers filled with goodies to the boat rental place. Once there, we load up the pontoon boats with our coolers and our beavers. As I stated above, there is no drinking and driving allowed so each pontoon boat has a male driver (skipper). I think there was a waiting list for those positions. Anywho, after leaving the dock the drivers would take us bar hopping on the lake. We'd hit the sand bar before our final destination, Blarney Island (google it). Once our time is up, we head back to the boat place, hop on the bus, and head back to the train station where our sausages are waiting to pick us up. It is the best time ever!

One year Queen Beave had banners made with Beaverfest and the slogan 'If you don't have one you can't come' written on them. It was great! We got lots of cheers from the fellow boaters that year. It's been about 4 years since the last Beaverfest. Maybe this cartoon will revive the beavers!!

Mother Nature has been in a cold and nasty mood. It's officially Spring and we are expected to get hit with snow on Sunday. I tell you, this woman is crazy and she's making the rest of us a little crazy too. She needs to be put on the hot seat and toast her buns a little. Oh yeah, try to stay indoors on Sunday. We are expecting 30+ MPH winds. If you're not careful, you might lose a nipple.

Dancing On The Ceiling

      When the housing market plunged a lot of people, like myself, found themselves upside down in their homes.  The feeling was unsettling, but Lionel Richie was dancing around in my head singing, "Oh what a feelin' when you're dancin' on the ceilin'". It made me laugh and almost cry at the same time because he would not stop singing! I removed him from my head and put him in my idea/joke journal for future use. It was something like, 'If you're upside down in your house, how come you're not dancing on the ceiling with Lionel Richie?" It was a rough idea, but the concept was there.
       A few years later Toby Keith came out with his song, Red Solo Cup. I just about fell on the floor laughing when I heard the line, "Freddie Mac can kiss my ass". I immediately connected the lyrics from both songs which brought me close to closure, thankfully NOT foreclosure. I felt better after making the connection, but now I had to draw it out and have it make sense to the readers. It's one of those jokes where you either get it or you don't. It's challenging to convey an inside joke so that everyone gets it without rambling with explanations which can ruin the joke.
     Drawing Lionel and Toby was fun. I really pushed myself on these drawings. I have difficulty drawing hands and have refrained from doing so - whenever possible. They end up too big or too small. For example, Lionel has tiny hands and Toby has a very big hand. I'll figure it out at some point... as long as I draw more of them... ugh! Other than the hands, I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I've made a lot of improvements. One thing I love about art and writing is that there is always room to improve and grow.

Resolution Board Part 1

I needed to light a fire under my rear and figure out a way to introduce Amy's alter-ego's without making things more complicated. Since becoming a better cartoonist is one of my goals for the new year I figured doing a resolution board would be a good way to introduce them and obtain some feedback from the Get A Grip readers. We all have different roles we have to play in life. These 'egos' represent those roles. I portray the female version in my cartoons, but men can relate to a lot of these roles as well or at least via their wives. What I'm having difficulty with is showing the conflicts between the ego's. For example, Cheryl Chef and Clara Cleaning Lady may butt heads when it comes to cleaning up the kitchen. I can draw it out, but will it look creepy since in cartoon reality it's the same person divided into many? I guess that's what I need to remember, it's cartoon reality LOL!

Cyber Pimps

There isn't much of a story behind this particular cartoon. I thought of it while listening to some internet dating horror stories from some of my single friends. I'm very thankful dating websites weren't around when I was single.

Bathroom Break

My apologies if the top panel is a bit hard to read. Bathroom Break is based on events that took place while my husband and I were out to dinner with some friends of ours. It was a strange evening, to say the least. For some unknown reason our waitress was a bit annoyed with us from the time we sat down. We were polite, well behaved, and very low maintenance. It may have started when the waitress asked Dee (I'm not using real names here) to see her ID when we ordered our drinks. We were razzing Dee a little bit and I think it made the very young waitress uncomfortable. About an hour and a half or so into our dining experience Dee went to use the ladies room. When she arrived back to our table, Dee informed us that there was an over served patron getting sick in the ladies room. This brought the topic of conversation to bathroom stories which prompted me to go use the ladies room. I walked to the other side of the restaurant where the bathrooms were and the frantic hostess blocked me from entering. I really had to go so I asked if I could use the men's room. That shocked the bus boy and the hostess a little bit. "Are you serious?" was written all over their faces. I thought it was funny. The hostess - not so much. The bus boy said I could use the ladies room and he would clean up the mess when I came out. The hostess wasn't too happy about letting me in, but she did rather reluctantly. While I was doing my business, I thought these people need to lighten up a bit and the light bulb went on. Wouldn't it be funny if I told them I clogged the other toilet? No, I can't do that. But it would be so funny. No. No. Aw, what the hell? It should lighten things up a bit. I finished drying my hands, put on my 'I don't feel so well' face and walked out the door. The hostess, a waitress, and the bus boy were all standing there waiting. I looked right at them and said, "I'm sorry, but I clogged the other toilet". The waitress busted out laughing, the hostess was horrified, and the bus boy was about to fall over in a fit of laughter. I smiled and said, "Easy now, I was kidding". The hostess was still processing what just happened and I decided I should go back to our table, quickly. When I returned to our table I shared my bathroom story and we all laughed. Our waitress cut us off about 15 minutes later and offered to pay for a cab to take us home. We were all pretty shocked seeing as though the most alcohol consumed by a person in our group was 3 drinks. I only had 2. Maybe I played a joke on the wrong person? Maybe they were freaked out by the over-served patron who got sick in the ladies room earlier? Who knows? We laughed it off, paid our bill, and politely left. I really like the restaurant we went to. We've never had a problem there before. I'll just wait a while before I return.

21st Century Walk Of Shame

I must give credit  where credit is due. My husband, Justin, and I were hanging out at home, having cocktails, listening to some tunes, while Facebooking on our phones. Pictures of our friends hanging out having a good time were popping up along with the comments and likes. I had a really funny smartass comment that I wanted to make to one of my friends (all in fun, of course), but decided to run it by Justin first. I wanted to make sure it couldn't be taken the wrong way which brought us to the discussion of waking up in the morning after a night of fun, in or out, and checking Facebook in the morning to see if there is any incriminating evidence of the 'fun' that was had the night before. Justin said, "It's the 21st Century Walk Of Shame! Cartoon that!", and I did.