shelfmonkeys

I haven't cartooned in a while (other than the one of Michael Stevens taking a picture of himself in a bathroom - what's that all about, Michael?!). I usually do it to relieve stress, but I think that I've been under such stress the past year or so that I just haven't been able to do it. I hope it's starting to let up and I can do a few of these every now and then.
This was an error I made today. The little girl survived and her mom actually thought her bug-eyes were funny. What happens is, the headphones plugs are pulled out just a tiny bit and then the connection is broken and the sound comes straight from the CPU. This drives me absolutely insane. It's especially bad when both game computers are going like this at the same time. I allow it when more than one kid or a kid and a parent are using it together. Otherwise, I rise like thunder and pointedly poke the plug back in.
This time, some previous user had turned the volume all the way up on the headphones, undoubtedly because the volume seemed low (coming as it was from the CPU into ears blocked with headphones).
Oopsie!

September's 2.1!

Well, ... what can I say? That was not hard to do, but it ... just doesn't have the life in it that my stick figures do. There was a glitch in the cutting-and-pasting that made the strip show up twice in the blog (which, as you can see, I deleted), but it was pretty straight-forward. I like the backgrounds a lot. Perhaps I can noodle with this some more and find a way to add my stick figures to it.
I can't wait to see what other people do! Oh, be sure to click on it to see the whole thing. Hmm, I'm still working on embedding these. Not working quite as well as I had thought.

shelfmonkeys ... rips off Unshelved

Based on a true story. In the fifth grade I moved to a new city and started in a new school. On a trip to the school library (I'm dating myself here - they weren't called Media Centers then) when I discovered they had run out of Alfred Hitchcock, the school librarian suggested a book of realistic fiction to me. I read the story with increasing distaste. The main character was as described above and the whole time I was reading all I could think of was why the librarian thought I would enjoy this book. In my mind, it was because that is how she saw me. My middle-class sensibilities were violated. How could anyone think I was the daughter of the equivalent of a janitor?! My father was in middle-management! He went to college. He played golf. My mother was very eloquent on proper etiquette. She judged flower arranging and painted. Oh, I had friends on various socio-economic levels, and that didn't bother me, but don't go mislabeling me.
The next time we went to the school library, I cagily avoided the librarian. However, an alert teacher caught me and recommended James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl to me. I didn't have high hopes for it, but on the face of it, it didn't seem to be about any little girls who had no friends and lived in less than fortunate circumstances. After two pages, I was hooked. Today, as someone who has to recommend books to children, I am more careful. I try to find out what sort of books they enjoy and I don't put a book in their hands. I show it to them,put it back, and let them make the decision to take it the rest of the way off the shelf and see if they want to read it.
To this day I despise realistic fiction. I can't imagine why anyone would want to read it. And I have a librarian to blame.

shelfmonkeys - The Form

Write your own ending.

shelfmonkeys: The Nightmare

A total rip-off of Jayson's cartoon. I mean, inspired by Jayson's cartoon. Great hoppin' horney toads! It's like being back in school!
Actually, the woman who helps us is very nice and would never laugh at us. We hope.

shelfmonkeys: "free pencils"

Sometimes I feel like the biggest, meanest ogre in Fairyland, but, I mean, it just gets on your nerves!

shelfmonkeys

Merely wishful thinking ... sigh!

shelfmonkeys

In honor of his birthday this month! Here's to Theodor Geisel. My first Dr. Suess book was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Although I don't remember being taken to the library, I must have been familiar with the concept. My mother had taken me to a bookstore and let me pick out a book. I chose this vibrantly yellow book ("cadmium yellow light" I'd have called it then, which would have gotten my mother a free trip to talk to the teacher). I was stunned to learn it did not have to go back! This was also my first book of all my own. The rest were hand-me-downs from my sister. I can't describe how thrilled I was with this book. I took it to school for show-and-tell and then left it on the playground. I made my mother drive me back to the school to get it. My favorite Seuss story, though, is the Grinch. I read it to kids every year. It is long for pre-schoolers, but they already know the story, having seen the tv version and can fill in the Whoville Carol.

shelfmonkeys

shelfmonkeys

Where are those cub scouts when you need them?

shelfmonkeys

Just a typical Monday evening. Books to put away, storytime to do, and an unexpected cub scout meeting. Where do I find time to draw these things?

And You Thought I Was So Smart

Okay, I feel silly. I just spent the last five minutes teaching myself to make a linking tag by hand and I noticed that there is a button for it right on this text box. Example: do any of you read the library strip Unshelved? All I did was type in "unshelved" and highlight it. Then I clicked on the teeny icon of the green globe with the blurry thing that's actually chain link but it's so hard to tell at that size. It looks more like two horseshoe magnets. From there you get a prompt for the url (http etc.) which I was at least clever enough to copy from the website before I started.
I did feel like rather an idiot when I bothered to look up a book on creating web pages, search through it for the html bits I wanted, and practiced it on one of the earlier blogs (WebJunction and Spanish Outreach). Then when I started a new post and saw the icon and felt a right dickey-doo-dah.
I can still use the info on other sites that don't have this nifty button, but I'll have to practice or I'll forget how to do this by Sunday. I'd gotten really good at using html for italics and then I didn't do it for a while and suddenly I have to think about it.

Stone Age Librarians

I know I've pushed this "clog" before, but if you don't stop by to look at the "Turn the Page" view of libraries in Pre-historic times, you're really missing something. Ohhh, I had a good laugh! Don't call that hold or shelve that book until you've read this! Whatsamattayou?

shelfmonkeys

shelfmonkeys

shelfmonkeys

Based on a True Story of a Visitation to a Child Care Facility Which Shall Remain Nameless.

shelfmonkeys

Not the Only Cartoon

Check out Jayson's "clog," - a cartoon blog - "Turn the Page,"on working in a library. He inspired me to start cartooning again. Right. So it's his fault.

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shelfmonkeys

I've decided that the reason I'm so stressed out is because I'm not cartooning. It got me through the 20,000,000 document review at the law firm! (Click on cartoon to see it larger.)
Thanks to Nicole for the idea.