After waking up, Alan Hawk showered and got ready for his job: dancing sign holder for Mini Grecian Pizza.

Alan hated his job with a passion and wished he had a way out. He was getting much too old to be standing on the side of road with an afro wig and an arrow sign, dancing for the mocking public that would cruise by.

He just wanted a way out. And today, it found him.

--

"Good afternoon, sir. Might I interest you in serving our country for a vital mission?"

General Gene Bush was at his wits end and at the end of his career rope. His superiors were going to give him one last chance to prove his talk of "sketchers" and "new dimensions" were not the result of inhaling too much X-Fume during the testing period.

"Buzz off, dude," said Alan with a glance of disdain.

"But what if I told you that you could travel to new dimensions?" The General was really desperate now. The classified nature of his mission didn't keep him from leaking out what he believed was the greatest secret ever held (and the key to a new, better future). He needed someone now. His superiors wouldn't let him chase his theory for much longer.

"Listen, John Wayne, I don't have any money. Go bum change from someone else." Alan continued to walk but The General kept following.

"Young man, what if I told you that you could leave your dead end job, see things you wouldn't believe and free mankind in the process? Please, sir, just let me show you a glimpse into your mission before your chance is gone. It won't take more than a minute. All I need to show you is in my office right back there." The General pointed to the Army recruitment office down the street.

Alan finally stopped and turned to The General. "I'll give you one minute of my time. I'm already late for work."

--

Alan put on his transfer suit and stepped into the I/O chamber.

"Alan, we have tested this on all species, even chimpanzees. But you are the first human to attempt to 'make the leap' so to speak. We're supremely confident that this final test is a mere formality and we'll soon be able to begin our mission." The General was tucked away behind a 12" thick steel door one room over from the I/O chamber.

"General, you better be right. I didn't sign up to die before I even start the dirty work."

"Alan, we've calibrated the I/O chamber to send you laterally, within this dimension, for now. There should be no danger when you come out the other side, if our telemetry is in order. And you will only be gone for a few seconds. Please hold and I'll start the process."

All Alan could hear was a faint clunk and the hum of dense electronics coming to life. In a spark, he was gone.

Alan opened his eyes and saw the waves crashing on the ocean, a nice breeze blowing back into his face.

And as he went to take a deep breath, he felt a small spark and was back in the chamber.

"AGAIN!" Alan screamed.

--

The General spent several days explaining The Sketchers to Alan. Alan was slow to pick up on the idea that there was another dimension and that there were men and women in that dimension that were determining his fate, and the fate of the world, on a daily basis.

The General still hadn't sent Alan to the next dimension because he wanted to be damned sure that Alan wouldn't cause the apocalypse on his first mission in.

"Don't feel rushed, Alan. I'll repeat myself as many times as needed until you understand the gravity of what I'm telling you."

--

Alan once again donned the transfer suit and stepped into the I/O chamber.

He leveled a thumbs up to The General and close his eyes.

A snap later...

He saw it all. He went beyond the one-dimensional life he was leading and saw the true masters of his fate. The Sketchers held all the keys. They held the entire world in their hands and coldly decided the lot in life for each inhabitant. Hunched over their desks in windowless chambers, scribbling out an alternate reality, they were busy crafting a universe that Alan was, himself, a part of.

Alan's mission was now clear. Free his fellow "sketches" from their chains and reclaim freedom for the tips of The Sketchers inked spears. Only he and The General had the power necessary to start the chain reaction and he intended to use it.

And, yes, I do have a complete back-story for this silly character. And, I'm a little leery to let it out because I approached it much more seriously than I probably should have. There is nothing serious about this character. At all. It was fun thinking up the back-story, though.

But, what the hell. I'll let it loose this weekend.

Who needs dignity, right?

I'm thankful that my Mom never fed us breakfast candy when I was growing up.

Happy Mother's Day!

I am a huge fan of Ruben Bolling. (And by "huge fan", I mean, if I were to meet him or speak to him, I'd probably come off like an dweeby weirdo and he'd quickly leave me alone, babbling to myself. Since this will never happen, the world will be a less awkward place for all of us.) He draws/writes the comic strip "Tom the Dancing Bug" and I've been reading it since around 1998. He possesses the wit and skill that the rest of us doodlers can only hope to emulate. He's been a great influence on my sense of humor, political outlook and the way I draw. I really can't say enough.

He recently sent out a missive via his website kindly asking if any of his regular readers would join him in a side venture called the "Inner Hive" in which we would pay a very modest sum ($10 per 6 months) for access to a super-secret email distribution list through which he would send us his comics before anyone else got to see them, get some background on how he formulated the comic and give us any other geeky goodies that super-fans (such as myself) would get a kick out of.

His most recent email had a picture of the comic he finished before it was inked or colored in. Needless to say, I was enthralled by it. It showed me a way to draw that I never really tried.

You see, I've always been the type of doodler that does one take of a drawing, with a pen (and sometimes a pencil). If I mess up, I crinkle up the paper, throw it away and start over. Naturally, this can lead to frustration and many ideas I have had have never come to fruition because of it.

But the way Ruben does it is he takes a first pass with a pencil and gets the basic outline of the comic out there. He overlaps parts of the comic in this rough form and basically layers everything on top of each other. Finally, he goes over it with the ink and erases the pencil leaving a great, inked drawing behind.

If an experienced artist were here, they would be slapping me in the face and saying, "DUH-UUHHH!" But, hey, the way I operate is that things need to come to me organically. I'm too stubborn to actually research how to best draw comics.

The comic I drew today was done using, what I believe to be, the same style that Ruben Bolling uses to create his comics. And I can immediately see the value of the technique. I produced this on the my first try and I didn't need to crinkle anything up. Typically, I would have drawn this multiple times, with ink, until I got it right.

And, given the Ruben Bolling connection to the technique used to create this drawing, the subject is a nod to his style, as well. He has taken many a long tale and squeezed it into three panels or less (look up "Super-Fun-Pak Comix").  I decided to give a super-hero comic a try and do it one panel at time.

Of course, you can see I have a long ways to go to get good at this new (to me) technique but I plan on sticking with it. If it's good enough for the rest of the comic world, then it's good enough for me!

I saw a story about how Iowa is now providing traffic alerts via Twitter. This is the first thing I thought of. (Sorry for the poor image quality. I had to use a camera.)