Basket Making

To conclude this year's edition of March Madness, I'm digging deep into the vault. Way back in 2001, my first batch of submissions to the New Era consisted solely of missionary gags. When it came time to submit more gags to the magazine, I was content to continue sending them missionary gags, but I drew and submitted this week's comic at the last minute.

The New Era bought this gag and pretty much nothing else. After that, I realized that if I wanted to continue to be published in their magazine, I'd better start coming up with a variety of gags that touch on all aspects of the Mormon experience (except, until recently, the cub scout pinewood derby).

Today's gag, then, holds a special place in my heart. It, as much as anything, has played into whatever success I've enjoyed. So please ignore the dated reference to Enrichment and the awful coloring job and appreciate it for what it is.

A New Investigator

Starting today, I'm beginning a new multi-week arch following Elder Van Dyke's experiences with another serious investigator. Hopefully, things will turn out better than his last one.

For this strip I tried to find the least consequential television show I could think of. Ten years ago that was Gilligan's Island. Had I done this strip today, there would have been a dozen reality TV shows I could have plugged in instead.

All Good Things...

My ward basketball career, for all intents and purposes, ended suddenly a couple of years ago when, going for a loose ball, I slammed into another player and threw my shoulder out of whack. It was nearly a year before I had full motion again and since then I've ventured onto the court only a handful of times and have never played with the same reckless abandonment that I exhibited before my injury.

Sometime in the next two weeks, Jimmer Fredette's BYU basketball career is going to end (likely equally as suddenly*) and for this BYU fan it's going to hurt just as bad as my shoulder injury a couple of years ago.

*Please no comments on how my posting today's post prior to Fredette's last game (whether today or Saturday or next weekend) in any way curses the team to loss. First, you and I both know that this silly, little blog has no impact on the real world and second, I don't think I could live with the guilt.

Missionary Weight Loss: Part 4

Here's the conclusion to Elder Steele's crisis in weight loss.

The Year of The Jimmer

I know I promised that last year would be the last time I'd run my "March Madness" comics where I run a basketball themed gag every week for the three weeks that correspond to the NCAA Tournament, but do you really think I could let it go during the year of The Jimmer?

I'm really hoping that The Jimmer leads BYU to the promised land and that two weeks from now we'll find out if Jimmer Fredette really is a religion with a Final Four game conflicting with General Conference and a Championship game conflicting with Family Home Evening. Come on, Jimmer, I believe in you!

Missionary Weight Loss: Part 3

The Pinewood Derby Gag

Not to hype this up too much but in my cartooning career, I've been published in three of the four Church magazines (I'm still trying to figure out how to get the Ensign to publish a Where's Waldo type scene in the front or back cover of one of it's issues); I've had four books of mine published that have sold dozens of copies(!); and I've got this blog where handful of my closest internet friends (that's you!) check out my work twice a week and somehow manage not to post mean things. And then there is today's comic--the fruition of almost a decade's worth of effort. Yep, I'm pretty excited! Here it is...

Why the New Era published this gag while rejecting my other pinewood derby gags, I suspect, is because this comic found humor in the event from a different angle than the trite "dad made son's car." That or this comic had more mustaches than any other I've ever drawn.

At any rate, please leave your letters of congratulations in the comment section below.

Missionary Weight Loss: Part 2

Metric system humor never gets old.

Let's Talk Pinewood Derby

As I've mentioned several times on this blog, publishing a Pinewood Derby gag in the New Era would mean a great deal to me. (Why pinewood and not some other piece of Mormon culture I couldn't possibly say. This just sort of became a passion for me.)

Well, I'm proud to report that this month's New Era features a pinewood derby gag submitted by me! Rather than post that gag today, I'm going to hold off for a week and instead post one of the half dozen or so gags I've submitted in the past that the magazine passed on.

This is another variation on the idea that a cub scout's parent, and not the cub himself, built the pinewood racer. It's a well I went to often in my earlier failures and, in hindsight, it's probably too rote an idea for the New Era to even consider. (I can safely say this because I am the foremost authority on getting a pinewood derby gag published in the New Era.)

Ah, but next week, you'll see a pinewood derby gag that doesn't derive its humor from the same vein. I'm so excited to share it with you, but if I could wait eight years for this, then you can wait another week.*

*Of course, if you can't wait a week, you could always go and purchase a copy of this month's New Era--I assure you that it is going to be a collectors item!