Pancakes in Pain

Latest cartooning effort. This one was inspired by my nephew, who recently had to make a trip to the hospital for an appendectomy.

The "flow" for this cartoon is less than ideal; just make sure to follow the numbers (requires a weird right-to-left jump at one point).

Knitting

It is with great pomp and fanfare that I announce that Lydia has completed a major knitting project:

This is a vest that my mom set her up with; the wool is Angora and is amazingly soft and lovely. Lydia has been working furiously on it for the last couple of weeks, and she finally finished it off last night (she was working hard so that she could bring it in and show it off at school). She has also been using the "circular" needles given to her for Christmas, along with various other bits of knitting "kit" contributed by parents and relatives. She certainly enjoys it, and she seems to have the patience to get her projects all of the way through to completion.

Comics for Girls

When I was a kid, I spent countless hours reading and rereading the "Tintin" cartoon books (nowadays they would be called graphic novels, but back then, the term hadn't been invented yet). Some of my favorites were "The Black Island", "The Crab With the Golden Claws", and "Flight 714", but in fact they were all very enjoyable. Ethan has gone through every one of the Tintin books, but when I tried Lydia on Tintin, she was not especially interested.

I realized at that point that when it comes to graphic novels and cartoons, most of the main characters are male: Tintin, Asterix and Obelix, etc. I decided that there must be some cartoons and graphic novels out there (for kids her age) with female main characters, so I fired up my web browser and began to search. So far my efforts have been largely fruitless. True, there is the Akiko series by Mark Crilley, but as far as I can tell, Akiko is a girl in name only-- there doesn't seem to be much that's girlish about her. There are cartoons that feature girls, but they aren'y really stories, per se (just bits and pieces).

One cartoon that I have found that features a female main character is Halo and Sprocket, by Kerry Callen.

These books are in "short story" form (no sweeping epic adventures) but both my kids have enjoyed reading them (they are very funny and quirky). I am hoping that the author will write a few more in the series...