More volcano stuff

Yesterday's New York Times had the most amazing photo of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano on the front page-- it makes the thing almost look alive (and especially malevolent);

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/photographing-icelands-fiery-volcano/

An astonishing shot. I'm not sure what sorts of prizes there are for photography, but whatever they are, this guy should be awarded all of them.

The kids and I cut it out and put it on the fridge (whereupon Lydia applied a post-it note saying "Public Enemy Number 1", or something to this effect). Still not sure when Amy is going to be returning, although the news coverage is maybe a teeny bit more encouraging; some of the airlines are starting to schedule transatlantic flights again (there is a Virgin Atlantic flight to Newark from London that is supposed to go today, and KLM has done a couple of flights from Schiphol to New York as I understand it).

Update (Apr 23): Amy is finally back-- exactly a week late. Big sighs of relief all around in our household...

Pancake Man the Olympian

Ok, everyone is probably getting pretty tired of Pancake Man, but I might as well post this one, since it's been out in paper form for a while. Drew this while we were skiing up in Quebec.

I am thinking about a new cartoon involving pop music, but at this point it is still in the concept stage.

Stranded!

I had hoped very much to see my wife yesterday (she has been on a week-long business trip in the UK), but our reunion has been postponed as a result of a volcano eruption in Iceland of all things.

Unpronounceable though it may be, Eyjafjallajokull (ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) is wreaking havoc on air travel in northern Europe. When I told my kids that their mom was stuck in England because of an Icelandic volcano, at first they didn't believe me. Who would have guessed?

Web site: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iceland/eyjafjallajokull/index.html

About all I can say is: let's hope the wind starts blowing the cloud north for a change.

New Yawk

We made a family trip to new York a couple weeks ago to see Carey and Joanie and take in the sights. Here is a picture of the kids fooling around on the mosaic sculpture outside Grant's Tomb:

The highlight of the weekend was probably the performance of "The 39 Steps" that we saw on Saturday. It was hilarious-- very spare set and minimal cast, but wonderfully funny. While driving in the car the other day, the kids had fun trying to re-enact one of the scenes in which a particular cast member is trying to play three roles all at once (with switches every 2-3 seconds, accompanied by a hat change).

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...