happy birthday to ME

For I'm a felly good jollo (52). Seeing my call for a photo or two of me and wee Cal in San Diego last week, as we came home without any, Andy Runton of Owly fame emailed a couple. After my rictus grin on the front of PW Comics Week, which you may have missed as I didn't draw attention to it, I have resolved to smile no more for the birdy, any birdy.


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In preparation for meeting him at the Brisbane Writers festival next month, I'm reading Guy Delisle's excellent Shenzhen; a travelogue from China , in which I have come across this interesting use of the forbidden technique of crossed balloon tails.


I say interesting because I myself have just been caught red-handed by the calligrapher supreme Todd Klein, in his review of The Black Diamond Detective Agency. While otherwise praising me, he writes: Occasionally the white brush-stroke tails cross, as in the panel (below), which is further confused by criss-crossing white bullet-trails. This violates so many things about good lettering that I hardly know where to start!


I really did think hard about whether the world would let me get away with that one. As I caught my two comedic characters in a chaotic crossfire, running around in my noodle was the famous snatch of dialogue from the Ghostbusters movie:

Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.