We’ve been sorting through about 30 years-worth of old art this month and found this:

(We promise after the current inventory organization project is done, we’ll resume posting new stories and art)

While perusing the IRSBD archives the other day, we stumbled upon these. They originally appeared on my first stab at a webpage, back in 1993.

I had in mind the standard model, the big, sometime over-stuffed living-room easy-chair, but some of the artists decided on other examples, as you can see below…

(Note: That nice green chair without a signature is Michael Crawford’s contribution and the “PSt” belongs to Peter Steiner)

My Big Problem

First of all, I owe a huge apology to the Jinks Family, whose house I stepped on some time ago. Like any growing adolescent, I was having a little trouble adjusting to my body’s rapid changes, and was a bit clumsy. Oh, yes, and to the family of Heinrich Nederlander, who’s small airplane I destroyed, along with Heinrich, two weeks ago. It was just a reflexive movement on my part, like swatting at a pesky mosquito would be, for those of a more normal size.

It all began when I was a small child, or, to be more accurate, a large one. I was a fairly normal-sized baby, but soon after my birth, I began growing at a faster rate than was usual for a child my age. At first, my parents and their friends were only mildly concerned. I seemed a bit tall. People would ruffle my hair and say “What a fine, big boy you are!” and words to that effect. By the time I was six, however, I was taller than my parents, who are average-sized people, by a full 12 inches. Mum and Pop became alarmed and took me to specialist after specialist, but none of the doctors could explain what was going on with me. I endured many physical exams and tests. They all showed my body to be healthy and robust in the extreme. All my organs seemed to be growing along in proper proportion to the rest of my body. The docs eventually just had to give up on any explanation of my condition. I grew up. And up, and up, eventually out-growing all my clothes and any house or building which I was moved into to accommodate a person or object of my size. I consumed tremendous amounts of food and was bankrupting my parents. I had to learn not to speak in what was for me a normal tone of voice. When I spoke that way, I could burst eardrums and cause small buildings and old people to fall down. Dogs would hide and children would cry when I said “Hello” or “Thank you”. I learned early on that I needed to whisper in order to communicate with anyone. Even then, I had to avert my face when I spoke in order not to blow off hats or invert umbrellas with my big breath. By the time I was sixteen, I towered over most large buildings in town. I could see that I was also becoming a big embarrassment to all concerned. Their embarrassment was increased due to the fact that my expanding body reduced any clothing, which was made especially for me, to rags within a few days, and I was often naked as a result. I hit upon the idea of wrapping my large body in inexpensive blue plastic tarps held together with duct-tape, which items were provided for a while without cost by the local Home Depot as a gesture of community good will. This arrangement ended, however, as my size increased and the demands of my body quickly outgrew the store’s supply. Since that time, I’ve been naked, except for an ever-expanding loincloth I have fashioned from old blankets and bedsheets for purposes of modesty.

As much as they loved me, I could tell that my parents and the townspeople were relieved when I (Rather too loudly) announced that I was leaving home to travel the world. Of course, I had no choice but to move on, having reached a size which made it impossible for me to inhabit my tiny home-town without part of me spilling over to adjacent municipalities. Owing to my size, I found traveling quite easy, as long as I watched my step, and could move swiftly along with the sun and the seasons, in order to stay warm.

Lately, the demands made by my monstrous appetite and concerns for public safety have turned people against me. For the last month or so, I’ve been traveling the world, snacking on cows and eating small forests as I go. People have fired weapons at me, which so far have been only physically irritating and not lethal. I am, however, deeply hurt that they bear me such malice. I know as I continue to grow and wreak unintentional havoc on the world, it’s inevitable that people’s anger and their retaliation will increase. My growth continues to out-pace, at least for the time being, their ability to hurt me, but I imagine in time, they might throw bigger things at me, possibly even nuclear weapons. They’ve already tried biological agents, and as a result, I have a very irritating rash on one ankle. I have other problems, though. I’m running out of cows and forests to eat, for one thing. Also, at my current rate of expansion, my head, already in the clouds, could soon be in the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere, where it would no doubt be constantly pelted by man-made satellites and space-junk. I couldn’t breathe up there, of course. I would have to start crawling to get around, which would make me an even bigger target for the many outraged farmers and environmental activists I’ve accidentally alienated.

I hope my story ends more happily, though. I have noticed a slight slow-down in my growth-rate lately, which may signal an eventual stop or even a reversal of the phenomenon that plagues me, and by extension, the world at large. In the end, I may go down in history as a unifying force, having become an unwilling common enemy to the small people of Earth, who have united against me, forgetting for a while their petty squabbles with one another.

Time will tell what becomes of me. In case the worst happens, though, I want to stress that I never wanted to hurt anybody. I hope the forests will grow back. I’m sure you can get more cows. With any luck, I will somehow return to my normal size again and I can look back on all this and laugh. Just a small laugh, though. I will no doubt have had enough of things big.

Greetings, Earthlings…

I’ve just arrived here after traveling for many hundreds of your Earth days and nights across what you call the cosmos, and boy, are my arms tired! (Beat) All eighteen of ‘em! Hach Hach Hachhhh! But, seriously…

We have been studying Earth humor for some time. My reason for coming here is to experience it first hands as part of my educational process. On Schticko, my home planet, we are all professional full-time students of galactic humor. I have been “in school” to put it in a way which will be familiar to Earth inhabitants, for 368 of your years. I have spent most of that time traveling among the planets studying humor and I’ve encountered many differing forms of it in the universe.

For instance, on a planet called “EEEEEEp”, the inhabitants, who are all highly-evolved plants, make jokes about anything that moves sideways, but consider jokes about vertical movement in bad taste.

On “Xllllrrtmlll 2”, humor is outlawed completely. The inhabitants consider levity of any kind criminal, and punish those who attempt it harshly, placing them into orbit around the planet for long periods of time.

The inhabitants of “Kponk!”, a planet in the Bigass Galaxy, have a humor-system based entirely on sex. Their idea of sex, however, is a far cry from that of Earth’s inhabitants. On Kponk!, there are from 42 to 87 different sexes, depending on the season. The number is highest during their Spring period, which alternates with the planet’s only other season, similar to Winter on your planet. Spring is devoted to copulation and Winter is generally for writing jokes about copulation. It is a very happy planet, but extremely crowded.

On Whaaat?, a tiny planet at the extreme edge of one of the many galaxies I visited, I found only two inhabitants. They have always been there, they told me, and always will be. Their humor is based entirely on private jokes between the two of them, and were incomprehensible to an outsider. For instance, whenever one of them said the word “Nuubpt”, which describes what an Earthling might translate as “belly-button”, they would both fall down laughing hysterically for several Whaaat? days and nights (Which, incidentally, equal about a month in Earth time).

As for Earth humor, I have to admit it mystifies me most of the time. I know that if something embarrassing happens to someone else, Earthlings laugh, but if it happens to them, they cry. Why are there so many jokes about the male reproduction organ but so few about the female reproduction organ? Also, doesn’t the word “comic” imply humor? So, why aren’t comic strips funny? And those New Yorker cartoons? Am I missing something? They would be over my head, I guess, if I had one.

Well, I must be off! There are many more planets to explore. I hope to come back some day to yours. I’d like to be the first extra-terrestrial standup comic on Earth, though I’ll have to find a way to stand up, first. (We Schtickos have a lot of arms but no legs. We get around by rolling wherever we want to go, like beach-balls.) Hopefully, I’ll see you again in a few eons. By that time I’ll be able to say, with a straight face, “Jokes? I’ve got a million of ‘em!” (Of course I have no face, either, which could be a problem.)

Meanwhile, Keep Haching!

A Letter From 2008

Dear 2009,

Hello from my new condo here in Eterneville, the exclusive development where all of us Timeguys go when our years are up.
I hope you have an enjoyable year there in your new job. It’s a little daunting, I know, when you first start out.

I know I left the place a mess, and I’m sorry. In my defense, though, I inherited all that disorder from 2007. He’s here, too, naturally, but we don’t get along. I’m a little pissed off at him. He, on the other hand, is really angry with 2006. That’s the way it goes here. There are exceptions, of course: 1462 and 1461 get along fine, as do 1746 and 1745. (There’s a rumor here that they’re  gay.) Everybody loves 1842. That year had no major wars. It was also the year the first adhesive-backed postage stamp was issued, which was a big deal at the time.

I hope you and I will feel OK with one another when you move in here next January.

Meanwhile, here are some notes which I hope will help you out in the performance of your new job. (This is more than ‘07 did for me, by the way, the bum!):

Enjoy your youth while you have it. This job ages one very quickly. In a couple of months you’ll be an adult already, then an old guy in September or so. Sorry to break the news to you, but that’s just how it works. The bright side is afterwards, you get to hang out here in Eterneville forever, complaining about the mistakes of your predecessors and living the good life.

I hope you have better luck than I did with the financial picture. I kind of screwed up the global economy while I was there. What can I say? I was never good with money.

I might have left the thermostat turned up a little too high. I intended to turn it down before I left but I forgot. You might want to reset it before the ice-cap melts! Haha.

Make sure to check on whether your year is a leap-year or not. I’ve always been confused about those. For some reason, I assumed my year wasn’t, although it turned out it was. As a result, my records were all one day off for a while after my February ended. (I should have realized my mistake when Easter showed up on a Saturday.) As you’ll soon find out, keeping track of everything that happens every day everywhere on the planet is quite a chore, worse if you make the kind of mistake I did.

I think your year is The Year of The Ox, according to the Chinese calendar. Mine was The Year of The Rat, and it really was, along with the 7 years previous. That’s when the USA was ruled by an evil incompetent and a number of his henchmen. During your year, things look like they’re going to be better in that department. Lucky you!

Meanwhile, the leaders of all the countries, states, counties, fiefdoms, kingdoms, municipalities, religious factions, and sports franchises continue to fight over resources, power, and territory, with all the familiar incessant slaughter of innocents that goes along with that. You’re young enough to believe it can change, probably, but we old years thought so, too, and it never happened. Just try to leave the place in better shape than you found it, if you can.

Every year, of course, could be the last one on Earth, since back when 1945, (Who is held in great contempt here by everyone and who was made to live in a hole in the clouds) because of the damned A-Bomb. 1945 claims he was distracted momentarily after he spilled a bit of red wine on his freshly washed toga, and when he looked up, the bomb had already been dropped on Japan. Whatever. A big part of our job is preventing the end of Time as Earth knows it, and he made it a lot harder on all of us who came after him.

BTW, I seem to have lost my Blackberry somewhere there before I left, so if you find it, hang on to it for me, please, and bring it along when we see you here in a year or so. It’s got all my notes about my sure-fire plan to make Earth a better world. I never got a chance to put my plan in action while I was there, though. There’s only so much time in 365 days and nights.

Good Luck!
Your Friend,
2008

A Song for the Season

Jingle Bell

(Sung to the Tune of “Jingle Bells”)

Jingle bell, jingle bell
Only one this year
Oh what a mess
The economy’s in
Trashing our good cheer

Jingle bell, jingle bell
We can’t afford a set
One little bell
Will have to tell
Our Christmas storyette

(Chorus)

Our trusted banker’s greed
To see his profits grow
Our loyal broker’s need
To make a lot of dough

Made us all feel rich
Until the bill came due
It really is a bitch
To see it wasn’t true

OH…

Jingle bell, jingle bell
Sing your little song
We all thought we had it made
But I guess we had it wrong

——————————————————————-

Merry Christmas All The Same!

From the I Really Should Be Drawing Staff
(That would be me and my dog, Bugs)

I Really Should Be Drawing is in its New Home…

Yes, it is…

After a successful and arduous moving process (You have no idea how heavy all those old posts can be.) we have arrived here at our new home. We brought along most of the stuff left over after our big yard sale, which was not quite as successful as we had hoped. Nobody seems to want a used post. I guess they’re a little suspect, maybe like old shoes and mattresses, which smell funny and always have the potential of giving you a disease or something worse.

So, let the new posting begin!

Enjoy!

~Mick and the Entire I Really Should Be Drawing Team.