Zub Tales

At home today recovering instead of teaching. I caught the flu over the weekend and don’t want to infect my students. They’ve got enough problems with time management/workload without me diseasing them on top of everything else.

The Shazam fury died down fast. Once it finally got through to people that it was, in fact, NOT an official design… sanity finally returned. Controversy vanished, I’m no longer ‘special’ and the gawkers move on to the next internet house fire. Heh.

On with other things…

I’ve had a few conversations over the past couple of weeks that have made me step back and mark time. I’ve been back in Ontario and working with Udon for four years…. it doesn’t feel that long, but there it is. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t done much or grown as an artist, other times I can see the huge divide.

Howard Tayler, creator of Schlock Mercenary asked me to contribute a pin-up to his latest book. Howard’s been a friend since Makeshift started in 2001. He’s incredibly smart, diligent and funny, earning every step of his fame, body of work and financial freedom as a cartoonist. I remember doing a little pin-up for him back in 2001 soon after I’d first gotten in touch with him:

Old Zubby Pin-Up from 2001.

So I sat down and busted out a new pin-up for him:

New Zubby Pin-Up from 2007.

Um, yeah. I guess time has passed and I’ve learned a few things, even when I’m doing little fun projects like this. Easy to see when they’re side-by-side like this.

Neat.

Okay, back to resting and recuperating.