How Connie really spent most of her time in Montreal...

We were only shown two, maybe three days worth of Connie's little trip to Montreal. This is what ate up the first four to five days of Connie's trip.


Yep, I'm sure the cops had a lot of questions for Connie afterward. At least they were nice enough to offer her some free accommodations for a few days. Unfortunately, the evidence of Connie's reckless driving was mostly destroyed in the inferno, and Connie had to be released on an unsuspecting Phil. I have a feeling though, that Connie decided to redirect her fantasies elsewhere after the policeman who saved her let her know that he wasn't interested.

Ugh, seriously, WHY did Lynn spend so much time on this particularly horrible story arc? It was outdated and cringe-inducing, as well as not being about the Pattersons! If it was me, I would have cut out what wasn't important, since I would have known what would have happened with Connie in the future, or the past? Urgh, or I would have just reprinted the arc as is to get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

On a more personal note, I really need to learn how to shade properly...

You'll never win, John

The real story behind how that pearl pendant that Ted had John buy for Elly as a Christmas gift vanished for twenty-five years. The surprising thing is that it actually showed up again...in a strip that gave John break after break! If I had been John in that strip (5/08/05), I would have been looking about in terror, waiting for the axe to drop any moment. I'm also betting that April found the pendant in the crawlspace too.


Methinks you better jump higher than that, John.

The Crying Game

Ooh, check it out, a vertical format this time! :D

This is a continuation of sorts of both Connie's and Michael's obsessions with their crushes. Both of which was so completely out of character that only something like this could have been the result!

What Mike is up to when Elly isn't paying attention...

*sneaks in*

*looks around an empty room as tumbleweeds roll by*

Honestly, I cannot believe it's been four months since I last posted here! I have a billion excuses for why I haven't updated before now, but you guys aren't here for that. All I can do is try to post as often as I can. I really do want to get through my list of Fifth Panels to do before they become too old and forgettable. I honestly find it hard to remember any of the new-runs, and I'm sure it's the same for you all too.

Anyway, without further ado...


This is a combination of Elly's obsession with cleaning and negligence of what's really important and Mike's own unnatural obsession with a preschool girl named Deanna. I'm not sure if I like this image or not, I just wanted it up! It's been sitting half-finished in my sketch book for months! Enjoy!

Connie steals Mike's shtick

Gasp! Can it be true? Am I back?? I know I've been gone for a looong time...I've been looking for a new apartment (found a couple) and a new job (no luck), while doing some freelancing art projects for a few people. Then I got horribly sick for a week.

I tried to follow in AprilP-Katje's footsteps and at least do some drawings while I was couch-ridden, but alas, my art mojo had deserted me completely, as well as my knitting skills (Anyone know how to unravel part of a eyelash scarf?)! But it came back...and here is the result! It's older, but I haven't seen very many interesting strips to put me back too far on my list of panels to do.

I'll try my best not to let the blog go for so long again. I'm hoping I'll have a new panel up this Friday, after I put two more freelance projects behind me. They're due tomorrow and Tuesday...wish me luck! Eeeps!



Poor Phil! I'm pretty happy with this panel. I wasn't kidding when my art skills abandoned me when I was sick! You guys should have seen the first three or so mangled attempts I did! The only thing I wish I could fix is the fact that Phil's head is cut off. I just couldn't get him smaller. Oh well.

Fred is ded.

Sorry for the long absence! I got swamped with work and a to-do list a mile long. Here is a small panel for today.


I'll let you guys hazard guesses at how Fred died. This panel came about when I was planning a different one where Elly was lecturing Mike on not letting yet another fish die and listing all the fish they've had between Fred and the current Frank. I went online to see what names I could use as an alliterative for 'fish', and realized that there really aren't a lot of names that begin with 'F' in western-speaking countries. So this panel was born instead.

Michael's hair is different than the last time I drew Michael since I'm still experimenting with drawing hair, especially for boys. It's harder to draw short hair than longer hair for me, although I really liked the way Dee's hair turned out in the last TFP.

Getting slightly off topic here, I've been playing with a foe-fic about April and an sequel starring Elizabeth, and was wondering if I should write it, which would be much faster, or take the plunge and draw it all as a comic strip? Or maybe a combination of the two, since I'm a very slow drawer? What do you think?

What Dee should have done...

...the night of the fire. This would have happened right after Mike came out with the firemen, and right before he's hauled off to the ambulance. I think even a doormat like Dee should have had at least some kind of reaction to Mike's stupidity, even a delayed one that we never got to see.

Yep, it's a two-fer for you guys! There's some mistakes *coughprofileheadscough* in my art here, but I wanted to put it up anyway, since practice makes perfect and all that. Did you know that there are no pictures of someone slapping someone else on the internet, or at least none I could find? I had to redraw the second panel a million times, especially Dee's hand until it resembled something like a hand that had delivered a smack.

What Mike did was a big controversy among the Foobiverse! Journal and elsewhere...it even made it into Mike's section on Wiki. I don't think it would have been so bad to put the same sequence of events into the FBOFW strip as it was, if Mike had suffered the consequences by having Dee and everyone else call him out on his stupidity, and possibly suffered some ill health. Really, his lungs should either be fried from the superheated air (Heat rises! Second floor!) and/or smoke inhalation. Mike also should have realized what he had done, apologized, and tried to strike a better balance between his writing and family, since he literally got a second chance at life.

I will admit, however, that when I first read the series of strips about the fire, and this was way before I found the Foobiverse, I read about Mike running back in to get his laptop, shook my head and said, this is SO what I would have done! Because yeah, I'm deathly afraid of losing all my writing and art, all my work, you know? But then I thought about it and would I really have risked my life to go back in for these things? The answer really would have been no. I would have stood outside, ranting and crying and hoping that the firemen could knock the fire down quickly and I could save some of my things afterwards. *knocks on wood*

So...what WAS Francoise up to?

I remember that people got in a tiff about Francoise not being in the final-final FBOFW strip, especially in the panel where Liz and Anthony shows off their new son to Jim and Iris, and in the panel where they are dancing. Everyone else in the immediate family got some panel time, after all, except for Francoise. Well she was there, and I'll show you in a moment after I move and refocus the camera...

Francoise really does have to channel all that mental power into something, or explode from all the FOOBishness.

This came about when I was thinking about Francoise and her situation, and then it hit me. Francoise really is like Matilda. She's a three-year-old with an very advanced vocabulary, and her dad even works at a car dealership! I'm not sure if Liz would go the platinum hair route though!

Ugh, this picture took forever to draw, because I had to draw very tiny people! Very, very tiny...so the ink work is kind of shaky. But, on the other hand, this was the first time I drew that many people in proximity to each other, and two different rooms, and I think I did okay with that. I used to have lines indicating walls and a ceiling, but I think the back room looks okay without defining features like that?

12/20/08 Strip: Michael and Uncle Phil

Here, I borrowed a page from FOOBAR and the too adult comment from a child too young to understand or relate to Phil's ogling of pretty Santa's Elves. What would Michael do if he was aware that the clock has been turned back?

Elizabeth gets married

In August of 2008, Elizabeth, the spinster schoolteacher, finally got married. I decided to draw a picture to celebrate the occasion.


I'll give peanut butter fudge to anyone who knows where I got the idea for this. :)

This was also an attempt on actually inking a picture I drew. I think I did fairly well, and I can finally get over the fear of ruining a picture forever if I dared touch ink to paper. Though I'll have to use a different drawing pad next time since I had the worst time fitting this one in my scanner.