Samurai Millie

Samurai Millie

Various social media outlets recently alerted me to the fact that I can now purchase samurai armor suitable for pets....if we had any pets that were willing to wear such outfits.

An avid knitter during my childhood, I made more that one cat sweater for my disgruntled, curmudgeonly cat, Muffin. If I could manage to actually get the sweater on, she would promote collapse on the floor as if mortally wounded and refuse to move until the wretched abomination was removed. I can only imagine the enthusiasm with which she would have greeted a suit of cat sized samurai armor.

Perhaps my sons' uncle and aunt's good natured dog Millie would be more amenable.

But luckily for her, I only imagined her wearing the armor.

Deadpool in Fallout Land

I keep hoping that the pressure to have two napkins ready to go every camp day will lead to some sort of increase in drawing skill if I don't have time to fuss over the individual napkins.

Not so much so far. 

We do have results like this one. It might be a image of what the Deadpool mod looks like in Fallout 4. I did not have time to confirm the details. 

I liked the idea of the giant hammer. And the decomposing Starlight motel sign is always fun. 

My son said it was......ok.

Bear with Incorrect Horn

(Follow-up to Bear with Incorrect Wings on July 2nd)

My younger son was still working on his winged bear gargoyle sculpture at summer camp last week.

Apparently he told some of his fellow campers that he was going to put a unicorn horn on it, and one of them informed him that unicorns and unicorn parts were too girly. Just like the color pink. My son was happy to tell me how ridiculous he thought all this was...about the unicorns. 

But he does have some concerns about the color pink. 

Not too reveal too much, but in toddlerhood, both of my male children had a serious affection for pink objects...and particularly pink shoes. There might have been some plastic, heeled, open-toe dress up shoes in circulation at our house. And there might have been some pink Mary Jane style shoes that may even have been worn to preschool until the class bully nastily expressed his opinion about the the girliness of the shoes and their wearer. Maybe this happened. I cannot confirm the details.

Maintaining the appropriate level of manliness in preschool and lower school can be a strain on a boy. 

Sometimes they need access to unicorn horns and pink stuff too.

Deadpool Celebrates the 4th of July

Deadpool Celebrates the Fourth of July:

Bomb Pops are definitely more my fixation than that of my sons.  I remember many red, white and blue popsicles from my own childhood. I might have liked them almost as much as fudgsicles. My kids, however, certainly wouldn't say no to one.

They are happy about pretty much anything that comes out of an ice cream truck.  Apparently the truck makes whatever it is taste it so much better. They are totally unmoved by the prospect of fancy gelatos or homemade organic freezer pops or ice creams in interesting flavors. 

Perhaps Deadpool might feel the same.

(Yes, he's sucking it right through his mask. Why not?)

Minions Offer Thanos a Bomb Pop

Happy 4th from the Minions and Despicable Thanos:

We saw the new Despicable Me movie yesterday.

And my younger son says he can't wait for "Avengers: Infinity War"

Of course, this image is a retread...or part of a series...
From 2015

From 2013

Spellcasting in Skyrim

My older son has been doing a lot of this lately.

The hands are much farther apart on the screen, of course.

Drawing two napkins per day is proving to be a challenge, so I've had to chose some more simple images than usual.

Can you tell?

Bear with Incorrect Wings

Our younger son is working on a "gargoyle sculpture" at summer camp this week. His plan was to make a bear with wings. After I drew this napkin, he informed me that it is a bear with "devil wings!" 

Of course it is. 

What was I thinking?

If John Constantine Were a Pug

Our younger son is still interested in the Marvel's Constantine character. He appreciates John's seedy, morally questionable nature...and his trench coat. 

We've read a couple comic series and watched the Keanu Reeves movie, but for some reason haven't dipped into the recent TV show yet.

I couldn't decide whether I should draw him in his comic, Keanu or Matt Ryan form.

The obvious solution was to draw him as a pug.

And on a side note, summer camp has started and both kids are taking a packed lunch. This means that theoretically I am on the hook for two napkins a night. We have some napkins left over from the proceeding school year, but they are proving to be strangely unsatisfying to the napkin recipients. So far I have kept up with the demand, despite the fact that I can no longer stay up late to do anything, much less draw on napkins.

But I have fallen far behind on the posting of the napkins.

And, as my sons can tell you, the quality of the output is really suffering.

Happy Father's Day

Straight Man with distorted offspring)

We attended two graduations last week, one marking the transition from lower to middle school and one from eighth grade to high school. There were opportunities to wear white dress shirts and pose awkwardly with a parent for a photo to mark the occasion. 

Due to competing schedules, there was no opportunity to photograph all three males together in their white shirts, so I had to imagine one for the purpose of napkin commemoration.

I was pretty careful while drawing my spouse, but let the kids' faces slide a bit out of control into strange distorted territory. Perhaps this was somehow appropriate...

I think we can say that we have now crossed the Rubicon to full blown adolescence...(and to full blown sympathetic adolescence in the case of the younger child.) Our kids were never compliant, amenable, or slightly impressed by adult authority even when they were tiny...But now what?

Sometimes I can put a positive spin on this situation: Look what remarkably independent and tenacious people they are! Other times, I am exhausted by struggling over every transaction, and am reduced to shouting, "Because I said so!" This approach was not particularly effective when they were wearing diapers and is of course no better parenting now.

I've never felt like I was very good at the whole parenting endeavor. I was introduced to abject failure early and often: We were unable to master basic feeding, sleeping, and elimination right out of the gate. Other new parents commiserated about a baby crying for 40 minutes, but we could bring the conversation to a stunned halt with our personal best of 10 1/2 hours...for many days in a row.

But we have all survived, and as previously mentioned, our kids are not only still alive, but are very sturdy and determined people. This will no doubt pay off in the end, right?

So, to my partner in parenting: Happy Father's Day! 

Because I said so! 

Love you!

The Bloody Screecher from the Ether Comic

Our younger son really enjoyed Matt Kindt and David Rubín’s Ether comic. 

He particularly liked the Bloody Screecher, a toothy tiny bird capable of making mind bogglingly horrible sounds. 

In the Ether, the Screecher sits on the finger of a bird like person named Tipo, but when I started to draw it on the napkin, a strange political subtext started to develop.

Titan Lunch

Balanced Lunch for Titans:

A well fed American child with a side of broccoli.

Our younger son would very much like to go to the Universal Studios park in Osaka and feed himself to a Titan.

Sadly, there is no "Attack on Titan" area in the Universal Park here in the US.

Kong and Logan Paul

‪Dog eat Dawg? ‬

‪Continuing our YouTuber/internet famous dog series. My son watches vlogger Logan Paul and his new puppy Kong (named for his size of course)‬

Kong (@kongdasavage) only has 712,000 followers on Instagram. He has a bit of work ahead of him to catch up to fellow Pomeranian JiffPom (@jiffpom) who has 5.1 million.

John Constantine and Doctor Fate

John Constantine Warms up his Lunch:

(Presumably there's a cold pack in his Doctor Fate Helmet lunchbox)

We watched the DC animated movie "Justice League Dark" and now our younger son is very interested in the John Constantine character.  He has not seen the recent TV show, nor the previous Keanu Reeves movie, but I fear it will be hard to avoid both.

Doctor Fate is also cool at our house lately, probably courtesy of the impending release of Injustice 2. 

When I Google "Constantine and Doctor Fate" I get results that suggest some sort of appearance of Doctor Fate's helmet on the Constantine show.  I did not pursue the specifics.

Googling does not reveal the existence of a lunchbox in the shape of Doctor Fate's Helmet, however.

Surely this must be a temporary oversight. 

Happy Mother's Day Grandma

As usual, my rather pathetic offering for a significant day is a napkin for my mother.

My kids gave me the gift of letting me sleep in today...

They slept in later than I did, so it was not a high effort gift.

But once awake and reminded that today was Mother's Day, they were quick to assert that it still counts as a gift that no one woke me up early.

I did not wake my mother up early this morning either.
No doubt she was grateful.

Big Brother

The older brother was unable to join us for this iteration as he was engaged in super important online activities at the time.

But I find I almost prefer this picture of the napkin with the younger sibling with his second, superego-like head.

Big brother is always there in spirit if not in the flesh.

Bears at Home on the Couch

Sometimes the bear is your bro:

My younger son really enjoyed Shannon Hale's "Real Friends," illustrated by LeUyen Pham.

"Real Friends" is the semi autobiographical story of a middle schooler's fraught relationships with her friends at school and her volatile older sister who is sometimes portrayed as a giant bear. 

Which brings us to the question of which sibling is the Grizzly at our house?

My vote is: 

Both. 

Obviously.

Baby Groot and Rocket from GotG Vol 2

‪Too adorable to kill:‬ ‪

But trash pandas might not like broccoli. 

Groot offers some greens to Rocket Raccoon for lunch. ‬ ‪

Yes, of course my kids liked the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie‬.

Kirby Fox at the Skate Park

Old Dog with Tricks:

Tanner Fox is known as a social media personality and "professional stunt scooter rider" 

His 13 year old golden retriever, Kirby is not necessarily known for his scooter prowess (although he does have 410,000 followers on Instagram)
...but we can imagine what goes on behind the scenes.

This is another napkin in our series of internet famous dogs for my dog deprived son.

Who should be next?