Month: January 2007

I like to stay at whatever hotel is nearest the place I need to be. Sometimes that’s a 4-star luxury hotel. Sometimes – such as today – it’s more of a “what’s a star?” situation. My first clue that this isn’t the Bellagio presented itself when I called ahead to…

No jokes today on “serious Sunday.” Many of you asked about my voice. As I’ve explained in this blog, about two years ago I suddenly acquired a bizarre and exotic voice problem called a spasmodic dysphonia. I couldn’t speak for about 18 months unless I was on stage doing my…

Few things make me feel less manly than getting my car serviced. On some level, I feel I should be doing that stuff myself, even though I know the engine was designed on Krypton and forged in the fires of Mordor. Still, I feel uneasy that I can’t fix it…

It seems as if every time I have a thought that I’m sure no one in the universe has ever had, I later find out that lots of people have had the same one. For example, in my earlier writings on this blog I mentioned that I often imagine conversations…

Tell me what makes you the most curious about the life of minor celebrity cartoonist and I’ll answer as many questions as I can in a few hours.

Thanks for the questions. These are all I had time for. The person who asked the question is listed BELOW my response. It’s a TypePad thing. Despite the many committments and responsibilities, how often do you stand in the shower in the morning and think, “Wow, I’ve made it! I’m…

Imagine that we find life on Mars but it is very tiny – say the size of a microbe. Then let’s say that those Martian life forms are super intelligent, and friendly, and peaceful. The only thing wrong with them is that they are really, really small. And Mars is…

I’ll always wonder how it got published. It was the naughtiest comic I’ve ever created, at least intentionally. As I recall, it sailed through the system without a hitch. Here it is. 4-25-98 Comic (click it to enlarge) My best guess as to why editors allowed it in newspapers is…

A reader e-mailed me to point out that we humans have eyes in the front of our heads, as opposed to the sides, so our design is more like hunters than prey. Hunters need good front-vision eyes that help them focus on the prey. Prey need good side-view vision so…

I promised myself I wouldn’t write about free will again. But so many people sent me this link to a story in the New York Times that I feel compelled to share it, ironically: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/science/02free.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=955a97875084f083&ex=1167886800&pagewanted=all. I won’t add anything to the NY Times article. I just wanted to show you…

I was surprised by the disgust that I generated with my post about Saddam’s execution. People said they’d never read my blog again. Other people said they had lost all respect for me. My reaction to this disgust was “Someone once respected me? Cool!” But I also spent a lot…