How to Greet People

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How you greet someone can set the tone for your interactions throughout the rest of the day. An awkward greeting may well lead to an awkward day. Then, when the next day starts, it’s hard for your greeting to be anything but awkward, which in turn affects that day, and the resultant feedback loop is how I explain my difficulty making friends when I was in school.

Of course, the fact that I put so much thought into this kind of thing might also have had something to do with it. Also, my habit of using words like resultant can’t have helped either.

 

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How to Greet People

in

How you greet someone can set the tone for your interactions throughout the rest of the day. An awkward greeting may well lead to an awkward day. Then, when the next day starts, it’s hard for your greeting to be anything but awkward, which in turn affects that day, and the resultant feedback loop is how I explain my difficulty making friends when I was in school.

Of course, the fact that I put so much thought into this kind of thing might also have had something to do with it. Also, my habit of using words like resultant can’t have helped either.

 

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As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Avoid a Pointless Argument

in

The reaction to this comic gave me a harsh lesson in the malleability of words. Many people agreed with me about what constitutes barbecue, but far more did not, and many seemed to believe that I owed them a personal apology for forcing them to call me ignorant.

In several of my later comics I take the position that your life will become easier if you just accept that words mean what people think they mean, regardless of what the OED says. That attitude started here.

Note from Missy: AH! Now I see why we had a conversation yesterday about how my family prepared hot dogs when I was a kid. Yeah, the idea of boiling them makes me shudder. Grill all the way.

Also: I love the playing around with the bottom margin in the 3rd panel. Sadly, newspapers would hate this.

Note from Scott: Yeah, I had only just started playing with breaking the panel when I got picked up by Seattle Weekly, so I had to stop it.

 

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How to Avoid a Pointless Argument

in

The reaction to this comic gave me a harsh lesson in the malleability of words. Many people agreed with me about what constitutes barbecue, but far more did not, and many seemed to believe that I owed them a personal apology for forcing them to call me ignorant.

In several of my later comics I take the position that your life will become easier if you just accept that words mean what people think they mean, regardless of what the OED says. That attitude started here.

Note from Missy: AH! Now I see why we had a conversation yesterday about how my family prepared hot dogs when I was a kid. Yeah, the idea of boiling them makes me shudder. Grill all the way.

Also: I love the playing around with the bottom margin in the 3rd panel. Sadly, newspapers would hate this.

Note from Scott: Yeah, I had only just started playing with breaking the panel when I got picked up by Seattle Weekly, so I had to stop it.

 

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As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Keep Your Christmas Gift Secret

in

Panel one is an example of what happens when I actually try to draw something. I’d call the results serviceable. The action taking place on a field of unbroken snow made it easier, but I can’t help but look at the snowman’s head and reflect on the fact that it’s probably the least round circle I’ve ever seen. It’s either a poorly drawn circle, or a terribly drawn square.

Note from Missy: And here I was going to say, “See? He has actual decent cartooning skills!” Freehand circles are almost as hard to draw as hands. Or horses. Or bicycles.

 

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How to Keep Your Christmas Gift Secret

in

Panel one is an example of what happens when I actually try to draw something. I’d call the results serviceable. The action taking place on a field of unbroken snow made it easier, but I can’t help but look at the snowman’s head and reflect on the fact that it’s probably the least round circle I’ve ever seen. It’s either a poorly drawn circle, or a terribly drawn square.

Note from Missy: And here I was going to say, “See? He has actual decent cartooning skills!” Freehand circles are almost as hard to draw as hands. Or horses. Or bicycles.

 

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As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Take a Break

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This is actually the second variation on How to write a comic when you have no ideas, not the third. I think I scrapped another, and that’s why I said this was the third, not the second.

I was out of ideas, so I wrote two comics about not having ideas. Now I’m left sitting here trying to think of what to say about this comic that I didn’t say about the last one.

The irony is not lost on me.

Note from Missy: And yet you managed to come up with ideas for another 9 years after this, which is pretty impressive.  Also, I’ve always loved the “Scotty, you have to come up with something!” line.

 

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How to Take a Break

in

This is actually the second variation on How to write a comic when you have no ideas, not the third. I think I scrapped another, and that’s why I said this was the third, not the second.

I was out of ideas, so I wrote two comics about not having ideas. Now I’m left sitting here trying to think of what to say about this comic that I didn’t say about the last one.

The irony is not lost on me.

Note from Missy: And yet you managed to come up with ideas for another 9 years after this, which is pretty impressive.  Also, I’ve always loved the “Scotty, you have to come up with something!” line.

 

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How to Write a Self-Evaluation

in

I wrote this comic while I was working at a corporate office. The Mullet Boss character wasn’t really based on any one specific person, and his look was basically me with a poorly drawn moustache, chin, and mullet.

After I wrote this comic and put it on my site, the office got a new boss. He was a guy from Arkansas who tended to wear suit jackets but no ties. I always got along well with him.

Later, Basic Instructions started running in Seattle Weekly. The editor selected this comic as the first one to run, even though it was a few weeks old at that point. I was absolutely delighted, right up until I had to have the awkward conversation with my new boss explaining how I had written the comic before I’d even met him. (He didn’t have a moustache or a mullet, but as I said, he was from Arkansas, which made him sort of sensitive about both of those hair choices.)

Question from Missy: Didn’t he still believe that it was based on him anyway? And he kind of liked that?

Note from Scott: Yeah, he never truly bought it, but it seemed to amuse him.

 

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How to Write a Self-Evaluation

in

I wrote this comic while I was working at a corporate office. The Mullet Boss character wasn’t really based on any one specific person, and his look was basically me with a poorly drawn moustache, chin, and mullet.

After I wrote this comic and put it on my site, the office got a new boss. He was a guy from Arkansas who tended to wear suit jackets but no ties. I always got along well with him.

Later, Basic Instructions started running in Seattle Weekly. The editor selected this comic as the first one to run, even though it was a few weeks old at that point. I was absolutely delighted, right up until I had to have the awkward conversation with my new boss explaining how I had written the comic before I’d even met him. (He didn’t have a moustache or a mullet, but as I said, he was from Arkansas, which made him sort of sensitive about both of those hair choices.)

Question from Missy: Didn’t he still believe that it was based on him anyway? And he kind of liked that?

Note from Scott: Yeah, he never truly bought it, but it seemed to amuse him.

 

You can comment on this comic on Facebook.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).