Hi! Here I am. As I said in my various blog updates, it’s been a stupid-hectic time for me over the past month. Elaine left me alone with the kids for 10 days and went to Jordan. That’s a country, FYI, and not another dude. Then I had to plan my folks’ dual 70th birthday party, which was a bit stressful, but it did end up going great, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND DAD!! All along (and now still) I’ve been racing against a big deadline at work… so basically taking these past few weeks to focus on all that was definitely necessary. Thanks for your patience…

(In case you missed it, the morning this happened - Rocket Hits Resort on Border of Jordan and Israel - I got a text from Elaine’s sister saying that everyone was fine over there, and so I didn’t think twice about it. It was only when Elaine got home that she told me not only was she in Aqaba when it happened… she was at that particular “Resort”. A cab driver out front was killed, but otherwise Elaine and her family were fine. It’s probably a good thing she didn’t tell me ’til she got home)

SO with this episode I thought I’d change things up a bit. I’ve actually been thinking about playing around with my layouts for a while, and I thought it’d be a good time to try it, coming out of my break. Hope you dig it. Looking at it now I see a lot that I shoulda/coulda done better, but I’ll chalk it up to learning on the job; otherwise I kinda like it. Lemme know what you think!

You’ll notice I also changed the font. I like it better. I didn’t give much thought to the font I’d been using since I started aLp back in 2004, beyond, “it kinda looks like Berke Breathed’s lettering in Bloom County”. Rock solid reasoning aside, I think I finally realized it wasn’t the easiest font in the world to read. Hope you like this change too.

Oh yeah and something else I wasn’t exactly sure about was the punchline. Twat me on Twitter or Fan me on Facebook to see my alternate punchline for today’s ep coming later today.

Last thing: I wanna give a holler to Scenes from a Multiverse, Jon Rosenberg’s new daily sci-fi/geek/hilarious comic. Jon’s a swell super guy and I’m loving SFAM so far. Check it out!

OH YEAH, APPEARANCES: I’m gonna be at SPX in Bethesda, MD on Sep. 11-12, sitting with Topatoco, and then the following weekend at Wild Pig Con in Springfield, NJ on Sep. 19. I’ll probably have fun new stuff for you to check out… see ya soon?

Hey everyone… sorry but I gotta slow down a bit again, if only temporarily. A lot of things are ramping up for me right now and I gotta be able to focus, or else I’ll screw all of it up. This dance probably looks familiar to you, but the difference this time is I still got plenty of comics in me, not to mention a storyline I’m dying to complete. HONEST!

You can expect new episodes “every 1-2 weeks” now… so this ain’t a hiatus, or the end. When I took breaks in the past I had doubts about the future of aLp, but not this time. aLp is gonna live on for a lot of reasons. I just need to lift the stress that my once-a-week deadline was strangling me with. Hope you guys can understand. As I said, I’m hoping this is temporary and I’ll get back to at least weekly eventually.

As usual, the best ways to catch all updates are: follow me on Twitter, join the mailing list, or become a fan of - oh sorry, “like” - the aLp Facebook page.

So as always, thanks for being super great and reading my comics… and SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!!

Edit, Wed. 8/11: Workin’ on the new comic, sorry it’s been forever. Crazy hectic time for me, with Elaine leaving me alone with the kids for 10 days, a deadline at work, and planning my folks’ dual 70th birthday party (which went great, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM & DAD!!). Taking these past few weeks to focus on all that was definitely necessary. Hoping to get back on the horse ASAP, thanks a ton for your patience…

Edit, Thu. 7/29: So… I’m having trouble getting the time to finish the next comic, I’ve been alone with the kids and they’ve got me tied up in a chair. They released me only so I could tell you this. The lesson is always be wary when I say “see you next week”.

Edit, Wed. 7/21: No new episode this week; please see this post about needing to ease up on my update schedule a bit.

Imagine allll the people… sharinggg all the girls

GEEZ LOUISE this took forever to do. It’s probably the episode that’s taken the longest for me to finish, like, ever. Congratulations to me, still raising the bar for eating up all my time and being late. Good ol’ Bill Clinton’s fun to write - Abe may be horny and a bit kinky, but Bill’s just a hardcore sleazebag - but man is he tough to render. He didn’t show up for our scheduled shoot this week, so I had to settle for random footage of him I found on the internet!

I’m not gonna have time to do up a proper Predators review, but here’s my quick impressions. Unfortunately, I thought it was pretty lame. In a nutshell, it felt like a lesser director re-made Predator, basically. There wasn’t anything new. Execution aside, at least all the other A/P/AvP movies tried to bring something new to the table - underwater Aliens! Predator Takes Manhattan! I get that they were trying to go retro with this, but they went too far and just made a lame version of Predator.

I don’t wanna bum you out or stop you from seeing it; obviously there’s plenty of people and critics who liked it. In a complete vaccuum I would’ve probably liked it too. But when everyone in the world already knows what a Predator looks like and what it does, it’s understandably hard to make a new movie where the characters spend half the time wondering what they’re up against. Say what you want about AvP and AvP:R, but at least they were chock full of fun moments.

So what’d you think?

Late again, jiggity jig! Power outage on my block; my kids’ 5th birthday; Toy Story 3. That’s all I have to say about that!

Back to the storyline next week, but for this week:

Hey, PREDATORS!   AM I RIGHT?

When I first heard they were making this movie, I wrote: “Honestly I’m not sure we need more movies about (I’m guessing) Predators, but I won’t be complaining, as long as it’s actually half-decent.” That’s still the way I feel, and whoa, it looks like it might actually be half-decent, at least according to the reviews. So even though I waited for both AvP’s 1 and 2 to come out on video before I saw ‘em, I’ll be catching Predators tomorrow when it opens.

What about you guys? Are you pumped, or are you PUMPED? (Third option: are you not pumped?)

Hey, I wanted to say this about the current storyline if you haven’t heard me say it before… I KNOW IT’S TAKING FOREVER AND I’M SORRY YOU GUYS. I’m glad that most of you are enjoying it but I also know that there’s at least some of you who aren’t - maybe cuz it’s taking so long or maybe you just plain don’t like it.

I just wanted to try something new, y’know, and I’m pretty much happy with it, but still I do hate that it’s taking forever. The first problem, of course, is that I only have enough energy to do (almost) one update a week. On top of that, I’m trying not to let the jokes slip, and it’s hard to be funny and keep the story hummin’ along at the same time, with that one update a week. So, yeah, it does get to me when weeks go by and the story hasn’t budged much. But I’m trying not to let go of why you came here in the first place, which is for the yuks. I know you like the yuks.

So I’m gonna keep doin’ my best to make you all laugh and if it takes me another forever to finish telling the story I set out to tell, then sorry. I’m not gonna half-ass it cuz that’d be unfair to me and anyone invested in it. I just hope you’re diggin’ it… if you are, let me know so I don’t feel like I’m just a raving lunatic. And if you ain’t, well thanks for stickin’ with me for so long. I’ll just be here pluggin away the best I can.

THX GUYS I LUV U

Home again, home again, jiggity jig or whatever that means!!!

GRRAARGH is probably how you all feel too, since I took last week off and with today’s update it’s still not clear where (when) the hell we are (or is it). Lemme say this about the current storyline if you haven’t heard me say it before… I KNOW IT’S TAKING FOREVER AND I’M SORRY. I wrote a few more words about this and put it in a blog post here.

Anyway I was on vacation with my beautiful wife and kids all last week and it was epic. Still catching up with things but my batteries are recharged and all that. See you next week.

Edit, Wed., 6/23: … aaaaand there’ll be no new comic this week… I’ve been on vacation and I thought I’d have time to finish a new comic, but who knew I’d actually, you know, enjoy my vacation so much. Sorry I don’t plan ahead well. Obviously. See ya next week!

A day late, and I don’t know if any of this makes any sense! Anyway, here!

Edit, Wed., 6/16: Sorry, this week’s comic will be a day late… you’ll see it tomorrow. Thx as always for your patience!!! Sigh.

So yeah, Cash Cab… it’s a fun little show on the Discovery Channel that I love because it’s set in NYC, and the questions, host, and atmosphere are all nice and breezy. Also, I happen to know at least 7 people (that I’m aware of) who’ve been on it. Below, my pals Dave and Jen kick some ass:

I guess you wouldn’t be surprised to hear that I’m nerdy enough to also be a semi-regular at a trivia night - though I’m not actually that good, I swear - and our team calls itself Cash Cab for Cutie. So add that all up and yeah, I’ve been waiting for a while now to do these comics.

Lastly, about George Carlin… the man was my hero. Watch his classic 7 Dirty Words bit again, if you haven’t in a while.

Unfortunately I don’t have time to write much right now - I’ve got a date on the planet Pandora tonight (and believe it or not I’m not talking about Avatar, hmmm) - but here’s this week’s comic! Enjoy.

Thanks to Shari for getting me the Cash Cab footage I needed so quickly, and to my Wasteland Wednesday crew for helping me work out the punchline.

CASH CAB

More on that next week when we get our trivia / time-travelin’ on.

In case you missed it, I posted this Casting Call last week. Since I actually don’t have a whole lot of time to be re-mastering a whole bunch of episodes - believe it or not - I think I’m mostly looking for girls who want to sit across from Abe on Speed Dates. But I’d still like to hear from all interested parties for all parts listed! Come one, come all! Unless you’re scary.