#984 – Perfect Experience…
I think I bit off a little too much than I thought I could chew this Spring…
What do I mean by that? Well, many of you know that my son is autistic. An equal number of you may know that every Spring/early Summer, he plays in a Little League Challenger’s division. Even more of you may know that I always volunteer to be an assistant coach for whatever team he is on. I love going out there and interacting with all of the kids that have one special need or another. There is nothing better in the world to pitch them a ball or catch a ball from them and have their faces light up with the best, brightest smiles you will ever find on this planet.
Some of you may also know that I used to play in a men’s recreational baseball league every summer for almost 25 years – yes, you read that number correctly. I don’t play in that league any more mainly because the convention season realistically prevents me from doing so. The league isn’t cheap and I would end up missing half the games due to various convention shows. I still miss it. Badly. But the way I try to make up for it is by being a volunteer coach for any kids baseball team that needs me.
The last year, I started coaching 13 year olds in an instructional league that teaches them the difference between a 60 foot diamond and a regulation, 90 foot diamond. That started in the fall. This Spring, I was asked again to help coach and I jumped at the chance to do so again.
But I had no idea the time commitment it would be. It was a heck of a lot different than fall baseball was a few months ago. Plus, in addition to all of the conventions I had already committed to plus all of the commission requests I was fortunate enough to secure, this has been an INCREDIBLY busy April, May and June.
And that’s not even including all of my Webcomic Alliance commitments I had to meet as well in terms of podcasts and articles for the site as well.
For a long while, I was doing pretty well balancing ALL of those commitments and responsibilities. But eventually, lack of time finally caught up with me and I hit my wall.
That’s been one of the main reasons why the strip has been so inconsistent of late… I had to make a choice between sleep, completing paid commission work or doing the strip. Sleep and paid commission work will always come before the strip because people who have paid me money for original art should get their art as soon as they can. Paid commission versus a free strip? There really shouldn’t be any debate. It’s a no-brainer. People who order commissions will always come before the free strip. That’s just how it will always be.
The good news, however, is that all of my baseball commitments ended last Saturday so that adds a LOT of time to my schedule now. Well, it adds a lot of time to my schedule once I get back from…
Wizard World Philly this weekend!
Yup… don’t forget… starting on Thursday, I will be at the Philly Convention Center until Sunday evening selling all of the Capes & Babes books, doing caricature sketch cards, commissions, sketch covers and drawing people as cartoon werewolves strictly for tips, And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I will be in Artist Alley at Table B8 – yeah, kinda like Bingo!
Here’s another handy-dandy map to help you (click the image for a bigger version):
I hope to see all of you there this weekend. It’s my first ever Wizard World show, so let’s see how this goes, shall we?
