Long ago I drew some poses of a friend in Seattle named Mike (I have several friends named Mike in Seattle). I liked the way the drawings came out, so I used him as a movie producer in a strip last year. A few months later I needed a new coworker character. I had always liked the Mike drawings, and felt they had been wasted on a one-use character, so I recycled him as a co-worker. Last week I needed a strip to rerun (the reruns are over now, btw) and I grabbed the strip with the movie producer because I like it. Today I sat down to post the strip that ran in newspapers a month ago, and lo and behold, it's one with the co-worker character.

I could insult your intelligence by saying that it's the same guy, and that the major motion picture "The Least Dangerous Game" was such a bust that it destroyed the career of it's stars (William H. Macy and Vivica A. Fox) and left the producer so destitute that he had to take a day job at my office ... and that's just what I'm going to do.

It's the same guy.

So, again I drag out my favorite whipping boy, "Mullet Boss." I should point out that at the time I invented this character I was working for a man from the south who wore dress jackets without ties, but this character is in no way based on him. It's mostly based on a mullet wearing racist I worked for during college.

One advantage to living in Orlando is that there's an abundance of fireworks. I got to see a display at one of the local theme parks the other night that was a tribute to the cultures of the world and how they interplay with each other. The show began with a mammoth fireball that caused an uncomfortable amount of heat from hundreds of feet away. The grand finale was a giant globe cracking apart and exploding in a shower of sparks.

I don't think I took away the message that the show's creators had hoped I would.

My schedule is approaching normalcy again. That means that you'll only have to endure the repeats for one more Thursday morning. Thanks for baring with me.

Also, I've received word that copies of my book are actually making their way into the hands of people who have purchased them!

There is no way the actual plot of this show was anywhere near as amazing as the plot lines I'm imagining.

So, here's the original strip that inspired the "Extra Joke" strip. It's the first appearance of "Future Meyer" and of the They Might Be Giants t-shirt you've now seen a million times.

Within the next few days you should notice that the merchandise link on my site will switch from my current vendor to a new one*. I decided to change the entire store when I was researching the custom t-shirt project (More on that in a day or three). My new vendor will allow you to put my artwork on a greater variety of shirts. More sizes, more styles and more colors. Also, the print quality is much closer to what you find in stores than my current supplier delivers. I'm pretty stoked.

*The store is functional, but not fully polished. I've included the link so you can go check it out if you like.

Yes, I'm making progress on the shirt thing.

It's one of those classic situations where in trying to do something new you end up having to completely rework something you thought you already had done. In this case I liked the sample shirt I got from the new supplier so much that I'm moving all of my shirt sales to them.

Yes, that is a Psychonauts reference (if you own an Xbox 360 and haven't downloaded Psychonauts from Xbox Originals and played it, you should) in the Extra Joke. Speaking of the extra joke, I intend to post the original time travel strip as my rerun Thursday morning.

As a kid, Beaker was always my favorite. Beaker's voice in the Muppet Babies cartoon was done by Frank Welker, the same guy who was the voice of Megatron. How's that for a shocking truth!?

Thank you all for your input about my custom infinite shirt offer. I have decided that I am going to do it. I hope to be taking orders this time next week, and yes, they will be available in countries other than the United States.

I have a test shirt on the way now from a new vendor, who's printing process will allow greater flexibility. My only sticking point now is to figure out a price point. I threw $30 out there as a ballpark, but I'm not certain about it. I want the shirts to be affordable, but on the other hand I am going to be putting some effort into the artwork. I can't exactly go lowball on the price and make it up in volume.

Today's strip is a joke I wrote long ago and decided to finally share. You'll most likely be getting rerun strips on the next two Thursday mornings. I'm sorry about that, but I have to set up the logistics to sell the shirts and the autographed books and to receive, autograph and return books you send me, AND I have family coming to town (which seems to happen more often since I effectively moved to Disney World).

I'm considering offering custom "Coolest T-shirts."

The deal would be that you send me a photo (at least 1000 pixels wide) of yourself facing the camera wearing a t-shirt, from which I draw a portrait and make the image. Then I'll make the shirt available for $30. I'm considering doing a $10 PayPal deposit up front, then $20 for the shirt. Even if you don't want the shirt afterwards I'd send you a high rez PDF of the portrait.

Does that sound fair? How many of you would be interested.

The strip is up.

The shirt is available.

The cartoonist's wife is concerned for her husband's sanity.

Now for the book news. There was a small mix up between the publisher, myself and Amazon. The book does not come out till mid month. Sorry for the confusion.

The strip "How to Make Yourself Spooky" was inspired by a coworker of mine who announced that he was going to do his scary voice, then did a spot-on Santa voice.

Those of you who recognized the costume the Boss was wearing as being Sean Connery's costume from "Zardoz" were correct. For those who can't quite picture this, below is a still from the film showing several "Exterminators" in action.

70's Sci-fi! CATCH THE FEVER!!!

"How to Apologize When You Don't Know What You Did Wrong" is based on nothing more than the normal level of disingenuous butt-kissery we all have to do to remain employed/married/a member of society.

So, according to Amazon my book is available September 1st. Dark Horse's site says the 3rd. I'm told I'll get my copies to sell autographed in a couple of weeks. If you've already pre-ordered, please know that I'm setting up a mailbox so you can mail me the book with a self-addressed-stamped-envelope. Do so and I'll happily sign that bad boy and ship it back to you. If you wanna throw a couple of bucks donation in there I won't complain, but it's not mandatory. Buying the book is more than enough to make me happy.