Ok, I did no such thing tonight, but I couldn’t not use that phrase once it popped into my head.

I went to a gathering of Seattle’s cartoonist society. Or… group. Gathering. Once known as the Friends of the Nib, they’re now known as the Bureau of Drawers. (Say draw-wers. Now say, “Rural juror.”) I guess there’s been some splintering and reorganizing; my first meeting saw me witnessing the voting on a new name. (Rejects: Pencil Friends, Sketch Machines, Registered Sketch Offenders, among others) I don’t give a fig for politics, so what mattered to me was how fun it was.

Man, I love hanging out with artists. I was stunned at the casual beauty of some of what people around me were creating. As I said to one of the, um, Bureaucrats, one of the best things about these meetings will be the encouragement to step up my game a little. It’s easy to be the Office Artist if you have a decent measure of drawing ability and willingness to draw anywhere and anything. Keeping up with professionals is a little different, especially if you hope to be one.

I’m a little glad I brought a low-key project tonight. Instead of wielding ink to make some Great Damn Work of Lasting Art, I did the final thumbnails for Furlough two. I’d done preliminaries to get the page count down (did I mention it’s 35 PAGES LONG OH MAN), but I wanted something clearer and more visually ambitious to work from, once I got to penciling. I’m planning on starting tomorrow, because I need it to be done by the end of May (if not earlier) so I can get copies printed for the Olympia Comics Festival.

I also witnessed more evidence for the following hypothesis: a group of artists, given sufficient supplies and time, will eventually get to the subject of penises.* Conversational subject, subject of art, one or the other or both, it WILL come to that. And I love it. It’s always hilarious, and it can result in some surprisingly interesting art.

*Alternative hypothesis, given that I taint the scientific sample: all gatherings of cartoonists that include me will eventually get to the subject of penises. This warrants further investigation.