Ok, so if you happen to follow me on twitter (or elsewhere) earlier this week I asked a simple, yet to some, difficult question:

Pick one: Star Wars, Blade Runner, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Dune.

There was no explanation except that I didn’t feel that worrying about what version of a movie or whether I meant the book or movie mattered for my means. Just pick one. The winner by a not so surprising margin was Star Wars.

Now the reason was to pick what order the first 4 posts of my new project. What is that project?

Well… I guess if you are here and you read the title you already know the reason. I’m going to spend 2012 making weekly desktops based on various properties. They’ll be posted here and if you see one you like it will be available for download in, more often than not, 4 sizes; Widescreen (1680×1050); Standard (1600×1200), Phone (320×480); & Tablet (1024×1024).

For now, have a Happy New Year. Enjoy the night and hopefully I’ll see you back here tomorrow for our first installment, Star Wars.

I always knew I was going to be drawing something like this someday. We said goodbye to Frances earlier this week. If you were a reader of Bassetville or maybe just like the drawing click here or on the image itself for a printable PDF of the artwork.

It is back to work for me today after a short little vacation with The Wife. I won’t bore you with the details but lets just say what was sitting and waiting for me when I got to the office did nothing to increase my calm.

One of the things I like best about being a cartoonist is the ability to act out those completely unrealistic impulses in a completely harmless fashion through my drawings. However, this morning I was about a half an inch away from making the the above illustration a reality (but I’d prefer to keep my job).

I shall quickly explain away this morning’s sketch inspiration by way of a link to NPR where you can listen to Muppets: The Green Album yourself.

My in-laws were over Saturday afternoon to see our new house. The Wife asked me to cut up the jalapenos for the salad accompanying our steak. I did so. Then I washed my hands. Followed by showing my Father-in-Law something while lunch was being prepared. Then I washed my hands again. Eating commenced, was delicious and then completed. The washing of the hands happened again.

A few minutes later the beer I had decided it was time to leave and I excused myself to use the facilities and did so. (I also washed my hands after that but it isn’t really germane.) Shortly after I discovered a burning sensation originating from my nether region. Now, I am a faithful man so I knew said burning was not the result of a red light rendezvous.

That knowledge however didn’t help me figure out what was going on for a good 15 minutes or so. During which time I became (understandably) irritable with the attention span of an addle-brained goldfish. Unfortunately my in-laws started to think this had something to do with their presence and not some unseen irritation I didn’t feel like announcing to the world (well, at that time anyway).

At this point I had deduced what happened, informed my wife discreetly and excused myself again to look up remedies. I knew to drink milk after eating hot food (I AM from outside of Buffalo originally) but surely it wouldn’t be applicable as a topical aid (it is). With relief in site I went back up stairs to the sound of muffled snickers and the new found knowledge that my beloved sucks at keeping secrets (which was a good call because I hadn’t realized my mood was making our guests feel like they were no longer welcome).

Meekly, I poured myself a glass of milk and excused myself for one final time to wash most delicate of areas (particularly at this point). The relief was instantaneous and we were able to have a good laugh about it for the remainder of the visit. But I’m sure if you’ve made it this far I suppose you are looking for a moral to this story and I would have to say it is this:

If you ever come over for a visit bring your own glassware because I can’t remember which one I used.