Here’s the next update to the old graphic novel;
If you would like to review Chapter 1, use the following link. https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2018/11/24/hidden-kingdom-chapter-1-complete/
Category Archives: Paffooney
Hidden Kingdom (Chapter 2 through page 13)
Filed under comic strips, fairies, Hidden Kingdom, humor, Paffooney
Cartoonity
“My name is Michael Beyer, and I am an amateur cartoonist.”
“Hi, Michael!” says the entire group of CA group-therapy participants.
(CA stands for Cartoonists Anonymous.)
“I have to admit, I am guilty of giving in to the urge to draw cartoons. I know how it can fill lives with slapstick pain and derisive laughter, and I give in to the urge anyway.”
“So, what did you draw that you have to be ashamed of now?” asked one mad-eyed cartoonist with a pencil lodged behind each of his large ears.
“I made a very unfortunate video to post on YouTube that was supposed to be How-to-draw Cartooning. But everything went wrong. You couldn’t see my drawings in the video. It was not adequately lit. I look like a doofus (which probably can’t be cured) in the video. And instead of thinking twice or editing it, I posted it anyway.”
“Wow!” said a rather ugly cartoonist lady, “that is really bad. You have a seriously bad case of cartoonity.”
“Cartoonity?” I responded stupidly.
“The condition of needing love for your cartoons so bad that you will risk anything to make people look at them and like them,” said the wise group therapist (who looked an awful lot like Chuck Jones, though I am fairly sure Chuck Jones is now dead).
“Yes, I suppose that’s about the size of the problem,” I said. “I have been posting pages from my graphic novel, Hidden Kingdom, and I really haven’t seen more than one comment about it. Do people actually read cartoons and comics nowadays? Or is it just me that gets ignored?”
“You have to focus on how much you love drawing and doing it just for that reason, and nothing beyond that,” said the wise therapist. “Cartooning should be done for its own sake, and nothing more than that. Craving attention and approval for it can get seriously infected and become a bad case of cartoonititis. How do you think I dealt with it when I was still alive?”
At that point, my eyes popped out of my head in disbelief and my lower jaw fell all the way to the floor. Could he really be…?
And so I must end today’s blog post since it is hard to keep typing when your eyeballs are rolling around on the floor.
Filed under artwork, autobiography, cartoons, cartoony Paffooney, feeling sorry for myself, humor, Paffooney
Creating Covers on Computer
My daughter the Princess often disses my cover designs for my novels. The one I created for my half-written manuscript, displayed above, is really too yellow by about 500 degrees. I wanted to write a yellow book about sea stories and island magic set in Iowa, a State about as far removed from an ocean in any direction as a State can be (Well, maybe tied with Kansas and Nebraska). But yellow is not the right color. In fact, the green accent color makes me a bit nauseous next to the yellow. So, I vowed to my critic I would try again and do better.
Take a look at these alternative designs;
Will this one attract woodpeckers, do you think? Or is that too racy an idea for a novel about a young girl growing up. Woody Woodpecker is a sex symbol, isn’t he? No? Whereever did I get a fool notion like that?
I could really use your input. If you wanted to vote, you could choose a cover name from this list to tell me about it in the comments;
Banana
Maroon
Woody
Purple
Purple and Wood
Something better, Stupid!
I promise not to get mad about any commentors who choose the last one. But I don’t promise to make any new ones either. It is, however, quite easy to make changes using computer programs. I don’t have to redraw anything. Although I could be slightly worried that the Tiki totem could be viewed as racist, even though his race is “little men made out of wood.”
Filed under artwork, daughters, illustrations, imagination, novel plans, novel writing, Paffooney
When the Captain Came Calling… Canto 6
Canto Six – Bacon and Eggs
Mom had breakfast ready and on the table. Eggs and bacon on stoneware plates, one for Val and one for Daddy Kyle. She was a great cook and loved to stuff her small family with what she made. That was probably the reason she was watching over a second pan-full of sizzling bacon.
“Your father isn’t ready yet?” asked Mom, left eyebrow raised.
“Oh, he had to change his pants again for some reason.”
“That man can find more excuses for dragging his feet than…”
“Mom? Is something the matter with Daddy?”
“What do you mean?”
“Last night I thought he was crying in the machine shed.”
“Well, you know your Daddy Kyle. He loves his machinery, and that big old combine is broken down again.”
“It shouldn’t be. It’s only two years old.”
Mom looked at her with unreadable eyes. Was she mad? Sad? What?
“He says he can fix it. He says the problem is just mechanical and you know how handy he is with tools.”
“Sure.” He did love that combine. Maybe that was what made him sad. He loved Valerie and he was always sad when she was sick too.
Valerie gobbled eggs and bacon. It was good, but even better eaten fast so you could enjoy those bacon burps for the next half hour.
“You eat like you’re starving. I wish I could eat like that, Val, and stay as thin as you do.”
“Mom, I’m only eleven. I’m not supposed to be a fatty at my age.”
“I thought you were ten, dear. Where does the time go?”
Valerie was still thinking about yesterday, the holiday Monday… and why did so many people have to feel sad?
“Do you know what makes Ray Zeffer so sad, Mom?”
“Ray Zeffer? What brings that up?”
“He and Danny Murphy walked me all the way home last night from town. He’s such a gentleman. But he always seems sad.”
“Well, I would guess that losing your father the way he did, such a short time ago… well, it might have something to do with it. I know his mother, Donna Zeffer, is sad a lot too.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“And there was a brother that died… older brother… Bobby, I think. His family has been through a lot.”
Valerie buttered a piece of toast and then sipped her milk from the mug that Grandpa Larry had given her years ago. The mug had a big red heart on the side of it.
“I didn’t know about the brother. Younger or older?”
“Definitely older. More than ten years ago.”
“What was more than ten years ago?” asked Daddy Kyle as he came in to breakfast.
“Valerie was wondering about Ray Zeffer because he and the Murphy boy walked her home from town last night. How long ago did Bobby Zeffer die, Kyle?”
“Oh, at least sixteen years ago. But what’s this about boys walking Valerie home last night?”
Uh-oh. Dad radar had picked up a boy-alert… a potential boyfriend/trouble/rock salt alert.
“Danny and Ray were just being gentlemen,” said Valerie. “They wanted to make sure I got home safe.”
“And they didn’t have anything but your safety on their little minds?” Kyle asked with a skeptical smirk.
“I suppose now you want to shoot Ray?” asked Valerie.
“Who said anything about shooting Ray?” asked Mom.
“Dad did. He wanted to shoot Pidney and Danny last night, and now he wants to shoot Ray!”
“Kyle!” Mom’s scolding stare could wither flowers that were otherwise in full bloom.
“I was just kidding around!” said Daddy in a defensive voice that sounded a lot like a little boy who’d been caught pulling his sister’s hair. “I wouldn’t really shoot anybody… It’s a dad thing.”
“I’m sure it is,” said Mom. “But let’s not joke about that anymore.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He was thoroughly chastised, and Valerie marveled at how Mom could make him so instantly repentant, like a Baptist preacher preaching Hellfire or something.
“The bus is here, Princess,” said Daddy Kyle while peering out the window. And it really was. Valerie had to hustle. The old yellow bus driven by Milo Volker was waiting at the end of the Clarkes’ lane, and he wouldn’t linger if she didn’t show up fast. Still, it made her grin to see the look of relief on her Daddy’s face as he realized the dangerous conversation was at an end.
Filed under family, finding love, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
When the Captain Came Calling… Canto 5
Canto Five – Everyone is Naked Under Their Clothes
The night was typical. Six nasty old hens pecked Valerie’s hands as she searched under them for eggs. The last one of those took a girl-fist to the side of the head. That, of course, didn’t faze the stupid hen. Chickens apparently have their brains hidden safely in their butts. But chores always came to an end. Mom was always sympathetic about chicken-stupidity-caused peck marks, and rubbed salve on them, visible wound or not. Then it was time to finish any homework needed, and up to bed. And Val always slept naked under the quilts and comforters. She slept well because… well, because naked was good when you were asleep.
Morning came, as mornings do, with a stupid rooster crowing the sun up. Of course, if hens are stupid, roosters, having the additional mental handicap of being male, were stupid times ten. No, stupid times twenty. Beau the rooster always got it wrong. The sun was never actually up until at least a half hour after the stupid rooster claimed it was up. Chicken pot pie. As Valerie pried her eyes open, she imagined chicken pot pie cooking on Mom’s stove. Beau-flavored chicken pot pie.
When she got to the bathroom, Daddy Kyle was already in there shaving. No problem. Once again Valerie marched in naked as the day she was born, though with considerably more hair on her head. She went straight to the shower, grabbed the shampoo off the shelf, and twisted the water on to just the right level of warm she always used. Warm, soapy water all over your body… piles of foamy shampoo in your longish hair… it was a little like Eden must have felt to Eve. And Eve liked being naked too… at least, until the mistake with the snake. Of course, Eden had to end when the water began to grow cold. Even in the summertime the well could put out near freezing levels of cold once the water heater was drained.
Kyle looked at her when she stepped out and grabbed a towel.
“No hot water left for me again, huh, Princess?”
“Sorry, Daddy. I need a good hot shower in the mornings.”
“Shouldn’t you put on a robe or something, dearest? You come in here every morning completely naked. You are getting too old for that.”
“Old? Too old for what?”
“When a girl reaches a certain age, she starts to change. When that happens, well…”
“But, Daddy, you are used to seeing me naked. You changed my diapers while Mommy and I were still in the hospital after I was born.”
“I know… I know… And it isn’t that there is anything wrong happening. It’s just…”
“You can’t be getting shy. I’ve seen you naked too… a lot.”
Kyle’s face reddened. He was apparently trying hard to stutter on.
“When a girl reaches a certain age… well, she…”
“Yeah, she changes. I know Dad. Mom told me what to expect. But honestly, I don’t even really have boob bumps yet. I look like a little boy when I’m naked… except I don’t have one of those water hoses to pee with.”
She was standing with the towel in her hand, looking at him while she was completely bare and being mildly amused by his extreme discomfort. He finally sat down on the closed cover of the commode, completely defeated. She decided to push things a little. She dropped the towel and went to sit on his knee even though she was a little damp around the edges and quite sincerely still naked.
“Princess…”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
“No… I mean, yes, I love you… but this is not a good thing for a big girl to be doing. I worry you are getting so used to being naked around a man like me… even though I’m your Daddy… and one day… when boys, um… get curious… the way boys are… and, well…”
“If that’s what worries you, Daddy, no boy besides you has ever seen me naked. And I won’t let a yucky thing like that happen… until the time is right.”
“Okay, but promise me the time is not right until you are thirty.”
“Daaaad! You know everyone is actually naked under their clothes. Everyone has a body… so no one should be ashamed of it.” Surely he recognized that bit of wisdom. After all, it is what he’d said to her on the subject more than once.
“Okay. I trust you and believe in you. But develop a little modesty maybe? Put on a robe when you come in here. Or wait till I’m done.”
“Don’t you like me like this?”
“I love you. But you are getting to an age where you being naked like this around me… well… begins to get… um, uncomfortable. And your little wet behind is making my pants wet. I have work to do today, and now my pants have a wet spot shaped like your butt.”
“Oh, Daddy!” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He put an arm around her shoulders and gave a squeeze.
“I hope we can start getting some better habits going, Princess. We don’t want to get your mom mad or anything.” Valerie hopped off his damp lap and padded over to retrieve the towel. She wrapped it around herself and then gave him one more grin before she barefooted it out of the bathroom and toward her waiting school clothes. You never knew anything for certain. Maybe one day she would just have to go to school naked… to show Daddy that… well, okay… maybe not to school.
Up and Down
Nothing ever goes all well, or, even, all badly. Life is a roller coaster. Terrifying drops are followed by uplifting swoops. Good news about getting half of my deductible back from my auto insurance was quickly followed by a rise in my insurance payments that takes away more in the long run than I got back. Of course, that’s why banks and insurance companies are all part of the pirate class. They are going to take away more than they ever give as you sail the next wave or two.
My octogenarian parents survived the big chill from the polar vortex last week, only have to have to pay for a hospital bed for Dad for two extra days because the storm prevented him from going home.
Brekka didn’t get eaten by the man-eating plant because she wasn’t a human and so, didn’t taste good. He-she-or-it tried to eat her and had to spit her out again.
My stats on this website are like that too. One week there are a hundred views per day, the next week back to forty again.
But some things are constant. I am still writing every day. The stories keep coming, and when I go back and reread them, I find far fewer wincible warts and blunders than I ever used too. And they are mostly of the easily-fixed variety.
Down and up
Up and down
That’s how the world goes
Round and round.
Filed under goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney
Idealism
Idealism (a poem)
When I was but a stupid boy
I had a stupid thought
That if you told a story well
And that story was easily bought
That you could save yourself from hell
If the story was rightly wrought
And the telling would end in joy.
………………..
But when I was an awkward youth
I tried my tale to spin
And awkwardly my words went wrong
And my story failed to win
And readers sang that critical song
And laughter crept right in
And my steering was not strong
My story was uncouth.
……………….
But as a mostly mature man
I tried to tell the truth
And live my life by a mature code
And profit from lessons of youth
And composed a much more stable ode
That rhymed while showing tooth
And defended my small abode.
I executed my story’s plan.
Finally, I wisely became real old
And I warily and wisely began to lie
I made of life a serious joke
And ate my small piece of the pie
I laughed and watched the faces in the smoke
As the fires began to die
And I made the point as I wisely awoke
My story is now told.
Filed under autobiography, commentary, humor, irony, metaphor, Paffooney, poem, poetry, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Hidden Kingdom (Chapter 2 through page 11)
If you would like to see the complete Chapter 1, use this link; https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2018/11/24/hidden-kingdom-chapter-1-complete/
Filed under comic strips, fairies, Hidden Kingdom, Paffooney
When the Captain Came Calling… Canto 4
Canto Four – Machine Shed Blues
Valerie was thinking about chores when she wandered out to the machine shed. She hadn’t gone into the house yet for a reason. Feed the chickens and check for eggs. Put fresh water in the water bottles. God, she hated Mr. Boofoo chickens! …Err… un-cool chickens. The ones that were going to peck at her for checking their nests were all Mrs. But the other part fit. Lingering outside meant she didn’t have to march out to the chicken house immediately. She’d get it done… just not yet.
As she wandered into the machine shed, she saw her Daddy there, leaning up against the combine. The engine housing was up and various parts were laid out on the white concrete floor in a very careful rainbow of different size pieces, bolts, and screws. Kyle was leaning up against the combine with a paper in his hands. He stared at it with red eyes. Had he been crying or something? It looked like a bill, this paper that seemed to be making him sad. Then, he suddenly wadded the thing up into a ball and pitched it across the shed. It plinked off the corrugated tin wall and banked directly into the empty barrel there. Two points! But it did not make him happy. Then he noticed Val was watching him.
“Oh, hi, Princess. You are looking lovely tonight.” His face was happier by a mile and a quarter, but the redness of his eyes still showed.
“Is something wrong, Daddy?”
“Of course not. You haven’t done your chicken chores, though, huh?”
“Well, not yet… I will go in a minute. I wanted to talk to you first.”
“Oh? What about?”
That was the thing. What about? She didn’t really have a what about. She just sensed that she needed to talk to him.
“You know how everyone thinks Pidney Breslow is going to be a great football player this year?”
“Yeah. The big goof is just a freshman and he’s already made the varsity team. What about him?”
She had to say something fast… but that usually meant saying something stupid because she couldn’t think fast.
“Do you think he would make a good boyfriend for me?”
“You are ten, Princess. He’s fifteen or sixteen, isn’t he?”
“I’m eleven. Mom is younger than you are.”
“Only by two years. Not as big a deal.”
“You don’t like Pidney?”
“I like him fine. But you are ten. Any boy who thinks he’s going to be your boyfriend will have to get past two bear traps, some electric fencing, and my shotgun loaded with rock salt.”
“Why rock salt?”
“It won’t kill him, but it will sting like hell.”
“Oh.”
“Besides, don’t Pidney and that girl Mary Phillips already have a thing going on? They are always together.”
“They are best friends. They live next door to each other. More like brother and sister.”
Kyle laughed. “Pid’s a red-blooded American boy. They may say friends to each other, but when they are alone together, well… Dagwood Phillips needs to have some rock salt in his shotgun for that.”
“Nobody’s gonna shoot Pidney are they? I mean, I think I am in love with him.” There may have been a look of terror on Valerie’s face at that point. She really wasn’t sure.
“No, Princess. No one is really going to shoot him. It’s just a joke that fathers say whenever they are thinking about their daughters and young men. Besides, I never figured I’d have to shoot Pid anyway. I always reckoned it was more likely to be somebody like that Murphy brat.”
“You’d shoot Danny?” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that one.
Kyle laughed. He walked over to his daughter, put his big greasy hand on her neck and gently pulled her face up next to his heart.
“I love you, Princess. I would never intentionally do something to break your heart. But I will do everything I can to protect your heart from being broken. Just try not to like the boys I might have to shoot for something, okay?”
He said that last with a laugh that told her he loved her and was only playing with her. Daddy was her real handsome Prince.
The Problem-Solving Life
Yesterday I temporarily solved my computer problem with the Russian hacker with the help of the technical support people of McAfee Anti-Virus software. My computer works again. But I have had loss of personal data, and I am not yet sure that they didn’t take control of my Google account. It seems like I can change my password safely, but having been broken into, I have to wonder if the Russians are able to read this as I type it. I know I sound like a crazy, paranoid old man. The technician thinks so too. But it is harder than ever to have faith in a system when so many bad actors seem to have more control over things than I do. I am the novelist. I should be able to control the plot and the dialogue and the happy endings in my own story. But I can type on my computer again and my machine is cured of the Russian computer flu.
The point I wanted to make today, now that I have my word-mulching machine back to word-mulching form, is that I have always been a solver of problems, both simple and complex. It goes with being a teacher hand in hand because being a school-type teacher-man means solving problems for the little people and teaching them to be problem solvers too.
The big problem with problem-solving, however, is that there is always one more problem to be solved… unless there are ten more. Life is a matter of problem-solving, and you cannot be happy until you learn both to solve problems, even hard ones, and be reconciled to the fact that there will always be problems you have to live with and cannot solve.
Among the ten more problems I am now faced with is the problem of not having enough money to cover all the bills as I and my children continue to do things that cost money, like getting sick, eating, living in Texas, wearing clothes, wearing extra cold-weather clothes, and getting hacked by Russians. I want desperately to get a part-time job I can do. I am thoroughly qualified to be a substitute teacher. But I can’t do that job because I am in poor health. One more bout of the flu picked up in the germ farms that are Texas public schools will end me. Besides, if my health were sound enough for the classroom, I would still be teaching. It was a job God made me for, and I love teaching.
I was earning extra money the hard way through driving for Uber, daily risking an onslaught of shady clients, thoroughly unpleasant back-seat drivers, and Texas killer grandmas driving Lincoln Town Cars through stop signs at every other corner. And then I got hit in the driver’s side door by a goof who was talking to his passenger instead of looking as he turned across traffic. He didn’t see me until he clobbered me with his car. There was no way at all I could have avoided that collision. It cost me money for a deductible even though he was totally at fault. It cost me six months of driving time. I have been able to drive for other purposes, but I have not been able to drive for Uber since the accident. My driving-for-money confidence is missing. I have looked for it everywhere. It isn’t in any of the closets in the house. I guess I will simply have to make some more and get out and drive again.
So, living a problem-solving life ain’t easy, but it is necessary. It will get figured out, through persistence if nothing else. Because we all have to. And I can already see ten more problems headed towards me down the thorny garden path that is my life.
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Filed under autobiography, commentary, education, feeling sorry for myself, humor, insight, Paffooney, poem