Having been inspired by some long form webcomics which are less joke orientated, I thought I’d have a go myself. Examples include Bellen (beautiful colours), Achewood (faultless prose), Renrut’s World (great personal stories) and Pictures for Sad Children (deceptively simple) – I suggest you check them out. Give them time though, they’re growers. Oh, and I pretty much nicked the colour scheme from this excellent comic from Sorry Comics. I did a bit of crowdsourcing on Twitter to help name my character (well, ok, it was more small group sourcing), so thanks again to @MeeJong for coming up with ‘Milton’.
Also, don’t forget to check out my guest comic at y2cl – it’s here (but don’t click if you’re a Michael Jackson fan – seriously, don’t).
And finally, I seemed to have climbed the ranks of the webcomic listing sites I’m in, so thanks if you took the time to click on the votey button in the sidebar. I really appreciate it.
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How many people go through their entire lives saying “… but not today.”
Today, dammit! Today!
There might not be a tomorrow.
Very awesome comic. Stumbled, and added to my bookmarks.
Thanks for that. Just to let you know that you can also subscribe to your RSS reader or by email (As I only update once a week, this is probably an easier way to follow the comic)
Zebulon Pi
Isn’t the point that unleashing the wildness is actually foolhardy and will lead you to be misunderstood? Postponing our ambitions is a sad thing we all do, but it seems like the point we’re left with isn’t that, but it’s that society is pressuring us to resist change and unusual behavior, and therefore we are not free to be what we want to be. In the end this man is trapped, living his same dull life, having vanilla ice cream, to afraid to try something new because he knows that the risk is too great to bear in this lifetime.
I loved this comic. Can I get permission to put this on film? Seriously.
so, he’s basically the construction foreman from the very beginning of the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy?
I’ve forgotten what this character did. Can anyone enlighten me?
Noel by far your best yet that I have seen…perfect pace and pauses. Just insert a human baby between the couple and you have the reason life turns to mud.
I was wondering if the ‘wilderness’ within was more appropriate… I’d stick with this wee character and do more with him. Is he a gay and why is he white? Do you do black people? No? Why not? Eh? Midgets. DO YOU DO MIDGETS?
Or people who are mentally handicapped? Do them. I love the term mentally handicapped. It makes me think of a telekinetic tiger woods.
Oh and what happened to the chair back in box 22?
D’oh. It was 1.00am when I posted & my eyes weren’t working – very slack. Thanks for spotting it & I’ve now fixed it.
Very cool!
PS – Block 9… “vaquished” Did you not mean “vanquished”?
This is getting embarrassing. Thanks Dan. Fixed. I did read it twice before posting, but it was very late. Photoshop needs to incorporate spellcheck for all us illiterate artists
Ahhh Photoshop Spell Check would be Awesome!
I happen to be stumbling when I came upon your cartoon. There is not another page that has shouted at me like this one. You see, I have been Milton for the last 25 years. Doing what I was supposed to be doing, job, wife, child and bored silly. I couldn’t take it, I strayed, I risked, she found out, life is a shambles now. Not sure of my next step but your strip really brought feelings to the surface that this was the life I lived and I’m not sure I want to live that way again. Thank you for the tremendous addition to my discussion
Wow. I don’t know quite what to say cooltallone. Hope you manage to get your life back together, figure out how you want to live and a way to manage to do that.
hahaha…so true!
good, but sad
I’m so happy to have contributed to the naming of this fine and funny character. This is a poem I wrote in a “Milton Moment” I had sometime last year:
Writing myself happy
Current mood: adventurous
Category: Writing and Poetry
As I sit
As I stare
As my office
Morphs into my lair
As my professional
Self
Distintigrates
And I feel
A little
Wild
Today
Not in a
CrazySexyCool
Way
But in a
Primal
And
Unencumbered
Way
In a way
Which makes me feel
Perhaps
I would like
To rip flesh
From bones
With my teeth
And roll naked
In mud puddles
And undulate
Wildly
In the pouring rain
To the sound
Of thunder
With
Flashes
Of lightening
Enlightening
My stagnant mind
I would like
To climb trees
And swing from branches
And take chances
Which will set me free
I would like to
Devour
The earth
And be
Engulfed
By fire
Then ride
The wind
To my
Watery
Grave
I would like
To crack my skull
Open
After jumping
Off a cliff
And feel
My medulla oblongata
Separate from my spinal cord
Creating a cessation of feeling
Between my brain
And my body
But here comes
My professional self
To stymy
My imaginings
And I
Will have
To go
Do work
Now
Cheers Meejong. I’ve never had a comment quite like this. Thanks again for your help.
this is freaking brilliant!
After I read the first panel, why do I always start singing “I live on the second floor”
Everybody now – “I live upstairs from you”
Wow.
How Kafkaesque, buddy, everyone is a criminal
your robbing him by enjoying life, hes robbing you by not
he enjoys life, you don’t when you see people not up to your standards
people not up to your standards classify you as not up to thiers
the truth is not is takng hold of the 90’s perception of the ”average” man
Movies like American Beauty, and Books like American Phyco where cute then but now…
I look back on the corporate world, and now see a declining capotial world that was
caused by you and I
I really enjoyed this one! Perhaps I’ll be the odd one out, but YAY for VANILLA and a quiet life. If it makes you happy, perhaps it’s okay to tell the wild voices to shut up.
I see what you’re doing with this comic, and I don’t mean disrespect to you as an artist, but the police would not kill a man for acting crazy on a roof. He would be arrested though.
There are plenty of ways to live an interesting life and indulge your wild side without breaking the law. Your life doesn’t have to be dull, it’s up to you what you make of it.
Ah, this is the common scenario in our life. We are always afraid to do things different than out mediocre lifestyle. It is time to change, if only it is easy.
Good stuff!