Author notes

Merry Christmas!

PaulEberhardt

on Dec. 20, 2017

[p]Ho Ho Ho, everyone! Believe it or not but I'm still around, and I intend for it to stay that way.[/p]
[p]I'd planned to do a lot more, but somehow nothing ever worked the way I wanted it to. As if there was some kind of gremlin set on sabotaging my life. Looking back on 2014 and my meagre artistic output I'm kind of glad it'll be over soon. There's a Plattdütsch idiom that translates as "They must have ripped me off with a used year." and no matter who "they" actually is I think it totally fits my situation. Anyway, the comic will go on, no matter what the devil's got in store for me in 2015. So thanks a million to everyone who keeps dropping in despite my recent long absences. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (I won't do a New Year's page but rather focus on getting the regular comic going again as soon as I can.)[/p]
[p]By the way, I fervently hope the situation I depicted here never happens to any of you. It happened to my parents and me years ago, enough time for it to be funny now: If you buy your tree some time in advance, when it's still relatively cheap, it is advisable to store it somewhere outside in the cold so it doesn't lose all its needles before Christmas Eve, but also somewhere out of reach of any cat that may choose to use it to mark its territory. Now, if it's below freezing, the scent-mark will first have to unfreeze and only then start to …erm… ripen to its full aroma, which means you won't notice it at all for 24 or more hours, which in turn means that it'll suddenly make itself noticed in full strength exactly when you're done decorating the tree, having a family dinner, and going to church - in short when it's way too late to do anything about it. In other words, I've got definite proof that cats are experts on building time-bombs. We've hung the tree onto some hooks right underneath the garage ceiling ever since. Ahem! All this of course means that poor Tiger might be quite innocent from his point of view - not his fault if those silly humans unexpectedly heave his new boundary post into the living room…[/p]
[p]Oh well! Merry Christmas everybody![/p]