On the Spectrum #81: Two Brothers, family-friendly version

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I got a response back from photobucket, but it was just thier standard form letter - the type of generic replay that would be vaguely appropriate for just about any question. 

I did take a look at their 'terms of use,' however, and as far as I can tell this particular comic must have set off someone's 'kiddie-porn' alert or something. Which is funny, sicne the first and third panels were recycled from earlier strips that didn't have any problems! :)

So I've modified the strip, using Photobucket's own red-sticker to censor out the offending image.

I don't know... somehow it almost looks worse now! LOL

On the Spectrum #81: Two Brothers (re-posted)

For some reaosn the wise folks over at photobucket decided there was something offensive about my last comic, and the blocked it out.  I'm going to wait for their official explanation as to why - or for the image to be reinstated - before speculating about it here, but I think I've got a pretty shrewd idea what the problem is.

Moonie's naked butt, perhaps?

Funny thing though - even as I was writing this reply, it seems that the image was reinstated in my blog, below, even though it's still red-lined over on their site.

Well whatever, we'll see.  Despite any "terms of use" my edgy, controversial artwork might have violated, they do not have the authority to censor my blog.  So just in case the offending image ends up going in and out intemittently, or if anyone still can't see it, I linked it in again, this time from a different source.  Hopefully this will all work itself out, and I'll just take this second post down.  Shouldn't really be necessary - you know, FREE SPEECH and all.  Hilariously, this is actually the SECOND time I've run afoul of some organization's censoprhip.  Can you believe it?  THIS STUFF?! Seriously?

(The other time involved issue one, which a Michigan-sponsored Mental Health community newsletter had agreed to run, sans the tag at the bottom, only to have their editor axe it at the last minute saying it was 'too controversial.'  Ah, politics.)

Well, whatever. I'll send them an email.  Depending on how amusing their reply is I may post it here.  LOL. We'll see.

On the Spectrum #81: Two Brothers

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Sorry, no snappy punchline with this one.  I just felt like contrasting Michael and Jacob and drawing (and recycling) some cute stuff.  This IS sort of a part 1 of 2, as it kind of leads into next week's.  It's not the same joke or theme, just that the last panel of this one is the first panel of the next one.  (But can you see the posts on the trampoline this time?  Yeah, still not sure what happened to them last time! LOL)

I'd like to say something about last week's... As with everything here, it's autobiograophical, and based on things as they happen in our lives.  But I decided to run THAT ONE, as it was, as kind of a nod to another strip I'd read YEARS ago, from what I consider to be the greatest comic strip of all time. (Hopefully Mr. Watterston won't mind me sharing it with you here):

And while I was searching for a copy of that...

...I came accross THIS, which I just thought was really cool. (They really nailed the style, no?) And yeah, it goes without saying, but this is TOTALLY not mine! LOL  I think it evokes up a pretty wide range of emotions though.  And while Watterson was famous for not merchandising or liscensing Clavin and Hobbes, and he never wanted to let anyone else get involved with it or use his work, for fear that they would alter the spirit and innocence of it, somehow... I think he'd approve of this one. :)

On the Spectrum #80 - Excuse you!

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Sorry, this one's a bit... indulgent.  Couldn't resist though. LOL

BTW - in the last one, at one point in the drawing process there were two posts holding up the safety net of the trampoline.  I'm not sure where they went, or at what point they disappeared, but somehow they didn't make it into the final version, and I didn't notice tehy were missing until about Friday when someone mentioned that, from a distance, it looked like he was up against a fence.  I'll have to fix that at some point. LOL

On the Spectrum #79: Elec-tricity, Elec-tricity

Apparently this worked. 

On the Spectrum #78 - Look before you leap...

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He knows "spilled" now. :)

On the Spectrum #77 - On-a-man-a-pee-ya

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This was not the comic I was planning to do this week, but we've finally had a few successes with Jacob actually USING the potty the past couple days, so it kind of jumped ahead in line.

On another note, this is the second strip I've done with the new Microsoft Paint and I HATE it. HATE HATE HATE it with a passion that only language unsuitable for a family-friendly blog can express.  I seriously have no idea what these programmers at Microsoft were thinking!  Let's make it really horrible?  Let's make it so NO ONE will enjoy using it?  Let's take everything that could be done simply in the OLD verision of Paint (and let's face it: simplicity was about all it had going for it, as it was) and make it complicated instead?!  It's intolerable.  So if I miss a post at some point in the next couple of weeks, it's possibly because I'm trying out new drawing software.  This version is bloody AWFUL.