On the Spectrum #100!: Sharing

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Oh, my god! I've made it to 100! I never thought I'd make it this far! (Yay!)

OK, back to the strip...

Believe it or not, Jacob really is every bit as cute as I draw him here; much more so actually.  That being said, he can still be a real brat sometimes! LOL.

The above story actually came from his teacher, during a Paerent-Teacher conference, late last year.  She told me what happened, and I immediately thought, "I've got to use that!

On the Spectrum #98: A Subtle Difference

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Sorry it's just a 2-panel one this week.  I didn't update last week as I'd originally planned and we had a family outing planned today as well, so I was still short on time.  In any case I didn't want to miss yet another week, especialy with Christamas coming up (which will also mean a missed update or two) so here you go!

To make up for it, here's something that I haven't shared before: Pictures of the kids!  These are from out trip to DC over the Thanksgiving holiday - the reason that two of the last three updates were missed. (Last week I was just being lazy!)

Here's Michael in front of the Capitol Building:

Here's one of Jacob, in the Air and Space Museam, in front of the plane he tried to touch last year, as depicted in #88:

Just around the corner from where we were standing is the opening in the fence that he went into the exhibit though.  (Which is how we were able to be sure that this was in fact the correct plane! LOL)

And yeah, fair enough, I didn't draw the plane quite right, or the fence.  But hey: I was going from memory!  One thing to add, in addition to the fact that the opening is still there...

It's a CANVAS plane.  Fairly delicate, I'd wager, as least as compared to pretty much any of their other exhibits, which are typically constructed from either Aluminum or Steel.

Anyway, I hope this make up for just getting a 2-panel after three weeks without an update. 

See you next week!





On the Spectrum #95: The Wonder-Jake!

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I had a lot of fun drawing this.  : )

Hopefully I'm not dating myself too much with this one.  I assume most people with grade-school aged kids remember the Super-Friends growing up, right?  And the Wonder-Twins, Zann and Jaina?  Well, if not, you can Google it.  ; )

In any case, Jacob has a tendency to go into what we call "puddle mode," usually when when we're walking in a public places, parking lots, malls, etc... Very frustrating, and sometimes not very safe.  Anyone else get this sort of thing?

Oh, and... HAPPY HALLOWEEN, everyone!  Hope everyone has a fun and safe time trick-or-treating!

On the Spectrum #92: Who's Your Alpha?

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I assume we're not the only ones with a wanderer at meal time?

Jacob has a habit of getting up about fifty-seven times a meal.  So he's always the last one finished.  He's also the ONLY one who ever leaves food unattended (Michael's learned) so Haley pretty much knows who to camp out near at dinner time.

You'd be surprised how often this still happens. LOL

Oh, and... first appearance of Haley, our dog.  We've had her since Michael was about one and a half, before we knew he was autistic, and just after Jacob was born.  She's a Border Collie - Australian Cattle Dog mix.  She's a good dog (apart from her table manners) but she hasn't really figured into any of the stories so far, so I've never drawn her in.  (Also because she's kind of hard to draw! LOL)

On the Spectrum #89: Jurassic Lark

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Poor Jacob! 

This is the last of our trip to D.C. (Natural History Museam, if you couldn't tell!)

On the Spectrum #88: National Treasures

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A word of advice to the curators at the Smithsonian: If you’re going to secure a National Treasure with a fence that has an opening in it large enough for a small child to fit through, at some point a small child is going to cram himself through that opening!

“It is possible, however unlikely, that they might find a weakness… and exploit it.”
~ General Taage

Now how my wife got through that same ‘small, thermal exhaust shaft’ I’ll never know.

One more thing... To better understand the little joke in the first panel, please see #71.

On the Spectrum #85: Following Directions... EXACTLY

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Well... I didn't say to PUT IT ON upstairs!  It's about a month early for a 'Michael's Birthday' one. In any case, this is from his Birthday Party LAST year. (Boy how time flies!)

BTW... If anyone didn't get what was gonig to happen here, check out #29.  Basically, Michael HATES being wet.  One drop of water on his the cuff of his sleeve and he'll take off ALL his clothes, down to his socks and underwear.  He'd take off his HAT if he'd been wearing one!  And he doens't really care where he is either.  No inhibitions, that one.

Also, that being the case, I'm curious to see if PhotoBucket censors this one like they did the last one that had Moonie's naked back-side in it.  If they do, I'll re-post it ASAP from another host.  (I just realized... We seem to have a LOT of naked butts in this strip!  Yeah... there's a lot of naked in our life. LOL)

And I'm sorry it was so long in between udpates.
One more thing... In case their Mom's or Dad's see this, this marks the first appearance of Michael's friends Caleb and Dylan as well as Caleb's Dad, Mike.  (Hopefully they can figure out which one's are thier kids! LOL)  (And Sorry Ty, Trent, Caden, Nicholas and eveyone else. There's only so much room in one panel and so many people I'm willing to draw in one night!  Maybe next time! LOL)

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How do you get dirty even when you don't GO anywhere?!

On the Spectrum #82: Careful...

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Yeah... Of course that's not what she meant... LOL. 

Most of the time the kids write this stuff, but occasionally we do as well. ;)

BTW: THANK YOU to the folks over at Autisable for pickling up the strip and agreeing to syndicate it.  Anyone who hasn't checked them out should do so, they run a lot of different blogs and get posts from a wide range of people within the autism communtiy. There's always something new and interesting being put up from somewhere.  So take a look!

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 #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.

On the Spectrum #73 - Can't fix everything...

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This was pretty much how it happened. You see... he's always bringing me toys that aren't really broken, they just need to be re-assembled.  So I didn't think much of it at the time.  But when he put a TOOTH in my hand... Well, at first I wasn't even sure what I was looking at!  Then I finally look up at him, and he's got his mouth open like that.  It was really cute.  It was his first tooth to fall out too. And the second one - the one right next to it in the front? Fell out as well about five minutes later. LOL

I had a slightly different one of these, featuring Michael's first lost tooth, planned for awhile. But this just happened last week, so I figured I'd put it up.  Michael's wasn't quite like this.  I might do his next, kind of as a flashback maybe.

On the Spectrm #73 - April is Autism Awareness Month!

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Don't worry, they were fine!  At least they watch where they're going now.  Thats a little bit of 'increased awareness' anyway.  That's what this month is all about, right? ;)

On the Spectrum #69: LOOK AT ME!

Any guess which one of the two brothers is the bigger mischief-maker? LOL

On the Spectrum #65: Merry Christmas, 2009!

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One of the biggest differences in my and DW's skill sets is that I speak 'Michael' and she speaks 'Jacob.' 'Michael' is pretty easy, actually, but I'm still better at deciphering what he means when he doesn't quite know how to say it. 'Jacob,' on the other hand, is a language that is made very complex by the fact that many of its words sound very similar to other words in English that have very different meanings. LOL. Anyway, in this kind of situation, I can usually figure Michael out, but I have a much harder time with Jacob. (DW... the exact opposite.)

(Oh yeah - and I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but when Jacob says "Yes," he ALWAYS adds on, "OK."  It's like one word, "Yesohkay!"  That thows a lot of people who assume he's saying "That's OK," which, if you think about it in context, means "No," when he's really saying "Yes."  You can imagine how frustrating that might be for him! LOL

ANYWAY... This is the last "OTS" update of 2009! So I'm done for this year. We'll be travelling, as we usually do on the holidays, through the 4th of January, so the next update won't be until 1/10/2010.

In the meantime, I hope everybody has a Merry Crispy, a safe a happy holiday and a safe and happy New Year!

See you in 2010!

~Scott

On the Spectrum #62: Driving Miss Nutsy

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Sorry this update was a couple days late.  I should mention now that there will not be an update next week (11/22) since we'll be travelling that whole week.  (Regular updates will resume on 11/29, possibly a day of two late on that one as well, sorry!)

A couple things...  First, I swear that was exactly what he said.  I was floored.  (Of course, I guess it goes to show how often I say, "JACOB, YOU'RE DRIVING ME NUTS!"

LOL

Also, not to blow my own horn, but I think that's the best picture of Jacob I've drawn yet.  I haven't had him in here that much, so I don't get much practice and when I do I'm never quite satistified with how he comes out, but I think I really nailed him here.  Also, "angry-face" Daddy is new too.  Michael thinks it's hysterical...  Probably cause he's "angry" at Jacob! LOL

Well, since I won't be posting again until after the Holiday, I home everyone has a happy Thanksgiving, and safe travels for anyone who will be on the road ro in the air.