.

Although I do plot out my stories before I write them, the pacing, the storyboarding, are only done eight or so pages in advance, and sometimes as little as four. So now I know this particular storyline, which has been longer than the others, will run about 54 pages.

There are a couple of reasons for that...allowing for the most part the narration to be done by a secondary character, guest-shots and cameos which were entertaining but time-consuming, etc. The sort of thing I had to get out of my system...

The next storyline may be even longer...but it's more internal, more focused on MM herself. In.... several senses of the word.

I've been planning for, and working towards, this particular sequence ever since I first concieved doing MM as a webcomic...and I want to take full advantage of the advantages of html in this particular storyline.

I also heard back from the MODERN TALES editor, saying another feature had been chosen for MODERN TALES' empty slot. Still, a few days ago in his own editorial he said he had narrowed it down to eight features, and one had been "superheroics". Did I at least get in the top eight? I'd like to think so, but I don't know...

There really aren't that many superhero webcomics out there, and most are simple parodies.

He encouraged me to try again the next time there was an empty slot, but I'm sure that would have been true for many submissions, whether they made it to the top eight or not.

Ah, well. In any creative process, there are rejection slips. And I'm still having fun, and it seems, so are at least some of my readers. So that's the big thing....

And there has been an explosion in webcomics. Some people have called this "The Golden Age of Webcomics", and I think they may be right. So there are a lot of people trying...

And just as many who will be gone, next week or next month, when the thrill is gone. I have staying power. I'm persistent.

Oh, well...

To change the subject completely...

Brian was studying for his advanced placement history, and studying fifties' and sixties' and seventies' history, and came across a picture of a huge demonstration, including one individual that looks like...

Me.

Even I admit it looks almost exactly like me...albeit me more like I looked in '85 than in '69. Still, I've had a beard off and on since I was sixteen. The glasses looked like mine...I had a jacket like that...

The only thing, it was supposed to be in California, and the demonstration had some waving Viet Cong flags. What few demonstrations I attended (mostly because a girl I was interested in went to them) were here in Nashville, were smaller than these, and none waved Viet Cong flags.

When I was in college, I had longer hair than this guy....but it was about right for high school.

So strange to see a doppelganger...both Brian and Barb thought it looked exactly like me...

It couldn't be a relative. I have relatives in California now, but they moved out there later.

What other doubles of me are out there?

Of course, beards were not hard to find in the late sixties...

Speaking of relatives...

My sister visited, as she's here a few days, back from California, before her return to France.

She may be back later this summer, and if not, by next summer.

Trying to be the adults, knowing there's no parent to refer back to if we need help, trying to cope with the mechanics of dealing with an estate....my brother has the hard part. He's the lawyer, the eldest sibling, the one who had been co-exectutor of the estate for years. We trust him completely, of course; but he's dealing with more of the details than we are...

In the meantime, I'll look about the pros and cons about possibly setting up a trust for Eric.

We got talking about the war, and the aftermath of the war, and Barb mentioned another double---not of me, but of someone famous in the news...

Barb had the final word, I think, on Saddam Hussein, nothing ever mentioned in any of the news media, as we looked at the bizarreness of Rowena's erotic sword-and-sorcery and fantasy paintings adorning Hussein's private bedroom...

Barb looked at his picture and said,

"He looks like Walter Matthau."

Doesn't he? Especially the later Walter Matthau of DENNIS THE MENACE as Mr. Wilson, or GRUMPY OLD MEN?

Now I can't picture him as an evil despot. I picture him as a grumpy old man, executing people because his corns hurt or somebody tarnished his gold faucets...

Now I can't ever look at a picture of him without imagining him talking like Matthau, as a grouchy, sloppy old man, out of the ODD COUPLE or GRUMPY OLD MEN...

And who does that make Bush...

Felix?

Or...maybe Tony Blair as Felix...

I will never, ever, be able to look at Saddam Hussein's picture again without superimposing Matthau over it.

Maybe neither will you, now.

Somehow Empire of Evil has been replaced by Regime of Grumpiness in my mind...