Comics Update!

Fresh new comic for you kids, hot off the presses. This is one that I drew and wrote myself. I will be doing (hopefully) many more of these so stay tuned.

Got the Hook Up: Part 2

     Gene sat at the bar and waited for Lenny to show up. They were supposed to meet at five thirty, but it was six now and Lenny hadn't shown up. Sitting by himself, surrounded by loud people, Gene thought about how well he actually knew Lenny.
     The people around Gene were local. Judging by the amount of people sitting at the bar and the cars in the lot beside the building, most of them had driven there. They sat around the bar and drank. They drank with purpose. They were dressed in flannel and dirty pants and they wanted to forget that. They laughed and carried on like people 20 years younger then them.
     Gene was would feel himself get a little nervous as the voices rose. Because he was sitting at the bar he could feel people standing behind him and wondering what he was doing there. They would get loud and laugh loudly. Gene knew he had no business being in a place like this. These people had had hard lives. Gene's life wasn't a picnic, but it was different.
     Gene grew up in a family that never talked about their emotions and pretended that everything was okay. His family kept up appearances  In that way he envied these people. All of their hardships were clearly displayed on their bar tabs and weathered faces. They were rageful and happy and funny and they wanted every one to know about it.
     While he sat there, Gene felt like these people could tell he didn't belong. Gene was young, was carrying a shoulder bag with a laptop he had gotten for Christmas, and had been sitting with a miller light for cover, but they could tell.
     He would take a sip from the beer every time he was nervous that he didn't look casual. He had drank three beers in a half an hour so far.
     After college Gene didn't really talk to Lenny too much. They had been friends on facebook, but he had never been to active on there, so it was hard to tell what his life was like from looking at it. His picture had been the same from when he left school and there weren't any new ones on there, or any posts at all really. That seemed to tell Gene something, but he wasn't sure what.
     Could Lenny have become one of these people that were slowly hating Gene as he sat at their bar. Sometimes, in the mornings before work at the library, Lenny would talk about how he used to be a great football player in high school, but busted his leg. He had always walked with a little bit of a limp, but it wasn't something that you would notice without paying attention to it. He was studying sports medicine and graduated with a degree in it.

     At six thirty Lenny finally walked into the bar. Gene wouldn't have noticed it if a few of the other guys at the bar hadn't gotten up and loudly greeted him when he walked in. Lenny was know here, a regular. Gene looked up from his beer and tried to make eye contact with him.
     Lenny stood at the door for a few seconds and saw Gene sitting at the end of the bar. He nodded his head began moving towards him. His limp was much worse than it had been
     "Hey man hows it going." He walked up to Gene and patted him hard on the back.
     "Hey Lenny, its great to see you again, I'm pretty good." There wasn't another seat at the bar next to him, so Gene suggested grabbing one of the empty tables on the other side of the place.
     "Yeah sure, lemme grab a brew first and I'll meet you over there."
     Gene gathered his coat and shoulder bag from the ground beneath his stool. He felt funny carrying all this stuff across the bar to where the tables were. He got a seat by a window that was mostly covered by a large sign for Miller Light.
    Lenny came over with his beer and sat down across from Gene, he held his leg out straight from the table it went right next to Gene, hr would have to step over it to get out.
     "So, Gene," Lenny took a long drink from the beer. "How the hell are you."

Update

Hey internet! I have been preoccupied with some things as of late and my sweet sweet blog has suffered, but no more! I will be returning to daily updates as soon as possible. I added the first part of a story about Gene today. I will add the second part as soon as I can.

I will also be adding some new comics soon. I need to solve some hardware issues, but once those are solved get ready to laugh a bunch!

Got the Hook Up: Part 1

     Gene stepped off the train onto the cold concrete platform. He hadn't been to this stop before, but the bar he was supposed to meet his friend was right near there, so it was his best bet.
     The whole train stop was under a bridge that blocked out the five o'clock sun. As Gene walked out of the station all he could see was run down buildings and highways. They were the sort of buildings that you would see along highways, brick shells that had been abandoned a while ago. You could still see the faded signs on the roofs of the buildings, peeling and old. Most of the windows had been broken. There were buses and taxis lined up outside of the station too. This didn't seem like a stop that people walked out of.
     He had to walk around the train station to find the side walk that led into town. The only difference between the buildings right in front of Gene and the buildings that he found by walking around the other side of the station were the windows. The windows in town weren't completely smashed. It also seemed more residential, but the general feeling of despair hung heavy along the street. He took the sidewalk along what seemed like a road that was too busy to have a sidewalk. He followed the map on his phone closely, continually making sure that he was in the right place. It seemed to be right, but he couldn't imagine there being a bar along this road. He kept walking, up a little hill lined with check cashing stores and arguing couples. At the top of the hill, he could finally see the place he was supposed to meet Lenny.

     Lenny had been a friend from college. Gene knew him from the job that he picked up to help pay for tuition, they had both worked in the library at the school. Gene had worked at the snack bar in the lobby to be more specific, and Lenny was at the front desk of the library.
     When they had met, Gene thought Lenny seemed like a nice guy. It had been freshman year for Gene, but Lenny was a senior. Gene was still young enough to be impressed by older kids talking to him. Lenny kept his hair long and had a goatee too, which made him seem even cooler. He would get the same sticky breakfast roll from Gene everyday saying something along the lines of:
     "This sticky bun is so choice right now man."

     And he would talk with Gene until one of their bosses yelled at them. Lenny would come into work high most of the time too, but no one seemed to notice. If they did notice, they didn't seem to care. Gene had tried going to class high once but almost had a panic attack so quickly learned that wasn't his thing.

     Gene walked down the hill to the bar. There was a small snowy parking lot next to it where a few lonely cars sat. It was five on a Tuesday so he was hoping the place would be mostly empty. He just wanted to meet Lenny and get back on the train.
     There were a couple of guys standing outside while Gene walked in. Gene felt like they had been watching him come towards the bar since the top of the hill and seemed genuinely surprised when he walked into their bar. But he was careful not to make eye contact, or look like he noticed that they were watching him.
     Despite the people smoking outside, the inside of the bar wreaked of cigarettes. There were two rooms separated by a partition leading down the center of the bar. On the right wall there was a bar along with a surprising number of patrons sitting at it. On the left there was a small sitting area that was empty but for a man sitting by himself eating what looked like a breakfast platter.
     Gene looked at his phone again. He had texted Lenny when he had gotten to the train station, but he didn't get anything back yet. He didn't want to seem too forceful, even though Gene was just buying pot from him, Lenny didn't have to sell to him, and he wanted to maintain good terms with him in case it was out of Lenny's way to hook him up.

     Before Lenny had graduated, Gene and him got rather close. They didn't hang out much outside of work, but they both worked the same shifts and Gene saw him as the one person there that he could talk to. The other people he worked with were terrible. Lenny would tell Gene about some crazy thing he did on mushrooms the night before or they would just talk about life.
     Maybe it was because of all the drugs, but Lenny was great with really deep conversations. He would talk in a way that seemed meaningful, and would always listen when Gene would talk. Gene took to seeing his talks with Lenny as mutual therapy.

     Gene was looking forward to another deep conversation when he had heard that Lenny was still around. He hadn't seen him since he had graduated. He did want to buy some weed and he felt a little bad about just calling him up out of the blue for just that.
     The bottles behind the bar were shinny but the colors seemed dull. There was a sparkle to them, but it seemed like the lazy sparkle of street lights when you were too drunk to see where you were going. It was disorienting.

     The other people at the bar laughed like it wasn't Tuesday night. They talked about their plumbing and kids that they were so proud of. The bottles behind the bar shone in the low lights hanging from the ceiling   

Workin' Out

     Gene had always been a little overweight. He had been chubby as a kid and never quite grew out of it. People would always say that if you looked good you felt good. It wasn't that Gene didn't feel good, he was just sick of pulling at shirts that felt too tight and worrying that people could tell that his arm fat jiggled when he waved at people.

     He had tried diets and gym regiments before, but they would generally all end the same way. He would stick with them for a week or two and then realize that if he didn't have to worry about his weight then he would just find something else to be insecure about, its just who he was. So he would figure “What's the point?” and stop working out.

     Despite this he wanted to reach a goal that he had set for himself. Going to the gym seemed like a good one to start with so he convinced himself to do it again. He started going to the gym, determined to stick with it and accomplish something.

     And he was actually able to do it. They say that once you get past three weeks, you are over the hardest part. He was onto four and he was actually feeling better about himself. He still felt uncomfortable in tight shirts, but the exercise helped him clear his mind and he liked that.

     He even started changing his diet. He replaced all of his crappy snack food and macaroni and cheese with this with some better food: fruits, vegetables, stuff with bran in it.

     He did keep some of the snack food though. He liked to reward himself with it. The most important thing was portions. So now instead of eating a whole pizza, he would eat a few slices and save the rest for later.

     Between going to the gym and eating better, Gene really felt like he was losing weight and getting healthier. He would go to work, hit the gym on his way home after work, and have a nice balanced dinner when he got home.

     One night he got home and realized that he had stuck to this regiment for a whole month. When he got home from the gym he took a shower, had some dinner, and decided he should reward himself for sticking to his plan.

     He found a bag of tortilla chips. It was a big bag, meant to feed a family over the course of a week, twelve servings in a bag. Gene would normally finish one of these in a few nights and was excited about applying his new eating habits.

     The bag was perforated at the top and the bottom and had a flap on the back so it could be opened. Gene pulled at the top of the bag, and then at the bottom, but the perforated edges wouldn't give. He opened the flap on the back and tried to open it that way, but that also failed.

     Each time he tried to open the bag, he could feel his body shaking with effort. As he shook, so did all the fat that he realized he hadn't lost at all. Gene could feel his whole body jiggle with every pull. The longer he tried to open this family sized bag of chips, the worse he felt about the last four weeks.

     After a while, he gave up, grabbed a pair of scissors from his room and cut the bag open. He took the bag and sat in front of the TV still telling himself he was only going to eat some of them, but that voice got more and more quiet as Gene worked his way through the whole bag. 

First Date

     Gene had met her on an online dating website that he had been using off and on since college. Every once in a while he would get stressed out about being single and he would hop back on this site to try to date. He would message three or four girls a day for about a week and it would make him feel better, it felt like he was doing something. Inevitably,  none of the girls would get back to him and he would get discouraged and bitter and stop using the site again.

     This pattern seemed to be going no differently during his most recent foray into the online dating world. He had gone through a week of messaging people every night, but he had gotten nothing back. After whispering something dismissive to himself, he stopped sending out messages.

     He did keep checking the site for a few day after.

     “Just logging on to make sure no one messaged me.” He would tell himself, secretly expecting there to be a hundred messages waiting for him. But this time, someone had actually messaged him back.

     Her name was Caroline, and she was one of the girls that he had been really excited about, one that he had really hoped would message him back. He liked all of the books and movies she listed as being 'in to', and even the tone of the writing was appealing. She seemed confident and funny.

     So Gene tried not to waste any time and set up a date with Caroline for that weekend. He suggested a little restaurant in the city and she quickly accepted. He had been there before. It was a small place, the lighting was low, the food was decent, and the atmosphere had always stuck him as great for a date.

     On the night of the date, Gene got to the restaurant about twenty minutes early, so he grabbed a table and ordered a beer. While he sat with his beer he thought about the date, and how he barely knew this girl. When he had made the date, he figured that the hard part was over, but sitting in the restaurant he realized that it had just begun. He ordered another drink.

     Caroline finally arrived, on time, and she sat down with him. She looked nice and Gene was sure to let her know. She reciprocated and they continued into basic date conversation: “Where are you from?” “Cats or dogs?” There would be brief but torturous gaps of silence between each topic. Each time someone would say something to keep the conversation going, but each gap was scary.

     As the night went on, Gene realized that he would need to use the bathroom. He had had a few beers and a few waters sitting here. Drinking something was a great way to fill in the gaps in a conversation because it seemed like the gap was because of the drinking rather than the lack of things to talk about.

     Urinating usually wasn't a problem for Gene, but he wanted to look good on the date and if going to awful frat parties in college was any indication, peeing was a sign of weakness in 'man world'. Would she think he was weak for peeing? She was pretty, he was trying his hardest to be charming, would urinating ruin this somehow?

     Gene let the conversation return to the inevitable awkward silence between topics to excuse himself and go to the bathroom, weakness be damned. It was a relief to pee, but after a minute or so, Gene realized he had been in the bathroom for a little while now.

     If he kept peeing like this, she would think he was shitting. That seemed much worse, and Gene cut his bladder off short, leaving the bathroom half full, but in a reasonable amount of time. Why ruin a first date with an implied bowel movement?

     The night went on, Gene still had to pee, but he was able to ignore it through the end of the night. The train ride home would be bad, but at least he wouldn't lose any more face. They walked back to the train station.

     “I had a great time.” Gene said, wondering if he should put his arm around her as they walked. “We should do this again. And then some more times after that.” He smiled at his joke and looked to Caroline.

     “Yeah,” there was a silence. “I would love to, but I'm actually seeing someone right now.” Gene didn't stop walking.

     “Oh, okay.” He didn't remember what her relationship status was on the site, but who the hell goes on a dating website if they are already in a relationship? He was buzzed enough to want to scream this at her in the middle of the street. “Well, you should continue you seeing that person then.”

     “We could still hang out, I just wanted you to know that.”

     Gene had been down that road before. He wanted to yell at her and call her mean words, but he knew it wouldn't change anything, and he had felt defeated anyway. “That's okay, I think I'm all set.” 

     On the way home, Gene thought that maybe he could have just been her friend, and then dated her when she broke up with her boyfriend, which he imagined wasn't far off. He thought about this, but he was tired of chasing unavailable girls. If they had met differently, if their first interaction wasn't on a dating site, if the first time he saw her in person wasn't on their first date, then things might have been different. Gene didn't mind being friends with girls, but being friends with this one would make him feel even more pathetic.  

Update

I am snowed in at my parents house and will be removing snow and working on comics for most of the day. I posted a new scene last night, and I will try to get another one up tonight when I can get back on a computer. Fear not loyal viewers, more super good content is on the way!