I can empathize with the chicken killer

After hearing about a recent news headline involving a woman shooting her husband (not fatally, fortunately) after he killed her pet chicken, I had to make a comic. My first sketch I abandoned, as I thought the shotguns looked more like hairdyers, and the man's potbelly just makes him look a couple months pregnant. But it looked so funny I uploaded it anyway. The second image, now this is more personal. I can picture a note left on the counter that says 'Dear John, you killed my beloved birdie. Prepare to die. Love, Sally'. However, my tone has changed today after hearing these two yippie dogs bark continuously for an hour while their owner is not home. The dogs don't even live next door, they're around the corner and on the opposite side of my shanty- I mean well-lit studio- but the sounds reverberates nonetheless. Suffice to say, if the chicken in the backyard was squealing like these two little doggy sausages, I'd want to bust out the semi-automatic, too. There'd be nothing but a pile of feathers left. Or, in my case, two collars with the words 'Spanky' and 'Rex'. Just don't let my wife find out it was me.
(Thanks to Kate for the link.)

Nerdy/Back

It has come to my attention that the world is far more populated by nerds than I had ever imagined. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Take this piece which I created based on "photos" of subatomic particle collisions with a particle accelerator. (I can imagine the physicists among you readers salivating as I type this, fondly recalling your days learning about quarks.) Well, this doesn't help things when you want to go on a date. Either 1. there seems to be only five available nice people on campus, 2. they are too wrapped up in computerspeak to care about things like "relationships", or 3. they are Republicans. I suppose I'm not getting a degree in dating, though, am I. I'm here to be a good student and write my good little orchestral piece. Well. It's my birthday and I'm allowed to complain, and Paris says she always gets what she wants when she complains. (Maybe I should complain about the lack of thousand-dollar bills in my wallet?)
However, there is something strangely attractive about having an area of interest that is so particular that only really nerdy people in your field will know what you're saying when you casually let things like '...Can you believe it? She makes her own reeds. How bourgeois.' or '...self-propelled infants can totally recognize causality...' slip out. If only Justin Timberlake could revise his very sexy song to 'Get Your Nerdy/Back', I'd be all over the dancefloor with the computer scientists. Except that they'd be dancing via webcast, and using their robots to dance for them. And I'd rather dance with my hipsters anyway.

Fall

I can feel the autumn breezes in the air...or maybe it's just a lot of rain, like we're getting in Pittsburgh. Either way, it's time to dress up in warmer clothes, wear decorative scarves (before the necessary scarves make their appearances) and most importantly, painstakingly create leafy autumnal costumes for little children to wear. Thanks to Martha Stewart for the image, I made this little collage as a reminder to myself:, Midnight, it's time to unfurl the oak leaf wrap you've been storing away in my cedar chest. I think I'll break it out for conducting class, they'll love it.

Barbies and the Twenty-first Century Girl

Hi!
I'm Melissa. And this is my Barbie Doll. Well, actually her real name is officially 'Barbie Roberts', true fact! But I just call her Barbie. I love her and I play with her all the time. And Barbie teaches me lots of things. She says that a good girl should have a really nice 401K and not be reliant on this male-dominated society we live in so I can take whatever name I choose so I will call myself Hilary Duff Clinton because those are my two favorite Hilarys ever or maybe I'll just go on being Melissa but become a powerful account executive at an investment firm and buy lots of shoes. I love shoes. I love my Barbie. We go everywhere together. Do you want to brush her hair? Well you can't she's mine.