Talking with Cap'n Clanki about a recent lack of cartoons to go with some work she did (the cartoonist was "having a busy week and forgot" - an excuse to remember for the next time you don't do something you've had almost two months warning for) and remembered how drawing cartoons or just weird pictures of things seems to go so far back through our lives.

The first things we do at school when we start out are those "diary" things where we draw odd, disporportionate stick figures and houses with four squared windows and curly smoke coming out of the chimney that look like they've all come from the same primal psyche. Our teacher writes something to go with the pictures that we dictate, like On the weekend I had Froot-Loops for breakfast and visited my grandparents and my dog got yelled at because he hugged Uncle Fred's leg...

Then we move on to drawing silly things all by ourselves and accompanying it with our own shocking attempts at handwriting that are indecipherable today when we look back at old books but somehow got a gold sticker and a nice comment from the teacher.

From there it's a bit of a blur and then you're somehow in high school drawing cartoon-ish things in books or on worksheets or just in your books instead of actually doing what you're meant to be doing. Year 10 maths books filled with cartoons and stories and four pages of work for the entire year... A serial cartoon in Year 12 biology that left you almost crying with laughter and unable to explain to the teacher just why that was... Year's worth of cartoons in study hall...

Then The Grumpy Judge cartoons in law classes at uni...

Then you're at work and there's no time for silly cartoons or much else that's too creative, even though you're in a "creative" kind of job. But it's probably a good thing, somehow! Or there'd be a blog AND faffing around drawing that would waste time.