I've been refraining from posting about politics lately because I've become so annoyed with politicians in general, and what I think I'd describe as an "offline flame-war" about Iraq. But no matter what side of the fence you're on, I would really hope that you find this as offensive to humanity as I do - courtesy of our wacky old friend Kurt Vonnegut. After you've finished reading that piece, assuage yourself with this commentary by Good Ol' James Lileks.

Okay. Phew. Eventful week, what with both Thanksgiving and the First (Hopefully Annual) MCAD Mini-Con coming up. I finally finished my eight-page Rome comic last night...mostly. There are one or two spots where I would like to add a bit more ink, and I need to draw the cover today, scan the pages, adjust the levels in Photoshop, and then, at long last, I should be able to print the thing. We have a "free print day" in Comics Publishing class today, so I should be able to make a number of nice copies of the comic for the Mini-Con. Additionally, my friend Chris (with whom I'm sharing a table at the Mini-Con) has printed up some vinyl posters for our table, and they look great. We have two posters, one with his story's protagonist and one with mine. Just seeing the posters makes me excited for this convention.

After that, I need to spend the next 48 hours or so working on my Comics II assignment...a mini-comic. Which I also intend to sell at the Mini-Con.

The other kind of cool thing that happened is that a tiny bit of my artwork will be appearing in an upcoming issue of "Green Lantern Corps" - I was with Pat yesterday and he was starting to feel a little burnout while working on deadline. He handed me his page and said, "Here, just draw this for me." There was a space where he needed a character's battle-axe to be, so I started pencilling one in. When I finished, he took it back and re-drew the little design I sketched on the axe head, but the rest is mine. So there, I'm going to be published in a mainstream superhero comic book.

In other news, I got to chase some shoplifters across the parking lot at Northwestern Bookstore last week - lots of fun, very cathartic, and we managed to get their license plate number. I was actually in a nearly perfect position: I had just gone on break, put on my jacket, and left the store to walk over to the magazine store for a candy bar. About thirty seconds after walking out the door, I heard some of my co-workers yelling to me. I turned and saw them giving chase - in my direction - to about two or three people. It took me a moment to realize that they weren't joking with me, and then to identify exactly who was being chased (at first I thought two of them were just customers walking out to their car, but later I found out they were also shoplifters). The one guy who was at first headed my way took a sharp turn, and I gave chase across the icy parking lot; neither of us dared go too fast for fear of slipping. If I can toot my own horn, I was able to discover that all of the shoplifters were indeed working together, as I saw one of them jump into a car with the two others that had been in the store. I almost had him. It's funny, I'm not really a violent person, but when I was chasing him, I was fully intending to tackle him to the ground, football sack-style. It was only later that it occurred to me that A) he may have been armed (though I seriously doubt it), and B) I really have no idea what I would have done after tackling him. Try to keep him on the ground until police arrived? Well, it was fun, is what I'm saying.