Things not happening today: bank counter hours, mail delivery, my usual job, much reading of webcomics. Things happening today: a whole lotta errand-running. Fortunately, the things I wanted to mention don’t require a whole lot of due diligence. Contrary to the view of some, the slightly dashed-off nature of this post does not make today “just another Monday.”

• The SMILE launch party was on Saturday, and an official Good Time was had by all. In case you could doubt such an outcome, there’s photographic proof. While we’re on the topic of Raina Telgemeier, I wish to draw your attention of one of her retweets: kids comic creators who are going to be at Wondercon in April are wanted for a panel; ping Jenni Holm if interested.
• Speaking of California, Scott Kurtz has been on a pretty impressive march through the state, with gigs at the Cartoon Art Musuem and the Schulz Museum, and he’s about to address Macworld. There’s a nice interview with him in the pages of The Washington Post about how he’s not really trying to destroy newspapers.
• Some of you may be acquainted with The IT Crowd, a British televised humor programme which deals with technologist in particular and their nerdery in general; they have a history of using webcomickry as set-dressing. And as a new block of shows is in production, there is a call for appropriately nerdy artifacts to appear in the background, which perhaps one or more of you might be able to help with?
• Speaking of The IT Crowd, it bears some resemblance to the venerable Bastard Operator From Hell (past ten years or so worth of installments here — warning: high risk to free time and higher risk of being inspired to inappropriate behavior if you’ve ever worked in IT).

  A long, long time ago, the BOFH’s early adventures were collected in book form, and volume 4 (now long since out of print) was my introduction to the work of one Bradley J. Guigar (side note: all great cartoon characters, have “J” as a middle initial, like Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel, not to mention Homer J. and Bartholomew J. Simpson; I’m not saying that Brad is fictional, I’m just saying that’s a mighty big coincidence).

  Anyway, that was where I first took notice of youngling Brad; as it turned out, he’d been engaged in daily cartooning for a couple of years at that point:

  On Valentine’s Day, as many people celebrated romance, Brad Guigar raised a toast to a passion that has been a driving force in his life for ten years — daily comics.

  That’s from the press release, where Brad talks about himself in the third person a lot; a more personal take is at Evil, Inc. today: Brad’s adventures in cartooning at college, his syndicate rejections, launching Greystone Inn, Courting Disaster, Phables, and E,I. There there was this:

  It’s been an incredible journey. And I’m thankful that you’ve been around to help make it happen. To that end, I’m going to be celebrating this anniversary all year long.

  … which is just one heck of a warm-fuzzy moment. But for my money, the big summation of his career comes at the end of the press release:

  Surprisingly enough, his wife of 12 years hasn’t divorced him.

  … which by my math means that the lovely Mrs Guigar had Brad to herself for two years before she had to share him with his inky, bristolly, pun-laden mistress, which makes her the Best Cartoonist Wife Ever. In all seriousness, nobody who does what Brad’s done can make any realistic claim that cartooning doesn’t involve the support of their entire family, so it’s as much her achievement as his. Since it was Valentine’s Day that stole away her husband, I suggest that if you feel inclined to drop Brad a note of congrats, maybe you should pass them along to her instead. Or is “condolences” the right word?