Search and Research #64

As Sunday was Easter, I decided to spend most of the day with my family, watching the latest episode of The Office, and not drawing a strip. I'd like to thank my friend Jason's wife Angela for her help with this strip, she came up with the phrase Mega-Byte Sandwich. As you can see, that is a hard drive on a bun, with a bite (byte) out of it. For any of you who don't know, that really is what the inside of a hard drive looks like. If I had it to draw over, I think I'd put the bite out of the other side of the bun so that it's more visible. Oh well. Enjoy!

Search and Research #63

And thus ends the saga of the staff meeting. I have to say that given the way some students treat the library, I'm surprised that we haven't yet had someone bring in a Foreman grill and start cooking.

Speaking of cooking, the smoke in this story was inspired by the people who work in a non-library related department below our library. Our fire alarm went off a couple of months ago and we found that the reason was that someone in that department had cooked a microwave pizza in the microwave too long and it caught fire. It was good that none of us had a sledgehammer that day...Enjoy!

Search and Research #62

I feel that I must stress that I've never been in a staff meeting like the one portrayed here, but given the past meetings that this staff mentioned, smoke setting off the sprinkler system can't be as bad as an opossum getting stuck behind the radiator. Right? That's what I think anyway. Enjoy!

Search and Research #61

Wow, has it only been a week? It seems like much longer. Sorry for not getting a strip up last week, early on I had a bad stomach thing happening which felt like a small dwarf was in my stomach poking it from the inside with a fork. I then took the last half of the week off to celebrate my birthday.

This is picking up the staff meeting story line, and introducing the character of the library director. I'm still sort of tweaking her appearence, so don't be suprised if there are changes the next time she appears. Enjoy!

Search and Research #60

I was looking in our lost and found the other day, and was suprised at how many articles of clothing there were. Socks, shirts, hoodies...all sorts of stuff. I thought we could open up our own little thrift store there in the lobby. Anyway, talking about the lost and found got my friend Jason thinking about the strip, and he came up with the, I think, brilliant name Dressing Down from the Lost and Found. Enjoy!

Search and Research #59

I've never had a catastrophic staff meeting but it's funny to think about. If anyone out there has a funny staff meeting story, I'd love to hear it. Enjoy!

Search and Research #58

Pardon our absence this past week. My wife and I had a great time hosting friends from Florida and Zimbabwe, but I did not get any strips done. I'm up and running again though. It's been weird to not draw all week...I suppose that's a good thing. Enjoy!

Search and Research #57

I had to do this one as a follow up because in the real life interaction that this is based on, the patron asked to check out a book before leaving! I did just now wonder why Marc didn't get SCOM to check the book out, but I think Marc isn't making any concessions for this guy. Or...maybe SCOM goes somewhere else at night. That might be something to explore at a later date. Either way, enjoy!

Search and Research #56

This is based on the experience of my friend and coworker Bryan this past weekend when we had abbreviated hours due to spring break. I'm not sure why, but it seems that most college students who are confronted while doing something against the rules in the library get sort of belligerent. Is that an unwritten rule somewhere or something? I'm not sure, but anyway, enjoy!

Search and Research #55

This was me last Thursday. The guy in the cafe in our building offered me an espresso while I was down chatting with him, and not wanting to turn down free coffee (my coffee policies are very similar to my cake policies...see last strip) I accepted. I'd never had an espresso before, so it was a SHOCK! I spent the rest of the day drinking water trying to get the aftertaste out of my mouth. I also couldn't concentrate on anything for the rest of the day. I would start working on a project and then a thought would hit me and I'd move on to deal with that thought. Then I had to sit at the service desk for 2 hours!!! I really wished that I had someone to tazer me so that I could wake up after it had all worn off. Hence, the strip. Enjoy!

Search and Research #54

Hey guys (in the plural, non-gender specific, group of people sense) sorry about Wednesday, I had some personal stuff keep me busy all day so I didn't have a chance to do a strip.

In this one Marc's policies are in fact my own personal policies about birthdays, which were faithfully enforced at the party in our library last week. Enjoy!

Search and Research #53

I would try to write something here that is witty and interesting, but the milk and leftover chinese food that I had for dinner 6 hours ago is turning out to not be the best culinary combination, so I will just say that this really happened in my library this past week and so I'm writing a couple of strips about it. Enjoy!

Search and Research #52

Sometimes SCOM's safeguards don't keep him from taking things a bit too far...and, as my friend Jason pointed out, as much as Marc tolorates him, he's not about to take any guff from a piece of office equipment! Enjoy.

Search and Research #51

I thought for a long time about what to call Marc's dad. For a while I wanted to have Opal call him 'Author and have SCOM ask her if she meant 'Arther', to which she would explain that 'Author' was short for 'Authority'...get it? Authority Record? My wife, however, nixed that one, but suggested Bibb as an alernative. Bibb is a weird first name but is a perfectly acceptable middle name. And Marc's dad just happens to like to go by his middle name, so there you go...Bibb Record. Get it?

If you aren't familier with what a Bib record is, please consult your local cataloger. Enjoy!

Search and Research #50

Number 50! Sweet! When I started this I really didn't know for how long I'd do it, and strip number 10 seemed a long way off. Now at 50, this has been a great experience. I've learned a lot about comic strips as a form of 'thought expression', and have also learned about setting a schedule for myself, meeting deadlines (for the most part) and being disciplined in the task of drawing, even when I didn't feel like it.

It's great to know that you are out there reading these things, and though I don't know most of you, it is you, all the readers, that I think of when I am tempted to slack off. Thank you very much for your encouragement and comments, and with any luck, I'll be saying the same things about strip number 100. Enjoy!

Search and Research # 49

Sorry everyone, I had a stomach sickness early this week which prevented me from doing any drawing. One of those ones where all you can do is just lay on the couch. So that's why there wasn't a strip on Wednesday.

Ok, so Marc's dad...I am very curious about retired librarians. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't just put things in order because it's my job, I do it naturally. When I'm in a store, or in another library and things are out of place, I feel somewhat compelled to properly arrange them, as though it is satisfying a higher order or something. I think that most librarians are the same way; it's just what we do. So what will happen when a librarian retires? A lot of people become more compulsive about stuff anyway with age...so I bet some librarians really would plan out trips alphabetically, arrange their medicine bottles alphabetically, or maybe spend their days at the local thrift store arranging the donated books. It's interesting to think about...and is what gave birth to this strip. Enjoy!

Search and Research #48

I have to admit that I'm not sure what to write here today, so...Enjoy the strip everyone!!!

Search and Research #47

Now we get to see how Boük creates a record. He find's the information he needs, separates it into Description and Access and then creates the record via the mental interface he has with the computer. We think that his glasses may be part of the mental interface...Enjoy!

Search and Research #46

We are back in business! Thanks goes out to the anonymous poster on strip 42 for giving me the idea for this one. My friend Bryan was not only excited to have a technology intuitive cataloguer join the cast, but was delighted to hear him espousing his views on cataloguing as though it were an art form rather than a simply technical task. Not being a cataloguer myself, Bryan is sort of guiding the cataloguing dialogue that appears in the strip.

I love all of your stories, ideas and suggestions and want to invite you all to continue sharing them as we go along. Enjoy!

*Edit* - It has been brought to my attention that our international viewers may not be aware who Paul Shaffer is. Here is an image of the great Paul Shaffer from wikipedia: Picture

Search and Research #45

WooHoo!!! We're finally at the end of this story arc!! I wasn't sure if I'd make it but we're here. Thank you all for sticking with me through this personal storytelling exercise/experiment. I don't think I ever want to try to tell a story that long with comic strips again.

Ok, putting up 5 strips in one weeks has really taken it out of me, so I'm aiming to get the next regular one up around Wed. of next week. Hopefully, it'll be on its normal 3 strips a week schedule for a while. Enjoy!