I’ve been thinking about things that I could do with Simon when he’s up here next week, and knowing that he likes to do random creative things like drawing and writing short (silly) stories, I thought I’d try to come up with a way to create random comics so we can do some creative exercises while he’s up. I originally drew 40 pictures on 3″x3″ pieces of scrapbooking paper (essentially cardstock), but while Ian was at work the other day, I drew another 60 to bring the total up to 100. The pictures are fairly simple by themselves–a cat, a house, a person–but when you pick three or four at random then line them up, you have to create a story to go with them. I played this game with Miller a bit over the weekend, and I thought it was fun, so I hope Simon enjoys it too. The husband’s planning on taking all the pictures I scanned in and turning it into a separate page where you can randomly generate a sequence of pictures then type in captions to make your own stories. He’ll work on that later. I just made several on my own and wanted to put a couple of them up so y’all can see what it is. It’s fun! So here are a few of the comics I made. Enjoy!

(You’ll have to scroll to the right, sorry. When we do these more later, we’ll either shrink the pics or make the comics 3 pictures wide.)

Variant Money Systems
1. My girlfriend thinks I’m crazy.	2. I try to pay people with semiprecious gems.	3. The shop owners and maître d’s have started turning me away at the door.	4. Maybe I should be taking my meds.
Coffee Shop Romance
1. I spend a lot of time at the local coffee shop.	2. I bring big books with me to try and look educated and smart.	3. I pet the shop’s cat to try and seem friendly.	4. Why won’t anyone sleep with me?
Contest Winner
1. I got a phone call this morning.	2. It was the pastor’s wife at the local church.	3. She was calling about the contest they had there yesterday.	4. Apparently, I won first place in the grave-digging contest. Go me!
Man with a Mission
1. I am a man. A man with a mission.	2. My mission is to clothe chickens.	3. I start my mission after my morning cup of coffee.	4. But knitting sweaters for chickens is hard when they won’t sit still.
Snow Day
1. Yay! Snow day!	2. An entire day to play inside on the computer!	3. An entire day to play board games!	4. An entire day to drive Mom crazy and run away when she comes after us with her knitting needles!