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children's ministry children's ministry cartoons K! Magazine Kidzmatter Magazine Magazine motivation work

When You Just Can’t Work Remotely

As the novel coronavirus concerns ramped up, there was a big emphasis on working from home. But we soon heard, “What happens when you just can’t work remotely?”

For many office jobs, we found it was a possibility. As a graphic designer, that can be a preferred mode of working. After all, you just need a laptop and a speedy Internet connection, and you are in business. However, after two years, we’ve found there are aspects of remote work that just don’t work.

Also, there are many jobs where that just isn’t possible. Manufacturing requires workers to be at the machines and be productive. As a Graphics Manager at such a facility, I soon found I was needed at the plant. While we had some office workers off-site as a precaution, we still needed office workers there to keep the jobs moving.

While some schoolwork can be done remotely, someone has to be there to guide a child and keep him out of trouble. Someone has to be home to feed her. Sure, The parent can do that… while they are working remotely… and having their web conference with that important client… and keeping the dog quiet. What could go wrong?

We soon found out! Remote learning has been very hard for students. I feel for them. While remote employment has worked, remote learning has been very hard for kids.

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cartoon New Riders Internet Yellow Pages webcomic work

Webcomic: Home Based Napping

Webcomic Home Based Nap


Cartoon of a woman asleep at a home office. Caption says, “Carol discovers one of the benefits of a home based business.”


This is an illustration I did back in 1996 for the sixth edition of the “New Rider’s Internet Yellow Pages.” New Rider’s Publishing and me own the copyright to this image. Please do not use without permission.


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New Riders Internet Yellow Pages webcomic work

Webcomic: Office Coffee

Comic of two men in a kitchen. One says, “My major disappointment from working at home is I have no one to blame for a bad cup of coffee.”


This is a cartoon I did back in 1996 for the sixth edition of the “New Rider’s Internet Yellow Pages.”


New Rider’s Publishing and me own the copyright to this image. Please do not use without permission.


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Adobe Illustrator cartoon children cartoons work

Spear-Cartoon_3483


Spear-Cartoon_3483
Originally uploaded by speartoons

Cartoon of Dad to son, “Don’t think of them as chores, but as opportunities.”

I thought of this ideal because my kids are on spring break this week. My wife asked one of our kids to do a chore the other night. You would have thought we just told him to hold his arm in a barrel of leaches for a "reasonable" amount of time.

Suddenly, I thought of an image of a motivational speaker trying to get his kid to do his chores. Perhaps this speaker can challenge a corporation to reach for excellence and a government bail out. But I’m guessing even this captain of blarney couldn’t get his son to clean the commode.

I’ve been experimenting with how to create my cartoons in Adobe Illustrator. In this instance, I used the shape tools such as the ellipses and rounded boxes to get the basic shapes. Then I warped them and distorted them how I saw fit.

I used my raw drawing right out of my sketchbook as the template.

When I had all the shapes just so, I converted them to a live paint object. This is my new, favorite tool in Illustrator. Not only can I use the paint bucket to colorize the fills, but I can also use it to apply different line widths to the strokes. It’s a major time saver.

I am also testing wether I can handle just a black and white drawing for the weekdays and if anybody notices. I’d rather get several black and white cartoons out in a week than just one color. Alas, time keeps flowing and I’m caught in the undertow.

I drew this in Adobe Illustrtor CS2

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sketch diary work

Going on Vacation

That’s right. I’m getting ready for vacation. I may have a cartoon tomorrow. If I don’t, I’ll see you in April.