When I sat down to write something today, I wound up spending about an hour or so doodling on a legal pad. And now it’s close to midnight and I have to post something for the day, so here are a bunch of random sketches. This counts as a post, right?

I’m naming this guy Greg. Grey just found out that his band is kicking him out. And this is a reaction shot. The band got together and nobody wanted to be the one that had to let him know the bad news. He’s a huge hotheaded jerk who blows a shit-fit at the slightest provocation. That’s part of, but only part of, the reason why they want to kick him out of the band. There are plenty of other problems, like he can’t play guitar very well, or sing at all, and yet he always insists on grabbing the mic mid-set and belting out a few off-key “Ah-ah-ahhhhs!” So the bassist Chris got the short straw, he pulled Greg aside, he was like, “Greg, listen, the guys … we … well, it’s not working out, you know, so you’re out of the band.” And this is Greg taking the news, he’s like, “Whaaaaat? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you seriously fucking trying to kick me out of my own fucking band!”

So yeah, you can imagine how well that went.

Next up we have Tommy. Tommy has always been shy around girls, which, well, it’s just whatever, it’s how he is. But there is a bunch of really lame girls at his high school. They always make fun of him behind his back, about how he’s so shy and awkward. Tiffany, the meanest of the girls, she pressured Stacey to ask him out on a date, but as a prank. “So, like, do you want to go out some time?” And this is Tommy’s reaction shot. He’s like, “Really? R-r-really? You want to go out with m-m-me?” And then there’s a beat and then all of the girls start laughing. And Tommy’s face is stuck like this for like a minute or so, because on top of being really shy, he’s also kind of slow. So it takes a while for the joke to really sink in, and even then, he doesn’t stop smiling, and everything is really awkward and the girls walk away and Tommy goes home and spends the next twelve hours on the Internet.

Finally we have Vance. Vance is super, super cool. But he’s also had a piece of popcorn stuck in between his left molars all day. It’s driving him nuts. When he went to lunch at the diner, he grabbed a bunch of toothpicks on the way out. And that’s what this drawing is, he’s on his like third toothpick, and he’s no closer to getting that popcorn shell out of his tooth. He’s in the bathroom, looking in the mirror seeing if he might not be able to pinpoint exactly where the debris is. But he stops, he pauses to admire how cool he looks with this toothpick just kind of casually sticking out of the corner of his lips. He decides to incorporate it as part of his image. But he finds that, even if he’s really careful not to play with it, as soon as his mind stops thinking about the toothpick, he starts chewing on it. And then like a minute later there are all of these wood fibers everywhere, some of them making their way to the back of his throat. It’s cool, yes, but it’s kind of a high-maintenance look, definitely not as easy as they make it out to be in the old greaser movies. On his way out of the diner, the cashier says to him, “Hey, toothpick boy, those toothpicks aren’t all-you-can-grab. Just take one or two next time,” because yeah, Vance took like twenty, twenty-five toothpicks. I don’t know why he thought that would have been OK.