‘Axis’ for January 3, 2022

Beware of graduate students. They’re usually the first ones to tell you everything about themselves. Our resident grad student ‘Oliver’ takes a stab at using a straw. I’m pretty fucking sure that there’s some actual science behind all of that damn sucking we all do every single day on our $10 coffee drinks.

This decrepit cartoonist (ahem, I’m Gen-X) would like to say a big ink-stained “thank you” and welcome to all of the new Medium followers (readers of my strip) that I have been picking up lately. I’m glad you’re here. I have a dream and a vision of being in the “funny pages” someday in the future if I can just get past all those damn rejection letters the blasted Syndicates keep sending me. Perhaps all of you can be part of the groundswell of “Axis” readers who might make it happen. There will be a day in the future when “Axis” will actually become “ink-on-paper” in the pages of our nation’s newspapers along side all of the other legacy strips which have been there for over the past 40 years already (not everything that currently appears in-print in the “funny pages” is even funny, I think). To that end, I am forever grateful for all of you being here on Medium with me and for seeking out and finding my comic strip. You’ll be able to say to others one day, “hey, I knew that guy when he was a nothing…”

There’ll be more to come. My pencils are sharpened up and my ink markers are full and at the ready. I’ve got gobs and gobs of stories written out and raring to go. As a cartoonist, I always write “Axis” long before I actually sit down at the cartooning desk and draw “Axis.” In my mind, I’ve already got the next 30 years of this strip spec’ed out — sort of. To all of the new Medium followers, Welcome to the world of “Axis!” I’ll see ya in the funny pages.