It’s summer time and the living is easy. “Unoriginal thought” you say? “Sounds like I’ve heard that one before” you’re saying to yourselves. “Is he off the wagon again?” you’re wondering as you rifle through your emails in the hopes of deleting stuff that evaded the hi tech filters?

Well, there is an explanation for the Porgy and Bess quote. I am feeling the effects of work and summer and now vacation all coalescing into a big ball of laziness. I have indeed been remiss in my duties to provide you and the rest of the Internet with the finest humor that I can muster after a sugar high and a sleepless night. However, this short post and attached sketch will prove to you that I am alive and well, I am on vacation, and that I have embraced a summer sloth with the intensity of an emotionally unstable person gripping the handles on a roller coaster car as it climbs the heights before plummeting into a g-force-induced vomit-fest.

I am cooking, grilling, slicing, preparing and chopping all manner of ingredients almost daily for me and the family. I’m also managing to eat foods that fall into either the category of “tasty and all natural” or into the “may cause genetic damage and shortened lifespan” category, so you can see little has changed on that front.

But it isn’t for lack of original ideas and plot lines that I am slow to create new illustrations and stories. Ideas I have aplenty, even if they are the fevered creation of a man whose own children say “Dad, uh, you know you’re a little offbeat, don’t you.” So be prepared for new characters, stories that will make you chuckle and guffaw (in private, of course). Just give me a couple of weeks to get my butt back in front of the computer.

And I’ll be tanned and fit when I do. Ok, just tanned.

Forever yours (until a better offer comes along),

Master of the martial arts (like painting with my toes) Jonah van Damme