This is a page out of my sketch journal. This week’s word for Illustration Friday was “suspense.”

When I heard today’s theme for Illustration Friday was “suspense,” I decided I would take a page directly from my sketchbook. The word reminded me of old radio drama shows and comic books. It reminds me of a little grime and notes taken on napkins. Something seedy is going on when there’s some suspense!

Sketch of a man who is aging thanks to his computer

Do you ever have those days where you feel the computer is aging you? My problem is I forget to take a break every once in a while. If my eyes didn’t scream it me to blink, I could stay in a trance indefinitely.

This sketch came from a sketchbook I drew in 1999. I was spending a lot of time in front of a CRT then. Yes, you can tell by the blue line we were using CRT’s with humongous picture tubes then. I saved a lot of room when those monitors went the way of the mastodon.

What about you? Do you feel the computer adds a few extra laugh lines to your face?

The article complemented the Pew research study that says e-reader and tablet ownership nearly doubled over the holiday season.

This threatens many people within publishing. But should it? All these readers still need content. Without something to read or view, e-readers are useless. Authors and publishers need to come to grips with the fact we are in the content business, not the product business.

I’ve come to realize we’ve fooled ourselves over the millennia. Publishers claimed it was all about the content, but the profit came in the physical book. We claimed the ideas within the books were important, but we were really selling the pages and cover.

Now that we’ve entered a new age, the ideas within the “book” really will matter. Let’s start selling worthy content, and not worry about what form it could take. Leave that to the consumers.

The businesses that the most to lose are the printers, not the publishers. Heaven help them!

Cartoon of a dad eating potato chips. He says to his son, “Hey, Son. I’d like to talk to you about self control right after I finish this bag of chips.”

This cartoon appeared in the January, 2012 issue of the Church of God newsletter.

Self-control is something that’s been on my mind lately. We live in a world where everyone seems to have at least a little attention deficit disorder. There are so many things vying for our attention, that it is difficult to keep our eyes on one thing.

Yet, if you want to be successful at something, I realize I need to focus on one thing and do it well. It’s easier said than done when you like to draw, design and write. That’s why I’ve loved cartoons. It takes a little of all three to produce a comic. You have to be a jack of all trades to make it work. But when you have different talents, and you use them all, can you ever be a master of one?

The hard thing about discipline is I have to make some choices and toss other things out. At the same time, I won’t compromise on important things like my faith, family or health. Discipline doesn’t really work if I am not taking care of my mind, body or spirit.

So is there such a thing as a balanced, disciplined life? Who knows? All I know is when someone passes around a bag of chips, I am the first one plunge my hand in and stuff my face!