Howefitz Blog

It’s no secret that I’ve been stressed lately. I’ve blogged about it, tweeted about it and ranted about it to friends, family, and anyone who happens to be standing close to me at any given time. It’s funny, since for a while I’ve tried to project a fairly care-free, nothing bothers me attitude. But lately, none of the pieces seem to fit.

I’ve already blogged about how my kids help out with all the stress, but there’s something else that helps me when I’m stressed that I hadn’t thought of in a while. Something that you could say began in my teenage years. Something that I can only do when I am alone.

The air smelled of stale pages and small children. The teenagers jostling in to the room reminded me of the wildebeasts that make short work of Mufasa, leaving Simba fatherless. I shed a tear for my daughter Calli and my unborn son. They will never know what it is like to have a father. My oldest, Kat, had betrayed them. She had led me to this pack of wolves, this den of geeky jockularity. I stood before them, notes quivering in my hand.

I was going to teach comic books to teenagers.

Kirby help me.

The smell of stale gym socks infused my nostrils with testoterone and bravado. I had just finished swimming at the rec center and was changing into my dry clothes when a young muscular man struck up a conversation with me.

“Hey how’s it goin’?” he asked.

“Good, you?” I answered. All the fears of high school locker rooms flooded irrationally back. Does this guy want to kick my ass? Why is he talking to me?

“Great!” he answered. “So do you have kids in here?”

Recently, through the magic of social networking, I came across an organization called the Comicbook Artist’s Guild. They are an organization of comic book professionals and beginners that get together for the sheer love of comics.

Their first anthology comic: Iconic, will be formally released at the MoCCA fest in New York City, being held June 6 and 7, but they were nice enough to let me peer inside it’s pages beforehand so that I can tell you a little bit about it.

Click here to buy your very own copy of Iconic!

I think I’ve mentioned before that we have become more active at the rec center lately. We at least swim there almost every day. When our schedules allow, my wife and I drop Calli, the two year old, off at the child sitting service, workout for an hour, pick the little one back up and go swimming. We always have a good time. (I’ve gotten rather adept at reading comics while on the stationary bike!)

The sisters relate to each other...

As a Daddy Blogger, I find myself in a unique situation: I have a 15 year old step-daughter and a two year old daughter. I feel that this gives me a different perspective. I came into Kat’s life when she was four years old, so I missed the diapers and the slow development of her language skills. I’ve watched her grow up and marveled at her dreams and the decisions that she’s made. Even though I’ve had those eleven years of being a Daddy, with Calli it feels like I’m a brand new Daddy. Now I get the diapers and laugh at the way she reasons out words. Bunnies are ‘hoppies’ for instance. Doggies are ‘goggies’. With a new baby boy on the way in August, that’ll be a whole new world, as now I’m so used to girls, what do I do?

Recently, while perusing the graphic novel collection at my local public library, I happened across a charming book called ‘Amelia Rules!‘. I instantly fell in love with the spunky 4th grader. I also became a huge fan of the creator.

Jimmy Gownley is a cartoonist who cares. With ‘Amelia Rules!’ he set out to create a comic with classic comic strip sensibilities that did not talk down to kids. His success at this is overwhelming. Jimmy is a co-founder of Kids Love Comics!, an organization that promotes literacy through comics. Something I can certainly relate to and support.

Anyone who pays a little bit of attention has noticed that comic books really aren’t for kids anymore. Gone are the days of going in to your local grocery/convenience store and picking up the latest adventures of your favorite caped do-gooders. You might find an Archie Digest still on the checkout lane, but it will generally be placed out of the reach of children. I’m not sure who they’re marketed to, nostalgic parents? Truthfully at this point, nostalgic grandparents! Old Archie hasn’t done the best job of keeping up with the times…

If you follow me on twitter or Facebook, you’ve heard me hint at starting a webcomic. Between that, my blog here, and my day job, that squeezes a lot of time from the family. Sitting at the computer is a fairly lonely hobby.

So I’ve made moves to balance this new found lust for a digital life with my real one.

First and foremost, I wake up early. I’m not saying this is for everybody, but it works for me. (Kind of ironic, really. I used to be a ‘nightowl’, and now I do my best work in the early morning!) In my blog entry, ‘Balancing Life, Family, and Technology: How Some Authors Do It‘, Dayton Ward addressed how much sleep he got by saying: