Howefitz Blog

G’Day, Mates! This Fatherhood Friday, I wanted to give you the update on Kat’s Australian adventures!

We’ve been communicating through text and the leader has been emailing us, so unfortunately, there are no pictures yet. They are in and out of phone service, and don’t have access to email very often, but here’s what I know so far:

They have repelled off of the Blue Mountains, swam at the Olympic Park, toured the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Aquarium, visited the Opal Museum, took a cruise of Sydney Harbor, visited the Parliament House, swam at Edith Falls, visited Aborigines, and Kat wrestled a sheep.

In my quest to develop a webcomic based on my family, I have found myself exploring what it is about the webcomics that I read that keep me coming back. A lot of that has to do with what’s below the comic: many creators blog underneath their comic updates. These blogs, like any blog, contain everything from helpful insight to what the artist ate for dinner.

One creator that includes helpful content is Travis Hanson over at his webcomic The Bean. Recently, he posted a blog entry titled Your Adventure: Creating Your Story. The entire post is well worth the read, but this passage caught my eye:

Yesterday, I gave a little more details in to the motivations of my creating a webcomic. I honestly thought I’d hit on a new idea: chronicling, with sequential art, the life of a dad and his family. However, in my quest to find knowledge and inspiration, I Googled ‘Daddy Webcomic’, and the screen filled with hits from a site called sillydaddy.net.

I am not alone.

Silly Daddy was/is created by Joe Chiappetta of North Riverside, Ill. I found some interesting facts about Silly Daddy over at the Geek To Me blog at chicagonow.com:

Since I was a little boy, I’ve wanted to make cartoons. The dream has taken many forms, from animation to comic books. I look at my children today, and I don’t want them to see a man who didn’t accomplish his dreams.

I’ve already detailed here how I’m putting more effort into developing a webcomic based on the very family I hope to make proud, so I hope it will not come as a surprise that my blogging will become less frequent as I focus on my webcomic.

Today’s kids are spoiled. They can have cartoons 24-7, on demand, no questions asked. Here at Howefitz Blog, I’d like to start  a tradition of making Saturday morning an event again. Cartoons belong on Saturday morning!

Please excuse the crudeness of the above comic. When inspiration strikes, I have to get it down on paper. Since discovering the blogging lifestyle, I now feel like I should share everything online…

If you follow me on twitter, you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I’ve been geeking out on my favorite webcomic, Hijinks Ensue. In fact, I went back to the beginning earlier in the week, and got to the end late last night.

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: