And then it got weird. I started getting submissions from a lot of people. As a result, I didn't have to write as much. Which depending on one's view of things is a good thing or a bad thing.
In 1991 I was probably at my peak of being creative - writing three of four short stories a day. Now I just do a blog - oh yeah and write three to six articles a month for a Canadian industrial trade magazine. I'm also a pretty fine comic book writer (I do have over 30,000 comic books), but aside from having maybe 20 stories published by Strange Fun Comics, I'm not a professional - and should the stars ever align themselves, perhaps I will be in 2011.
Still... in 1991, as mentioned, people sent a lot of submissions to The Tatami Times newsletter. One regular contributor for the first several months of 1991 was one Marina Izatt, and Aussie who traveled to Japan with her husband Rob and five-year-old son Douglas.
Douglas was a fine young lad - and good grief, he's probably a university graduate by now! But back in 1990-91, he was a kindergarten student in Japan.
I can barely understand my own five-year-old explaining things to me, so I can only imagine the angst this kid must have felt trying to talk to other Japanese kids or to his teachers. Worst of all was the fact that he stood out even more than the rest of us gaijin (foreigner) - and more than us adult gaijin, Douglas was a curiosity to the Japanese.
Courtesy of Marina, here are some altered Calvin & Hobbes cartoons originally drawn and written by the fantastic Bill Waterson (here's a link to what seems to be a GREAT site on him!).
Somewhere glad I'm not five-years-old,
Andrew Joseph
Today's blog is powered by The Beatles: PEPPER
PS: For your edification:
'chisai' = small size
'gaijin' = foreigner
'baka' = 'stupid'
'ichi' = one
'ni' = two
'san' = three
'kowai nai' = 'forget it' or perhaps more eloquently: 'screw this!'
