Welcome back. It turns out that GC has some pretty interesting ideas about how the game industry works. Believe it or not, I tried to give it a shot myself. After Sierra decided to close the doors at Dynamix, there weren't a lot of options for folks like me. Sure, we were all looking for work, but there weren't a lot of game jobs available and, thanks to Enron, the economy had taken a major nosedive. There weren't a lot of any kind of jobs available. I decided that while I was looking for work, I'd try my hand at free-lancing, making some games myself and selling them to companies that were looking for content. The problem was, I just wasn't good at getting the word out. Some folks are charismatic sales people, but I wasn't one of them. The other problem was that, like my wife's Mary Kay business, there were a lot of other people out there doing the same thing I was. The competition is fierce! And being a better artist and designer than a programmer, I just didn't have what it took to make a self-contained product that really stood out. The moral of the story is that if you want to sell things for a living, you have to work hard at being a salesman. Because the fellow that beats you to the prize working very hard to do just that - he's certainly not waiting around for money to fall into his lap.

Hey, another week and Cy and GC are participating in that annual tradition, watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade. While GC is obviously confused about the purpose of the parade, rest assured that he'll soon get straightened out about what's real and what isn't. Now that frost is on the ground (and snow clouds are on the horizon), this is the time of year where folks like me reflect on the past year and count their blessings. I am particularly grateful that I continue to be able to have the opportunity to make comics like Gamecreature and Working Daze and share them with folks like you. I hope I will get additional opportunities to do the things I love so much in the coming year. And I hope the same for you and yours. See you next week!

I'm back from my trip out of town. I hope everybody didn't get too worried by my absense. At least you had some new cartoons to keep you company. Speaking of which, the events described in this week's cartoon really did happen. Sort of. The statement was indeed asked in an email to the pinball team and the person in question couldn't believe she had to ask the question. And the company had those seminars on a regular basis, not because of anything anyone said or reactions to said things.

On to fun matters. In case you hadn't been reading Working Daze lately, we're having a contest where we are giving away three copies of our latest book, "Managers and Other Unnatural Disasters" to the folks who can tell us in an email why they deserve it. We've already received a lot of creative entries, but the contest is still open. If you feel you are a deserving person (and you're not already on my Christmas list), then go to Comics.com and send us (John and me) a message.

Hi there - sorry about the lateness of this post. Halloween was quite eventful this year. I wanted to share this year's pumpkin, which uses the pattern I posted in the media section. I learned quite a few things from this which I will apply to next year's designs. Provided I do one. What do you think?