Snitches get Stitches 6/24/22

This week, we go to a place where I thankfully don’t have much experience. Prison. John maybe, but not me. Okay, not him either. I do have some experience with babysitting these days however. If you don’t yet have grandchildren you’d be amazed at what type of qualifications it takes to be a babysitter. At least around New York City. You have college graduates, art history majors, child development experts, all vying for these jobs. No kidding. My own daughter’s babysitter is leaving to act in a production of Macbeth this summer. True. But we decided you can’t judge a book by its cover, so we went in the opposite direction and had Sam and Shellie hire an ex-con, covered in tattoos, to be little Sammy’s babysitter. We figured, how many degrees does it take to change a diaper (actually several). If you remember back to when we first introduced the babysitter, Sonny, he had a deeply intuitive understanding of how to speak to babies. And once Sam and Shellie got over the shock of seeing Sonny, they quickly decided he was their man. We get requests from some of our readers to do characters with alternate lifestyles, and we always respond, “We write about what we know.” This is why the strip is not filled with ex-inmates. Similarly, Sonny talks about what he knows. So John reached back into his prison knowledge base and pulled “snitches get stitches,” out of his a…I mean, out of thin air.

In our second comic, we have Sonny making up a bedtime story for Sammy. What else is he gonna talk about? He’s going to tell a better story if he speaks about what he knows. All we know is one thing, little Sammy is going to grow up to have quite an imagination. That is certainly one way to afford your kid a “well-rounded education.”

We’ll be back next week with two new ones and, before you know it, it’s going to be the 4th of July. Yikes, where does the time go?

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Expectations 6/18/21

Sometimes things turn out much, much better than we expect. And sometimes they turn out a lot worse. I remember once coming home to find my young son with an enormous 6’5” mountain of a man, I had never met before. When I went to ask him who he was I noticed he was teaching my son the alphabet. Turns out he was the boyfriend (and later husband) of our nanny who was taking care of our older daughter at the time. He was partially the inspiration for Sonny, the tattooed, ex-con, mountain of a man who is quietly becoming the best nanny we’ve ever seen. Sam and Shellie hit the nanny-jackpot with Sonny. We combined this story with another one that takes place outside my window several times a week. What I have observed is a mommy-exercise class. All these new moms have their babies in jogging strollers, including the instructor, who shouts out exercises they do while hanging on to the backs of their strollers. My daughter, a recent mother herself, enrolled in such a class in Brooklyn. One of the funnier incidents she recalled occurred when the instructor was demonstrating leg lifts (expertly illustrated by John) while simultaneously changing the diaper of her own baby! Anyway, since this is about Sonny, we changed the class to a nanny-exercise class. There really isn’t a big difference between a mommy class and a nanny class except for the fact that the nannies aren’t clad head-to-toe in Lululemon gear.

Now you might be wondering why I first talk about the second comic you see. I have reasons but they are both complicated and boring, not the stuff for a blog. Suffice it to say that the latest comic you enter appears first in the newsletter. Now you probably have no idea what I just said do you? That’s okay because I don’t either.

Moving onto the second strip (which of course appears first - don’t ask, I’m beggin’ you), we revisit the constantly evolving world of bicycles. There are two basic types of riders. One, like John, have carbon-fiber bikes that weigh only a couple pounds, and they also have pedals that require a special bike shoe that clips into said pedals. They think nothing of taking a 50-mile ride (I think that’s a lot of distance even when i’m in a car). Apparently, you have to wear brightly-colored spandex (which is a total non-starter for yours truly). As for the clip-on shoes, you just have to remember to unlatch one of your feet before you come to a stop, otherwise, crash! The other type of bike rider is like me. I have an electric, pedal-assist bike that helps me get up steep hills (after which I turn the motor off, I promise!!). It weighs about 55 pounds and has upright handlebars and a comfy seat. Readers, no matter which type of rider you are, we all experience the occasional fall. But when you pass 60 years of age, a fall exposes a dichotomy. The dichotomy is between the way we perceive ourselves as bike riders and the way others perceive us. I know this because I fell about a year ago after just passing the entrance to my apartment building. I sheepishly got up and before I could hop on the bike again, 5 or 6 workers, gardeners, delivery guys, etc., all came sprinting to the scene of the accident and asked if I was okay. ‘I’m fine,’ I insisted as I ignored the pain in my left buttock. Marv stands in as a cross between my type of bike rider and John’s.

That’s it for this week. We will see you (at least virtually) next week with two new ones. Until then, have a great weekend and if you happen to go for a bike ride, please, unclip your foot BEFORE you stop.

Andy and John

Sam Comes Back 6/4/21

When we first started this comic, we thought it would be fun to have a diverse set of friends, not only diverse in the racial sense, but also diverse in how their lives turned out. Gives us lots of fodder for different plots. That’s why in addition to two married couples (Al/Joanne and Marv/Rachel) we have a single guy dating (Craig) and a guy on his second marriage (Sam). At first Sam was the object of jealousy when he married a woman 20 years his junior (Shellie). And then she got pregnant and had a baby (Sammy) and suddenly the gang was not jealous of Sam anymore.

Because John and I are in our 60’s and our kids are all grown up, we tend to forget what a tremendous amount of time and effort it took to raise children from infancy. Now, because I’m a new grandpa, I see it up close and cannot believe we got through it in one piece. Suffice it to say, Sam is not getting through it in one piece. So they hired a babysitter with an advanced degree in child development. The fact that he’s covered in tattoos and just came out of prison is entirely beside the point. Who are we to judge? Well, it turns out we’re just like everyone else. So we introduce you to the new male babysitter, Sonny. He will give Sam some form of his old life back again and he gives us a fun new character to play with.

This week we reintroduce Sam back to the diner with his buddies and then take him to the park where Marv gets to meet Sonny for the first time. We hope, once you finish judging him, you will grow to love him. Afterall, there’s nothing to lose, because what the hell, it’s not like he’s looking after YOUR kid.

Have a good weekend (even if it’s cold and rainy) and we will see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Sonny Starts and Sam's a Free Man 5/21/21

Becoming a grandfather for the first time in your 60’s is a wonderful experience. Becoming a father for the first time in your 60’s? Not so much. At least not in our limited imaginations. So we show Sam in his attempt to be a househusband and he fails spectacularly. That’s one element of our story. The next one is the search for a babysitter or nanny, if you will. So we decided to go against type. Instead of the typical au pair from a Scandinavian country, we decided to go with a big guy with two sleeves of tattoos who has been recently released from prison. And, of course, he happens to be an impeccable choice. On a personal note I happen to have a son with two sleeves of tattoos who happens to be great with kids, though thankfully, he’s not a prisoner.

Our ex-con Sonny studied child psychology while he was in the pen and has a chance to show off his skills. As a babysitter/nanny, he beats the hell out of Sam, who has never been to prison either (at least not as far as we know). And now, a brief respite from the land of funny into the land of serious. These days there is a rash of violence between people just because somebody looks different or comes from a different country or speaks a different language or even has an accent. Sonny is our small attempt to say don’t judge a book by its cover. And yes, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

We will see you guys next week with two new ones featuring a return visit from one of our most popular characters, Al and Joanne’s son, Sid.

Have a great and (at least in some areas) maskless weekend.

Andy and John