Paul Southworth

Ugh. Sick.

Eric Millikin kicks off "Tales from the Ugly Files" with a bang!





Still sick.

I'm re-posting this from the official Ugly Hill site:

There exists a text file on my computer that contains every idea I've had for Ugly Hill since it started way back in 2005. Every. Single. Idea. It's pretty darn big. A lot of those ideas get either forgotten or rejected for one reason or another, and since I'm taking next week off, I thought it might be fun to throw a little twist on the boring old "Guest Week" we're probably all so tired of. What follows is a short list of one line ideas for Ugly Hill stories that never got made. For example:

•Hastings commissions Peter to paint a portrait of his mother for her birthday.

The guest artist would then build a single strip around this concept, showing what they think would happen in that situation. If you're an artist and would like to try your hand at this, pick one of the ideas below and email me with it, just so we make sure nothing gets done twice. Here's the rest of the list:

• Eli develops a crush on Peter's underage girlfriend.
• Peter falls in with a gang of militant vegetarians.
• Hastings and Peter are sent on a business trip to China.
• Snug becomes mayor of Ugly Hill through a write-in campaign.
• Hastings' great-great-grandfather is the inventor of scientific racism.
• Hastings and Eli get invited to the wedding of a former classmate.

"Tales from the Ugly Files" starts this Monday, March 31st (short notice, I know!). I know there are some great artists out there among you, so I look forward to seeing how you flesh out these ideas!

Haven't drawn a dang thing (other than a freelance project I'm doing and various projects at my day job) since Friday. I was planning to take next week off from drawing Ugly Hill, but then I got back into the swing of things, and now I think a week off is in order again. It's been six months since the baby was born, and I haven't missed a day since that initial guest week when we brought him home. I'm burned out! Need some time to refocus, regroup, and rest. Not sure what I'll run for content next week, though, but maybe I can use that time to finally finish the new website design.

William got his first tooth this weekend! Well, technically he already had it. He kept it under his gums! But that little bugger decided this weekend would be a good time to forcibly erupt through its wet, fleshy prison. It only seemed to hurt him for a day, and he had some trouble sleeping, but now that it's broken though the gum line we seem to be out of the woods. What? Oh, human beings have dozens of teeth in their heads? [Scott Bakula Impression] OH BOY [/Scott Bakula Impression].

You won't see any of the tooth in these pictures, but  here is a list of things you will see: chubby cheeks, fat little legs, plastics helmets, and various members of my family posing with them.









Dude, I totally forgot to put on a shirt today.

Just wanted to share this, because I can't think of anything more hilarious right now.

Also, is anyone else using Mojo to share iTunes libraries?

I'm southworth813, and I want your music.

It turns out the problem with the car was a cracked "power pack", which sounds to me like something the Red Ranger would snap onto his plasma rifle to give it an extra boost, but whatever. Apparently there's a lot of electronic crap in this "power pack", and because of the crack it was getting all kinds of wet. A new one costs over $500, but our guy is trying to find  us a used on for half the price.

So.. power packs: screw you.

Also, we took William to the Helmet Doctor this morning and his progress remains excellent! He should have the helmet off before summer, and that's awesome. I don't know if you've ever smelled a sweaty baby head before, but if you ever get the chance... pass. It is a sub-standard olfactory experience. Here are a couple of pictures of the little guy, because I feel like it!

He was so tired in this one. he could barely hold his head up to eat his flavorless mush!



This is technically not a picture of William , but of his favorite toy. He loves the CRAP out of that thing, when he's not hitting himself in the face with it.



I don't remember what we were looking at in this picture, but it probably wasn't very exciting.



Also, in closing, we rocked out:

So I'm driving home from taking my father food shopping this weekend (New Bedford, MA to Riverside, RI... about a 40 minute drive each way), and all of a sudden I notice the car seems to be having trouble shifting. Huh. I keep going, and then the car starts to decelerate. No matter how far down I push the gas pedal, the car continues to go slower and slower. It can't seem to shift into the next gear. I started off going 75... then 60... then 40.... finally I pulled over to the side of the highway and crawled along at a steady 20MPH. AWESOME. Even more awesome, I don't have a cell phone. And it was raining... pouring, really. AWWWWEEESOOOOMMMMEEEE. Long story short, I managed to make it to a gas station with a pay phone and called AAA. I had to wait for almost an hour, and in that time I got asked for a dollar and watched some crackhead lady in a fur coat check the two pay phones for change almost a dozen times. I passed her on the way back to my car. She smelled like cigarettes and failure.

When I brought the car to our mechanic, he asked if I had just recently gone through a large puddle. I said no, but it was raining awfully hard. He said it was probably due to the moisture, with an air of finality I didn't appreciate; like he didn't even intend to investigate. I said, "But uh... should my car be doing that? You know, totally not working when it rains? Is that par for the course in Jettas or what?".

So, you know, don't invite me anywhere when it's raining. I won't make it.

I've been trying to replace my hat for years. It's dirty, faded, and just about ready to fall apart. Maybe  you can help me.



As  you can see, it is a "Blinky the Three-Eyed Fish" hat, from "The Simpsons". It's all black, with an embroidered fish on the front, and according to the tag it was made by a company called "HeadShots", which, according to Google, no longer exists.

I love this hat because it is simple, not obnoxious, and has a three-eyed fish on it. Does anyone know where I can get a replacement?

- Went to bed at 10:00pm with two earplugs.

- Woke up around 2:30am with one earplug.

- My wife got up around 5:30am and found the missing earplug on the kitchen floor.

.....

Huh.

Looks like today's comic and yesterday's comic ran out of order... somehow! Huh. I guess I'll have to fix that when I get home. In the meantime, I'll brace for a glut of emails pointing out the error. There's really nothing like getting hundreds of corrections when you make a single mistake.

It feels like... home.

Our dachshund, Molly, has always slept in a dog cage. She hated it when she was a puppy, but she eventually got used to it... until the baby arrives. Then she started crying like a banshee  every time I put her to bed. So I broke down and started letting her sleep on the couch. Until, that is, she started peeing on it every night. Now she's back in the cage again, but here's the problem: I can't sleep through her crying. I just can't do it. My wife can do it. Even my 5 month old son can do it. I can't do it. I got about two hours of sleep Saturday night, so when my wife went to Target Sunday afternoon I asked her to pick me up some ear plugs. Man... ear plugs are weird now! I was expecting some little foam things, but I guess now they're made of malleable silicone rubber and they actually mold to the shape of your ear when you shove them in there. Not the most comfortable thing in the world, but let me tell you... I heard NOTHING. It was like sleeping underwater.


Thanks, Mack's Pillow Soft Ear Plugs, for saving my dog's life. Because if I didn't get a good night's sleep last night, I was planning to murder her! That's right, DOG MURDER. I said it. Nice way to start your Monday, right? Enjoy.

UPSIDE DOWN BABY


Have a good weekend

God, I have got to start eating better. Ever since the baby was born, I've basically just been shoving anything in my biggest face hole that wanders into my field of vision. Sorry, stray cat! Now you live in my intestines! Here is a list of "food" I ate yesterday:

- double chocolate gas station muffin
- cranberry juice
- Subway® buffalo chicken sandwich with Sun Chips and Diet Coke
- 4 Hershey's Kisses
- Big plate of macaroni and meatballs
- 4 big old molasses cookies
- 3 or 4 Thin Mints (damn you Girl Scouts DAMN YOU)
- Glass of wine

Good thing I had that DIET COKE, huh guys? Man. A regular Coke would have put me over the edge. Not only has months of eating like Morgan Spurlock filming a documentary caused me to pile on a few pounds, but I feel like CRAAAAAAAAP. I suppose it has something to do with my sedentary lifestyle too, but I can't do much about that. You can't do squat thrusts and make comics at the same time! If I don't start eating better, I think my heart is going to melt and drip heart-juice all over my lungs.

Hey, is that a Pop-Tart?

Had an idea for an all-ages strip/book this week. Drawin' monkeys.

I... oh god, I probably shouldn't have eaten that gas station chocolate muffin just now. Oh sweet lord... not a good way to start the day. Bleagh.

New Ugly Hill! : http://www.uglyhill.com/d/20080306.html

I'm trying to plan my next move in terms of storylines. I've got an entire week written out in one direction, but now I'm thinking I should go in another. Hey waitaminute... didn't I say I was taking a week off?! Ha! What a liar. Well, maybe not. I didn't draw at all last night; just watched some Tivo'ed "Enterprise" and "The Drew Carey Show" with the wife. Felt good! As opposed to this brick of pseudo-chocolate sitting in my stomach. Uuugggghhhhh....

Is it just me, or do the new caps on Coke bottles suck? They're more shallow, and as such become harder to grip when the bottle or your hands are even slightly moist. They have, like, zero traction.

Speaking of shallow, I refer you to the above. Hey did you guys know there is a war going on and there are people being killed at Wendy's and puppies being thrown off cliffs everyday?

HEY COKE FIX THESE BOTTLE CAPS OKAY? IT'S IMPORTANT.

Man, I am feeling all kinds of burnt out on drawing Ugly Hill right now. I think I need a week off to recharge my batteries. It's not that I don't have ideas. I have the next few storylines all planned out in my head, and plenty of jokes.... it's just the rigors of producing the strip every day that are getting to me. Now that I'm working completely digitally, the process is faster, but I don't get to work at night until at least 7:30pm (when the baby goes to bed), and I'm usually exhausted and in bed by 10pm. That's two and a half hours tops, to letter, sketch, ink, and color. If it weren't for that fact that I can typically get at least one of those steps done at work, I don't think I could do it. Plus lately I've been wanting to work on something different. I've got all these ideas bouncing around in my head for comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, etc, but  no time to devote to them. Of course, this is all on top of the fact that I'm trying to get the second Ugly Hill book printed by mid-April for the New York Comic Con. When it rain, it pours, I guess.

Luckily, I don't mind at all not being able to work earlier in the evening because I get to spend a little time with William, who at 5 months old is just starting to roll over both ways reliably and really PLAY, rather than just stare wide-eyed at you or cry. He's getting to be a lot of fun! The feeling of euphoria I get when I make him laugh is crazy. And he laughs a lot! Life is good.

Maybe I'll take a week off from drawing soon so I can relax and enjoy it.

- Got home from work yesterday and had to stand out in the rain for fifteen minutes waiting for the dog to poop. I think she's allergic to water, but only if it falls from the sky.

- Went to bed at 9:45pm, didn't fall asleep until 1:00am. Toss, turn, repeat.

- Baby slept through the night again, but woke up briefly to fuss JUST as I was falling asleep, causing me to briefly believe that I would never sleep again. He went back to sleep minutes later. Toss, turn, repeat.

- This morning, went out onto the porch to feed the cat and noticed the monsoon raging outside was coming INSIDE. Sopped up the mess with paper towels, cursed the idiot who built our storm windows with a BIG SPACE BETWEEN THEM.

- Dog peed on the couch.

- Cat puked on our bed.

- Baby continued to be cute, watch his Baby Einstein video in his MegaSaucer and smiling at me when I came in the living room to put on my shoes.

- Decided to start periodically writing these things in a journal so I won't forget them in 20 years.

Yeah, so I'm just testing this thing. I have a livejournal.

Stay tuned for more edge-of-your-seat, white-knuckle action.

Testing journal...testing