Hey, it’s been a while since I’ve posted one of these totally clever drawings of myself yawning to indicate that I’m too exhausted to participate in my ridiculously low-impact pastime of drawing!

I sometimes think it’s all about needing to rest my eyes after a long day of looking at subpar monitors at work.

For the life of me, I can’t come up with story ideas in my apartment, but as soon as a take off on a 10-mile run, things start to take shape. It’s still a very vague notion right now, but I’ve got enough of a springboard to do some brainstorming.

Actually, I just plain forgot that the Sketchbook Project is due next week. So far it consists of 8 pages of my graphic novel in rough form, followed by dozens and dozens of blank pages.

Luckily, one of my goals for this weekend was to brainstorm about some new characters, probably for a webcomic. So I’ll just throw every fragment related to that idea into the book.

I realize how peculiar it is to be a Jack Benny fan born outside of his lifetime, but it has its rewards. His radio show was always more fun and freewheeling than his television endeavors, but I saw a lot of episodes on “Antenna TV” and YouTube over the long weekend, and found that there’s a lot to love about the video incarnation.

My new favorite is a 1950s episode which takes place on New Year’s Eve. The first half is kind of dull and corny, but the second half, especially if you know the characters well, is a treat. Jack is humbled when his New Year’s date cancels at the last minute, and although he takes it rather well, there’s just the right amount of pathos as he observes New Year’s frivolity as an outsider.

But the best moment, depicted above, is when his butler Rochester foregoes a wild party in order to stay home and hoist champagne with his boss.

It’s almost silly to mention race in this context; after all, it was clearly a non-issue on the Jack Benny show. But I have to wonder if the fact that one of America’s most beloved comedians was depicted, without fanfare, as being a dear friend with a black man caused people of that era to second-guess their own prejudices.