funnies extra! mat-su #19 - jan 2013

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**** VOLUME 2, NO. 19 HAVE A LAUGH ON US! JANUARY 2013 ****LOOSE PARTS by DAVE BLAZEK SPECTICKLES by BILL ABBOTT

CAPTION CONTEST

Send your best caption to: [email protected] and type “Caption Contest” in the subject line. The winning caption will be published with the winner’s name, age, city and state two editions later, with permission.

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2 ǁ FUNNIES EXTRA! MAT-SU VALLEY EDITION ǁ www.funnies-extra.com ǁ VOL 2, NO. 19 - JANUARY, 2013

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Distributed by Ink Bottle Syndicate, LLC

©2011 Brian Martin dist. by InkBottleSyndicate.com

*Long ago, if people wanted to get rid of members of their Clan without killing them, they used to burn their houses down -- hence the expression “to get fired.” *The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland’s daughter, Ruth.

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*The Liberace Museum has a mirror-plated Rolls Royce; jewel-encrusted capes, and the largest rhinestone in the world, weighing 59 pounds and is almost a foot in diameter.

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of the driveway and I surveyed the landscape for bigger challenges. Since plowing was so fun why not randomly knock off a few more driveways? Store up some goodwill for the next time I tick somebody off by leaving my gar-bage cans out three days after pickup.

My neighbor, Paul, was chugging along with his temperamental snow blower. I’d snitched firewood from his stack once—maybe twice. I swerved around him, pirouetting in front of the garage, and cleared his driveway in a dozen passes. Thanks for the fire-wood. I made short work of the long and rutted lane of Rolf and Sondra, el-derly neighbors. No one was home to witness my labor. My reward will be in heaven. Next, I cleared the short, flat driveway of John, an overseas air-line pilot. He emerged from the house brandishing a bottle of wine like a waiter at a fine restaurant. “This is my favorite Israeli vintage,” he said. I accepted the gift to make John feel good. Yet another selfless act. And so on, and so on. That evening, I lounged before a crackling stack of Paul’s pine, sipping a fine Israeli wine—the model man of the house and beloved neigh-borhood Good Samaritan. I toasted myself, flames shimmering through burgundy-tinted liquid. The phone rang. “Jeem!” Rolf cried in heavily accented English. “Sondra and I are so grateful. She is terrified of being

OPEN MOUTH...INSERT FOOTJim Lein writes about adventure, life, music, and parenthood and has learned that most good stories don’t begin with, “and then I decided to keep my mouth shut.” His home in the Colorado Rockies serves both as an office and as a base camp for a variety of outdoor and musical activities. He has been published in numerous trade journals, business publications, and lifestyle magazines and is now a weekly contributor to Funnies Extra!.

Random Acts Of PlowingBy Jim “Snow” Lein

For many years, I relied on the sun for snow removal. But a shaded,

icy bend in my driveway can chal-lenge even the most surefooted vehi-cle. Pre-snowplow, each time a storm rolled through I’d peer out the window, steaming cup of cocoa in hand, and frown with concern as I watched my wife scrape and shovel the curve down to the pavement.

Then a friend offered me a sweet deal on his red Honda ATV with a shiny, yellow plow. I hesitated until my wife bopped me on the head with a battle-scarred shovel. I awoke one De-cember Saturday to a foot of powder blanketing the driveway. The garage door rattled open. The Honda growled to life and dropped its blade. I had no training—not even Snow Plowing for Dummies. And plowing dry practice runs in the fall might have made my neighbors wonder if I had finally lost it. So I just mimicked the county plow drivers. I have a master’s degree. How hard could it be? On that first pass, bone-dry snow blew past my goggles like face shots on a Vail powder day. The hungry Honda made short work

snowed in because she has a condi-tion, you know.” No problem.

The next weekend a ferocious storm dropped four feet of heavy snow. Whistling merrily, I mounted the ATV—unaware that some hard lessons in plowing lurked outside the door. Lesson One: ATVs cannot push four feet of snow uphill. Six feet from the garage the wheels churned des-perately. Paul and his finicky snow blower crept toward my garage, clear-ing an escape route for my Honda. Coincidentally, the route led right up to his garage, so of course I cleared his driveway first. My cell phone rang. “Jeem!” Rolf exclaimed. “What is your plan? Sondra has a condition, you know!” I did not have a plan or a clue. Lesson Two: Always push the snow as far off the driveway as possible. Rolf ’s driveway was like an icy Winter Olympics luge course. My plow blade bucked off the walls of snow hardened like concrete since my plowing debut. I had to push each load hundreds of feet down Rolf ’s driveway and dump it on the main road. Lesson Three: Keep your jacket hood down to avoid becoming the hood ornament of a passing county plow as you plunge blindly onto the road. Lesson Four: Memorize in the off-season any deco-rative landscaping near driveways you intend to randomly plow. Sorry about the lawn gnome, John.

It snowed hard as darkness fell. I stuffed iPod earbuds under my faux-rabbit-fur flaps to temper the mind-numbing tedium and laced my cocoa with just a nip of schnapps. I didn’t want to get busted for PWI—Plowing While Intoxicated. Carpal-tunnel-like spasms twisted my hand, worn out from hours of shifting between for-ward and reverse. Falling snow melt-ed on my gaudy hat and trickled down the back of my spine as a precursor to hypothermia. Hours after dark, I limped on fumes down that first soli-tary path Paul had cut through my own snow-clogged driveway. Mother Nature delivered four consecutive weekend storms that December. By New Year’s, my driveway was a minia-ture relief of the Grand Canyon, tow-ering ramparts of granite-like snow. Unsuspecting visitors plugged their vehicles between the canyon walls as they attempted a turnaround.

Legend has it that Eskimos have as many as four hundred words for “snow.” I’ve added a few more color-ful adjectives to the vocabulary. My strategy now is “Considerate” Acts of Plowing. But I always get to Rolf ’s driveway, eventually. Sondra has a condition, you know.

©2012 Jim Lein / Distributed by Ink Bottle Syndicate, LLC


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©2011 Robert Duckett / dist. by InkBottleSyndicate.com

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BIZ by DAVE BLAZEK

Distributed by ink Bottle Syndicate, LLC

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Using the method of elimination, suspect #2 has to be the killer. Suspect #1 is out due to her gender,and suspect #3 is telling the truth. Had he in fact been eating the chicken from the scene of the crime,

chicken bones would have been lined up on his plate.

THIN LINES by Randy Glasbergen CRIME-QUIZ by WERNER WEJP-OLSEN

©2011 Werner Wejp-Olsen / Distributed by Ink Bottle Syndicate, LLC


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AMAZING MAZES by Sheila Anderson


CHUCK DOWNS - CartoonistHaikus amuse me

But sometimes can confuse meRefrigerator

I always find random things in my pockets at the end of the day: paper

Each quarter, Funnies Extra! will shine the Spotlight on new or little-known aspiring cartoonists and pay them for their ‘toons, too! Comic strips and panels will be published from cartoonists of any age along with a pic and short bio. Send each strip as a PDF file, 300 dpi, CMYK, along with your name, age, address and phone number. Send 5 to 10 color submissions to: [email protected] and type “Spotlight” in the subject line. Good luck!For submission guidelines and information, go to: www.funnies-extra.com/submissions. (Participation void where prohibited.)

MARK SIMON - Producer/Director/CartoonistMark Simon is a 25-year film & TV veteran amassing over 3,000 production credits including animation producer on Larry the Cable Guy’s latest movie, Tooth Fairy 2.His storyboard and animation companies can be found online at www.Storyboards-East.com and include clients such as: Disney, Universal, Viacom, Sony, HBO, Nickelodeon, FOX, Steven Spielberg, USA Net-works, ABC Television and many others.Mark’s experience selling original TV series led to his founding www.SellYourTvConceptNow.com to mentor other creators. He is also the author of 10 popular industry texts, and lectures around the world at major conferences, entertainment trade schools and universities.

HOLLYWEIRD by MARK SIMON

POCKET LINT by CHUCK DOWNS

clips, gum wrappers, dry cleaning receipts and the ever-present lint. These drawings are what’s left in my head when the day is done: the random “pocket lint” of my brain.

Chuck Downs is a carbon-based form of cartoonist who lives in Florida with his wife and two children. By day, he is vice president of marketing for a company that clearly does not conduct very thorough background checks. By night, he fights crime. Now that he is older, his experience only walks the gamut for fear of pulling a hamstring. He often “misuses” quotation marks, and likes to frequently split his infinitives.


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SPEED BUMP by DAVE COVERLY

Answers To Last Month’s Crossword

BC by MASTROIANNI AND HART

fit K in here

fit K in here

fit K in here

fit K in here

fit K in here

fit K in here

fit K in here

fit K in here

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funnies extra! mat-su #19 - jan 2013

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