On the Road, or Plane Anyway

And you may find yourself in another part of the world...

...sitting in a Starbucks in Kuwait Airport, waiting on a Jazeera Airways flight to Dubai after trying to make Arabic comics all day, in a new office in the "car wash" industrial area, with a man nailing down the floor under your feet and the sound of circular saws coming through as you try to talk to John McCrea on a phone swiped off Sven's desk while he's in a meeting, and of course John has screeching toddler syndrome.

"John, the face in the last panel isn't Arabic enough."

"I know."

"I know you know."

(laughter on both sides. Kirby howls. Or maybe it's the baby Ella.)

I rushed to a meeting where Sven did a lot of math while the E-I-C and I looked on in astonishment. We came up with page counts. I thought "shit, it's expensive to make a comic book."

And you may ask yourself... how did I get here?

Well, that one's easy. Girl has problem staying still. Girl gets bored easily and hates normal office jobs. Girl has issues with intimacy and likes to get the hell out of Dodge frequently. Girl meets boy. Girl gets book contract on Africa. Girl moves to Africa for better access to boy and book. Life is great although girl's issues are magnified in boy, who has even worse issues. Life goes to hell and girls gets sick and ends up in hospital. Boy splits. Girl wallows for months and decides "hey, I think Kuwait is a good place to spend the end of my 30s."

No, that didn't really make sense to me either. But it's not the first time I've ended up somewhere weird.

Same as it ever was.

As it turns out, Kuwait is a good place to recover. There are few demands on my time since I'm not big on shopping malls and not a member of a family over here. I am slowly becoming less numb, although the 800-pound gorilla of the book is scaring the shit out of me. Editors freak out on me. I take it out on Fabian and John and soon on the inker too (lucky guy).

More from Dubai. I've got a plane to catch.