Sad news in the Grove. Some of you may have known that my mother was battling cancer for the past 18 or so months. Well, yesterday, she lost that battle. Now, as much as we would have wanted her to continue her battle and win, sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way. We did get an extra year with her, and for that, I am forever grateful. There are some family members out there who would question my concern but those people have to remember one important thing, she is and always will be my mother. I may not have been the best in communicating, but I dare you to prove that there wasn’t a day that I didn’t have her in my heart or thoughts. I dare you to prove that I loved her any less than anyone else in the family. I dare you to question it, because if you do, I shall be the one who laughs last. Until you can find the means to climb inside my mind and read my thoughts, feel my feelings, you need to get off your high horse and shut yer flap. That means you also need to stop speaking to others about me in this light of knowing just what I felt, what I still feel about my dear, departed mother, because you don’t, you can’t, ever, unless you speak to me first and walk a lifetime in my shoes. This isn’t and never will be about you. This isn’t your time to put up walls and make divisions within the family, to rally folks behind you in a campaign to smear another and draw attention towards yourself. This is the time to come together and make each other stronger for her sake. To take all that we feel, all that we love, and combine it as a family. This will and always will be her time. What trenches and barbed wire you lay down will haunt you, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and it will draw you in and consume you whole.

Miss you Mom…hopefully we can catch up when the time comes for me to take the leap into the next great adventure after this life. Will forever love you.

Chris Bosh gets kneed in the basketballs -Associated Press Photo

Now I’m not all into the sport of basketball, although I grew up with my father watching it on TV as he had played in his younger days for local town teams, but I do keep an eye out for the many faces that Chris Bosh of the Miami Heat makes. Go ahead, take a look on the internet, no disrespect for the man, but he looks like an alien in 90% of the pictures I see of him…which makes it fitting for this comic page as the main characters have been dealing with aliens for the past 3 and a half years.

Hey Grovers, better late than never to post about New Year’s Resolutions, eh? I hate ’em actually…a lot of useless promises that you make to yourself either because you were guilted into it or you think there’s something about yourself you don’t like and would want to change. So, just to slide into the new year, I am posting a list of things that could probably be considered resolutons.

1- F*** resolutions! (saw that one coming, eh?)

2- Redesign the Willow’s Grove pages (it’s looking quite dated with the old Comicpress GN theme)

3- Figure out how to freakin’ monetize effectively (we’re dead broke, donchaknow)

4- Push the boundaries of what a comic on the internet can be (now, yes, I did self edit an upcoming strip, but…)

5- F*** resolutions! (just wanted to hit home that point again, in case, like, you forgot)

6- Win the lottery (hey, a guy’s gotta’ dream)

7- Try to make it to a comic con sometime in the 2012 calendar year

8- Get you, my readers, to spread the word that is Willow’s Grove (you can be my evangelists! Can I hear an AMEN!?)

9- F*** resolutions! (I can’t stress this enough)

10- Work on my digital skills, backgrounds, layouts, etc (they’re getting rather predictable, see #4)

11- Find office space (the microstudio is really, really starting to affect my health)

12- F*** resolutions! (hey, it’s 2012, gotta’ have 12 resolutions, right?)

So, as you can see, I am not truly serious about resolutions, yet, there are some things I want to (and believe I must) change, in order to not become stagnant. The story goes on as written, but the look of the site is dated, and being that it is part and parcel of the entire presentation, an ugly website can distract from a good comic.

Happy F***ing New Year!