Last month, for the first time since I began doing a monthly news update in March 1996, I skipped a month.
This was an educational experience: I learned that there are a lot of people out there who visit the site every month.
I also learned that a lot of them don't come through the front door of this site, where I usually put the month's best new cartoon. They bookmark this page. Since this page hadn't changed, they assumed there was nothing new on the site in January.
Actually, there was: a new cartoon for Matchmaking Creeps, as well as a fifth chapter of Five George Washingtons.
So why didn't I update this page?
It's a lame excuse, but I just got overwhelmed. The combined stress of working full time at ABCNEWS.com website - where I wrote catchy little headlines for the front page - of working on the Washingtons, and on that website, of working on my bimonthly New York City history column and on ballet pieces for Citysearch, was just too much.
Anyway, I've taken the first two weeks of February off to get my act together. This should result, I hope, in a new Joel Fauré episode, as well as additional chapters of the Washingtons.