The Facts of Fork By Kevin J. Guhl 5-26-06 I'm off for a sabbatical down the shore...not from the comic, though. Above is the third installment of a new subseries called Fork Facts. And, wait; bonus! Here's two more of those to give you something to look at while I'm away because I won't be here to post a comic on Monday. Enjoy! It's time again for the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards. I was a finalist for Best Anthropomorphic Comic last year but lost out in the end to Dinosaur Comics. It would really be a boost if I took that award this year. If you work on a webcomic, you're eligible to vote for the awards. And if you feel Detective Fork is worthy of that honor, I'd sure appreciate your vote. I'm voting for a number of my favorite comics in the awards... :-) In order to register for voting privileges, please write to trbinth@aol.com to request your nomination instructions. State your name, your comic and where it can be found. If you've voted before, you just have to login with the information they've hopefully already e-mailed to you. The main site is here. The nomination round was due to end May 29 but will be extended due to some now fixed problems with the voting system. Comment on this article.

Fork Returns By Kevin J. Guhl 5-22-06 First of all, happy birthday to my brother Rob! I still remember the weather on that day in 1986 when you were born. If you've read my last column, you know why I haven't been around. Anyway, my computer is back up and running thanks to Big Dirty and with it returns the Fork. There are a few changes, though. You'll still get two comic strips a week, only on different regular days - Mondays and Fridays. There's only so much time for artistic pursuits. :-/ Because I have a little less free time these days and want to get back to writing a novel, I'll be doing the smaller comics on a more irregular basis. When they do go up, it'll be on Wednesdays or they might sporadically appear instead of a comic strip from the main storyline. The last part of The Night Invasion will be up this Wednesday, however. As for my column, it'll be on a "when I have time for it" basis but the long-delayed interview with Michael John Morris of Pinky TA will be up soon. It's really good to be back. The break I took from drawing comics was good, since I came back fresher and the art in Floridian Fumes is looking better, in my opinion. Of course, I've had this happen before where my art improves after a break and then I start to burn out or something after drawing a bunch of comics and get into bad habits. I truly appreciate those who asked when I was coming back. It's time again for the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards. I was a finalist for Best Anthropomorphic Comic last year but lost out in the end to Dinosaur Comics. It would really be a boost if I took that award this year. If you work on a webcomic, you're eligible to vote for the awards. And if you feel Detective Fork is worthy of that honor, I'd sure appreciate your vote. I'm voting for a number of my favorite comics in the awards... :-) In order to register for voting privileges, please write to trbinth@aol.com to request your nomination instructions. State your name, your comic and where it can be found. If you've voted before, you just have to login with the information they've hopefully already e-mailed to you. The main site is here. The nomination round was due to end May 29 but will be extended due to some current problems with the voting system. Comment on this article.

So, that was Christmas? By Kevin J. Guhl 12-28-05 I took an unannounced weeklong hiatus from posting comics and I apologize for the not-announcing it part. Christmas brought on some busy times and to be honest, I needed a small break after a year minus one week of regular comics. I plan to continue drawing Fork for years to come and a break at Christmas might be a good tradition for me, especially if I received guest comics to post during that time. :-) Speaking of that, I have some new fan art that I'll have up next week. Comment on this article.

Sometimes, we get answers By Kevin J. Guhl 12-22-05 Last week, I asked, "Whatever happened to Sledville?" Frogprincess provided me with the answer: "Sledville has dispersed, but now the members of Sledville make up various bands. Ghetto Cowgirl is led by the lead singer of Sledville, Marc Norman. Thomas Laufenberg, who is one of the guitarists in Sledville now plays with The Pistoleros, Ghetto, and Loretta. Phil Beach, who was also one of the guitarists in Sledville now lives in Conneticut and has his own band called Veloray. I really recommend Veloray. You can find their music on MySpace. Definitely worth a listen. I'm not sure what the bass player, Brad, is doing at the moment, but I'm sure that someone can give you some insight about him. I'd be happy to send you the entire album of Sledville's Igneous Rock. It has many of my favorite songs on there that are still performed by Ghetto to this day." The funny thing is, I've heard of Arizona band Ghetto Cowgirl. I'm glad the music lives on. Comment on this article.

Adios, my ducky friend By Kevin J. Guhl 12-17-05 Drunk Duck was the center of my world when I started my webcomic because it opened Detective Fork up to many readers through its busy community and excellent comment and voting system. Many of the friends I've made there I still find on other webcomic sites today and I also found a lot of great comics there. A number of those artsits I still talk with, friends on the same Internet raft. Sadly, Duck suffered a major setback when its hosting service went down and the whole site was deleted. There's a forum there now and talk of Duck coming back one day but who knows if it will ever be the same. Still, I'll always be grateful for it. Meanwhile, Detective Fork is being posted from the beginning on the Duck-like SmackJeeves. Comment on this article.

Whatever happened to Sledville? By Kevin J. Guhl 12-14-05 I picked up a secondhand copy of KZON Collectibles Vol. 5 and there's a good song called "Barroom" by Sledville on there. A web search about these guys brings up nothing but record reviews from 1997, though. Whatever happened to them? Did they break up and move on to day jobs? It really is a nostalgia trip listening to these live, acoustic CDs put out by AZ radio station KZON in the late-1990s, not just for the Tempe music scene but for the songs that were popular back then. The line-up of these CDs includes the likes of The Refreshments, Cowboy Mouth, K's Choice, Eagle Eye Cherry and talent that have gone on to be more popular such as Third Eye Blind and Sarah McLachlan. So many of these songs have been forgotten, just whispers in the wind. The feelings, introspect and joy they brought on back then are like that fading electric image that you see so briefly inside your eyelids when you flinch in a bright light. I even forgot about some of them but listening to these discs, I realize how much good music came out of the late-90s, at least to my ears. It had melody and a soul, often an optimistically sad one, yet still managed to rock. This Alternative music evolved from grunge but occured when grunge was dying down and right before pop and rap exploded to wipe away its memory. It's not that this music isn't still out there being played in clubs and at small bars, you just have to look a little harder for it. On a different note, has anyone watched Daisy Does America? From the many repeated ads for this on TBS shown during Seinfeld re-runs, I really thought it was gonna suck. I'm glad I gave it a chance because it punched me in the funny bone. Daisy is this British chick that is trying to live her dreams in America, so each episode she tries to accomplish that, be it becoming a bounty hunter or a singer. She interacts with real people, sending them up without them really realizing they're being sent up. She decided she wanted to be a pop star and dressed in this horible black leotard and tutu (and Daisy's like 35) and played at a mall for her debut, with talent scouts in the audience. She asked for a volunteer to sing to and this 8-year old boy came up on stage. So, she sat him down and began singing to the horrified kid and crowd, "When I think about you, I touch myself..." Comment on this article.

SUPER! By Kevin J. Guhl 12-10-05 Check out the Characters section. The long overdo bio of SuperFork is up. In other news, I accidentally got myself banned for seven days from the Ctrl+Alt+Del forums. I posted a message about the piece of silverware art the artist of that comic left on my Drunk Duck account many moons ago and included a link to this site and the picture. Bad move, because it turns out you're not supposed to post anything about your own comic until you've been a member for two months. I can understand that rule because it puts a hindrance on one-time stops of self-promotion. And Ctrl+Alt+Del's forum rules are actually more lax than those in the forums of other popular webcomics. I'm looking at you, Penny Arcade. I'm just getting tired of these rules. "No self-promotion because, well, you should just buy our expensive advertising!" Or, "You can promote, but only after two months, never after dark and never in a month that starts with J." Look, if people want to promote their own webcomics in a forum, let them. Otherwise, it gives the impression that those comic artists and writers who have found success don't want anyone riding on their coattails. I guess they forget what it was like before they hit the big time and were struggling early on to have people find their comic. A forum at a webcomic site definitely fits the target interest category. Help a brother out. I might have under ten forum members at the time but you damn well bet there's a place for them to post about their own comics. No need to be pedantic. Comment on this article.

Fork's voice By Kevin J. Guhl 12-7-05 I was aiming for a Frank Miller-esque Dark Knight Returns vibe in the look of this week's weekly Detective Fork comic and I don't think it came off at all. However, I really like today's comic and it represents where I'd like to go with Fork's narration. Instead of the typical detective fiction metaphors and voice, I'd like to aim for more of a Beat sound, even if it's a little over a decade early in the comic's setting. Fork's rough around the edges but is a bit poetic in thought; that's what I'm going for. Tough-guy poetry. I'm also working on the look of my lettering. I'll never adds fonts on the computer. I like the organic nature of hand-drawn lettering, even if it takes longer to do. I used to meticulously print in very straight capital letters, which people said looked good and I agreed. However, caps take up too much space and limit my dialogue. I then started using lowercase, which I think looked bad in a lot of case, leaving too much space around the letters. I'm now writing in a more jagged, cursive-like print that is meant to look sharp like silverware. It's actually closer to my real handwriting. The only time I write in cursive is when I'm signing my name. In fact, I have trouble writing in cursive and often have to think about how to write certain letters because I use it so infrequently. I'm not sure how that happened. It's not like I didn't learn cursive in school. I think I just always felt printing was less arrogant and I didn't like how the cursive a lot of people write is nearly illegible. So there you have it; I'm a certified retard when it comes to writing in cursive. It's right up there with my failure to understand the rules and terminology of American football (I never even watched a game until recent years.) and my inability to fold pants. Going back to the lettering, though, I think in this comic and a few before it I thought I could get away without using a ruler. I've adjusted some of the words in my paint program but there's still a little crookedness going on. That even happens when I use a ruler but I'm now using the ruler again, anyway. The bedeviled crookedness of my words is one the bane of my comic-drawing existence, because in one shot it takes your comic down the scale of professionalism. There's another thing. I might be able to draw but I cannot draw a straight line! Comment on this article.

Vote Fork! By Kevin J. Guhl 12-3-05 I'd like to get Fork elevated in the rankings at Buzzcomix and if you wouldn't mind clicking on the vote button below whenever you visit the site, it would help immensely and I would be appreciative. There's also a vote button for Webcomics List if you're so inclined. I'm also doing a little bit of advertising at Buzzcomix with the hope of (warmly!) welcoming some new readers. Vote for Fork! I was reading through the forums at Penny Arcade and found some of the moderator's posted messages to come across as rather pretentious. You can't do this, you can't do that. We here at Penny Arcade are gods and the rest of you are plebes, so listen to us. In another part of the forums, someone posted pages of a new webcomic and instead of getting helpful advice, got ripped apart and given pages of mocking nonsense from Penny Arcade's fans. The all-knowing people there don't highly suggest putting a news section that's part-blog like mine on the front page, emphasizing that no one cares unless you're a really good writer. Maybe they're right but nothing says you have to scroll down past the comic. I also like speaking with any vistors as I would to a friend and that's what I'll always do, whether this comic becomes wildly successful or languishes in obscurity. I enjoy Penny Arcade and there's no denying that it's commerically successful. Still, at least based on my initial impressions, there is a disgusting aura of elitism in its forums. I spruced up the archive. However, the links section is still in dire need of an update. *sigh* Comment on this article.

Meep! By Kevin J. Guhl 11-30-05 I did promise you a thesis on great Doctor Who villain Beep the Meep, didn't I? Well, I've found a page that explains him better that I would have so check it out. Here's a preview, from the Wikipedia entry linked above: "Beep the Meep is a fictional alien who appeared in the Doctor Who Weekly comic strip based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The cute and cuddly appearance of Beep the Meep — a round, furry biped with large, expressive eyes and long ears — belies his true nature as a malevolent, homicidal would-be conqueror and dictator..." "Released on parole fifteen years after being taken into custody by the Wrarth, Beep sought revenge in The Star Beast II (published in the 1996 Doctor Who Magazine Yearbook) but the Fourth Doctor used black star energy to trap him inside the children's movie For the Love of Lassie. Comment on this article.

Up in the wee hours By Kevin J. Guhl 11-29-05 I could hardly keep my eyes open at work today because I just didn't sleep well. Yet, here I am getting a comic up in the early morning hours. So, maybe it is obsession. It doesn't help when the resizing function in my paint program goes corrupt as it does every month or so and I have to reinstall the program and its updates. BAD Paintshop 9! I was going to write you a thesis on the neat factor of obscure Doctor Who villain Beep the Meep but that will have to wait until another time as I'm going to bed now. Meep! Comment on this article.

A night of bongos and pie By Kevin J. Guhl 11-26-05 God Bless Gameshark. With some spiffy codes that have been discovered for Smackdown! vs. RAW 2006, the balance of equality has been restored and you can use female created wrestlers in any match you wish. THQ, being their increasingly restrictive selves, had deemed that you could no longer use women in most of the match types of the game, or for season, or for any kind of title race besides the women's title. This wasn't the case in previous games and you could let your imagination take over. Even if it wasn't realistic, my main character in each game was one of my female characters and I hated not being able to use her like before. Now, she's back kicking ass with the boys. Stick it to the man, Gamesharkers. You'll need to do a quick and free registration to get the codes but they can be found here. Read the instructions first! I almost came home and crashed after work on Friday and I'm glad I didn't. I went over to Big Dirty's and watched Smackdown! and that was followed by a trip to Shop Rite to get ammonia to get out the smell of the farm that's lingered in my best pair of sneakers since I did an interview about pigeon racing a few weeks ago. I also was entranced by a Justice League Unlimited Wonder Woman action figure that had a fantastic paint job and this was an endless source of amusement to the cashier that rung me up. "Is that for you?" she asked. "Maybe," I growled. "You're Action Jackson!" she said. Grrr. Mike made the holy discovery of Thanksgiving surplus pumpkin pies that were 99 cents each. With one of those babies and a .99 container of Cool Whip, we headed back to his house for a night of pie and cranberry/grape vodka cocktails. As the night got drunker, the video games we chose to play became stranger. Mike's basement, by the way, is a video game warehouse. I stumbled upon a set of bongo drums and knew that I had to play them. As it turns out, they went with the Gamecube game Donkey Konga and at 2 in the morning, we were hammering away to Killer Queen, Whip It and whatever other tunes jumped out at us. Then, out came Taiko Drum Master, in which you use a single drum with sticks. At one point, I was manaically bashing away at the Prelude to Carmen, nearly shattering the drum stand and working up a sweat. There's nothing to dissolve the week's worries like bashing drums all night with a high blood-alcohol level. The drum was also useable with this typically crazy Japanese mini-game within Taiko Drum Master in which a samurai cat creature and a blue sea cucumber-man shoot fireworks over an unsuspecting town. You have to beat the top of the drumhead when a firework is put in the cannon and hit the side when a bomb is put in by accident. The pace quickens until you're sweating, eyes fixed on the televison like you've bet your life's savings on a horse race. When you accidentally let a bomb explode, your brain implodes. I told Mike I was gonna beat his high score and I did but he reclaimed his honor by getting a new high score so ungodly to reach I gave up. Eventually, I came home and had completely forgotten that I had been exhausted all evening. The couch engulfed me. Comment on this article.

Enjoy your tryptophan By Kevin J. Guhl 11-24-05 Detective Fork's got his own Myspace account now. No, don't look at me. It's his and he says what he wants. You can see it here. Oh, and happy Turkey Day! Comment on this article.

Who's The Boss? By Kevin J. Guhl 11-21-05 Today imprinted me with some joyous visions. The first was the strange head of a baby chicken, with motion-sensing eyes and an eggshell top that would blow whenever someone would walk by, prompting the bird to launch into cheerful quacking and song. There were two of the chicken heads dropped off at work for our paper's holiday fund and I could have sat there all day watching the cute beings chatter with each other, setting each other off. We considered keeping one for the office to both amuse and annoy us but they'll likely go on to bother some child's parents. I grow weirdly parental over cute, non-sentient things, like they need my protection. Like they live in a state of perpetual, unaware innocence that I need to preserve, perhaps to quelch my darker thoughts. Later, Uncle John and I went to see The Boss at the Trenton Arena. It's really the Sovereign Bank Arena but I refuse to refer to it that way most of the time because I detest corporate names for places of communal exhiliration. I detest corporations but that's another bag. Uncle John isn't too much older than my eldest cousin Ross and I often heard tales of them going to Dead shows together. It always made me jealous, the thought of having a cool uncle who would take you to rock shows. For years after my uncle moved out of the house, my grandmother still received his Grateful Dead catalogues. I was both mystified and scared of the dancing skeletons. Bones scared the hell out of me as a kid. Now, I just see the sad, docile fragments they are. Six people were scheduled to go see Bruce Springsteen but four pulled out and I finally got to go to a concert with just me and my uncle. Uncle John used to go see Bruce in the 70s but I was sadly one of those people who only knows the radio hits. I enjoy those and going to see The Boss is just a New Jersey thing. As we waited for the show to start, my uncle and I shared stories of road trips and I had no idea he had driven and hitchhiked across country. It put to shame a bit the pampered, motel-staying Arizona trip that Solomon and I took. Anyway, the show sparkled acoustic. I didn't know one song Springsteen played but enjoyed them all. He's still got that energy at 56 and even did a little bit of his awkward "Dancing in the Dark" video-style dancing during the show-ender "Dream Baby Dream." He told amusing personal anecdotes about things such as old ladies that used to babysit him that were terrified of lightning. He proclaimed himself mayor of the show as he requested people be quiet during the slower, acoustic numbers. He played songs that didn't make the cut on early albums and had never or rarely been played before. He played with amazing passion. He made me realize how much he sounds like Dylan some of the time. He shook the hand of every single person in the front row at the end of the show and then couldn't help but do one more song "for Jersey." In short, I saw why this guy was The Boss. My uncle, by the way, is one of the funniest people I know. It could be only him that would forget to turn his cell phone off while attending a funeral, then have it go off during the service with his ringtone being "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" by Monthy Python. Comment on this article.

Just a note By Kevin J. Guhl 11-19-05 If you're confused about the current story, you might have missed the comic I posted yesterday. Feel free to skip back. Go ahead, we'll be waiting for you. Comment on this article.

Finally..... By Kevin J. Guhl 11-18-05 I wish I could tell you that the current comic is two days late because there was some pressing emergency or because I was at work all the time. While I was at work, the free time I had in-between was sucked up in playing the new Smackdown game. With friends over and all kinds of in-ring shenanigans to be had, I didn't get around to updating. Don't worry, though. I only buy one video game a year but when that one does come out, it's a big deal. The game is much better than I anticipated, too. Comment on this article.

Goodbye, Latino Heat By Kevin J. Guhl 11-14-05 Tonight was one of those nights when professional wrestling was sadly very real. WWE wrestler Eddie Guerrero was found dead in his motel room Sunday morning. He was 38. Eddie had a history of substance abuse problems but was proudly clean for four years. It's not known how he died yet but it seems likely his past had just taken too much of a toll on his body. WWE RAW, which was broadcast Monday night but filmed Sunday, interrupted its scheduled storylines to pay tribute to a man who put his all into his matches, flying through the air and making people laugh with his "lie, cheat and steal" antics. Wrestling is known by most to be scripted and it is but the toll it can take on wrestler's bodies, both directly and indirectly, is real. The show began with most of the company's roster lined up on the main walkway next to the empty lowrider that Guerrero often rode to the ring. A bell tolled ten times and you saw the raw, fresh tears and anguish on the faces of Guerrero's co-workers; his work family, moreso. The show went on with terrific matches that paid tribute to the man and some of the wrestlers shared their thoughts on Eddie. Chris Benoit, Eddie's best friend and a guy known for his toughness, completely broke down in front of the cameras and the unfiltered pain reached my eyes, as well. It's hard for wrestling fans not to connect with these people. We watch them from week to week, getting emotionally involved in stories that we know are scripted yet are able to get invested in. The line also blurs, as wrestlers' real lives are intermixed with the fiction. We knew Eddie's wife and children because they appeared on WWE programming. We saw him work often with his nephew Chavo and close friends Rey Mysterio and Chris Benoit. Listening to them speak tonight, you saw how close they were to the man. And they provided a picture of what a caring person Eddie was behind the scenes. Ironically, Eddie was rumored to be winning the World championship that very night. The belt is a mark of accomplishment because it shows WWE feels its holder has earned a top spot in the company and can draw viewers. Whether Eddie would have won the belt or not, nothing can top the show of respect and love that he got tonight. I was in Madison Square Garden to see Eddie retain the WWE title against Kurt Angle at Wrestlemania XX. Granted, I was cheering for Angle because he's my favorite wrestler. I remember, however, being happy to see Eddie as champion and his celebrations with fellow champion Benoit at the end of the program was so satisfying because they were two guys who very long overdue for that honor and they got it as the same time. In wrestling's near mythological battles and tales, you sometimes get awesome, memorable moments fueled with powerful emotion. Tonight was one of them. R.I.P. Eddie Guerrero. Comment on this article.

Back to the beginning By Kevin J. Guhl 11-12-05 Today's comic was actually the first regular comic I drew of the new Detective Fork series post-2002, back in January! It just ended up getting pushed back as I got interested in drawing other stories that I posted first. Comment on this article.

Spork! By Kevin J. Guhl 11-9-05 Johnny Spork seems to be a popular character and that surprised me. He gets a good reaction when I feature his spazzy self in the comic now and then. I mean, I like him, but what do you dig about him? Or not dig? Comment on this article.

Detective Fork suddenly drawn in pencil; pursued by henchmen with wrenches By Kevin J. Guhl 11-7-05 You know what's a fine piece of video-making? "Take On Me" by A-ha, all those years ago in the far-off 1980s. You see, the song was not only catchy and epic, its video is one of if not the best from that decade, when MTV wasn't all about actual programming. Anyway, the video starts with this girl, who by the way is one of the cutest women I've ever seen, sitting in a diner and reading a comic book. She's probably Norwegian, like the band. The comic book starts off with a motorcycle race like many comic books do (well, if you only count Ghost Rider comics) and suddenly, the lead singer of A-ha looks up and winks at the girl! Out of the comic book! And if it couldn't get any better, his hand COMES OUT of the panels and guides her into the comic! Once inside, he guides her around his pencil-sketched world and shows her this magic mirror that lets her see him as he would look in the real, live world. Well, while all this otherworldy flirtation is going on, the grumpy waitress from the diner finds that our female hero has left and assumes she's skipped out without paying her bill. The waitress crumples up the comic book in anger. Uh oh! With the panels all jumbled together, some heavies with helmets and wrenches from the motorcylce race show up and start chasing after our couple. The thugs corner them in a hallway and approach confidently in a scene that's successfully creepy because you know doom and a bludgeoning is at hand. The guy from A-ha rips a hole in the wall and selflessly pushes the girl through. There's no time for him to escape. The girl ends up in a messy heap under her booth in the diner, with everyone staring at her in disbelief. She grabs the crumpled comic book and runs home, where she opens it to see the fatal wrench-shot to her new boyfriend. However, she turns around to see him stumbling down her hallway. It seems her love and wishing has given him the will to break free! She's ecstatic at first, then begins to fret as she sees he's fluctuating from real to comic book-state and slamming himelf against the walls. He falls to the ground, the real-ness sticks, and our happy couple is together despite being from very different worlds. A-ha, meanwhile, was D.T.O (Destined To Obscurity, as Big Dirty says), although they still release albums sometimes. The video is like a Twilight Zone in all about three minutes and has a romantic/fantasy vibe going for it. In a strange way, "Take On Me" influenced me in the way I like to write reality-bending stuff that sometimes involves romance. Anyway, you can see the video here. Comment on this article.

Spork boy sees monster in alley! By Kevin J. Guhl 11-5-05 Floridian Fumes is a bit of an oddity because I've been drawing it off and on since I restarted Detective Fork in late 2004. The first ten or so comics were drawn at various times throughout the year, so there's a jumble of my style as it has developed. The first two comics were drawn in August as my style was starting to become what it looks like now. (It's better, I think, although I'm starting to see some manga-ish stuff creep in which I'm not certain I'm happy about. I think you'll notice more of this in the comics going up a few weeks from now.) However, I hadn't yet ditched the text boxes. The next handful of comics after that were among the first I drew of the new series, with #3 being the first actual comic strip of the new series and strangely surpassing a lot of the art that came after it. Floridian Fumes was going to be the first storyline after the older comics ended but I realized after the first comic was drawn that I wanted to do a superhero story. It was then going be the second story but I decided I wanted a short ghost story. And then a short story about evil clergymen, which became a longer story. Finally, I'm ready for the undertaking of Floridian Fumes, which I expect to come in around the 75-comic mark. I risk confusing new readers with it, I suppose, but there's always the archive. To curb my need to start new storylines (kind of like Marvel restarting their series all the time with new #1's), I've got Mondays now to do simultaneous, shorter stories while Floridian Fumes winds on. Comment on this article.

House pest absconds with host's coat! By Kevin J. Guhl 11-2-05 Today's comic is a crossover with Michael Dean's Slither and Friends. I hope you like this, because Michael and I are discussing a much bigger project involving our characters. More on that breaking news later. :-) On Saturday, Floridian Fumes FINALLY begins. It's a long one, folks, and will take us a bit into 2006. Comment on this article.

Halloween ain't dead By Kevin J. Guhl 11-1-05 Over the years, I've seen the amount of trick-or-treaters that come to the door diminish. I guess it's a combination of living in a suburban/urban area and modern fears of kidnappers and razors in apples. However, I worked a little late last night writing a story about a pirate of all things and was stunned to walk outside of my office and see the street packed with trick-or-treaters. There was a constant flow of them moving down the sidewalk; witches, zombies, fairies, Jedi. Frenchtown, N.J. (as opposed to Trenton) is a tiny, rural, artsy town and I suppose that Halloween as it was for me in the mid-1980s lives on in places where people know each other and there's still a sense of community. I was also an extra in a movie filming in town but that's a story for another day. Comment on this article.

Time is like a predator...or something like that. By Kevin J. Guhl 10-29-05 And that wraps up Mark's storyline. It's weird how I've only posted one of my own comics in two weeks but it comes down again to the perception of time that I've talked about before. For some reason, the last few weeks have been very similar and a bit mundane. As a consequence, they flew by for me. When a week is full of neat adventures, it tends to seem to me like it's longer. Isn't that the opposite of how time perception is supposed to work? A year ago, I was heading off to a vacation in Florida. While a year seems to go by quickly, I look back at what I've done and especially all the places I've visited and it feels like years. This dual-perception has me very curious. I guess when not much exciting happens in a week, it just all blends together. My goal is to make sure fewer weeks like that happen. It's too easy to allow your normal schedule of work and whatever other regularities you have to blend into a sedentary haze. In the end, time is too short and all you can do is try to get some value out of it. Do something different. Like...Maybe I should run through the streets wearing nothing but sunglasses and a smile. Then, I'd likely get locked up for a bit for public indecency and put on meds for the "crazies" but let's face it, that'd be a week to remember. On a related note, Watch Office Space. Comment on this article.

Rejected...again By Kevin J. Guhl 10-26-05 Bit of a bummer. My Doctor Who stories got rejected. The editor, however, took the time to write a two-page letter that outlined what I did wrong. The main issue was that the stories were too post-modern and jokey. He did like one of the stories but published one similar to it last year. He said he would pass my stories on to the other editors in the short story range. Unlike a flat rejection, this one has inspired me to try harder and I'll be sending in a new round of pitches once I get the story outlines together. Comment on this article.

Fork Kazaa By Kevin J. Guhl 10-24-05 I really should have known better. I used to have the file-sharing program Kazaa a few years ago and it was okay, a mild little program that I eventually abandoned for frillier programs like WinMX and Ares. I decided to give the newest version of Kazaa a try today and was greeted with the notice "No spyware!" while downloading it. What they don't say is "No Adware!" and I'll tell you what. No sooner was the program installed that it sent its grimy, ad-loving tendrils all over my PC. There were regular pop-up ads. Icons promoting online casino games appeared on my desktop. My browser was hijacked, adding a search bar that squashed out the regular address bar and always took you to an advertising search engine if you typed in anything. God knows what else there was but I quickly realized my mistake and went to uninstall Kazaa. Amazingly enough, the ability to uninstall it through Windows was not working. I couldn't get rid of the ad programs it installed, either. The gist of a message board topic I found about the very same problem was "Good luck getting rid of Kazaa." Amazing how it wouldn't be easy, eh? I ran Adaware and Spyware Search & Destroy and they seemed to do little. I found a program called Kazaabegone that got rid of most of it but there was still a pesky ad program I couldn't ditch until I was able to shut down its ever-running process and delete the mofo. I'm still left with Kazaa in Windows' unistall menu and I can't seem to get rid of it because I got rid of the program unnaturally. Anyone know how to remove uninstall icons that are no longer relevant? And I had kept things so clean since I got this computer a year ago. Two hours that wasted, today. For that and for going above and beyond with the adware, here's a big "FORK YOU," Kazaa. On an amusing side note, if you type "meow mix clock" into Google, the second entry that comes up, right underneath the official site promoting the clock, is: Detective Fork - Silverware Noir ... meow meow meow meow meow meow ...24 times a damn day. Police: And the murders? It seems the Meow Mix clock drove him to it. Comment on this article. ... www.detectivefork.com/ - 26k - Oct 22, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages You know, it IS a cute clock... Comment on this article.

Fork e x p a n d s By Kevin J. Guhl 10-22-05 Big announcement! Since the dawn of Detective Fork Online, I've wanted to post comics at least three days a week. If you look back through my Old News section, you'll see I started the site thinking I could only do one comic a week but saying I would post two comics for awhile. I've adapted to doing two comics a week and work ahead most of the time. In the world of webcomics, serious cartoonists seem to post at least three comics a week. Some comics are daily but there's no way I could swing that with the turtle-like speed I draw. It's been worse; I used to draw at a slug-like speed. By next year, I could reach the metaphorical drawing speed of a two-legged cat. Anyway, a desire to go to three comics a week coupled with a need to get the multiple stories rolling around in my head on paper have led me to announce that there will now be new Detective Fork comics on Mondays. However, they will be a slightly different format since I'm still a slow artist. Wednesdays and Saturdays will continue with the longer Fork adventures. On Mondays, there will be separate weekly storylines and one-shots. These will be done in a double-wide, one panel format that will be more like an illustrated story at times. The first one of these debuts this Monday, so stay tuned. The story features the return of a popular character. I haven't done a character profile in awhile but I've got a new one up for you to check out, the zipper-riffic Sasha Durand. I am a big fan of felines but, Oh man, I just saw a commerical on TV for a Meow Mix clock. Its eyes move, its tail swings and it sings the Meow Mix theme on the hour. Dear God, it would drive me nuts. Could you imagine that? meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow ...24 times a damn day. Police: And the murders? It seems the Meow Mix clock drove him to it. Comment on this article.

Headful of Ghosts By Kevin J. Guhl 10-19-05 It's not Halloween yet but 'tis the season and, in that spirit, I bring you two nifty little ghost videos to look at. The first was forwarded to me in an e-mail and it's something, I tell ya. Since I don't know where it originated, I've posted the video here. Before you watch it, read what the e-mail had to say about it: Strange but interesting. This is a car advertisement from Great Britain. When they finished filming the ad, the film editor noticed something moving along the side of the car, like a ghostly white mist.The ad was never put on TV because of the unexplained ghostly phenomenon. Watch the front end of the car closely as it clears the trees in the middle of the screen; you'll see the white mist crossing in front of the car, then it seems to follow the car along the road......Spooky! Is it a ghost, or is it simply mist? You decide. Amazing sight I guarantee. It helps to turn on your speakers. Watch it. The next video of a graveyard ghost is from eBaum's World, is supposedly real and is freaky as hell. Here it is. The headline above is the title of a song on Bush's album Golden State. My brother and I got to talking about the band Bush recently and since then I've had something of a Bush renaissance, going back and listening to their albums. Sixteen Stone utterly kicked ass and had lots of radio hits. It would have been hard for any sophomore album to live up to that and I was disappointed by Razorblade Suitcase when it came out in 1996, right before I started working at music store The Wall...for 5 and a half years. But anyway, I thought going back and listening to it again after so long might give me a new appreciation for the disc. Nope. It has a few good tracks but is still pretty aimless and grating. Bush picked it up again with The Science of Things and Golden State and the latter, in my opinion, is just as good as their debut album. Neither one got a lot of airplay outside of a few tracks and Bush sort of faded into obscurity, with lead singer Gavin Rossdale more notably marrying Gwen Stefani.The band went on hiatus after their last album in 2001 and Rossdale has a new band now called Institute. Bush suffered a fate I think a number of bands do when they have a great album that they never equal in the general public's eye and follow it up with an album that everyone buys on name alone and it disappoints. It's too bad, because their third and fourth albums were excellent, if more melodic. I hope Bush returns. Today's comic and the next three form a storyline that pays homage to Frank Miller's Sin City. Mark draws the awesome comic Rumf Adventures and has been a regular reader of Fork almost from its beginning online. I thought Mark's story was good enough to make it the featured comic for the next two weeks. Comment on this article.

The best generation By Kevin J. Guhl 10-15-05 My grandfather is 94 but don't assume he thinks he's old. He's said as much. He takes care of himself and is currently in the middle of renovating the cabinets in his kitchen. He's both mentally and physically in good shape. Hearing his voice over the phone, though, you wouldn't guess that. I came home on Tuesday night to find a message on my answering machine that went something like this: Pop: (faintly) Hello... Aunt Lorraine: Go ahead, Dad, leave a message on the machine. Pop: (again, faintly) What??? Aunt Lorraine: (sighs) Kevin, this is Aunt Lorraine. Your grandfather wants to know if you can take him somewhere tomorrow. Give him a call. I stopped by the next afternoon to find Pop wearing his safety goggles and paint-spattered clothes. Once he changed, we headed off to a plumbing supply store that was down an alley in the middle of a maze-like neighborhood. Pop's old-fashioned. I don't think I've ever caught him going to a Home Depot. He prefers small stores that cater mostly to contractors. We went there because he had a water pump that wasn't working and he hoped to be able to trade it in for a more heavy duty model. The guy at the store was a little surprised, as it seemed the industrial strength pump Pop wanted for his basement could shoot water like 50-feet in the air. As the guy asked Pop questions, he spoke slowly and kept looking at me for answers like Pop was senile. It's a common reaction, that they assume he needs assistance, but I just shrugged because Pop knows what he's talking about. He's been a handyman all of his life and I have trouble hammering a nail in straight. Anyway, the guy offered to send the pump in for repairs and Pop shot down that idea. Since the shop didn't have the industrial model, Pop just bought a new version of the broken pump, saying he'd keep the old one as a spare. The shop ordered him a new valve for the old one for free, anyway. As we left, Pop said he didn't trust the sending-it-in-for-repairs process. After that, we went to another small store to pick up some tile supplies and I asked Pop if he wanted to stop anywhere else while we were out. I thought he might need some groceries. He mischievously opted for Circuit City... At Circuit City, Pop went immediately for the largest widescreen, high definition TV he could find. This was one of those free-standing models that you can't fit in an entertainment center. He broke out a tape measure from God knows where and we set about recording the dimensions of the television. He then sought out a salesman to find out more information. I made a side-trip to check out the DVDs and when I came back, the salesman had everything typed up on the computer for Pop and the TV was gonna cost over two grand! The salesman said he didn't know if that price would still be good tomorrow because he didn't know if the sale would be ending and I gave him a rough time about being shady about the sale. In the end, he said he would honor the price he gave Pop through Saturday. However, Pop would need to get a Circuit City credit card to receive no interest. Pop balked upon hearing that one and shot down the idea of having that evil plastic money, which he wouldn't be caught dead with. This is a guy who once paid for a car, in cash, in full. I bashfully admitted that I am one of the sad masses who relies on credit cards. We left and Pop said gleefully that he's getting the television. He doesn't have a DVD player and only watches 60 Minutes but I guess Andy Rooney will look kick-ass in high definition widescreen. Afterwards, we stopped in Sports Authority so I could buy a shirt and some Olympic free weight plates and Pop was worried I would hurt myself with the weights. "You don't need those!" he said. Thanks, Pop. Next, Pop wanted to go to the chandelier store because my aunt needs a new ceiling fan. However, he made immediately for the large grandfather clock on display, an ornate masterpiece with a price tag of $1,500. The tape measure came out once again so Pop could figure out where the clock could fit in his house. He tried to barter with the saleswoman, who said the clock was already on sale and it couldn't be lowered. He asked to see the manager and she said she was the manager. We headed out after that and although I'm not sure how my mother or aunt would respond to a giant TV or a grandfather clock making their sudden appearance at Pop's house, it's his money. And when you're near 100, I think you've earned a pass to do just about whatever the hell you want. Truth is, I couldn't look up to him more. Comment on this article.

Fork puts the Smack down By Kevin J. Guhl 10-12-05 I'm not a huge video game person. In fact, there's only one game I look forward to each year and, perhaps because all of my video gaming is centered around just this one game, I'm a bit rabid about it. The WWE(F) Smackdown! series is the annual gift from the heavens I'm talking about. Yes, it's always been a good little wrestling game. However, I'm really into the creative aspect of the game that lets you create your own wrestlers and then fight with and against them in the game's season mode. I usually forget about the real wrestlers and focus on my own creations, characters often drawn from my fictional stories. For the record, I have tried to make Detective Fork and it's just impossible in any decent way. If anyone can somehow make a good Fork in any wrestling game, send me the formula and screengrabs and I'll post them right here. Anyway, I was on IGN Insider reading the details about November's offering and I came away massively disappointed. It fired up the geeky fanboy inside of me so much, I was spurred to do something I had been thinking about doing for ages. I flung off a letter to the game's creators in the hopes they would listen to a voice of sanity. This is what I sent them: --------- Dear THQ, Why, in the WWE Smackdown! vs. Raw games, do you seem determined to take the fun out of season mode? I've been playing the Smackdown! games since the beginning and what I always enjoyed about season mode was the ability to customize it and have it feel like YOUR WWE. This was done best in Here Comes the Pain because character stats and rank were retained from season to season. It also allowed for your CAWs (Create-A-Wrestlers), both male and female, to rank right up there with real WWE stars. For me, creating CAWs and playing them through season is what I enjoy most about these games. HCTP's season mode made the game enjoyable long after its release date because it felt like I was revisiting a show I had created, that maintained a history of what had come before. Then, Smackdown! vs. Raw came out last year and I was immensely disappointed to see that season mode stats did not continue unless you picked the same character. It was also frustrating that female CAWs were not playable in season, since I have women characters that I create and use in every game as wrestlers who compete with the boys. It's not realistic but it's FUN. Finally, it was also sad to see the same opponents show up in each season and they never included male CAWS. And why was this? It was because voices were added to the game and a player was only going to encounter those wrestlers who had recorded them. With such a glitzy but limited season mode, my interest wore off in about a month, whereas HCTP I was playing up until SvR came out. I'm dismayed to see that last year's season mode seems to be the model for the season mode in Smackdown! vs. Raw 2006. I've read that the wrestler voices will return and that female CAWs can once again not be used in season mode. I did read that characters have stats they retain but I'm not sure if rosters are retained from one season to the next. At this point, I am not sure I'll be buying this game and in the past I was always there purchasing it on release day. I believe you're replacing the replayability of season mode with glitz. The voices are neat the first time through but that novelty wears off fast. With it, you are sacrificing gameplay. If having the voices present means a player will encounter the same characters each time in season mode, why not offer an option to turn off the voices and open the door for other wrestlers to appear as your opponents along with text boxes? As for not allowing female CAWs in season, you seem to be clutching on to a sense of realism. I've seen comments that this was done because there is no storyline for divas, which leads me to believe that you haven't at all considered that players like to be able to use any CAW they create, male or female, in season mode. In future games, I beg you to give players more options like they had in the past instead of more glitz with less options as you are doing now. What I hope you'll consider is the fun people can have with the game, not a rigid adherence to what you picture season mode being like. Sincerely, Kevin Guhl --------- And here was there response: Thank you for your interest in THQ products. THQ is sure to emphasize game play, supreme graphics, precise controls, and non-stop action in all of our games. We appreciate the feedback and we'll continue to expand on these ideas in future games. Not that I expected much else but could we at least tailor the form letter to the specific game? Oh, well. With desire renewed to play a wrestling game and a non-promising one forthcoming, I dusted off the N64 and clicked in WWF: No Mercy from the year 2000. And you know what? It actually intrigued me. You don't need whiz-bang graphics and spiffy voiceovers to make a good game. Comment on this article.

A new comic is up By Kevin J. Guhl 10-8-05 A new comic is up! That's a bigger deal this week perhaps because this is the only place you can currently see the new Fork comic. Drunk Duck is down once again and has been for days. Just when the admins there fix the site and assure us things are fine, down it crashes once more. I feel bad for them because it's a few people running and paying for a huge site. On the other hand, it is immensely annoying when this happens, mainly because so many of the webcomically obsessed come to depend on it. I'm left to wonder why the Duck server is so tempermental. It also seems Volte, the site admin, is having less and less time to work on Duck and I wonder how much longer he's gonna be able to keep up with it at all. You gotta give the guy credit but I sometimes wonder if Duck will last. Jelly Creations had some rare downtime as well and for a couple days, both Duck and Jelly had vanished. Jelly is back now but I'm playing catch-up with the comic updates. I sometimes think about doing movie reviews on this site but I'm not the best reviewer. I tend to sum up my thoughts in a paragraph and get bored trying to write something more analytical. It's a problem I have in a lot of my writing, that I condense things too much. My fiction isn't always descriptive enough and tends towards a Point A to Point B style that makes me grimace when I read fiction that takes the time to delve more into what's going on in characters' heads and general observations about the events at hand. I have to work hard to expand my prose, something that journalism training tends to work against. I watched The Night Porter last night, enjoyed it and thought about it quite a bit but tihs lethargy sets in when I think about writing a review. Maybe it's because reviews I read on IMDB hit the nail on the head already and even pointed out a major theme I kind of missed because I misinterpreted part of the plot. Damn it, ever feel like your brain's stunted on some days? Comment on this article.

Pennsyltucky, ho! By Kevin J. Guhl 10-5-05 I spent the weekend three hours away in Middleburg, a scenic, hilly place in rural Pa. On Friday, my old friend Scott and his wife Hollie and I got lost in a farm's corn maze. Scott and I and the kids from the church that went with us made good use of a high-powered slide built into a massive mound. On Saturday, Scott, his son Evan and I checked out the rowdy Renaissance Faire. Ah, women back then knew how to dress. Long, extravagant dresses and lots of bust. Sunday was slower, as I hung with Scott, watched the new Family Guy movie and played with their kitten, Vanilla Snowball. Hazard a guess as to what color she is? All in all, it was a good birthday weekend and it was boosted by a surprise piece of fan art by Esilence. This pic is sexy and manga-styled and Esilence really got the details right, such as the heart on Sasha's bike. "Leather & Steel" was one of the most fun stories to draw because of all the biker stuff and that explains why you're going to be seeing a little more of it in due time. Also, my good friend Dan, a regular supporter of the Fork, drew this guest comic which captures the interchangeable aspects of utensil fashion. Comment on this article.

Evil monk gets cross By Kevin J. Guhl 9-29-05 I'm gonna be away this weekend visiting friends in Pa., so here's your update a day or so early. When I get back I have some new, cool fan art to show you from Dan and Esilence.

Fork on trial, continued By Kevin J. Guhl 9-28-05 First of all, Fork makes a cameo appearance in Everyone Loves Stupid Flash Animations! You gotta see this thing; My brain is numb with wonder and laughter. Eat an apple! By Big Dirty. Who else? I think the battle over the Detective Fork entry on Wikipedia is over and I lost. Everyone so far has voted to delete it, although they got more understading the more I explained myself, I think.The last thing I said on there was: I had seen the listing on Comixpedia, which seemed to show up there automatically after placing the article here. Are you saying that the listing on Comixpedia would remain even if this one is deleted? Also, I acknowledge that the job you've undertaken is to keep Wikipedia credible and that, although the guidelines aren't concrete, most of you have a belief about what the qualifications of a webcomic should be. I don't seem to have won anybody over with my arguments so far and, while I hope they do, the outlook on the Magic 8 Ball is grim. If the entry is deleted, I can only hope my comic gets the kind of hits someday that earns itself back an entry and inspires someone else to pen it. I understand even Penny Arcade started small... I think that sums it up and the answer is yes, Fork would remain on Comixpedia's wiki. We're just not big enough for the main directory yet. Quote of the Day: I am the Master and you will obey me!

Fork on trial By Kevin J. Guhl 9-26-05 The Detective Fork entry on Wikipedia has been suggested for deletion, as some users feel that the comic is not popular enough. My last update on this Web site about self-promotion was seen and did not go over well, either. Here is what I've had to say about it on the Wikipedia discussion page for the comic's deletion: Well, let me address the issues that you've brought up in regards to deleting the entry about my comic. Please understand that I'm often flip in the blog on my site. A lot of what I say there is tongue-in-cheek or exaggerated. I put Detective Fork on Wikipedia because I feel I do a good comic that has depth and will continue for some time. I thought an article on it might be of interest to people who like Web comics. I won't lie and say I mind people following the link to see the comic itself. Another thing you bring up is that there are only five forum members. The forum was put up about a week ago. I do get readers on my site but Detective Fork has a regular group of readers on DrunkDrunk.com and on JellyCreations.com. I don't know what qualifies as "notable" but just have a look at my fan art section to see that a number of people follow the comic and are inspired to do their own artwork based on it. Finally, is it against Wikipedia policy to write an article on something you created? I'm not promoting the hell out of the comic, just providing info on the characters and stories. I sense your decision to delete the article is based more on a dislike of me from what I wrote in my blog and on a perception that Detective Fork is not important enough, not from hard criteria. Would you consider keeping the entry if perhaps I change something about the article you don't like? Please work with me here. Detective Fork has a good number of readers from being posted and seen on other sites. You can't judge the readership just by the hits on detectivefork.com. My site is the best resource for the comic, however, and that's why I posted that link. And the Wikipedia entry is for the comic itself, not just the Web page. The reviews I'm given by readers compliment the comic's originality. It was also a nominee for "Best Anthropomorphic Comic" in this year's Web Cartoonists Choice awards. Does Detective Fork get Penny Arcade numbers? No way. But neither do other Web comics you have listed. Looking back, yes, listing it under cutlery was a combination of cheek and bad judgement. In regards to the alternate proposal for posting Web comics, I have met the 33 week minimum. I am about a month shy of having 100 comics up. The entry was posted by me but I do not wax on in it about how great my comic is. It is factual. Let me refer you to the part of the guidelines that says, "Remember, however, that these are merely guidelines. Sites that are close to, but still under, these thresholds may also be included on the basis that webcomics customarily grow in size and have a higher likelihood of increasing in readership and, thus, becoming encyclopedic." It all depends on how strict you feel like being, seeing as they are guidelines and not strict rules, after all.

Happy birthday to me. Well, not quite yet. By Kevin J. Guhl 9-25-05 I'm never one to turn down a good hit. Wait, lemme rephrase that. I'm never one to to turn down a good way of getting hits for this Web site. When I found Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia edited by its users, I proceded immediately to create a page for Detective Fork which includes, by the way, descriptions of some characters that have yet to appear in the comics. Go check it out if you want a preview. I also added Detective Fork to the list of Web comics but wasn't content to stop there. Addressing the first word in the title of the comic, I looked up "detective" and found a nice description of what a detective does and who some of the famous fictional ones are. Now, right inside a list containing famous P.I.s such as Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes is good 'ol Detective Fork. It was then time to look up the other word in the comic's title. I added a link to Detective Fork below a link that showed examples of early Roman forks but some mean Wikipedia editor deleted it. Ah, well. I won't be around next weekend so there were some early birthday celebrations this weekend. Jonathan, Dan and I spend Friday night at the movies, at the pool hall and in the living room playing a game of Pictionary in which we had to take turns drawing for each other. My joy of the game stems more from trying to draw the clues than from winning and I did such a fine job (with some admittedly easy answers) and got Dan more than halfway around the board in one turn. Oops! But how the hell did he not guess I was drawing Yoda?! Long story. Today, I was at my Mom's. I guess it's part of being older but I enjoy that family stuff more these days. I laughed with (Grand)Pop as I admitted to him that almost 30 years have gone by and he hasn't changed one bit. He's still the same as I remember him when he used to pick me up from 2nd grade and the teacher would call him in and bellow at him like he was the ones passing notes and talking in class. We laughed about that, too. Mom was always putting us through the pains of meticulous picture-taking at special gatherings and now that she has a digital camera, she takes pictures with both that AND the old camera! Tom, my stepdad, seems to be enjoying his retirement and my Aunt Lorraine didn't want to budge from these weirdly comfortable wooden chairs on the porch. My brother Rob and I, as always, eventually disappeared into his room to play video games and watch TV. I also ripped through two new Detective Fork cartoons. I've heard zilch, nada and nothing form the jobs in AZ I've applied to. It bums me out but I'm also bummed thinking that if I did get out there, it would be very hard not having experiences like today close at hand. What would I do out there in the desert on my birthday? Buy myself an ice cream cake and sit alone at the table as the camera snaps a picture on automatic and I reminisce with the wall? It don't last forever, either way. That and other dark thoughts of regret sometimes haunt me on the happiest of days. While spending some time with my aunt and uncle this week, I rediscovered You Can't Do That On Television, the Nickelodeon show from the 80s that had slime, Barf Burgers, Moose and lots of atmosphere. The show seemed so taboo when I was a kid and I couldn't get enough of it. I remember a friend of mine's father was recording his son playing Pacman. It was taped over an old episode of the series we're talking about and there was some amazing, accidental timing involved in that when the Pacman footage cut out, it went to the father from YCDTOT sitting in his recliner and suddenly being swallowed up by a huge Pacman! Fun times. The show's not on anymore but I found a Web site that shows an episode of it each week and has tons of info. Anyway, while hanging with my aunt and uncle and watching DVDs of things like Danger Mouse and Bananaman, they reflected that they were reliving their own children's memories instead of their own childhood.

Fork disco dazzles! By Kevin J. Guhl 9-21-05 Ever wonder what your favorite fork cartoonist is doing with the rest of his free time? Well, for one thing, he's writing inane letters to his favorite publications. I became encouraged when an excerpt from my letter protesting the death of chipmunk/squirrel Green Lantern Ch'p was published in Green Lantern: Mosaic #6 back in the 1990s. Sometime last year, Toyfare published a nearly nonsensical letter I wrote about The Dukes of Hazzard, praising their adherence to Dukes mythology by having the Dukes slam their car into a cliff wall in Twisted Toyfare Theater, just as their theme song promised. ("Someday the mountain might get 'em but the law never will.") Earlier this year, a question of mine regarding what Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics were considered canon showed up in TMNT #19. And now, my crowning glory of occasional letter writing is a letter that was published in the currently-on-the-shelves Toyfare #99. It proclaims my unabashed, shameless love of Marvel character The Disco Dazzler and inquires when in the hell she's getting an action figure. The letter page editor even dug out an uber-sexy picture of the disco legend to place on the page right next to my letter. On one hand, yes, the whole world now knows my inexplicable affection for a kitschy early-1980s X-Men character. On the other hand, I know there's more of you out there! Anyway, it's too bad that the current creative team of the upcoming comic New Excalibur doesn't have the grumbah to put Dazzler in her original costume (including roller skates!) and instead has opted for a variation of her blah blue outfit and short hair form the '90s. On Saturday night, Big Dirty and I went to NYC, as he accompanied me somewhat reluctantly to a Peacemakers concert at B.B. King's. Damn, the boys packed the place and just about everyone knew the words. Not bad for a Times Square show. The group even broke out some old favorites I haven't heard them do live in a long time, such as the awesome and moody "Sin Nombre," a song lead singer Roger Clyne said they hadn't performed live since they played in New York in 1997 as The Refreshments, a show I was at with Mike (in his pre-Big Dirty days) and Tym. That was the infamous night in which Mike's car broke down in the drive-thru line at White Castle and it took five of us to push the giant, steel 1970s beast car out of the way. Tym was almost to the point of tears as he was so tired, had just wanted to get home and warned us that stopping at White Castle would surely lead to some calamity. These days, Mike drives a little red Subaru station wagon that is a lot faster and redder than you'd expect. After Saturday's show, some good time was spent with old concert friends Drew, Tony, Elaine, Jaime, Billy Jo and a person who shall remain nameless that grows pot in public parks. After the show, Mike and I walked around the city for hours in the wee time of the morning, something I hadn't done in years. I was starving after the show and broke my habit of not eating red meat by scarfing down a couple of tasty hot dogs from Gray's Papaya; 2 dogs and a papaya fruit smoothie for $2.75. Great deal! I even came across Papaya King, which featured in that episode of Seinfeld in which Kramer was supposed to wait for someone outside a movie theater but couldn't resist the charms of the hot dog and raced over, missing his meeting. I didn't see a movie theater anywhere near the place. As we strolled, my damn shorts kept creeping down, since I apparently lost 5 pounds jumping around at the show. It got so bad I had to improvise and after a stop at an all-night drug store, Big Dirty and I were standing at either end of the sidewalk, folding up a length of rope that I was to use as a belt. Maybe it wasn't stylish but it kept me from mooning New York. Walking through NYC is kinda like walking through the Nations of the World section of Disney World; You come into contact with different cultures. There was the gay sections in which I actually felt like a minority being straight and then an area filled with trendy people who all looked like they belonged in the band The Strokes. At one point, I asked Mike how far we were from Ground Zero and he said only about half a mile. I had never been there before, not even when the towers still stood, and we headed that way. I was awed, mainly by how quiet it was. It was 4 in the morning but New York is still bustling at that hour on a Saturday. The roads are closed off around Ground Zero and the few people we saw there were pretty much paying their respects. Looking down into the big pit, you can see the innards of the now-open path station and that's where we headed next to encounter some fun drunken people. Sunday was pretty much a bust as I woke up to find that Detective Fork was up for review on Drunk Duck and was getting all good reviews. However, the reviewers suggested I eliminate some of the crap form the archives that was breaking up the storylines and as I went to comply, I somehow managed to wipe my comic right off their server. Hours and hours later, it was back but without 9 months worth of comments and ratings. In my CD player this week: The Bloodhound Gang - Hefty Fine (guilty pleasure and they're Philly boys) - "I'm the least you could do, if only life were as easy as you." Non-Bloodhound Gang Quote of the Week: You're cute when you're drunk. Or was that you're cute when I'm drunk?

Oh Lord, thou art multi-faceted! By Kevin J. Guhl 9-17-05 Finally, FINALLY, the Forkworld Forum is up. I'm probably gonna customize its appearance down the line but it's fully functional for you to register and start some Fork chat. Meanwhile, today's comic sees the debut of a concept I've had for a long time, that the god of utensils would look like an all-in-one utility knife. Of course, it doesn't stop there being prejudices in Forkworld...

I'm just way too tired to write anything more. Sorry this is late. By Kevin J. Guhl 9-15-05

I need some graphics help! By Kevin J. Guhl 9-10-05 Question for you: I scan my comics in at 600 dpi greyscale. I then save them as bitmap, edit them, convert to greyscale again and resize them to be 800 pixels wide. (The paint program I use is Paintshop Pro 9.) When I've done the resizing, though, grey lines tend to appear along the white borders of each panel. Anyone know why this happens? Is there a way to avoid it? I've gotten rid of most of this grey from the above image through extra editing but it shouldn't be adding it in the first place. BTW, I finally saw Sin City and, dear lord, was it awesome. I've gotta check out the comics now because what I've seen of them is an inspiration. They're very noir and stark black and white (for the most part). In my CD player this week: Hilary Duff - "Wake Up" (Dammit, Big Dirty! Why did you get me listening to this catchy pop nonsense?! Now I can't stop!)

Famous religious painting stolen from Silver City Art Museum! By Kevin J. Guhl 9-7-05 This new storyline is a bit of an experiment. I'm working in a smaller scale, on regular printer paper and without the speech boxes. The result of the different paper, I think, is a fuzzier, kinetic quality to the lines. Coupled with the smaller scale, I have less control over the precision of the art and that is probably why I'll go back to the bristol board I normally draw on after this short series of comics. The lack of speech boxes, on the other hand, makes the art seem fuller, I think, and saves me time so that's probably gonna stay. Let me know what you think. I found this cool Web Comic directory here: It is just coincidence that this happens to be their featured comic on Sept. 9. :-)

The turning of the season By Kevin J. Guhl 9-3-05 Ahh, September. My birth month. The end of summer. Back to school. Remind me again what is good about September? Anyway, I might slip in another short storyline of my own before Mark's. It's this experiment I'm trying. We'll see on Wednesday.

Fork shills! Shilly Fork. By Kevin J. Guhl 8-31-05 The Detective Fork Store is open for business at last! I'll be adding more stuff over time but there's currently a handful of items there including a quite reasonably-priced t-shirt, a baby bib, a baseball jersey and a sticker. Most of these have the World's Sharpest pic of Detective Fork and SuperFork like in the title image above. I've updated the F.A.Q. and Finaleve created the world's first Detective Fork action figure, to be found in the Fan Art section. In my CD player this week: Fozzy - Fozzy (great album to work out to)

Detective Fork goes missing By Kevin J. Guhl 8-29-05 Apologies for the late update. I was lost in a weekend of debauchery. I've been delayed in scanning in the newest part of The 2 Forks and I currently have to head off to work, so here's a new one-shot comic in the meantime. It features Anime Mike's fan character, Ninja Fork. About time those two met up.

Detective Fork has a major WTF?! moment By Kevin J. Guhl 8-24-05 We got some updates here for ya, yesiree. You've already seen the new comic but be sure to pop on over to the updated Fan Art and FAQ sections. Slither and Salty provided some fan art and our old friend and society columnist Leslie Chimes continues answering reader inquiries. Over at Jelly, I was asked what would be on a Detective Fork soundtrack. I answered thusly: I've actually thought a lot about that. As much as I would like to use contemporary songs, I'd probably have to go with songs from the 1930s and 1940s to stay true to the era. If I really had my way, I'd get modern artists to cover those old songs, staying somewhat true to the original sound but updating them slightly. I can think of one song sorta like that, Cole Porter's "Night and Day" as covered by U2. It's not really anything like the original version but it's moody as hell. Funny again you should mention the music because I was thinking about taking a portable CD player to conventions that I'd like to get tables at to promote Detective Fork at (and try and sell stuff) in the future and play old music to set the mood. What I really need, though, is a Detective Fork theme song. :-) In my DVD player this week: Doctor Who: Lost in Time and Wake Up, Ron Burgundy

SEX (Not that kind.) By Kevin J. Guhl 8-20-05 Racism and sexism are themes that run below the surface in Detective Fork. The issue of a spork being an unholy union between spoon and fork is the most direct but an underlying theme to "World's Sharpest" was sexism. Loretta Sharp becomes SuperFork partially to create a strong female example but at the same time knows it's unlikely she'll get a frontpage byline for the news story she wrote. Meanwhile, Detective Fork spends most of the story feeling a bit emasculated by her power (which is why he was without his hat most of the story since it's a major part of his character) but in the end he not only helps defeat the bad guy in his own way but comes to accept SuperFork. Maybe I put too much thought into this and maybe these themes aren't appropriate for a comic about silverware but I have difficulty not touching on underlying themes in writing the comic, even if they're subdued. I'm just not sure if other people even notice them.

Who you gonna call? By Kevin J. Guhl 8-18-05 Before I get into the blog this has become, let me announce the opening of the Characters section! It's taking me awhile to bring all of the site up to standard with the current design and even longer to open the new features. Most pages have the new look and I'm not too far from opening up the store. The forum I just need to get around to installing despite my fear of not knowing what the hell I'm doing with it. The Characters section, however, is going to be a new regular feature and to start you off, two of the main characters have bios up. The highlight of this, I believe, is getting to see those utensils in full color. Detective Fork looks like he's leaping right out of a cartoon, which I hope is a vision of the future like my fellow cartoonist MrBlueSky suggested in one of his future-based comics. That and a couple new pictures can be seen in the Fan Art section this week, too. I still think it's surreal that Detective Fork gets fan art and in fact I have a couple more new pieces to add to that section on Saturday. I need to do some more fan art for others but I spend so much time drawing my own comics I don't get to it. It's on the list... I've been cascading ahead on forward momentum and hope this week but I feel like fate could step on the brakes any second now and slam me into the windshield. I've been actively proactive in things that I normally lag on. My pitch for four Doctor Who short stories was completed and sent off to England for the hopeful inclusion in future anthologies released by Big Finish Productions. I've also sent numerous applications to newspaper jobs in Phoenix and Tucson. It's invigorating to do that but in the last couple years my ventures in those directions have been shot out of the sky like a whole mess of Messerschmitts by Daffy Duck. Right after college, I used to hear back on jobs I'd applied to on a fairly routine basis. Now that I actually have experience in my field, I hear nothing. My cover letters and resumes are tailored on advice I've read online, yet I'm often casting them out into the void never to be heard from again. It's like my placing them in the mailbox was a dream. A couple days have passed and I've heard nothing from the new set of jobs I've applied to, something I dearly hope will change because it will make moving out west much easier financially. The cold New Jersey winter is catching up with me. Tonight it was actually cool outside whereas last week the late night air was still warm, the way that comforts me. On the road trip through Arizona, Solomon and I were chasing the blue sky as the rain tried to catch us, managing to do so whenever we 'd stop somewhere until we resumed the eternal flight. (The Solomon and Kevin Chasing the Blue Sky Tour 2005, we dubbed it!) Now, the cold air is chasing me, moreso stalking. It's not here yet but I can sense it inevitably around the corner. Anyway, I've also seen my share of rejection letters for short stories but I think I've gotten some idea of what I was doing wrong thanks to the helpful advice of a certain wolfy friend and my own studies on the matter. I think the ideas I've sent were strong and the prose samples evocative. If it's all rejected, then I once again have to question whether I'll ever be good enough. It's hard to see your work from outside your head, sometimes. One thing I've noticed since being back in New Jersey is how quickly the time seems to pass when you're back in your routine and not enjoying many new adventures. It felt like I was out there for a month, not a week. I'm trying to keep that in mind and fight the clock and my own lethargy. I hope things come together by summer's end, by year's end if need be. Fingers crossed, people. Oh, by the way, I'm splurging on two of my favorite fictional topics in the current Fork storyline. You'll see; and don't worry, it's not robots. Enjoy. :-) Songs I'm blaring repeatedly at the moment: A tie. "Speed of Sound" by Coldplay and the kick-ass, bassy 8th Doctor theme from Big Finish's Doctor Who audio adventures. Answer to headline: Forkbusters!

Cable Fork! By Kevin J. Guhl 8-13-05 As I update the Fork site, I'm sitting here listening to "Somebody To Love" by Jefferson Airplane (not to be confused with Queen's song of the same name), who would later upgrade to Jefferson *Starship* and go on to find fame and fortune in the 1980s with their mega-hit "We Built This City." It's been awhile since I heard the song and I had the stunning realization that as good as "Somebody To Love" by Airplane is, I prefer Jim Carrey's version in the 1996 film Cable Guy! You remember that scene, don't you? Carrey's somewhat crazy cable guy performs the song at a living room karaoke session as only he can, hitting the vocal vibrations by moving his Adam's Apple with his finger and collapsing on the floor as the television showing the words goes into a psychedelic fit. Meanwhile, in the bedroom, his friend (played by Matthew Broderick) falls for and scores with a woman who is secretly a hooker hired by the cable guy. Classic stuff. I remember that Cable Guy got panned because it was Carrey's first big departure from his goofy-ass Ace Ventura shenanigans. Little did we know at that time he'd become a serious actor! It was hard to imagine when the guy's career highlight at that point was getting crapped out by a rhino. I always loved Cable Guy, though. Dark and demented and you feel guilty laughing. There's actually a funny story surrounding Cable Guy and my attempt to record it off of cable. At the time, we has one of those verboten hook-ups that gave us the movie channels for free. However, at a certain hour one of the movie channels would cut out and switch immediately to the porn channel. Imagine my surprise when I'm watching Cable Guy the next day and Jim Carrey is suddenly replaced with a naked, heaving female busom. Hmm, if that were to happen more often it could revive his career.

Head back in the Wayback Machine with Detective Fork By Kevin J. Guhl 8-10-05 Finally, a new story begins! Granted, this one is on the shorter side. In this tale, you get to meet Fork before the word "Detective" preceded his name. Following "The 2 Forks," there's a 4-part guest story by teagle, who draws Rumf Adventures, a stylish black and white serial in the vein of Detective Fork. Then, on to the mega-epic "Floridian Fumes." The latter and teagle's story bring some of the grittier noir-ishness back to Fork. Otherwise, I've been back a week now from Arizona and I'm still in that post-vacation funk. Having no more days off left to take this year doesn't help. Neither does the approaching end of summer, since I hate cold weather with a passion. My cousin Solomon, my fellow Guhl boy who toured with me through the ragged roads of the west in our tiny white rental car The General Custer, is now in Germany, having moved there with his girlfriend. For him, our trip marked the end of a lot of things. I could accept the old patterns of life but I dunno, something feels different...

Fork Returns By Kevin J. Guhl 8-6-05 The desert sands didn't swallow me up, at least not physically. I at times obtain a desire to move to the Phoenix area and my road trip only amped that up. It looks like I'll once again try to find a job out there, something I have been unsuccessful at in the past. My cousin and I drove around the whole damned state, chasing the blue sky as rain showers tried constantly to catch up with us. Only on the last night did we get caught in a large rain storm that almost shut down Phoenix, which seemed unprepared for the downpour. Drainage, anyone? There was a lot of driving and exploring and we tracked down a handful of ghost towns, even claiming former Route 66 roadside attraction Two Guns as our own and renaming it Guhlopolis. I saw the Peacemakers in Tucson, meeting up with concert friends old and new and spent some time at the Reign Kings band house, in the process meeting up again with friend and Refreshments guitarist Brian Blush. It would take pages to adequately describe the whole experience, not to mention my week down the shore that preceded it but I leave you with this piece of advice - If you're ever in Flagstaff and need a cheap place to stay, check out the El Pueblo Motel on Route 66!

Fork explores the exotic lands of Arizona and New Jersey By Kevin J. Guhl 7-16-05 - 8-3-05 I'm outta here for over two weeks but Detective Fork isn't. Thanks to Big Dirty Mike, Fork's adventures will continue right here, taking you through to the conclusion of World's Sharpest and then to A Very Special Christmas Episode. I'll be back at that point, provided I don't get sucked into the Atlantic Ocean or become one of those kinds of cases on Unsolved Mysteries where nothing was found but an empty car parked beside the Sonoran desert. Or, looking on the brighter side of life, if I decide that working a boardwalk concession stand is my chosen path or if I meet some buxom canyon lass and decide that living with her in her trailer for eternity is the way to go. I will be back briefly in the middle of all this nonsense, however, to see Spamalot on Broadway and to actually work for two days. None of these fall on Detective Fork update days, though, and I shall be without Internet access where I am going! Salut! An Arnold Rimmer salute to everyone! (Look it up...)

Cartoonist is a loser but proclaims the war has just begun By Kevin J. Guhl 7-13-05 Okay, I lied. The site wasn't finished by last weekend's end. There's no dead links, though. You can still view the comic archive and such; it's just not fitted with the new site design yet. I'll probably have to get this done after I get back from my mega-vacation over the next two weeks, going to the beach for a week and then to Arizona to get lost in the desert for a week. Gonna be "On the Road." Comic updates shall continue, though, as Big Dirty Mike has offered to be your web site captain for that time and keep the cartoons coming. As for web site design, I'm inching closer to getting a forum up. Alas, Detective Fork did not win for Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic in the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards, with that honor going to the unique Dinosaur Comics. It was awesome that you guys nominated me and I and the Detective are looking to kick some ass next year. Today's update came later than usual in the day and I'm thankful to have rabid fans who call me on it. For examnple, my old buddy Tim writes: new comic now want or your testes will never see the light of day! Yes, of course i know i have read this story arc but that is not the point! a bootleg is never the same as being at the concert so **ck off **CK OFF YOU**CKING **CK **CKWIT TARD **CK!!! love tim Ahh, my wonderful readers. :) Your wish is my command and your cartoon is up.

Fork breaks ties with crappy old Web site By Kevin J. Guhl 7-9-05 As you can see, I burned the midnight petroleum banging out DetectiveFork.com, Mach II. The old design was so 1998 and I was tired of it looking like the Internet had crapped out my site, especially at 800x600 resolution. Gone are the frames and in is the comic being on the front page along with, I think, a slicker design. I gotta give props to Matt Bojangles, drawer of Penis, for not only suggesting I get my ass in gear and fix the site but chatting online all night. Sure, I probably would have gotten done five hours earlier if not for him but it did keep me from going insane during that 117th time the tables code went out of whack. I also gotta thank my old buddy Scott for lending me the awesome HTML book that made things a whole lot easier. Try not to drive your wife nuts with all the Doctor Who I sent ya. ;-) Do note, however, that I'm not done! Nothing besides the front page is complete yet, although you can still see some remnants of the old site if you click on the buttons above. I'll have all that fixed up by the end of the weekend. I didn't want to miss giving you today's update, so online the new site went. I also want to add a better forum but that's gonna take some figurin' out and learnin' before it gets off the ground. We (Read: Me) here at DetectiveFork.com want to give you an interactive experience. As time goes on, you'll also see the opening of the character database and other stuff. Keep stopping by and, I guarantee, your fork kharma will increase.

Captain Smash unveiled! By Kevin J. Guhl 7-6-05 World's Sharpest #20 is up. This is one of my favorite comics that I've drawn. It doesn't have the best art out of what I've done or a wonderful Detective Fork musing but I think the action came out frantic and quick as I intended and I love SuperFork's moment of bragging dorkiness as she completely misses the threat to her in panel two. In my CD player: Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, Live at Billy Bob's Texas. The CD is growing on me but it doesn't really capture the energy and brash strength of a Peacemakers show. Billy Bob's is a honky tonk place and The Peacemakers have some honky tonk but are really rock 'n roll. I think it's something with the mix. Still, the disc is very good and you can sing along with it; you start to feel it more after a couple listens. I'm probably jaded because I've been to many shows of theirs and have a box of concert recordings. However, I'm enjoying the hell out of it. It can be found here. Just track yourself down a few good concert bootlegs or see them in person, too. :) I went shopping last night with one major goal in mind - Buy jean shorts. I had a gift certificate to Old Navy and proceeded to there. They gotta have lots of jeans of varying length there, right? Nope. They had like five pair, all of them so wide you could fit a whole fat person in one pant leg. So what did I do? I did what I always do when I go shopping for something besides shirts. I bought more shirts. And a couple pair of shorts that were non-jean and I was only somewhat iffy about.

Awards and stuff By Kevin J. Guhl 7-2-05 World's Sharpest #19 is online. Behold the secret of Captain Smash! July 3 is the last day of voting in The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards, in which Detective Fork is nominated for OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC. Then begins a long week of waiting to see who the winners are. I get really suckered into this stuff. Yeah, it's just an online award but even those kind of victories give me a thrill. I like the attention it gets for the comic, although I get all the validation I need from the readers I already have. Whoever thought I'd find such a supportive bunch? Anyway, there's some pretty good competitors Fork is up against. Sometimes he's known to pull forward in a tough situation, though. :)

Fork breaks out the hose By Kevin J. Guhl 6-29-05 World's Sharpest #18 is up. I also made a long overdue update to the fan art section. It includes some awesome World's Sharpest-themed wallpaper that Adrian Ceroni made. Detective Fork is nominated for OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC in The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. Thanks to those who nominated it and please cast your vote for Fork to win the award!. Voting ends July 3. To register to vote for The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards: Send an email to the WCCA Bouncer at the following address -- trbinth@aol.com -- that includes your name as well as your webcomic's URL. The WCCA Bouncer will check to ensure that you have a valid online comic, then send you a reply with all the instructions you need on how to submit your nominations or vote from that point on.

Battle rages over docks By Kevin J. Guhl 6-25-05 Big battle in World's Sharpest #17. I drew this strip last night, way after the other comics in this story, and made little effort to hide that fact. ;-) I'm starting to have a tendency to draw a little abstract but I've always felt style should supercede realism. Readers on the Duck were very supportive about Fork's rejection (see last entry), one even saying that means Fork is undergrond and must be too "cutting edge." All this is appreciated. :) In other news, I'm not sure I can get the Detective Fork book done by next month (read: unlikely). If I can, I wanna grab a table in artist's alley at Anthrocon in Philly, which is July 7-10. If not, I guess I'll have to shoot for next year. :-/ I read about this con in the letter pages of the current, awesome Ninja Turtles book by Peter Laird.

Fork: Rejected By Kevin J. Guhl 6-22-05 World's Sharpest #16 is up. Well, my Detective Fork entry for the third Drunk Duck book got rejected. That's never a fun thing; you wonder what they didn't like about it and why it wasn't one of the stories that there was room for. The positive in this is that even if Drunk Duck doesn't want my story, I think you guys will enjoy it. It'll be posted in full here, after the current storyline and the short one after it conclude. The theme of the book was humor and so was the tale. The story, "Detective Fork vs. The Martians," takes place during the flying saucer-paranoid 1950s. So, yeah, you'll get to see an older Detective Fork who's past his noir-ish days of glory!

That Fork is one shady character By Larry Libel 6-18-05 At last, the big reveal comes in World's Sharpest #15. I've said before that I'm a couple months ahead in drawing comics. The good part about that is there's less pressure of a deadline. The bad part (in a way) is that I believe my art has been improving since I started drawing Detective Fork again. I look at today's comic, for example, and think it looks okay but I start thinking of how I could draw it better, only a few months after I originally drew it. A few months from now, I'll probably look back on the comics I'm drawing this week and wish I had done better! The one solace is that I look at some of the early strips form published comic strip artists, Jim Davis' Garfield in particular, and see how much he's changed over the years. Even if his art started out a little weak, he plugged ahead and kept getting it published as he improved. Hell, I think my dog could draw better than some of the artists whose comics appear in daily newspapers. For awhile, I thought about starting to shade the comics in my paint program. It seems a lot of people do that, though, and I want to maintain the old school B&W look that Detective Fork has. I looked at ancient Dick Tracy comics and decided to focus more on the inking, to go more with an illustrated look. Chester Gould (which many people think is my last name!) made everything very stark and I haven't even seen any of his strips that used toning sheets. Inking is something that was never a strong suit of mine but I'm continuing to work on it. I especially think it adds mood to the darker scenes in my comic, which thre are a lot of. All the daylight scenes that you see in the current storyline are more a reflection of SuperFork's sunny disposition than Detective Fork's style. Anyway, on the right is a preview panel from the comic I drew last night. By the way, I don't really have a dog. :-( I just thought it sounded funnier to say I did. Detective Fork is nominated for OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC in The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. Thanks to those who nominated it and please cast your vote for Fork to win the award!. To register to vote for The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards: Send an email to the WCCA Bouncer at the following address -- trbinth@aol.com -- that includes your name as well as your webcomic's URL. The WCCA Bouncer will check to ensure that you have a valid online comic, then send you a reply with all the instructions you need on how to submit your nominations or vote from that point on.

Fork and Fork await showdown at docks By Kevin J. Guhl 6-15-05 I'm sick, sick, sick as a dog. I guess it's the price I pay for partying hard all weekend. I'm not sick enough to skip putting up World's Sharpest #14, though. This is the 50th regular Detective Fork comic, even though I drew it after the rest of the comics in the story. It features a cameo appearance by someone who will become more known to you (and the Detective) in an upcoming storyline. Detective Fork is nominated for OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC in The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. Thanks to those who nominated it and please cast your vote for Fork to win the award!. To register to vote for The Web Cartoonists Choice Awards: Send an email to the WCCA Bouncer at the following address -- trbinth@aol.com -- that includes your name as well as your webcomic's URL. The WCCA Bouncer will check to ensure that you have a valid online comic, then send you a reply with all the instructions you need on how to submit your nominations or vote from that point on.

Making peace in Asbury By Kevin J. Guhl 6-11-05 World's Sharpest #13 ist up. Ahh, there's nothing like a Peacemakers show. Asbury Park was sweltering last night. The Saint was a hot box of bodies and sweat. My friends couldn't make it all the way through but I perservered, in part no doubt to my uncanny love for high temperatures. There must be lizard in my blood. The band played on with its mix of western rock and honky tonk, Roger Clyne wearing a pilot's jumpsuit and sharing his nautral good bearing and humor with the audience between songs. Some tunes got us jumping, others swaying and there were some that shot me through the core and made me feel alone. At a truly good concert, you don't just listen, you feel it and it carries with you through the night, through your life. After the show, you meet with old friends you've seen at other shows and walk out the door into air that feels cool and refreshing, even on a summer-like night. In my case, the two friends I brought with me had enoyed the show from outside, even getting to see a few of Asbury's fattest chase a thief of some sort and give up the pursuit because their lungs and legs couldn't keep up. I drove home, steady but high on one beer, no doubt due to being a mostly non-alcoholic and having barely more water in my body than the Sahara. Awesome night - I'm off to do it again, this time in Philadelphia. Salut!

Fork reports on Wizard World Philly By Kevin J. Guhl 6-9-05 World's Sharpest #12 is up. So, Wizard World Philly 2005. If it did anything, it gave me an idea of what's required to at least have a shot in the comic book industry. I met up with some small press companies and they seem open to new ideas. However, they want to see a full package. I've got comic pitches I'm very confident in. However, I know that I don't possess the art skills to adequately draw them. So, I would need an artist and convincing someone to jump onto a project, produce work and then hope like me to get picked up if we want to get paid...I'm not sure how many people would do that. I'm looking. As for Detective Fork, he was shown to a few people, although Tony DiGerolamo, who writes Super Frat and other comics, spent a long time giving me advice. While being encouraging, he also was realistic in saying that you have to consider your audience. Detective Fork, being a detective noir comic, has an audience that's dying off, he said. I asked about the audience who enoys action and a unique idea and he didn't discount that but said it could take a long time to get anywhere. He also said that it's a difficult concept because it's in a serious genre but has the inherently funny basis of the characters being cutlery. While he's right, it doesn't discourage me one bit. I love writing and drawing this comic; it's one of the few things I can decently do both for and I'll keep putting it online as long as I'm enjoying it. Hopefully, you'll keep enjoying it, too. :) I met Jennie Breeden at the show and wow, I didn't realize how much she is like her character in The Devil's Panties. She had the flame boots and her pirate friend was even there! Jennie did a good job pitching Lulu.com to me for when I put together a Detective Fork book. Next year, I'm thinking about being in Artist's Alley, too. Anyway, Jennie is very nice and I congratulate her on her awesome comic being accepted into Keenspot. The lateness of comics is not going to be a trend of mine. This one's a bit past the deadline because I was trying to figure out my new graphics program. Anyway, here's the best part about the convention; My haul!: Star Wars Action Figures: -Lando Calrissian (Bespin Escape) -General Grievous (w/ 4 lightsabers) -FX-7 (vintage) Comic Books: -Sandman Mystery Theatre Annual, signed (although not in person) by Alex Ross, Matt Wagner and someone who's name I can't decipher. I've looked sooo long for this comic and finally got it for 10 bucks, signed no less. -The Ride #1 -G.I. Joe #111 -Star Wars: Rite of Passage graphic novel -Stars Wars #42, signed by John Ostrander, "creator" of Jedi Aayla Secura -Star Wars: Jedi Shaak Ti -Star Wars: General Grievous #1 and 2 -Ruule #3, signed by Jeff Amano -Convention Confessional, signed by Steven Walters and Rob Reilly. Rob's an old friend and an awesome artist. -Point Pleasant (Mothman, baby!) -Dracula vs. King Arthur, signed by the very cool Christian Beranek -The Devil's Panties: Freshman, signed by Jennie Breeden Other Stuff: -Power Girl poster, signed by the very lovely Amanda Conner -Any comic character for $1 color drawings by Arthur Baltazar - Arthur is an awesome comic artist who has done stories for Disney comics. My friends and I took him up on his offer, throwing our most obscure favorite comic characters at him and he quickly obliged, knowing exactly how to draw each one of them (in his own unique style)! For me, he drew Scarlet Spider, Beta Ray Bill and the Disco Dazzler. I've gotta start planning what characters I'm gonna throw at him next year. :-) Arthur's site. BTW, thanks for encouraging people to vote for me in the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards, MrChapel. It'll be tough to win, especially against a popular comic like Digger.

Fork gets cryptic By Kevin J. Guhl 6-1-05 World's Sharpest #11, today's comic, is the first Detective Fork comic within a storyline that doesn't actually have Detective Fork in it! June 5 quick update: I've been at Wizard World Philadelphia and will report more on that later. I've put up the cover for one of the two "Detective Fork" ashcan comics that I ran off to take to the event in case I wanted to show anyone the Fork. It's just a precursor to the actual book I want to make available pretty soon. Would you like to know what's sitting on my desk? I'll tell you. There is a plastic snack bag. Sealed within that plastic bag is an old fork, the very one I scanned for images on this site. Next to the Fork is a platic hat and a small trenchcoat from a Thing action figure. Where is this going? Just file this away in your memory and you'll find out in due time...

Cartoonist abandons all social life for a weekend By Kevin J. Guhl 5-28-05 World's Sharpest #10 is up. This is one of those times where what I guess you could call my hobby has gotten in the way of a good time. I had plans to spend Memorial Day weekend in Ocean City, N.J. but Wizard World Philadelphia is fast-approaching (Next weekend!) and I want to have copies of the first two Detective Fork comic books ready. The first comic collects "Killer Familiar," "Leather & Steel," "The Original Detective Fork & Co." and other stuff. The second volume collects "World's Sharpest," "The 2 Forks" and other stuff, most of which has not even appeared on this Web site! It will require drawing a few new cartoons, pasting together pages, making copies and stapling together said copies. The only way I'll get it done is to sit out this weekend. Not only that, but my real job requires that I write today, since the paper still comes out on Tuesday even if we have Monday off. I feel bad about skipping Ocean City but there will be more shore days this summer. As I look out the window, there's also a raging thunderstorm so perhaps it wasn't that bad a decision. :) If you're a Web comic artist, writer or webmaster, be sure to check out the Web Cartoonists Choice Awards. Voting starts June 5.

May the Fork be with you By Kevin J. Guhl 5-25-05 For your viewing pleasure, World's Sharpest #9 is available. Someone found this site on Yahoo! by typing in "Dirty Fork Utensil picture." Hmm, maybe the Yahoo! listing isn't working out quite like I had planned. The scary thing is, if the person wanted silverware smut, there is one such picture hidden away on this Web site... I'm still feeling warm fuzzies over Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Yes, warm fuzzies over a movie that is so dark that it will send little children screaming down the halls. But that's all okay. George Lucas has mostly redeemed himself in my eyes after the subpar quality of the last two movies. Then again, I still don't like the way he's tampered with the original films, especially on the DVD release. Hayden Christensen stars as Anakin Skywalker in...Return of the Jedi?!?!?! While Yoda and Ben are still their old selves as Force ghosts? Bad, bad move. Even worse tha