Cornered by Mike Baldwin for June 26, 2011

Sand bags? What am I missing?

It’s what we do along the Missouri River this year.

Either he’s worried about the rising tide, or he’s from North Dakota and plans on taking them home.

I was waiting on the animation.

really; there is several seconds of my life i will never get back

Oh yeah, we shared the same bag at the company picnic.

Where’s the animation? Like the strips, nicely done, but that sailboat moving would have been a nice touch.

Gee Mike, you can’t win for losing can you? Some of us gripe when you do the animation, and some of us gripe when you don’t ! I’m not really griping myself, either way is fine with me! :-)

haha true Dry!

My perception is that he’s adding sand to compensate for extensive beachfront erosion. Also, please restore the animatica.

I’m agree with tcayer.

When people go to the beach it’s to relax. This guy, not so much. But with all the natural disasters theses days, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, oil slicks can you blame him? Nowadays, a day at the beach could cause a panic attack for some people. Building a wall of sandbags is his way of coping (rather than building a castle.)I couldn’t fit that into a caption, so didn’t. Perhaps it’s a stretch to expect readers to “get it,” without some form of caption, but sometimes, that’s OK too. I think working up your own interpretations are just as much fun and valid. I’m not suggesting a steady diet of oblique cartoons, but IMO it’s OK to mix it up a bit just to keep you on their toes! Yes, I expect a lot from my readers!I also tried to mini-animate it, but, found, because everything should move, i.e., the waves, the boat, the guy, the birds, that it quickly got away on me. Just making one or two things move drew attention to the fact that everything else was frozen. In the coming weeks I plan to mini-animate only when I feel it adds something – hopefully a couple each week. That’s what works for me artistically and realistically. I hope that works for you too.

And here I was going to say he was doing prep prior to building his castle so the tide wouldn’t wash it away, but I defer to the creator of the strip.Any way you want to do the animation works for me. I just enjoy getting to read all the great toons on this site.

You’re fine with me, Mike. Enjoy the animation and also a joke that isn’t animated (a funny one either way). Thanks again for your conscientiousness and your gift!

Mike, I like your comics whether they’re animated or not. They have both humor and drawing skill.

MB says “I plan to mini-animate only when I feel it adds something”. That idea should have occurred to him before he started.

Thanks, Mike. I miss the animations in your more current cartoons. I was going to accuse the guy of “sandbagging” at his job (whatever that might be). Yeah, your cartoon leaves a lot open to interpretation, but sometimes our comments/interpretations can be really weird and amusing.