Click.  "Hello?"
"Hi, M'Oak?  You busy?"
"Yes, actually.  Fed Ex stops accepting packages at ten tonight.  I have half a ton of stuff to do before then."
"Ow.  Should I let you go?"
"Yes.  I should just about be able to make it if I don't run into any delays."
"Hm.  Sounds like you need to learn time management.  Did I tell you the time when-"
"Probably.  Goodbye."
Click.

I know all about time management.  It means two minutes per person, per call.  Stick to the course and if you need to take a nap, (because you only slept four hours the night before), then set the alarm to go off in 45 minutes and promise yourself you won't hit that evil snooze button.  Not that it matters.  The phone is guaranteed to wake you up at least twice before the alarm does anyway.

But I was on a roll.  I'd just abused a friend for the sake of comics, and I didn't care.  I was going to make this deadline even if it killed me.  —Which I suppose makes the concept of a ‘deadline' sound redundant, but still.  I was on a roll.  There could be people dying in earthquakes.  Two minutes per person per call.  One hour of cool productivity later, the phone rang.  With a heart of stone and a hand of steel, I picked it up.

"You have two minutes.  Go."

"Hi, Mark. . ?  I've just made a big decision.  I'm telling all my friends and I wanted to tell you too. . .  —Um. . ,  I'm gay.  Do you have time to talk?"

Sigh.

‘Well', I told myself when I finally got back to work, ‘You have to make some exceptions.  And if there are no more interruptions, and if I rush, then I'll still make it.  But now I mean it!  I don't stop for anybody!  There could be earthquakes-'

The phone rang.

"Hello?"
"Hi.  Mark?  It's Ed.  My father just had a heart attack.  Can we talk?"

Erg.  We talked, but now things were serious.   Multiple calls from distributor-production-printer type people came through, but I kept them short.  (They're the reason, by the way, that you don't screen calls when in business.  If distributor-production-printer type people leave messages, you can spend whole days playing telephone tag before you get back in touch with them to solve whatever problems need attention).  I made a trip to the graphics lab to pick up film, but I jogged.  Took half an hour.  The clock was ticking, but I was still on top.  But just to make sure I stayed there, I unplugged the phone.  Production people be damned.

The front door buzzed.

"Whelen and Wasson Collection Agency.  Is Mark Oakley there please.  We have some matters to discuss.  May we come up?"

Whelen and Wasson. . ?  Collections?  I didn't owe anybody. . .  Oh.   A stress causing joke.  Funny.  My good friend Dave Whelen, from Ottawa, (that's a day's drive from Toronto, for those of you who don't know.  Long distance.  Which is why I talk to the guy only once a year), of all the 365 days available, he chose this one to arrive unannounced and lay siege to what was left of my schedule.  And he brought fellow cartoonist Jeff Wasson with him.  Cripes.  The gods hate me.

So they came up to the apartment and were annoyingly interesting while I tried to paste down text blocks.

One of the most significant changes in my life since putting the first issue of Thieves & Kings on the market was the astronomical growth of activity in my once stagnant social life.  But as any successful cartoonist will tell you, having dozens of friends and acquaintances, while pleasant and life affirming, are the LAST things you want to deal with when trying to get a book out on time.  Who needs their life affirmed when you have deadlines?

But you know what?  I still got that comic nailed down and sent off to the printer on time.

And believe it or not, as late as this book appears to be, it is actually ‘on time,' according to my calendar.  —I'd had two weeks of production time lost this period to due to a) Putting together the 2nd trade paperback (printed and now in stores!)  and, b) The Chicago Comicon.  (Despite the fact that I'm not giving T&K the media coverage I'd like, I'll have to hold off on the cons and advertising work until I win back a couple of weeks.)  —Plus I'm still trying to catch up from the week I spent on a giant mailing campaign from last period, as well as the week I spent on the cover for the second trade.  All told, I've lost a whole month to miscellaneous comics junk.  There is a lot of catching up to do, but guess what?  I've got NOTHING planned for the next publishing period except. . . PUBLISHING!!!  I'm a happy cartoonist.  Look for the next issue of T&K to appear on the racks a couple of weeks earlier than this one did.

Ciao ‘till then.