…and it’s a dumb gag. At least it’s about the characters being ships. Are submarines ships? Boats?

I was in San Francisco last week and I drew this one in the hotel. It was an exhausting week even though I swore I wouldn’t be walking everywhere again. I enjoyed the time there very much. I also discovered that at 48, maybe I SHOULDN’T try to learn to surf. Often I’d come back to the hotel and be too bushed to even try to draw. And I didn’t sit down somewhere where the environment wasn’t distracting (which is why I was there). I’m not the kind of person to sit in a cafe and draw. Even at the weekly artist meetup, I don’t get much done.

So, the 400th Mort Inkingbot strip, huh? How about that? Not all of them are winners, and though I’ve compiled them in comic books…not all of them are worth archiving. And then that means I’ve drawn about 40 comic strips a year, not including The Indictment comic strip or some other things.

I mean, it’s a dopey joke, that’s what Mort does, right? I didn’t think up anything special for the occasion (I think #300 was a full page gag). I was probably going to wait until I got home to do something more about it being the 400th strip but this popped in my head, so I pencilled it, and then a couple days later I inked it.

Oh, originally I pencilled the 2nd panel to have the character Boattron on a dock in robot mode shouting at Submarina (named differently because she would be a regular boat) “hey, where are you going?” as she sailed or motored away. But, they’re TWO SHIPS, so I made him into a robot that turns into a boat, and then for the similar payoff, I made her a submarine so she could be underwater avoiding him.

I haven’t had the energy to do much beyond two panel gags in the last couple months, and I DO have plans for other comic strips… I’ve had TIME, that’s for sure. I think this vacation has given me a little boost to be my cartoonist self again, and I should get those ideas down on paper now instead of assuming there will be a “later.”

Anyway, ROBROS (bonus robot doodles) #300 later this week!