From now on—when possible—I’ll be including a bonus with each Last Kiss comic: A look at the original romance art that I use as source material. This one is a panel from the 12th issue of First Kiss.

Cheap sex is wasted on the young. They should pay for it like the rest of us.

My mom is dying.

She’s been dying for years actually, but recently she’s gotten really good at it. No more chemo. Let the Grim Reaper come knocking. She’s ready.

Thanks to hospice, the pain is mostly manageable.

But Mom wants to die in her own home. So family members have been giving her 24-7 care for the last few months. By family members I mean mostly my sister Lisa and me.

(The week Lisa and I took off to attend last month’s San Diego Comic Con was an obvious exception. It was hard on my mom. And it was probably even harder on the family members who filled in for us.)

I’m spending about three days and nights a week taking care of Mom. And that’s fine. (Lots of good talks and bad TV.) But…I’m falling behind in my life.

Free time is scarce. Mostly, I just meet my deadlines and collapse.

So why talk about this now? Well, I guess I want to let friends and fans (many of you are both) know why I’m so hard to reach. So busy. And so very, very far behind in responding to e-mails.

Okay, that’s it. Monday, I’ll be back without the drama. I’m always happy to concentrate on the gags. We’re all here for the laughs. After all, laughter heals. (And pays my bills.)

In the meantime, though, thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

The good news is that the mind-blowing San Diego comic con is next week. And the bad news? Well…(Good, Lord!)…didn’t you hear me? It’s freakin’ next week!

If someone has a time machine handy, I’d like to rent it and get a few extra days to prepare. (I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday…sometime in the future. Or possibly a Tuesday in the past.)

This year, I’ll be rolling out some new products — including the fantastic Dark Horse/Last Kiss coffee mugs and sticky notebooks. Stuff so cool that — thanks to that time machine — I’m literally beside myself with joy.

Stylish moms and toilets? Gee, what does that remind me of? Ah, the Lustig goldfish story!

When I was a kid we had the world’s only talking goldfish. Okay, it didn’t exactly talk—at least not in anything recognizable as English.

But it used to come to the surface of its water bowl frequently and make popping sounds. Now I don’t remember any of this. I don’t even remember the fish. But my mom swears it was a very noisy goldfish.

In fact, all that fish chatter started getting on Mom’s nerves. And–since neither I nor my brother seemed to care about little Goldie Yaks–Mom decided Goldie had to go.

(If you’re squeamish or feel strongly about a goldfish’s “human” rights, please stop reading.)

The easiest way to send Goldie packing? The toilet!

But after Mom put Goldie into the toilet, she had a Mom moment. She wanted to be kind and give Goldie a fighting chance at survival–or at least a hearty last meal. So she dumped some fish food in the toilet. Then she flushed.

With apologies to Irving Berlin — and music lovers everywhere…

There’s no business like bare-ly show business — like no business I know!

Everything about it is revealing, everything the coppers will allow!

Nowhere could you get that happy feeling when you are peeling and hear an extra “Wow!”

There’s no people like bare-ly show people, they smile when g-strings fall low!

Even for a geezer who’s about to fold–halfway gone, begun to mold,

As long as you’ve got cash or a sack of gold, we’ll go on with the show!

Listen to your mom. Hasn’t she suffered enough?

A Joan Crawford wannabe!