Jealous much?

According to his blog, Scott Adams is not happy that Aaron McGruder is taking vacation.

According to one news story I read: Aaron McGruder, the cartoonist behind the strip syndicated in about 350 American newspapers, said Tuesday he would take about six months off beginning in March.

"‘Every well needs occasional refreshing," he wrote in a letter to be sent to editors of newspapers carrying the strip. "I hope that this fall you will agree that the time away from the demands of deadlines has served the strip, your readers and me."

Apparently Adams thinks that taking a vacation after doing the Boondocks strip for 6-7 years is not warranted. On his blog, he writes:

The creator, Aaron McGruder apparently doesn’t have enough time because he’s working on his animated TV show.

The interesting part is that he hasn’t drawn the strip himself for years. According to an interview I read, he considers himself more of a writer than an artist anyway.

I imagine Stephen King rolling over in his grave when he hears that McGruder doesn’t have time to write his four sentences per day for the strip. I realize Stephen King is still alive, but I assume he sleeps in a grave anyway.

Now, I don't know how y'all feel, but that just seems a little bitchy. From what i have read, McGruder didn't say he didn't have time to do both, but that he needs a vacation. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. McGruder says he hopes the strip will be stronger when he comes back from vacation. Why doesn't he deserve a break if he wants one?

Why Scott Adams even cares whether or not Aaron McGruder takes vacation is another question entirely.

Look. I know Scott Adams has had a strip *and* a tv show at the same time in the past, but... I dunno. Yay for him. Hooray for Scott Adam's intricate, painstaking, finely nuanced drawings each day. He's a harder worker than Aaron McGruder. He is superior because being snarky about his fellow comic strip creator makes him so.

Whatever.

I have never heard Aaron McGruder being anything but honest about having an artist draw the strips. If he has gotten to the point in his career where he can afford to hire someone to do the drawing while he outlines storylines (because many of his strips are part of a larger arch, not just one-offs) and writes for the show, good for him. Nothing wrong with considering yourself a writer when what you actually do is, um, WRITE.

For a writer, four sentences could take *way* longer than four pages might because you must distill the language and have every word just so. Unless, of course, you are so amazingly, unrelentingly talented that you scribble your strip in seconds each morning, effortlessly, as Mr. Adams would appear to.

I actually feel kinda sad now because I used to like Scott Adams. I still like his work and find his blog entertaining from time to time. But somehow, seeing that he needs to be nasty about his fellow comic strip creators just because they take vacation in order to feel better about himself has made me lose any respect I had for the man.