PEN MAN

I really do love drawing. It relaxes me, it takes my mind off of things, and it can make me feel like I’ve accomplished something on those days when I accomplish almost nothing at all.

I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember and I can’t imagine that I’ll stop anytime soon.

Drawing has gotten me into trouble on more than a few occasions though.

It’s gotten me kicked out of class. It’s angered family members and drawn my attention away from important things like school, loved ones, and bettering myself as a person.

Drawing is like booze for me. It’s easy to get caught up in and it’s even easier to get lost in.

Granted, I’ve never woken up in a naked puddle of pencil shavings and no memory of what I did the night before, but still, you get the point I’m trying to make, right?

For example, in one of my grade school science classes my teacher asked the students to bring in something from home for an experiment we would be conducting the following week. He suggested that a baseball might work, or a basketball, or even an apple – basically something roundish - something that could be easily rolled.

I honestly don't recall the specifics of the experiment or what we were testing and more than likely this is because I didn't care.

I was a terrible student.

I was a worse student than Dr. Phil is a therapist.

I was a worse student than Casey Anthony was a mother.

I was a worse student than Dom Deluise was a sex machine.

The following week most everyone in the class managed to bring in something roundish, and something capable of rolling - most everyone, except my friend, Mark.

To put it bluntly, Mark was a bit of a dunderhead (yep, I typed the word dunderhead) and Mark forgot to bring something in at all. With nothing available my dunderheaded pal opted to try and roll his pen.

He failed miserably.

And I mocked him mercilessly for it.

The pen flipped and plopped and occasionally slid, but it never really came close to something anyone might consider a roll. It was a pathetic display. It was a pathetic display put on by a pathetic young lad and he deserved everything I tossed his way.

Just when he thought I was done making fun of him, I decided to make him the lead character in a comic book called Pen Man.

In no time at all, my little seven-page joke was making its way around the class. My friends liked Pen Man. The class liked Pen Man. They liked the drawings and they appreciated that it was poking fun at Mark.

A few of them wanted a copy, so I made some photocopies and sold them for a buck each.

Not long after that, they were clamoring for a second issue.

The character of Pen Man had become so well known that people started referring to Mark as Pen Man. Like nicknames tend to do, Pen Man stuck.

In fact, people were referring to, Mark as Pen Man more than they were Mark, which of course annoyed him to no end.

When I moved away a few years later, I kept on drawing Pen Man.

I don't really know why I did it. Mark was no longer a part of my life and I was at that age where selling homemade comics to people at school would have succeeded only in getting me beaten up.

“You like drawing comics, nerd? Then you’re going to love drinking toilet water.”

Characters from Pen Man spun off into their own titles, new characters were created, and soon enough my little brother (who came up with a few characters of his own) and I had created, Novak Comics.

I know, it’s a pretty creative name, right?

Well into High School, I was still drawing Pen Man. I drew him home. I drew him on the bus. I drew him in the library. I drew him at lunch, and I drew him in class - continuing my legacy of truly awful studentry.

I know “studentry” isn’t technically a word. Shut up. No one asked you. Keep your damn mouth shut.

Now, you might think I would have eventually stopped scribbling on typing paper in my free time and stapling the pages along the edge, but I didn't.

When I should have been soaked in booze and buried to the hilt in lady parts in college, I was still drawing Pen Man.

When should have been going on dates, and meeting women, and applying for jobs, and planning my future, I was still drawing Pen Man.

When I graduated, moved to California and got married?

Yep, I was still doing it then - at least for a little while.

Eventually I wised up and put the kibosh on the adventures of Pen Man and the whole Novak Comics thing as a whole. It was hard to do, but it had to be done. By that time I'd probably drawn well over five hundred issues - which is sad, terrifying, and just a tiny bit impressive – in a sad and terrifying sort of way.

For years since, the Pen Man books have been gathering dust in my office. The paper is crinkling. It's turning yellow and its getting brittle. Even the staples are beginning to rust. These things weren't made to last, and because of that I spent the better part of a year scanning and categorizing every single page of every issue. I even started to put them online.

I couldn’t just let Pen Man rust away.

Too many things go away in life.

Pen Man didn’t need to be one of them.

There’s a part of me that hopes Mark is still out there somewhere and he'll somehow stumble onto them during a break in his regularly scheduled internet porn routine.

Maybe, for the briefest of moments he'll remember how much he hated it when everyone called him Pen Man and he’ll cruse my name through clenched teeth.

That’s the kind of stuff that brings a smile to my face.

I WAS A TRENDSETTER

I was about eight years old. I was in my bedroom with my friends Derek and Andy and we were discussing the things pre-pubescent boys most commonly discuss. You know, the three B's:  baseball, basketball, and boobies.

Not necessarily in that order.

Now that I think of it, more often than not two of the B's would be completely overlooked and the brunt of the conversation would focus on the third.

Boobs or Michael Jordan? Breasts or Mark McGwire?  Tits or Chicago Bulls journeyman, Craig Hodges?

Michael Jordan was a hell of a player and his rookie card is worth a bundle, but I can't bury my face in between him, shake my head side to side and blow.

Well, maybe I could.

Why would I want to though?

My mother opened the door unexpectedly, "Steven, don't you think it's about time your friends went home? It's getting late."

"Aw, come on, Ma! Right now?"

"Yes Steven, right now. Come on guys, it's time for you to head on home."

"Geez mom! This sucks! Why do you have to be such a jerk! FARSH!"

FARSH?

Did I say FARSH?

What the hell is FARSH?

My mother looked at me like I was an idiot. Like I was a monkey tossing his feces around at the zoo. Like I was some helmet wearing special day student with a mouthful of paste and glitter and safety scissors.

I’m thinking it’s the very same look people give Madonna whenever she asks them what they thought of her performance in, Evita.

Under normal circumstances my mother might have been mad at me for calling her a jerk, but the whole "FARSH" thing at the end threw her for a loop. She wasn’t mad so much as confused – confused and maybe a little disappointed.

You're no doubt wondering, just as she was, what the hell FARSH was supposed to mean and why I said it? Well, here’s the deal. When I was a kid, I not only created a word, but I popularized that word among my friends and even people who I didn't consider my friends.

That word was FARSH.

FARSH was huge. FARSH was popular and everyone in the world was using FARSH.

Of course, when you're eight the whole “world” is little more than the town you live in and the school you attend, but whatever.

FARSH was awesome and I was awesome for creating it. FARSH was exactly the kick in the pants our little town needed. It was revolutionary. It was an epidemic. It changed everything it touched and touched everything it changed. It wasn’t just an idea – it was the idea. It was the very definition of the word idea. FARSH caught on quicker than "That's Hot," a few years back, and in my own little way I was cooler than Paris Hilton.

You know, without the parties, or the money, or the drugs, or the constant television coverage, or the horrible movies and the sort of scary, sort of hilarious sex tape.

Oh, and without me being a complete idiot.

I was only a partial idiot.

I've been typing FARSH in caps because FARSH wasn't so much spoken, as it was screamed. In order to use FARSH correctly, one was expected to belt it with every ounce of breath they could muster. It was also required that the person screaming FARSH make an entirely random gesture to work alongside.

Almost anything was acceptable.

I personally liked to tilt my head to the right and pucker my lips like Angelina Jolie as drawn by Tex Avery.

FARSH had no specific meaning. FARSH was beyond such frivolities. It could express anger. It could express happiness. It could express confusion. If an exclamation point had a specific sound, that sound would be FARSH.

At the time, I was proud of FARSH.

FARSH was my greatest achievement.

Everyone was using FARSH, and they all knew where exactly where FARSH had originated.

FARSH was big.

FARSH was real big.

FARSH was John Holmes big.

I started flashing around the fact that I created FARSH to anyone within earshot. FARSH was like an expensive car, or a gold record, or a mansion, or an oversized dong. FARSH was all of them combined. The boys were jealous of me because of FARSH's existence and the girls loved me for the very same reason.

I could have stolen kisses from any of the eight year-old girls on the playground. I was king shit. I had my pick of the litter.

I was on top of the world.

FARSH!

I’m just wonderig if anyone else is getting sick of me typing the word FARSH so much?

Cause you should be.

Suddenly, one day in math class everything changed. Like all great things, even FARSH had to end.

The downfall of FARSH began with my math teacher, Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson was one of those young teachers who liked to “get through” to his students by lowering himself to their level and "mixing it up.” He was the kind of teacher that would work in timely Ninja Turtle'esque words like "radical," or "awesome," into his lessons - pretty much anything to get his kids to learn long division.

One day Anderson walked into class, dropped his case on his desk, and straightened his tie. "Are you guys ready to buckle down and get to some serious math today?"

Of course no one was.

Noticing that the response from his class was less than energetic he made the choice to play the cool-guy card. "Radical! I want you guys to get out your homework, pass it up front and then we'll get to the fun stuff! Farsh!"

You've got to be kidding me. Did Anderson just say FARSH?

 My FARSH?

He did! That douche bag just blurted out my FARSH! And he didn't even do it right!

He lame-o'ed the hell out of my FARSH! Damn it!

FARSH!

When the math teacher uses a cool word, the coolness factor of that word immediately plummets into the soil, digs its way to the center of the earth and eventually resurfaces somewhere around Australia.

Australia - they always get the cool stuff when it’s no longer cool.

FARSH went from epic win to epic fail in less time than it took for the world to forget that Michael Jackson’s nickname was actually, Molesty McMolseterson.

The very instant FARSH was played out, so was I.

Hungry for the spotlight, I attempted to start up a new cool word - tried to catch lightening in a bottle just one more time. The word was SAMMY. SAMMY was basically used exactly like FARSH. There was a simultaneous funny-face thing attached to it and a weird hand gesture hand thing and there was even some screaming.

In the end, well, SAMMY was just SAMMY and SAMMY never caught on.

I looked like an idiot whenever I used SAMMY.

In fact, I’m going to stop capitalizing sammy. Sammy doesn’t deserve a caps lock.

I was a one hit wonder. I was Winger. I was Wham, and I was Tone Loc and I was Vanilla Ice.

I was a has been.

Fame is a fickle mistress.

FARSH.

See, FARSH works pretty well for sadness too.