I seem to have gotten my computer woes finished with, so here's the comic I WAS planning for Monday. :P Oddly, it's still timely.

Thanks everyone for your guest strip submissions. I considered running more strips for thursday and friday, but I really just need to get back to a normal routine. The comic is my outlet, and it's been a little weird not having it.

I'm sitting here, trying to get the goddamn comic done and maintain some kind of normalcy in my life, and go to save it and GODDAMN ILLUSTRATOR CRASHES AGAIN. It's gotta be something with this file, or something, because I tried simply OPENING it and resaving it again as another file, and it crashes instantly. Granted, it's got an image background, but come on - I saved the damn thing BEFORE! Why is it NOW deciding to have issues?!

Had I started on this little adventure earlier in the day, I'd give it another go. As it stands, it's almost 1 AM and I can't deal with this right now. *sigh*

If anyone felt up to it, now would be a REALLY good time for some guest strips. As much as doing the comic keeps me feeling normal, fighting with my computer isn't something I really want to be doing at the moment. So seriously - if you feel up to it, and you have an idea for a guest comic, fire it my way at gregdean@gmail.com and assuming it's not just stick figures or pictures of your dog's poo or something, I'd be happy to put it up. One day of no comic is a bummer. Two days is pushing it. Three days is just insane, and it's under my skin that Friday's comic is still up right now. Thanks for understanding, guys.

Also, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who's sent us a comment in e-mail. It's been hard to read them, because it just brings it back up in our heads, but at the same time, it's helping us cope. You guys are a great bunch of people, and don't ever forget it.

Thank you guys for your comments. I'm pretty broken up about the whole thing.

It's hard to describe the relationship that Diablo and I had, but I always try to explain it this way... I believe that people have a few soul mates (where their souls just connect and bond) and I believed Diablo was one of mine. In 1999, I went to my friend's house to see the kittens her cat had a few days earlier. The kittens weren't more than a day or two old and we're soooo tiny. She put all of the kittens on her bed. There were three tabby/calico ones and one black cat. The little black one wandered directly over to me with his eyes still closed and rubbed up against me. That was it... I was hooked. I ran home to start convincing my parents to let me take in this kitten.

After a long battle with my folks, I had convinced them. Once this little kitten was old enough, I brought the little bugger home. He wasn't much bigger than my fist, but was all fur and might. When I tried to pick out a name for him, my mother held him up in front of her and asked him what he wanted to be named. He scowled at her and growled a little. We decided that "Diablo" was perfect for him.

As he got older, I taught him how to play fetch with a paper football. (I would throw it across the room and he would run after it, pick it up in his mouth, and run it back to me.) He loved this game so much that he would get super excited and happy whenever I would even pull out a piece of paper. This kitten would crawl under the covers with me and sleep in the crook of my arm. He would come running to the door whenever I came home, and he would follow me from room to room. He was an amazing cat.

He had a temper on him, of course. I named him Diablo, afterall. He didn't like new men in the house (ESPECIALLY Ben) and he would sometimes swat at them. He also never trusted veterinarians. That came from when he was a kitten and he had eaten a plastic grape that got lodged in his intestine. He got really sick during this time (he was only 4 months old) and we were afraid he was going to go then.

As he got older, he slowed down, but still had a personality of a human. He would even talk to me. I would ask him a question and he would answer me with a "yeah" or a "no". He also had a whole slew of nicknames from us... because we loved coming up with them for him. Don't ask me how we came up with them, because I can't remember, but there were probably close to 30 different nicknames.

This cat moved with us from Tahoe, to Rancho Cordova, to Sacramento, to San Francisco, to Lockhart, and then back to Sacramento. He's been through it all and has seen a lot. I just wish we had more time with him.

The days leading up to his last few days were good ones. He was actually getting better, we thought. He was running and playing with us. He was a fantastic snuggler. We thought we had beat whatever it was... until this weekend. He started to sleep more often, and then he got really bad. He stopped eating and drinking, so we started to force liquids. He wouldn't move. You would put him in a position and he would stay in it for HOURS. He would wander around and stare off into nothing. He even had a seizure Monday morning...

I knew Sunday morning that we were probably going to lose him. I went into the room we had been keeping him separate in, and looked in his eyes. He looked back at me with pain but also a sort of peace. It was then that I knew that he was trying to say goodbye.

He was the perfect cat. He was more that that, his soul and mine had connected in a very special way. I love him. I miss him.