It's been a sad week, folks. My trusty Graphire4 appears to be heading to its grave.

It was, I want to say, five years ago that I collected what little money I could to buy myself this reliable tablet, for the sole purpose of making cartoons for this very website. It's been my companion and tool through 36 of the past 40 projects I've completed (Four were done on my ill-fated tablet PC) and will serve me just one more time before it is retired.

It was earlier this week that I had begun finding myself, more frequently than usual, correcting and correcting lines that I'd draw. At first, I assumed my hands were just retards -- they've failed me enough in the past. But I kept making the same mistakes again and again. My lines would bend and wave when I could swear my hand was steady. Attempts at correcting it would yield identical flaws. I finally pulled out a ruler to see if it was just me. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Though my tablet's surface is perfectly smooth, I am finding that it registers horizontal waving on its entire drawing space. The severity of these waves changes depending on where I draw, but they're present all over. It's causing me to modify almost every line I draw, adding even more work to an already enormous project. It seems like I'll never get this done.

I've decided this will be the last project I'll do with my Graphire4, thought hopefully it will be its swan song too. That is, if it can make it to the end.

Anyway, here's to a good life, buddy!

- Jared

Below is an example of the wobble overlaid onto a photo of the tablet and the ruler. It often gets worse than this.