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Clockwork Chap, Clockwork Chap Workshop, Montevideo (2025)

14/03/2025

My Life Without A Jetpack - Secret Origin

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/317

Every nerd has thought stuff like this after a lab accident. If you like Star Wars, you dream about having the Force, even if it is to reach the remote from the couch; or if you like superheroes, you fantasize about what superpower you'd most like to have. And if my kid got superpowers, I'd be their "guy in the chair" or Alfred, who's the original "guy".

This time music is from mega nerd band Kirby Krackle and their 2015 album Mutate, Baby!, and it's called The Day My Powers Arrived:

https://youtu.be/YxQqI7ROdnE

07/02/2025

My Life Without A Jetpack - Top Brand

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/316

Back in the nineties, my parents bought groceries at a wholesaler, which made sense because there were a lot of people at home... and one of them was me. I had a voracious apetite as a teenager (I still do, but I digress), and they had to buy boxes and boxes of cornflakes, for example. Still, they usually stuck to brand name stuff (store brand was not a thing here yet), either local or international. For the most part. Once, my mom bought this very cheap mayonnaise, that came in a five kilo package. She paid less at checkout... but we all paid way more afterwards.

Music this time is Rock and Roll Is Dead, from Lenny Kravitz's 1995 album Circus. This was a hard choice, because 1995 was a very prolific year in music, a year in which I listened to a lot of different bands, many of them fairly new to the music scene, or new to me. Circus was the album that introduced me to Lenny Kravitz, who would become one of my favorite musicians. I recently saw Lenny live again, and he didn't disappoint, but he didn't play any songs from this album. I guess he doesn't like it, as it's on record that he wasn't very happy while making it, and its darker sound and mood doesn't fit the image he generally likes to project:

https://youtu.be/yw8_5OYKQNA

21/12/2024

My Life Without A Jetpack - Mistaken Identity VII

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/315

Yes, this happens to me all the time. It's cute when kids do it, but if you're an adult, don't make the Santa Claus joke when you see me. It's old, and not funny coming from you, please don't make unsolicited comments about other people's appearance.

This time, music is Christmas Time Is Here, the holidays classic by the Vince Guaraldi Trio from the Charlie Brown and Peanuts TV special. Happy holidays to you all!

https://youtu.be/YvI_FNrczzQ

07/12/2024

My Life Without A Jetpack - Rebel Rebel

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/314

Some years ago I got into playing X-Wing, the Star Wars miniature game, or one of them, at least. I first tried it at a convention, and was immediately hooked (you've seen it in a comic here: https://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/259/. It's great for me for several reasons, starting with the fact that space combat is one of my favorite parts of Star Wars.

On the practical side, this is a tactic miniatures game or wargame, but far more simple, rules-wise, than things like Warhammer. Additionally, the starter set is cheap, allows you to play with a friend, and you can spend a little more money or a lot more, depending on your needs and means, and have fun either way (The Force knows I've spent some credits on this).

Another plus is that the minis come pre-painted, which is good for me, since I don't have that kind of ability (you can of course customize them if you wish). I got one of my best friends on the game, and we get together to play and drink beer, and we've bought a lot of ships together.

When we play, we'll sometimes pause the game for dinner, and leave everything on the table.... which my cats, particularly Leia, love. We have to be alert and protect the ships and their positions from the giant space monster.

Speaking of her, we found her lost as a months old kitty in our building's "backyard" (it's a glorified air shaft), where she had fallen down from a wall. We weren't going to keep her (we already had Ludwig), so we gave her some food and a place to sleep under our apartment's patio roof, while we posted on social networks to find someone to adopt her.

Nobody volunteered, and two days later, I came home from work and my wife had let the kitty inside and named her Leia... to win me over. That worked, and it's been almost 8 years since she became part of our family.

She definitely takes after her namesake, she's fierce and rebellious, but also very kind and sweet.

Music this time is, of course, David Bowie's Rebel Rebel, from his 1974 album Diamond Dogs. Did I use a Bowie song last time? Sue me:

https://youtu.be/DJxCsVcZL2I

29/10/2024

My Life Without A Jetpack - Perfect Hearing.

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/313

This is one of those strips where there's not much to write about. Parents will understand me, we're always talking about our kids, even (especially) good stuff. When my wife and I go out on a date, we always end up talking about our kid, who's already 20. And it's not because we don't have other topics, it's just that children are that important. There, sappy and short.

This time, music is David Bowie's Blackstar, from the album of the same name, because both my kid and I love Bowie:

https://youtu.be/kszLwBaC4Sw

25/08/2024

My Life Without A Jetpack - The Volunteer.

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/312

You know when you volunteer for anything, just to get out of class? Well, that's what I did. It's not that I didn't like class, but I got a bit bored sometimes. This time, I didn't last, because I like to dance, but spontaneously, not with rehearsal, and much less folk dances.

But... you know what? One of my ancestors Pedro José Viera o Pedro José de Vieyra was a 19th century Brazilian military officer who fought in the independence wars of Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Perú, and Rio Grande do Sul. He was friends with José Gervasio Artigas, Uruguay's foremost national hero, and together, they smuggled cattle before being revolutionaries. Pedro was quite the charmer and the life of the party, he loed to dance... and was nicknamed Périco el Bailarín, Périco the Dancer, because of the Pericon. Périco introduced the dance to his homeland of Brazil and, supposedly, created the traditional choreography they tried to made me dance in school over a hundred years later.

Check out some schoolchildren dancing El Pericón Nacional:

https://youtu.be/baMwZSjeONU

29/03/2024

My Life Without A Jetpack - Dark Secrets.

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/311

In Uruguay, your final two years of high school you have to choose an orientation for your studies, to prepare for your chosen university career (if you're going to do one). The first of those two years, you choose a broad orientation, such as Humanities, Math, Arts, or Biological Sciences. Then, in the second one, you choose something more specific.

In my case, I wanted to be a veterinarian (yeah, that changed), so I chose Bio Sciences first, then Medicine, which would prepare me for Med School or Vet School, among other things. I did flunk most of my senior year subjects and ended up finishing the last two some 21 years later, but that's a tale for another time.

I did enjoy my biology classes; which on our senior year were all about the human body. We had to learn every bone of the body, all nerve insertions in the skull, etc. And for that, we were given a permission slip from the school to go pick up a skeleton from a public cemetery. The skeleton of someone who had no relatives, and that, after a certain amount of years, was going to be cremated and put in an urn.

It's a bit sad, if you think about it, this person's remains (which we had to boil in water with sodium hydroxide to clean up) were supposed to contribute to science and healing... and I ended up being a writer, journalist, and podcaster. The two other friends with which I studied did go into health-related carreers, so there's that.

My (supposed) senior year was in 1997, and at first the bag with the skeleton was being stored at one my friends' house, but then his mom dropped it off at mine. I kept in the closet (a literal skeleton-in-the-closet, nacht) for a couple more years before my girlfriend (now wife) found it and had the beejezus scared out of her. I did not take it with me when I moved out, and I think some years later it was given to a friend of the family's kid, who was also studying pre-med high school. I *think*.

Music this time is Clint Eastwood, from Gorillaz's 2001 self-titled album:

https://youtu.be/1V_xRb0x9aw

22/12/2023

My Life Without A Jetpack - FriendX-Mas.

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/310

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all! Or Happy Holidays, depending on what you celebrate. Yes, a strip on the date when it actually had to come out, directly following the previous one! I wanted to end the year with a Christmas strip, but a different kind of Christmas strip. Leftovers are a wonderful thing, and sharing them with friends is awesome... there are many ways to celebrate the holidays, and that night in the 1990s, me and my friend Agustín found this one.

You've met Agustín in several strips before, he's my best friend, nay, brother, from my childhood, the first friend I made when I came to Uruguay in 1985. Among other things, he's my kid's godfather. And speaking of the 90s, this strip is very much a product of that time, because in Montevideo, my city, we had only had "cable" TV for a short time. You see, there were three million people (not many more now) living in Uruguay, and half the population in Montevideo, the capital. We only had three private broadcast TV channels, and a public one; and you were lucky if the private channels had late night programming, mostly movies, until something like 1 or 2 AM.

Outside of Montevideo, it was even worse, as they usually had one channel that retransmitted stuff from the capital's private channels, and some local stations. But in the early 90s, cable TV started to appear in the country... at first, only outside of Montevideo. It's a complicated rights negotiation story, and it takes a couple more years but it ends up with the government allowing the three private Montevideo channels to form a monopolic company to bring cable to the capital city.

But a little before that, two companies (also owned by those private channels) started offering TV packages via small antenna dishes. They had a small number of channels compared to later cable packages, and one of the companies even had channels that played one signal half of the day, and a different one the other half (say, 12 hours of HBO, 12 hours of MTV). Luckily, my parents signed up for the one that had 24 hour single-signal channels, and it was like the 20th century had finally arrived.

Back to my Christmas celebration with Agustín, we stayed up all night eating all the leftovers without a care for the order in which we did so: cold cuts followed by ice cream with panetonne, then potato chips and cheese, drinking soda, etc. And we had a TV marathon, switching channels every few minutes... I swear we weren't drunk or on drugs, we were just two stupid teenagers having cheap fun. That Sting documentary? It must have played like three times during the course of the night, because every time we switched on MTV, it was there.

We watched bits and pieces of cartoons (Cartoon Network was all the rage), and movies, discovering Louis 19, King of the Airwaves (Louis 19, le roi des ondes), a movie we thought was French, but now I found out that it was Canadian... it's fun to see how this movie, about a guy who wins a contest and is followed around by a TV camera 24 hours a day, predicts reality TV by quite a few years. I gotta hunt it down and watch it again (of course, we did not watch the whole movie that night).

Oddly enough, I don't remember having heartburn or anything like that after eating all this food... ah, youth!

This time, music is obviosuly Sting. I chose Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot, from his 1996 album Mercury Falling, as Agustín and I let our whim be the pilot of the remote control that night:

https://youtu.be/9-5IIx4R6E8

08/12/2023

My Life Without A Jetpack - The Ultimate Mixtape.

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/309

Again, if the strip hasn't been coming out, it's entirely my own fault, but let's get a couple more out before the year ends, and I'll try to do better next year. My brother Daniel, eldest of our six siblings, and his wife Debbie always had an impressive music collection, and back in the early-mid 90s, they owned hundreds of CDs. Back then, those weren't that common here in Uruguay, but they brought lots of them from the US. Some had even been gifts from friends of theirs that worked at a record label and at a record store (Tower Records), so some albums they had (and even gifted or sold to me) were labeled "promotional copies, not for sale". I used to get music from bands that weren't well-known here yet... for example, I was listening to Oasis months before anyone knew them here. *adjusts hipster glasses*

In July 1995, I took a trip with my school (all 100+ of us in that grade) to the Iguazú Falls. It was my first big trip without my parents and family (there were teachers with us, of course), and my first really long roadtrip. Hours and hours by bus goofing around with my friends, seeing new places, natural and historical wonders, eating good food... I have very fond memories of that trip.

But my friends and I would have different sleep schedules while on the road, I knew, so I armed myself with my trusty Toshiba "portable cassette player" (not an actual walkman, since it wasn't a Sony), spare batteries, and several mixtapes I had recorded from the radio over the years (with my faifhtul Panasonic double cassette deck, of course). However, I needed extra music for the trip, so Daniel, Debbie, and I worked for hours to distill my picks from their collection into... THE ULTIMATE MIXTAPE! Choice tracks from my favorite bands, in a metal cassette tape... remember those? No, they weren't made of metal, but the tape itself contained metallic particles to enhance its magnetic properties. The highest-quality possible recording, made on my brother's carefully assembled music equipment.
.. and we recorded it in a high-speed format that my brother's deck could play, but my walkman couldn't. The ultimate mixtape sounded like it was recorded by Alvin and the Chipmunks on a co***ne bender.

Music this time goes a little bit against my policy of selecting songs from the exact year the strip is set in (at least when doing strips set more than a few years ago), but it's just by one year. In 1994, Nine Inch Nails released the album The Downward Spiral, which includes a song with lyrics that would make any mother blush... so here's Closer:

https://youtu.be/9-5IIx4R6E8

21/10/2023

My Life Without A Jetpack - Good Samaritan.

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/308

After some time away from the strip, we're back. I've got no excuse, because Lisandro has been turning the art in. The strip continues, and there's not much to say about this anecdote, other than I narrowly avoided another broken bone or grave injury. Thank you, sincere lady. Oh yeah, funnily enough, when I tripped and fell, I was on my way to do an "autobiographic strips" workshop with preteens and teens, so this gave me not only a story for a strip, but also an example for the workshop.

This time, the music is "Tubthumping", from the album of the same same name by Chumbawamba, because "I get knocked down, but I get up again":

https://youtu.be/2H5uWRjFsGc

05/08/2023

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/307

I've been wanting to see this strip drawn for a while, because it's one of those that break the "Jetpack" mold. Also, it's a cat strip! Well, you barely see the cat, but it's fun to see the Wile E. Coyote style blueprint. I have three cats, and I wish they could fetch me the remote or my phone when I've left it elsewhere than the couch, or even run errands... but they're cats. Plastic bag delivery to the upper floor of my house is the best I've managed.

Music this time is "These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)" (a jazz standard written by Eric Maschwitz and Jack Strachey), from 2015 album No One Ever Tells You... sung by Seth MacFarlane. I knew he made music, but I thought he only did comedy songs. Nope, he has a couple of jazz/lounge albums, straight up, Sinatra, Cole Porter, etc. In fact, this piece was sung by Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Yves Montand, Rod Stewart, Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, Sammy Davis Jr, James Brown, and Bob Dylan. Live and learn:

https://youtu.be/cEepBo81AOM

07/07/2023

My Life Without A Jetpack - In Darkest Knight.

http://nojetpack.thecomicstrip.org/comics/306

This strip was chosen by chance among the ideas I have writen down, months ago, but it turns out that in 1988 there was a horribly draught here in Uruguay, and ther is one right now, looks like it's even worse. I don't understand the technical difference between both situations, but back then there was no problem with drinking water, but it does affect electrical power generation (possibly because we've diversified our power generation sources, but we're experiencing critical issues with drinking water... you see, here in Uruguay, water suitable for human consumption is provided by a government entity, and it's a right that's in our constitution. Tap water has always been safe to drink.

Now, in our capital, Montevideo, and its metro area, where around 50% of the country's population lives, because of the draught, tap water is now coming from salt water. This has led to a high increase in the the levels of sodium and chlorine, among other subtstances, making it unfit to drink. Not only that, but it's also dangerous for people with high blood pressure, children, pregnant women, etc. We're spending lots of money on bottled water.

Anyway, I'm not going to dwell much on that (or on the political issue that makes the draught worse), I'll just tell you that in '88 I had to do my homework by the light of a kerosene lamp that glowed using an incandescent mantle. It gave off a greenish light, and I felt as if Green Lantern was lighting my night, so I brought my original (made in Argentina, but official) Super Powers Hal Jordan action figure. Years later, I found out that the mantle (a small, chemical soaked piece of fabric) is actually slightly radioactive. I am still waiting for my superpowers.

This time, music is Erasure's A Little Respect, from their 1988 album The Innocents, because I love it:

https://youtu.be/x34icYC8zA0

Clockwork Chap

14/03/2025

07/02/2025

21/12/2024

07/12/2024

29/10/2024

25/08/2024

29/03/2024

22/12/2023

08/12/2023

21/10/2023

05/08/2023

07/07/2023

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