A reader writes:

Dear mRCRANKSWORTH,
I used to read your deviantART site every day for a whole year. But since August you've been away! Where have you been? How are things? Are you drawing fulltime yet? My mom says you're a bad influence but I (with help from my uncle with a computer) know better.
-Virginia, age 8
New York, NY

Virginia, I have a fulltime drawing gig at the same place I was at before. Beginning of last semester my editor tells me "uh, Bill, you still interested in drawing fulltime? 'Cause you're the only guy we've got right now." So I've been drawing five days a week. Interestingly enough, they've been better cartoons than the ones I put on this site for your perusal. So much for "constructive criticism," eh, Virginia? Fat lot of good my deviant buddies have done for me in terms of artistic growth.

Anyhow, aside from my professional life, life has been of mids quality. I narrowly missed a 4.0 semester GPA due to a hack religion teacher, leaving my chances of getting into my study abroad program of choice (Oxford, England) even more doubtful than even my day-to-day pessimism normally allows. I've made a bunch of friends, though, in the last five months, though. Some of them have been of dank quality, some of the dankity-dank variety, and some are just the chronic. In other words, Virginia, I've spent my time doing things other than surfing poorly-drawn anime-style anthropomorphized animals. Whereas before I sought to actively make fun of such monstrosities, now I simply ignore them. It's a skill your uncle should teach you, Virginia. Sites like this only serve to placate you while people with authority and skill keep you needing your Rupert Murdoch-owned Myspace, or your Hot Topic. Get off this thing, Virginia. Read a newspaper, or read a book, and respond. Life is too short to spend perusing bad anime.

Yes, Virginia, there is a mRCRANKSWORTH. He exists as certainly as sarcasm and cold and bitterness exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no mRCRANKSWORTH! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I'm done with deviantART! Thanks for nothing!

Love (not really),
mRCRANKSWORTH