I has a piece of comic art!

In today's mail I received an envelope with an unfamiliar return address but whose impeccable penmanship revealed the hand of a letterer at work. When I turned it over, I was delighted to see this little guy:

...for I knew him as Pip, one of the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats, those playful pranksters whose misadventures are chronicled by the funny and talented Adam Koford, aka Ape Lad, over at Hobotopia. (The link takes you to the story of the LOL Cats' origin, and another link at the site allows you to view the entire archive of LOL Cat drawings.)

Inside the envelope, I found the original artwork for the following:

I suspected, and soon confirmed, that this beauty arrived as a present from my buddy Isaac—not for any particular occasion, just 'cause. I has a true friend!

The drawing has charms enough intrinsic to it, but I also love the way it appears to encode Isaac and me in the two cats. When my wife saw it, she immediately identified the cat on the left, starting a fire, as Isaac and the cat on the right, enjoying his holiday, as me. Since I observe Shabbat (the Jewish sabbath), I refrain from kindling fires and pursuing various other activities on Saturday, while Isaac freely toils away. Alas, one of the activities forbidden on Shabbat is drawing, which has occasionally made deadlines tighter at Satisfactory Comics, Inc.—which may be why my wife also saw fit to imitate Isaac uttering an all too familiar sentence: "Call me when your holiday's over."

Thanks, pardner!