2015: The year they returned.

Where's my charger?

Have a Merry one.

Baa, baa, baaaaa...

He could be right, you know.

Go see it...

...and be prepared to make this face like the rest of us.

Geeking out.

This gag was actually written by Alex himself. I think it's great.

Bo shuda.

It's Star Wars week at Father of the Brood. Oh who am I kidding, it's Star Wars week everywhere. I have always been a huge Star Wars fan, and lately I'm the hugest I've ever been. 

Everybody sing along.

Expecting and expanding

Morning jolt.

Preggers

It's beginning to look a lot like Jett-mas...

Important note: For those of you who have been following Father of the Brood since the beginning (thank you), you may remember that the first collection of strips were updated "re-draws" of the strips earlier incarnation "Durkin's Droppings". I'm happy to report that this is the very last of those 40-or-so cartoons and starting this Friday, you will see all new strips. In order to bring the comic current to where my family is now,  I am going to introduce the story line of Andi's pregnancy with Oliver. She is not ACTUALLY PREGNANT IN REAL LIFE! Only the cartoon version of her is. I just want to head off as much confusion and congratulations as possible. Thank you so much for joining me on this ride, I hope you've enjoyed it. There's plenty more on the way!

Anatomy of a Dad.

Working man.

This one goes back to my retail caricature days. Of course, these days they're more than happy to get rid of me for a while.

Opening day.

Bills, Bills, Bills

Shirt sayer.

Knot a problem.

LEGO maniac

How dry I was.

I'm only kidding (sort of).

Sole man.

Flyboy.

Snack time.

The droid I'm looking for.

Got milk?

Doesn't play well with others.

Return of the Jett-i.

Dinner with Jett.

Poopcorn.

Play that funky beat.

Wake up!

The F Block.

Not a fan of fans.

This is why we can't have anything nice.

Men down.

Drama King.

Boys will be boys...

Jett "Mucus" Durkin

Laundry day.

We don't always go out to eat, but when we do...

Little artist.

Sometimes, Jett is all thumbs.

Nice shot.

This has happened too many times for it to be a coincidence.

Jett the termite.

You have one new text message.

As true today as it was back then.

How Jett rolls (or unrolls).

I can't really blame him for this. I can only imagine how much fun it is to unroll miles and miles of toilet paper with abandon.

Food Critic.

I was an incredibly picky eater when I was a kid. There was very little that I would agree to eat. I think that's true for a lot of kids. My daughter Kathy was frustratingly picky (she's since grown out of it, the function of being a voracious teenager). So I have to give Jett a great deal of credit. 

Jett takes over 32 supplements a day. Instead of giving him a multi-vitamin, which gives him extra of what he already has and not enough of what he needs, we've decided to customize his supplement intake to his specific needs. Most of them are in capsule or tablet form and he's unable to swallow them without chewing first (and who could blame him, it's a basic function of not choking), so we have to open them up, crush them when necessary, and hide them in his food, usually applesauce or a non-peanut nut-butter mix. The supplements alone are vile. They're strong and bitter tasting, and depending on what we give him, there is no amount of camouflage that hide the foul mixture. Sometimes he registers his dissatisfaction with a well-hurled and expertly aimed bowl or spoon, which gets his point across rather bluntly, the results of which look something like this:

Father of the Brood: Swim Class

I'm going to start Father of the Brood with the same strip I started its prototype, Durkin's Droppings. In that strip, I was simply getting the ideas out of my head. I wasn't really concerned with much else. As a result, the characters are inconsistently drawn from panel to panel.

When I decided to revisit the strip, I knew I was going to have to redraw the original artwork, which is about 40 strips or so. For those viewers who have been following this process from the beginning, I apologize. You're going to be seeing some things that you've seen before. But it won't be long and I'll be caught up, and producing all-new strips for your viewing pleasure. So here's the first strip, which I drew while Jett was taking swim class. At the time, he was about 2 years old. He didn't have a problem with the water, he had a problem with the instructor's technique, which consisted of throwing him in the water and letting his "instincts" kick in. If his instincts were to scream and flail about, he passed the class with flying colors. It was a frustrating time for all of us, so I drew this cartoon to break the tension. This is the one that started it all.