Just spent an hour in photoshop creating TarBall. He’s the new singing lump of tar I’d hoped would be picked up to be a character in SpongeBob Squarepants. Fat, soft, sticky, black, and sassy. Really cute in a homosexual and racist stereotype kind of way. But what happened is I clicked on the wrong icon going from psd to jpeg or something and this sensational cartoon character and spokes-homo for a white sandy seabottom disappeared. Yeah, the dog ate my homework.

Since Bikini Bottom, Spongebob’s hometown, has never been given a location — other than below sea level — I’m putting it fourteen miles due south of Grand Isle, Lousiana.

Tarball is introduced in an episode called, “Inking the Squid,” in which the unpleasant Squidward Tentacles falls for the chubby lump of tar. Squidward has run out of ink — or believes he’s dry — until he meets TarBall, who sings a song about being suctioned up in those “eight lovely tentacled arms.” He designs an inking platform, a way of milking the ink from Squidward. It works beautifully, the machinery tugging the tentacles like teats on an udder. Then the inking platform explodes. TarBall and Squidward sing a death duet, but they don’t die, of course. They live to consummate their relationship in the next episode, “Slippery Parts.”

More to come. I was proud of the cartoon — really — and I may not ever get it back. But I’ll try.