COEUR d'ALENE - We tell them their chances of making a good living as a comic strip artist or syndicated columnist is about the same as playing for a big league basketball or baseball team.

Such statistics never seemed to bother LeBron James, and we don't think they'll daunt Cameron Morris, either.

The home-schooled 15-year-old from Spokane has been dabbling with drawing since he was 8 or 9. Cameron explains that back then, he noticed his sister, now 21, was pretty good at drawing.

"I kind of wanted to draw just to see how it worked," he recalls, "and then I got excited about it."

So today, who's better?

"Well," he says carefully, "me."

Cameron's the first to admit that he has plenty to learn. In the comic strip that will be featured weekly in The Press - Owen & Logan, the adventures of a boy and his dog - you might find a grammatical glitch here and a misspelled word there. He's working on that, but he's eager to grow in print and to have you right along with him, watching a more polished cartoonist emerge.

The son of Renee and Zane Morris, Cameron's favorite strip is "Zits." He plays baseball and likes to bowl, and as you might have guessed, this boy is familiar with dogs. He's got three of them: Winnie, Ginger and Enu.

The pooches prompt ideas, but Cameron says the comic strip isn't autobiographical.

"When my dogs do funny things, I think about what would happen in the comic strip," he says.

But enough with the preview; on with the show. Ladies and gentlemen, we bring you Owen & Logan, each week in the Sunday Lifestyles section.