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9/29
Running behind as usual. I'll get out my venom later today. Meanwhile, here's some good news: today's pioneering private spaceship flight. Regrettably, Artoo did not survive. 9/22 Getting tired of that menu? Me too! New menu next week. Nana has been hogging the spotlight for too long. And anyway, something about seeing her hale and hearty just makes me want to drop her down a garbage chute. Next week is my birthday! On September 30 I will turn 33 dusty years old. Thirty-three, and not a car, a home or a 401K to show for it. Nothing but this website. Where's the champagne? It doesn't help my ego any that history's most famous 33 year old was the son of freakin' GOD! I keep worrying that I'll meet Jesus at a cocktail party and the subject of our relative accomplishments will come up. Jesus: "So, you draw a comic book, huh?" Moi: "Yeah. I 've got about 500 people on my mailing list too. I mean, it's nothing like coming back from the dead but..." Jesus: "Oh please, you've got plenty of time to make your mark. How old are you?" Moi: "Thirty-three." Jesus: "...." Moi: "Yeah." Jesus: "Well, have you at least founded a millennium spanning religion that defies all popular notions of God?" Moi: "No, although I have been working to raise awareness about issues of national importance through my art. That's in the same vein, right?" Jesus: "Is your comic in color?" Moi: "It's in black and ..." Jesus: "HEYYY! Zoroaster! How you been, dawg?" Actually, I have been tinkering with a religion of my own for a while now. It's a combination of Taoism and superstring theory with HR Pufnstuf as its prophet. It will either be called "Kroftolology" or simply "Give Me Your Money." It's not ready for market yet (I'm currently beta testing it on a tribe of Peruvian Indians), but I am proficient enough in the divine mysteries to deliver a new and binding Commandment unto you: "Thou shalt covet and purchase the new Nana T-shirts I have just designed!" What better way to celebrate the birth of your Savior? And on the seventh paragraph He rested. ... Remember this face:  This is Jack Hensley, the most recent American victim of the Iraq war, Operation Iraqi Freedom, the liberation of Iraq or however you refer to our cock up in the desert. He is the second American to be beheaded on video this week (a Briton is being held over for the bonus round), and is proof of two things that should be evident to all by now: A) Iraqi Reality TV has thrown down the gauntlet to the American networks and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will be a real player at next year's Emmy's, and B) the war in Iraq is not saving American lives, it is taking them. That anyone needs to be reminded of the latter would seem unlikely. Obviously the war is costing us lives.One thousand thirty-nine Armies of One so far, and that does not count folks like the late Mr. Hensley, one of a growing clutch of civilians that have died at the hands of the terrorists we've created. Only the Bush Gang seems unaware of the reality. "You are fighting terrorist enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan and across the globe so we do not have to face them here at home!" Bush ejaculated at a meeting of the National Guard Association in Las Vegas last week, quoting from his popular Canned Rhetoric #6 before vanishing halfway through the speech to do some campaigning in Alabama. "We will strike the terrorists abroad so they can't come here and hurt us." He continued, earning a less than robust round of applause from the herd of cannon fodder who will soon be implementing that policy. It must be interesting for the President to realize that the safe harbor of Guard duty he once wormed his way into to avoid another unpopular conflict is, under his stewardship, virtually a guarantee of infantry duty in a war zone. Someone should explain that irony to him, or at least explain to him what irony means. In the speech's most incredible confabulation of logic, one which must have struck the President as utterly sensible, Bush quoted a sergeant in the National Guard, returned from serving in Iraq, who said "The insurgents are absolute cowards...but better fighting them there than over here." Did I miss something? Are Boston, Albuquerque Danforth and Poughkeepsie now located in the Sunni Triangle? Bush carried on, declaring war to be peace and promising never to turn over our national security decisions to the leaders of other countries. Days later he was addressing the UN, chest puffed out, but pleading for a ladleful of assistance from those same nations. George Bush: the world's cockiest Oliver Twist. 9/15 Ugh. Too tired for an update at the moment. Just spent the last [insert what to you would be an enormous amount of time to waste trying to restylize a web page] trying to restylize this web page. What is it with tables anyway? Why are those fuckers so hard to work with? One wrong pixel and it resizes my entire layout grid! All I want is a nice vertical row for my graphics! Can you imagine what it would be like to be Borg? Every second of their lives is filled with these kinds of problems, times one billion. It must be like living inside a Dilbert treasury. Anyway, I stole a web page from another, better known cartoonist and am now trying to reformat it to my needs. Go ahead and sue me if you dare, Mort Walker! Hey, how come Beetle Bailey hasn't been called up to serve in the Gulf? B.D. from Doonsebury just had his leg blown off and and Beetle is still taking cat naps in the potato pile. Something tells me Beetle's father is an ex-president. Ima check the headlines for something to gripe about. Enjoy this week's strip which, due to the tight-packed comedy, may be hard for people with their screen resolution set high to read. Here is a larger version 9/8 What I saw hightailing it away from the Revolution If worse comes to worst in November I will always be able to say that I chained myself to the towering, elder redwood of Democracy before the chainsaws came and carved it into stockades. Yes, I was there in NYC. I marched, was shackled by the jackboots and endured the cheese sandwiches of tyranny so that I could bring you this blog. Behold my Christ-like tale of solidarity and woe straight from the trenches of These Troubled Times. ... On Tuesday last I arrived in New York, spoiling for a protest. I was hot off the convention trail after a bland reception at the Toronto Comic Book Expo and was looking to see where my target audience had been all that weekend. Stepping off the train at Penn Station I saw that the city was covered in more fuzz than a cheap fleece pullover. Babe, there were more pigs in the city than on a factory farm, and all of them rooting for the truffles of dissent. When I exited the station the first sight to greet me was that of a seven story tall billboard for Fox News. No question there about who was running the town. Well met, Republicans. Well met. I'd heard tell of mass rabble rousing but did not see any signs of unrest between the train station and my hostel on 103rd and Amsterdam. After settling in I made my way to Union Square, an alleged hubbub hub for hippy bubs. What I saw was not that encouraging. Several hundred folks were staging various protests of moderate size. There were Asian women representing China's oppressed Falon Gong movement made up to look like victims of Chinese torture with faux-guards standing behind them. A red faced young man in a suit screamed about our police state while a little ways away a Gulf War vet with a model oil rig screamed about military exploitation of Hispanics. Each earned a small crowd of listeners while a line of police monitored the perimeter, ready to detain everyone at the drop of a sandal. I hung out there for about an hour, wondering if this was the best the outraged masses could offer, and was about to leave when from down the street came the sound of musicians. A young, Left Wing brass band was leading a small battalion of rebels down the sidewalk towards the square. When these pie-in-sky-pipers arrived they assimilated a few hundred of us and we proud Borg made our way out of the square. I was officially marching in my first protest!
No one attempted to rush the barricade. We simply reached the end and sat down in the middle of the street. The first few rows of people linked arms (myself included), and this is where the silliness of what we were doing finally blossomed. Because this was a hodgepodge demonstration, a street party, not an organized action. Only a few people knew each other and no one wanted to make trouble for the police. So as soon as the police lurched forward our arms unlinked and we hopped to our feet like children caught in the act of playing doctor. We reversed course and obediently took to the sidewalk, but by this time the first side of bacon we had encountered had penned us in at the other end of the street. We were now caught in the orange drift net of the law. Their streets. No order to disperse was given, and no departure was permitted. Everyone, whether on the street or the sidewalk, whether radical or passerby, was arrested in what was truly a most unnecessary and obvious piece of political sabotage. The city wanted as many protestors as they could snare off the street for as long as possible, and what would turn out to be a 30+ hour ordeal for all of us had begun. The police broke us down into chunks, sectioning off the crowd and occasionally wailing on someone for no obvious reason. Other than that, they were pure gentlemen. I drew a picture of one officer forming the line of helmets and batons that were keeping us on the sidewalk as a way of soothing my nerves. Officer Rogers was not entirely indifferent and reminded me not to leave out the shamrock tattoo on his arm. I sat on the street for about an hour, giving my name to fellow detainees who'd contacted the Lawyer's Guild over their cells and listening to people's nervous chatter ("Did you see how the cops separated the liberals from the anarchists?" said one, though how he could tell which was which was unclear.) Finally I was placed in a pair of the plastic zipcuffs that I'd seen dangling in bunches from the belts of cops since I'd arrived in NYC. The contents of my pockets were placed in a bag put in my lap, and there I sat, a freshly hatched hooligan. I realized that the cuffs were loose enough to escape from, and as I wriggled my wrists through the loops I darted my eyes up and down the avenue looking for a potential escape route should the opportunity arise (the first instinct that is awakened when one is arrested, I discovered, is that you do not want to know what comes next.) An eagle-eyed cop saw what I was doing and tightened the cuffs. Looks like I was going down after all. I was finally put on a bus and shipped to Pier 57, the detainment facility for the hordes of arrestees, which has since been dubbed "Little Gitmo" (some in the news proffered the more cumbersome title "Guantanamo on the Hudson" in an effort to justify someone's Ivy League education.) The facility is normally a garage for busses and the floor was covered in oily grime, though not the thick sludge I have heard discussed elsewhere. There have been tales of people receiving chemical burns from sleeping on that floor, but if that is true then some sort of clean-up must have taken place before I arrived. The hygiene was low but not unbearable. We were put into a large chain linked cage to await processing. I paced, griped about my restraints (my hands were cuffed behind my back and went numb), and longed for my blankey. Our spirits were pretty high. We howled every time a new busload of prisoners showed up, chanted at the cops and occasionally rattled the cage. After an hour our handcuffs were removed so we could use the portajohns and drink some water. New cuffs were put on for administrative reasons but they were loose enough to remove. Eventually we all unshackled ourselves but kept our cuffs handy for appearances (these later made great percussion instruments in a drum circle.) We were fed regularly, sandwiches made of particle board and a yellow substance that had once met cheese at a party (I didn't risk the baloney). The men were sorted from the women and we were moved to smaller cages and then back to the main area. In between this I was taken out of the cage to have my property vouchered, all but a few hundred dollars that I had stashed in my sock lest the police prove to have sticky hooves. In all fairness to the cops, aside from some unwarranted brutishness on the streets they were pretty decent and didn't give us a lot of crap. They were in the same boat we were, stuck in the pier for extraordinarily long shifts with no sleep. They just wanted us processed as fast as they could, but the sheer numbers they swept up made that impossible. Still, they weren't sleeping on cement using paper cups as pillows, either. I was in Gitmo for about 20 hours before being taken on a rattling bus to central booking. I was wearing new and excruciatingly tight cuffs that dug into my wrists with every bump and jar the bus's non-existent suspension took. Arriving, we were put into the first of a series of holding cells where we at last allowed phonecalls and were fed more evil sandwiches, fruit and snack boxes of cereal. A few hours on the first floor and then we were daisy chained in small groups and taken to be photoed and fingerprinted, then led down further and further into the building, from one cell to another. At this point I was getting a little creeped out. We were told this was the last leg of our journey before seeing the judge, but I could not reconcile this with being taken deeper and deeper into the Tombs. It did not help that the people in my small group were starting to go bugshit, cracking jokes rapid fire in expectation of glorious freedom. I fully expected the mask of American justice to be peeled off at any moment and to be led into a room with a single chair, a desk full of medical instruments and a black-gloved German. Finally we arrived in the basement. A bald, severe looking cop wearing wraparound mirror shades who we nicknamed "Moleman" was running the metal detector. He made it clear he wanted every bit of property down to our bellybutton lint removed from our persons before we went through. It was a welcome bit of dark comedy. Now we were in holding cells with payphones. Things were looking up. This was indeed the last stage before arraignment, so naturally it turned into the biggest slog. The cells began to fill and it became clear that New York's legal process bottlenecked here. As the hours passed an observer from the Lawyer's Guild who was penned in with us informed us of the writ of habeas corpus that had been handed down by a judge against the city requiring that all of us be arraigned by 1am (that is 1am Thursday morning. Remember that this adventure began for us at about 7pm Tuesday evening. Reconcile these times with this press release from the NYC police about how swiftly the gears of justice were turning). The giddy news of our impending release brought snorts of laughter from one of our guards. It was already 11pm, Wednesday. He assured us that there would be no mass arraignment (which was our hope), and indeed we continued to dribble out of the cells in twos and threes only once every half hour or so. I curled up under a metal bench in my crowded cell--it was the only floor space available for stretching out--and, having lost all my zest for this adventure, tried to sleep. When my name was finally called it became clear that I was one of the lucky ones. It was not yet 1am, the hoped for hour of emancipation, and I was taken with a small group to finally be arraigned. We went up--blessed "up"--to be placed in the last cell of our ordeal. We were given quite a jolt when upon our arrival one guard told another that the judge had called it quits for the night (Pietro di Donato couldn't have written this tale of woe). False alarm, though. It was merely a shift change. I waited about 45 minutes in a dusty, graffiti coated cell with three confessionals that one could speak to their public defenders through. Mine advised taking an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal (ACD) for my violations, which were the same for me as for everyone: parading without a permit and two unprovable counts of disorderly. If I took his advice, I'd be pleading guilty but with no fine and my record would be wiped clean in six months if I stayed out of trouble. I planned to. At last my name was called for the last time. I left the cell expecting to be taken before a harried judge set up at a folding table or something equally slapdash. Instead, when I opened the door at the end of the hall... OZ! It was literally the moment Dorothy realized she wasn't in Kansas. After all the grunge, bars and dispiriting surroundings, I found myself in a spacious, actual court room. There was the bench, and the gallery, and Tinman and Scarecrow...! It was a surreal capper to the whole experience, and it went mercifully quick. In five minutes my wrist had been slapped and I left the dock unescorted. Out the door and onto the streets, a free man once more. I felt like I had just been digested. I had worked my way through the intestine of the law and been shat back into the world, still a nearly perfect kernel of corn. Across the street there was a vigil being held. I grabbed myself a cold hotdog from a plastic bag on the sidewalk, expressed my fellow prisoners' gratitude to the vigilante's and left for my next adventure: two hours in line to collect my property from a police trailer four blocks away. Only Nelson Mandela could truly understand the travails I endured. Patches on both my hands are still numb from the crushing cuffs, and, as one who has never been arrested before, it robbed me of all illusion about what kind of power a man has once he is in custody. If you've ever wondered why someone would sign a false confession, let me just say that once the law has you, you will be hard pressed not to do whatever it is they want. The police are robots taking orders. You can't argue with metal. 30 hours. I'd say the government got their money's worth. Thousands of agitators were kept from showing the world what the public really thinks of the President, and the FBI got all sorts of new leftist fingerprints to play with. At no time was I ever read my rights. BTW, while sitting politely on the streets we protestors were videotaped by the cops for reasons unknown. But they sure got bashful when the tables were turned. Here's a little video I shot myself. Politics makes for strange bedfellows One of the most talked about episodes to come out of the Republican convention was the on-air squabble between MSNBC pit bull interviewer Chris Matthews and right wing Georgia senator Zell Miller (D-Nazi Germany). In a remote interview the braying Matthews mixed it up with Georgia's gentleman polecat over Miller's turncoat speech at the RNC in favor of four more years for alleged president George the Second. But while this exchange has already become television legend, no one seems to have stumbled upon the subtext of the argument, which reveals the true story behind the pair's animus. A careful reading of the text of the interview leaves little doubt that Chris Matthews and Zell Miller are, in fact, lovers. For your benefit I have parsed the interview, removing the overtly political window dressing to reveal the lover's spat beneath. Read, and then ask yourself: Is Zell Miller actually a conservative whip or merely a dissatisfied bottom? MATTHEWS: Senator, Senator, can I speak softly to you? I would really like you to... MILLER: Don't ask me--don't pull that... MATTHEWS: But since somebody tried to do that last night, I don't think it's going to be a surprise. MILLER: Well, it evidently got a rise out of you. MATTHEWS: Can you can come over? I need you, Senator. Please come over. MILLER: And so I want to try to be as nice as I possibly can to you. I wish I was over there, where I could get a little closer up into your face. MATTHEWS: But I do recommend you come over, because I like you. MILLER: Get out of my face. MATTHEWS: Well, I guess everybody loves the senator. MILLER: You get in my face, I am going to get back in your face. At this point the televised goings on became unsuitable for family viewing. However, after petite morte had faded, it was clear that Matthews and Zell had patched up their differences. MILLER: I knew you was going to be coming with all of that stuff. MATTHEWS: Hey, it's great having you on. Let's be friends. Let's be friends. MILLER: I don't know why I even came on this program. MATTHEWS: Well, I am glad you did. Way to go, Chris! Looks like your love juice is all it takes to get one crotchety Dixiecrat purring like a kitten. ... My fame is spreading again. Check out this interview I gave to Newsarama. Remember: I am only responsible for the bad spelling on this web site. 9/1 Toronto Comic Expo: OVER. Raucus good times in New York: ENGAGE. Enjoy this week's strip a little early and I'll report back to you from ground zero of the revolution next Wednesday. 8/25 This week has me sweating more fiercely than John Madden at an egg roll eating contest. A rush assignment of the paying variety has me working so fast that the Olympic anti-doping squad wants a urine sample from me. On top of that I am struggling to get my work done in time for my trip to darkest Canada for the Canadian National Comic Book Expo! (What do you mean "huh?" don't you guys ever read the purple bar on the right?) Therefor, I can only offer you a truncated blog this week. I hope to see many of you (or at least any of you) in Toronto, or else run into you on the streets of New York where I am travelling next. Yep, I am offering my head to the pigs to crack as I protest at the Cocacolan convention. Yee haw! It'll be neo-radicalism at its finest. I promise to bring you pictures, unless Matt Drudge steals my camera's memory card. See you next week! Hey, check out my new products page, now equipped for PayPal purchasing! 8/16 I'm feeling particularly unpolitical this week. Today's strip neatly contains all my rage, the overflow of which usually winds up in this column. I even avoided chasing the news for a few days to see if anything of interest would be waiting for me whence I returned to my surfing (I never watch television news anymore.) I was alarmed to discover that a hurricane had hit Florida, and that some sort of Olympiad is taking place in Greece! And by "alarmed" I mean, of course, "utterly indifferent." First of all, weather tragedies don't move me. I've watched the people of Florida "pick up the pieces of their lives" too often to count. They always bounce back, and the casualties are always, relatively speaking, slight. I might tune in if they'd jazz these hurricanes up with some intimidating names like "Hurricane Destro". What was this one called? "Cliff?" "Tony?" Sorry. Not worth my adrenaline. The Olympics also haven't tweaked my interest for a long time. I have never liked sports, a symptom off growing up in a city like Buffalo that year in, year out pours its soul into one team of never-rans after another. How long can one city go without a single championship to show for all that dedication? Consequently, watching someone pole vault and not clear the bar dredges up ugly memories of Scott Norwood's infamous "wide right" Super Bowl field goal. Furthermore, the Olympics' recent prohibition on prepubescent athletes has drained the games of their only succulent thrill. Minus the tantalizing Nabakovian undercurrents between the female gymnasts and their leering Ukrainian coaches, I'm left with nothing more to do than despairingly acknowledge the Aryan perfection of the athletes themselves. It can't help but shame me as I sit at home, oozing in my recliner, scraping the caramel off a Twix and eating it with a spoon. NUMBERS OF MASS DESTRUCTION God, when will this election be over? I feel like the campaign has been going on for years (which, of course, it has. Thank you Mr. Rove!). I know the Republicans are holding out for an October surprise, but I saw the writing on the wall some time ago and it has now been picked up on by quite a few others. The REAL October surprise will be Bush's sudden dip in the polls following (trumpets blare!)....the ONE THOUSANDTH CASUALTY! Yes, the sacred four-digit body count in Iraq, eagerly awaited by opponents of the war (including yours truly) is upon us. Soon the virtuous will perversely cheer the fallen in a burst of moral outrage at his passing. It's an ethical Catch-22, but then again, war is nothing if not entertainment for hawk and dove alike. Victim One Thousand will mark the beginning of true doubt in this country about what the hell Operation Sand Trap is accomplishing, and I predict that absent the simultaneous surrender of Osama, Omar and Muqtada, it will be Bush's death knell. There's just something magic about moving into the thousands. Thousands of dead Americans were what led us into this war, after all. A mere few hundred dead on 9/11 would have gotten Bush's war resolution laughed out of committee. But "thousand" is the most sacred number in our economy. Thousands of dollars are what middle class salaries are made of. Thousands of lay offs can lead to an actual hiccup on Wall Street. In this country we recognize the significance of the holy grand. I do not doubt that the Democrats are licking their chops and calculating an ad campaign to coincide with this event. "President Goofus enjoys the coppery tang of your children's blood, but Senator Gallant thinks Arlington already has enough headstones." I think you'll see Kerry's stance on the war finally solidify at about that time. No more hedging about what he might have done differently if only Mars had been in the seventh house on the day of his vote for the resolution. The war will be BAD, and Kerry will have to plant his flag in that dirt-and somehow extricate himself from his own responsibility for this mess- or else risk the election turning into a pure coin flip. Frankly I am not sure if he can do it. John's politicking of the war has been fairly cynical and at times downright grotesque (John Kerry reporting for duty, anyone?) His inability to articulate a clear position on Iraq leaves me wishing he'd take a few lessons from the President. The flip-flop label sticks to Kerry because, lacking confidence (as he should) in the people's ability to separate support for removing Saddam with contempt for the way it was done, his commitment to the cause is forever vacillating. Dubya on the other hand radiates a moron's confidence in his words. His decision to make war is as profound to him as a four year old's first success at tying his shoes. He doesn't even know he's bullshitting when he bullshits. WMD's? "Hell yes that's why we went in!" Liberate the Iraqis? "Hell yes that's why we went in!" Turn our soldiers into human targets for al Qaeda? "Hell yes that's why we went in! You sayin' it ain't workin'? The Prudential building is still standing, in'it? " The thousandth casualty in Iraq officially begins the counting towards the next thousand. No longer will we be thinking in terms of dozens. This has sent Bush running to his bookkeepers to respond with a plan to rotate home tens of thousands of troops from Germany and Korea (someone must have told him that those wars are over). 50,000 of our boys back on home soil bests 1,000 under it, right? Expect a ramping up of the rhetoric about how many millions we liberated in the Middle East , forcing Kerry to counter with increased emphasis on the millions of jobs lost (Bush will try to reduce this to a single digit, a piddly 1% increase in unemployment) and our billions of dollars in debt. By the time one of them decides to play the trillion card, I expect things will have gotten mighty ugly on the campaign trail. 8/11 I'm feeling in an orange mood today. Are you? The country seems a bit oranger than usual. Common moths resemble Monarch butterflies. Taxis look like they've taken chemical tanner. Even little kids manning lemonade stands seem to have more vermillion in their cheeks. Maybe it's all the talk lately of increased orangeness that brings it out. Orange is the new black! Just ask Tom Ridge. After a few years of pulling the nation's fire alarm every time a ladybug landed on his sleeve, Tom Ridge has finally heard the indifference of a weary nation and decided to raise the country's terror threat level only when he has specific information to pass along to the public about al Qaeda plots. However, that hasn't stopped Ridge from crying wolf twice this month. Citing "Unusually specific" information from various whisper streams, gossip brooks and terrorist hen parties, Ridge first took certain NYC and New Jersey financial buildings, including Prudential Financial and the World Bank, to Orange alert earlier this month (be on the lookout for Tyler Durden). Then, a few days ago, he upped the anti-perspirant factor again by announcing that, due to intel that was "alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information," a new terror tactic might be to jack helicopters or limousines for suicide runs instead of passenger liners. By now you have already heard the punchline. The data for both these heartstoppers was either years old or else did not reflect any plot currently in the works, and certainly did not include dates. Tom Ridge's specifics are just as muddy as his vagaries. Meanwhile, armed security took up positions around the targeted buildings and trucks were halted and searched, all to prevent an attack that might have been abandoned years ago, or might be scheduled for 11 months from now, or might not even exist. Police officers were stationed outside of helicopter tour companies for purposes that were never explained, since the FBI bulletin that prompted their actions did not suggest any actual plot to steal a helicopter was in the works by anyone. In other words, another fucking ladybug. Folks, I am not trying to diminish the threats facing us, or to suggest I would not want my government to take all necessary steps to stop a helicopter from dive-bombing me while I buy a dirty water dog from a Greek accented tubesteak vendor on Broadway. What I would like to do though is take Tom Ridge by his jug ears and rub his face in his own terror alert system to remind him of what this political band-aid is ostensibly intended for. Let's reacquaint ourselves with our orange friend:
Now, we already know we are at high risk of attack, being at war and all, so you would think we would be at Code Orange all the time. But no, this state of affairs is denoted as plain old Yellow, or "elevated" risk. This makes sense really, since we are meant to think of ourselves not at war temporarily, with hope of victory, but at war forever, with hope only of being on various degrees of edge. This fits in nicely with the adrenalized condition that car commercials and Mountain Dew ads prefer you to be in so that they can sell you intense new levels of refreshment. Now we have a war that takes excitement to the X! An Orange alert, then, would have to mean "Snap out of your government proscribed comfort zone, America! REAL TROUBLE'S AFOOT!" Get it Tom? You should. You invented the damn system. Orange alert, if it is to be of any value when invoked, must mean something IS happening, not merely in danger of happening/not happening at an unspecified date in the future, usually when Kerry is getting too much ink. You don't have to know who exactly is carrying the suitcase with the bomb and the red wire, but at least let us enjoy our cornflakes and Andy Capp until you know that there is a bomb, or a guy who saw the bomb, or can at least point to a coordinate in time and space where a bomb is likely to wind up. Oh, and by the way? If you DO have a guy like that, try not to blow his fucking cover. We need actual intelligence on these pricks more than we need soothsayers warning of the Ides of March from the comfort of their asses. 8/6 Well,did the Nanathon work?  Does that answer your question? You magnificent bastards. You saved Nana! You resurrected Deep Fried! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! Yes, Deep Fried volume 2 #1 will be in stores in December. You came through for me. you bought and you bid and you pimped and you gave. And while you did none of these things in the quantities I desired (ungrateful? Hey, you knew I was a bastard going in), you did enough of it to force me to conclude that Deep Fried fans are the coolest, most fuckingly generous people in the world, and should be rewarded with a new issue of their favorite comic book. My only question is "why?" Why did I give you the chance to put me back in this vicious cycle of blood, debt and tears? Why would you want me to return to suffering through the deadlines and conventions and hair pulling of the small press when you know this enterprise is killing me?? WHY?! Oh right. The prizes! Among the great, great contributors to the Nanathon, some amongst you have shown more brightly than others. But that doesn't matter a bit, because I chose the winners at random! Ha ha! Here then are your 2004 Nanathon prize recipients: Third place (receiving snappy Nana T-shirts) Ross Wagner, John Hershey, Matt LaMacchia, Phil Maish, David Lee, Keith Warner, Joe Jauregui,Brian McMahon, Christopher Burke-McCandless and Adam Peskowitz. Second Place (receiving individual pages of original Deep Fried artwork): Kevin McGlone, Tom Yungbluth, Erik Royse, Kyle Cantin and William Langer. And the GRAND PRIZE WINNER, who will receive a T-shirt, artwork and a guest appearance in the final Nanathon cartoon: Mister Richard "Dick" Cheney!!! No Lie! Apparently he loved the cartoon where I drew him as Davros and... Heh. Just kidding. Nana's number one savior is in fact none other than...Benjamin Rae! Thank you one and all from the bottom of my heart. I'm grateful for everyone who helped me gather the cabbage that is making the next issue possible. Cyber kisses to you all! I will be back next week with more of my standard goodness, and an update on that new cartoon. In the meantime, God Bless. And KEEP BUYING!!!!! 8/2 "So?" So what? "Is the Nanathon over?" Yep. "Well??" Well what? You're in my light. "DOES NANA LIVE OR DIE, GODAMNIT??" Friday. "What?" Come back Friday. I will say no more. "What the hell is this shi..." BZZZ! FRIDAY! OZ HAS SPOKEN! ... "Say whatever you want. You're a general. This program is no longer mine." The words of Sean Hannity on Tuesday as he orally washed the genitals of General Tommy Franks, his guest on his radio talk show, who had just requested permission to use the word "bastard" on the air. Can anyone not yet tell the difference between a liberal and a conservative? A few moments later, General Franks, who was on the show to pimp his new book titled "A Soldier's Quest" or "Props to Old Glory" or something equally celebratory of the patriotism fad, expressed pride in his countrymen who, after 9/11, did not immediately call for martial law. I suppose this was Franks' way of putting the townsfolk on notice that the steady, weathered Joint Chiefs will be in the saddle and ready to restore order the next time Black Bart rides into Freedomville. Just race to the church and start ringin' that bell, y'all! Or, you know...make motions like you want to run to the church. Or just look unsettled. Sheriff Franks can read your body language like a Chippewa reads a smoke signal. Hannity continued his interview in like manner, displaying a fluency with toadying that would shame Bosun Smee and which left me with little doubt that a) this guy would call for the abolition of the Third Amendment if anyone ranked higher than a mess cook batted his eyes at him, and b) Hannity's dream is to someday find himself walking down the aisle of a passenger train, slapping a riding crop against his palm and demanding to see papers. The show was broadcast from a bookstore in Huntington, NY where Franks was signing his book before a crowd of Pavlov Republicans who jeered the names of Michael Moore and John Kerry on command (they were later loaded into a livestock trailer and shipped straight to Madison Square Garden). Hannity, borrowing his microphone back from its new owner, then asked why Kerry (the crowd boos, is tossed a pig's ear) should not be held accountable for the "atrocities" he testified to participating in during his tour of duty, such as shooting in free fire zones and going on search and destroy missions. Anyone else posing such a question would have given some hint acknowledging it was spurious, but not this guy. He wants to serve the subpoena himself. Franks would only say that it was up to Kerry to make peace with his sins. Franks, naturally, did not want to clarify that Kerry was one of thousands of American soldiers ordered to engage in those scorched earth tactics, and not their pioneer as Hannity seemed to be implying. To do so might raise the question of who else in our country (even government) might yet bear responsibility for unprosecuted war crimes in Vietnam. It would also openly contradict the very albatross that the conservatives have been trying to necklace Kerry with for months, that he invented from whole cloth the abuses he accused other Vietnam vets of committing in his youth. The Republicans can't seem to decide what page they should be on in this matter. Either there were no ear removals, corpse desecrations or rice paddy seductions in Vietnam, in which case Kerry's testimony was opportunistic pandering to the lovebead set meant to sow the seeds for his eventual presidential run 23 years later, or else they DID happen, in which case why is Kerry at large seeking high office instead of breaking rocks at Leavenworth? Either way, Tommy Franks clarified that despite being a patriotic killing machine himself in Vietnam, he made sure never to gun down innocent peasants when the red rages came. Well, here's to your good manners Tommy! I'm guessing you won't be shaving your hair into a Mohawk and shooting Harvey Keitel anytime soon. ... Saw Troy yesterday. Wow, what a movie; and by "movie" I mean just that. For all Troy's star power, computer multiplied armies and Bronze Age gewgaws, I wasn't transported out of the theater once during this three-hour vacation from 2004 AD. A wretched screenplay by David Benioff is largely to blame for this, replete as it was with dippy dialogue and one-dimensional characters, and director Wolfgang Peterson's stylistic motifs repeated more often than Drew Carrey after downing a Burrito Grande. Apparently he thought the audience wouldn't be able to get enough of forehead kisses, mournful choir music or Brad Pitt's Achilles brooding endlessly on the topic of his name's place in encyclopedias as yet unwritten. Wolfgang has clearly taken a few Gladiator lessons. There are numerous blood bursting quick cuts during battle sequences intended to milk his audiences' adrenal glands, but he's no Ridley Scott, and those scenes all fall short of the glory of Gladiator's breathless carnage. And in true Hollywood fashion, the cast is far too pretty for the era they are portraying (exept for the near-skelatal Peter O'Toole as King Priam). How is Helen of Troy's legendary beauty supposed to register against a landscape of Greeks who all could have been on the cover of last week's People? And is Diane Kruger really worthy to lay claim to the face that launched a thousand ships? I give the movie credit for a scene in the first act where Brad Pitt takes down a giant warrior in über cool fashion, and also for some B+ battle scenes. The movie's feckless self importance largely drains it of any further merit, though. Two ants.  By the way, my previous technique of assigning fewer ant heads to better films (meant to represent how many giant ants a movie would have to feature in order to be exceptional) is now reversed, to avoid confusion with traditional scoring methods that progressively reward films with increasing numbers of stars, thumbs, etc. Now, more ant heads will indicate a better movie, and will represent the number of giant ants that would be required to wreck the theater I am in in order for me to be distracted from the movie I am watching. Not to sound anti-bohemian, but It's no good being an iconoclast if no one gets you. At least not when you're a movie crit, daddy-o. 7/28 Mere days remain in the Nanathon, but look at that meter! Look at the empty portion! Who hasn't bought yet? Are there really so many of you who don't want a T-shirt? Tell you what: I am going to turn my back, and when I turn around I want to see twelve more orders on my desk. Just twelve! That's not much! I know there are twelve of you out there who haven't bought the Great Taste of Deep Fried yet ! Or Weapon Brown! Or who really want to see the sickness contained within We're #1! Look up! See Nana sinking? Those are the hopes of the Deep Fried comic sinking with her. Don't let Deep Fried go under! Click Nana! Hear her plea! Play the cartoon! See how she could perish! Will you really let me do that to that poor old lady? In the last two weeks you fans have gone above and beyond. I'm not kidding: I've seen generosity I never expected. You guys have been truly awesome, and I've been crafting a new cartoon to conclude the Nanathon that will be worthy of your giving spirit. But I don't yet know how that cartoon will end. Will it be the hilarious kickoff to a bold new dawn for Deep Fried, this site and my mission to bring the best in political toilet humor to the masses, or will it be Nana's swan song, and the end of a dream? Twelve. By August 1st. We've come this far, people. The mothership has been hacked and the shields are down. Where are you, Randy Quaid? .. Hey, have you been watching this new political reality show on PBS? "Democratic Convention 2004?" It's awesome! They even had a walk on by Glenn Close! I wonder why none of the networks have picked it up? I cynically thought I had seen the best performances the con would offer on Monday. The most familiar names in the party spoke that night, including Jimmy Carter (the Democrats' peacable Gandalf), Senator Hillary and of course, can I please get a warm round of hozannahs for Mister Las Vegas himself,...Biiihhhl CLINNTONNN! I liked hearing Jimmy Carter speak. Jimmy always makes me feel good, as he is the soul of what we'd like our presidents to be. Honest, decent, dedicated to public service. Imagining Jimmy Carter making backroom deals with oil lobbyists is as difficult to picture as Mister Rogers getting a Chinese basket fuck from a 17 year old Lithuanian call girl. Hillary leaves me cold. I love how the Republicans hate her but she's as tender as beef jerky. It won't surprise me if one of these days she lets the chandy-sipping mask drop and holds a press conference smoking a cigar the size of a rolled Sunday Times. And as for Bill, you gotta love him. He's a born charmer and you can tell he really thought people would understand that sometimes a man just needs a blowjob. The conservatives can pick his character scabs all they want, but that man just gets bigger as he recedes into the distance. (Not that Bill Clinton would ever let himself recede.) As you would expect, the atmosphere was very enthusiastic. Monday evening felt like the big opening handful of popcorn you enjoy at the movies as the titles roll. I therefor imagined that on Tuesday the boosterism would be reduced to the dross at the bottom of the bag, the bits you force down out of habit but that simply swim in your stomach, soaking in the tankard of Dr. Pepper you have already mosquitoed from your from your I-Robot collectors' cup. And then I heard the chanting. Obama! Obama! Obama! Aw yeah! Barack Obama was in the hizzy! This 42-going-on-21 Senatorial shoe-in from Illinois is the Justin Timberlake of the Democratic party, combining trendy Tiger Woods ethno-bending with a Harvard pedigree and electrifying crowd control. Though still only a state senator his potential to be the country's first black president is already being touted, which just goes to show you how far a little celebrity can take you in the media if you tickle the right set of balls. However, I'll grant that Obama would make Dick Cheney's skin blister like a vampire in sunlight if the two were ever in the same room together. You can tell that this guy is political "IT", and a sure cure for the neo-con blues. I hate to turn into a fawning teenybopper after only one pelvis-pumping keynote address, but having witnessed the Democratic Party hide like a frightened preschooler under Mother Kerry's skirts after uncle Howard Dean took its nose, it's good to see that spirit and vigor (not to mention showmanship) are still respected in this business. I'm a little concerned about the name of Obama's campaign volunteers though. The "Barack Brigade." Weren't they being funded by the Holy Land Foundation? ... It's regrettable to see how distanced the public face of the Democrats has become from any genuine concern for the poor. Sure, they're talking their tongues off about health care and outsourcing, but this party is making their goo-goo eyes at the middle class same as the Republicans. There is nothing on Kerry's agenda regarding prison or narcotics reform, no serious education reform, nothing in his energy or environmental policy that will make the auto makers sweat. Clearly only the most pragmatic liberalism will rear its nappy head in this campaign, because there are still the Lileks Republicans to hopefully win over. I pick on columnist James Lileks from time to time only because he represents the soft middle of the Right Wing. No ally of the jingoists, but a rock solid apologist for everything the President does, even if his own intelligence prevents him from ever praising the President himself too forcefully. He's a suburban Republican, a "fair and balanced" Republican. He chafes me because his politics are so obviously based on preserving the things that we know really matter in our culture: TiVo, Direct TV, HDTV (read his columns. Saint Lucy didn't gouge out her eyes for Christ as fast as this guy would for the Ad Box if it were but to ask). I bring this up because a recent Lileks blog once again put the priorities and prejudices of this man and his ilk into sharp focus, and it ought to serve as an object lesson to those who mistakenly underestimate the sanctimony, or the paranoia, of leisure class Whites. Lileks' latest bout of sweaty palms (readers of James' daily column know that this guy jumps at Orange Alerts like a kitten would a fire cracker) was inspired by a now well-traveled article on Women's Wall Street.com, in which passengers on an airplane were viciously unnerved by the suspicious activity of a group of Syrian musicians (who turned out to be Syrian musicians), Jim also takes the opportunity to bemoan the laxity of our nation's Racial Profilers, never reconciling his third hand post traumatic stress with the fact that the entire incident turned out to be a dry hump and not a skyjacking. Ever the sobering Paul Revere, James ends his article with: I hate this; God I hate this. But I don't have any longing for normalcy, as Noonan put it the other day, because normalcy was a delusion, a diaphanous curtain draped over the statue of Mars. Nor do I want a time out, a breather, an operational pause. I want to cut to the chase. I want Iran in the hands of its people and leaning to the West again, I want Lebanon independent of Syrian rule, I want Syria isolated and cowed, Arafat dead and buried in the land of his birth -or Paris, symbolically - and the Saudi Civil War done and over with pragmatists in power. I'd like this all tomorrow please. Noon is fine, if it works for everyone else Aww! That last line is so cute! However, there is an earnest disregard for the simple realities of the Middle East buried in Lileks' mouselike prayer for peace. And that is that, 9/11 aside, the world is still pretty much the way it has always been. It's just that with the Russians no longer around to make our motives look good we suddenly feel like a kid who has licked all the cake batter off an egg beater. Nothing left to taste but the metal edges of our ignoble human appetite for natural resources. Of course Lileks longs for normalcy! Normalcy American style! When oh when will the world be made right again? When will the Iranians see the error of their ways and invite some byblow of Shah Pahlevi back onto the Peacock throne so his secret police can once more throw clerics off rooftops? When will the "pragmatic" nobles of the House of Saud let their torturing security forces off the leash so they can do unto their loving population what the population apparently wouldn't mind seeing done unto them? And when will Arafat finally be out of the picture and his successor blown to hamburger in a missile strike (with his family) so Israel can finally finish building that fucking wall?? Cheer up Jim! Just remind yourself that your latest dose of handwringing was induced not by any actual threat to our civilization, but by the panty pissing of some wealthy bitch who got an ugly look from an Arab on an airplane. No need to hop on your horse just yet. We'd all like the Middle East to tip West, but I betcha Jim Lileks will ultimately be tidy with a few legbreakers holding the reigns in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. I can see the campaign commercials now! "Saddam Hussein:Tested, Rested, Ready." 7/21 I am too tired and bleary eyed to express my proper satisfaction over the success of last week's Nanathon art auction on E-Bay. As I type this I have just returned from enduring a double bill of "Around the World in 80 Days" (B-) and "Stepford Wives" (C+) at Rochester's hip second run theater, the Cinema, aka the "Pink" (dubbed thusly because of the building's fleshtoned paint job). I assure you however that I am suitably enthused that Nana is now over fifty dollars further away from death! Only ten days left. Can Nana pull it off? And if she doesn't, how will she go? Will it involve snakes? Perhaps slashing blades? Are you holding out for something unspeakable with a melon baller? Is that why the drive has only met half its goal?? You people. Ten days. Ask yourself: what if it were your grandmother and not some cartoon character? Wouldn't you be wondering is there was anyone you hadn't yet e-mailed for help? Any message board you hadn't posted an impassioned plea upon? Any friend who enjoyed political satire, revolting humor or just good old fashioned grass roots begging that you hadn't phoned and told to check out Whatisdeepfried.com? Maybe Carl? I don't want to lie to Nana and tell her she's going to make it when she isn't (although yanking the carpet out from underneath her would add that extra touch of cruelty I know you love). I don't want you Deep Fried fans to miss out on the relaunch of your favorite comic book either. There will be some fucked up goings on in the next and subsequent issues, and let's not forget the new animated series I promised you. That's coming too. You will soon be able to claim you were in on the ground floor of the next big thing to hit the nerdosphere before it was cool to be in on it. But if this drive doesn't succeed, I swear to you... I will vote for George Bush. That's right! I will throw this election to the Republicans through the awesome power of my vote. Because by then it will be obvious that the people of this country have lost faith in the future. And a country with no future, with no kindly Nana to serve them warm tollhouse cookies and a glass of Cremora because the skim milk has turned...well, that nation should have a soulless Born Again at the helm. Believe me, I hate resorting to this desperate threat, moreso because the fight for Nana's survival has already become a political football. Robert Novak recently wrote in the Washington Post that Dick Cheney has been told about the Nanathon and has repeatedly sent memos to White House staff instructing them not to contribute. Ask yourself: what if it were your grandmother Dick Cheney were trying to murder? After November 2nd, it just might be. 7/12 What a difference a week makes! My last blog entry, where I griped about the slacking off of Nanathon donations, is officially rescinded! Apparently many of you out there really do like Nana (and free sketches) well enough to have swelled the Nanathon coffers substantially. In addition, several people have made generous gratis donations to my PayPal account in the last week. I thank all of you from the bottom of my black, McBurger clogged heart! But Nana still needs you! I have been so inspired by the response to my free sketch offer that I have decided to take a new tact with the same idea. This week I am holding an E-Bay (what the hell does that name mean anyway? "E-Bay." Some sorta pig latin? Always bugged me. But I digress...) auction where you, the concerned Nana sympathizer, may bid on...a blank sheet of paper! No wait! It doesn't STAY blank! You will bid for the right to have a large 11x17 piece of bristol board illustrated in quality pen and ink with whatever you desire! Could be a big ol' Weapon Brown pin-up! Could be your own custom written cartoon! How about Nana herself being chased by Daleks? The sky's the limit! Anything you want, within my ability to draw it. This auction is on now and will run for a week. Anyone kicking themselves for not getting a sketch need harm themselves no longer. Good luck bidders! (Ooo! Nana being chopped up by robot lumberjacks! I'd REALLY like to draw that one! But I'm not trying to sway your decision or anything.) ... I just saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban at the Plexoplex yesterday. I'm sure almost everyone with a bent to see this film probabaly has at this point, but let me just say that as only a moderate fan of the previous two Potter chapters, and as no fan at all of the books, I really enjoyed Prisoner of Azkaban a lot. Azkaban is to Sorceror's Stone and Chamber of Secrets what Matilda is to Home Alone. With Director Alfonso Cuaron at the helm replacing cute-monger Chris Columbus, the cuddle factor of the Potter saga takes a welcome nose dive. Cuaron's vision has less room for treacle and the result is a family movie that is pleasantly gothic and sepia tinged, like Edward Gorey was brought in to consult on the atmosphere. The happenings at Hogwart's Academy for Demonology and Snake Summoning are no longer a tra-la-la Disneyland. Grotesque shrunken heads feature more prominently than fluffy owls, Womping Willows burst passing songbirds like pimples, and even the architecture has been replaced with a menacing, shabby baroque. All this is in keeping with the movie's darker theme of escaped murderers (a howling Gary Oldman), wraithlike happiness suckers called "Dementors" and growing pains (understandable, as everyone in this movie has stretched like a wad of silly putty since the last film). The newly pubscent trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and especially Rupert Grint (Harry, Hermione and Ron) are starting to show their adult acting chops, and there are pleasing moments of grown up wit which distinguish the script of this film from its predecessors as well. All in all a surprisingly good movie. As memorable as Prisoner of Azkaban was, however, it cannot hold a candle to another movie I saw this week, The Day after Tomorrow. This wretched hunk of rancid goat flesh will burn itself into your memory like a cattle brand. I'm playing Johnny-come-lately to this movie too. I saw it in the local second run theater just the other day but felt I should pass the word to anyone wondering to what use they should put their pocket change. This movie is a joke, laudable for its willingness to leave no cliché unturned and no emotion unpandered, even as it assiduously avoids ever tugging a single heart string. It is contemporary MST3K fodder if there ever was such. Plot: The earth transforms from business as usual to penguin paradise in less than 30 days thanks to global warming. Hurricanes, deluges, football sized hail and etc. precede the final frozen cataclysm. Dennis Quaid plays the Unheeded Voice of Reason, Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko) plays Quaid's brooding son who, lest any teen formula go unexplored, has joined the high school science pep squad not because he is brilliant, but because of a girl. Naturally this bit of exposition is whispered over the phone to Dad by Mom while she is standing about three feet from the kid. Other people, including Ian Holm, play other characters. There are some exciting special effects in this film, as there are in many films these days, and you will certainly thrill to see New York City under twenty feet of water. The rest, however, is a boggle of God awful tripe that lacks even the pretense of genuine emotion. Billions die, and yet the human misery that you think might accompany the end of civilization as we know it is barely on display. Hell, with the entire continent covered by tornadoes, blizzards and lightning storms there isn't even a hiccup in cell phone transmission! In place of what should be inescapable tragedy is the most ludicrous and galling heroism ever to stink up a theatre, such as when Quaid pointlessly embarks for the Manhattan tundra to somehow save his son despite having no provisions or vehicle to extract him with, or when Quaid's wife nobly stays behind in an abandoned hospital to comfort a widdle bald cancer patient. This unintended comedy is accented (and partially redeemed) by some none-too-subtle political overtones provided by a doltish president and mustache-twirling VP clearly modeled on the current administration. However, the evil veep's sappy change of heart by film's end will have you burying your face in your hands. This film comes courtesy of writer/director Roland Emmerich (Godzilla, Independence Day), who, as his filmography would suggest, basically lives to destroy New York. Thanks Roland, but we have real people doing that now. How about a Western? ... Whew! Glad I got that out of my system. And rather than bore you with more curmudgeonly words (I know you have your own LiveJournal's to get to), I have put this week's hostility towards Unmerica in my oft-neglected "Touch of Ego" section. I'll let you choose your bile load for today! 7/7 Things ain't lookin' too good for ol' Nana! After an initial surge of encouraging orders the excitement seems to have tapered off. I don't get! I thought we were fucking friends! Why do you hate me? Is it because I am a lousy cartoonist floundering in obscurity in a distant corner of the Net?? Is it because like me you don't have two cents to rub together? Or is it just because I am a talentless, sniveling twerp who should go out and get a real job instead of trying to grub your beer money? It's the last one, isn't it?? (heh. I had actually intended to delete that "stream of consciousness" and type in something less bitter, but fuck it. That's how I feel today. Plus, I've got a cold and the entire contents of my mucous membranes are now oozing down Monroe Avenue, swallowing citizens whole and gaining in strength and ambition. I just don't feel apple-cheeked at the moment.) Twenty-four days remain for this promotion to yield fruit. Shall I up the ante? Fine. This week and this week only, everyone who orders $10.00 or more worth of my blessed crap will receive an original sketch of anything they want, signed by yours truly. Yes, that's right. ANYTHING (except Clarissa being molested, and I know from my e-mail that there's at least ten of you who immediately thought "Whoa! I can make him draw Clarissa being raped by her brothers!" Shame on you! You have to order $20.00 worth of merch just to cleanse your souls! Get shopping!) You good Judeo Christians, however, can e-mail me with your sketch requests. I predict that by this time next week, Nana will be out of harm and sitting poolside in a swank Florida retirement community sipping a frosty Ensuregarita. ... So, I promised you the goods on MoCCA. Well, it was a great show! Filled to the brim with hip talent from around the globe. Big, too! Three chunky-sized rooms of the cream of the indy crop, with nary a staple-bound ninja comic to be found! Some of the bright lights I discovered at the show were "June", a quirky little pastel colored strip full of sweetness and love and rusty glass shards, "Gabagool!" a comic full of sordid vulgarity that is after my own heart, and "Mike The Pod," a true underground in every sense of the word with great art to boot. I got to know Dave Gordon, a talented guy who contributed a full-page comic to the convention program and who is shopping his strip, "Being Gordy," to the syndicates (sorry pal, but if they wouldn't pick up "Beepo and Roadkill" what chance could you possibly have?). I also spent time with my Jersey-dwelling girlfriend (and managed not to charm her with a litany of backhanded compliments as per usual), and met Ed. Ed is a graying rightwinger, who by virtue of his age and politics should have melted like a Nazi staring into the Ark of the Covenant the moment he set foot in MoCCA. Ed came to my table and told me that he thought my politics were alienating to Republicans who might otherwise get a good laugh from Deep Fried. I tried to explain to him that Republicans have no sense of humor, and anyway could probably not be torn away from their NRA newsletters long enough to even read a comic book, much less make sense of an artform that does not (often) involve references to golf swings or summer cottages. He did not seem to understand this and instead asked what I thought of the new woods by Wilson. No no, actually I invited him to send me his best argument in favor of his fascist political world view which I would dissect in this blog like a young Doctor Mengele with a cornered field mouse. So without further ado, take it away Ed! Jason, Just a couple of lines on 1 - politics, and 2 - the maturation of Charlie Brown. Earlier today at the MoCCA Festival, you promised to run my right-wing stuff on your website. Unfortunately for my argument, you will have the last word, since you edit the site. Not only that, but I am going to call all your grandchildren and tell them that "Gampy Ed" gave me anal warts in a Sunoco Men's Room off Interstate 90! But hey, that's the risk you take when you match political steel with me! Nevertheless, for starters, the claim you made this morning, that Ted Rall interviewed people in Afghanistan, or wherever, I don't bother reading his propaganda once I found out where he is coming from, doesn't impress me. Ed professed a preference for the chilled cobra venom of radio tyrant Mike Savage (nee Wiener), whose trademarked homophobia is mitigated by his San Francisco address and Harvey Firestein inflection. As you, yourself, allowed, Bill O'Reilly has also been around the globe as a foreign correspondent, and is obviously more experienced than the younger Rall, whom you seem so impressed by. Furthermore, just because either man has been to the war zone does not validate his views. I had pointed out that unlike most conservative blowhards, Rall has actually put his money where his mouth is by travelling to Afghanistan to see the damage our military has done to that country, which we are rumored to be at war with. I assigned O'Reilly some street cred for having been a foreign correspondent earlier in his career, reporting from some of the world's dark alleys, but to the best of my knowledge he has not been off his ass since his career as Fox News' most self-centered opinionater took off. For all I know Rall hand-picked left wingers and malcontents to quote in his journalism. In fact, I would not be surprised at all. He certainly would not quote forceful and cogent right-wingers. You see, each writer picks guys to quote with whom he agrees! True enough. However, O'Reilly has made "looking out for you" his official bumper sticker creed, feigning an air of political impartiality while at the same time chewing the intestines of Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, Al Franken, the Dixie Chicks, Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, The ACLU, Hillary Clinton and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals daily. No right-wing personality or organization has ever endured even remotely the same level of scrutiny. Rall is a liberal, and says so. O'Reilly is a celebrity-coveting, Harvard educated millionaire presiding over a personal media empire who thinks he is a plebeian. As for Charlie Brown growing into Weapon Brown and killing off that castrating bitch, Lucy, I loved it, especially when he kicked her in the face rather than aiming for the football! He finally wised up and pulled a few tricks of his own! Don't try to weasel your way into my heart at this stage, Ed. We've gone too far down the road. It was a transformation from a bleeding heart liberal to an efficient cold hearted killing machine. If I may offer an unasked for interpretation, and I am a trained psychoanalyst, your transforming Charlie Brown into Weapon Brown augers well for the possibility that, within the course of your future years, as you become a senior citizen, you will drop all this leftist crap and become a "heartless" right winger like me, way to the right of George W. Bush. I fully expect that as my brain ossifies and creature comfort and regular bowels replace optimism and idealism as my daily preoccupation, you will be proven right. Until then I'll keep a six of Molotovs chilling in my fridge. NANATHON! 7/1 Nanathon at last! Enjoy this long awaited epic-ette, and don't forget to tell all your friends and IRC chatroom sex partners about it. Do your part to make that meter go all red! The cartoon is on Newgrounds as well. Keep the love coming by going there and giving Nanathon a big fat "5". ... Hey! Check out this review of Weapon Brown at PopImage.com! I had no idea I was so awesome! If you haven't yet purchased this scorched earth satire of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang, I can help you there. 6/30 Happy Iraqi Sovereignty Day! It's "Mission Accomplished" all over again, and just in case you thought the President was going to miss an opportunity to embarrass himself afresh, check out this note Condi passed Dum Dum under the table in Istanbul to let him know that the Iraqis now had a fully independent puppet government:
Yes, that is Dubya's own comment to himself in the bottom corner. Sniff. I guess he felt a swell of patriotic juice in his bladder and just couldn't save it for his memoirs. What a lucky stroke for the People that this epistle, whose stirring poignancy evokes Benjamin Franklin, made its way from beneath the President's Scotch Rocks to the front page of the New York Times. Only a cynic would suggest this was Georgie's most doltish effort yet to brand a slogan that will once and for all cement Iraq as a "feel good" war. And It would take a real asshole to point out that propping up freedom's reign is about to require 5,600 more troops scraped from the bottom of the Army's barrel. Are there no schizophrenics left in America who want to impress Jodi Foster? ... I promised that Nanathon cartoon today and dammit, you will have it! Just a few finishing touches left--a coupla sound effects, a preloader--nothing major. Enjoy today's strip and tune in later on tonight. 6/23 Good news, poopsters! The Nanathon animated spectacular WILL be up next Wednesday. I have been spending my usual unbelievable amount of time getting this charming featurette completed, and but for my preparations for my trip to this week's MoCCA Art Festival in NYC I would have finished it already. MoCCA! I hear this is a kick ass indy comic show, and I managed to get in at the last minute thanks to Keith "'The K Chronicles' is sooo funny" Knight canceling and giving me his table. Now I will make the lucre that is rightfully his! Can I get a "Mwuh ha ha" from the congregation?
... I encourage you all to read up on the case of University of Buffalo professor Steve Kurtz. Kurtz is both a scientist and an artist, and his performance pieces include interactive lab experiments that use harmless, though living, microbes. On May 11 Kurtz's wife collapsed and died in their home due to natural causes. The responding paramedics noticed his lab equipment and, as any good TIPSters would do, NARCED ON HIM TO THE FEDS. Now Kurtz is being investigated by a grand jury on possible bioterrorism charges. The case is absurd on its merits. Kurtz is an internationally recognized talent and has not been accused of possessing any deadly materials, only equipment (which is not illegal either, only its vaguely defined "misuse." ) His prosecution is being seen as another example of the overreaching authority inherent in the PATRIOT Act, and the paranoia that this legislation has engendered will undoubtedly lead to further encroachments on free speech of this kind. Oh, did I mention that Kurtz is, coincidentally, no fan of the Administration? Think about that for a moment while I leave the room. I hear boots knocking on my door. Ha ha! Any Right Wing Christian worth his cross would find the above sentiment proof of my own unjustified paranoia. "We live not in any 'police state!'" say they. "Would you want the FBI to just ignore the germ warfare art of a potentially unstable tenured professor? Have we so soon forgotten the Una Bomber??" (This hypothetical conservative would inevitably steer the conversation towards tort reform and the McDonalds "coffee/lap" debacle, but I don't want to get off subject.) In dealing with "unconventional" threats to society (like slowly eroding Constitutional protections against unwarranted searches), it should be pointed out that there is a bit of a double standard that is used to keep us from realizing that the War on Terror is only a war on Islamic terror. After all, the only actual use of bio agents to kill Americans, the Anthrax scare, has all but disappeared from the public dialogue on the subject of domestic terror, and several instances of an American crank mailing the poison ricin to Congress and the Transportation Department barely made a ripple in the news. Have YOU ever heard of Fallen Angel? I doubt it. It's more likely you are sweating the latest hooded goon featured on Riyadh's Most Wanted. This is the sleight of hand that policy makers are depending on. The reality versus the politically convenient threat. If anything ever distracted the terror issue away from the Middle East, if anti-terror procedures were seen being brought to bear unjustly on Americans (not of Arab descent, of course. Not those Americans), the entire scope of the NeoCon agenda might start to look a little less sexy. People being beheaded overseas makes for great blood-boiling, but the impotent rage it arouses in us serves al-Qaeda and the GOP equally well. 6/15 I decided to update the strip early so it would be pie-cooling-on-a-window-sill-fresh for you Wednesday morning, but the full blogeroo will have to wait a few more hours. Enjoy the comic, though! ... Alright, time to blog this site up right! Last week was the Heroes Con in sweltering Charlotte, NC. Once again I sacrificed my hair in the name of self promotion, dressing as Weapon Brown so that attendees couyld see the lengths a dedicated comedy terrorist will go to to destroy their minds in the name of Allah. The con attendance was fair to middling, but this was more than compensated for--well, nearly compensated for--by the number of new fans and friends I made from the safety of my mighty sales booth.
Okay, back to work on the Nanathon cartoon. It's rockin' and rollin' and should be on my site before I depart for MoCCA. Oh the things I am doing to that poor woman... Ta! 6/9 So the Gipper is going in the ground. I guess this means I will be stealing into the Reagan library tonight with a wooden stake and a hacksaw. Must be sure! Aw. I kinda feel sorry for the coot. Like all presidents Ronald Reagan seems more palatable receding into the pliable memory of the nation's past. And all the more so because his epitaph, prepared in advance by Republican spin surgeons and disseminated throughout the media this past week, makes us nostalgic for an era that Reagan is taking with him to Valhalla: He won the Cold War without firing a shot. (With a little help from Kennedy, Lech Walesa, Maggie Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbachev and the utter economic inviobility of Soviet communism, and with shots fired on our behalf by the Mujahadeen and the Contras, and with other shots fired beforehand by our soldiers in Vietnam and Korea. But let's give the man his due. He ALONE won the Cold War. After he retired.) I was too young to appreciate Reagan's appeal when he was in charge. To me he was the muddle-headed voice of intransigence who was destined to preside over the End of Days (this was the era of The Day After and Testament, mind you). However, listening to the snippets of his speeches and addresses that have played on the radio these past few days I cannot say that the man lacked charm. Compare and contrast the eloquence and sincerity of The Great Communicator with President Banjo--whose speeches appear only to be opportunities for him to test out his latest snigglets--and you can see why the People were willing to be led so perilously close to a cliff by the guy. When Ronnie spoke of an "Evil Empire," he realized that "evil" is a comic book quality descriptor. Use sparingly, lest the public think your speech writers were culled from the ranks of Hanna Barbera. Dubya, on the other hand, spreads the pap so thick you'd think he was starring in a Flash Gordon serial. Except, of course, when he speaks off the cuff. Then the wishy-wash that is the man's natural character shines through like a heat ray. Even his fist-in-the-air speech at Ground Zero seems like a historical dry hump compared to what Ronnie would have given us. Reagan doesn't seem so bad in retrospect, and certainly not when compared with those who have claimed his mantle. The Black Hats did slink back into their slime and the loot it cost us was eventually paid off with the Clinton gold rush (for ten seconds). A worthy ending for America's beloved matinee idol. Ride, Marlboro Man! Ride! There's a pretty gal in Montana waiting for you! (roll credits) 6/3 I am reading The Da Vinci Code right now after a long period of chomping at the bit to obtain this recently added epistle to the junk culture bible. My good friend was given this book as a gift, which is the only thing that saved me from having to wait for the paperback. Would you believe the waiting list at the library for this super market sensation is (I'm not lying folks) 850,000,000 years long? Can you believe that the hardcover edition of this book is $25.00? Can you believe what a bargain The Great Taste of Deep Fried is at only $15.00?? I am only a quarter of the way through this novel, although I feel like I'm much further in. Dan Brown has authored a true McBook here, cramming 102 chapters into only 454 pages. Believe me, the sensation of flipping paper is the only thing that distinguishes these 454 pages of Charmin from any first season episode of J.A.G. I mention all this only to warn those of you who, like me, were pulled in by all the water cooler banter about The Da Vinci Code and were anticipating a well-honed conspiracy thriller. If there is a lesson I still have yet to pull from the Iraq invasion it is to never believe the hype. What you will get in this story are self-mortifying albinos, snooty French police inspectors, hotsy totsy love interests who AREN'T AFRAID TO RUFFLE A FEW FEATHERS!! and the world's most one-dimensional protagonist who we are informed early on (lest we paint a mental picture of the man exactly as boring as the author has written him) is "Harrison Ford in Harris tweed." My, someone is doing a bit of fantasy casting! Won't it be funny if the movie stars Ed Harris instead? The plot of The Da Vinci Code centers on secret societies, Vatican machinations, sacred bloodlines and Mary Magdalene (something for the Catholics and the Mormons!). I've already been gypped of the surprise revelation by gabby relatives, but having learned it, and seeing exactly how much warmed over meatloaf I will have to eat to reach this denouement, I would highly recommend that interested parties instead delve into Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon's superb comic series Preacher (from DC Comics) now fully collected in paperback form. Preacher is scandalous, satirical and outrageously blasphemous with characters you will never forget, a conspiracy that kicks The Da Vinci Code's balls and a classic premise: what if Jesus was raised on John Wayne instead of the Torah? I'd like to cut bait on the Da Vinci Code, but ya gotta finish what you start. Anyway, I shouldn't complain. These Tic Tac sized chapters make me feel like a speed reader. ... And now back to our potboiler war with its hero, a man raised on John Wayne who thinks he's Jesus! "The June 30th Handover of Sovereignty" is coming soon to a theater of war near you! Word is that Dubya will be premiering a new rhinestone-studded Donna Karan flight suit at the premier of this new phase of the War on Everything But Terror, conveniently timed to coincide with the release of his new single, "Re-Up For Love." During his last stand up routine the Prez made sure to set the record straight: we're giving the Iraqi's FULL sovereignty. No more of that "partial" shit. Of course, sovereignty for a nation does not usually entail hundreds of thousands of foreign troops marching your streets and occasionally shelling your cities. It's still mighty white of us not to shove Ahmed Chalabi down the Iraqis' throats as prime minister, however, seeing as how a corrupt American stooge running the show would be just the thing to give Muqtada Al-Sadr that extra air of credibility. Of course it would not do our government much good to install Chalabi at this point, seeing as how he is the flesh and blood incarnation of all the failed planning and bogus intelligence that has put us in this mess. Better to smear him and pretend that he was never the Administration's co-architect of the war in Iraq (although word is that Iyad Allawi, the Governing Council's choice for the role of PM, has a reputation for graft and is less liked on the Iraqi street than Chalabi.) Sovereignty. It's "Mission Accomplished" all over again! Hard to believe we're losing a war we keep winning so often. ... Next week I will be in Charlotte, NC for the Heroes Con. Pack up the kids and get ready for adventure as I test the South's tolerance for Yankee-style honesty and cussing! Meanwhile, get psyched for the Nanathon cartoon, under construction even as we speak. Keep pledging! 5/26 I am safely returned back from a week of fun and frolic in the beautiful Nevada desert. Yes, my out of town adventure took me to Las "Sin City" Vegas, or as I call it, the Holy Land! A Jerusalem of carnal pleasure and debauchery, but not a suicide bomber in sight! Just bare breasts and $.99 shrimp. Tell me that Yahweh isn't a party god! This strip captures most of the antics I got up to (minus a side trip to the Grand Canyon. Frankly, I've seen grander.) Unfortunately, certain of my chipotle-spiced experiences were too piquant for a cartoon. But a blog is a different beast altogether. There are no rules! In Blog World. USA the businessmen snowboard to work, mothers have shotgun-staggered chrome pipes on their Suburbans and the babies all have Powerade in their bottles! ARE YOU INTENSE ENOUGH FOR BLOGWORLD?? Oops. Kinda went off on a tangent there. Anyway, here are the photo highlights:
This is Gor'Roth, one of the greeters at the Las Vegas Hilton's Star Trek Experience. I was hesitant to include this photo as I thought it might perpetuate the stereotype that Klingons are a thuggish, punch-happy race of stinking curs. So in all fairness to this specimen I should mention that I did grab his balls.
If you came across a statue in the Venetian Hotel that was surrounded by cash, you'd ask yourself the same question I did : "What does a statue, who isn't defaulting on his student loans like me, need all that money for?" Well, my marble friend turned out to be one of those living statues you sometimes read about in the Fortean Times, and the money was for hand jobs. My bad!
At this point you may be getting the inaccurate impression that while I was in Vegas I got punked by every chump in a costume that crossed my path. Rest assured that I got in a few good hits on this M&M before going down for the count. Plus, I think he knew some Tai Chi. |
