Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
A Pastiche
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Intermission
If I married Brooke Pancake, I would encourage her to keep her last name, of course, but also to do away her first name, so that people just called her “Pancake.”
That guy is William Mason. By then, he will be President of the University of Alabama. He’s drinking Johnny Walker, straight, because he secretly burns with envy for a girl named Pancake.
But I was the one to see the Crimson White that August morning and find, behind a dull fill piece, the girl of magic onomatology.
And yes, that is a white dinner jacket. Just like Humphrey Bogart.
And mosquitoes?…Ha!
I haven’t posted in a while! Most of that is because I’ve spent the last time in places like the one I’m about to talk about. But I’m back in the United States!
I’ve written for you a story about Nicaragua. Its a something for you readers. I made it entirely out of words and it’s long. But don’t let it bog you down! Cartoons to come. Anyway…
When they land on a person, mosquitoes withdraw a small portion of blood, and, in its place, inject a tiny amount of pure, refined unhappiness. Most of it stays in the area around the bite, making a welt. The rest enters the bloodstream, spreading, throughout the body, a whisper of despair.
We go way back, mosquitoes and me. They remember when I first showed up to the jungle, their turf, with my bottles of 100% Deet, and they laughed at me.
But I got experience, and they got more vicious. I spent untold nights in Uganda sitting up, still, watching, trying to locate and destroy the ones that had slipped under my mosquito net. In a hammock in Guatemala, I covered up every inch of skin save my nostrils and lips, but they weren’t picky. They even gave me a bout with malaria, the bastards.
Mosquitoes eventually come to respect you, and with each new country, I proved myself. But with each new country, the war began afresh.
These were Nicaraguan coastal mosquitoes, hatched in the dens of vipers, raised on scorpions, and hardened by the salt air.
I didn’t even bring repellent this time, and they laughed at me.
Click to read the rest of the story!
The Navel of the Western Hemisphere
Well, my gentle heathens, or whoever is left, it has been another hiatus, but this time for good reason. It has been an interesting week. Pedicabing is no more. I’m done with it. I had some more cartoons to draw about it, but I didn’t have time.
I can’t pedicab because I’m in Costa Rica. That’s why I was doing the pedicabing in the first place. Therefore, this website for the coming weeks will be a travel blog, more words and less cartoons.
This might be a problem. I understand that most of you (by now one of you is most of you, I bet) don’t actually read the words, but just look at the pictures. In fact, I was so taken with Cars 2 that I was going to write a full-blown review of it, but then I thought That much text? And right in front of this really good comic? And then I thought I would write it and just link to it, and then I started getting ready for my trip and forgot.
Hopefully writing about jungles and drug dealers and buildings made out of rusty corrugated metal will make it worth reading.
Hopefully.
I’m in Liberia, Costa Rica, and I got three countries yet to pass! Situations ahead, for sure! Stay tuned!
Legends
I got my new tablet pen in!
It looks like this.
So no more of that pencil stuff. So barbaric. This is me drawn with the tablet:
Anthropomorphism where anthropomorphism is due
I haven’t seen Cars 2 yet, but I have to. Not in the omigod I have to see it way, but in the I have to shoot Ol’ Yeller in the head because he has rabies way. I’ve gone this far with Pixar.
It came out about four days ago, which is just enough time for me to cycle through the five stages of grief. It’s currently low 30’s on the aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes. That’s bad. Mr. Poppers Penguins got 47%.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
That being said, as admirable as they were to go back to their weakest franchise, there are fundamental problems with the premise. Most are obvious, but the one really gets me, and one that no one ever seems to mention, is that the Car society is a rigid caste system of genetic determinism.
Does anyone realize that that cute, French tire-changer car is inescapably bound to a life of mundane, obscure servitude? Does this bother anyone else?
Sorry, schoolbus. You’ll never be anything more than a hapless vessel for other cars. Children of wealthy sportscars, licking your windows, scratching cuss words into your seats. Not that you need an education.
Not that it matters anyway. See, in the real world, certain factions can gain the upper-hand with weapons. In Cars world, certain factions are the weapons.
That attractive Lamborghini convertible may be a shrewd in business, but that M1 Abrams has a damn cannon for a head.
Of course, Cars 2 is better than Popper’s Penguins. I haven’t seen either movie and I know this. I bet if Dreamworks or any other studio was responsible for the franchise, it would have scored in the 70’s. Pixar is at a bit of a disadvantage when every one of its other franchises are, like, masterpieces.
People used to talk about the first Cars as Pixar’s “one bad movie.” They would talk about how much they adored every Pixar movie except Cars, and then throw the word “bad” around. Somehow “bad” came out of “not astoundingly good.” Cars wasn’t bad, folks. It just wasn’t a friking masterpiece.
Edit: Just saw the movie. I’m…gonna need to recover from that.
Intermission
I don’t have may readers, but I like it when people comment. Though I don’t know why you need to use an internet alias. I know you know me, but I don’t know who you are. I spend a lot of time guessing. It’s weird.
I know Birddog is Kevin because I gave him that name. I’m pretty sure minidray215 is Devan Ray. Really, Devan? I have six regulars and just “minidray” was taken?
Kid Galahad? Is that you, Chris?
Do you people just expect me to know who you are?
Cultural Force
Two weekends ago was Gay Pride Fest here in Denver. I didn’t say anything about it then because I was still put out about breaking Kevin’s tablet pen and not being able to drawr. I didn’t even feel like trying with this comic, as topical as it was. Maybe I could have at least made it legible.
It was surprisingly slow for me, but maybe that was because I looked too straight, which wasn’t a problem for some of the other pedicabers. By 5pm one of the ringleaders sent out a message reminding everyone that shirt, shoes, and pants must be worn, lest we would be sent home. Now I’m not gay, but most of the gay folks I know aren’t nursing pathological Tarzan complexes.
At least, I don’t think so…
No matter. The straight pedicabers wanted the gay customers, and the straight customers wanted the gay pedicabers. No real gay people required.
In fact, fighting for the cause seemed to be more straight, white girls from suburban backgrounds than real live homosexuals.
Sorry gals, I know gay subculture is fashionable, and I know you’ve been dying for an excuse to wear that rainbow thong, but “homosexual” isn’t synonymous with “prostitute.”
As much as Gay Pride rallies want you to think it is.