Comic for Tuesday, January 24th, 2006

Posted: 7:45 am, Tuesday, January 24th

Not going to be an overly long post today, gang, but maybe I'll stagger onto some kernel of profundity on accident. Consider this entry a little bit of housekeeping.

Today's strip is kind of in a response to last week's Journey into History. Bob mentioned that there's a lot of webcomics out there, and very few of them deal with any deep political issues. My earlier stuff did, but that all tapered out pretty quickly after the election. Also, it should be noted that my idea of dealing with deep political issues, at least in the context of the strip, is for Jen and Ron to hypothesize about high-ranking members of the Bush administration eating infants. That stuff was mostly in the first two months of the strip, and I just hadn't gotten around to being comfortable having the characters speak in deeper conversations (believe it or not, I actually feel as if I'm doing that from time to time now). Between the early strips being rough because I was still trying to find the gang's voice, and then my immediate fatigue from the election fallout, I guess I never got back to the very key facet of Jen's personality that she is deeply opposed to the war. Well, good of Bob to come along and remind me of that.

In fact, I kind of feel like I've gotten a bit away from the main thrust of the strip, what with the whole Ron and Kelly deal. I've no plans to drop that storyline, mind you, but I need to do a better job balancing gag-a-day-ishes with the story of the gang's life. Too often, I'll write a story that really only needs four episodes, but it's easy enough to stretch into five, so I do. Well, enough of that. We're not a formal operation around here, so what the hell do I need to begin things on a Monday and end 'em on a Friday for? It's a little lazy on my part. I also feel like I've been horribly neglecting Lissa lately. Aside from giving her a new haircut and having her run the marathon a while back, she's kind of been shuttled off to the back burner. That's not cool.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not about to ditch the progress I've made with the characters, since I actually feel like I've been doing some of my best work lately, but I will be nudging the strip gently back to its prime focus, four friends hanging out and trying to make their way through the world as best they can. Sorry to inflict this self-reflective post on you, but typing things out help me focus sometimes.

So! Now would be a good time to talk about the war and my deep opposition of it. But I'm kind of tired, really, and didn't get to read the paper today and haven't really had any one article I can track down immediately stick in my head lately. So I'm just going to type in this thing from the front section of the February issue of Harper's. This is probably breaking copyright law or something, but, meh, I won't tell if you don't.

From a vocabulary test given last by Bret Chenkin, a thirty-six-year-old English teacher at Mount Anthony Union High School in Bennington, Vermont, and obtained by the Bennington Banner.

It is frightening the way the extreme right has (balled, arrogated) aspects of the Constitution and warped them for their own agenda.

The fact that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush have lied consistently about their role in Iraq has been (substantiated, largessed).

I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, thus ensuring him Republican votes.

The many hateful programs initiated by the Bush Administration have been so (substantiate, invidious) that the country is now bitterly polarized.

Bush often likes to (temporize, ramify) rather than get involved in actual debates.

The governor should have been (excoriated, coherent) by the press for calling Democrats "girly-men," but instead was invited to speak at the Republican convention; it only goes to show what kind of people they are.

That's the sort of vocab test I would've written on November 3rd of 2004.

Anyway, I'll be back with some actual stuff during the day. Sorry for the kind of all-about-me post. But, you know, my blog and all.

bullfrog

Arrogated. Wow, I would have had to look that up. Invidious is a word? For some reason that made me think of star wars. Darth Invidious?

Anyway, as far as the political theme, since when did Rove resurface? What's going on with the investigation? Anyone? Anyone?

The funny thing is that invidious means almost the same thing as insidious, which is how I read it originally.

I don't know about the Rove investigation. I think part of the GOP strategy is to be so deeply evil on so many different fronts as to make it completely impossible to keep up with them. They're like a hydra - catch Rove outing CIA agents, and they sell off the National Parks System to ExxonMobil while you're trying to get the little shit in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison.

nice zappa-ish comment (in the title). do you have a frank zappa top 5? mine is:

Hot Rats 1969 Over-Nite Sensation 1973 Apostrophe (') 1974 Bongo Fury 1975 You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore, Vol 3 1989

Actually, never got into Zappa. This dude I used to kayak with had me listen to.. Strictly Commercial, I want to say, and I liked it well enough, but I guess it's just not where I was at the time.

"This dude I used to kayak with". Seriously...

remember9161@fivebuckstofriday.com

some7560@fivebuckstofriday.com

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