THE NEW OBVIOUS #20:

Bulk and Skull had no business being campus police officers. They pretty much got everything wrong all of the time. The city of Angel Grove was clearly experiencing some sort of systemic crisis in their hiring practices vis-a-vis public safety personnel. Perhaps the constant mayhem occurring due to violent confrontations between self-appointed metamorphic vigilantes and monstrous lunar terrorists scared the high quality job candidates into seeking employment in less volatile cities. Word gets out, you know. And then all you’re left with are bumblers like Bulk and Skull. A sad state of affairs to be sure.

F.A.Q. #3:

Q: Do you have a favorite movie? What about a Top Ten List? Do you do ranked listings of movies or anything else?

A: I have tried to pick a single all time favorite movie, but I just can’t do it. I’ve dabbled in ranked lists, but those don’t work for me, either. Top 10 or Top 5 or Top 100 lists are completely arbitrary. My list has the same validity as one drawn up by Roger Ebert or anyone else. I also don’t think there’s any validity to End of Year or Year In Review or Year’s Best or Year’s Worst or what have you. What if you do your Best of 2024 List in the last week or two of December but then a month later in late January you change your mind? Are you actually gonna re-do your list? Why? Because you’re a perfectionist? Because it feels good? Because the world must know? If it feels good then proceed, but any other reason is just tedious . . . but having said all of this . . . if you put a gun to my head . . . then I would have no choice but to pick The Deer Hunter as my Number One Favorite because that would be super cute, wouldn’t it?

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #135:

“COME ON, PEOPLE, GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.” D.B. COOPER JUST ABOUT READY TO GIVE UP ALL HOPE OF EVER BEING FOUND.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 38

 

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #44:

A yeti politician who constantly rails against the System as being “one big snowjob.”

THE NEW SIGNAGE #4:

a duck with a knife in its back followed by another duck

THE NEW DREAM #34:

I know the answers for the Scantron

yet I choose to Christmas Tree it

because

desire minus shame

THE NEW OBVIOUS #19:

Goldar should’ve reported Lord Zedd to HR.

F.A.Q. #2:

Q: Do you believe extraterrestrials have visited earth? Do you believe that the U.S. government is covering up evidence of extraterrestrial visitations and/or crash landings? What do you make of the various UFO whistleblowers who have been in the media spotlight in recent years?

A: No, extraterrestrials have not visited Earth. There is no evidence whatsoever that anything like this has happened. These so-called “whistleblowers” have talked and talked and talked . . . without producing a shred of actual evidence for extraterrestrials or whatever. Talk is talk. Show me the evidence. Make an actual case. And as far as the U.S. government covering up xtro bodies or “biologics” or alien saucers or whatever . . . I just don’t see how that would work. The U.S. government wasn’t able to keep the lid on The Pentagon Papers. Where are The Area 51 Papers? The obvious answer is that there’s no alien corpses or recovered craft or anything of the sort. If there were anything worth leaking it all would’ve leaked back in the late 1990s at the height of The X-Files craze. But I do admire the hustle and grind of these so-called “whistleblowers” who are clearly getting a boost on the conspiracy podgrift circuit. Enjoy it while it lasts, kiddos!

NOTIONAL HEADLINE #134:

AMERICANS CONTINUE TO TORTURE THEMSELVES THIS HOLIDAY SEASON WITH GROSS, DRY TURKEY DESPITE WIDE AVAILABILITY OF CHEESEBURGERS, MAC’N’CHEESE, AND FRIED CHICKEN.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 37

 

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #43:

A highly conceptual production of Hamlet featuring Charles Fort as Fortinbras.

FOR WANT OF A NAIL . . . (#7)

(oldoldoldfartfartfart)

. . . and then you became a United States President.

THE NEW SIGNAGE #3:

FOOD-GAS-BOULDERS-DISLODGING

THE NEW OBVIOUS #18:

Bubble grows, bubble bursts.

THINGS NEVER SAID #26:

“When I bite into that Papa John's pizza I can taste that clear-filtered water. Nothing finer.”

F.A.Q. #1:

Q: Do you like ice cream? If so, what is your favorite flavor?

A: I do like ice cream. My favorite flavor is mint chocolate chip. Runner-ups would be cookies’n’cream and butter pecan. Just as important as the flavor is the temperature. Ice cream is best served very cold. Also, cold ice cream tastes even better when you eat it during very cold weather. It’s bracing. It’s refreshing. It’s invigorating. It gives you no place to go but up. It gets you moving.

THE SECRETS OF FINAL TOWN 36

 

FANTASY MASHUP FORCE #4:

“It’s gotta be the shoes!”

“Maybe it’s Maybelline.”

So . . . if I put on the Jordans . . . and then I slather the Jordans in Maybelline . . . that would make me God, right?

And then, like, for a Bonus . . . I could buy that mass market paperback copy of Necronomicon from Barnes and Noble . . . and then, uh, like . . . I could also be Cthulhu, too. Like, as bonus content, you know.

When you think about it . . . our consumer culture is rather empowering, isn’t it?

Sure . . .

COMICS REVIEW: BIG QUESTIONS (2011)

by Anders Nilsen

Published by Drawn and Quarterly in August of 2011.

. . .

“You and I fulfilled our roles in the drama. Whether I was right about the egg is not important. The greatness of these events will be born out. We can’t expect our small minds to always get the details right in advance. You must have faith that it’s all profoundly for the good.”

. . .

Review by William D. Tucker.

Why must the finches and crows fight? 

Why do humans insist that animals talk in human languages in their stories?

Is it dumb to seek higher spiritual purpose when all you need is material cause-and-effect?

Can you ever trust a talking snake?

Why is the owl so mean?

Are the finches secretly stupid despite all their heady philosophical/religious investigations?

Are the crows using humor to obscure the fact that they’re just callous assholes?

Are donuts really so evil, or are we dealing with strident anti-donut propaganda?

Is it possible for humans not to fuck everything up?

Big Questions is a graphic novel that asks . . . eh, heh . . . that makes some fairly large inquiries about the problems of existence. The answers are a mixture of the amusingly surprising and the punitively obvious. The punitively obvious is that humans are seemingly destined to fuck themselves and the planet to death with their macho insecurities and technological boondoggles. The surprises have to do with the array of chatty animal characters who end up unintentionally replicating much of humanity’s philosophical heritage in an off the cuff manner as they respond to various intrusions, mysteries, and disasters. 

There’s a large grassy wilderness area. A bomb gets accidentally dropped on it. But it doesn’t go off right away. Talking finches identify it as a huge egg and regard it with wonder. Wonder engenders intense philosophical/religious speculation among the finches. These speculations continue even after the bomb explodes. Later, a human jet pilot crashes his jet. The pilot survives, but he is tormented by nightmares of swans. The pilot wanders in a daze, perhaps suffering brain trauma from the crash, trapped between sober consciousness and hallucinatory whimsies. 

There’s a seemingly mentally disabled man who lives with his grandmother in a small house out in this wilderness. I say seemingly because by the end of the story he actually seems more able to survive in a world of disasters brought about by dangerous military technologies than the allegedly mentally able pilot and the pricey state funded system that permits his Top Gun existence . . . but that’s one of those “large inquiries,” isn’t it? 

Big Questions is more of an experience than a thesis statement. The five hundred eighty something pages of black and white art takes you on a cinematic ride through philosophical dialogues, underworld explorations, gruesome violence, and no easy answers. The finches aren’t really able to fully understand humans. Humans aren’t even trying to understand anything except how to dodge responsibility for their latest techno-cataclysm. And there’s no God to pray to for an easy exit strategy, but pray if it makes you feel good, I guess. Finches and humans and crows and snakes and owls and worms and dogs and grandmothers and grandsons and fighter pilots and strange accumulations of black dots that Voltronically form into pants and intermittent mandalas must figure it all out for themselves. Only those of us that actually exist are permitted to take a crack at the Really Huge Interrogatives. It’s an honor, I guess, but also . . . kind of a huge pain in the ass.

YOUR DRAWING PROMPT #42:

The map to your new boss.

THE NEW SIGNAGE #2:

GRADUATE FUTURE-FREE.

LOADING SCREEN WISDOM #32:

MYSTERIOUS MESSAGES MAY APPEAR ON SCREEN AT ANY TIME.