Monthly Archives: August 2017

08/19/2017 · 4:53 pm

Million Dollar Extreme

I love great sketch comedy, and as demonstrated on this site, I have tremendous nostalgia for the video industry of the 1980’s and ’90s. By nature I am protective of those things, out of love. I have little tolerance of exploitation of them.

I believe the modern peak of sketch comedy came with two shows; Mr. Show with Bob & David, and The Kids In The Hall (both on HBO). Since the 1990s, these programs set the gold standard. Inevitably, new sketch comedy shows are compared to them, and they seldom hold up. I don’t think The State gelled until they became Reno 911. Broken Lizard has fantastic moments; generally one or two per film. Too many comedy groups nowadays are post-UCB; all manic energy, no focus. That’s fine if the group is performing live for an drunken bar audience. TV is a different matter.

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08/18/2017 · 11:54 am

How To Be Garbage

[Author’s Note: This article is about how to be actual garbage, as in waste and refuse, not how to be the band “Garbage”.]

Here’s a hypothetical and hard-to-believe scenario. You’re talking to someone about how much you like my comics. Just go with it, alright? The person you’re talking to suddenly pipes up with, “Oh yeah, I know that guy. Have for years. He’s a real piece of shit. Let me tell you all about that pussy.”

Congratulations! You’ve had an encounter with garbage.

This could be you!

It’s not difficult. Garbage is everywhere. It stinks, and we all have to deal with it sooner or later.

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08/17/2017 · 1:46 pm

Mad Doctors of the Late 20th Century

Mad medicine was everywhere in the 80s and 90s. There were toys and playsets endorsed by mad doctors, for use by kids. Every time you watched cartoons, you saw a skinny dude with crazy hair in a white lab coat, maniacally mixing chemicals and potions for some nefarious purpose. Under the influence of this, I created my own mad medicine man; Dr. Kill-Everybody.

Dr. K (no hair), with Fronkin Steen and Psuto Moto.

Either the trope became shopworn around 2001, or something happened that discouraged children from playing with chemicals. You don’t see mad doctors and scientists like you used to. Maybe this is a good thing; maybe the concept was subconsciously driving impressionable kids away from lucrative STEM-field careers. I don’t know.

What I do know is this. Mad doctors once flourished in our society, even though they were annoying, and generally sucked.

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Filed under Animation Analysis, Bad Influences, Comix Classic & Current, Faint Signals, Idiot's Delight, Nostalgic Obsessions, Robot Toy Fetish, Saturday Movie Matinee, Worst Of All

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08/15/2017 · 11:51 am

Barnstorming

In the early 1980s, video games were simple in concept, much like the “game apps” on phones nowadays. At heart, they were demonstrations of your skills with a joystick, paddle, or “track-ball” controller, performing one or more challenges. Eating all the dots, or climbing a scaffold to defeat a giant ape, to cite a couple of well-known examples. Navigating a maze while being pursued by killer robots. Killing a centipede, segment by segment. Swinging on vines over bottomless pits.

Or, flying planes into buildings. For fun!

Signed by programmer Steve Cartwright!

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08/10/2017 · 1:11 pm

You Can Pick Your Nose, But You Can’t Pick Your Fans

A stalker once told me, as though it validated his abhorrent behavior, “You can pick your nose, and you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your friends’ friends.” Admittedly, that’s partly true.

I mean, you’re welcome to pick your nose, if you’d like to be ostracized from society and make everyone sick at the same time. You can pick your friends, provided they’re in the same socio-economic class as you are, and they don’t consort with a better version of your identity. And you can’t pick your friends’ friends, who, for all you know, could be royalty, or morally repugnant wasted orgasms.

If you create art and/or entertainment, you don’t get to pick and choose who likes it.

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08/08/2017 · 12:47 pm

Dire Straits

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08/01/2017 · 11:24 am

Dead Kennedys

Real political subversion will be hidden from you by the media. When do you see a current celebrity interacting with rioters, or a mob of angry protesters? Never? There you go.

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