No Child Left Alive

I made you this super cute Adventure Time/Doctor Who shirt. GO BUY IT!

“Now, I know you’re a little apprehensive about sending your child to Hogwarts, but let me assure that our mortality rate is well within the guidelines for other reputable wizarding schools in Europe and Asia. Mortality rate… yes. The likelihood that your child will die or otherwise be rendered irreparably cursed, hexed or transfigured while in our care. What IS that rate? Like I said, it’s well within the standard… well, it’s… it’s around 30% NOW I know that seems high, but I promise you it is well within… yes, of course. No, I understand. It’s just with every single one of us, teacher and student, adult and child, carrying the power to kill with but a flick of the wrist and a a couple of odd words one has to expect a certain level of… no, I wouldn’t use that word. Well, because MURDER is a very particular word and I believe what happens here is more akin to… well OF COURSE you would bring HIM up. Yes, he was VERY murdered. Yes, horrifically so. Yes, all of the other students saw it. Well, because it happened right here in the great hall during lunch. I don’t know, I suppose he wanted to make an example of the little… yes, I’ve heard that about American wizarding schools as well. Honestly I don’t see how they could be teaching proper magic if THAT many children survive each year.”

I taught cartooning to my daughter’s 1st grade class this week and I made a cover of one of my favorite Pixies songs as a thank you to my Patreon Patrons. Check those things out, why not?

A Founding Member

This is probably a great time for me to go into excruciating detail about my “Iron Man is a modern Christ figure” thesis. Ok, first off: repulsor beams = stigmata, the sacred heart = chest arc reactor, J.A.R.V.I.S. = probably the voice of god or something, flight boots = ascension to Heaven… uhhh… Pepper is Mary Magdalene… NO! Black Widow is! Yeah! Happy is Peter, A.I.M. are the Romans, M.O.D.O.K. is Pontius Pilate, it’s all really very simple.

HijiNKS ENSUE just turned 7 years old and to celebrate I’m having a Fancy Bastard Fancy Fan Art contest! “But, Joel! I don’t know how to art!” you say? TOO BAD! YOU ARE NOT EXEMPT! Write a poem! Write a song! Bake a cake! Knit a scarf! The more creative the better! RULES, PRIZES AND DETAILS HERE.

How To Find Your Star Wars Name

Please to enjoy this giant-ass Star Wars rant disguised as a comic or a chart or whatever.
COMMENTERS: Please share your least favorite silly or overtly evil character names from fiction in the comments.

I’ve been operating at a bit of a comic deficit since I went to Calgary, and have been backdating comics in the archive to fill in the gaps for the my promised “3 comics per week,” but since this one is at least 3 times the size of a normal comic and took me the better part of 2 days to create, I’m going to date this one May 4th, (as in “May the Fourth have nothing to do with Midichlorians from now until time eternal.”) and call it even. Then I can focus on making some new HE comics for this week.

Why not go check out all the sweet prints and posters I have in my store? They’re signed and everything.

I’m glad most of you seem to be enjoying the FANEURYSM comics. I don’t want to go back to full blast pop-culture comics all the time, but it was nice to blow off a little sci-fi steam. I’ll figure out where FANEURYSM fits into the update schedule in the coming weeks. Maybe between HE updates, or on the weekends. Or perhaps if we hit the next Patreon Milestone, I’ll make a FANEURYSM comic the 4th comic of the week.

Cosmic Sans

I wrote at least three different comics about “Darmok.” I am definitely making at least one of them, but I haven’t decided if I’m going to save it for later or just do it now. I also haven’t decided if I’m just going to give up HijiNKS ENSUE and FANEURYSM and just make Darmok comics every day until I’m dead. Decisions are tough. It feels like that one time… with Temba… and the arms or whatever. Metaphors are also tough.

As much as I love “Darmok,” I do take issue with it. Actually, I take a metric assload of issue with it. Let’s assume that at some point the Tamarians didn’t talk like stupid idiots. They HAD to have regular language at some point in order to pass down the stories that allow their metaphors to be relatable. So perhaps they gave up on coherent speech as a people at some point and the Head Tamarian In Charge said, “Guys, here me out. We all know about Darmok, and Temba, and Shaka and what they were all about and what not. How’s about when I finish THIS SENTENCE, we only speak in reference to our shared cultural stories from here on out starrrrrtiiiiiinnnnnng…. NOW?”

I’m sure it worked out great for maybe a day or two, and everyone felt super cool about their complicated new way of not really communicating very well, and how funny it was that they were super frustrating to every other species in the Galaxy, but then… THEN someone needed to find a way to say, “Hey, I think I dropped the remote behind the couch when I was vacuuming. Can you reach back there and check? I would, but you know how my back is.” Then it was just kill or be killed. I wouldn’t be surprised if Captain Dathon and his crew were the last six surviving Tamarians. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were only six of them left and they had JUST started talking this way maybe 6 weeks ago.

Of course it makes a hell of a lot more sense if you consider that maybe they only speak that way in adulthood, or in formal settings, or if they belong to a particular religion are political affiliation, or if they are high born or when they want to infuriate an uncharacteristically dense in this particular episode Starfleet Captain until they are eaten by an invisible monster in order to prove a point.

If you missed the first FANEURYSM comic, it is HERE. If you missed what FANEURYSM is all about, read this excerpt from the previous blog post:

HERE COMES FANEURYSM!
I’ve decided to start making a new, supplemental comic, in the vein of the old LoFi-Jinks comics, which will serve as the comic that “comic Joel” actually makes in the HEniverse. […] I’m starting off with a few comics about Star Trek: TNG to serve as the basis for the conversation in THIS HE comic.

Check out the new comic navigation beneath the comics!

You can now more easily navigate between the different kinds of comics (HE, Faneurysm, HE Classic, LoFi, Guest Comics, Photo Comics and Con Sketches) with the “Prev. Cat” and “Next Cat.” buttons. You can also click the archive button to be taken to a list of categories with descriptions for each.

How Many Lights Do You See?

“Chain Of Command Pt. 2” is such a wonderful hour of television. Patrick Stewart just DESTROYS your preconceived notions about cheesy acting in Star Trek or in science fiction in general. He Shakespeares THE SHIT out of that final torture scene. Picard is a man physically and mentally broken, but his will triumphs in the face of unbearable pain and almost total, partial nudity. Cardassians, man. Fucking Cardassians.

If you missed the first FANEURYSM comic, it is HERE. If you missed what FANEURYSM is all about, read this excerpt from the previous blog post:

HERE COMES FANEURYSM!
I’ve decided to start making a new, supplemental comic, in the vein of the old LoFi-Jinks comics, which will serve as the comic that “comic Joel” actually makes in the HEniverse. […] I’m starting off with a few comics about Star Trek: TNG to serve as the basis for the conversation in THIS HE comic.

Check out the new comic navigation beneath the comics!

PATREON Patrons got to see this comic as soon as it was done, and before it went live on the website. Neat!