Planned Obsolescence

Austin, TX Fancy Bastards: We are just over a month away from the 6th annual Dragon’s Lair Webcomics Rampage! Get details HERE.

Here are some things I have done that have caused me crippling, immobilizing back pain: putting on a shirt, taking off a shirt, standing up, sitting up in bed, drying off after a shower, washing my back, bending over, picking up a ladder, picking up a larger ladder, placing my hands on the lip of a desk and thinking about moving it, but not actually moving it. The list goes on! In the last few years, I have taken major steps towards living mostly back pain free. I never pick up anything over 30 lbs or larger than a cat. I use my arms to lift myself out of a chair or off a couch. I use a footstool at my desk. I use a higher, more comfortable chair when I draw. I put a yoga block under my elbow when I draw to keep it from drooping, and I recently got a Sleep Number bed. My sleep number is: ∞.

I say all this not to impress you with my glamorous lifestyle, but to illustrate how my particular vessel of guts is on the back half of its particular period of usefulness. Two days ago I woke up from bed (my first mistake), and went to pop my neck like I do every morning. Instead of popping, my neck bones and neck meats screamed in unison and I spent the next 48 hours unable to look this way (It doesn’t matter that you can’t see which way I’m looking. Whatever way you are imagining, I could not look THAT way). Jealous? I know that sounds pretty baller, right? Deal with it.

Regarding the dating of the recent comics: I was, until today, backdating comics published in October to September so I could fill in the gaps that I missed while away at conventions. The simple act of doing this actually caused me more delays and issues and I’ve given up on filling in those gaps for now. I’m taking the mulligan and moving on with updating in the present day. I have a neat idea for a story line involving Josh that could have run parallel to the previous “Roomba” story line. If I get it worked out, I may publish it backdated to fill in the October comic slots.

Momentum

I might have already written about this story here, but a little over a decade ago I saw a dude refuse to leave a customer service line at Walmart the day after Christmas until they agreed to refund him for a dozen or so bottles of perfume that were NOT purchased at Walmart. It was just his refusal to cooperate, listen to reason or back down in any way that eventually broke them. He went through two or three cashiers, a manager and eventually the store manager. The store manager asked him what the perfume was worth, typed a special code into the register that denoted “giving some fucking asshole $100 so he will go away” to the higher ups and was able to satisfy the “customer.”

When my Patreon reaches $2000/month I’m going to release a new podcast where upon I interview my 7 years old daughter as she reads through the Harry Potter series. It’s called Potter And Daughter! More details HERE.

I learned a few important lessons that day. The first was that Walmart does have the power to return ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING. It was shortly after this that they instituted the “show us your driver’s license if you don’t have a receipt” policy, but that just means that you can only pull shenanigans a few times a year before they get suspicious. I also learned the power of stubbornness. I didn’t think it was a virtue, but it was definitely power. I mean, the guy was clearly a lying fuckhole trying to defraud the store. That much was abundantly clear. He knew what he was doing, THEY knew what he was doing and he KNEW that they knew what he was doing. Still, he stood there INSISTING that the world conform to his will. He demanded that reality reshape itself to match his desire just by standing there and repeating the same lie over and over and over. Again, I did not think this was a good thing to do, and I did not plan to incorporate this tactic into my own dealings in the future, but it was certainly educational to see how it played out and to extrapolate how this might and DOES play out all over the world every single day.

The other thing I learned is that I probably shouldn’t be too nervous about trying to return the Playstation that I ruined while attempting to solder on a mod-chip that would let me play burned games. Compared to the other guy, I might as well have been there to deliver back rubs and blowjobs for all the employees. Subsequently, I did NOT try to modify the brand new Playstation that they gave me. I learned my lesson.

I’ve Got A Secret That I’ve Been Hiding Under My Skin

Wha-wha-WHAAAAT?! Bro! Bro! You pullin’ the ol’ robot switcheroo on me, bro?! Bro! I thought we were Bros, Bro! I know you’re not presentin’ me with a false android, Bro! Is that what your tellin’ me, Bro?! ‘Cause if it is, you’re blowin’ my mind, BRO!*

*I assume this is how douchey, shithead bro-dudes will start fights with each other in the future.

When my Patreon reaches $2000/month I’m going to release a new podcast where upon I interview my 7 years old daughter as she reads through the Harry Potter series. It’s called Potter And Daughter! More details HERE.

Better The Dirt Devil You Know

COMMENTERS: You already know Eli’s. What is YOUR “mating call.” Alternately, what is the “song of your people.”

When my Patreon reaches $2000/month I’m going to release a new podcast where upon I interview my 7 years old daughter as she reads through the Harry Potter series. It’s called Potter And Daughter and it’s awesomefreakinadorableashell! More details HERE.

Calling all Whovians with holes in their ears! Just look at these Dalek earrings my wife made! They’re in her Etsy store and ready to EXTERMINATE your… lack of perfect ear jewelry?

Gross Up Close

My friend Kris, got me a present. Two presents actually. The first was a USB microscope. He had seen how much I enjoyed playing with his: (putting it on my keyboard to see all the weird gunk and hairs and garbage that sits undetected between the keys and the cavities beneath them, seeing how nothing in this world is actually smooth, checking out the seemingly impossible intricate weave patterns in ordinary clothing), so he got me one of my own. The second gift he gave me was knowledge or, rather, the burden of knowing. Knowing too much about what I am; what WE are. What horrible things; what pulsating, undulating barrels of wretched, oily hideousness our bodies are. I’ve seen too much. Like the man who stood on the edge of the void and saw only the blackness within him staring back, I know too much.

When my Patreon reaches $2000/month I’m going to release a new podcast where upon I interview my 7 years old daughter as she reads through the Harry Potter series. It’s called Potter And Daughter and it’s awesomefreakinadorableashell! More details HERE.

The first thing you do when someone hands you a super powerful, digital microscope hooked up to a laptop is put it on your arm. You think, “Wow! My skin is so textured and my hairs are HUGE and… what… what’s that?” You see a weeping pool of bright red blood, surrounded by a layer cake of craggy, almost transparent chips of skin. You quickly remove the microscope to see how much longer you have to live, only to discover that this wellspring of erupting platelets and plasma is just a tiny red dot. Not even an injury. Just a dot. You put the microscope back and once again are greeted with the intricate carnage of what it is to be man. All day, every day we are just a collection of gaping sores, spilling out our vital fluids all over the place.

From our vantage point, four to six feet in the air, so far removed from all things tiny and precise, we don’t often see just how FUCKING RIDICULOUSLY GROSS we all are. But that was just a little blood and torn skin. What about my face? What’s going on in the pits and crevices of the visage that I present to the world? On the thing that is, more than anything else, me? Turns out it’s a GODDAMN HORROR SHOW. The reason I didn’t draw what Joel is seeing on the screen in the panels above is that I want you to be able to sleep tonight, or any night in the future between here and eternity. The best lesson I learned from “The Knowledge” is that nothing we do matter. We are too big and dumb and slow to actually effect anything on this planet and we are too tiny and frail and insignificant to effect anything off of it. I came upon this ultimate clarity when I saw my face under the microscope, saw the macabre nightmare that was me, washed it as best as I could then came back and saw how futile my efforts were. I might as well have used a garden hose to put out a wildfire. I’m gross, you’re gross, we’re all gross and then we die and the Universe doesn’t even notice.

Calling all Whovians with holes in their ears! Just look at these Dalek earrings my wife made! They’re in her Etsy store and ready to EXTERMINATE your… lack of perfect ear jewelry?