Post: Apocalyptic

Just give it to a German. Any German. Even someone that looks German. They’ll know what to do. Maybe just set it on a Mercedes. I’m sure it will get where it’s going. OK, how about you tie it to a horse that pointed towards Germany? They can swim pretty far, right?

I feel like Germany treats mail from the US with about as much respect as McDonalds treats the cards you stick in the suggestion box. With a sort of “We really appreciate your enthusiasm and we’ll take it under consideration. [wink]” kind of attitude. Every time I send a t-shirt to Germany I let it go with the same hopefulness and trepidation as a parent dropping their kid off at college. I hope it goes interesting places, finds out where it belongs and doesn’t get molested, torn in half and thrown down a well.

The weird thing is Italy and Spain are actually worse than Germany as far as items actually reaching their destination, but almost no one ever orders from those counties. Perhaps they have just come to accept that anything they order online needs to already be on their continent in order to have a fighting chance. I suspect all international mail entering Italy is “inspected” with “machine guns” by “mob-owned police” on “Vespas,” if you catch my meaning. More than likely, all mailboxes in Spain sit atop holes that lead directly to a vast network of underground furnaces. Spain probably ran out of oil in the 70’s and has been powering their entire infrastructure with heat generated from burning US parcels.

As in all things, Australia is always the wild card. Sometimes t-shirts get there in as little as two weeks, with nary a dingo ding on the corners. Other times the customer waits about 3 months, I give them a refund, an additional 3 months go by and I get the original package back in the mail looking like it has been securely affixed to the undercarriage of a dune buggy for the last half year. Or perhaps an Australian postal worker, having found himself stranded in the Outback, and having long since eaten his wallaby partner for sustenance (due to the unforeseen lack of naturally occurring bloomin’ onions), fashioned all of the parcels he was carrying into a crude shelter and clothing. Nearly a year later, after his bleached bones are found buy an Aboriginal bone trader, his packages are returned to their point of origin. At this point I realize that my envelope was obviously used to construct the bathroom floor, or perhaps a shoe that was only used for walking in vast fields of kangaroo shit.

UK mail from the US only takes a day or two longer than it does within the states. Hell, the Postal Office probably prefers delivering there as opposed to, say… Wyoming. What’s crossing an ocean when you don’t have to be in Wyoming? Canadian Customs can be a bit tricky. They tend to hold random things for a month or so, then eventually just send them on to their destination with no indication as to why they sat motionless for so long. I don’t think it matters, however, since the average Canadian has VERY low opinions of Canada Post and reacts to months delayed packages with a cheerful, “Oh well sure it was a birthday present and sure it was 9 weeks late, but hey, it’s not so bad, eh? All that matters is that we had fun waiting, eh?”

COMMENTERS: Have you ever had an international shipment eaten by THE GREAT ATLANTIC KRAKEN? Any other postal or shipping related mishaps?

With A Little Help From My Friends

Alternate Title: Weekend At Joely’s

In reality, it was David who should have died last weekend, because Angela and I spent nearly every night coughing on him in stereo. We had grown up beds and David was on the air mattress between us just being blanketed by our expelled phlegmy horribleness. His immune system must have been fortified against attack by the constant regimen of Taco Bell and boxed macaroni he crams into his crambox. His body is so used to being force fed disgusting poison bullshit, that a few germs and viri must seem like a packet of mild sauce.

I never been as sick during a convention as I was during Emerald City Comicon last weekend. I lost my voice immediately and spent the entire weekend trying to interact with fans and fellow cartoonists alike in garbled, mangled cough-whispers and hack-spasmed Tuvan throat singing. I almost broke down during dinner one night when the frustration of noting being able to be heard or understood, constantly having to repeat myself and more often that not just NOT saying anything when I had something to say started to get to me. I hadn’t really thought about how much of my identity was hinged on my voice. Take away my ability to command a room with my voice, tell stories, make jokes, sing, etc. and there isn’t much of ME left. It was pretty depressing, but my friends certainly helped me make the best of it.

COMMENTERS: Have you (or anyone close to you) ever lost an ability and had to relearn it, or otherwise compensate for it? When I was a kid I broke my right thumb and had to learn how to eat with my left hand. Doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but it took a lot of practice and I can still use silverware ambidextrously.

Emerald City Comicon 2013 Fancy Sketches

Despite being sick with a cold and feeling like a burlap sack full of gravel and crap all weekend, Emerald City Comicon was still (as always) a fantastically fun and rewarding experience. Any other show and I might have let my illness dampen my spirits but the organizers and attendees of ECCC shine in every way that make a convention great. I cannot stress enough that THIS is the show you need to be saving up for and traveling to from out of state. It’s gotten bigger and better every year and shows no signs of stopping.

I did my very best not infect my fellow cartoonists and the attendees with my virus, but I expect that the CDC will eventually identify me as Patient Zero in what will come to be known as “The Plague of Nations.” Totes sorry, guys LOL. #yolo

COMMENTERS: Have you ever had a trip, event or highly anticipated whatever sidelined by illness? Did you stay home and rest like a sensible human or did you go, stay out until 4am every night partying like a monster then put yourself in contact with 1000’s of people every day like an even bigger monster? Who does that?

Guest Comic By William Tallman Of Reptilis Rex

I’m at Emerald City Comicon RIGHT NOW having a motherbuttshaking PARTYPARTYPARTYPARTY!!! If you are in Seattle, come to booth 1106 (the Blind Ferret Booth) and SHAKE DEM HEALTHY BUTTS! (also buy stuff from me)

In my absence you are presently being treated to a guestual type comic from William Tallman, creator of Reptilis Rex. It is uncomfortably clear from the panels above that W.T. gets my sense of humor, gets my characters’ sensibilities and draws my characters better than I do. I’m not even going to ask if you enjoyed this comic (BECAUSE YOU DID), so in your pursuit of more haha-yuckyucks by Mr. Tallman I will direct you again (THAT’S RIGHT, TWO LINKS!) to his comic about a deposed Reptoid king from our very own hollow Earth who comes up to the surface and has a pretty shitty life. The cuteness of the pictures is designed to distract you from the undeniably honest sadness of the ~~human~~ reptoid condition. It’s funny!

COMMENTERS: Have you ever explored the expanded universe (novels, comics, CCG’s, whatever) of any particular popular culture element? Did you find comfort in delving into a larger universe which concerned a thing you already loved, or were you saddened when you found out Han Solo used to be partners with a space rabbit?

Seat Fillers

Forgive me, dear Fancy Twitter Bastards, if you have already read 2/3 of these jokes. I decided to borrow from my time-shifted Oscar’s live tweets from Monday night to fill in the gaps above (hence the secret double meaning pun title in which I reveal that I am a monster). I started watching the Academy Awards about 90 minutes into the broadcast. I figured that would give me enough time to skip all the boring parts and just barely catch up with the end. I tweeted as I watched, which must have been jarring for anyone following both me and everyone tweeting the show in real time. Afterwards, I went back and read the previous 3 hours of my twitter feed and realized something odd. The jokes in my feed, provided for free by professional funny-makers and my friends (many of whom themselves are pros at funny-making) was 1000% more entertaining than the awards themselves. But… those highly entertaining tweets (containing no less than 5 L actual OL moments) would not have been possible if not for the incredibly boring Oscar telecast. And they wouldn’t have been as funny had the Oscars not been so dry, flat and humorless. So does that leave me actually grateful for a miserably unfunny Oscars? I certainly don’t regret the jokes that I made which led to this comic, and the ones I read on my phone last night. I know this is a common occurrence in the age of constant connection and commentary but I started to wonder if there would be a tipping point where people gather around the water cooler to discuss NOT the Oscars or whatever communal viewing experience happened the night before, but rather the tweets that experience inspired.

Emerald City Comicon is THIS WEEKEND in Seattle. It is my favorite show of the year and I will be at the Blind Ferret Booth all weekend (#1106-1108).

I saw someone post something along the lines of “Why do you watch the Oscars? Why not just read a list of winners at the end?” I thought about it and came to the conclusion that awards shows, season finales, elections and other MUST SEE televised events provide us (the country, if not the entire world) with the rare chance to all be focused on the same thing at the same time. It’s so much easier to land a solid joke when you are experiencing something right along with your audience. You can get away with “This guy is all like…” instead of “Right now I’m watching Top Chef and this guy is all like…”. It lends an additional element of familiarity and brevity, a shorthand, to the experience. For pro-time funny-doers, I think it also allows them (us?) to experience something akin to laughter at a live show. The audience is right there with you, watching the awards and their RT’s and Fav’s and such can take the place of the instant approval a comedian seeks from a live audience.

I think about this stuff a lot.

COMMENTERS: Have you ever enjoyed someone making fun of a thing more than the actual thing? I think the Red Letter Media reviews of the Star Wars prequels certainly qualify here. To expand on that thought, have you ever enjoyed a commentary, remix, tell all book, cover band or making of documentary more than the subject on which it focused?