Comic Facts: This one’s not so much a redraw of an old comic as it is an old punchline which I have repurposed in a completely new context. Oh and also, since I drew a ballot paper for this comic, I also went back and replaced the blurry sample ballot in #35 – which is what I should have done in the first place, of course.

If you’re wondering: personally, I’m not as cynical as my fictional counterpart (not since I first heard Obama’s melodious baritone, anyway), but I am sympathetic to his views – as are about 5.6% of voting-age Australians, it seems. Politics is one of those subjects where I try to keep in touch with it because I think it’s something you can’t really afford to remain ignorant about, but it is kind of a loathsome thing to spend a lot of time on. Yes, I know, it’s better than all the alternatives… but still.

Anyway, annoucement time. I’m starting TWO NEW WEBCOMICS! One is going to be a super-serious, science-celebrating comic, and the other will be a sort of mish-mash of all different things which don’t fit in anywhere else (including two comics I started drawing as easter eggs for today’s comic, but which were taking a bit longer than I expected, so I decided to set them aside so I could post this comic while the jokes at Bob Katter’s expense were still relevant). And importantly, neither of these new webcomics will be storyline-based, so they will be much easier to keep up with, and more accessible to new readers.

So, how will I be able to draw two more comics when the one I already have updates at a terminally slow rate? Well, good question. But I see these other two projects as a place where I can experiment with different drawing styles which will be much faster and looser (much like the second easter egg here today, which I drew quite quickly), so hopefully, the end result will simply be more comics for you! Hooray!

As usual, you can follow my twitter for updates, or you can just check back here in a couple of weeks or so. I don’t plan to make these new websites particularly elaborate or anything, but it will probably still take me a while to put them together. Luckily I already have a backlog of comics waiting to go up on them, though, so you’ll have plenty of stuff to look through once it’s done.

Of course, the really heartbreaking thing is when people are convinced to run over their own dog.

Comic Facts: this is a complete redraw of an old comic (is it just me, or did Swallowtail’s boobs used to be a lot bigger…?), and the comic title and alt-text are from “Silver Tongue” by Sonata Arctica (see what I did there, etc).

Anyway, the election is fast approaching, peeps! Now that Mark Latham has made it uncool to waste your vote, I guess it’s time for me to lose the immaturity and vote for the Greens?? If you are considering a similar move, remember that if – like many right-thinking Australians – you are concerned that Abbott will get elected, dissolve the parliament, declare himself to be some sort of medieval king, and force all women in the country into compulsory breeding camps run by the reanimated corpse of John Howard (yeah, he’s not technically dead yet, but the process was still necessary), you can still vote for the Greens AND help avoid this nightmare scenario by labelling your preferences in favour of the ALP. I know, I know, it seems too good to be true, but that’s the magic of Democracy: the perfect political system, producing flawless leader after flawless leader, in an unbroken chain stretching all the way back to Jonathan Democratus himself.

Dog competition can be fierce, you guys. And… yeah… two comics in a row named after Lily Allen songs? I didn’t realise I was such a fan.

Anyway, sorry about the gap between updates – in case you missed it, I drew a bunch of extra comics and posted them on my liverjournal. And I also went on a short holiday. And yet somehow, the main problem was still laziness.

In completely unrelated news (cough), I played through Mario Galaxy 2 recently. Needless to say: totally awesome. It is probably the closest Nintendo have come to recapturing the spirit of the old 2D games in the 3D format. And judging by the return to the map screen overworld format, that’s presumably what they were intending, too.

Oh man I’ve been wanting to draw this comic for SO LONG, it’s good to finally get it out there. And yeah, I know it’s a little melodramatic to be talking about oppression up in here in the decadent West – but just because we’re doing better than most people doesn’t mean things are perfect, or that we shouldn’t seek further improvement. And fortunately, we exist with enough freedom that merely acknowledging the true sources of power we co-exist with is often all it takes to free yourself from many of their harmful effects, so you can start taking positive steps towards diminishing that power altogether. If you try to deny their existence, however, then you will not be doing anything to counteract their influence, and you leave yourself at their mercy.

If you want real, non-selfish empowerment, the only thing you need to seek is knowledge.

PS. I finally got around to reading through the Dresden Codak archives recently – maybe you will pick up a few subtle influences in the layout of this comic, compared to my previous work?? (Not to mention, the huge amount of time since my last update…) I defy you to visit that site without immediately feeling inspired to go and create something. In the not-too-distant future, when things like “creativity” and “talent” are just seen as some sort of bio-software freely available for purchase, I know whose intergalactic web store I will be visiting in order to download some mind juice to inject into my robotic nano-synthesized transhuman… bodyframe… technobabble… etc.

Hey, would you say that Interlude #12 counts in terms of passing the Bechdel test? Or what about #19, in which part of the discussion was about men but they also talked about other things? At any rate, it is well and truly passed now, after a mere 41 comics. PHEW. Now I can FINALLY get back to making comics about dudes, am I right? *high five* *bro chest bump* *scrotum tickle*

Oh, and speaking of which: the next comic is going to be freaking huge and will take a couple of weeks at least to draw. So boil up a pot of tea and hire a few movies or just do whatever you can to survive this terrible drought, and hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Or better yet, why not head over to Subnormality, if you haven’t already? The latest comic is truly awesome.

Okay, that’s the end of this little run of reposted olde comicks. Time to work on some new material (which also means back to irregular updates – sorry!). Naturally, I spent way too much time obssessively redrawing these comics anyway, so I didn’t get as much work done on the side projects that I had in mind – but I did write out a plot summary for a short graphic novel, which I think would be good practice for some future, larger scale projects. The only thing is that I may need to put Comical Interlude on hold while I draw it? It still needs more development though, so comics will continue here as normal for a while yet.

I’m also planning a couple of new sections to add to this here website. Exciting! (Well, maybe not, since you don’t know what I’m talking about. But just take my word for it okay? Sheesh.)

Why are we wasting our time on petty human conflicts when we should be banding together to defeat the dolphin menace?

WHY?!

Oh, right, that’s why. Come on, religion, catch up with the rest of us.

This is a remake of one of my earliest CI 1.0 comics, from back when I mostly saw comic-making as a distraction from my main interest (writing) rather than something worth pursuing in and of itself. In the original continuity it actually followed on from the first prison break comic (ie. there wasn’t actually any continuity).

I like comparing the old version to this new one because it makes me feel like I’m not a terrible artist anymore. I guess this is how modern Christians feel when they compare themselves to the crusadey torturey witch-burny medieval types that came before them. Remember kids, set the bar low enough and you, too, can pretend you’re awesome!

Fiskarens Fiende = Fisherman’s Enemy. So I’m pretty sure it’s about dolphins.

(2007 election comics part four of four)

So… for added amusement, compare the Howard caricature in this comic (which I didn’t even bother trying to change when fixing up the comic for reposting) with the one seen back in Interlude #8. And keep in mind, this is the literal extent of my abilities. I was actually trying. Jesus Christ.

Anyway, I posted another comic on my LJ the other day, about the kind of circular logic it takes to be an artist. (Ha, circular logic! You know, because the comic… it’s round… and… uh, yeah. Okay.)