EDIT: And Kerrick J. Too! What we’re learning today is “DON’T WRITE BLOG POSTS AND PROOFREAD COMICS TOO LATE AT NIGHT MIKE.”

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Oh man! The story arc train is still chugging along! I hope you enjoyed part five, and if you missed part one, you can find it right here!

I’ve found hyperbolic simile, such as “reality TV reminds me of cancer combined with hepatitis,”  to be a useful rhetorical tool now and again. Here are some phrases that have served me well in the past:

• “This sandwich tastes like burnt rubber, scabs and my own personal failings as a lover.” (Use this one for a sandwich you DON’T like, that’s the key here.)
• “Every time you talk, it’s like a rape-crazed golem made of pure stupidity has jammed its rocky arm down my throat, yanked out most of my organs, thrown them as far as it can, then stuffed me back up with your moronic, moronic ideas, which if I’m not being clear, will eventually cause me to die.” (A good one to save for talking to your parents or when you have to get out of a speeding ticket.)
• “I want this present you’re giving me about as much as I want a horse, maybe born from hell, maybe not, to kick me down a flight of stairs into a writhing pile of snakes, which as they bite me they also taunt me over a variety of things, most notably how much time I’ve wasted maintaining a relationship with you.” (Best saved for Valentine’s Day, but sometime around your wedding could also work.)

Steal ‘em if you like ‘em!

<3 Mike

SONG FOR WEDS:

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Hooray! It’s the another comic in the short story arc we’re running! If you missed it, you can find the first comic right here!

When I was younger, I used to have fairly abstract nightmares. It was always stuff like running from Frankensteins, being trapped on an upside-down flooding cruise ship, or being able to jump incredibly far and high, but not quite able to fly. Granted, “not being able to fly” is not an especially complex metaphor, but if you compare it to the current nightmares I have, it’s like The Crucible of dream allegories.

Now my nightmares are mostly recitals of some banal aggravation of my life, like worrying about money or arguing with a coworker about SEO*.  I never used to think that a person’s day-to-day life could be such a direct influence on his/her dreamscape, my personal youthful experiences with Frankenstein terrors a strong indicator of a source beyond the day’s trifles. Now that I’m old and boring though, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the lack of hours I’m depositing into my sleep-bank, but more and more, I find I’m waking up and wondering why the hell I just had a nightmare about having to iron my shirts before I head out of town on business.

<3 Mike

FAVORITE ALLEGORIES FOR SUNDAY:

-Trailer for The Crucible movie from ‘96. Can’t believe I can’t find a trailer on YouTube, but if you click the link, it’s totally the voice of the guy who did the intro for Voltron, which is pretty asynchronous and awesome.

-Plato’s Cave! Can’t beat it!

- This one here is a personal favorite:

It really speaks to me, and my love of asses. Also, this is probably a good time to point out that I don’t really know what an allegory is.

*If you’re too young or lucky enough to have a job that doesn’t require you to know this stuff, SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” This can mean a couple things depending on the context, but for writers, it means constructing your prose on the Web so Google and other search engines will rank it as highly as possible. It’s one of those things people argue about in offices all the time because no one understands how it works, but everyone  has to pretend they do. Also, some writers don’t like doing it since it can make your writing seem mathematical and dull at times, because it  involves gaming search algorithms with your word choices.

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This is the third part of a story arc we’re currently running! The first part about Avery not really being into TV is just a few clicks of the “previous” button back.

I’m not entirely trying to hate on True blood, it’s an okay show. It’s got fighting and superpowers in it, which I like, and also some vampires and werewolves, which as we know from previous discussions, I’m also cool with. I’ll be honest though, my need for blood-drenched sex scenes that sometimes involve rape, murder or just some mundane face-punching is pretty minimal. It’s not that I find the violent sex that offensive or creepy, though I suppose it would be fair for anyone to interpret the scenes that way. It’s more that for me, they come off so corny and dissonant it totally ruins my immersion in the story.

Are the writers trying to make a statement about the sometimes-connection between violence and sex? Probably. Do I find that point to be totally boring and sophomoric? Absolutely. Is there some kind of basic threshold of bloody sex that is destined to inhabit a vampire story? Yeah definitely. Does it always have to come off as a first-year creative writing student’s overshot attempt at writing something emotionally shocking and profound? Please, please no.

Dear True Blood writers,

Please stop wasting my time with indulgent social commentary, especially if you’re only going to address it tangentially and then move on to other annoying plot threads like “Don’t forgot, boring Tara still has issues with her annoying mother!” Instead, I would appreciate it if you would address more pressing questions like how Bill, a being with incredible super powers and a hundred-plus years of wisdom, manages to get kidnapped at least once a season, sometimes by what appear to be bumbling hillbillies.

Thanks and <3,

Mike

SONGS FOR WEDS:

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Well hey everybody! We’re trying something a little new at Lead Paint: Running a storyline for a couple of weeks. Hopefully it’s not too terrible, but don’t worry, if I feel it start to sag towards the end, I’ll just jam bunch of curse words and flamethrowers in at the end. If you missed the beginning of this storyline, you can see it right here.

So if you’re unfamiliar, the thing about Godot is that it’s a french name, so you’re supposed to say it like the French do, which is Go-Dough. It’s like how people say “Tor-tee-ah” instead of “Tor-till-ah” chip, unless you’re like me and opt for the authentic Mexican pronunciation, which is “exquisite cheese shovels.”

Anyway, the moral of the story here is, “Say your words right, otherwise a tiny girl may choke the shit out of you in a coffee shop.” Also, “Strangling people you’ve just met because they made a common pronunciation error may cause people to judge you in certain ways,” is another good one, but I think we can agree it has less danger about it than the former.

<3 Mike

SONG-ISH THING FOR SUNDAY:

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This realization happened to me not that long ago, and I had pretty much the same reaction as Avery*. If not for my girlfriend, who is generally responsible for me not wandering off into the woods to live hermetically amongst the bark and cold, lovely dirt, I don’t think I would watch any TV at all. It’s not that I don’t like TV, because I do, it’s just that I’ve lost the internal impulse to ever watch it. I don’t hate it, but like playing hockey or learning to play the Tuba**, I never have the want.

I’m not trying to come off as some kind of heroic anti-culture superstar and pretend I have “better, more valuable things to do with my time,” because not only do I find that a fairly obnoxious stance, I’m really not that person. I don’t spend my days doing pull-ups and reading Anna Karenina while preparing to sail around the world before learning French and retiring to a tiny island where I only throw the best parties. I sit in my little room, eat graham crackers and peanut butter for dinner, occasionally build fictional computerized empires,  and fret over whether a sentence should begin with “Say Avery, can” or just “Hey, can you” for hours***. It’s an oddly busy life, one that has strangely robbed me of my interest in crime procedurals or how Juliet from Lost is ever going to kill those damn aliens.

<3 Mike

SONGS FOR WEDS:

Guys I really like these songs, they are like the prettiest things I’ve heard in a while. I know I’m late to the Rumbleseat party, but God damn, is there anything Chuck Ragan can’t make awesome?

*Minus the crushing grip. I have the waxen, sweaty hands of someone who spends way too much time at a keyboard/enjoys convoluted, grind-heavy roleplaying games. Not great at holding things in place, but you should see how well my thumbs press “A” as I methodically cycle through repeating menus while working for that sexy rare armor drop.

** As I write this, I realize this is kind of a lie. I actually wouldn’t mind learning a little about the tuba. Hockey though, I still think sucks.

*** The answer is probably the latter, though I don’t know if it would have been any less cumbersome. The correct choice probably would have been to recast and approach the first panel with a different scene. A lesson for next time I suppose.

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This comic is a little truer that I’d like it to be. In my defense though, I will say that I haven’t seen Eclipse yet, mostly because as an adult, it’s pretty hard to find 2.5 hours I can waste on something relatively terrible just to satisfy my curiosities towards re-imagined supernatural folklore and entertaining, high-speed violence.  I’ve found one of the worst challenges of growing up to be that it’s just impossible to blow off your responsibilities for a day and read something like Dracula vs. King Arthur or catch up on your electronic monster slaughtering. Instead, it seems like you have to steal these little moments of pleasure in-between your day-to-day tasks of trying to keep your heart from exploding due to stress/fatty blockages, finding at least five hours to sleep a night, and keep your sanity intact when stuck in a meeting for millionth time with a supervisor who actually says things like, “I think we need to focus more on best practices.”

Don’t get old kids, unless, you know, you like money or fatty blockages.

<3 Mike

SONGS FOR SUNDAY:

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Finally! A comic is based on at least 60% truth! You can listen to the song mentioned in the comic right here, with all its boys’ choir glory:

Anti-flag is a weird band. On the one hand, I find songs with lyrics like, “The neo-christian theocrats pray on a Sunday afternoon/then welcome in Pinochet’s men to intimidate and kill,” to be intolerably absurd. Not that there is anything wrong with singing about theocrats or murderous despots, the problem for me is in the phrasing and delivery. To me, lyrics like those come off as a big  mash-up of the two-minute hate, your mom nagging you about remembering to wash the pesticides off apples, and that kid in high school who was always ranting about how much he hated cops, even though he was a spoiled rich brat and the only cop he knew anyway was your D.A.R.E. officer, who incidentally spent most of his time trying to keep drunks off the road and dumbass kids just like that whiny turd from overdosing on heroin or something especially stupid, like a homemade mix of  Viagra and horse tranqs referred to as bonerludes.

So … not a fan of their lyrics for the most part. Musically though, man, they sure can write some catchy songs. In fact, with songs that don’t have horrible* lyrics, they can even crank out some downright enjoyable little tunes! Here are a couple of my favorites:

So I’m kind of torn on my feelings about Anti-Flag, not that anyone reading cares even remotely. I’m sure most of you are sitting there thinking, “Uh Mike, people stopped caring about Anti-Flag basically in 1992. We’ve all moved on to fun, better things like Jay-Z and Passion Pit. You should try not being so shitty.” I would offer two things in response:

1. Get off my lawn you damn kids
2. I hope you enjoy next weeks’ comic, which is going to be a fun, topical piece about the Pearl Jam album Binaural and how I have a lot of long, wordy opinions on it

<3 Mike

*”Horrible” is a critical word here. I don’t mean “good” or even “well-crafted,” though this may be the case in places. I mean “not horrible,” as in something that is not inflicting maximum unpleasantness on you.

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Other instances where it might be nice to be able to kick people back in time:

• Getting out of small talk. Instead of listening to a 45-minute rant about Tiger Woods or health care, enjoy handing out a nice, skull-splitting roundhouse and a scream of “WHY DON’T YOU SWIM WITH SOME PLESIOSAURS!”
• In any situation when you have to spend more than 10 minutes with family family who doesn’t read your webcomic
• When you’re facing supernatural creatures that you aren’t equipped to kill. No silver bullets? No problem! Send that annoying lycanthrope to the  Jurassic! Plus, there is the added bonus of your time-stream hijinks possibly creating werewolf dinosaurs, which we can all agree has only upsides
• To help a scientist that is curious about the distant past. Don’t forget to kick some equipment back for him too!

Have a happy 4th everyone who’s in the states!

<3 Mike

SONGS FOR SUNDAY:

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It looks like it’s one of Mr. Meatclown’s best pals, the Fried Guy! How EXCITING!

Seriously though guys, branding is no joke. Here are a bunch of other things I think could use more marketing oomph behind them:

• Funeral services: I think it’s a sad statement on our culture when a family can be stuck with a corpse and not know where they can save 60 bucks or which funeral homes might be running a two-for-one special. Let’s get the message out there people! Throw some wacky-flailing arm guys up or get some President’s Day sales going or something.
• The Homeless: Why should the property-impaired be a depressing reminder of our vulnerability towards addiction and mental illness? I say a nice promotional campaign involving T-shirts and chocolate bars imprinted with images of friendly vagrants would be a great way to make the homeless fun again. Something that says, “Hey, I may have any number of mental problems or desires to rape you right now, but if you give me three bucks I’ll tell you a fun story about why I need to take the bus for some reason!”
• Religion: Why do some people still consider this a personal decision? Talk about stupid and anachronistic! How are people supposed to know what the best choice is if you don’t tell them? Sure, there are things like “Jesus is my homeboy” shirts and Veggie-Tales DVDs, but I think we can agree these are crass consumerist gropes at best. The religions of the world really need to step up their marketing game if they want to capture all those  floating discretionary dollars out there. I’m talking way more aggressive branding, things like kid’s cereals (Popey-O’s anyone?), celebrity athlete endorsements (Hinduism: the source of Kobe Bryant’s power?) and some kind of Buddhism-centric collectible card game with cartoon and action-figure tie-ins. Then maybe people’s souls will actually have a chance of being safe.

You’re welcome world!

<3 Mike

SONGS FOR WEDS.:

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