June 2005 – Brian McFadden

Hughie Who Helps a Phelps

As promised, I’m posting this week’s cartoon a day early to make up for having nothing new last week. It wasn’t intentional, but it seems appropriate that this cartoon was posted on the last day of Gay Pride month.

I’ll preface this commentary with the standard disclaimer for morons who accidentally stumble across this comic with all its “words” and “satire.” Phelps is a bigoted asshole. The homophobic, racist, and anti-semitic things he says in this comic are meant to make fun of him. I in no way intended to perpetuate the long-standing stereotypes that Mexicans steal pants and Jews control the weather. I hope you imaginary morons are happy, making me write all that.

This comic didn’t work out entirely as I had planned. I originally intended it to be a direct parody of “Green Eggs and Ham,” with Hughie asking Phelps if he hates a series of things more than gays. They were universally loathed items like rainy days and ugly babies. It ended up being way too involved and took something like 12 panels to get to the point. That’s just way too long, even for Big Fat Whale, one of the most long-winded comic strips in the universe. In the process of editing it down to 8 panels, it morphed into this, mostly because of the rhyming couplets. I haven’t decided if that’s a good or bad thing.

I obviously didn’t try too hard to make the rhyming perfect. Poetry is garbage. It is just prose with parts missing. The one exception is for lyrics. Guitars and a beat can improve even a 14-year-old girl’s quatrain about unicorns.

The other problem I had with this comic was drawing in the style of Dr. Seuss books. I tried faithfully recreating the iconic look of those beloved books for the first panel, but after two hours I said to myself, “Brian, fuck this shit. Draw it free hand. No one reads your comic for that squiggly garbage you call ‘drawing.’ That way we’ll have time to watch Keith Foulke take a big dump on the Red Sox recent winning binge.” And I could not argue with that, because I love myself and everything I say more than anything in the world.

I’ll close with a gentle reminder to everyone within the confines of I-495 that they should attend tonight’s or tomorrow’s Comedy Bronze show. I wrote a sketch and will stink up the joint as words dribble out of my mouth-hole. Click the ad in the upper right for tickets and details.

Sneak Peek

To make up for not having something for you to look at this week, here’s a peek at the cover of the next Big Fat Whale mini-comic. You can click it to see a larger version. This cover was a bitch, which is part of the reason why there was no toon this week. From all the detail to figuring out how to get my limited Photoshop skills to jive with white ink (technically inverse red ink) and Pantones, this had bad news written on it from the beginning.

Now that it’s done, there is very little to do before it hits the presses. I’m planning on having it debut at SPX in late September, to give people a reason to visit my half of the table. The other half will be inhabited by Matt Bors of Idiot Box. If I can take care of some other business, I’ll be selling new stickers and original art there too. I don’t like conventions, so I figure I’ll try to unload as much crap as possible on the one I attend.

If there’s any interest in pre-orders, I’d like to hear about it, but no big deal if there isn’t. The main purpose of this is to have something representative of the recent Big Fat Whale cartoons to send to the editors of alt-weeklies.

I Stink

No cartoon this week. The one luxury of running in only one paper is that when they don’t have room for me, I get a vacation; unpaid, but a vacation nevertheless. I suppose if I wasn’t a Red, White, and Blue lazy American through and through, I would make a new cartoon just for you internet freeloaders. Instead, I decided to use the time to finally get cracking on the next Big Fat Whale mini comic, “Sea Anomy.”

If you still feel slighted, and you live in the Boston area, check out the next Comedy Bronze show advertised on the top right of this page. Click the ad for details and tickets. I will be on stage for 15 seconds and you can pelt me with tomatoes and onions (boiled or grilled only please), or just show up and make me self-conscious.

Next week’s cartoon is shaping up to be a doozy. Please learn who Fred Phelps is before you read it.

The Dictatorship of Celebrity

Dear C and D-listers I’ve corresponded with:

Just because some annoying guy with a comic strip writes you to tell you that your latest comedy CD, comic book, or DP Gang Bang DVD was entertaining, it doesn’t mean he’s enough of a fan to tolerate monthly updates on the shit you’re doing. I know where to find your websites, that’s how I found your email address. Please stop spamming me, you’re starting to appear more desperate than myself, and I’m the world’s neediest person.

As a bonafide G-list internet celebri-nobody, I assure you that I don’t assume an email from a stranger gives me carte blanche to fill their inbox with promotional info until the end of times. In fact, I am so careful about respecting your privacy, I probally won’t even reply.

Lastly, for those of you who don’t already know, the Boston Comedians of Comedy show is set for August 3rd at the Paradise. The whole gang’ll be there, (Patton, Brian, Maria, and Zach) and they’re filming something for Comedy Central.

This post in no way means that I will stop using this blog to beg and plead for you to do my bidding.

Things to Do In Denver When Your Hungover

If I had any chance of watching anything other than The Pacifier (I’m finally going to watch Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) on the flight from Denver to Boston, I needed to charge my notebook. And since it’s already plugged in, I caved and shelled out the $8 to write this rambling missive.

Overall, the Denver airport seems very nice. It’s the most modern one I’ve ever been to. However, apparently no one abides by mountain time here and nearly everything was closed when I arrived at 9:30 local time. I was hoping to eat something, as is my custom, but had to settle for two beers at the one place that was still open. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but I had about a month’s worth of beer last night and my abused body could use some vitamins or maybe a vegetable or two.

Lastly, most of you probably know that I am a very tiny man. I don’t fly very often, but I am certain that economy seats have shrunk to masochistic sizes. My knees were touching the seats in front of me, and the doughy rolls of the fatty sitting next to me were touching me. It was so awful that I, Mr. Dirt-Poor-Cartoonist, sprang for the upgrade to United’s economy plus, featuring five whole extra inches of bliss.

I’ll quit with the babbling now, before the heat from my laptop fries any future McFaddens who are travelling in my undercarriage. (That’s fancy talk for “balls.”)

Pacific Time Blows

I went to bed at some god-awful hour last night after a day in planes stuffed with America’s fattest citizens. Yet somehow, I managed to wake up at 6:30AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. Now it’s not even 9AM and I’m wide awake. I can’t wake anybody up so I’m forced to talk to you, my imaginary internet friends.

The weather here is identical to the cloudy and cool weather that farted down onto New England after a couple of days of summer weather earlier this week. And the Space Needle doesn’t look as tacky as I imagined. However, I’ve only seen it from the highway. I’m sure it’s as lame as any arbitrary tower or needle could be.

I’m going to try and do some of the touristy things in Seattle before I have to get back to the hotel and put on my monkey suit. Check the Flickr badge on the left for updates. I’ll probably post again tomorrow night while I’m waiting at the airport.

The Lost Screenplays of Cyril DuFarge

teaser
click for comic

Some of you may recall that I wasn’t a big fan of this comic the first time around. So why would I return to my unfunny stomping grounds? I have two reasons:

Back when the first Cyril DuFarge comic came out, I came across someone’s blog in my referrer logs and the author said they liked it. And if it’s good enough for some random person I don’t know, it’s good enough for me.

The other reason is that I’ll be gone this weekend and needed some extra time to make sure next week’s comic was in the bag. It’s much easier to write some nonsense phrases on a screenplay than it is to come up with something coherent and draw a bunch of different crap.

Because of poor planning on my part, I have to travel in a suit and look like a tiny business class douchebag all day today. That doesn’t really have anything to do with this comic, but those of you who are familiar with my generally slovenly nature might find that amusing.

Political Round-Up

There’s a reason why I haven’t been opining on the sorry state of politics in this blog lately. Besides having better things to do than punch buttons in front of a computer, I realized that nearly everyone I talk to in person has no fucking clue or interest in what’s going on in the world. And in the interest of not being that one tool who always steers the conversation towards politics, I’ve learned to internalize much of my righteous indignation and cries of “What the fuck!”

That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped paying attention. I’ve just decided to cut back on the shrill complaining, at least until 2006, when the train wreck that is our government has a chance of being fixed. Assuming the Dems let Dean do his job and the polls continue their slide, it just might happen.

This doesn’t mean a shift for the comic, just the blog. I am too lazy to come up with ideas on my own and will frequently use current events as my platform for fart jokes and tomfoolery.

That being said, there is one ruling by the Supreme Court that I applaud which could potentially directly affect me. While the case delt with direct shipping of wine, the ruling also applies to beer. I can now buy my elitist out-of-state microbrews from the internet and never have to leave my house. We may not have drive-thru liquor stores in our Puritanical enclave, but it’s a start.

Public WiFi Question

I’m new to wireless and have no idea how to find a hotspot before I get somewhere and use site survey. What airports offer free public WiFi? The airports I’m specifically curious about are Logan, O’Hare, SeaTac, and Denver. A search through Google led to the seedy underworld of unnavigable websites and shady ISPs. I’d like to kill time getting some work done, but if I have to pay $7 at each airport, I’d rather spend it at the bar than updating this blog.

Believe It Or Don’t!

Believe It Or Don't!
Click for comic

I went way too long before putting together another one of these montage comics. The last one was over three months ago! They take the longest to write so I kept putting it off. Instead of writing a bunch of stupid jokes for one theme, I decided to lump in a bunch of discarded jokes that I had lying (laying?) around and disguise them all as a spoof of the long-running Ripley’s Believe It or Not! comic. I am like a Native American repurposing the remains of the majestic buffalo.

Before you put on your fancy pants and set out to dazzle your friends with all the facts you learned in this week’s comic, you should know that they are all lies. Rather than apologize for my disregard of the truth, I will briefly explain each panel to you, as if you were a simpleton.

The Republican cosmetic surgery panel stars that pudgy asshole Grover Norquist. I do not like Republicans. Hence the joke that they are mean and lack the ability to empathize with others, or if you are a sociology nerd ‘the other.’

I have no idea if koalas can love or not. I was inspired by this real Ripley’s comic which enthusiastically declared that elephants can’t jump. If we live in a universe that is cruel enough to deny a pachyderm the joy of catching some sweet air, surely it contains enough malevolence to condemn the adorable koala to a life of emotional solitude.

The scientist militia is a stab at those bastards in Arizona who think King Shit died and made them the protectors of our border. Fuck those people. If I was into self-abuse, I’d declare myself the boss of the Olive Garden and make sure their pasty-white asses couldn’t get to the salad bar (or bread stick island, or whatever the hell trough those fat pigs feed from.)

You won’t believe me, but the newborn defecation joke isn’t of the “Oh this cooler-than-thou douchebag hates kids” variety. I like kids. They laugh at my jokes, at least the ones that end with mouth farts. And I even wear the same size clothes as them! If there is any subtext to that panel (and I doubt it, it is just a shit joke after all) it’s that we as a society put a little too much hope in the potential of children. We can’t swear around them, they can’t see a titty on the TV, they can’t race camels anymore, the list goes on and on, and for what? Because it might ruin their future? I doubt it. 99.9% of babies will grow up to be shitheads no matter how nuturing an environment they grow up in. (This bad attitude, while off-putting now, will one day make me a lovable curmudgeon.)

Jimmy “The Nose” doesn’t make any sense. I needed seven jokes. And the same excuse pretty much goes for the appendix gag too. I can just imagine saying in a Seinfeld voice, “What’s the deal with the appendix. I mean, what does it do?” then punching myself in the ass out of shame.

Lastly, if you don’t know what a mohel is, you are an anti-semite.