Bors Blog
Archive for April, 2006
Rejected From The New Yorker
The Stranger was supposed to be posting these on their blog, but only managed to get up the first one. Now that they’ve all been printed, I can post them here for you.
New Toon: Generals Against Rumsfeld
Everyone’s lauding these Generals coming forward to call for Rumsfeld’s resignation. I’ve heard the word “unprecedented” over 900 in the last two weeks. How nice of some of them to finally speak up. Only over 100,000 people are dead so far, with us now threatening to bomb Iran. Rumsfeld shouldn’t be resigning to live out a nice quaint life. He should be clapped in irons and tried as a war criminal.
I heard the latest General on FOX News making very clear that this wasn’t some “anti-war” thing, just a call for a change in leadership. Yes, we wouldn’t want to be against the war, would we? Not that I would expect them to be peaceful, they’re people who have trained their whole lives for war. They just want someone who is better at leading them through it all.
I can’t blame ’em though. I’d want someone more competent waging my unprovoked war of aggression too.
Recommended Reads
Tales To Demolish #3 is out from SparkPlug Comics and it is his best so far in the series. In the latest issue, the main story is ‘mammalogy’ which details the secret war that has been waged between reptiles and mammals, from the beginning of time to a present day battle royale on a volcano (where else?). It is followed up by several strange short stories. If you are into offbeat humor, check it out here.
Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest
via Comics Reporter. Different from the Iranian Anti-Semitic Cartoon contest, this is the Iraeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon contest.
You can read about it here and view an entire gallery of them here.
Attitude 3 Pre-Order!
The new book, edited by Ted Rall, will feature interviews with and cartoons by 21 web cartoonists including Idiot Box, Perry Bible Fellowship,Big Fat Whale, Diesel Sweeties, Partially Clips, Cat and Girl, Fetus-X, Fighting Words, and XQUZYPHYR & Overboard among others.
I’ve also put together the Bodaciously Valued Comic Pack: Attitude 3, both collections of Idiot Box, and 3 Car Pileup 1 and 2. 272 pages of comics for only $18.95 (not $19.00!). You would actually have to have something wrong with you not to buy this!
New Toon: Dee Nye – The Creationist Guy
Not my most subtle punch line ever, but it’s hard to be subtle with these creationists types. The new discovery of the Tiktaalik is the 479th nail in the Creationist and ID movement coffin (I came across a different, incorrect spelling of the name initially and thus, it is spelled wrong). As always there is a complete lack rudementary knowledge on the subject of evolution. You can wade through their denials here, here, here, here, and here.
Ted Rall and Ruben Bolling also touched on the fossil.
Random stuff
- Katrina Vanden Heuval writes in the Nation on the minimum wage:
Last Sunday, the New York Times reported that–for the first time–a full-time worker earning minimum wage cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment anywhere in America at market rates……a system where a full-time worker making the minimum wage earns $10,500 annually, while “last year the CEO of Wal-Mart earned $3,500 an hour. The CEO of Halliburton earned about $8,300 an hour. And the CEO of ExxonMobil earned about $13,700 an hour.
- What happens in the modern age when you kill a ten year old girl, rape her, and chop her up? People leave hundreds of nasty comments on your blog.
- A controversy over at Cagle’s blog regarding an nice little Easter comic from Mr. Fish. And by controversy I mean a bunch of people writing him hate mail.
- Tom Tomorrow goes to bat for alternative cartoonists and the Pulitzer, which he suggests could be called the “Pulitzer Prize for Daily Newspaper Editorial Page Preferrably Single Panel Cartooning.”
Idiot Box in Pittsburgh
For the first time since the strip began, Idiot Box is no longer available in Pittsburgh. The paper I was running in, The Front Weekly, has not published an issue in a few months. If you are viewing this and live in the Pittsburgh area, please write to the City Paper (the remaining free weekly) and try to bring Idiot Box back. It’s important that I get into print publications even though my strip is available online. I get to reach an audience that would never otherwise find me and then there’s the actually-getting-paid-for-this thing. You can e-mail the Editor, Chris Potter, here.
More Good News
Nice to know we’re leaving a small footprint in the most hostile country on the planet.
U.S. Building Its Largest Embassy in Iraq
The fortress-like compound rising beside the Tigris River here will be the largest of its kind in the world, the size of Vatican City, with the population of a small town, its own defense force, self-contained power and water, and a precarious perch at the heart of Iraq’s turbulent future.The new U.S. Embassy also seems as cloaked in secrecy as the ministate in Rome.
“We can’t talk about it. Security reasons,” Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman at the current embassy, said when asked for information about the project.
The spokeswoman can’t talk about it. No doubt it took a six-figure for her to muster those seven words.
The 5,500 Americans and Iraqis working at the embassy, almost half listed as security, are far more numerous than at any other U.S. mission worldwide. They rarely venture out into the “Red Zone,” that is, violence-torn Iraq.
More On Beer
The PBR cartoon got me thinking about a beer I encountered long ago in college, when I lived in Pittsburgh.
In Pittsburgh you can’t just waltz up in a store and grab a 40 oz. Beer is only sold at distributors by the case. A little inconvenient for dates, but no one in the ‘burgh drinks less than 15 beers a night anyway so it works out fine. In my experience, these places also have no problem selling cases and kegs to small children. At the place I used to get brew, teenagers would be lined up at the counter with a cop standing right there…he never batted an eyelid!
So anyway, as you know the college kid must make sacrifices in the quality of beer they drink due to financial restrictions. The greatest cost value was a beer called “American” that cost $7.00 for a 30 pack. I never stooped so low as to buy it, but I tasted it once. It was essentially canned water.
The slogan on the can was “A FULL BODIED PURE AMERICAN BEER, QUALITY BREWED TO CAPTURE THE SPIRIT AND STRENGTH OF AMERICA, ” which doesn’t really say much for this country.
Recent Comics
A lot of brilliant comics have been popping up lately. Have at it:
- Jen Sorensen documents the amazing ability of people able to simultaneously hold opposing beliefs.
- Lucian The Sanguine Garbageman comes across a find.
- Tom Toles is on point (as usual) with the latest fossil finding.
- Perry Bible Fellowship goes cave exploring, making me yearn for my childhood of couch cushion fort building.
- Derf busts on America’a fat asses (this link will change soon).
