BC’s Last Fling

Five years ago, Johnny Hart died one day shy of the Easter date, which would’ve been a fitting day for him to expire, given how much devotion he paid for Christianity later in life. However, just before the millennium, he created what could be considered his last daring burst of spontaneous creativity before passing onto his mortal coil.









Peter had always made claims of wanting to do conclusive proof that the world was round, but these usually faltered out before they ever started. But in 1999, he finally embarked upon a lengthy trip that would encompass a voyage across the ocean across the continent to the new world.









Sadly, these are the only Saturday daily strips I have available. My paper chose this unfortunate time to replace the daily BC strips with The Boondocks, leaving me to brave browsing the internet for online BC comics for the first time. Upon further hindsight, I really should’ve saved those relevant story strips when they were being run, but I kept procrastinating, convincing that I could “do it anytime I wanted”, and that the archives would be up for eternity. Besides, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep them or not. Judging by the quality of the following strips here, the results are decidedly mixed.

















Further adding to the mix was that while life continued on as normal for the rest of the guys, there were various Sundays that were devoted to Peter’s mission. In addition to all these changes, Grog the monosyllabic caveman’s caveman started becoming more articulate and started speaking more than just his name. Unfortunately, these were regulated to the dailies, and weren't integrated into the current Sunday plots, save for a few comics after everything was over.


















This was akin to a callback to one of those serial adventures within the confines of a gag-a-day strip that had minor changes happening on a regular basis without the audience noticing until it would be too late for them to complain. And unlike most clean-shaven trailblazing heroes, Peter actually develops some facial hair that extends further than his usual 5 o'clock shadow.









Along his journey, Peter gets caught up in a storm and has a brief encounter with a flying saucer from Mars. Hilarity ensues.









Along the way, Peter makes friends with an octopus who shows up just to serve up bad jokes. Enjoy him while you can - he never shows up again after this.









B.C. asks the all-knowing Guru whether or not he can pinpoint Peter's current location, which could be accurately guessed around "a great honkin' ocean, maybe Atlantic or Pacific."









This is one of the more nonsensical strips, and could be considered "filler", or an advance advertising attempt for The World is Not Enough.









In addition to the hermit crab, the clam, and a brief octupus cameo, Peter also makes friends with an albatross nicknamed Albert Ross. Clearly, Johnny Hart was firing on all cylinders, whether they worked or not.



















Sadly, this 2001 alien subplot is passed over for what happens next, which is right out of the pages of Jonah.









Peter's attempts at trying to escape the whale via inventive means are met with less than resounding successes.









After weeks of just loafing around in a whale's intestines, the lord creator (Johnny Hart) apparently decided he'd had enough of nothing happening and decided to spice things up by beaching the whale at the very surface he'd been trying to reach and gets out to see Columbus’ flag flapping on the shore.









Which means that if we’re to take BC’s current navigational skills correctly, all of the gang’s activities have actually been taking place in Europe, rather than the United States, even though most of their anachronisms reference current U.S. activities. Then again, it’s not like BC was ever archeologically correct anyways. In addition, this will also contradict certain revelations to be revealed later.









This story also introduced two new late arrivals to the cast - Italian Anno Domini, (A.D. to Peter’s B.C.) and Indian Conahonty (who looked a lot like Sergio Aragones and Groo for some reason)








Even though Wily didn't receive any news of Peter's success, he still saw the foresight to do a poem about his accomplishments. One suspects that there's an unpublished copy where Peter fell off the face of the Earth. Obviously Wily's playing it safe here.









Somewhere in the midst of Peter's trip around the uncharted territory, he came across a cave leading down a metaphorically long tunnel with a speck of light at the end. This led to a small door, which was part of a larger door, and also graced us with one of the strip’s most self-beloved long-running gags.









From this unapproachable entrance, Peter was able to open a barrier dividing the island from the previously unexplored plot of land. Very much like an "uncrossable checkpoint" in video games that allows for easier shortcuts once you've reached a distant land, flipped a switch on the other side or gotten the right tool for the job. At some point, the rest of the cast were introduced to these people, who lived juuuust around the corner. Surely there would be all kinds of untapped potential with these new people?









Sadly, no. Anno and Conahonty showed up in a few sporadic strips, but never fully integrated with the cast that'd been meshed in the minds of fans for years. Even the latest artists haven't bothered to pick them up, and are just rehashing old jokes without understanding the intent behind them. This extra-long journey ends with one last unanswered question that in the words of Futurama “only raises more questions than it answers”.









It’s unknown if any cartoonists out there might feel like doing some creative works before the Mayan calendar ends, but if there are any, they should take the opportunity to produce some work before its too late.

Seder Horror Stories

I generally struggle during of Passover, since we’re not supposed to eat any bread products for the duration of the week. I get a natural high from breadstuff and love pasta a lot, and its practically impossible to package a matzah sandwich without it crumbling to pieces. My family isn’t exactly devotedly religious, but I still feel entitled to at least follow a few of our customs, even if they don’t make sense.

I know that the marror is symbolic of our suffering during the time of slavery in Egypt. Or as the ancient texts say, we were in bondage (kinky!) to the Pharaohs. Normally my suffering is limited to trying as little of the bitter stuff as possible, and refusing any soft cushions to lean on my chair (I prefer hard back resting surfaces myself, since soft surfaces are painful to me) These miniscule labors in themselves aren’t too bad in passing, but I still find myself cringing when we approach the Jewish song with the chorus Dai dai dai nu (literally; it would be enough). This is equivalent to hearing the lyrics to The Little Drummer Boy over and over again. Singing the verses once is tolerable enough, but having it repeated ad nauseam begins to wear down on you, and you begin to loath hearing them all the time.

I have a tendency to speak the English portions of the text in a rapid-fire pace so that we’ll get to the food quicker. I’ll go through the 4 questions so fast that only the next stanzas count as breathing spaces. A typical rehersal sounds something like this: Mathanishanahalilahazehmekolhalaylotmekolhalaylot. (short pause for breath) Shebikholhalaylotainu... (you get the idea)

I’m not alone in wanting to skip through the general rehearsal and doing the cliff notes version of the Passover service to get to the meal faster. As quoted in a news article, "the Hagadah is the most frequently skimmed religious book in history". Even more than the prose pages in Cerebus’ Later Days. Statistically speaking, more people are likely to encounter the former than the latter.

However, not everybody is as quick to go through the motions. More devoted practitioners of the faith are determined to make sure that people get the general idea behind the true meaning of Passover. For instance, one of my Sister's friends went to a dinner with a Lubavitch sect who only served a single bowl of cold soup for the meal. That was the entire full course. Their reasoning is that food isn’t the focus behind Passover - the story is, which runs counter to a lot of Jewish holidays, which is a general excuse to reminisce and eat.

However, even the Lubavitchs pale in comparison to an ultra-orthodox seder that my sister heard about. In this instance, a friend of hers was invited to a seder with the warning that the food might “take awhile before we get served.” “No problem”, she thought, she could handle waiting for an hour going through the motions. However, her confidence soon faded away several hours later when they were still doing the pre-meal prayers. The service started at 8:00, and it was already midnight - and they still hadn’t gotten around to the meal yet! When she passed out around 1:00 in the morning, she was woken up at 3:00 when the meal was finally served. Keep in mind that the meal is only the halfway point of the Passover seder, which means there was still more to come after. To add insult to injury, she’d spilled some wine (the only thing she had to drink at random intervals) on her dress when she fainted, and had to wear that red badge of shame on her for the rest of the night. (Technically morning at that point)

Good thing it wasn't the Saturday seder, when they're more serious with their prayers. There's a reason these events take place on the weekends, otherwise what else would you to do with all that extra time? That kind of service makes Jon’s stalling tactic in A Garfield Thanksgiving look positively quant in comparison. In these instances, it’s better to eat before starting the meal. Otherwise all you’ll remember is your severe hunger pangs while you wait for the service to finally END.

One of the dirty secrets of American comics is that very often, the majority of the prose text is perfunctory, and can pass along very well without it. You can get the main gist of the story if you just pay attention to what the characters are saying and ignore the background narration boxes. Only a few writers are talented enough to make their narrative essential to the action. The rest are pale imitators trying to latch onto a storytelling device they’re unequipped enough to qualify as their own. In these instances, I’ll read the general balloon dialogue, get the general gist of the overall story, then go back and read the boring prose stuff to see if there’s any relevance there. If there is, I’ll read it again. If not, I won’t bother. Either way, the meat and bones of the text shouldn’t be considered an essential part if the general audience doesn’t feel like reading about it in the first place. Normally children hate it when adults skip over portions of a story, and develop a desire in wanting to know details that were left out... except for where food is involved.

Pral Fuel

Within the oil companies, there's a special kind of sludge named pral, which is very effective for its long-term use. A single drop of pral lasts longer than most kinds of gasoline, and is thought to rival electric cars for energy consuption.



















This product is graded accordingly to the effectiveness of said sludge, which is ranked as follows: "D" pral, which is the crudest form, "C" pral, which is more effective, but runs out pretty quickly. "B" pral which is of middling value. The longest-lasting and highest quality which is most desired is the "A" Pral fuel.







Quite naturally, the oil companies don't want their customers to know of the existence of pral, until they've exhausted their primary energy source. Any attempts to question them of this energy source will be met with natural blank stares and outright denials.

















At first, I thought that there were hardly any celebrations of April's birthday, compared to the other Patterson siblings. However, upon closer observation, she had more than both children got. (Over seven of them as a child, three as a teenager) Michael got the majority of birthdays to himself, and Elizabeth hardly got any birthdays of her own, save for "Elizabeth Day" for when she was feeling in the dumps.



















The main difference between the other Patterson kids was that while the kids grew up in “real time”, their actual birthdays were never quite closely observed or scrutinized. Having a consistent date made it easier to remember when April’s birthdays would take place. These celebrations mainly occured when April 1st came on a Sunday, or close to it, which had a factor on whether she got a celebration or not. (Some die-hard fans still insist that due to their paper's schedule of showing their Sunday comics on Saturday insist that April was born on March 31st)







For all the fuss made about the mythical quality her birthdate, there's surprisingly little instances of April being mercilessly teased by friends and siblings for being born that day. I have no idea of the psychology of people born on April 1st due to being an unintended victim of being born on a day of practical jokes. Any research into this neglected field would be welcome.



















Oh, and here's another example of a "borrowed" strip being summarized in one panel.

April Fool

While reading today’s Cul de Sac, you would be forgiven for thinking it’d been replaced by Pearls Before Swine. The two cartoonists have been close friends for a long time, which is strange, since the two strips have almost nothing in common. One is more lavishly drawn imagination of children, the other is stock poses and awful stringed-together puns. Though this isn’t the first time that the creator’s work have “crossed over”.


































Actually, artistic fill-in this is just a smaller version of a larger phenomenon that hasn’t been seen since the great Comic Strip Switcheroo of 1997. For that day, over 40 cartoonists decided it’d be fun if they traded each other’s strips with another’s for one day. This one-shot moment was an interesting experiment, and a welcome reprieve from the usual torrent of news that we struggle to figure out are being truthful or not. For some of us, EVERY DAY is April Fool's Day.


































Strangely enough, even though it was quite acclaimed in its day, finding any actual strips of the majority of the event have never seen the light of day again. If it had happened back when the internet had a stronger presence, saving and keeping these comics wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Nowadays, if you’re not part of a multi-million dollar empire, you’re likely to be quickly forgotten. Likewise, if your paper didn't subscribe to the other half of your strip, you were out of luck for seeing your favorite artwork that day.


































I was fortunate enough to keep the relevant April 1st page for posterity. I’ve also left a few of the other non-April 1st related comics to get an idea of what the rest of the non-celebratory cartooning world was like. Even though they didn’t take part in the artist swaparound, the few who did their own versions are pretty interesting in their own right.


































Surely there have to be other people out there who've kept their own papers of that day? Somebody should go to the extra effort of bringing all 46 strips in one convenient location. Personally, I’d be really interested to see what Nancy’s version of Fox Trot was.

EDIT - it wasn't Nancy, but Zippy the Pinhead instead, and you can find out either here or here!

Art Therapy

It’s quite a coincidence that today’s Pooch Café has a strip about a dog walker relieving her stress of being with Poncho through art therapy. For the past three months, I’ve been going to art therapy sessions every Monday. (We just finished our term this week) Originally, I wanted to aply for a creative writing course, but since it’s not considered mandatory, I couldn’t get an interpreter present, which would hinder my enjoyment of the class. The art therapy was given to me as an alternative. Initially, I was rather hesitant, since my art skills isn’t exactly my strongest point, and never quite rises above stick figures.

This last project was where we were to give our overall impression of the art therapy, and I did it in the form of a bar graph. If you look closely at the left hand side, you’ll see that the line doubles back several times before venturing out a bit, then gradually becoming more bolder, doing elaborate designs, though there are a few low peaks, and the whole thing starts tapering out near the end with one final flourish in the form of fireworks. Truth be told, I was beginning to grow a little tired of the whole thing, and was kinda relieved it was over.
















Part of what worried me at first was that I had no confidence in my drawing ability. Even though I was told that it wasn’t the actual quality of the work that counted, but the intent behind it, I was still too much of a perfectionist to ever want to apply for something I wasn’t good at.

Fortunately, I needn’t have worry - our first assignments were to create a poster out of magazine clippings. My first instinct was to organize these clippings into their various subjects - animals, kinds of animals, technology, people, backgrounds, etc. but there were too many of the dang things, and I had to abandon it for future reference to concentrate on my own project.


































This was a consistent occurrence - I had to improvise in order to find suitable art shortcuts in order to show the point I was trying to make. One of our first assignments was to do a portfolio of things that calmed us down. I had great difficulty in finding a picture of a computer or video game monitor that I recalled being buried in the great stack of available photos. (Turns out somebody else had already chosen the very images I intended to use) since I couldn’t find an approximation for a computer, I used a picture of albino circus tigers, hastily added a very badly drawn keyboard, and put the letters LOL on top to represent LOLcats. (I told you I was pressed for time!) In addition to the various TVs on top, I also had a ring surrounded by dollar signs (having money), a stack of comics (next to a private dick), a Ben Kachor picture, and an Anime-influenced handbag connected to a NES controller (even though V-games drive me nuts, they're the only thing that make me feel alive).


















The flip side of this assignment was doing one of things that stress me out. This one I entered with great enthusiasm, since there’s nothing I enjoy more than complaining about things that bother me. In order from top to bottom, there’s nature (hence the cows), trying new things (a commercial for a new product. “TRY! This new dishwater! You’ll LOVE it!”), wearing a suit & tie, little children, crowds, being poor (flies going in and out of a wallet, not a dung heap), the sun in my eyes, being unable to control my body, dogs (from a bad experience while collecting money on a paper route), not using computers (a compliance line [yes, I know it’s backwards] through an iPod, the closest representation to a computer), fear of death (actually pretty low on my list of fears, since once I’m dead, all my problems will be over, but decided to add it in), beer, coffee and cigarettes (stimulants that wind up riling me up).

I always had a tendency to put more detail in my work than other people's. Yet I was still envious of the select few who could actually draw with a pen and paper. If there is one constant, its that I enjoy putting things in order. Well, other peoples stuff. My own? Not so much. In this project, we were to rub wax on the paper first before putting paints on the page to create a kind of visual aftereffect. I didn’t know what the actual results were supposed to be, so after I found out later, I tried to rub wax on the black part in the middle. However, the result was tearing a hole in my work, so I had to abandon my attempt at creativity.

















One of the group’s favorite projects overall was where we were to combine various clipped-out words and sentences, and arrange them into any kind of order we wanted. I do SO enjoy putting together common themes from different elements, as my Garfield remixes can attest to. I entered this with great relish, coming up with not one, not two, but three different sentences, each one focusing on a certain theme.


































The first one was a typical statement on the ironic claim that despite company complaints that filesharing their products online via bittorent, customers are stealing their products, yet because of this exposure, customers actually wind up purchasing their material anyways.


































The second one was just something I put in together from a few sports metaphors to fill in the space in between. (For further details, the car in the middle is missing its tires)


































The third one was a thinly veiled reference to Battle Royale (I'd been reading the Hunger Games), and how Survivor-like shows can force desperate people in need for publicity to drive to ever more escalating stakes in order to get a little attention to themselves in order to fuel their private obsessions.




















The one I’m most proud of is where we were to do a visual representation of the inside of our brain. For this, I used a collaboration of Venn diagrams, each link having their own circle of experience, and making connections with other larger circles in the field. I added the cloth patterns at the side for visual effect. It’s just a shame that the paper wasn’t large enough to contain the missing half of one of the “outer circles”, but I made up for it in my second diagram.


































Actually, I wasn’t quite satisfied with my second attempt, because it felt like I was beginning to repeat myself. The looping tangle of knots, the highway of information and various other lines all converging to a singular cerebral point, which was contained within a tiny container. As I often like to say, “I don’t just think outside the box, I AM outside the box.”
















However, it wasn’t all fun and games. There were several sessions where I was feeling very down and didn’t feel like creating anything. This one was after I arrived late, and was playing catch-up with the warm-up exercise, which was to create three random emotions, and the last one was to represent what we were feeling right now. I didn’t have time for the first three (couldn’t think up one anyways), and only concentrated on the last. At the time, I was feeling constantly restrained, that my activities and lifestyle were under constant scrutiny, and there was no hope of escape. Everything I did was under suspicion or observation, and nothing could escape notice. This feeling of oppression was further compounded with my next project:


































This fairly innocuous-looking diagram of wire frames was actually the result of one of my major emotional meltdowns. We were supposed to imagine what would happen if we woke up one day and found ourselves into a world that was utterly to our liking. Upon hearing this mandate, I underwent a severe state of depression, and didn’t feel like continuing for three reasons:

1. I was unable to give an adequate vision of what my perfect would would be like with the available materials.
2. It was a HUGE project, and any attempt to show ALL the necessary details worthy of replicating my ideal vision would fall short in the limited time span I had.
3. It would just further serve to show just how far removed my fantasy life would be from reality. The prospect of creating something perfect that could never be was too depressing for me to comprehend. Besides, if any of us actually woke up in a world where everything went our way, we would be beset by paranoia.

Eventually, I was talked down into limiting the scope of my vision to a specific job I would like, which was to be a writer, overlooking various projects. Hence the conductor in charge of an orchestra of various multicoloured windows, all being controlled by his keys. (Upon further observation, I should’ve used multiple keyboards, as benefiting a church organ)

Overall, it was a unique experience, though I would prefer to concentrate on my writing, and wouldn't object to joining a writing class.