[Click to view comic: 'On vacation with Grimm and Satan']

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

Even if you disregard the fact that you're an insensitive prick since these 175,000 people were just killed a week ago, this is still a painfully unfunny strip. Way too much dialogue... and just... stupid.

....

And you misspelled "bitch".

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Destroying my reputation one post at a time.

That's pretty much what I was shooting for. Now i am one step closer to SC citizenship.

In order to gain acceptance into this community of highly talented, often bizarre folks, one has to do something to stand out from the crowd.

I have noticed that some of my heroes (in stripcreatorburg) often revert to raw shock value in order to put their 'toons over.

Also you may not be aware of the AIM colloquial spelling of the word "bitch," bytch.

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

quote:

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That's pretty much what I was shooting for. Now i am one step closer to SC citizenship.

In order to gain acceptance into this community of highly talented, often bizarre folks, one has to do something to stand out from the crowd.

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Could have pretty much fooled me.

Jesus christ is a regular character herein. Vietnamese ten year old girls are regularly raped sodomized and degraded, Robots buttrape almost everybody, priests leer at choirboys, and ad nauseum, and you have the unmitigated audacity to enter a forum topic LABLED tasteless and whine about the content?

Fuck, man. You're my new hero.

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

I have to disagree with 'flatey over there on some points. The content wasn't too offensive (nothing's too offensive here, if you ask me), but the strip wasn't worded very well. "Too much dialog" is a good start, but it's not only that. The way it's worded didn't have any punch.

Try this:

[Click to view comic: 'Drastically Improving Comic #263919']

And really. Try to keep dorkspeak out of your comics. Using actual English covers an audience of everyone, where as AIM dorkspeak pretty much limits your audience to AIM dorks, and pisses off everyone else.

At least you didn't have any "LOL"s or ":)"s in your dialog.

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peddling the funny around since 09/24/2002

You're right. I like your version better. I do tend to pontificate and overintellectualize in order to compensate for my woeful lack of formal education.

Here's the first follow-up and thanks for the critique. I have much to learn and you're a good teacher.

[Click to view comic: 'On Vacation with Grim and Satan Part 2']

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

[Click to view comic: 'On vacation with Grim and Satan Part 3']

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

Unfortunately, I think those last ones are closer to hopeless. The third panel in Part 2 is wasted (not funny at all), and the girl coming back as an elephant isn't funny enough on its own to constitute a "joke." It needs some pithy reaction from other characters, and a better set-up. (Plus, why is an elephant underwater? If that's the joke, it should be made explicit; as it stands it just looks like you fucked up.)

Keep trying. I haven't written you off yet.

(Yet.)

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peddling the funny around since 09/24/2002

Now I am suffering from performance anxiety. I will change the elephant to a fish and modify Grim's reaction.

That may cause some confusion for some readin your critique...(I took his advice)

thank you for investing time and thought into me.

[Click to view comic: 'On vacation with Grim and Satan Part 3']

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

Please don't talk to me about audicity. I'm not politically correct by any stretch of the imagination. I make off-color jokes all the time, but robot sodomy isn't comparable on any level to 150,000+ dead people and five million homeless. I have an Indonesian friend who's been an emotional wreck for days worrying about his relatives and old friends, so maybe you can see how I fail to find the humor in this thing. However, if you're determined to make a series about the tsunami, at least try and redeem the questionable premise by making it somewhat funny. Your strips are so bad they make my eyes bleed. That's really what it boils down to more than anything, and I said as much in my first reply. But your callousness gave me one more incentive to slam you.

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Destroying my reputation one post at a time.

I do agree with Flate for the fact that it was way too soon after the event to be poking fun at it. I mean, there has to be some emotional lee-way of a month+, especially in a tragedy like this. I have a friend over in Thailand teaching and he lost a bunch of his friends in the Tsunami.

That, and Bob? I just... I just plain don't like you. I'm not about to start swearing and slamming and everything, but I won't ever give you props.

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Okay, Lindsay, are you forgetting that I was a professional twice over - an analyst and a therapist. The world's first analrapist.

I actually thought #1 was pretty funny, though not_Scyess's remake made me snerk out loud.

As for the moral part of it, well, there's several ways to look at it.

1. It's a terrible tragedy.
2. There's 6 billion people crowding the planet. That was a relief valve.
3. Shit happens.
4. People who don't want to potentially be killed by natural disasters caused by plate tectonics shouldn't fucking live on one of the most seismically active places on the planet! And don't give me that too-poor-to-move-elsewhere line since the death toll isn't exclusive to the poverty line and that's really a lame excuse anyway. No one would listen if someone said "all those people who were killed crossing the street in front of drunk drivers were too poor to move to a rural location." Yes, it's one hell of a high death toll, but it was also a really shallow earthquake that didn't even register the top five quakes. The only reason so many died is because of the location of a massively populated area combined with a 9.0 quake, structures not as reinforced as say, Tokyo, and a huge ass tsunami taking care of what the quake didn't do. The death toll to that region is comparable to say, wiping out one of the dorms here in Laramie. And yes I know it sucks for the people who were in it and people who have loved ones dealing with it and I'm sure I'd feel less ambivalent if it was me or my family, but the first person to act as if someone dying from this tsunami/quake is more important than my uncle who was killed a few months ago in a traffic accident (or anyone else whose death, natural causes or otherwise, doesn't make the headlines) then I reserve the divine right to bitch slap you to the next plane of existence! Hellooooo, people die every freaking day. Sure that amount in that little time is pretty big, but this is the same human race that thinks three people getting a tropical disease is an outbreak so of COURSE we all freak out at the numbers. 100 years ago, the population of Las Vegas was 48. Our brains are still stuck in that pattern and can't comprehend anything so big so it automatically goes "holy shit" at anything over 10. Unless you were a soldier in a war, then it's a good thing how many you've killed. Or at least used to be. /rant

I'm a bit of all of the above, but you can guess what stance I happen to take mostly. Besides, I can't wait til the fault under New York city goes. Unlike California's faults, it's had no pressure released since it's last quake and no one is prepared for it cause no one thinks there's anything to worry about other than the usual daily crap. It's gonna be freaking huge. When that happens, I shall be watching the news with a bowl of popcorn in one hand, and books of cracks about man's hubris with the other.

P.S. The newspeople that ask if we could have stopped the tsunami really crack me up.

Anyone here remember my little toss of kerosene into the fire back in 2001?

Yeah, *that* disaster.

I made a comic about it, not expecting the outcry, and ended up being hated for hours. I did apologize for the comic, and I think I ended up getting brad to delete it and the thread I created for it.

Making comics like that won't make you popular, but a lot of the more popular people have made comics about tragedies. It's something a lot of people go through, and frankly, I'd rather people be joking about stuff than crying all the time.

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Do you want ants? Because that's how you get ants.

Ivy, I'm sorry about your Uncle, but I find going from saying it's a "terrible tragedy" to "shit happens" really fucked up. Saying it's a release valve because there's too many people in the world, is also messed up. Could you go up to a mother who lost her kid, or some groveling orphan in the street and say "Sorry, kid. But it's good that all these people died. It was a release valve"? Can you imagine if something like this happened where you live? And actually, tsunamis on this scale haven't occurred in over a century... It wasn't a "really shallow" earthquake. It was a fucking 9.0. That hasn't been recorded in forty years. And yes, these people are too poor and deprived to move from where they were born and where their ancestors were born. A lot of them live in such a state of poverty that no one in this country could imagine it.

I guess that means we should evacuate California and Japan.

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Destroying my reputation one post at a time.

[ Posted comic does not exist ]

Just because people die in great numbers, doesn't mean their lives were more important. Death is death.

I am surprised at the reaction. It's not like I said, "Ohio Sucks" or anything.

Humor is objective. Black humor is VERY subjective.

I was not going for popularity with the strip and its follow-ups. I was going for tastelessness as a metaphor for the absurd fragility of life.

Besides that - it's a comic strip for Christ's sake. Accept it or reject it for what it is, funny or not.

But don't expect me to roll over and play dead just because one of you has a friend in Thialand or Sumatra. It is what it is.

Incidentally, I hope no one expected me to spaz out and start JDPLVYing all over the place. I can take the criticism and I appreciate the understanding. If I made Ivy even BEGIN to smile, then my job is done.

Kitty, I cannot imagine on what basis you "plain don't like me." I presume it has something to do with either my infrequent bathing or my inability to control my craving for Spankling's caress. I am certain you will tell me if you want to.

Thank you all for the lynching. I feel better now. All that is left is to annotate my spelling and punctuation errors and we can all go back to the socially acceptable form of strip creating.

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

I'm sorry if I've pissed anyone off (except Bob Rogers). If you don't agree with me, fine. I've said my bit and the fact I know someone affected by this thing, probably makes it more sensitive to me. But anyone who thinks this amount of death is only a drop in the bucket, should take a night off and try to count to 150,000 and see how long it takes.

I'm just going to avoid this thread from now on I think. It doesn't bring out anything good in me.

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Destroying my reputation one post at a time.

[Click to view comic: 'the news cares']

The numbers killed are almost beside the point for me. It would just feel weird to me to sit behind a computer keyboard in a country where I can rely on clean running water and 24/7 electricity, making comics about orphaned kids. It just seems like taking alot for granted. My $0.02.

Mind you, I've posted plenty of tasteless dross myself so I'll take my own licks as far as any counter-criticism is concerned.

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I was gonna send a robot back in time, but I got high.

You nor anyone has pissed me off. Intercourse is a part of this community. I value your opinion, whether it be with hatred or love.

That you value nothing about me speaks to you, not me.

I like Boinky's strip way better than mine. It made me laugh. But then he is a prince among strippers in my untutored opinion.

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

[Click to view comic: 'Satan and Grim on Vacation Part 4']

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."

It's not about my uncle, I just used it as an example. Oh, and the jump wasn't from "terrible tragedy" immediately to "shit happens." Duh.

Pressure is pressure, whether geological or biological. I wasn't trying to be sadistic. It was a point. Duh.

Fucking hell. I'm sorry if you have family or friends that are/might be lost in it, but contrary to your obvious belief, I am not purposely being a dick. Oh yes, I just love going up to helpless orphans and saying "Your mommy's dead and I'm glad! Ha ha ha ha haaaa you little wretched brat! I hope you die from starvation and disease in the ensuing chaos because the world would be a better place without all your kind!"

There, now do you feel better for exposing me as the hatemongering bitch I really am? Me too.

Yup. Especially since Laramie is in the direct path of the shit that Yellowstone will bring. Personally, I'm rooting for it to happen in my lifetime. Of course we'll get up to 28 days of warning before it goes...

Nor was it the last tsunami on that particular scale, not including the ones that happened in the past and will happen in the future that are on a scale that makes this one look like bathwater splash. Like what humans have experienced has been the largest or most destructive of anything. Besides, it's only a so-called "natural disaster" when humans are involved. A tornado hits a town, it's a disaster. It hits the middle of the Mojave, no one notices but a handful of weather experts assigned to/studying that area. Actually it might be noticed more than most that hit in the middle of nowhere since it doesn't happen, but you get the picture.

Ivy's Geology Lesson #1 - Exploring The World Of Vocabulary

[b]shal·low]
adj. shal·low·er, shal·low·est [/b]
1. Measuring little from bottom to top or surface; lacking physical depth.

How does this apply to earthquakes, class? Construction Crew A is building a road. They have a biiiiig mountain in the way and they need to find a way through. So they toss some dynamite on top of it and it blows up. But only an itty bitty bit of the mountain is gone. Gee willikers, I wonder why. So they keep tossing dynamite up and eventually the mountain is gone, but they blew all their budget on the dynamite, are way behind schedule, and never get a job again in their entire life.

Construction Crew B has the same problem, but they bury the dynamite deep in the mountain. It takes out half the mountain and in no time, and under budget, they finish the road, get lots of safety awards, and end up millionaires.

Now, why did Construction Crew B's plan work better?

Answer: It's simple fucking physics. Earthquakes don't just happen at some maaaagical spot in the earth's crust. They happen at ALL depths. The deeper the quake, the more destructive power it has, especially at the higher end of the R scale. Shallow quakes, even 9.0s aren't anywhere near as destructive. If this one had been deep at that magnitude, it would have wiped out half the population before the tsunami ever got anywhere near there.

Also, tsunamis can be caused by any number of things, including manmade events.

And in the grand scheme of geologic time, it won't even have been noticed. Unless some iota of the wave's passing is recorded in the sediment and actually lasts long enough to be fossilized, which is doubtful, given the way humans muck about with stuff.

No. No one is so poor that they cannot move. Even if it means literally walking somewhere else. Unless you are physically chained down or looking across a chasm of molten fire, you can move. And before the "family" line comes into it, not everyone has family or has an immediate family that would be affected.

Except the people in this country that also live in it.

I don't know their level of poverty, but I do know the kind that sucks your soul into a deep pit and leaves you a useless blob of organs with no hope, no future, and no way out, save one. Four years ago, I would have welcomed a tsunami.

We don't have to, no biggie. Besides, how many people would actually leave? The people who chose to live there certainly know the risks, so if they do die in a natural disaster, it's not like it wasn't expected. It's realistic to expect that. Not sadistic.

Anyway, that's about it. Unless you want to bring the "global warming" idiocies into it, in which case I will not even be able to beat down the myths and massive inaccurracies without causing my head to explode from the sheer stupidity of all. Though I'm sure my doctor would be thrilled since he's been trying to get my blood pressure up to normal levels for years...

And I know this has taken so long to type that the thread is probably dead, but if I don't get it out, I might also risk making my doctor happy. Besides, since 'flate pointed it out, I felt the need to confirm what a sadistic, cruel bitch I really am by thinking none of those people matter. I just tend to think in global terms, rather than individual ones. In individual terms, it all hurts a lot. In global terms, it really is very little more than a scoop of the bucket. Roughly, 100,000 is 1/6,000 of the population. Bucket.

I can't remember who said it (I think it may have been Terry Gilliam) but it went something like "If you can find humor in anything, you have the ultimate sense of humor." I have no problem with comics about the tsunami disaster. The problem is that they're not funny. Also: typically the best comics made during a time of something bad going on are usually not made at the EXPENSE of the people the disaster is happening to. I'm one of those who thinks that humor is an awesome weapon against the depressions and disasters of reality, but it must be wielded in a smart fashion. I'm not offended by the lousy comics (those doing good for the victims are of far more importance than getting upset over a few moronic comments), but on the same token if you're going to take a dip into that daring and dark pool of making comics about the disaster...make them count at least.

Better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all.

BobRogers

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"I intend to live forever -- so far, so good."