Hi all:

I posted here like four times I think maybe three years ago. I've been lurking every now and again to check in, and I came back this time to get ya'll's thoughts on Onstad's goodbye letter, since I was feeling conflicted about it. Obviously you guys are kinda conflicted, too. Very mixed reactions. But reading your thoughts helped me clarify mine. I think it's actually very, very simple:

When you (essentially) end a successful web comic after 9 years, it would be nice, in your goodbye letter, to thank your fans. Once. Like, "Thanks for all of your support over the years, and for allowing me to be a full-time cartoonist, which is something so many people want to do but never can."

I mean, if you insert that line into the letter, we all feel like 200% better, right? Instead, he calls us entitled whiners and says how annoying it is that we made him a "semi-public" figure. And I'm not even saying he should take that stuff out! I get that stuff. But seriously, not a single thank you to the fans? That's pretty mind-blowing.

I'm not saying anything some of you haven't already said, but I think it does get lost in all the discussion of what fans are or are not entitled to or how fame affects artists (i.e., it gets lost in that essay by Gaiman). I don't think any of that stuff would bother us so much if we felt like Onstad could spare one single sentence of gratitude for the support we've given him and his work. Agree?

-The Biz Markizzle

Hello all

I'm a managing editor for a couple o' medical journals (and I do a fair amount of freelance, primarily for neurology articles and books). It's a good job that is very challenging intellectually, though not so much creatively. I've just started trying to build a fiction resume (as in, editing fiction, not writing it), because I think it won't be long before I really start stagnating with the medical stuff.

And recently at work a fellow editor was fired when they discovered she was searching for jobs from her desk, and as a result they have cracked down in a Big Brother sort of way on Internet use for personal means. So as it has been for the last couple weeks, my presence on TOUAMB will be greatly reduced until things lighten up again, which I suspect they will eventually. But it could be a while. Anyway, I greatly miss killing at least an hour per day with y'all but if all goes well I will be back frequently pretty soon.

xoxo
Biz

My SO gets flowers and a hand-crafted leather journal from Italy.  Also I will make CUNT shortcake for her.

Word up, Valentine's Day!

There is such a thing as off camera. We didn't see the bloody wreackage after he crashed the golf cart. And when he went to hell there was just the phone call ahead of time.

But see, if it were off camera, that would be just as disturbing. Totally anticlimactic. Anyway, just admit that you are extremely scared for Roast Beef, Cort.

Listen, everyone: Cort cried but did not Accept that he cried.

Please keep in mind that no matter what talgkjertel tries to tell you when he translates this: there are no movies, music, or star wars in this comic. That is a dirty lie meant to cover up the incest.

The cat in the middle of the carnage getting his teeth beat the fuck out, does he remind anyone else of Carl Veldt? I know it's impossible because Carl lost his brain to a bottle but it is a striking resemblance.

I agree with you, and actually that is my one complaint about this strip. Seeing as that is the primary image in the collage, I wish it had been a little more original. It seems like he basically just rehashed the bottle image, only in a less interesting way.

Why are people worried? What's the worst thing that can happen to Beef and Ray? They die again. Big whoop. It might even be good for Beef. If he dies 3 more times he gets a free room upgrade in heaven.

Man, come on. It is one thing to see Beef get shot, all with hands clutched comically over his chest and little x's for eyes. It would be another thing entirely to see Beef get bashed in the face, his skull all collapsing and his teeth all shooting out, blood everywhere. Beef getting stomped mercilessly on the ground, tons of pain. What world is this, where such a thought does not worry you. We may need to tear out your entire middle to see if you have a heart. Unfortunately, no one said that could be done.

Isn't this a bit too flippant? I don't think 'By Jove, he got peppered pretty good' is what I'd want to hear after someone shot me in the face.

I hate to come to the defense of anyone even associated with Cheney, but it's actually not that flippant. Getting "peppered" is what it's called, not just by hicks, when hit at a distance by shotgun pellets. Because 28-gauge shotguns are not meant for shooting targets from any sort of distance, it's really not that serious to get hit by them from afar. Further, the ammo they were using is called birdshot, which are very small pellets.

For those of us non-hunters (me included), when we hear "shotgun" we immediately picture The Terminator, either on foot or on a motorcycle, blowing giant holes in trucks, liquid metal *****s, or the kneecaps of police officers.  However, while Cheney is, we all suspect, at least 75% *****, the weapon and ammo he was using is not very powerful and not very useful for destroying assassin *****s or conservative lawyers. Obviously you don't want to get hit in the eye, groin, or any sort of orifice, but otherwise it's no big deal. Note that the article has to mention explicitly that his skin was pierced, because very often it won't be. Some people -- in this case, yes, hicks only -- even play a game, with lots of different names but sometimes called "Pepper," where they stand very far apart and shoot each other.

Still: the vice-president just shot a dude. That is pretty funny.

Emergent C = Emergency?

Ohhhhhhh


This is a pretty good strip; not the best in the arc but the suspense has continued to build in a way that is nearly unbearable. I really love that Beef is able to identify that a person is having financial problems just by watching video of them. I can't wait for the fight; these are very exciting times for all of us.