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[V-Adore]

Just plain gold. A+++ would read again and probably will. I'm not sure which image in this strip is the most priceless: Ray's sex-life cures (Barbie voodoo?), the fantasies about looking at coins, the nudist-colony approach, or the science fiction romp. Daaaamn.

[Omegatron]

1. Is ray getting fatter?
2. Oh god.  Is female-genital Ray From The Future going to show up in the next strip?

[CortJstr]

I hope Ray prioritizes properly: Find the time machine FIRST, then go for the sex change.

Not a problem.

Ray seemed to have some luck with the Puerto Rican women that wanted to beat the shit out of him. Maybe he should try that route again.

[mrchee]

PAA-AT! I LIKE YOU BETTER THAN EVER PA-AAAT!

WHO WANTS TO READ MY PAT/CHUCKLEBOT SLASH FANFIC?

[Bimmicus]

I don't get it.

[wombat]

It bears repeating:

"Even in my fantasies I just go to the library and read about coins."

Oh man yeah.  This is the saddest thing.  With the second saddest thing being the voodoo guy rubbing Ken and Barbie together.

[Pimp_skitters]

WHO WANTS TO READ MY PAT/CHUCKLEBOT SLASH FANFIC?

NO WAY MAN! PAT/NICE PETE 4 EVAH!
Argh, why does one of my multiple personalities have to be an pron site...

[Ben-San]

Ray has been reading an unhealthy amount of the works of Robert Heinlein.

[Ben-San]

Ben-San, that doesn't compute as the USRA recommended minimum annual intake of Heinlein is all of Heinlein.

I dunno. I had a conversation the other day with some other science-fiction dorks about the three phases of Heinlein: The Juveniles, The Adults, The Seniles. And the thing I sort of came to realize is that even though the "Seniles" are really bad in a lot of ways, I still enjoy them. I guess it's not so much a matter of chronological grouping, but Heinlein at his most batshit time-travel-incest-anarcho-communist wacky supremacy is a pretty fun read, much moreso than Glory Road or Farnham's Freehold, which were borderline-unreadable political tracts that this fellow dork of mine classified as his "adult fiction".

Time Enough For Love is a fun read in its way but is also in its way really, really stanko terrible. I don't have a problem with enjoying terrible fiction unironically (if I did I wouldn't have stuck with comics) but I'm not gonna claim it's actually good. "Number Of The Beast-" then proceeds to inflate this to truly heroically wacky dimensions.. eh, anyway, I ramble. I think there is definitely such a thing as an unhealthy amount of Heinlein, especially when it leads to unsavory dudes at science-fiction conventions insistently hitting on fifteen-year-old girls and justifying it with "the advanced intellect must not be chained by the morality of the unthinking mass" c/o Heinlein.

[mrchee]

IF IT DOESN'T GET AN ARTHUR REFERENCE HOW CAN IT HAVE ANY CANS?

Apparently, or at least according to God's own Dickhead (jough) i now exist "off-the-grid."  This means that I am free forever from the spectre of a positive can number

[Ben-San]

You and I agree precisely on the topic, esp. on the batshit-senile period being fun but not necessarily good reading.

But c'mon 'Unsavoury Dude' would just find something in Kornbluth or Niven to justify his underage banging needs.

The excuse is not the problem.

Well, it facilitates a corollary problem. Essentially, science-fiction fandom is seen to varying degrees as a refuge from social exclusion by many fans, making them gunshy about acting "exclusionary" of their fellow fans in turn. When somebody can justify behavior that wholly warrants exclusion, banishment, and possibly a restraining order in terms of an author whose writings are one of the core pillars of the 'traditional' science-fiction community, it makes it very hard to get anything done about him even when everyone acknowledges that his behavior is a problem. There is nothing in Niven or Asimov that could be so readily used to justify this behavior, and no other author has the kind of weight of fandom force that Niven, Asimov, and Heinlein do. (I may be leaving someone off the list as a momentary absence of mind.) Even other Great Names do not carry the kind of invokable weight that these three do, and Heinlein's views on consensual morality are invokable for some pretty undesireable behavior.

So, to summarize: I don't think Aaron Unsavoury Dude would find the same justification in Niven, and if he found it in Kornbluth it wouldn't give his "moral stance" the same kind of social shielding Heinlein does.The Heinlein Problem is not so much in Mr. Unsavoury's behavior, but in the behavior it creates (or inhibits) in those around him.

[Doc]

gunshy

Just wanted to roll that one around a bit. guuuuuuuunshy. Good word.

Also I've never heard of Niven, I know about Heinlen and I love Asimov but Niven I know nothing of, I'm getting beat up now eh?

[Ben-San]

I don't have the experience to relate appropriately to the social structure you're describing, but I can say with fair certainty I'd mesh poorly in it. I mean shit, I'd be tempted into spouting off about Heinlein's delineation of the lady carrying the choice in the matter and now, as a manly man, a thrashing of Unsavoury Fellow is obliged. But me and that social group = poor fit as said.

For the most part it's good people, and usually someone will intervene on the scene if the lady is too intimidated to actively tell him off (I have done this before) - but the guy will not end up getting exiled. It took years for Unsavoury Fellow to be barred from even one of Boston's major cons, and the other took annoyingly long to catch up.

(On the plus side, Arisia did have security Klingons follow him around long before they actually got up the nerve to boot him. Or is that a plus? I'm not sure.)

And Doc, yeah, look for some Larry Niven. He's not everyone's thing but he's very respected.

[theinevitable]

also, rishathra.

[wombat]

security Klingons

I had no idea there was such a thing before this moment, but now I want to know why the world does not have a lot more of them in a lot more places.