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March 31, 2004

"The O'Franken Factor" Starts in 28 Minutes (12pm EST)!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 8:21 AM

Air America doesn't seem to have their site's streaming audio working yet, but it seems you can listen live online through their Portland, Oregon station AM620 KPOJ. (It's playing nice songs from the '50s right now.)

March 30, 2004

George W. Bush, FLAMING HOMOSEXUAL?

Posted By Chris Crosby at 12:32 PM

Okay, there is now officially more evidence proving that George W. Bush is a GAY MAN than there is proving that Weapons of Mass Destruction were in Iraq in 2003.

Uh... YOU GO, BUSH!

I apologize for that.

Air America Radio Begins Tomorrow at Noon!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 8:14 AM

AIR AMERICA RADIO: Maybe I'm crazy (okay, I'm DEFINITELY crazy), but being able to listen to Al Franken ("The O'Franken Factor"!) and Janeane Garofalo ("The Majority Report") talk into a microphone for SIX HOURS A DAY is something I'm looking forward to FAR more than any normal human likely should! (And yes, I am also very interested in hearing what Chuck D has to say.) It was always like Christmas Day whenever either of them would pop up on my TV for just a few minutes (before having their mics cut by Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity or even Alan Colmes), so this liberal radio network is kind of like getting an all-access pass to Santa's workshop.

(Crazy like a FOX!)

March 26, 2004

What an ASSHOLE.

Posted By Chris Crosby at 6:25 PM

A lot of people are pissed off about this. And for good reason, I think.

And some other people are saying "lighten up, pissed-off people! He was just joking! Humor is subjective, y'know!" And I think these people are wrong.

It's one thing to joke about something you're famous for that's relatively harmless, like eating too many Big Macs or being a peanut farmer or disliking broccoli or whatever. If Bush was most famous for always falling into a big vat of sliced pickles, he could've shown a picture of him falling into a sliced pickle vat and said "UH OH NOT AGAIN!" and the big laugh he receives would be perfectly justified. Nobody died 'cause Our Wacky Prez is always tripping into sliced pickles!

But people DIED, lots of people, because one man (Our Wacky Prez) was convinced enough that Saddam had weapons of destruction to actually invade Iraq, to start a big ol' war. Whether or not the Iraq war was a good idea or not as a basic concept (the jury's still out on that one), it doesn't matter. The whole thing was about WMDs. It wasn't about liberation or reshaping the middle east, or any other thing. I know this because President Bush said it all the time. He said if Saddam would disarm, there would be no war. It was Saddam's choice, he said. Saddam couldn't convince Bush that he had disarmed, so there was a war.

Countless thousands of human beings (at least 10,000) were killed and wounded as a result. And sure, maybe their sacrifices will turn out to be more than worth it, ten or twenty or a hundred years from now. We don't know. All we know is that a guy took us to war because he thought another guy had weapons that we now think he did not have.

And he never even APOLOGIZED for the error.

But now he's making STUPID JOKES about it. (Why would he think the weapons of mass destruction would be in the Oval Office? That doesn't even make DUMB JOKE-SENSE.)

It's almost like, if a year after 9-11, he went to some jokey dinner and put a picture on the screen of the WTC towers in flames, and said "WHOOPS!"

What an ASSHOLE.

March 25, 2004

Republicans Get Hip To The Young Whippersnappers!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 2:12 PM

The GOP has taken over TRL! Hide your daughters! I didn't even know TRL was still even on the air. ON AIR WITH RYAN SEACREST is where it's at, BOYEE! Word.

If the Republicans want to license Fairbanks to use as their official spokescharacter in order to further reach young conservatives, they can have him. Soon we will be reading long-winded articles about so-called Sore Thumbs Republicans.

March 23, 2004

Let's FAIR & BALANCE-ize this blog!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 4:30 AM

I've been reading the forums, and it seems some people object pretty strongly to some of the recent posts to this blog, particularly my posts about Bush's actions on 9-11. I consider his actions in the classroom on 9-11 to be dereliction of duty, and if any other President did the same thing, I'd say the same thing. But I understand that completely reasonable people could disagree with me. In the interest of equal time, and because I'm genuinely interested in the thought process behind those who think differently than I, please answer this question directly:

Q: Why was it cool for our Commander-in-Chief to spend at least 7 minutes sitting silently and making small talk with children after being told "America is under attack" and that the World Trade Center had been hit by two planes? Keep in mind that these seven wasted minutes occured BEFORE the Pentagon was hit (which happened nearly a half-hour later) and BEFORE United Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania (nearly an hour later), and that President Bush was the only man in America with the power to order the hijacked aircraft to be shot down. ALSO keep in mind that no one could predict what would happen next on 9-11, so the President's actions should not be excused based on the knowledge of what EVENTUALLY happened.

Post your answers on the forum!

March 22, 2004

On a more positive note...

Posted By Chris Crosby at 2:58 PM

...here's John Kerry's new TV ad.

His next ad should say "John Kerry: He Promises He Won't Sit Around Listening To Kids Read About Goats For 7+ Minutes While Knowing America Is Under Attack!" and show a picture with a big red line through it of him sitting in a chair.

(And no, I don't believe Bush knew about 9-11 in advance. I believe that he is just dangerously incompetent.)

Is the media finally starting to wake up? Hopefully!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 2:43 PM

The Wall Street Journal, of all newspapers, just published a detailed account of the events of 9-11, Bush-warts and all. It's no Interesting Day, but it's a very happy surprise to see. Here's an important bit:

Just after 9 a.m., Mr. Bush took a seat in front of students, most of them from a poor neighborhood. He listened as teacher Sandra K. Daniels pointed to an easel, and the second-graders read aloud lists of words.

Then, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card strode into the classroom, leaned down and whispered in the president's ear, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack," Mr. Card has recounted.

Both Republican and Democratic commissioners have said they are focusing closely on what happened next -- and whether mere minutes could have affected the outcome on Sept. 11. The panel's investigators are looking at questions such as the timeliness of presidential orders about intercepting the jet that at 9:37 a.m. plowed into the Pentagon.

In a CNBC television interview almost a year later, Mr. Card said that after he alerted Mr. Bush, "I pulled away from the president, and not that many seconds later, the president excused himself from the classroom, and we gathered in the holding room and talked about the situation."

But uncut videotape of the classroom visit obtained from the local cable-TV station director who shot it, and interviews with the teacher and principal, show that Mr. Bush remained in the classroom not for mere seconds, but for at least seven additional minutes. He followed along for five minutes as children read aloud a story about a pet goat. Then he stayed for at least another two minutes, asking the children questions and explaining to Ms. Rigell that he would have to leave more quickly than planned.

Mr. Bartlett confirmed in an interview that the president stayed in the classroom for at least seven minutes. The spokesman said that as the president's staff was trying to learn more about the plane crashes, there was no need to talk to Mr. Bush or pull him away. The president didn't leave immediately after receiving the news of the second crash from Mr. Card because Mr. Bush's "instinct was not to frighten the children by rushing out of the room," the spokesman added. Mr. Bush's motorcade left the school at approximately 9:35 a.m., 32 minutes after he entered the classroom, according to a White House timeline and analysis of the uncut videotape.

HE DIDN'T WANT TO FRIGHTEN THE CHILDREN! How thoughtful. It's good for the President of the United States not to panic under pressure, but THIS IS RIDICULOUS. AMERICA UNDER ATTACK! GET UP ALREADY! I'm sure many of the children would've SCREAMED that at him if good ol' Andy Card had whispered a little louder.

March 21, 2004

Grand Theft America

Posted By Chris Crosby at 3:43 AM

For those of you who aren't up on the details of exactly how Bush stole the 2000 election and are wondering why so many people are still so pissed off about something that happened so very long ago, here's an awesome animated primer: GRAND THEFT AMERICA (warning: contains bad language and incredibly scary information).

The next time someone says something like "Bush won fair and square! Haven't you ever heard of the ELECTORAL COLLEGE?" ...I will THROW THEM DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN.

March 19, 2004

"Who cares what you think?" -George W. Bush (July 4, 2001)

Posted By Chris Crosby at 12:07 PM

Two good articles on Salon today, here and here. They're subscription-exclusive, but you can use the Day Pass and read them free by sitting through a short ad first.

Free Comic Book Day 2004 announced, and SORE THUMBS is a part of it!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 2:30 AM

Free Comic Book Day is like Christmas (or a popular non-religious gift-giving holiday) for comic book fans, and this year there will be a SORE THUMBS book under that Free Comic Book Day Tree! If you don't believe me, look here! (You've gotta scroll down a bit.)

The free 48-page book will feature an all-new short story about the 2004 election and lots of other fun stuff, so pester your local comic book retailer to order it NOW! With SORE THUMBS being so new, word might not yet have reached them about how awesome it is. Go here or here to find the phone number and address of your local comic book retailer, then immediately call or visit them to spread the word of the SORE THUMBS. Cecania and Fairbanks thank you in advance.

March 18, 2004

Where have you gone, Dennis Miller circa 1988?

Posted By Chris Crosby at 2:33 PM

Here's a funny clip of Dennis Miller being kind of a jerk for no known reason to liberal author Eric Alterman. I suspect more people will click on the above link than actually watch Dennis's useless show on CNBC.

March 17, 2004

Rummy meets and greets Mr. Imminent Threat To USA

Posted By Chris Crosby at 7:06 PM

Let's make today Rummy Doing Evil Things On Videotape Day and link to the infamous video clip of the time he went to Iraq to hang out with Saddam Hussein (aka Mr. Imminent Threat To USA) back in 1983. I guess nobody had told him that Saddam was a Bad Man in a Dangerous Part Of The World yet!

Rummy? More like LIE-ey!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 2:24 PM

This video clip would be hilarious if it were not so crap-your-pants frightening.

Okay, my impression of Atrios begins... NOW!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 2:05 PM

Shorter Carson Fire: "Vote for Bush or the terrorists win."

Right. Because the people in charge of running a country should NEVER be held responsible for massive security failures so long as TERRA is involved.

We've been BLOGGERED!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 1:22 AM

LOOKIT! We've changed over to an automated blog via BLOGGER! Now I don't have to bother hand-coding the HTML for these messages anymore, AND more importantly, Owen can post messages to the homepage as well whenever he likes! Expect to see some posts from him here soon! I plan to make this space more like a traditional blog, updated multiple times daily with fun and interesting information and links on stuff you might be interested in. So you might wanna stop on by daily from now on and see what's new in the text portion of SORE THUMBS.

And hey, we've got our first FAN ART! But it's not only fan art, it's fan WALLPAPER. And it's by EIGHT, the talented and controversial cartoonist of the long-running webcomic ROAD WAFFLES! Thanks, Eight! Check it out.

March 15, 2004

MARCH 15, 2004

Posted By Chris Crosby at 12:00 AM

I feel kinda bad putting up these early strips, knowing that the next couple weeks of strips are so much better. I guess that's what happens when you work so far ahead of schedule.

Hey, did anybody see that new show on SPIKE TV (The First Network For MEN!) last night called THIS JUST IN? It's a show about a group of guys in a bar commenting on recent current events, and it's a CARTOON, because it's animated in Flash so it only takes them like three days to animate it, so they can stuff in all the Martha-Stewart-in-jail-making-fancy-pies-and-getting-raped-by-other-women jokes that their heart desires.

It was kinda funny at times, but the star of the show is this Hannity-like conservative Republican guy who says a bunch of stupid crap about liberals even though Ted Kennedy literally saved his life. This got me to thinking that SPIKE TV is not quite FAIR & BALANCED, and they need a more LIBERAL-centric companion animated series to that show... one that is called SORE THUMBS! With that in mind, I suggest that all of our thousands of loyal readers should write in to SPIKE TV and demand that they produce a SORE THUMBS animated series (and give them our URL so they know what you are talking about). Considering how fast SORE THUMBS has grown in popularity, I suspect our SPIKE TV animated series will debut early next month. In the worst case scenario, we'll have annoyed the fine people at SPIKE TV with TONS of E-Mail. Either way, EVERYBODY WINS.

On a completely different note, the forums are hoppin' like a rabbit on speed! Whether you enjoy discussion of the Iraq war or of very large breasts, the SORE THUMBS Forums are the forums for you! I would post on it myself but I am trying to be cool and mysterious like Tatsuya Ishida. Also, I am incredibly lazy. But Owen is posting a lot! So stop on by.

Oh, and check out Keenspot's newest strip, SKIRTING DANGER!

March 12, 2004

MARCH 12, 2004

Posted By Chris Crosby at 12:00 AM

You've just met Fairbanks ! I'm sure you all adore him already. You guys learn to either love or hate things at superhuman speeds, and I admire you greatly for that!

As you might be able to tell from today's strip, my writing style is not a rigidly conformist one that forces a punchline at the end of every single strip. I myself am not a great fan of punchlines in general. As long as there is something funny or interesting in at least one panel of every strip, I am a happy reader. But if you are not like me, I suggest you read today's strip backwards, and you will be pleasantly surprised to see that it ends with a punchline about Cecania majoring in "TV Horror Show Hosting" in college. And if you still don't laugh, then you should immediately dial 911. Not the terrorist attack, the emergency phone number. You should never never ever dial 911: the terrorist attack. Assuming that anyone ever figures out how such a thing would be possible, I mean.

On a completely different note: you can now E-Mail myself and Owen at creators@sorethumbsonline.com!

See you Monday!

March 10, 2004

MARCH 10, 2004

Posted By Chris Crosby at 12:00 AM

Yowsa! There are 22,211 people who can actually say "I was there from DAY ONE!" That goes beyond all of our wildest expectations, at least for our first day. People are saying this may possibly be the biggest launch in webcomics history. Webcomics history isn't very long, and webcomic stats aren't generally public or recorded quite as well as, say, those of the movie or TV industry... but still. Yowsa!

The fan mail that poured into my mailbox in gigantic virtual bags was much appreciated, and all has been forwarded onto artist Owen. I've taken the E-Mail contact option off the homepage for now until I get a SORE THUMBS E-Mail address set up that can auto-forward your mail to both of us. For now you can post your mail to us in the forum, I guarantee you we'll read it. (Shout out to all the crazy people in the forum!)

Since Owen's awesome artwork is obviously the main factor driving initial traffic to SORE THUMBS, I'm going to do my best to not screw up a good thing, and shall try hard to write the strip good instead of bad. If you're not convinced the writing is good yet, stick with it, it gets a lot better. (We're about a month ahead of schedule.)

And don't be scared off by the political elements of the strip, either. Not only will the writing be so character-based that you shouldn't even have to care about politics or anything else to enjoy it, but I guarantee you the viewpoints expressed in the strip will be virtually Fair and Balanced (and I don't say that ironically), in the long run if not immediately. Yes, I am an anti-Bush liberal independent. I'm also pro-torture for violent criminals and would probably have voted for John McCain over Al Gore in 2000 if given the option. I understand and appreciate many conservative viewpoints and will work them into the story whenever possible.

On a completely different note: link buttons and wallpaper!

See you Friday!

March 8, 2004

MARCH 8, 2004

Posted By Chris Crosby at 12:00 AM

Welcome to SORE THUMBS! If you're reading this on March 8th, you are a very very special person. In the world of the future when SORE THUMBS is a household name and household product, you can say "I was there from DAY ONE!" And if you're standing among a crowd of people, all of them will applaud you. This is certainty!

SORE THUMBS is a comic strip created by yours truly (aka Chris Crosby) and my partner in crime Owen Gieni (aka Smilin' Owen Gieni, with three exclamation points). I write it, Owen draws it, and you read it (hopefully!). It will be updated on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays without fail, or else you will receive a full refund. Bookmark it now so you'll get it fresh three times a week!

You will eventually see exactly what SORE THUMBS is about, so I won't describe it to you here. That would border on being a spoiler.

Okay, I will, but I'll put it in invisible text. Highlight it or not, it's your choice!

To quote the sacred Keenspot homepage's description of SORE THUMBS, "Liberal activist Cecania is forced to work in the video game shop owned by her conservative brother Fairbanks. If CNN's CROSSFIRE was set in a video game shop and James Carville was an attractive pink-haired girl drawn anime-style, it would be SORE THUMBS!"

See you Wednesday!