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April 27, 2004

Cannot... resist... RUBBING... bald... man's... HEAD!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 4:09 PM

I couldn't resist linking to this. I hope I NEVER go bald!

Liked that? Check this shit out!

April 26, 2004

John Kerry is a DoucheBag But I'm Voting For Him Anyway

Posted By Chris Crosby at 10:58 PM

A lot of people E-Mail me saying things like "Bush sucks, but John Kerry's not much better, so I guess I'll be voting for Nader." I've convinced myself that these statements are part of an elaborate contest where the winner is whoever got me to weep for the longest time. However, if I'm wrong and if you've ever said something like that and you actually MEANT it, I order you to read every page on this site (and check back for pages still being written). It is funny and informative, just like you are.

Support The Troops Who Read Our Comic!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 2:05 PM

We got a couple E-Mails from people in the military I thought I should share. I won't give away their names, just in case they're on a top secret mission or something...

I just wanted to say that if you're going to make fun of the military,
at least get the facts straight. When I got disabled, and processed out
after 9 years in, they paid a couple thousand dollars to move my stuff home.
They do that for everybody. Even guys who get bad-conduct discharges get a
bus ticket to where they joined the service from.
My positive comment for the day, the bear freakin' rocks :)

And here's the other...

I just started reading your comic, and would like to let you know that I
like it, not entirely sure why I do, but I do, and that's good enough for me

don't know how familiar ya'll are with the military, but this line jumped
out at me:
"The government didn't pay for that?"
you might be suprised at what they don't reimburse us for, but that is one
of the things that I believe is paid for

anyways, thanks for the comic, I look forward to following it in the future
Airman First Class ______ ______

Thanks for the E-Mail, guys! I think it is awesome that we have military people reading our little comic. In all seriousness, I support the troops 100% and would likely be performing for them in a USO show like my idol Al Franken if I was famous and had any talent.

With regards to the issue in question, Sawyer's plane trip home wasn't paid for because he is very, very unlucky. If he was a regular soldier, I'm sure his trip would've been paid for, but everybody in the military hates him for some reason. Even his commanding officer gyped him by awarding him an unnaturally small bear. It's a wacky comic strip, the connection with reality is wafer-thin. Though I was partially inspired by the fact that some soldiers have had to pay for their flights home for R&R leave, a problem apparently solved recently by Operation Hero Miles.

Speaking of supporting the troops, MoveOn.org has a great new ad comparing John Kerry and George W. Bush's military records. I hope it gets all over the TV. For the life of me, I can't believe that any troop would support Bush over Kerry. Like the troops in Iraq and elsewhere right now, Kerry literally KILLED OUR ENEMIES WITH HIS OWN HANDS and GOT WOUNDED THREE TIMES in defense of America... yet FRIGGIN' DICK CHENEY (the man who "had other priorities" during Vietnam) has the AUDACITY to say that Kerry is weak on defense because he didn't vote for a couple pork barrel weapons bills over 30+ years, or that he cast a protest vote over the $87 billion because Bush is too much of a greedy asshole to make sacrifices himself by cancelling a tax cut or two for the incredibly weathy during wartime. Can you believe that shit? I can't.

Support the troop, vote for Kerry.

April 23, 2004

Just a LEG?

Posted By Chris Crosby at 6:28 PM

Both DOONESBURY and GET FUZZY are running storylines about a character losing a leg in the Iraq war. The DOONESBURY storyline is so controversial that a number of newspapers are refusing to print it, or at least print certain strips in the storyline.

Boy... if SORE THUMBS was in the newspaper, dozens of editors would've committed suicide by this point. (Both because of Sawyer's sensitive injury and because the comic is so large there would be no room for any other comics on the page.)

April 22, 2004

Bonus SORE THUMBS Strip At REAL LIFE!

Posted By Chris Crosby at 1:53 PM

Hey, I just noticed Greg Dean put up Owen and my guest strip for REAL LIFE, go check it out. Fairbanks and Harmony are in it. Also, Ernest.

Mike Wilson Murders American Puppies Because They Believe In Jesus: A New Documentary Coming This Summer

Posted By Chris Crosby at 12:58 PM

The attack dogs have gotten people so brainwashed, it almost seems like nobody ever sticks up for good ol' Michael Moore anymore, not even some liberals (he's just our version of Rush Limbaugh, right?). So let me do a bit of that right now as best I can.

Michael Moore's new documentary FAHRENHEIT 911 is now an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival and will be released this summer, and already the attack dogs are responding. THE DRUDGE REPORT has decided it's actually newsworthy that Michael Moore's website is hosted by a Canadian company (with an office in Beverly Hills, CA), as if that makes him a traitor to America. (Has the world actually turned into the SOUTH PARK movie?)

Meanwhile, before even declaring war on Iraq, the Bush administration is showing our TOP SECRET WAR PLANS to Prince Bandar (who Dubya nicknamed "Bandar Bush," seriously!), their best pal from the BRUTAL DICTATORSHIP known as Saudi Arabia. This is a country that teaches their children to hate America (Christian and Jewish Americans, especially) in school and that most of the 9-11 hijackers (and Bin Laden) are from. Talk about outsourcing! Yeah, MICHAEL MOORE is the traitor.

Even more laughably, there's a new feature documentary by some guy named Mike Wilson set for release this summer called MICHAEL MOORE HATES AMERICA (even the TITLE is a slanderous lie!). The trailer is one of the dumbest things I've ever seen, and I've seen (and created) a LOT of dumb things. The guy who is making it appears to be one of those nutty people who not only completely missed the point of BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, but also believes that the whole thing was filmed on the Universal Studios backlot because the possibility that a bank exists that would give you a gun when you open an account is CRAAAZ-AAY! They're the same kind of people who point out that Al Franken is a liar because the Bush Administration had NO actual plan called "Operation: Ignore" (that was the title of the chapter in his book LIES & THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM about Bush's actions leading up to 9-11).

If YOU are that kind of person, and I pray you're not, I beg you to read Moore's side of the story.

The biggest lie of them all is that Michael Moore is the Rush Limbaugh of the left. He's NOT. Michael Moore is NOT a mouthpiece for the Democratic party (he campaigned for friggin' NADER in 2000!), like Rush is for the Republicans. And he is NOT a habitual liar, like Rush has been since he first went on air. Like Rush, he may be "over the top" at times, but to say he's no different than Rush is just STUPID (or "ignorant," as Michael Jefferson might say). And saying he hates America is just SAD and WRONG.

The many people who disagree with me (sadly, I know there are many) should take it to the Forums. I'll read your E-Mail but I probably won't reply to them, it just takes too damn long. (Now I understand why Michael Moore never replies to my E-Mail.)

April 19, 2004

My Achy Breaky Heart

Posted By Chris Crosby at 12:38 PM

For those of you who don't read SOMETHING POSITIVE (and that's probably not a lot of you), there's an advertisement-off going on in the $10-a-day ad space between us and CHECKERBOARD NIGHTMARE. First we ran this ad, then they ran this parody ad, then we ran this parody parody ad in response.

I have read on some web sites that they "got served" by us with the most recent ad, and now it may be "on." I'm not entirely sure if it's possible to parody a parody parody, let alone a parody parody parody, but I guess we won't know until we try! I also didn't think it was possible for me to own someone's ass, but I was wrong... DEAD WRONG.

Nevertheless, it is a bittersweet victory, as I almost feel as if I have served MYSELF. I relate to the character of Checkerboard Nightmare far more than any human should. I would probably be WANGing more successful cartoonists with a large shovel by this point if I had not come up with the idea for SORE THUMBS. Thank God for this Free Mon-Wed-Fri Gaming Manga!

April 16, 2004

Bil Keane calls Aaron McGruder unfunny

Posted By Chris Crosby at 10:24 PM

Here's a pretty interesting profile of BOONDOCKS creator Aaron McGruder from THE NEW YORKER. This is probably my favorite paragraph from it:

"I don't go to the cartoonist conventions," McGruder said. "I went once, to the Reuben Awards"--the Oscars of cartooning--"and I didn't feel very welcome. I felt a palpable sense of resentment. Bil Keane was the MC, and he opened doing more than one joke that was clearly aimed at me. It was raw--"just some f***ed-up shit. O.K., and yet, if I get out of my chair right now and beat the shit out of you, then I'm the bad guy? You're sitting here, clearly dogging me--not by name, but how many black cartoonists are working? He told some joke about diversity in comics. Like 'There's a lot of diversity in comics these days. They don't have to be funny, they just have to be diverse.' There were a couple of shots at me where I was like, 'Motherf***er, you don't know me. We're not cool.'"

That's CLASSIC. I actually used to be a fan of THE FAMILY CIRCUS as a small child, but now I wouldn't even really be THAT sad if Bil Keane was killed in a drive-by shooting.

Okay, I would be sad. But just a little bit. I mean, he's like 200 years old and a millionaire, and Jeffy's drawing the strip now, I think. It wouldn't be the world's BIGGEST tragedy or anything.

I should've stopped writing at "That's CLASSIC."

April 14, 2004

Silver Bullet = Door

Posted By Chris Crosby at 7:25 PM

I'm really tired of the idiot assholes who run our country saying that there was absolutely no way to prevent 9-11, or at the very least, there was no "Silver Bullet" to prevent 9-11. THERE WAS A SILVER BULLET. And it wasn't invading Afghanistan, or killing Osama Bin Laden, or any of that crap.

The Silver Bullet was... A LOCKED COCKPIT DOOR. That ALONE would've kept hijackers from piloting the planes into buildings. Something would've kept them out of the cockpit. A DOOR. With a LOCK ON IT. When the pretty much foolproof solution to preventing one of the most horrible tragedies in American history is a DOOR, you cannot call it UNPREVENTABLE. AAAARRRGGG!

April and May 2001: The White House receives intelligence briefings with titles like "Bin Laden planning multiple operations," "Bin Laden network's plans advancing" and "Bin Laden threats are real."

August 6, 2001: Bush is handed a Presidential Daily Briefing with the title "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United States" and warns of possible airline hijackings and attacks on New York. Colin Powell suggests that maybe Bush should do something about all the Bin Laden shit, like order the airlines to buy some friggin' cockpit doors that lock and stuff. Thinking Colin Powell is his caddy, Bush violently rapes him, and then goes golfing.

Okay, I made the last two sentences up (though he did go golfing). But if I was George W. Bush I would not admit that, because it's POSSIBLE that Bush COULD have violently raped Colin Powell. He could've done it while hiding in a Turkey Farm so nobody could see it! 'Cause a President that hides something is a President afraid of getting caught.

Jethro For President (or Vice President)

Posted By Chris Crosby at 4:02 PM

I thought that nothing could deter me from casting my vote for Senator John Kerry this November... but a new candidate has emerged. One with a persuasively simple argument for government reform (two words: "clippy clappy") and a stirring emotional campaign song that the nation must hear and believe in.

ANYBODY BUT BUSH, now more than ever. Cuz the goldfish are dying and the puppies can't breathe.

Trust, Don't Verify.

Posted By Chris Crosby at 10:51 AM

Great article on Bush's astoundingly sad news conference last night.

April 9, 2004

He lied...

Posted By Chris Crosby at 11:53 AM

...they died.

April 8, 2004

Condi's Bogus Journey

Posted By Chris Crosby at 10:58 AM

There was a TON of nutty stuff in today's 9-11 hearings, but here's the MAIN THING anybody should care about...

On August 6, 2001, Condi hands Bush a national security briefing. The title of the briefing is "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," and it warns of airline hijackings planned by al-Qaida.

On August 7, 2001 (THE NEXT DAY), Bush continues his month-long vacation. Possibly the longest vacation in Presidential history. Spends an extraordinary amount of his time clearing brush.

'Nuff said, true believer.

April 4, 2004

New fan art from two Michaels (Spanio and Poe)

Posted By Chris Crosby at 6:16 AM

The Extras section has been updated with fan art by Michael Poe (ERRANT STORY) and Mike Spanio (I don't know if he has a webcomic or not).

The Poe art was taken from this thread on his message board, which is full of so much hatred for SORE THUMBS that you would almost think the comic is PUPKIN in disguise. And it may well be! We Crosbys are TRICKSY sorts.

Either way, it'd be nice to get a bit more detailed criticism from folks who despise the writing, instead of just saying it's crap or they despise it or whatever. Probably the closest I could find on the thread above was a comment that the strip wasn't liberal because it portrays girls as being too disgusted by blood to be doctors. To that I would say: 1.) We never said the strip WAS "liberal." It's neither liberal nor conservative. 2.) Just because one female character in the strip is nuts doesn't mean we're saying that ALL females are nuts, just as we're not saying all males or all conservatives are nuts because Fairbanks is. If anything, we're just saying that all HUMANS are nuts. Also, deer.

Still, it's nice that people are interested enough to talk about it so much.

April 3, 2004

[Al Franken Mode] I accuse the White House of lying to CNN about a bored kid! LYING LIAR! [/Al Franken Mode]

Posted By Chris Crosby at 8:39 AM

Sparked by another forum thread, here's more on what I posted a couple days ago accusing the White House of lying about incredibly unimportant things.

To catch you up, here's the story in a nutshell: David Letterman ran a video on his show of a kid in the background of a Bush speech being visibly bored and/or sleepy. Then CNN ran that video clip, had a good laugh over the funny kid, and went to a commercial. Over the next two hours, they made a point twice to break into news and say that the White House had contacted them saying the video was FAKE, an editing trick by Letterman's show inserting the bored kid into the background. But it WASN'T edited in any way. Dave went on his next show kinda pissed, telling off CNN and the White House for lying about the video. CNN called Dave and told him it was a mistake, the White House hadn't called after all, but didn't really bother to explain what actually happened in detail. Dave felt bad and apologized to the White House, CNN apologized to everybody, and everything was fine... until Dave learned from "an undisputable source, a very high-placed source" (Dave's words) that the White House DID contact CNN. As of Thursday night's show (video and transcript linked), Dave was saying "I'm pretty sure the White House contacted CNN." On Friday night's show, the bored kid from the video was the first guest and was very entertaining, but there were no new developments on the controversy.

Damn, that's a pretty big nutshell.

Like Dave, my guess is that the White House DID contact CNN and tell them the video was fake. That would be stupid, disturbing, and right in line with the past behavior of the Bush administration. If that's proven untrue, I'll let you guys know.

Is SORE THUMBS really a GAMING comic? Heck, is it really even a POLITICAL comic?

Posted By Chris Crosby at 6:49 AM

There's been a couple discussions on the forum about what exactly SORE THUMBS is. Is it really a GAMING comic? Is it really even a POLITICAL comic? I'll touch on those very issues in this blog post.

SORE THUMBS is a gaming comic in the sense that MEGATOKYO or PvP are gaming comics, in that the strip is peripherally related to video games. It is set in a video game shop, some of the characters are gamers, and there are occassional references to video games. There have been 12 SORE THUMBS strips so far, and out of those 12 strips, there have been specific gaming references in 4 of them. Just as in the two above-mentioned comparison comics, there will not be references to gaming in EVERY SINGLE STRIP. Go look at the last 12 strips of each of those two other comics and compare.

...

Okay, you're obviously too lazy, so I'll do it for you. Of the last 12 MEGATOKYO strips, there were 2 strips with specific gaming references (and that may be only if you count spelling the word evil "3VIL" and sprinkling sentences with the word "L33T" as gaming references). Of the last 12 PvPs, there were 3 strips with specific gaming references. See, we beat them BOTH in the number of game-reference strips, and they didn't even have the burden of introducing their concept and cast in THEIR last 12 strips.

As for the political nature of the strip, the answer is kinda the same as the gaming thing. There are political references in the strip because some of the characters are politically-active, but this is NOT an "editorial" comic like TED RALL or THIS MODERN WORLD, where each comic is meant to convey the opinion of the cartoonist. I'm not trying to make any particular political point in SORE THUMBS, or use the strip to communicate my liberal-leaning views (though it obviously seems that way to many of you). My goal with SORE THUMBS is to write a funny and/or interesting comic that loosely relates to politics and gaming. The characters are all totally INSANE in their own special way, not rational people who you should necessarily agree with on anything.

And no, Fairbanks is not a "strawman" for Cecania to easily knock down. If he is, she certainly hasn't knocked him down yet, has she? You can't point out ONE strip where Cecania has debated Fairbanks on ANY TOPIC (even Mario representing an ERECT MALE PENIS!) and won the argument. And if anything, she's shown she may be as devious and dishonest as she originally painted Fairbanks as being in the first strip. We don't know the whole story behind why Fairbanks killed those two guys "for looking 'suspicious'" (Cecania's words), but we do NOW know that those two guys were, in fact, ACTUAL TERRORISTS. Despite him being a conservative and all, that makes Fairbanks a REAL AMERICAN HERO in my book.

You can't possibly say that the world would be BETTER OFF if those terrorists were NOT DEAD... can you?

(That was a very subtle political reference playing on the question that every conservative asks when a liberal says they are opposed to the Iraq war. And yes, I do think that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein running Iraq. Probably.)

April 1, 2004

Air America is pretty awesome...

Posted By Chris Crosby at 4:57 PM

...but I didn't realize how hard it is to listen to 3-6 hours of radio per day. My GIFT... my CURSE!

Hey, we (i.e. YOU!) should try to get SORE THUMBS plugged on one of their shows ("O'Franken Factor" and "Majority Report," especially). Our legion of thousands of loyal readers could call in and mention it offhandedly, maybe, in a non-annoying way. I don't have the phone number, but here's the live feed. Whenever they're taking call-ins they give it out.

In other news, the White House has expanded their operations from not only lying about IMPORTANT things, but lying about INCREDIBLY UNIMPORTANT things. And people say they're narrow-minded!