holiday dirt

Another visit from the nondenominational moose. Happy holidays, and keep it clean. This strip is featured in the December issue of Blanket Magazine.

landscape

Follow the arrows and make the best of it.

hard notes

Give thanks for low flying love songs.

well, it looks flat, don't it?!

OK, smart guy, if we're on a big doughnut where's the pink icing?! Huh?!

one good turn...

rock, paper, scissors... rock!

Happy Birthday, Stuntthinker.

again with the fart jokes

more fart jokes

Can anyone resist dropping a rock in a deep, dark hole?

it's the thought that counts

It's that season again. Go plant that tree the nondenominational moose brought you. Wait, that's Arbor Day.

top banana

not the gulf oil spill

This one was done about a year before the big spill in the Gulf, and I think oil was the farthest thing from my mind.

monsoon

This was drawn up to fit the theme of "over consumption" for Blanket Magazine. Get it while you can.

les and ray

These strips never have a title when I draw them but looking back at this one it made me think of "Les and Ray" by Le Tigre right away. If you haven't heard the song I can't say for sure that it would be worth your while to look it up. I like it, but it's not for everyone. Suffice to say that it mentions some saving grace seeping through the walls in the form of piano music.

doppelgänger

remember when you were at Disneyland when you were six and you were supposed to hold on to dad's finger the whole time so you wouldn't get lost? You let go for a minute to get a closer look at the mad tea party and when you reached up for dad's finger again it turned out to be some guy who thought you were trying to do the, "pull my finger," thing. Ha! wasn't that a laugh?

stepping out

mrs. a-go-go and I are back from our long road trip and it's time to pick up where we left off.

title page, volume 2

Loit Fum Dork, Pic Shaws volume two, is a collection of over simplified interpretations of various cosmologies. To see volume 2 from the start jump back to the post for March 13th. For less serious cartoons take a look at volume 1, Woit a Dowsan Woids, posted 9/28/2009 to 3/11/2010, and thanks for tuning in.

vol. 2, number 20, brain in a bottle

Can it get any more grim!? Why, yes! How about the swell idea that you're just a brain in a bottle being tortured by the evil genius? It's awfully similar to ideas that turn up in Hollywood science fiction like The Matrix and Dark City. Well, that's the end of volume 2 folks. I won't be making more posts until we get back from The Big Trip. For more on that, visit goin' with the a-go-gos. Want more wacky thought provoking stuff? Try looking up the Demiurge. That'll keep ya busy for a while.

vol. 2, number 19, between order and chaos

Complexity (and therefore life) lies within a fine line between order and chaos. Although this space is thin, it is vast, like the surface of the ocean between air and water, between stifling order and preemptive chaos.

vol. 2, number 18, more free will

If we reject the arbitrary creator, is that the death of it? If the arbitrary creator is dead, what meaning can we have? Oh, to heck with meaning. We're all here for such a short visit, better try to have a good time.

vol. 2, number 17, free will

OK, back to something theological again. If we reject the idea that our lives are controlled by fate or an arbitrary creator (in case you haven't gathered this from previous strips, the hook is the arbitrary creator) and we struggle to insist on our free will... what happens to meaning? Stay tuned. Yeah, I know, it's just a cartoon.

vol. 2, number 16, curved space

Continuing with all this dimensional hooey... So, you're walking along minding you're own business and you think the world is flat. Well, just look at it. It looks flat, don't it? You keep walking toward the rising sun every morning and presume that one day you'll find the edge. Nope, you don't find the edge, but you arrive back at the place you started. Hmm... either you walked in a circle without knowing it or you're walking on a three dimensional curved surface, eureka!

So, you're rocketing along minding your own business and you think the universe is three dimensional. Well, just look at it. It looks three dimensional, don't it? You keep rocketing along following your gyroscope in a straight line and presume that one day you'll find the edge. Nope, you don't find the edge, but you arrive back at the place you started. Hmm... either your gyroscope sucks or you're traveling through three dimensional space that is curved in a fourth dimension, eureka! Wait a minute, this gyroscope doesn't have any batteries in it.

vol. 2, number 15, Flatland

Flatland, a novella published in 1884 about a two dimensional world, is loaded with social criticism of Victorian society, but it provokes thought about what a two dimensional world would look like from a three dimensional point of view. This seems like an obvious place to go after the allegory of the cave as most of the two dimensional critters of Flatland can't be bothered with any notion of more dimensions and they ban all such nonsense. This has such a tidy parallel to cartoons. The characters in a strip have no knowledge that they are two dimensional, and naturally, there is always someone peering into your space from an angle that you don't even know about.

vol. 2, number 14, Plato's cave

The allegory of the cave. So, you're stuck in a place where your sight is limited to a shadow of reality. A two dimensional and incomplete version of things. Suppose someone tells you of how much more there is to see, because they have been out of the cave. They have seen the light, as it were. You angrily reject these strange ideas even when forced to experience something novel. But then who says what the layers of reality are. Even those pushing you could be stuck in their own delusion. That's right, I'm telling you we are all cactus shadows, dammit!

vol. 2, number 13, Panspermia

What the hell is Panspermia? The big idea is that life on earth has it's origin in biologically active material that somehow survived a trip across interplanetary or interstellar space. You may recall the controversy from several years back regarding some rocks of Martian origin found on Earth that seemed to contain trace evidence of biological activity inside. The pitch was that this rock demonstrated that life once flourished on Mars and rocks like these could have infected Earth with its earliest colonies of life. I like the idea a whole lot. Not because it greatly stretches the length of time available for life to crawl it's way out of chaos all on its own, but because it means we're all Martians after all.

vol. 2, number 12, Big Bang

This one came from pondering Big Bang stuff. So what does this have to do with the Big Bang? Not much. It's not an easy thing to put into a comic, but I remembered a silly description of what one's surroundings would look like as an observer at the time when things finally spread out enough to let light get around. Before that moment things were in a super dense hot state but there was no light because things were too tightly packed. So even in this origin story there is a moment when the lights come on (and it isn't at the first instant of the bang). So what would this still very dense soup look like if you could be there? Every direction would look virtually the same in a frustrating sort of way. So in this origin story our hero is faced with many repetitions of an identical view, and as Buckaroo Banzai said, "No matter where you go, there you are." Yep, nothing to do with the Big Bang at all. Sorry to disappoint.

vol. 2, number 11, The Dark Sea

I can't count how many origin stories I've read or listened to that describe the initial state of nothingness as a liquid darkness. And then, naturally, someone special turns on the lights, makes a comfortable dry place, and picks all the miserable soggy beings out of the ocean.

vol. 2, number 10, lightly toasted, please.

This one came from a tongue in cheek creation story in which the creator took some clay from the earth and formed it into a person, then baked it. The first attempt failed; it was overcooked and burnt black. So the creator tried again, and this time the person didn't bake long enough and came out sickly white. On the third try, the creator got it right and baked the person perfectly, resulting in a golden tan. Take what you like from all this, but I think the story is charming.

vol. 2, number 9

Another fine mess you've gotten me into.

vol. 2, number 8

Oooh, you are so in trouble...

vol. 2, number 7

That good, huh? OK, I'll give it a try. What could happen?

vol. 2, number 6

You didn't!?

vol. 2, number 5

Happy day and the first seven year itch.

vol. 2, number 4

Rib or rivet, same difference.

vol. 2, number 3

Still forbidden and just as tempting.

vol. 2, number 2

The forbidden prickles of the cactus of knowledge.

vol. 2, number 1, Genesis

So, a series of cosmology cartoons... where else to begin but with Genesis. Stay tuned, this one will take several installments. And by the way, none of this is intended to offend anyone. If you do find yourself frowning in disapproval, don't worry I'll be tearing up other traditions and stories too.

title page vol. 1

This was the title page for the first self-published volume of Pic Shaws. Just about all the posts up to this point have been from this li'l book. If you want to read these from start to finish jump back to the very first post on 9/28/09.

vol. 1, number 26

Not only is this one of mrs. a-go-go's favorite strips, it is the last in vol. 1, the first little comic book that I self published. It didn't get far. I didn't push hard enough to talk Skylight books or any comic shops to sell it as a zine, but lots of friends wanted copies. mrs. a-go-go's explanation for her fondness of this strip is her soft spot for hats and it's evocation of photo booth strips. All that and the similarity to 60s slapstick movies or Laugh In.

vol. 1, number 25

Boing.

vol. 1, number 24

Law of diminishing marginal utility.

vol. 1, number 23

Sorry, I missed a Wednesday post oh faithful readers. I've had a code im my nhode.

vol. 1, number 22

got yer ears on good buddy?

vol. 1, number 21

hot n' shticky

vol. 1, number 20

I had a bunch of Scoobie-Do cartoon sounds in my head when I drew this.

vol. 1, number 19

scratch where it itches

vol. 1, number 18

Another darkish one. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

vol. 1, number 17

Can you hear the intermission theme from Rocky and Bullwinkle?

vol. 1, number 16

Two dimensions?

vol. 1, number 15

Trouble figuring the order of the panels? You're not alone.

vol. 1, number 14

Right out of the Kat Komics.

vol. 1, number 13

More fun with interchangeable parts.