The Sorensen Monologues
2010 San Diego Comic-Con Photos
The majority of costumes at Comic-Con fall into standard categories — superhero, sex kitten, Ghostbuster, zombie, warrior, zombie warrior. Oh yes, and steampunk. Lots of begoggled hipsters walking around with vaguely antiquarian-looking contraptions on their backs. But some outfits rose above, and here are a few of them:
Me with flyer man. Someone said he does this every year. A Slowpoke postcard was added to the back of his head.
Gotta give it up for the Jackie O's.
Well done, sir.
In a sea of questionably-enhanced bosoms, it was refreshing to see a few dudes objectifying themselves, however goofily. I liked this guy's pluck.
As expected, the con was a grotesque juggernaut of Hollywood crap. But I did have a soft spot for this Lego Spongebob:
And this frighteningly large My Little Pony reminded me of a Jeff Koons sculpture:
Not-so-little pony
It occurred to me that Comic-Con is basically the internet personified. It’s What Reddit Looks Like. When you think of it that way, it explains a bunch of internet phenomena. Good lord, I don’t even want to imagine all the nerd humping that must have gone on in San Diego over the past few days.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I had lots of fun.
This Week’s Cartoon: “World War III: In It For the Money!”
It’s remarkable how little the self-proclaimed deficit hawks seem to talk about trimming our pork-encrusted military expenditures. I see on CostofWar.com that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have surpassed a trillion dollars. I’m not sure I feel a trillion dollars safer. For a trillion dollars, I expect the nation to be covered in a climate-controlled biodome that vaporizes terrorists upon entry. Given that we can’t even get Star Wars right, and it took us nearly three months to plug a hole in the ground, I’m guessing a biodome is not in the cards.
Despite all that outlay of lucre, the economy still sucks, so it’s time for full-scale mobilization! And I mean mobilization, right down to the last able-bodied American. I want to see toddlers plugging rivets into tanks! Dogs hauling bags of bullets! That, my friends, is how to get things moving again. And it’s a hell of a lot more acceptable to the pundit class than, I don’t know, stimulus spending that helps people keep their jobs. Or letting the Bush tax cuts for six-figure earners expire as scheduled. Or helping the unemployed. No, in the immortal words of The Exploited, LET’S START A WAR! But no nukes, please. That would kind of defeat the purpose.
If You Regularly Watch PBS NewsHour…
…you might see a Slowpoke strip in an upcoming segment about digital culture and the book Hamlet’s Blackberry. I don’t know exactly when the segment is scheduled to appear, and I’m too busy these days to watch much TV, so if you happen to spot it, please let me know. (Hopefully it will also be posted on their website, which I will monitor; I’m not 100% sure they’re using the comic, but it sounded probable.)
Slowpoke Does San Diego
I’ll be in attendance at the San Diego Comic-Con next week, hovering around the Andrews McMeel Universal booth. That’s number 1018, or so I’m told. Specifically, I’m scheduled to do a signing from 1-2pm on Friday, but you can probably find me at other times on the 23rd and 24th, and probably part of the 25th as well. If you’re going to the con, please stop by and say hello.
My Chat With Harvey Pekar
As you’ve likely heard by now, the great comics writer Harvey Pekar died on Monday. I didn’t know him personally, and am probably less qualified to share stories about him than those cartoonists who did, but I did get to hang out with him once. It was the summer of 2005, and I was in Cleveland for the Funny Times anniversary party. I’d arrived a little early, and found myself sitting in a small yard behind the Funny Times offices, waiting for other people to show up. I was chatting with the staffers, and maybe one or two other cartoonists, when all of a sudden Pekar appeared and sat down just a few feet away. It’s not every day Harvey Pekar pulls up a seat next to you; I hadn’t known he was coming, and was momentarily overwhelmed with surprise.
We got to talking about the American Splendor movie and his various projects, and I nerdily told him about my senior thesis that referenced a comic his wife Joyce Brabner had written. What I remember most clearly from our conversation was how disarmingly frank and down-to-earth he was about having to make a living again now that the flurry of attention from the movie had subsided. He put on no celebrity airs; he seemed preoccupied with the practical matters of life. Just like in his comics.
I had some audio equipment with me at the time, lent to me by a friend who asked me to interview cartoonists for a podcast. I remember being tempted to get Pekar on tape, but decided against it. It would have ruined the moment. I’m glad I didn’t.
This Week’s Cartoon: “All You Need Is Like”
A little while ago, I was startled to see my Facebook friends popping up on the Washington Post website. More recently, Facebook has added “like” buttons to individual comments, so you can not only like somebody’s post, but the replies to that post. Now, I’ve got nothing against positive reinforcement. I find it encouraging and helpful when people “like” one of my cartoons (which, incidentally, you can do RIGHT NOW on the Slowpoke Facebook page!). But it’s starting to feel like the internet is getting a bit too interactive. Every single infintesimal thing has to be voted upon, commented upon, socially bookmarked, and generally subjected to the fickle whims of the Zeitgeist. And usually, what comes out on top is kitties. Oh, the kitties! Makes me almost yearn for the days of one-way information beams boring directly into your skull. Those were some good times.
This Week’s Cartoon: “Unemployment Solved!”
Would’ve posted this sooner, but in addition to being busy with moving, the internet at my current location went down yesterday and shows no sign of returning until the cable company comes tomorrow. (I’m typing this in a coffee shop.) I’m not sure what’s the biggest time-waster: when the internet is working, or when it isn’t. Suddenly everything I need to do has become ten times as complicated.
Sharron Angle is far from the only fruit loop when it comes to unemployment benefits. Most of the Republicans and Democrat Ben Nelson have been sucked into the cruelty cult. Paul Krugman’s Monday column was, coincidentally, a perfect companion piece to the strip. Is it really too much to ask that people running for office understand basic economics? Like, at the very least, that there are way fewer jobs right now than there are people looking? If you can’t grasp that, you should be in remedial math, not in the halls of Congress.
Service Announcement
Thought I’d mention that my online activities may be a little light for the next month or so. Mr. Slowpoke and I will hopefully be moving into our new Seattle digs soon, and I’ve got some freelance work piling up (can’t complain about that!). So I may not be posting much more than the weekly cartoon here until we get settled. In the meantime, I will probably continue to issue occasional bleats on Twitter, and you should, of course, join the Slowpoke Facebook page.
This Week’s Cartoon: “Spawn of Hot Yoga”
I’ve been sort of burned out on politics lately, so apologies to those of you wanting something about the general in charge of a mostly-stupid war saying something stupid, and people asking stupid questions about whether the stupid comments should have been published.
I have nothing against hot yoga; I actually think it sounds kind of interesting. It’s been on my mind because I follow Black Francis of the Pixies on Twitter, and he tweets about it all the time. Some people have said they don’t get this one, which I find a little surprising — to me, it feels like a Life in Hell strip, or maybe a Roz Chast cartoon that’s just riffing on a concept. I suppose I’ll try to be more down-to-earth next week.
This Week’s Cartoon: “Let’s Get Ugly”
Whenever I travel by highway, I am struck by how determined we seem to destroy the country with ugliness. The drive from Seattle to Portland is not especially ugly compared to others, but it has its moments (I’m looking at you, Tacoma-area sprawl). This grotesque lack of attention to aesthetics really, really bothers me. We’re letting commercial developers ruin everything that’s not within an urban core. Opposing this stuff doesn’t make me a snob; it makes me patriotic. The song is “America the Beautiful,” not “America the Sh!thole,” dammit.
My parents recently reported that their neighbors, who have a deep affinity for crap (among other things, they bought their children an actual golf cart to drive in circles around the neighborhood), just installed a hideous above-ground pool in their backyard. That’s where the pool reference in the comic came from. [UPDATE: The pool has apparently developed a case of mustard fungus! Schadenfreude? Yes.]
AAEC Wrap-up
Okay, okay, I know I said I was going to blog from the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention, but I truly didn’t have a moment to spare. Considering that my primary activity consisted of stuffing my face with food and drink, I’m not entirely sure you needed a play-by-play anyway. Here, then, is an executive summary of Important Convention News, from a me-centric perspective.
I was nominated for the Board of Directors. I guess this marks the start of my political career. Today the AAEC, tomorrow the halls of Congress! Or at least Assistant to Tri-Cities Deputy Comptroller.
I was interviewed by KBOO. This is Portland’s community radio station. Matt Wuerker and I were interviewed for a show about cartoonists, to be aired sometime later this summer.
Me in front of the funkily-painted KBOO studios.
I drank wonderful beer. At Bailey’s Taphouse, I had something called a Block 15 Super Nebula Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout. This big, bold beauty is aged in oak barrels, boasts 11% alcohol, and will generally blow your socks off. That’s Ted Rall’s arm behind the glasses.
Goblets of ungodly goodness
A special shout-out to Kevin Moore and his wife Jenn for hosting Mr. Slowpoke and me.
Bitchin’!
Oh yes, almost forgot to mention here that there’s a very nice interview with me in the new issue of Bitch magazine. Print only!
