I don’t know about reckless driving, but, speaking from personal experience, I definitely believe there’s a direct correlation between video games and violence.  I base this on the fact that any time I play the Atari 2600 version of Q*Bert on the TV in the living room, my cat ¶ will attack the screen.  Not only that, but ¶ is not the only cat I’ve seen do this – my former cat, &, did the same thing.  I don’t know if it’s the color of the character against the black background or the way Q*Bert moves, but if the game’s not on, the cats completely ignore the TV, so there’s no doubt in my mind that the game is responsible.  Try this yourself with your own furry little parasite and post the results in the comments.

…Yes, all the cats in my house have single-character names.  We currently have four: ¶, ~, ^ and ¨. My wife, who is far more merciful than I, spelled out their names on their veterinary forms.

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: (snort!) It’s amusing!

See you guys and gals on Friday!

-=ShoEboX=-

This one’s based on a conversation I recently had with my lovely wife.  I do own a rather extensive collection of amusing shirts, and while I would never be so bold as to refer to myself as “The Funny Shirt Guy,” I take a bit of pride in my ability to entertain my co-workers with my torso-draperies.

I think my favorite shirt is probably this one from Glennz Tees, which has changed several lives at my son’s day care.  Sadly, it’s out of print, but there are several other awesome shirts on the site.

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: (genuine LOL – snortless, for those keeping track) It’s good!

Happy Friday, people!

-=ShoEboX=-

Though the punchline of this strip is something I really did say to my wife when she was pregnant (and which she found hysterical,) the rest of this strip is not by any means autobiographical.  In the case presented here, I tend to think the “funnyman” is moments away from a well-earned swift kick to the groin.

Bad news: I have unfortunately had to cancel my appearance at Pi-Con this weekend.  Rob will still be attending (and performing,) as well as musical guests Tom Smith and Devo Spice.  It looks like a great time, and I really wish I could be there.

Sorry about the lack of a Tuesday strip this week – I won’t let it happen next week.  See you then!

-=ShoEboX=-

A while back, in a fit of severe nostalgia, I looked up some people on Facebook who I hadn’t seen since elementary school in what I hope was a non-creepy way.  Through them I found a few more of my friends from the same era, and we recently had a rather fun online conversation about various far-from-current events, such as in the third grade when Mrs. McKinstry gathered the entire class to watch her spank me for flipping her off (I had been dared to do so, and I had no idea what it meant) and when my friend Cory made up the following song about me, to the tune of “Chim Chim Che-ree” from Mary Poppins:

Tim Timminy, Tim Timminy, Tim Tim Te-ree
Tim is as fat, as fat as can be

Anyway.  Not sure this actually has anything to do with why my mind went where it did with this art, but it probably helped by putting me back in the frame of mind to think about Transformers and Ewoks in the first place.  Or maybe not…I do go to a lot of conventions.

Conventions!  Right!  I should plug Pi-Con in Enfield, CT, at which I’ll be performing as Worm Quartet and appearing on a webcomics panel or two (along with Rob Balder!)  This is happening August 20-22nd, and holy crap, that’s SOON!

Also, I just narrated a rather quirky story for Escape Pod, which you can check out here!

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: Mrs. Shoebox is currently at her mom’s helping her move, but Rob thinks it’s funny, and it got a “Heh. ” from the great Luke Ski.

See ya next week!

-=’Box=-

BONUS OPTIONAL FINAL LINE:  ”What’s a budget cut?”

Once I’d settled on turning this delightful classroom setting into a hostage situation by way of in-story art mockery, I had a hell of a time with the elephant.  I struggled with a handful of different ways of drawing direct lines to the tied-up teacher as the “elephant in the room” and throwing some back story behind the kidnapper’s relationship with her, but ultimately it was too wordy or didn’t let me end the strip in the right place, so I left the “elephant in the room” thing as – at best – implied, figuring I could over-explain it in the commentary.

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP (after a snort at panel two and a laugh at panel three.): It’s amusing!

-=ShoEboX=-

Let’s put this in perspective:  I’m tired.  I’ve had a long day.  My wife is sick, and went to bed early.  My son refused to go to sleep until I finally went and laid down with him for a while around 10:00.  Then something melted in the dishwasher, filling the house with a disgusting smell, and I had to deal with that, wiping melting bits of Tupperware off of the heating element with an oven mitt.  It was 11 by the time I started working on this strip.  I have to get up early tomorrow to drop my car off because the air conditioner is leaking nasty liquids onto the carpeting.  And this strip represents what my brain currently finds amusing.  Hopefully it works.

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: Deferred.  I wasn’t gonna wake my sick wife up and show her this.

-=ShoEboX=-

All but the first line of this is copied nigh-verbatim from a typically strange IM conversation I had with Balder this morning, so I’m crediting him as co-writer, making this is a full-on “Roth and Hagar on stage” moment.  Have fun trying to figure out which of us wrote which parts!

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that a PartiallyClips was inspired by an online chat between me and Rob.  It happened a few times when he was writing the strip, and it’s happened at least one other time while I’ve been writing it.  We even recorded dramatic readings of a few of our IM conversations for our musical collaboration, Baldbox.

I seriously contemplated misplacing an apostrophe in “schools” in the final speech bubble.  But (a.) I couldn’t bring myself to do it, because misplaced apostrophes make me want to stab bunnies, and (b.) I’d probably lose half my audience, since most of you feel the same way, if not stronger, and the bunny population would likely never recover.

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: Cute.  I chuckled.  But scary as hell.

In other news, I just recorded a reading of a rather quirky story for an upcoming episode of Escape Pod which should be going live in a week or two.  And this week’s episode is recorded by my good friend Devo Spice!  If you’re into sci-fi and podcasts and haven’t yet checked out Escape Pod, I hereby stare at you for an hour while blinking very slowly.

Time to shut up and sleep!  Have a good week, people!  See you Friday!

-=ShoEboX=-

This one evolved in a weird way.  My first shot at this strip this ended without the reveal.  The caller was just a moron of completely unrealistic proportions, and was really doing the things described, and that was the punchline.  Unsure about it, I ran it by both Rob and my wife, neither of whom liked it.  So I shelved it for a few days.  At some random moment I started thinking about it again, and the revenge twist occurred to me, which brings the story back to the land of the possible and gives it an extra punch.  So I changed the third panel, and here it is.

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP (first draft): Weird.

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP (final): Very amusing!

In other news, I’ll be appearing at Pi-Con in Enfield, CT August 20-22.  I’ll be performing as Worm Quartet alongside several of my fellow funny musicians from The FuMP, and I will also – for the first time – be appearing on a couple of webcomics panels.   Be gentle.

Oh, and the webcomics guest of honor is Rob Balder.  Remember him from the pre-stinkchunnel days?  He’s apparently doing some comic with cutesy misspelled mythical beasts and stuff now.

See you next week!

-=ShoEboX=-

Holy crap, a Tuesday strip posted on Tuesday!  I echo your collective gasps of astonishment!

This one’s inspired by all the crappy-ass superheroes that used to – and still do – show up on educational kids’ shows.  The examples I can immediately think of from my childhood are Letterman and the cheesy “Spidey” on The (original) Electric Company, as well as the various Sesame Street superheroes who could solve any crisis using the letter M or whatever.  The biggest offender in recent years is Super Why, in which various modernized fairy tale characters along with a weenie named Wyatt are given superpowers, and team up to alter classic children’s stories so that they conform to the “No Child Left Behind” act.  My wife used to IM me while watching this with our son, making observations such as “God, they must just take on crises on a first-come first-serve basis.  ’Sorry, we can’t save your family from that burning building – our princess needs to learn how to dance!’” only with far more profanity.

On the flip side, though, I’ve gotta mention Word Girl, which despite its goofy name is a surprisingly witty show, and has had appearances by Peter Graves, Brian Posehn, Maria Bamford, and even Patton Friggin’ Oswalt. My favorite character on this show is a villainess with the power to make duplicates of herself, named “Lady Redundant Woman.”

My son, being five, will happily watch either as if it’s the most brilliant thing he’s ever seen.

MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: “*Snort.*  Cute.”

-=ShoEboX=-