What do you think?

From time to time, I’ll put up a comic I’ve created, in collaboration with others. Here’s the first in the series.

For more info on Schicklgruber, look here.

Here’s an excerpt from 1992′s Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, one of my favourite authors. It’s true that on topics of sheer lunacy, only comedians are brave enough to speak the truth, by mocking the lunacy in question.

Where do gods come from? Where do they go?

Some attempt to answer this was made by the religious philosopher Koomi of Smale in his book Ego-Video Libe Deorum, which translates into the vernacular roughly as Gods: A Spotter’s Guide.

People said there had to be a Supreme Being because otherwise how could the universe exist, eh?

And of course there clearly had to be, said Koomi, a Supreme Being. But since the universe was a bit of a mess, it was obvious that the Supreme Being hadn’t in fact made it. If he had made it he would, being Supreme, have made a much better job of it, with far better thought given, taking an example at random, to things like the design of the common nostril. Or, to put it another way, the existence of a badly put-together watch proved the existence of a blind watchmaker. You only had to look around to see that there was room for improvement practically everywhere.

This suggested that the Universe had probably been put together in a bit of a rush by an underling while the Supreme Being wasn’t looking, in the same way that Boy Scouts’ Association minutes are done on office photocopiers all over the country.

So, reasoned Koomi, it was not a good idea to address any prayers to a Supreme Being. It would only attract his attention and might cause trouble.

And yet there seemed to be a lot of lesser gods around the place. Koomi’s theory was that gods come into being and grow and flourish because they are believed in. Belief itself is the food of the gods. Initially, when mankind lived in small primitive tribes, there were probably millions of gods. Now there tended to be only a few very important ones – local gods of thunder and love, for example, tended to run together like pools of mercury as the small primitive tribes joined up and became huge, powerful primitive tribes with more sophisticated weapons. But any god could join. Any god could start small. Any god could grow in stature as its believers increased. And dwindle as they decreased. It was like a great big game of ladders and snakes.

Gods like games, provided they were winning.

Koomi’s theory was largely based on the good old Gnostic heresy, which tends to turn up all over the multiverse whenever men get up off their knees and start thinking for two minutes together, although the shock of the sudden altitude tends to mean the thinking is a little whacked. But it upsets priests, who tend to vent their displeasure in traditional ways.

When the Omnian Church found out about Koomi, they displayed him in every town within the Church’s empire to demonstrate the essential flaws in his argument.

There were a lot of towns, so they had to cut him up quite small.

Eat this, Ernie Pyle.

A picture is worth a thousand…

More in the everlasting battle between reason and blind faith. This one’s pretty good.

For a bit of background, first watch this:

Ok, so that breathtakingly stupid woman is a Senator from Arizona. She probably spends all her time finding vortexes in Sedona, but no matter. The really scary part is that she can influence policy discussions.

And look at one argument that video caused on Facebook. I only wish I knew the guy’s name so I could add him as a friend. Way to stick it to the “highly intelligent” lady.

Something struck me the other night, a neat way of categorizing the people one sees in a moshpit at rock concerts. Maybe this is true only for metal shows, who knows, I’ve never seen any really violent pits at hard rock concerts.

As you can see, the people right at the front are completely engrossed in the band, they are oblivious to all the goings-on behind them. As far as they are concerned, the people who paid good money but aren’t milking the show right from the front are losers, and who cares about them. Time spent looking at the band: 110%

Then come the first batch of terrified blokes. These guys/girls spend the entire show in that thin buffer between the moshpit and the lucky bastards at the front. This in turn means they spend a majority of their time looking back to deflect the 250 lb gorillas from elbowing them in the spine as they whirl on by. If you see a non-scared person in here, they are either high or simply on their way to another zone in the moshpit diagram. Time spent looking at the band: 30%

The guys in the red are the direct descendants of New York, Anthrax-era circle pits’ founders. They came to have a good time, some of them might not even know the band’s name, but they’re gonna run around and heaven help you if you get in the way of their recidivism. However, they obey the mosh code strictly and if they manage to knock you down, will be the first to run to pick you up out of harm’s way. Time spent looking at the band: 20%

The guys in the light blue on the periphery are just that: peripheral bystanders. These guys are dedicated fans who are either too small, weak or just not brave enough to brave the maelstrom in the centre. They’re content to stand with their significant other in the blue areas and get deafened, since the stacks point directly at these spots. Maybe one day they’ll make it to the front. Dedicated but terrified indeed. Time spent looking at the band: 100%

The next batch of terrified hombres is in the next yellow ring. For better or worse, these guys moseyed on through the back benchers and decided to brave the moshpit. Having rapidly decided that the moshpit is for braver souls than them, but not wanting to seem like cowardly rats slinking of, they linger and evolve into the buffer between the circle pit and the next layer. Like their counterparts on the other side of the human whirlpool, they too spend a majority of time deflecting off blows from guys who fly too close. All the pain, none of the glory. Time spent looking at the band: 30%

The penultimate ring is the guys in blue. These guys are usually older and/or not completely wasted on shady substances. Not wanting to show up to work the next morning with a killer case of whiplash, they are usually serious fans of the band who actually want to see the band sober. Let’s face it, anyone over the age of 40 at a thrash show has invested a significant portion of their life listening to this type of music and is not exactly a casual fan. These guys are the most mature of the crowd and probably know more songs than anybody else on the floor, simply by virtue of being longstanding fans. Time spent looking at the band: 90%

Finally, we come to the last grey section. These people are apathetic and couldn’t care less about the band. Either they are someone’s significant other who got dragged to a concert they didn’t want to go to, or are waiting for the next band. These people often sit and can frequently be found dozing off and just generally not giving a damn. Time spent looking at the band: 10%

Data sources: a million moshpits at a million metal shows.

As every member of this group enjoys their billions….ah, there are no women, “his” billions.

You can see it on their faces now. Wizened eyes, teeth browned from too much caffeine as one of their misshapen hunchbacked members rasps, “Come quick, Jebediah, we done and got ourselves on the webternet now”.

Then they see their precious 5 seconds of fame.

Their beady eyes draw back into their orbital sockets as they contemplate the horror of what they have just seen. Racked with agony, yet teeming with those delicious thoughts of “Mmm the model is so scrumptious-looking”, they end their torment in the only way they can, by ripping each other’s clothes off and engaging in fast, furious acts of decades-long repressed man-love.

Haha maybe not. In any case, it’s funny what advertising can do and maybe this may force some of these people to eschew the online world and seek more traditional methods. The only problem with that is it’s just too goldarn slow, Jim. How are we supposed to keep pace with the folk who need to be saved while Satan and his fancy fagboys harness the devilish speed of technology??