Archive for October, 2009
8 items.
I don’t think they realize the lobster is a criminal, or else they would be quite offended. I think at this point, they just accept his presence without really thinking about it. He can easily grab some cash while they’re discussing something else, and for some reason it’s just taken as a given that he has money. I imagine it’s how children manage to get into trouble even when their parents are generally vigilant.
If you wanted to read in to it, I imagine his larceny during conversation may stem from his communication frustrations, but I wouldn’t read too far in to it. The guy’s (lobster’s?) a jerk.
I am certainly not intending to make light of alcoholism here. This is a comic, and I am doing the reader a disservice if I don’t have a joke at hand. It’s a balancing act, and we will go deeper into the rabbit hole together as this story plays out. It is a tale of frustration in the face of honest effort told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
As I’m sure you’re tired of hearing, I never intended to keep the lobster around. He was such a hit, though, I couldn’t get rid of him. Since then, he’s become a way for me to explore my satisfaction with my art technique. The lobster cannot speak, and he’s not really capable of writing. His frustration with his inability to communicate mirrors my frustration with the limits of my ability. I really feel for the guy. Even as people start to get accustomed to some of his semaphores and moods, he will always be behind the curve and he will always want to have a richer communication. In a similar way, even as my art improves I will always be frustrated at my limits and at how much more I would like to convey to you, my readers.
Of course, that seems to be a very common trait in animals, humans included: We all want more.
My original thought when I scripted this piece was that it was funny. Then, I thought it through and decided that since lobsters lack a central nervous system they’re probably safe from most of the intoxicating effects of alcohol. I did some “research”, but a simple Google search (and re-search) did not return any conclusive work on lobster drunkenness.
It turns out lobsters have opiate receptors, which are a critical piece of the puzzle in many addictive chemicals such as alcohol. My limited understanding is that alcohol triggers other processes in humans which lead to opiate receptor activation, so lobsters may be able to exhibit some of the effects of alcohol we see in humans, especially dependence, but that’s for people smarter than me with huge government grants to determine.
If nobody’s on this, then I want all local, State and Federal government research grant organizations to know that I will gladly study the intoxicating effects of alcohol on lobsters and compare them to a control group of humans. This will require research assistants, lab equipment, and tons of experimental ethanol, not to mention half of the take must go to bribing…er, “buying association with”…er, overhead at a research university. As such, I expect the research to take at least three years, with two one-year extensions if the work shows promise, and cost a million dollars each year. I am willing to forego university affiliation for 500 grand a year.
Please get in touch: These are answers the world needs to have to questions nobody has thought to ask.
After nearly a month of faffing about, I finally got back to drawing comics. I completely dropped the previous story line to start something new. At the time I posted this comic, there was a hole of four strips which I intend to backfill. I had major motivation issues and a lot of things to take care of which kept me either too busy or too lazy to post. You can figure out which caused which.
I am trying something slightly different with the mouths now, and I may make some small character model changes in the coming weeks. I may also be adjusting my tools, or using new ones, because my pen is not giving me good, solid lines anymore and that doesn’t make me happy. I’ll be trying a few things to improve line quality, and if I can’t I’ll be using a different pen for the line art.