I like this one. It has a parade of characters and a general insanity around it. I wish I could tie things up like this more often.

I was originally going to do an extra few comics in this series, and explore some more craziness in legislation. I have become a strong advocate of mercilessly editing your own work, removing unnecessary pieces and where possible replacing words with pictures (these are comics, after all). However, I think in this case I cut too much and the message gets confusing.

Rep. Hassleblapp looks like he’s contradicting himself here, but this was designed to be him talking out of both sides of his mouth, depending on his audience. The bill was engineered for controversy. That was in a bunch of panels that I cut. Sometimes I think I edited this too heavily, but other times I remember that the reason I skipped these strips was because I felt it had bogged down too much because of all the dialog that wasn’t moving the main characters forward.

I think this is the most cynical set of comics I have yet done. At least, the most obviously cynical.

304-307 were added in two years (TWO YEARS!) after the fact. I had meant to go back and fill them in, and totally forgot until I was putting the books together. So, awesome! Lost comics!

Does it bother anyone else that legal language is archaic? I understand the need for precise language, but I can’t remember the last time I saw “Be it heretofore resolved” in a technical document. I really do feel like legal professionals subscribe to the theory that if they could find enough monkeys banging away at enough typewriters, some day the monkey room will turn out a document that will go down in legal history. I hear there are capuchin monkeys in South America that routinely use tools to dig for roots and break open nuts: These nut-busting simians would be perfect for the job.

I thought it would be funny to take a few humorous jabs at the men and women who serve us in Congress.  Don’t worry too much about making jokes at their expense: They’ll simply expense it to the tax payer, which may very well be you.  Really, this series of strips indirectly pokes fun at most U.S. citizens, and indirectly indirectly (indirectly squared?) pokes fun at many citizens of other countries who do business with (or fail trying to do business with) U.S. companies.  I hope you enjoy.

Yeesh…Yeah, I know, I’m working my way back to good, creative comics. I’ve been having a case of the blahs lately, and it has had a significantly negative impact upon my work. I’m coming around, slowly but surely, so stay tuned.

Sir Isaac Newton, translated by Andrew Motte. The original Latin is below (according to answers.com, not a copy of the book). I know I could have gone with the objects in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, but I find his particular phrasing far more poetic. Newton wrote his famed three laws in The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, which shows that he considered his work, at least in part, philosophy. It shares many traits of classical philosophy and mathematics, including the use of the word Axiom in the original text. It’s quite evocative if you appreciate science and math literature. For normal people, it’s just an unnecessarily obtuse passage.

Lex I: Corpus omne perseverare in statu suo quiescendi vel movendi uniformiter in directum, nisi quatenus a viribus impressis cogitur statum illum mutare.

I actually like kids: They are inquisitive and show the spark of future scientists. To those young adults reading this comic, understand this: It is your classmates who frustrate you that frighten me awake, screaming, in a cold sweat when I think they will be building and staffing my nursing home. In general, though, people are alright until they get to around college age. Then, it’s all downhill. I am really the butt of this joke, the old curmudgeon.

I hope you enjoy a a few laws of physics illustrated with humor. Maybe that will help you remember them in a pinch. Odds are not, but hey, a man can dream.