GAAK Update:

I am pencilling the last nine pages of #2 now. I'm really looking forward to getting part 2 done with and taking a little break so I don't feel guilty when I start drawing something else. I dropped off some stuff at a local consignment store and have to get the contract papers in to them sometime tomorrow. Gotta sell something, you know.

I haven't seen a movie since God knows when. Frankly, ninety-nine percent of what's out there is drek. Why bother spending almost ten bucks for admission and maybe some godsforsaken amount for "refreshments" for the priviledge of spending at least two hours packed cheek-by-jowl with every person and their coughs and sneezes if the movie is going to be crap? Only thing I'm kind of looking forward to is X2, the word is that it's at least a pleasant waste of time. Frankly it all reminds me of that Frantics sketch where a guy produces a perfect piece of blueberry pie out his... other end - "You can make s*** that looks like food!" "Well, so can my mother!". Hollywood just produces excrement that looks like film. I'd take any number of Asian chop-socky flicks over what comes out of the US film industry. Canada ain't much better if all we can produce is dreary claptrap about losing schoolbusloads of children. Have we really advanced any since the 70's and the dark days of The Starlost (BWA-HA-HA!) Space: 1999 looked like 2001 compared to that. Now, Charlton Heston was a REAL actor... say what you want, he rocked in those bible epics and in Planet of the Apes. And need we mention the underrated Omega Man? Pass the popcorn and milk duds, please.

DECLARATION FROM A CANADIAN CITIZEN (and I mean every word of it)

Mr. Chretien, I disown you.

You are not my leader, if you ever were. I withdraw from you my consent, my allegiance and my obedience, as if you ever had it. I denounce you for sacrificing the economic and political interests of all Canadians in the manner in which you have trashed more than a century of partnership and reciprocity with the United States of America simply to save your son-in-law's investments in a European petroleum firm. Trust, Mr. Chretien, is slowly built but quickly lost, and the rest of us will be a long time paying for you and your clan's tribal-minded self-interest. You are nothing but a contemptible mountebank, fouling the air of Parliament, without the saving grace of being even mildly entertaining. That also goes for your ministers, all the backbenchers who grovel under your 'party discipline,' your appointees in the Senate and in the courts of our so-called democracy, which is nothing but a kleptocracy in constitutional clothing.

I would tell you to go to a very low and very warm place, but after this I am not even speaking to you any more. I will respect the laws you and your minions pass of course, and all your enforcers... as I would 'respect' any dangerous predatory beast, but that doesn't mean I'm going to embrace it or support it or work for it, not now, not ever. Living on the streets and picking through garbage would hold much greater dignity for me than being your government's collaborator. Why would I soil my hands with you? I'd rather vote for the Natural Law Party; at least they're somewhat amusing. When I look at the rape of personal income, the erosion of individual freedoms, denial of the innate rights of self-defense and possession of the means of self-defense to honest, peaceable citizens (while bloodthirsty foreign terrorists are endlessly coddled), the horrendous mismanagement of resources such as the Atlantic fisheries, the desecration of what was once one of the world's finest armed forces and the systematic disenfranchisement of everyone who doesn't live in southern Ontario or Quebec, my blood boils. This serviceman's daughter has no patience or forbearance left for you, cuchon. I know many people agree with me, although they aren't saying it out loud quite yet. But I am, because I've had it with you. You no longer exist to me.

Get out of my face, my wallet, my head and my life Mr. Chretien, and take your damn trained seals with you.

Well, it looks like GAAK has found a new home. Look for CreatureFeatureComics.com to take shape over the next month or so. The other publisher looking at it kind of took themselves out of the running - guess he didn't like us THAT much. Well, tough titty, we're not bootlicks. There is a regrettable syndrome evident in many (but definitely not all) small comics publishers that makes them presume that starving artists will kowtow before them and do infinite amounts of work for nothing but promises. Dunno about you, but a late thirtysomething like me is past putting up with that crap. When sketching faces at the mall brings in more dough than busting one's ass for nothing, it makes one think, doesn't it? At least the mommies, kids and teens who are the bulk of my sketch business are happy with what I'm doing. At least the web thing has a better chance of paying out. Oh, and they don't have to go through Diamond. Dammit, I hate those gonifs. Aren't Yiddish, Gaelic and other nearly-extinct languages fun? You can swear a blue streak at your boss or teacher and they'd never catch on.

Oh, and if you have a burning desire to simulate the film-festival screener experience in the comfort of your own home, and regret the loss of 12 minutes of your life and a few neurons, check this out. (DEFINITELY not for minors, DEFINITELY not work-safe!) I can't believe somebody spent four years in an animation school to give birth to this abomination. It is simply beyond wrong. Your tax dollars at work? Possibly... at least while this oxygen thief's hands were busy at such artistic perfidy, he wasn't in the street exposing himself to small children and dogs. Thank God for small mercies.

UPDATE:

My German Shepherd Jake passed away at home at approximately 3:00 in the afternoon. God decided to spare us the trip to the vet, and all thanks for that favour. He was almost fourteen years old. I last checked on him at about 2:30, having spent much of the morning with him. He was a talkative and rambunctious handful in his prime and didn't get along with many other dogs, but was always sweet with people. He will be missed.

SO, Gulf War II has finally started. The whole thing leaves me with a very bad taste in my mouth as I watch the so-called news channels and try to filter out facts from spin. That said, I will NOT be sorry to see Saddam Hussein and his unspeakable offspring curling up their tootsies like the Wicked Witch of the East after Dorothy's house came down on her. Yes, this war is regrettable, yes, Dubya (who I have no special fondness for) is usurping powers properly belonging to the U.S. Congress and Senate and confirming his nation's transition from republic to empire. But this may not have come about if the UN had not been going for the ultimate Middle-Eastern beastie porn record - 12 years of screwing the pooch in Iraq! The furverts would be sooo jealous! By their own incompetence, impotence and excuse-making they allowed a vacuum to form that the U.S. felt obligated to move into, especially after 9/11. The UN ain't no saints in my book, chillun. They are, by and large, an alliance of first-world collectivist elites and third-world tyrants out to shake down the free world's taxpayers for whatever they can get. After their 12-year tippy-toe dance, meaningless resolutions and self-serving denial and obstructionism they would best serve humanity by crawling back under their rocks and keeping their damn pieholes shut.

Oh well, I don't really have a dog in this fight. Mine is just about ready to cross the Rainbow Bridge so lovingly described on a thousand schmaltzy pet-memorial sites. Soon I am going to have to take him to that tollkeeper of the bridge known as the local vet. He can barely walk now, and is refusing food. Soon I will to have to grasp the nettle and send him on his way. It seems like yesterday that my brother rescued a year-old stray that had been hanging around his fiancee's family home and brought him to us. The irony is that this dog has outlived my sib's first marriage by almost ten years. Funny how life works out that way.

Lastly, as a Canadian, I have been watching with some dark amusement our beloved masters' efforts to prop up their schtoooopid gun resistration scheme. What's been trickling back to me in rumours and speculation is that many people affected have simply registered junk guns if anything and are hiding all their good toys, especially out west. Yes massah, pour another $300 million into dat monnay pit! YEAH! The Canadian Firearms Centre is another government job-creation program for bratty male-bashing urban feminists. I'm not a 'feminist' by today's political definition - I'm an individualist. I believe in the sovereignty of each unique person, because each of us has the spark of the divine in us. The right of defence is vested in sovereignty. You can put two and two together from there.

However, that means nothing in the practical sense unless you can protect your rights and have a capacity to do so. Calling 911 and waiting 20 minutes to an hour for police to arrive is NOT what I call 'capacity'! You would not dehorn a cow and turn her out on a range full of wolves and cougars or declaw a cat and throw it back out on the street to face its competitors, stray dogs and abusive kids just because 'all violence is wrong', would you? Then allow to your fellow human beings the courtesy you extend to animals of respecting their personal means of self-defence. Since we have no horns, hooves, claws or venom and since flight or physical resistance is only an option for those physically capable of either, what do we have besides the fruit of our God-given technical ingenuity, which is OUR natural defence? Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six. That's not just a bumper sticker on some militia guy's pickup, that's a hard fact of life.

I've been thinking about what movies I ought to see this year. I hate Hollywood and the demented little animals that infest it (to paraphrase Frederick Pohl), so that narrows down the field wonderfully. Yay for Asian trash cinema, it's a whole lot more honest about itself than a thousand Oscar wannabees. However, one American-made film is getting quite a bit of commentary of late. I'm really curious about Gods and Generals - if Hollywierd slams it enough, it ought to be something I like! I know quite a few historical re-enactors and they've been talking up a storm about this. I only see a big-screen movie once every six months or so and it better be damn good for the ten bucks! Just the fact that this film was made at all speaks volumes about the guts of the producer and director in this age of knee-jerk political correctness and reverse McCarthyism. It actually treats the subject of the American Un-Civil War in an adult manner rather than making cardboard cut-outs of North and South.

I know, I'm guilty of using the artistic sledgehammer especially in the early Arrowflight storyline, but as it goes on I hope to clarify what I'm doing with this Cantrell Regime/Aryan Covenant thing. I am making it abundantly clear that this is NOT the U.S.A. that's responsible for all the misery the Covenanters are dealing out. Ironically, a lot of American readers view this it as a subtle compliment because it shows what would happen if the U.S.A. collapsed and was no longer there to be a stabilizing force in the world. For all the bitching Canadians do, justified or not, we're far better off to have a large, successful democratic nation as a neighbor rather than some nasty banana republic. Mind you, the CIA, the State Dept. and all the alphabet agencies could use a little 'cleansing of the temple' and the major media's talking heads should just STFU and move in with Fidel, Yassir and Saddam if they're really all that, but time wounds all heels...

Have you ever heard of what the arty-farty set calls 'outsider music'? I had the bad judgement to visit Miserable Melodies and play a totally execrable song by this sister group calling itself The Shaggs. I now have the lyrics from "My Pal Foot Foot" running through my head. AAAAAAGGH! God help the sound engineer who had to sit through that recording session!

Oh, and if that isn't enough masochistic pain for your senses and brain, track down "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins", especially the video version with Leonard Nimoy fruggin' it on the beach with a bevy of girls with plastic elf ears and all that luvvvly 60's hair. The porcelain god is calling to you...

Well, there are now almost a hundred dead in RI and I'm expecting that a few of the burn cases in the hospital will also belly-up. So I'm hearing that one chickie-boo in 80's hair and high heels who couldn't handle her watery mouthful of American beer tripped at the entrance and everybody piled on top of her. TRALALALA! I always figured that heels over 3" are evidence that whoever wears them is too dumb to live. Too bad this ditz took so many others with her. More evidence of Darwin bait status: big hair, leather miniskirts in mid-winter, frosted lipstick and Lee Press-On Nails. Add to that a propensity to spend time packed like a sardine in a dark, smoky club with smelly, gropy drunks and 'music' of eardrum-bursting volume. If it was lousy music to begin with, it doesn't get any better with volume. Pyros are a band's way of saying "We suck at our music, so we hope the sparklies will distract you!" God spare me.

At least up here in Canuckistan it's not the municipal fire inspectors who enforce capacity limits in drinking establishments, but the provincial liquor-licensing bodies. The inspectors come in on the busy nights and any bar that's overcrowded can get its licence pulled. And indoor pyros require federally licensed technicians. I know, no law will ever eliminate human stupidity and I don't want to live in a nanny state but oversight in the right areas will improve odds a little.