Q. Can you call a web comic 'science'? It seems like a broad term.

A. First of all, it's Sci-ənce, with a schwa. Second, I'm pretty sure that by now science has entered the public domain.

Q. So, what will happen to this site?

A. The Bard will remain my online portfolio for all things artsy fartsy, while Sci-ənce becomes the depository for web comics, commentary, and merchandising. 

Q. What about your older comics?

A. Not sure yet. I might keep some of the better ones and toss them into the mix somewhere, otherwise, that section of the site will be disassembled. Man, that sounds official.

Q. So we won't be seeing anymore posts on how douchebags ruin everything here anymore?

A. Yeah, I send potential clients here. It was harshing my buzz. Or whatever the douchebags say these days.

Q. What's up with the ads?

A. You mean the Gravy Train? It had to happen sooner or later, I like money, but I never liked the idea of having ads blasting readers in the face, especially on my portfolio. I still don't like the idea, really, and I will be fine tuning them to keep your reading experience pleasant. I'm actually hoping for some really goofy google ads to take screenshots of and make fun of. Send them in if you see any!

UPDATE: AMC has announced that they will not be airing the PSA in their theaters! Huzzah! 

"Thank you all for your feedback. I know there's a lot of passion shared on this thread today and I apologize for the short delay in response here.

I want to assure everyone that AMC has no plans to air any ad or Public Service Announcement about the vaccination topic, nor has any ad or PSA about the issue been shown on our screens.

Again, I appreciate you all taking the time to share your thoughts. I hope this clarifies the issue." -Ryan Noonan, Official Rep

Starting on Thanksgiving Day, select AMC theaters in the US are going to begin airing an anti-vaccination PSA made by the group SafeMinds before films. I'd rather not give the ad any more airtime than it deserves, but this is what it claims:

1.  Vaccines contain mercury.
2.  Mercury is bad for you.
3.  Therefore vaccines are bad for pregnant women and infants.
4.  Unused vaccines are disposed of as hazardous waste.

These are pretty heavy claims, and to the uninformed, that's pretty good reason not to go to a doctor to get your flu shot. But there's a problem. There's a cascading, logical flaw which nullifies the rest of the video's arguments. A single bit of misinformation that renders their entire argument void:

Single dose vaccines do not contain mercury. Multidose vials do contain a chemical preservative called Thiomersal, which contains ETHYL-mercury. What's the difference? Ethylmercury has not been shown to bioaccumulate, ie. it does not get absorbed by the body, as is passed out with the rest of the body's waste materials. Normal mercury, or methylmercury, is fat soluble and therefore collects in the brain to produce mercury poisoning. BIG difference. 

Thiomersal has not been shown to produce any negative effects. In an effort to appease what was growing concern over vaccines causing autism, thiomersal was removed from single dose vaccines. Despite the removal of this 'poison', autism rates did not drop at all.  

But lets get back to the points made by our anti-vaxx friends up there.

1. Oops. Guess we goofed there. Vaccines of any form don't contain methylmercury.
2. Er. Guess that means that point is moot. We should target Big Tuna instead.
3. Yeah. Guess that was tied to point 1, huh? Getting the Flu is infinitely more dangerous for pregnant women and infants.
4. Wuh-wuh-WAIT This is still true!! Unused vaccines are disposed of as biomedical waste because. Aw crap. Because they contain dead disease cells are considered biomedical waste, just like amputated limbs, tumors, or blood soaked bandages. Shucks.

"So their points are bupkis! What can we do to stop this fear-mongering?"

Because the ad selections are made at the corporate level, it is difficult to get them pulled from individual theaters. While efforts are underway to petition AMC theaters to pull the ads, I think the best we can do is spread positive information about vaccines, in an effort to 'vaccinate' the public against such misinformation. Tell your wife, tell your kids, and tell your husbands too. Because anti-vaxxers are misinforming everybody out there.

You can more information by visiting Skepchick.org's original posting, which includes the actual PSA video.

With any luck, our efforts will yield fruit and we won't get whooping cough for Christmas. I leave you with Penn and Teller's take on the subject, which aired on Showtime's BULLSHIT! I believe their demonstration drives the point home that despite ANY possibility that vaccines MAY be harmful (for which there is slim to nil) It's more dangerous to not get vaccinated. Do the research, weigh the risks, and please make the right choice. Your kids and your kids' friends will thank you for not giving them diphtheria. Enjoy, and think skeptically.

For example, attached to this post are two self portraits. On the left, a scrubby, bearded post collegiate, and on the right, a sharp, bespectacled young man. Mind you, most of these differences are in self-perception. I still put off shaving unless there is a special occasion and I am more prone to wearing a t-shirt than a suit. Mostly because my job demands work-clothes. Damn, I would love to be able to wear a sharp suit to work. Except if I worked from home this suit would almost look like a pair of boxer shorts. Just barely though.

I love my new glasses, with their hip flair and the power of Second Sight that they grant me. They allow me to see just how terrible I looked before. Those who frequent the blog will be happy to hear that my hair is at a comfortable length now. No longer scoffing at gravity and falling nicely into place in an all too sexy tousled mess.

All in all, I'm happy with the new me, and I request you all update your mental pictures accordingly. Especially Nadir, whose mental image of me probably still involves a pudgy, shorn face and an adult diaper. Ugh. College.

Tonight is the eve of the New SuperEgo Video Super Shorts! Starting tomorrow, a new animated sketch will be released every two weeks. TWO WEEKS?!  Oh those clever bastards know how to parse out a good time.

Just as we are forgetting the delicious morsel of new content so generously doled out the week before, BAM. New episode.  I write this now in preparation for the possibility that the short I animated this spring is the first one released! –And ohhhh man. Possibility is the mother of motivation.

I uploaded new artwork, I spiffed up my twitter page, and look, I'M BLOGGING. All this in anticipation for the influx of visitors to my digital realms brought on by the fact that a short animated piece of my creation will be available for wide audience viewing on several super, super popular websites.

What websites you ask? Well, the Video Super Shorts will be viewable on:

• goSuperego.com
• iTunes
• F-F-FUNNYORDIE.COM
• Youtube
• And more!

I am full of excitement, and people who see my video will show up here and bear witness to my noobish, amateur glee, but I'm not sure I mind all that much. So stay tuned!

Few people know this, but I'm telling the truth when I tell you that I wear glasses. Not in the present tense or anything like that. More like in the way of saying "His corneas are ellipses, so he needs glasses". Again, not in the present tense though. I don't wear them currently. They are not sitting on my face right now, nor have I been misleading you in all my portraits/photos/doodles! I would never dare embellish my drawn self. 

The last pair of glasses I owned fell in a creek in 2006. This is my best guess anyway. We arrived at said creek, frolicked, got muddy, and upon arriving home, realized I had no glasses. Mind you, I wasn't blind as a bat without them. I had only a mild astigmatism at the time, so they were reserved for comfort or nighttime driving.

Not long after that trip I moved to New York City and had no use for driving. Or comfort. Bah! I was in no hurry to replace them, and lackadaisical whimsy turned into outright forgotten procrastination.

Well, my eyes have gotten worse since then and I catch myself squinting all the time to make out details of distant objects. If you know me, you might call me Squinty McSquintyPants, Squinty McGee, or Japanese, which is sticks for you because I am half Japanese. You racist. Now, after nearly 5 years without glasses, I've become fed up with squinting, getting squinting headaches, not recognizing people I know until I nearly pass them, and the squinting. But most importantly, on Labor Day weekend Audrey and I are going upstate to my parents' lake house, where we will lounge about, swim, and best of all: I want to star gaze. Recently at my cousin's wedding, I looked up towards the heavens and saw only black speckled with smeary dots. THIS WILL NOT DO. Living in New York has made me forget what it is to see the stars! I had to fix this.

So I looked up some of the better known eyeglass places here in NYC. In my searches, I came to find that every optometrist is either absolutely terrible, or that google maps is full of slighted customers, angrily pounding out bad reviews in order to stick it to these stores. While the latter psychologically makes sense, I decided not to take my chances.

I decided on Park Slope Optical, because it's nearby and the man I spoke to on the phone didn't sound like he was 20 and already done with living. It was an altogether wonderful experience. Good selection of frames, really friendly service, and I spoke at length to the optometrist about painters whose eye ailments presented through their paintings. I was in and out in less than an hour and my glasses should be ready by Wednesday. GREAT SUCCESS.

There is only one downside to all of this: Now that I know my glasses are on their way, the anticipation of once again seeing clearly is upon me. Now that I remember that clear vision is possible. Now that I have come to terms with the fact that I have been doing my vision a great disservice…

I find it an absolute bother to squint anymore. It is offensive to me.

I catch myself  looking at far away objects thinking, "Why should I squint at that like a damned peasant?" 

Having bad eyesight made me work muscles around my eyes that I never even knew I had, and now I'd be damned if I ever used them again.

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The other day Audrey handed me a monster specimen of a cherry tomato and warned me not to choke on it. The first image that came to me was what you see in the most recent comic. The thought of some oxymoronically sized nightshade being eaten in the completely wrong manner was too good not to draw. The comic was also an interesting study in the sense that I've never drawn Audrey as a cartoon before. She didn't complain, so mission accomplished. Now if only she'd let me repost the Victorian corset-clad portrait I did of her way back.

I still haven't eaten the tomato in question. It really is pretty big- almost normal tomato sized. I don't even know where to start. Biting into it conjures images of John Noble's character King Denethor feasting alone in a great hall, amidst a battle where his own son rides to his demise. While a hobbit serenades in the background, the king ravenously eats scraps of food, which includes some cherry tomatoes, the sloppy juice running down his chin. Every time I see John Noble or a goddamn cherry tomato, I think of this scene and I shudder a little.

It took me a whole season to get over it watching Fringe. 

Granted, most of my meals are eaten above the kitchen sink in my boxers at odd intervals during the day. Like 3pm and 1:50am. But to just bite into it and risk chin dribble? Barbaric.

My other option is to break out cutlery to carve up the gargantuan vine-fruit, which just seems like it's too much. Using cutlery on hand-held foods is reserved for Chipotle burritos, and it smacks of snobbery. Because what's important, when in my boxers at the kitchen sink, is that I don't seem elitist. Its like when Mickey Mouse, in his Jack and the Beanstalk story, wherein the poor bastards only had one bean to eat and they portioned it into transparent slices. Pathetic.

Scratching these two methods off the list pretty much leaves one option: swallowing the whole thing. This is clearly the desperate move of a man stymied by his preconceived notions of how not to eat, decided by memories of old cartoons and fantasy epics. John Noble really did ruin tomatoes for me. Godammit.

Eddie found himself next on my list of subjects. I opted to use a softer brush to bring out how pretty and regal he is. The man practically glows in the greased lens of his majestic life. YAWN. Though I do think I hit the mark. A bit more stylized than I'd like, but he really does have saucer eyes.

Now I just have to combine my two feline subjects into the most flattering, yet ridiculous portrait ever. I'm worried that the two styles will clash, but they already have this Yin-Yang thing going on.

What with Eddie being a white cat with conventionally perfect features and cool composure, while Ferdinand represents the flawed, primal side; frantic and wild in nature. The portrait itself will be hyperbolic in its mockery of the whole photo-portrait genre. Some of you may know where this is going, the rest will have to wait.  

In the meantime, here's Ron Livingston, the reason I don't sleep anymore. 

I just can't stop hitting repeat!

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Audrey wants a portrait of the cats for her cube. I had to start with Ferdinand. No offense to Eddie, but he's easy. Ferd's so damaged, but proud, it presented an immediate challenge in capturing his likeness. 

I leave for upstate New York tomorrow afternoon, and since I'm not going to take my 'sploded laptop, tonight was a bad time to start a new painting, but I just had to start SOMETHING. My portfolio is very much lacking in wholly painted works, which I know I can do, but my work for Auxiliary tends to favor fast, graphic work. I love laying the groundwork for a painting, but I often get bogged in the blending, which when painting with gouache, is automatic and unavoidable. Especially so, when you paint like me, barely thinning the paint to the point where it goes down more like oil than water-media.

Speaking of paintings, I just bought a shmancy all-in-one wireless printer to replace my crummy inkjet and Canoscan Scanner, which still works GREAT despite being about ten years old! Unfortunately, Canon no longer makes drivers for my particular model, so it became obselete when I switched to a 64 bit OS. Hopefully, with this new printer, I'll be able to crank out some nice prints to sell. This step of my success ladder has long been overdue.

"Gee Maki, you have some great work on the site. Can I buy some of it?"

"Uh, well. That one's actually 3 different canvases photoshopped together, and the new stuff doesn't even HAVE a physical analog–"

"Well, I guess I'll just have to spend my money on a Thomas Kincaid painting. Look at that lighthouse!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

So you heard to here first… as opposed to elsewhere. I'm going to start putting together a page where you can buy my stuff pretty soon. I hereby pledge to use the money earned from said bought stuff to buy beer to pour out for my retired scanner. Then I'll drink the rest of the 6-pack and rest on what little laurels trickle in. FAME.

Oh man. It. Is. HOT. I checked weather.com out of morbid curiosity and this is what it told me. Thanks weather.com. What it really feels like is that the sun lives downstairs. It's so damn hot out that everything feels hot, not just objects exposed to the horrible sunlight. The floor is hot. THE FLOOR IS HOT. I am almost 100% sure this is one of those warning signs you learn as a child about fire safety.

• Carefully check the floor for heat. If the floor is hot, it means there is a fire underneath it. Good luck.

Intense sweating means that drawing is out of the question. But then I thought, "Hey, I have a MACBOOK! I can take that and my tablet into the living room with the AC!" Brilliant! But like Steinbeck said, the best laid schemes 'o mice and men are…often…

Well I'm sure the rest is crocheted on a pillow somewhere.

Now, let me clear this up right away. I am a PC. My middle name might as well be Hodgman. My mac only gets used when I travel, want to have a computer in a remote location, or need street cred while in Williamsburg. It rarely goes outside of its protective bag. So when I pulled it out to find the battery panel peeling off, I shat a brick.

My first thought was,

"You moron, you put something on the bag and somehow pried the panel off"

My second thought was a familiar one used for broken objects and disembowelments,

"Put it back in, put it back in!".

But try as I might, I couldn't get the panel back on, and upon further inspection I noticed that something inside had swollen and busted out of the battery. One quick google search of "swollen battery" later and my fears were assuaged. Apparently this happens a lot.

"I wouldn't call it a safety feature, but if the battery didn't swell and break out, it would explode from the pressure instead" -Anonymous Apple Tech

Lucky me. Because I don't use it often, the damage could have occurred anytime between February and yesterday. At least it wasn't 'while it was on my gonads'. The techs asked me to bring it in for inspection. Fine. Alright. Back to my room ON THE SUN.

"Who is that Bald Hipster at the Top of the Post?"

You take that back right now, you bastard. That, my friends is a drawing of the lovely and charming George Hrab, who I had the pleasure of meeting this past Saturday. George is a musician, songwriter, singer, podcaster, and overall really really chill guy.  He was in NYC celebrating the release party for his 6th album, Trebuchet, which is available from iTunes or CD Baby.com. 

I've been a big fan of the Geologic Podcast and his music for a few months now, and my girlfriend Audrey can attest to how much I'd gush over his smooth character and snazzy fashion sense. But not only that, but he runs a very very well produced show that never fails to entertain.  Like his resume, the show covers a medley topics, most listener submitted, ranging from interesting fauna to musical anecdotes surrounding his career as a drummer in a funk band. George finds a perfect balance in taking everything he loves, wants, and believes in and channeling it into his craft. 

The party itself was great and the turnout was pretty good for the space. Part of me would have loved to see 700 people show up to congratulate George, but I'm glad it was a more intimate crowd. This was my first skeptically themed event so it was doubly great to meet not only George but area skeptics too. The smaller space contributed well to just interacting with total strangers talking about Phil Plait's skepdude calendar photo, which came up way too often now that I think about it…

Anyway, congratulations again to George, and I highly recommend you check out his podcast and music, whether you are a skeptic or not.

"Where's That Cartoon You Were Talking About?"

It's finished! In case you didn't know, I was working on a video super short for the sketch comedy podcast Superego. HUZZAH! I shoved it out the door, it was met with glee, and I sighed a breath of relief. I'll have more info when they release the collection, but for now, I've posted some still! Enjoy!

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It’s OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND!

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How am I supposed to work in this weather!?

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John Hodgman. He's a PC.

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George Hrab's new album Trebuchet

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Erotic, at best.

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• Day Job. Day job day job day job. This past may, like every year, JgoodDesign was at the ICFF. Which means I was crazy busy. I'm talking 60-80 hour weeks for all of us at the company. Madness. Then when it came time to set up the show, we barely worked a full day. Awesome. Then came long hours catching up. Oh I hate spring.
• FLASH. AHHHHH-AHHHHH!!   So during this hectic period, I got really depressed and wanted to make art. So what do I do? Throw myself headfirst into a Flash animation of course. GREAT IDEA. The good news is, I'm almost done, and the audio is by hilarious sketch group SUPEREGO! It will be part of a collection of video shorts coming soon. I'll post some stills and info on where to get the collection once it is completed.
• Lazy. I noticed I've been posting all my thoughts and witticisms to Facebook recently, when instead I should be posting them here and linking on Facebook. Ya know. For the page hits. Bam. Going to find ways to make it easier to quickly post random thoughts here.

So do stay tuned. Please.

PENNY ARCADE EXPO EAST 2010

The last week in March was the East Coast's first PAX ever and Nadir, some friends, and I gathered our dice and slogged over to Boston, fueled by disgusting energy drinks and raging boners. This made for interesting bus rides and absurd sleeping arrangements. I now have the utmost respect for any woman who has ever put up with sharing a bed with me after the experience was described to me as 'sleeping next to a bear-shaped tornado'.

I will not name names. This was totally Bromosexual.

Being an a novice to conventions myself, I had no idea what to expect, really no idea. NO IDEA. Upon finally getting into the Expo via a serpentine of like-minded semi-costumed gamers, my infantile expectations were utterly shattered. The Hynes Convention Center is HUGE. Big enough for an expo floor, an auditorium for concerts and larger panels, and riddled with smaller rooms in which tables and chairs were set up to accommodate every game from Warhammer to Dungeons and Dragons Clue (REALLY!).

Then there was Will Wheaton's keynote address in which he dove into his past as a gamer and geek and then like some boyish oracle, foretold the experience we were about to have and how it would change our lives forever. He spoke of how great it is that the gaming community has come together and overcome opponents who would seek to label us as violent deviants and how now, thanks to the internet, the lone kid with no friends clutching a binder full of character sheets is all but unheard of. He related his experiences playing games from his very first D&D set to games like Dragon Age that are becoming, for all intents and purposes, as much of a narrative vehicle as a feature film, if not moreso because they put you in charge of the plot. Speaking from experience, Dragon Age was a whirlwind of greatness. Which is much like a bear-shaped tornado, but with less hair.

Will's sage advice before releasing us unto the expo floor?

"Don't be dicks."

Preaching to the choir, Will, because this was the friendliest, fun loving group of thousands and thousands of people I have ever shared a cramped space with (and I ride the subway every day). Only at PAX will you look down from a balcony to an audience lighting up with a sea of Nintendo DS's between shows as people hopped on picto chat. Only at PAX could you embrace a random stranger who was lying in wait for 20 minutes in order to pounce on you …and THEN …win a T-shirt. Stupendous! Social networking at its very basic.

Some highlights? 

• The Behemoth's new game, Battle Block Theater, wherein you compete in varied smash brothers-like gladiatorial stages for the amusement of an audience of cats.
• Red Dead Redemption, where a member of our party just had to see if he could kill a horse and subsequently freaked out the Rockstar employee showcasing the game to us "I've seen a lot of weird stuff but I've never seen anybody run back [away from the mission] and kill their own horse"
• The pile of free t-shirts I snagged! At one point on Sunday I was wearing eight.
• MC Frontalot. Holy crap. Sure I was half asleep by the time he came on, but I bought his album anyway and am happy to have him join my list of awesome, dapper, bald musicians.
• I KNOW I'm forgetting a few. Hopefully Nadir will remind me when the photos start rolling in. Stay tuned!

The costume count was tame compared to Comic Book conventions, but we did manage to capture some gems. I'm sure more will follow as my buddies unload their cameras. Enjoy!

Auxiliary Magazine April/May Issue

Here by the skin of my teeth! The sleepless nights are totally worth it!

Finally, Stuffed and Unstrung by the Henson Company

I had heard snippets about this Improv Puppet show featuring Brian Henson (son of late, legendary, Jim) geared towards an adult audience (albeit less adult than Avenue Q) but I truly had no idea what I was missing! Audrey snagged two tickets, we went to the early Saturday showing and promptly laughed our asses off! Not only was it comedically brilliant, but technically too. It was really neat to be able to see the puppeteers scramble around stage, and the craftsmanship of the puppets themselves shows that the Force still runs strong in the Henson family. Oh, and the Barry the Usher bit was a masterpiece of multi-layered video-looping goodness. I may just be easily impressed, but c'mon, if you saw it, you laughed. 

Being an improv show, results may vary, but I think our funniest skit was the one where they invite an audience member to puppet-up and join in. What was funny about our guy is that he couldn't hold his puppet up high enough, point him in the right direction, match his mouth to his voice, or bob him as he walked! So the whole time Henson behind the crab puppet was yelling "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?"   "HE'S SLIDING ACROSS THE FLOOR!"  "STAND UP!"   "HE'S SPEAKING TO US THROUGH TELEPATHY!" The sketch was outright BEDLAM.

BEDLAM! 

Incidentally, the prospect of being dragged on stage to take part in the show terrified Audrey, and caused me to quickly scribble up this comic which details the aftermath of getting pulled up on stage and molested by puppets.

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It was called the Angry Wizard.

Mana Potion and Vodka *HURL*

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How awesome is that painting he's standing under?!

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George Hrab and MC Frontalot

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 Today’s webcomic is brought to you by Matthias Grunewald, an old churchy story I heard when I was young, and loopy end-of-the-day thoughts. Enjoy! Don’t eat too much turkey like JC did.

In somewhat related news, here’s a BBC article I found while looking for an appropriate image for the comic.

 Church Removes ‘Scary Crucifix’