BONE CHINA pt.15
First of all, let this be known: I do not play political favorites in my comics. I may be offensive sometimes, but I do take pride in being an equal-opportunity offender. While today’s strip would seem to be anti-liberal, that’s simply because the majority of San Franciscans lean that way. I’m not for or against it, I’m just drawing what I’ve seen (and if you want to see me mock the right-wing side, look no further than Scap’s adventure in the south).
Another thought probably on a few readers’ minds: why pick on R. Crumb? Well, my answer to that is…I’m not. I like Crumb. I may not be a die-hard fan, but I still do like his work a lot. I think he’s an incredibly brave artist who voiced his opinions and revealed his inner demons no matter what people may have thought, and he remains a legend in the comics world. No amount of lampooning here can ever change that.
Today’s strip called for Scapula to impersonate a figurehead of hippie culture, and I went through a long list of potential celebrities: Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jerry Garcia, etc (some of them are dead, but that doesn’t matter much in this comic). However, none of them quite clicked, because I didn’t really know or care much about them…except for Crumb. You would think it’s odd that I would choose to roast someone I liked as opposed to someone I either hated or felt indifferent to, but it’s true. I would rather spend my time ribbing folks that I think are cool instead of just blasting people I despise (I do that in my diary).
Of final note, the Miscreants are disguised as the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, the creation of another great underground cartoonist, Gilbert Shelton.
Wow, Scap’s disguisin’ is getting pretty good. All that with what appears to be an ordinary piece of cloth.
RICH WHITE MEN VERSUS POOR MULTICOLORED HIPPIES: BATTLE TO THE DEATH or something I don’t know. And yes I’m aware that sort of suggests hippie as the inverse of male.
You’ve just given me the title of the best low-budget movie ever….sure, the concept has been done before, but never with a title with that level of honesty!
What are the masculine and feminine forms of “hippie”? Hippo and hippa?
Wait, there are still hippies?
Oh my, yes! California is full of ’em. Come by sometime and pick up a few, then keep them in your backyard. They’ll grow a bunch of vegetables and mushrooms…and…other things…
Hippus and hippianna?
That sounds like some lost Shakespeare play. Tuh! Shakespeare…
I think Scap shoulda hidden the ol’ six-shooter somewhere in that disguise. “Back-up plans” are what Edgar needs to start making.
Finally face-to-face with ’em. If I were Scap: hmm, I’d recall who I’d told my plans to and check each one of them from the shadows or behind a disguise for signs of spending a cut, such as big purchases. Anyway, I hope he doesn’t jump to conclusions about Bone China. For all we know, the Miscreant’s boss might just have hidden a wire somewhere on Scap (probably up his rectum – nah, that’s a silly idea. Every time he sits down…)
Scap had to pawn his gun in order to make the rent at his old place, and he hasn’t bothered to go retrieve it out of hock. He’s probably got a bunch of other things on his itinerary that he’s been putting off (fix the toilet, vacuum the rug, kill his enemies, etc).
We’ll be getting to the Miscreants’ plans pretty soon…there’s only so much time I can string along you clever readers!
Now you got my hopes up again, Treike – my paranoia had Bone China pegged as an inside agent working for the same boss as The Miscreants. But part of me was hoping maybe she was just the “little girl lost” and was, at worst, someone indifferent to Scap and doing it because of coercion. At the other end of the scale she could be someone actually attracted to Scap and maybe letting details slip unknowingly to someone she just thought was a good friend.
Now you open the idea of her or Scap just being bugged and she has no direct involvement at all. So if DaDa turns around and stomps my heart by showing Bone China as a ruthless insider – you realize I will have to double the order of bags-of-flaming-poop and lob one at your door two, yeah?
😀
Egad…just don’t pull a “Kathy Bates” on me, GrayWolf! If I kill her off, will I end up strapped to a bed with broken ankles?
No no, Dada, you’re thinking movie … read the book, and see what kind of nightmares you have. 😀
In the book, she didn’t use a board and a hammer, she used an axe and a blowtorch. ::snicker:: I remember the part where he said because of the sudden shock and all the painkillers she juiced him with before doing it that he couldn’t help notice it smelled the same as the roasting pig he once smelled at a luau …
Sleep tight. ::smirk::
Besides which, you’re not really lampooning Crumb so much, since it’s Scap impersonating Crumb, so any and all actions are indicative of Scap’s character and not Crumb’s.
Poor Scap. Seems he just can’t catch a break. Oh wait – in this strip, he did! I’m guessing he caught several breaks, such as to ribs, arm bones, leg bones…
The REAL Crumb is off someplace else; when he heard the news of the impersonation he probably just went, “…oh”, then went back to drawing big women.
Give him a break! Give him a break! Break him off a piece of that…aw, screw it. It wasn’t funny in those commercials, and it’s not funny when I use it!
Well now I have to go find a Kit Kat bar to break a piece off of…
Geez, that old commercial mind-controlling still works, huh?
Well, it’s true. Every time I hear the song “Oh Yeah” by Yello I want to go get a Twix bar (that goes waaaaaaaaay back).
Man, just as I was beginning to think that Scap came up with a great heist plan, he gets the stuffing beat out of him AND he catches a mouthful of fart. Sigh….at least, he has Bone to help lick his wounds when he crawls back to his lair.
Very nice Crumb, by the way.
Getting the living daylights kicked out of you is one thing, but having someone fart on you is just the icing on the Cake of Pain. These guys are true blue bastards.
But at least now he has something genuine to complain about!
Let’s see… Scap face-down in the dirt after getting the high holy hell kicked out of him and his heist boosted… I’d say the romantic interlude is over and we’ve resumed regular programming, hahaha.
Hey, this story’s been a lot of goth soap opera so far, and while I’m fine with the new direction of storytelling I still want to make sure I’m giving the regular readers what they want: Scapula getting hurt. Makes every Sunday just a little bit brighter, yes?
They need to be careful. Eventually Scap might just say ‘Enough is enough’ and shoot all three of those idiots simply to stand up for himself, get them out of his hair, and send a very definitive ‘ Don’t screw with me’ message to the rest of the underworld. They might take him more seriously for a while. We’ve seen firsthand that when our boy Scap looses it, he doesn’t lose just half of it.
What he needs is a car to run these idiots over with…come to think of it, maybe the Miscreants need a car, too. The BART subway gets pretty filled with supervillains who can’t afford decent transportation!
Hm. I wonder if this is some kind of snapping point. Very interested to see Scap’s reaction!
I think Crumb would just be happy nobody called him a pervert today. Last year he cancelled an appearance in Australia due to a paper writing him up as a filthy perv.
Really? I would have thought he’d have developed a thick skin about that sort of thing by now. Then again he’s always pegged himself as super-sensitive in his own comics.
Man, I hope I didn’t inadvertently cause him to avoid California. The hippies would never forgive me!
I think he was worried about the activists turning up and ruining the entire art event for genuine fans.
Oh Scap. A winner, yet ultimately still a loser at the same time.
Hey, that could be my new tagline for this comic! That, or “See a stupid idiot in a skeleton costume get his butt kicked every week”.
Just when things were going good for Scap, he gets beaten down again!
It ain’t over ’til it’s over, Jenn! He might just get right back up and get clobbered all over again!
There you go, we have Scap’s theme song! Tubthumping!
I get the impression the lovely lady in the bottom/middle of your first panel is very passionate about parking…
🙂
Well, she’s passionate about some kind of ‘parking’, that’s for sure!
I’ll let you dirty folks in the audience interpret that as whatever you wish.
Man boobs scare me.
Now I know what to make a horror movie about..
Robert Crumb scares me, too.
“R. Crumb versus The Giant Man Boob”, coming never to a drive-in near you!
In 3-D just to give Brig the deluxe heebie-jeebies?
If he remained in his Crumb disguise, I wonder if the Miscreant/furry freak brothers would have bothered him?
While I’m also not a die hard fan of Crumb, I do appreciate his art style!
I think the huge canister of money in the wheelbarrow is kind of a give-away, but who knows? Maybe they all would have just gone and toked up! Hey, it’s a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon!
Scap rolled himself right into a three-layer upside down poundin’ cake! Flatulence, notwithstanding.
The flatulence would have made it a three-layer burrito of pain. Searing gas pain! Ooooh!
Hey, great use of R. Crumb! But seriously, I’m rather surprised that Scap would know enough about Crumb to pull this off.
Thank ya! It was shown a loooooong time ago that Scapula is something of a comic book geek, so I’m guessing he would be familiar with Crumb, or at least how Crumb draws himself in the comics. I have no idea what the man looks like now (and apparently neither does Scap or the crowd!).
Just found your website. LOVE your art! It’s like the best of old school MAD magazine brought into the modern age!
Thanks for the nice comment, Michael! I can only hope to match the old MAD artists in terms of craft and humor, but hey, I’m trying!
I’m all caught up again. (whew!) You sure are taking us for a ride, Aidan! Love the R. Crumb impersonation, but watch out he doesn’t come to get you in the night for that one. ;`)
Ok now I know I was right about the Phoney Bone (apologies to Jeff Smith) China. Well, at least Scapula got laid for once in his life. And the plan did work after all. If he hadn’t been betrayed, he might have made it.
If anyone was going to come after me over today’s cartoon I doubt it would be Crumb himself; SCAPULA can’t rate as more than a blip on the worldwide culture radar (but that just means I can write and draw whatever I want, damn the consequences!) and there’s no way he’ll ever see this. Right?….RIIIGHT?!
I don’t think Jeff Smith would come after me either, so maybe I’ll rib on him next…
Either you underestimate your talent and the Power! of the Internetz, sir, or you fish for compliments. ;`D
But seriously, go for it.
I love the spectacle at begin, with many stereotypes (hippies raising funds for more parking space, that’s genius) …. But when scapula is beaten at the end, and the money stolen, that was a bit too much predictable.
Scapula getting beaten up and failing was PREDICTABLE? Pish posh! Next thing you know Wile E. Coyote will fail at catching that Roadrunner!
After reading the third line, I guessed exactly how it would end. Don’t compare your comic to Wile E. Coyote , your comic is much more enjoyable . Never mind, I’m sure you’ll manage to surprise us next time.
I’m going to note something that is almost entirely accidental I’m sure hun.
Homophobe almost certainly has heavy duty unarmed combat training, probably from the school of hard knocks. While Wooly Rhino gets away with throwing mass around (which does require surprising skill to accomplish well, I note!), and Disgusto gets by with not being touched much (who would want to!?), Homophobe shows a decided turn to highly evolved reflex memory…. in other words hun, lots of practice.
In his debut, he managed to snake out of a full nelson and hurl his opponent (fueled by his homophobic rage). No small feat no matter how buff you are. Now, in spite of his arms being heavily muscled, he’s showing a nice rythm in his torso-sway and very precise angles to his punch (seriously, try throwing a downwards hook with any power. It isn’t easy!). Without a lot of dedicated practice, hefty muscle shaping actually inhibits accuracy and flexibility. Street fighting is a tricky art to perfect, but he’s got some good form. Maybe even a few years of boxing experience.
In short, homie got some moves, yo!
Scap back to being the punching bag. I knew this week would bring nice things!
Who can say what lies in the Homophobe’s history? Green beret? Kick boxer? Maybe even a ballet dancer? We’ll have to wait until we learn just who is behind the mask (if it even is anybody…I mean, how hard is it to find a homophobe?).
I still think it’s amazing the level of detail that you readers always catch that flies right over my head. Who knew there was an underlying art to cartoon violence?
All I can say is I’m going to learn to pay more attention to the fighting that goes on in cartoons and learn a thing or two about skilled, controlled martial arts. Now, where did I leave all of my old Ninja Turtle video tapes?
Finding a homophobe is agonizingly easy. Speaking as a homosexual woman though, I have found it’s gotten almost impossible to find homophobic women outside of religious circles, and they at least have a divine excuse (nyuk nyuk!).
The amusing bit is most homophobic guys are out of shape greasebag jerks with no intelligence whatsoever and negative charisma. In short, the last people most homosexual guys I’ve run into would ever hit on! I mean, the Homophobe here at least has killer biceps and pecs you could bust a 2×4 across. HE might actually get propositioned!
R. Crumb, a fine choice!
It wouldn’t have worked so well if I had gone with Bill Keane, huh?