Saturday, December 11, 2004
While this wasn’t the last Idiot Farm strip to be produced, it was the last one worth putting the archive. The actual last comic was just a picture of an exhausted Fucky explaining why we couldn’t continue. I had notified Smokey who was still in Ireland at the time and he understood. He felt it best we quit. At least I got a second style change in there for a few strips before I jumped ship. This artwork style best represents how I draw cartoons to this day.
I had a lot of fun doing Idiot Farm and at some point in my life I would love to start it up again. I feel like life got in the way too often and as my life quiets down, I may take the pen up again and start anew.
I would like to give my biggest thanks to Smokey who did everything he could to see this thing to some level of success. Even though we fell short like zillions of other webcomics, we still had fun with it and enjoyed the act of creating. Success was never in the long term plan. We just wanted something to stretch our creative legs.
Bye.
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I remember clearly what made me write this comic. I was fucking around on the internet and I had noticed this disaster. Apparently she has a book on Amazon that you can buy. I wouldn’t really contribute to the cause, but that’s just me.
At the time I wrote the comic I was so blinded by the rage and blatant murdering of English on Kara’s part to realize that she’s (probably) not a real person. This is exactly what I think about Ann Coulter. I almost have to think that because if I believe she is, I would kill myself. I’m not an intellectual elitist by any means, however, any time I see anyone on the internet who writes a simple declarative sentence that contains 86 grammar, spelling and punctuation errors I completely flip shit. It’s beyond me how those who speak English as a first language are sometimes incapable of writing it to the best of their ability. I give ESL folks a lot of leeway because it’s easy to be influenced by the moronic culture around you when you’re new to some place.
I did post about the comic on her forum, which is an act of participation I completely loathe, but the humor was lost on them. I’m not surprised. It was a stupid move on my part to do that, but I just have that personality that wants to rub people’s noses in their steaming shit.
This was also the point I started playing with a new way to draw the characters. I decided on a less anatomically correct style and decided to go with a style that had room for more expression. This set the creative direction for my style.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
I did this one mostly for my dad, but I actually fucked up the subject matter. It was often because of Iowa’s basketball team my dad would yell and slam doors, often muttering something to the effect that Tommy Davis was a fucking moron. Aside from Jesus Christ, Tommy Davis’ name was invoked the most often to express frustration and anger.
But the concept plays well even with football in place of basketball. My dad still got a good kick out of it and given that Iowa is a virtually unknown state when it comes to sports, the humor wouldn’t really be lost on anyone. Don’t ask me who “Biblethumper State” is. I’m not sure what part of the country they’re from, but it’s probably a safe guess to say that it’s south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
This would be the comic’s last look into the lives of Elder Smokey and Fucky. It was certainly one of the last best strips that we ever did and it’s comics like these that make me feel like it aged pretty well, that we weren’t just producing crap after crap.
I touched on this in another strip that didn’t make the cut to be on the “Greatest Hits” list, but while other people might play darts in a bar, people play “Butterknives” at this bar. It’s the same thing as darts, except (you guessed it!) you use butterknives instead of darts. If you’ve paid attention to how shitty the bar these guys hang out in is, you’d notice a few things:
- There is a hypodermic needle on the floor near the door (not visible in this strip)
- That hypodermic needle is in a pool of blood (also not visible in this strip)
- The plaster is severely cracked around the door frame, suggesting possible heavy drunken slammage
- The plaster is severely cracked behind the dartboard, suggesting possibly heavy drunken butterknife throwing
The bar was unofficially known as “The Rusty Nail” and they serve “Superlager”. If Superlager were a real beer (and it might be, I just don’t feel like doing any research) I would say its alcohol content is probably over 8 or 9 percent.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
If there’s any reason why Elder Fucky has aged so horribly by 40, it’s because he’s had to deal with multiple shitty installs across various versions of Windows that’s made him pull his hair out. That’s why he’s bald, okay?
I wrote this strip a few months before I got a new computer. The old one was constantly bluescreening on me for the most retarded of reasons. Want to use Illustrator? Bluescreen. Open Firefox? Bluescreen. You name it, the fucker would bluescreen.
Which is why I was very impressed that my computer held out long enough for me to actually get this Goddamn comic done. At least I got a little inspiration out of the deal, right?
Saturday, November 6, 2004
This is my favorite comic I’ve ever done.
The day the election was conceded by Kerry was a very depressing one for many people. Some people got very swept up in it and that’s understandable. For instance, a lot of people called into The Thom Hartmann Show and actually said they were going to commit suicide. So of course, I tried to make the best of a shitty situation by phoning in some cynicism. I’m pretty certain Doctor Devilry had a hand in the whole deal.
I really enjoyed trying to show the good doctor’s tenacity for evil with my writing. It was kind of difficult to write for a character like Doctor Devilry at times because he was very much the same all the time. He tendend to get stale pretty quickly, so whenever I wrote for him I tried my best to make sure that his dialogue was always worth reading. I did not succeed every time, but I’d like to think I did at least half the time.
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
In an election with two douchebags it’s easy to get disenchanted. When this web site was running during the Kerry campaign, it was a funny motivator for a few.
This election year (2008) should prove to be quite harrowing. The stakes are higher now they were in 2004 when I wrote this delicious comic. We had a string of political comics that just kept coming and coming as the election drew nearer.
The idea of Monocle Muffin coming over to persuade Fucky to vote is pretty funny. Funnier is the fact that he has less resistance to suggestion than you’d think for a sentient muffin.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
The very idea that Fucky would go out of his way to spend some time with Gustav as though it were some kind of volunteer work is hilarious. I can see Fucky grudgingly accepting such an obligation out of some kind of pity.
I like Gustav’s response to the stupid movies kids watch these days. If I were Gustav, I wouldn’t complain about jack shit if I managed to get anyone to hang out with me for the day unless I felt like sitting around the old folks home more than usual.
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Vick offered up another heapin’ helpin’ of more guest strip goodness. Every time he contributed was a time we were more than happy to feature his work. Especially since school had gotten so busy at the time.
I’ve said everything there is to say about Vick’s work in earlier posts, so you might want to check out other strips filed under the “guest strips” tag to get a better perspective. Leave us say that his work always does his favorite character justice. He gives the character a sort of personality trait that neither Smokes or myself bothered to toy with. That’s not to say it didn’t belong. Gustav is a strange amalgam of desperation, loneliness, bumbling idiocy and perversion. To add another kinder, more gentler trait to him might seem weird, but it fit in just fine with us.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
You may have recalled earlier when the artwork switch in the archive happened that I said the idea of both the old and new versions of the characters acting as different entities seemed appealing. I never mixed the two art styles often due to contrast issues, but the two occasions I mixed up art boards was fun.
In retrospect I should have introduced another conflict of characters other than the two Gustavs. He had been so overused at that point that it was not a good idea to reintroduce and reintroduce him in hindsight. I suppose my slim readership didn’t mind because I never received any substantial complaint as to the issue, but it bothered me as an artist. What about the meeting of the Monocle Muffins? The clashing of the Doctors Devilry?
It had more potential than this, but I still thought it was fun to do, anyway.