The Exploits of Rooky Cola--and Spoink, his Alienated Imagineuron!    [remove frames] [restore frames]

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Freelance Comix! ("Rooky" of its own volition!)

• Freelance Rooky 1     "Calvin & Hobbes" Tribute II! (Bill Watterson said the comic on which this semi-spoof was based got him cut from a few newspapers. I wonder if he was drunk at the time, like I was...)
• Freelance Rooky 2     Gynecologist in Love (NOTE: A gynecologist has a surgeon friend pull a few strings to let him try his hand at working in the OR. NEEDLES to say, his understanding of the female specimen proves to be little more than skin-deep...)
• Freelance Rooky 3     Change of Heart (NOTE: I was a little far gone when I actually put this one together...)
• Freelance Rooky 4     Antigravity Toothpaste!
• Freelance Rooky 5     Raquel the Rakehell
• Freelance Rooky 6     Smokey and the Time Bandit
• Freelance Rooky 7     Secret Servinators
• Freelance Rooky 8     Emergency Bloodcast System
• Freelance Rooky 9     Raisin the Bawrs
• Freelance Rooky 10     Sometimes I Touch My Cell
• Freelance Rooky 11     The Frowney Family Portrait

Fall 2007 Season 5 of "Rooky" in the Cavalier Daily

• 9/18/07  "Only Friends" (NOTE: Following the unjustified firing of Grant Woolard, this was the last "Rooky" comic run in the Cavalier Daily.)
• 9/17/07  "Scar Heck"
• 9/7/07  Offensive Comic
• 9/6/07  Overseeing the Earth
• 9/5/07  How to Draw a Person
• 9/4/07  NUTS!
• 9/3/07  Legend of the Astle in the Castle
• 8/31/07  iPhone You outta the House!
• 8/30/07  Chasing His Tail
• 8/29/07  Spidey Senses
• 8/28/07  Axing too Much

Spring 2007 Season 2 of "Rooky Cola" (A.K.A. "The Exploits of Rooky Cola--and Spoink, his Alienated Imagineuron!")

•      "Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have."

"Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

"History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."

"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

"I couldn't help but say to Mr. Gorbachev just think how easy his task and mine might be in these meetings that we held if suddenly there was a threat to this world from another planet. We'd find out once and for all that we really are all human beings here on this earth together."

--Ronald Reagan

 
 
• 4/27/07     "Holy Hecuba!" - Conclusion (NOTE: This is the last strip of the Rooky Cola series' one-year run in the Cavalier Daily. The random "Rooky" comic will return for the 2007-2008 seasons of my comic.) (Also note that "Holy Hecuba" is a favorite exclamation of mine 'cuz it sounds cool; beyond that, however, Hecuba was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy. Also according to Greek mythology, Hecuba got with the sun god Apollo and had a son named Troilius. An oracle prophesized that Troy would not be defeated as long as Troilius reached the age of twenty alive ("twenty alive" at least sounds like "twenty-five"!), but he was killed by Achilles during the Trojan War. Other traditions, including the Odyssey suggest that Hecuba ended up being a dog: one story of her fate says that Hecuba was given to Odysseus as a slave, but because she snarled and cursed at him, the gods turned her into a dog, allowing her to escape. If you recall, there is a mangy "stowaway Dingo" named "Skippy" depicted a few times in the story. I am also a huge fan of epic Greek mythology, which should be evident in the style of the Rooky Cola story overall.) (Finally, the massive "Rubicube," in hospital form, is like a trojan horse in how it invited unwitting citizens of Earth inside with the promise of taking care of their bodies and giving them extended (if not eternal) life in the form of health insurance and healthcare (and mediocre Medicare for old people, of course). The cubic form of the colorful Rubicube itself comes close to representing the diveristy and mixture of Earthly societies and races; mankind as a collective entity is confused and confusing and can be destroyed (self-destructed) from the inside out by the discrimination between races, colors and creeds symbolized by the "solving of the Rubik's Cube," where all of the variety of colors that make up the individual cubes of the larger COLLECTIVE CUBE are segregated and each of the six panels only represents a single, isolated "color.") (TERTIARY (THIRD) NOTE: The statement "Robby...--See? I learned how to solve this puzzle with one hand!" is a direct reference to the strip "Queen Takes Rook" (4/6/07), where Rooky needed two hands to solve the Rubik's Cube puzzle toy he was holding on to, and decided to set Robby down right as he was beamed up by No. 2's warship. In today's comic, Rooky makes this reference as Rubicon One blows up in space, too high above the Earth to do it any harm; it is sort of Rooky's "swan song," or his goodbye to his brother--"apostrophe (addressing a second person who is not present) in catastrophe." Rooky only uses one hand to solve the Rubik's cube for two reasons: (1) he can only free one hand, his left, from the straitjacket that he was put in after being carried to the MedUSA "hospital" after his imagination induced the car crash; (2) with Spoink (Sputnik), Rooky's alienated imagineuron reinstated in his brain at full capacity (as evidenced by Rooky's unexpected ability to convert a car into a "mech" [or a "Transformer/Autobot," if you prefer]), Rooky no longer needs two hands, since he can telekinetically assemble and manipulate the Rubik's Cube puzzle toy. The irony behind the downfall of the Aliots (namely the Queen Titular) is expressed in these lines: "You thought I had given you limitless destructive license," by which Rooky is referring to Rubicon One, which he designed and built for the Aliot Alliance while being held captive on Commoon (the time and place where his imagination was "slave to idle minds"); Rooky then says "I've never let you have it...It's always been in the palm of my hand!!" by which he is referring to the "model" that inspired his design and construction of Rubicon One: his puzzle toy itself. This Rubik's Cube--the original he had from 1986--serves as a sort of "Voodoo" Rubik's Cube, or a voodoo doll of sorts (called a "Voodoo Cube" in today's strip) and can be used by Rooky to remotely control the entire flagship, Rubicon One. [In fact, though there was no room for it in this strip, my idea was to have Rooky demonstrate his "magic power" (his "imaginative output") by shaking the "Voodoo Cube" in his hand, which would cause the entire ship to rattle.] Thus when Rooky finishes solving the Voodoo Cube's puzzle, the puzzle on the outside of the ship is also solved and all of the colored panels aligned, thus engaging the self-destruct mechanism. Rooky essentially sacrifices himself so as to save humanity from the idiocy of the Aliots by blowing up Rubicon One, after using his Voodoo Cube to control the flagship and launch it into orbit from the surface of the Earth. Thus here's the afforementioned irony: the Aliots, particularly the Queen Titular, who feigns a connexion with her brain by wearing her headdress, were NEVER IN CONTROL OF THE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE HUMAN TECHNOLOGY GIFTED TO THEM BY ROOKY; IN REALITY, THEY WERE ALWAYS "OUT OF CONTROL," for Rooky always held the cards in his own hand: ROOKY NEVER GAVE THEM THE REMOTE CONTROL MECHANISM FOR RUBICON ONE, WHICH WAS THE ORIGINAL MODEL, THE "VOODOO CUBE." This was a precaution wisely taken by Rooky, because he knew that the Aliot ignoramuses would ultimately end up blowing themselves up and going extinct once he gave them such self-destructive technology...and that they would probably want to take down a few other species in the process!) (FOURTH NOTE: A "straitjacket" can also mean "anything immaterial that severely hinders or confines," thus the material straitjacket that the Aliots put on Rooky after kidnapping him the second time also represents both the immaterial, mental straightjacket placed on him by the Aliots when they abused his imagination for their own devious purposes, as well as the inherent oppressive nature of the former ['cuz it blew up already] communistic society of the Aliot Alliance. (The Aliots are considered "Commies from Outer Space," a joke about how Reagan's STAR WARS missile defense initiative could have been used to fend off "communist extraterrestrials," and not just the Russians and Chinese!) When Rooky was on Commoon, he built "worlds of imagination" from toys and crayons; he took what few resources he had and BUILT AN EMPIRE AND A FLEET OF WAR MACHINES for the Queen Titular by using the artificially-enhanced power of his imagination (the result of Spoink (Sputnik) being installed within his brain). Fortunately, Rooky also had the foresight to build himself an escape ship ("Crayola Class") for when the Queen grounded him because the Rubicon Class Cubes, including her flagship, kept crashing on liftoff; it was at that point that Rooky decided to make a break for home, to try and reclaim the culture that he had been alienated from for 20 years... [And so he headed for McDonalds.])
• 4/26/07     "Better to Burn out than to Fade Away" - The Death of Zoink (NOTE: This one did not make it into print at all because of time constraints; it's web-exclusive.)
• 4/25/07     "Puzzlement and Dementia" (NOTE: This comic artist has retained the original TIFF for this comic so that he can easily spruce it up eventually. Even what you are seeing here is very different from the version that ran in the paper...mainly because I was short on time and the scanner at Cav Daily wasn't working, so things got real hectic-like...) (Fortunately, the text as it is now should convey this part of the story adequately, even if the graphical illustration is lacking...)
• 4/24/07     "Parts Made in Japan...but Assembled in China!"/"Landing in the Hospital"
• 4/23/07     "Thank You Very Much Mr. Roboto!" (Lead-in to car chase sequence) (NOTE: "Chery" is a small Chinese homegrown auto manufacturer. Their name has been a point of contention; it was supposed to be "Cheery" but they screwed up the spelling. As a result, if and when they sell these things in the US they will not be labeled "Chery" because "Chery" is too close to "Chevy." That's the joke I'm making here: Zeke drives an '88 Chery Corpsvet. (He called it "Cherry Corpsvet" on 4/20/07, but that was just because it happens to be RED, like a cherry!) Naturally, this name is meant to sound like "Chevy Corvette," although the cars look nothing alike. In the context of this strip and the subsequent car chase sequence, the Chery Corpsvet is an old '80s car that is named to imitate a great all-American sportscar (the 'Vette) but is based on a Japanese design (likely the result of that insidious Japanese foreign direct investment in the US auto industry of the late '80s), while being assembled in China (with "parts made in Japan"!!)--which means the car is likely to fall apart under certain forms of stress... Of course, as you'll learn from the car chase sequence, this "ancient workhorse" is more likely to DISSEMBLE something altogether different rather than to simply disassemble itself...) (Also note that this comic artist is particularly fond of ancient 1988 red Chevy coupe workhorses, as he happens to drive one in his spare time. ALSO also note that the theme here is "Mr. Roboto," which is what you might call ZEKE, seeing as how he's a CYBORG and all; he doesn't realize that his FAUX ALL-AMERICAN AUTO is assembled in China with "parts made in Japan," though...)
• 4/20/07     "It's A Trap!" - No. 1's True Identity (NOTE: Maybe 4/16/07's title will make sense to you now; this comic ran on "Bad Pun Day." As you can see, there's nothing new HERE! There are TWO PUNS in this stip. Can you find them?)
• 4/19/07     "Brand Spanking New Spoink" - Gearing up to Face off against Zoink!
• 4/18/07     "Spoink and the Billion O'Reillons" (a.k.a. The Death of Sputnik) (NOTE: "Oreillons" means "mumps" in French; the mumps affects the parotid gland (in front of the ear), which is where Spoink ended up landing upon entering the gaping cranial cavity of "Squid O'Reilly." "Squid O'Reilly the Toilet Monster" is the "regurgitated bad toilet humor" that crawled up out of the monster toilet in the MedUSA hospital at the beginning of season 2 of "Rooky Cola." Squid O'Reilly was "realized"--in other words, he didn't exist until Rooky imagined him--as the sort of freakish, impossible thing that might crawl up out of the toilet and tell you how to manage your private life. The numerous references to pills in this strip are vague references to Rush Limbaugh--excepting the comment on the oxycodone "OxyContin," which is almost painfully clear. An overdose of the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor "Prozac" (in "nanocapsule" form, I guess) results in Spoink dying of "serotonin syndrome," also known as "serotonin storm.") (Also note: when you mix RED and BLUE...you get PURPLE.)
• 4/16/07     Who Does No. 1 Work For??
• 4/13/07     Laughman Has the Last Laugh!...Figuratively, 'cuz It's Seriously not Funny [End of Flashback]
• 4/12/07     Grounds for War (NOTE: The War of the Squirrels takes place on a global scale, but we only see what's happening in the Untidy Status of Alienation. Colonel Rotenmauer's return from Planet Commoon merely escalates and intensifies the conflict. By the end of the story, all of squirrelkind is EXTINCT. Hopefully, the tragic fate of these obnoxious little nut-gobblers will serve as a warning to the true dominant inhabitants of Earth--a warning that teaches them to set aside their differences, break down the barriers between them, and learn to live, let live, and love....)
• 4/11/07     The Earthling's an Alien!
• 4/10/07     Crayola Crown - Rooky Arrives on Commoon [Flashback] (NOTE: "Royal Cook" is an anagram.)
• 4/6/07     Queen Takes Rook
• 4/5/07     Squirrels in Space! (Part VII)/ Holding out for a Humanicon (NOTE: When Queen Titular wears her headpiece, the two pieces that are inserted into her brain help her alone to utilize part of her cerebrum by bridging the gap and establishing a makeshift connexion with her alienated cerebrum! Thus wearing the headpiece boosts her intelligence, but only by so much...)
• 4/4/07     Squirrels in Space! (Part VI) (NOTE: After clarifying his point about Bluemans being essentially hairless, Rotenmauer qualifies Redmans--in this case, the Russkies--as being rather hairy, because they come from the "Land of Ice and Snow"; not only is The Land of Ice and Snow a reference to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," but it is also a location in the fictional world of Brian Jacques' "Redwall" series (again, "Rote Mauer" is German for Red Wall) where a variety of hairy creatures reside. (Makes sense, don't it?) The North American Eastern Grey Squirrel (sciurus carolinensis), once stowaways introduced to the United Kingdom, have largely displaced the red squirrel population in the UK; as a result, the uprooted red squirrels emigrated by boat to the Untidy Status of Alienation, which occupies its own continent in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Once there, these homeless and lawless vagrants on the warpath thirsted for blood and decided to take out their frustration on the local grey squirrel population. However, it wouldn't be until Colonel Rotenmauer returned from space with the backing of the Aliot Alliance that the red-squirrel-versus-grey-squirrel conflict would erupt into a conflict on a global squirrel--err...scale, thus producing the Mutually Assured Destruction known as the "War of the Squirrels"...)
• 4/3/07     Squirrels in Space! (Part V) (NOTE: So, this is what Queenie looks like when she dresses down. Here, Rotenmauer, who appears to be somewhat ADD, tries to describe the complex physical and political boundaries of Earth in his own sloppy terms. He mentions the Blue and Red political elements, here referring to the democratic-capitalist pigs as "Bluemans" (Blue Humans) and his former communist captors (who probably brainwashed him, for whatever it was worth) as the "Redmans" (Red Humans); he then flies off the handle attempting to describe the discrete physical boundaries of Earth, between the green land and the blue water, which he claims is bad for his coat. He also contends that the Bluemans are in cahoots with the grey squirrels, his mortal enemies...)
• 4/2/07     Pie's April Fools' '07 spoof of Rooky: "A Pair of Fast-spiking Interneuron Socialites" (lightyears better than the crap that was in the Dec)
• 4/2/07     April Fools' '07: The Shed Parody ("Now in 3-D...which is 2 dimensions MORE than usual!")
• 3/30/07     Squirrels in Space! (Part IV) (NOTE: Apparently Rotenmauer is astute enough to have picked up some Russian during his period of captivity on Earth. As I mentioned earlier, he also prefers Nutella to plain old acorns...)
• 3/29/07     Squirrels in Space! (Part III) (NOTE: The "gosh" thrown in in panel 3 is intended to be remniscent of "Napoleon Dynamite." Also, Queen Titular demonstrates her indomitable propensity for making a royal ass of herself when she assumes Rotenmauer is representative of the dominant, uniform intelligence found on planet Earth...)
• 3/28/07     Squirrels in Space! (Part II) (NOTE: As testament to the maxim "less is more," the Russians didn't need to make a massive spaceship-of-war to psych out the western world; all they needed to do was launch a miniscule--pissant, even--hunk of metal dubbed "Sputnik" into space in order to plant the viral seeds of doubt, suspicion and fear in the minds of their potential enemies; Sputnik may have been small in stature, but it was through the power of IMAGINATION that it gained the potency that sparked the Space Race....)
• 3/27/07     Squirrels in Space! (Part I)
• 3/26/07     "Irate Pirates of the Caribbean" (NOTE: I had been saving this one for months. As you can see, I didn't even make a half-assed effort to tie this one in to the storyline. Some of my "fans" were clamoring for a random joke or two, since, for whatever reason, they were having difficulty following the ongoing storyline.... So, here's a random joke to punctuate the plot of my continuous series! Yay! ...Do you get it? If you don't, try closing an eye and seeing how it affects your depth perception, genius.)
• 3/23/07     Laughman, Squirrel Exterminator Extraordinaire (Lead-in to Acornwallis' sob-story and recounting of the extra-terrestrial adventures of Colonel Rotenmauer...) (NOTE: "Sciurus Vulgaris" is the Latin scientific name for the Eurasian Red Squirrel; in case you didn't know, [SPOILER ALERT!!] Laughman (a composite of UVA's mascot Cavman and V from "V for Vendetta") is General Blooney in disguise, trying to get a piece of the action that his desk job does not generally afford; and the Russian on the side of Rotenmauer's ship I think means "spaceship"--I ran it by some of the Russian speakers we had in the comics department and I think they confirmed it...so...don't blame me if it says something nasty.)
• 3/21/07     "Rotenmauer Gets Fired" (NOTE: Rotenmauer is not particularly bright, so he decides to shoot himself out of the cannon since he is the sole survivor of Rubicon One's Taxiderm-o-taser attack. In the time it takes him to load himself into the cannon, Rooky realizes what's going on and repositions himself out of harm's way. As a result, the firing solution is inadvertently lost, and Rotenmauer's trajectory winds up completely off the mark. Queen Titular is not pleased; her inside man has indeliberately committed squirrel-o-cide, and as far as she knows, all of the offending red squirrels have already been exterminated, thus bringing a sudden and untimely end to the "War of the Squirrels.")
• 3/20/07     "IT'S SHOWTIME!" - The Aliots are Arrivin', from a Betelgeuse Far, Far Away... (NOTE: Some people were confused by the bottom portion of the third panel; Rooky is simply running down the Lawn on Grounds at the University of Lizzyland, unaware that he is being pursued by Colonel Rotenmauer in one of the tanks.)
• 3/19/07     The Death of Imagination (NOTE: This one should be fairly self-explanatory. It's an attack on pornography and the role that base sexuality plays in destroying the innocence of childhood and imagination. Rooky's mind is still unfettered by hormones and the neverending pursuance of tail...though, up to this point, it has nevertheless been bound and gagged by other forces, including Queen Titular and now the hyperactivity-regulating, electric-shock-inducing nanoneurobot Zoink. Robby hasn't had much luck chasing tail himself, which plays into the fact that he is concentrating on Women's Studies as a major at the University of Lizzyland.... The bottom line here is that "sexual fantasy" should be an oxymoron: sex is reality, but fantasy is what inspires us to fight for our dreams; if you taint your dreams with erotica, they will inexorably, ultimately die.)
• 3/16/07     At the Cinema: The Excapades of Dork Boy and Lava Gina, in 3-D! (NOTE: This is more of a random joke that I halfheartedly tried to tie into the storyline. As you might gather, it is rather inappropriate for children...but this brings up a good point: the Director referenced (not by name) in the first panel is one Robert Rodriguez, who specializes in innovative special-effects-laden films, including "Sin City" and, perhaps surprisingly, the "Spy Kids" series as well. This ironic contrast between the target audiences of different movies by the same director sets up the joke for this comic very nicely. In the second panel, note how Robby overlooks certain key signs suggesting that his expectations of this movie being a KIDS' flick are false--he even uses innuendo unwittingly by using such diction as "technology [that]...really stimulates the senses!" The name of the film is highly suspect as well, what with "dork" typically being a slang term for [whale] penis, and Lava Gina looking questionably like "La Vagina" (one of Rodriguez's other film projects was the 2005 kids' movie "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D"). Robby dozes off during the film, but is awakened at the end by Rooky, who, having not quite undergone puberty yet, has some questions lined up....)
• 3/15/07     ATTACK OF THE FLYING SQUIRRELS!! (In the aftermath of Rubicon One's retaliatory attack on Rotenmauer's tank, Einwelt is dead and Rotenmauer is shocked. General Acornwallis is introduced as a fancy-schmantzy flyboy red squirrel, the leader of the Red Aircorps, which consists of a bunch of red squirrels with DaVinci-esque flying apparatuses strapped to their backs toting miniature bombs. Despite his senior rank, Acornwallis still plays second-fiddle to Colonel Rotenmauer simply because Rotenmauer is the chief liaison between the Aliot Alliance and the red squirrels. Additionally, much like Rooky, Rotenmauer is much older than he seems, having lived an extra 20 Earth years in space. Note how we still have a variety of "acorn" references thrown in here and there--such as "Status A-CON" ("Condition Attack")--although, as is explained later, the European Red Squirrels actually prefer to eat the traditional hazelnut chocolate spread, Nutella...so say I...)
• 3/13/07     Fire the Taxiderm-o-taser--SET FOR NUTS! (It's an anagram...and a weak reference to General McAuliffe! [See Rooky on 9/4/07]) (NOTE: Colonel Rotenmauer (so dubbed by Queen Titular) has given his immediate subordinates similar German names. "Rote Mauer" means Red Wall, thus Rotenmauer's name is a reference to Brian Jacques' "Redwall" series; Radio Operator Einwelt's name means "One World," which is a reference to communist ideology. In this strip, No. 2 finally contacts Queen Titular's inside man on Earth, Rotenmauer, to see if all preparations are complete for her impending arrival. Unfortunately, the preconstructed and well-disguised hangar and landing platform were destroyed when Rooky triggered the launch sequence of the MedUSA hospital facility. Meanwhile, the red squirrels have been preoccupied gallivanting around terminating the remaining grey squirrels in the British-Lizzylander Army Tanks, lacking the foresight to put reconstruction plans into action. In response to No. 2's inquiry, Rotenmauer gives a smart-alecky, BS answer, suggesting that they have been trying to win over the locals with their cuteness; No. 2 recognizes this as a dumbass answer and points out that these little red rodents really resemble fuzzy alien creatures from Mars, and that as such they could never win the affections of Lizzylanders simply because they are too dang ugly. Rotenmauer suggests that he resembles that remark: "NUTS to YOU, then!" In response, No. 2 fires the "taxiderm-o-taser" to teach Rotenmauer and his wayward crew a lesson...)
• 3/1/07     The Eve of War/Squirrels from Mars! (NOTE: Unbeknownst to Cadet Zeke, General Blooney had already anticipated war with the red squirrels. Whereas Zeke thought he was assembling the cadets and inspecting them for a photo shoot, it turns out his superiors had other plans in mind. The last panel features some somewhat subtle, but important, puns: General Blooney, who hails from Great Britain, lacks experience in the field, having grown accustomed to a desk job as a general--which is why he says he doesn't know the plan of action because he was never a British officer in the field, or an "English Major"; the other side of this double-entendre is that he has difficulty expressing the plan of action in words because he is not very good with English (he was not an English Major in college). Blooney then explains that he majored in "Scotchguardology" in college (really, it should be called "Scotchgardology," but for the sake of the pun, let it go); thinking in military terms, Zeke assumes that means the General studied how to keep the Scottish from invading England--but Blooney explains that he actually studied in the field of chemistry, concentrating on the study 3M's water-sealant, Scotchgard...because it rains a lot in the United Kingdom...you see...ya.)
• 2/28/07     "Zeke's Battalion Inspection: Britney Spears at Boot Camp" (or "G.I. Barbie") (NOTE: I got in trouble for this one. Just in case I didn't think people were reading my comic...THEY WERE. Truth be told, I had written this comic months in advance; it featured Zeke as the Cadet Battalion Commander of his University of Lizzyland [A]ROTC Unit, inspecting his troops on the eve of battle against the bellicose red squirrels, led by Colonel Rotenmauer in the "War of the Squirrels." The strip fit very well into the storyline, even though it was somewhat of a spontaneous/random joke (not quite integral to the plot)...but my timing couldn't have been worse: the day I drew it I had been called out by my Gunny for not being within regs for military appearance...right in front of my MO squad leader, no less. As a result, I was a bit flustered and rushed that evening, which is why I chose a simpler, less involved comic in order to avoid having to draw one of the more complex plotline-central comics (see the next day's strip). Because part of my problem was that I needed a bit of a haircut, my Gunny picked up on the reference in the comic the next day. Word spread quickly that he was angry at me and I found out from some chatty midshipmen well before I actually had to confront him; it hung over my head like an anvil during my ECON midterm, and when the axe finally fell...it was pretty rough. Although he didn't believe me, I insisted that the comic wasn't a reference to him or necessarily to my situation, as the comic featured a recurring character and fit into the overarching storyline. Additionally, the cadets in the comic are intended to be Army cadets, and Marine Options don't wear splash camouflage. The "YOU'RE NOTHING!" in the last panel is simply a reference to the kind of tear-downs common at boot camp--it CERTAINLY wasn't an embedded personal opinion of a certain respectable individual.)
• 2/27/07     "Two Nutso Squirrels" (NOTE: Let this be a lesson in professionalism: if, because famous comic artist/commentator/analyst (wutevah) SCOTT MCCLOUD is speaking on-campus tonight and you have a chance to meet him because one of your publications is sponsoring his visit, and as a result you only have about 5 minutes to start and finish a comic and have no ideas at all, it would likely behoove you as a professional consideration to TAKE THE NIGHT OFF. This strip probably features two New York squirrels, one grey, the other red, arguing about nuttin' (so to speak). The belligerent grey squirrel calls the red one a nut-gobbler, which the red one denies, saying he's a virgin; the grey one throws up his wittle arms in resignation, exclaiming that he doesn't give a [sexual intercourse]; the red one, who is a virgin, also says he does not give a [sexual intercourse]; as a result, the two squirrels have finally found common ground between them...possibly enough to resolve their dispute? Unlikely, as there can be no peace between these two incompatible races of squirrels.... Nyuk nyuk nyuk.) (NOTE: Unfortunately, just as one bad deed can spoil a thousand good deeds, one little flub like this here gem was responsible for a mess of heartache at my NROTC unit. First my Gunny called me out on it (see the next day's comic to see what the occasion was)...and later on some other superior(s) tried to crack my head to figure out what was going through it that might prompt me to put out such offputting material. The answer: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It was SCOTT MCCLOUD! (I should have done that for my comic: "Screw MY comic--IT'S SCOTT MCCLOUD, EVERYBODY!!!"))
• 2/26/07     CAVCOMIC TYPOS: Fallin Rocks (NOTE: There's nothing tricky about this one. Some people said they were thrown off by the windshield relection in the second panel; it's nothing but the ridgeline from the first panel. The key to the joke here is that [SPOILER WARNING!!] the sign SHOULD read "BEWARE OF FALLEN ROCKS" (NOT "Beware of Fallin'/Falling Rocks"); see, if the rocks have already FALLEN, then you should pay more attention to what's already lying in the road ahead, whereas if they were fallING then you'd want to look up at the cliff to make sure nothing's going to fall on top of your car. That's the difference. THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Just like an encompassing metaphor for the entire "Adventures of Rooky Cola" storyline, one should never be so fixated on the sky above him that he fails to see impending obstacles in the road ahead! Voila!)
• 2/23/07     WiiBoy in the Closet (NOTE: Before Mariokart DS or Super Smash Bros Brawl came out, it might have been unreasonable to expect anyone my age or younger to know what Rob the Robot was. In a nutshell, Rob was an interactive gimmick packaged wth the NES when it debuted in the US in 1985. It didn't last long, though, which is why I have never seen one in person...with the exception of one they had at the Nintendo World at Rockefeller Center in NYC. In this strip, I propose that Nintendo might have come up with an updated gimmick of the same nature, which would probably be quite a bit more advanced, here called the Nintendo WiiBoy.) (NOTE II: I had to rush production on this one, which is why it's all in pencil. I did it on a Thursday after finishing an ECON problem set and while getting ready to go to Naval Station Norfolk for a flight physical the next day. I came up with this one pretty far in advance and then forgot about it. I laughed pretty long and hard one night after returning from bars or some other place where there was booze; at the time I thought it was absolutely killer. Turns out it was maybe a little gayer than I thought...or, more so, anti-gay...? Still, I think it's pretty punny and topical in a trivial pop-culture reference sense.)
• 2/22/07     Rooky Watches TV: "Highlander: The Series" (NOTE: There was a point in time when experts were really pushing the technically accurate term "STI" (Sexually Transmitted Infection) to replace "STD" (Sexually Transmitted Disease); since I still hear people refer to Gonorrhea, Syphilis (the sheep infection!) and HIV/AIDS (the monkey infection!) as STDs, I guess they finally gave up. Old habits die hard...and so do bad habits and STDs....)
• 2/21/07     War with Nobruskiforyuski, Epilogue (NOTE: The last panel of this strip is the only place I outright imply that Rooky is "physically unable to sleep." This is true, and stems from the fact that his brain cells--and, progressively, his other body cells--are becoming autonomous, self-sufficient and self-sustaining entities as the Aliot gift of intelligent-cell-induced evolution started by the now prodigal Spoink spreads throughout Rooky's body. This alien gift both permits him to stay awake without need to reengergize himself through sleep and at the same time prohibits him from attaining the psychological release given by sleep, as he inevitably remains in a perpetual hyperactive state of wakefulness. Note also that Rooky is now impervious to the effects of drugs and alcohol, as his cells now have advanced means of dealing with the breakdown and disposal of complex chemicals; the first and last time he got drunk--after mistakingly guzzling a bottle of Everclear shortly after arriving back on Earth--caused Spoink to become dislodged from the sane cord, an event which initially catalyzed the spread of transformation among the cells within Rooky's body, beginning with the first other cell Spoink came into contact with, the cancerous neuron Sloink. Rooky craves food--especially fast food--not only because it tastes good but also, simply, because he must eat very frequently to keep himself alive, since he has no ability to conserve internal energy by shutting down the now rampant and out-of-control cells coursing throughout his body. Finally, Rooky demonstrates his naivete concerning the lifecycle of his own species by misinterpreting Zeke's comments about his gynophobia.)
• 2/20/07     War with Nobruskiforyuski, Part III (A.K.A.- "The World According to Guard") (NOTE: So, serviceman Zeke is being serviced by a female [mad] doctor (the good Dr. Shea, as luck would have it); while he tries to talk about his most important piece of equipment as a soldier--his weapon--SHE seems to be talking about SOMETHING ELSE.... THEN, he wonders why it is that the only piece of his humanity that was shielded from the radiation of the Nobruskiforyuskian death ray was...his bits and pieces. Note the last panel: in the modern military, a serviceman can take a bullet up the ass...but he can't take much else and still expect to get an honorable discharge. To take it a step further: you can set off your piece as much as you want--just make sure that when you do you don't aim it at a fellow soldier. "[Unduly] Friendly fire" is frowned upon within the military....)
• 2/19/07     War with Nobruskiforyuski, Part II (A.K.A.- "Demonizing the Warwhores/Warmongrels!") (NOTE: The fourth panel is a gem. Note the clever pun...and also take into consideration the fact that, YES, Mattel DOES make ACTUAL weapons for the US Military. Now, if we could just get them to make REAL G.I. Joes...and some real Barbies would be very very nice too...)
• 2/16/07     War with Nobruskiforyuski, Part I (A.K.A.- "Slip Me Some Skin!")
• 2/15/07     Post-Valentine's Day '07: "How to Court a Lady (in 4 Easy Steps!)"
• 2/14/07     Valentine's Day '07: "What are Girls REALLY hungry for?"
• 2/9/07     The Trouble with Wimin: Zeke Doesn't Get It (Lead-in to Zeke's "War with Nobruskiforyuski" saga...)
• 2/8/07     G.I. Joe vs. "Mycenaean" Barbie! (NOTE: The title is a pun. It should sound almost like "My Scene Barbie." Mycenae was an ancient Greek military stronghold--but the connection should end there; the more appropriate term to describe these giant barbie dolls terrorizing the dinky little G.I. Joes is "amazonian," which refers to the powerful race of "Amazon" female warriors from Greek Mythology.)
• 2/6/07     Real Acquaintances, Imaginary Friends (A.K.A.- "Does it not BLOWWW YOUR MINNNNND???")
• 2/5/07     Burger-Be-Gone
• 2/2/07     Eez a Collage of Admissions, Ese! (A.K.A.- A Dingus, a Dingo, and a Big Baby)
• 2/1/07     Father Finger
• 1/31/07     Long Time, No Eat (A.K.A.- Rooky's Biggie Sur-Fries!)
• 1/30/07     CLUE!
• 1/29/07     Now THAT's Some Strong Drink/Juice/Sauce! BAM!! (NOTE: This is based on a true story. On one of our CD GFX outings we went to a restaurant and some of us brought some Mike's Hard Lemonade with us. Some among us didn't have the sense to conceal the bottle and came very close to getting kicked out of the restaurant. I hid mine in my pocket and chugged it in the bathroom when I went for a wee; it was a lemonade displacement--out with the old, in with the booze/juice, eh?)
• 1/26/07     Whoopsie Whoopee!
• 1/25/07     "The Exploits of Rooky Cola & Spoink, His ALIENated Imagineuron" (Sorta' a title screen, of sorts) (NOTE: This strip is meant to officially establish the fact that Spoink (a.k.a. Sputnik) is lost in the world, amid the rubble of the MedUSA Hospital, and also that Rooky's world is now tempered (or characterized) not only by what's real but also by what's UNreal; in other words, the things he makes up in his mind have a tendency to make their way into the real world, especially now that Spoink isn't there to regulate this ability. Rooky figures that he can now attempt to piece his life back together by reconstructing the world as he remembered it when he left Earth in the '80's by simply REMEMBERING how the world was back then. From this point on until the end of the story, Rooky attempts to pick up where he left off...only to discover that the world has changed too much without him and that, try as he might to reform it, there is no going back to the way things were. This is, in a nutshell, what most people go through when confronting adulthood; ultimately, most people have to leave the world of their childhood behind, and the child inside them dies. In Rooky's case, he still IS the child inside....) (Also NOTE the references to Mac Tonight, the Jane Seymour/Christopher Reeve movie "Somewhere in Time" and even a nod to zombie movies when Spoink, who needs to find his way back to the safety of his natural habitat--a brain--says "I NEED BRAINS!" as if he were a starved zombie going into conniptions...yeah....)
• 1/24/07     "Snakes Alive, This Guy is Fallin'!" (A.K.A.- "To ER Is Human") (NOTE: The fairly clear reference here is to that '80's sensation, LifeAlert/MedAlert's "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!" slogan. Also note that when Rooky asks for medical attention, the hospital comes down on him like a thousand tons of bricks and he ends up being in worse shape than before.)
• 1/23/07     "The Phalangeal Phalanx" (A.K.A.- "Robby and Zeke Get Boned by a Bunch of Fingers") (NOTE: This was inspired by both those psychotic AXE body spray commercials with the savage women ravaging and molesting men in an ironic twist on the whole gang-bang rape thing that supposedly happens in reality (yeah, those commercials are weird) and the fact that I felt threatened by the roaming throngs of sorority pledges who had been wandering around grounds in gangs the day before as part of sorority rush week. This is where I expose the truth about Zeke being a cyborg; note that he also loses the last vestige of his humanity in this strip--incidentally the key to his manhood as well--when the crazed women, turned on by the fact that he smathered his whole body with AXE body spray, literally pull him to pieces and, like the snakes in the grass they are, pull off HIS snake and leave it lying in the grass nearby. Oh, the sweet sweet bitterness, eh?)
• 1/22/07     "Skyrocketing Healthcare" (NOTE: Due to the urgent emergent emergency that is arising, the MedUSA Hospital, which is a launchpad in disguise, has accidentally itself been launched...)
• 1/19/07     "The Squid O'Reilly Emergency: Regurgitated Toilet Humor Emergences from a Sea of Sh*t and It Hits the Proverbial Fan" (A.K.A.- "Vomiterrorism!")
• 1/18/07     "Is there something wrong with the toilet, or is it just me?" (NOTE: the monster toilet character was actually inspired by an animated monster toilet that Bruce Willis' character was scared of in one of the "Look Who's Talking" movies. Here it's meant to demonstrate how the gift Spoink gave to Rooky--which allows his imagination to become realized--is now running rampant in the absence of Spoink, who was recently ejected from Rooky's head by Zoink and the Gamma Knife.)
• 1/17/07     "Does Anybody Have Universal Healthcare?"

Fall 2006 Season 1 of "Rooky Cola" (A.K.A. "The Exploits of Rooky Cola--and Spoink, his Alienated Imagineuron!")

• 12/1/06     "If You're Not Part of the Solution, You're Part of the Problem" (a.k.a. "Spoink's Exodus: Beginning of Spoink's Odyssey"; NOTE: This strip was hastily assembled because of an extra-early deadline. Note how the sinister Zoink, through his monologuing, is trying to send Spoink on a guilt trip by telling him how bad he is for the wellbeing of an organism like Rooky and that Spoink doesn't belong. Contrary to what Zoink (the manmade "artificial neuron") has been programmed to believe, Spoink (the alien-made "artificial imagineuron") is better for Rooky and the human mind in general than anyone can possibly imagine...)
• 11/30/06     "The Gamma Knife" (NOTE: In the first panel we see Queen Titular and No. 2 talking, but we hear Dr. Shea and her toady talking; even though Rooky is currently unconscious, I did this to further suggest the idea that Rooky sees a strong resemblance between being in the hospital and being abducted by aliens--I mean, with all the probing that goes on...who wouldn't? Of course, unbeknownst to even Dr. Shea, Queen Titular had the MedUSA Hospital building constructed as a landing platform for her flagship, Rubicon One...)
• 11/29/06     Vestibular Trim Party (NOTE: A "trim party" is an obscure term referring to an antiquated pastime of submariners by which they would upset the Diving Officer of the Watch's trim between the forward and aft ballast tanks by running as a large group from one end of the boat to the next. The old geezer neuron in this strip thinks this might work--and it indeed might have, had Rooky's head been more massive, so as to counterbalance the rest of his body.) (Also note that this is one of the times we see Zoink the Nanoneurobot employing his ability to shock Rooky's brain with an EMP and thereby shut it down; he does this frequently in order to prevent the brain from becoming hyperactive, overheating, and posing a threat to the well-being of the rest of the body. This theme--of Zoink valuing the preservation of the body over mental health--will return at the conclusion of the Rooky Cola series.... [SPOILER WARNING!] In case you're interested, in a nutshell this theme represents how much thought and mental stress must be put into procuring healthcare for the body in societies lacking socialized healthcare--especially in the case of vegetables, whose case can largely be considered "preservation of the body over preservation of the mind," considering that the comparatively fragile mind has already been lost; Spoink (Sputnik), on the other hand, represents the championing of the cause of placing significantly higher value on the mental well-being of a creature over the condition of its body. (Think about Zeke, who is still alive only because he was made into a cyborg by Dr. Shea after his body was vaporized by the technologically-superior Nobruskiforyuskians. Dr. Shea chose to keep him alive not for the sake of his brain itself--he's a bit of a weak-minded, childish fool anyway--but for the fact that, as long as there is a brain left, the brain can in its most basic capacity function as the central controller for a body; thus the dufus Zeke was only kept alive because he could continue to serve in the military as a mindless minion; he DOES elect to go to college, though, which works out because he can serve the Untidy Status of Alienation's army by joining its ROTC program, serving as the cadet commanding officer of the battalion, and ultimately being commissioned as an officer so that he can go off and fight in more wars...) [DISCLAIMER: This take on the military applies only to the context of this story and the mixed-up universe it takes place in. This is not by any means my personal take on the modern U.S. military establishment, which I hold to be the quintessential model of camaraderie and the star beacon of order, humanism and egality among all the societies and institutions of Earth.] One might hope that creatures with higher intelligence and more complex brains will ultimately evolve to the point that their brains will not rely so heavily on their primitive bodies to sustain the life of the mind. Spoink, as a "gift" from the evolutionarily advanced Aliots, represents the missing link between the earthly state of evolution of the mind and the ultimate, ethereal evolutionary state at which the mind can exist as a separate entity, independent of the body!--But, as for now, as demonstrated by the earthly obsession of Dr. Shea, the unenlightened, evolutionarily inferior human being must focus more on preserving the body through medical treatment at the expense of the ever-so-invaluable human mind, of which man greatly lacks understanding; tragically, it is the mind alone that gives meaning to the life of the body, but the mind must remain subservient to the will of the automated body that selectively provides it with the sustenance and nutrition that the body itself responsibly consumes. Nearly all animals have some form of the CEREBELLUM or another--but few have such a developed CEREBRUM as humans; thus the EVOLUTIONARY GOAL of humanity should be to achieve INDEPENDENCE OF THE CEREBRUM FROM THE CEREBELLUM!...--But perhaps we can help move things along with some HELP FROM "ABOVE"?...)
• 11/28/06     Zoink the Nanoneurobot Lays Down the Law! (So, you think "INFARCTION" is a typo, eh? Look it up, dumbass.)
• 11/17/06     FRYSTATION 3! It's Like the Next-Gen George Foreman Grill, Only Hotter! (Playstation the Turd debuted on this day after much tooting of its own horn. My take? Most of the commercials in their insipid, vacuous ad campaign were designed to insult our intelligence. THIS COMIC STRIP--without a single doubt--effectively counters Sony's apparent belief that a piece of hard-plastic hardware can insult our intelligence. NAY, only writing and reading STUPID COMICS like this one can truly insult human intellect with efficacy! DUH!) (Also note the presence of a Rubik's Cube in this strip--this puzzling blast from the past will noticeably be back later in the Rooky Cola series...)
• 11/16/06 (online)     "Yay! Rerun!" (NOTE: ... )
• 11/16/06     "Zoinks! It's Zoink, the Nanoneurobot!"
• 11/14/06     "Brain Freeze-->Blown Fuse!"
• 11/13/06     "Brain Freeze!" (a.k.a. "Winter in Western Neurope") (NOTE: Soon-to-be-introduced Dr. Shea is the antithesis to Queen Titular; she uses a special kind of ice cream to "freeze" Rooky's brain and make it cool enough to support the robotic artificial nemesis neuron you'll be seeing very soon...)
• 11/10/06     "Homecoming" - Foreshadowing (NOTE: As is mentioned briefly later in the series, the Charlotton "MedUSA" hospital complex is actually a landing platform/terrestrial docking bay in disguise; also note the appearance of the physical Earth of this cartoon universe: there is a large continent in the Atlantic Ocean that doesn't belong! This mystery continent is what is called the U.S.A. (Untidy Status of Alienation); to its immediate left (westward) we have the REAL USA (United States, from which Rooky has on two occasions been deported); on the immediate right (eastward) we find that good 'ole imperial domain, the "old country" of Western Europe, home of the Eurasian/European Red Squirrels and those confounded British Grey Squirrels...)
• 11/9/06     "Vintage Sneaks from the Claw Machine!" (NOTE: See how I keep using the two dock workers' names to put out subtle dirty anatomy jokes? Yeah...)
• 11/8/06     "Dead in the Water" (Transition) (NOTE: This comic was designed to highlight the connection and parallelism between the stories of Rooky and Spoink, the "Imagineuron" implanted in his head. Rooky flips in the water as the inside of his head fills with water. Note that "Ol'Folk Harbor" is supposed to sound like "Norfolk"; additionally, Lizzyland (spelled "Lizzland" here because of a typo) is the name given to the state of Virginia in Rooky's world--Lizzyland, also named for Queen Elizabeth I, is one of the states comprising the Untidy Status of Alienation (USA).)
• 11/7/06     "War in Neurope: Stemming the Tide"
• 11/6/06     "War in Neurope: The Invasion and the Flood" (NOTE: "Pull my axon outta the water" contains a pun.)
• 11/3/06     "You Have Brought War to this Utpoia! (Continuation)" (NOTE: Remember the joke that goes: "Know why there aren't any Wal-Marts in Iraq? 'Cuz they're all Targets!"? ...Yeah...the meddling Bacteriophages are meant to represent the real-world Americans, in that, to the inhabitants of "Western Neurope," they end up doing more harm than good...)
• 11/2/06     OMG! It's CARTOON TIME!!!!!! (NOTE: This is one of the few strips I drew during a class.)
• 11/1/06     The Grey Squirrels Have Unfinished Business! (NOTE: See! Told ya! This is the first time since 10/11/06 that you've seen a GREY SQUIRREL depicted in this comic--and now they're all DEAD! Well, this strip was meant to be a promotion for Hauntings 2006: Farmed and Dangerous, but I didn't finish it in time for 10/27/06; I ended up using it anyway, at least to show everyone that the grey squirrels were all ANGRY GHOSTS now...) (Sure, it's all well and good that the grey squirrels are upset that the invading red squirrels ran them all over with tanks, but beyond considering them "cute," nobody really gives a rat's ass about damn squirrels anyway. They're just pesky rodents, and people have no interest in getting caught up in their trivial little politics...) (Is it wrong to be NONINTERVENTIONIST concerning SQUIRREL POLITICS and do nothing to counteract this tragic SQUIRRELOCIDE??)
• 10/31/06     "The Motorola SHAVR Cell Phone!" (NOTE: I don't think Philip Collender even reads my comic...)
• 10/30/06     Do Red Squirrels Have Good Hearts? (NOTE: See also 10/13/06. Note Robby's misconception that the grey squirrels were "indigenous" to Lizzyland, U.S.A. Like all of the Untidy Status of Alienation's population, they only emigrated to the U.S.A. within the fairly recent past; the Untidy Status of Alienation was a "nation" only recently created as a result of globalization and the mixing of formerly discrete (unique) races of man and animal! As Earth has moved into the modern, worldly, internationalized era politically and culturally, so too have the political and cultural identities of Earth's inhabitants been isolated, alienated and bastardized from their unique historical origins. In this strip, the red squirrels have completely accustomed themselves to life on Grounds, in Lizzyland. Part of the joke made here is that Zeke understands that the invading red squirrels originate from Europe ("know thy enemy!") and he wonders if the cardiovascular benefits of their habitual consumption of WINE might outweigh the negative effects of their habitual SMOKING...which ends up not being the case, as this poor red squirrel--suffering from coronary heart disease--succumbs to a freak heart attack!)
• 10/26/06     "Car Battery" (a.k.a. "The Bitchy SUV") (NOTE: The character design of the SUV is based on the truck 4WD from the SNES game, Stunt Race FX.)
• 10/25/06     "Reality TV" (Dorm TV Week, Day Seven)
• 10/24/06     "Stewie vs. Bobby, Howie and Baldy" (Dorm TV Week, Day Six) (NOTE: Remember how Howie Mandel used to have something like a fro when he did Bobby's World? Well, that's not even a bald Howie in that last panel--it's Judge Doom from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Of course, what with Stewie Griffin being a toon...well, I think he's in a bit of a hairy situation here...)
• 10/20/06     "Kingdom Parts" (Dorm TV Week, Day Five) (Cut from the print version for its explicit content. NOTE: Think Disney's The Little Mermaid. )
• 10/19/06     "There's an Air Filter on my TV!" (Dorm TV Week, Day Four)
• 10/18/06     "Pore Pressure and You: A PSA Starring Spongebob!!" (Dorm TV Week, Day Three)
• 10/17/06     "The Incr-edible Hulk!" (Dorm TV Week, Day Two)
• 10/16/06     "THE HYDRATOR!!" (Dorm TV Week, Day One)
• 10/13/06     To Arms, Too Late! (NOTE: The Rotunda at the University of Lizzyland is actually a powder magazine in disguise, intended for use by the ROTC unit. The ROTC unit on Grounds is intended to protect both the University and the dwindling grey squirrel population present in the U.S.A. (Untidy Status of Alienation); note that neither the red squirrels nor the grey squirrels are native to the U.S.A.; like much of the U.S.A.'s population, though--including General Blooney--these squirrels are immigrants from the United Kingdom. In the fourth panel of this strip, you can see grey squirrels being run down by red squirrels in a tank they have stolen from the ROTC unit; the "alien" red squirrels (meaning that they owe their allegiance to another government, that of the Planet Commoon and the Aliot Alliance, which will be detailed later) are interested only in eradicating the grey squirrel population after the grey squirrels displaced their population in the United Kingdom--thus the belligerent red squirrels are currently persecuting the peace-loving grey squirrels out of REVENGE!) (Note also that, while playing coy, General Blooney very well understands his duty in serving and protecting the University community, including the protected grey squirrels...for General Blooney has a certain MASKED SECRET IDENTITY...)
• 10/12/06     INTRODUCING: Laughman, the Royal Squirrel Hunter (NOTE: "Laughman" is a parody of the actual UVA mascot, Cav Man; because, in the story, this is the "University of Lizzyland," the "V" symbol for UVA has been modified to look like an "L" at 45 degrees, and, accordingly, the mascot's name starts with an "L." This particular strip is intended to parody "V for Vendetta," the main character of which is reminiscent of UVA's cavalier character; in "V for Vendetta," the cavalier character "V" blows up the Old Bailey (The Central Criminal Court in London) to the tune of the 1812 Overture; in real life, at UVA, the Cavalier Marching Band was playing the 1812 Overture during a spectacular fireworks show in honor of the University's Capital Campaign in fall 2006, with UVA's most famous piece of Jeffersonian architecture, the Rotunda, directly in front of the fireworks. The imagery here gives the illusion that, just as in "V for Vendetta," the Rotunda is being blown up by a terrorist force, and that the disastrous event is being conveyed by local media as an intentional part of a celebration. In the context of "Rooky Cola," it is not Laughman the Squirrel Hunter who "blew up the Rotunda," but rather the RED SQUIRRELS who did so, using a stolen tank. As a result, later depictions of the Rotunda show scaffolding around it...)
• 10/11/06     The Last Grey Squirrel on Grounds (NOTE: In the first panel there is a very unobvious pun: Robby says "those Grey Squirrels on grounds," which could either mean "the squirrels on campus" (at UVA "Grounds"=campus) OR that the grey squirrels have a thing for ground coffee beans ("grounds"=ground coffee), which would make them jumpy and "edgy" (nervous); at UVA the common conception is that our grey squirrels are abnormally calm and easygoing--unlike the stereotypical grey squirrel, which is very unfriendly toward humans. [The idea that nervous little animals might be nervous because of caffeine intake has been borrowed from one of Gary Larson's "Far Side" comics, which depicts a dachshund "starting his day" at an espresso machine.] Zeke, the straight-arrow ROTC cadet, suggests that the grey squirrels are calm because they have a pacifist nature. The invading red squirrels ("The Reds"), on the other hand, are here characterized as being more belligerent and on edge. The 5th panel shows a preview of their leader, Colonel Rotenmauer. This is the last time you will see a LIVE grey squirrel in this comic!) (Also note that the "hidden image" in panel 4 was NOT INTENTIONAL. [I had suspected this was the reason the comic did not run when I originally intended it to.])
• 10/4/06     "Fratulence" (Check out that definition! It should be in Webster's Dictionary! I for one have fallen victim to chronic fratulence. Know what I mean? You know you do.)
• 10/3/06     Robby Tries to Get Frat-tastic! (NOTE: Robby is so busy studying for Chemistry during the week that he confuses the periodic table with the picture of last year's frat grads, which has a similar layout. In the last panel, he says "bring out Mr. Silicone! I'd know him if I saw him!... ...I think we have chemistry together!!" Silicone is a chemical polymer containing the elements silicon and oxygen, thus it would not be found on the periodic table...but it WOULD be found in BREAST IMPLANTS, which Robby is clearly a fan of; thus if any "synthetic breasts" were to make an appearance ("bring out Mr. Silicone!") Robby would recognize them if he saw them; since Robby takes Chemistry, it might make sense that he is in the same class as a frat brother by the name of "Mr. Silicone"--if such a brother existed--but the other meaning behind "I think we have chemistry together" is that seeing silicone breasts would catalyze a particular reaction within Robby...)
• 10/2/06     INTRODUCING: Robby, the awkward 21-year-old 4th-year who lacks life experience--But ask and you shall receive... (NOTE: I am aware that "senor" (with a tilda) is misspelled, but I wanted to make the pun obvious--and "senior" is a homophone anyway.)
• 9/29/06     Spoof Friday: Poking Fun at "You Could Do Better" (NOTE: Cubic Zirconia has NO CLEAVAGE, thus the guy definitely means something else...)
• 9/28/06     "You Have Brought War to this Utopia!" (a.k.a. "Viral Influx"; NOTE: Vestibular Neuronitis, Perilymph Fistula, and Labyrinthitis are all real medical conditions that cause physical balance disorders; Spoink here is trying to pull the "j'accuse" reversal of responsibility on the Prime Minister of Western Neurope, claiming that he is a "freelance antibody," when in fact he is merely trying to dispense some vigilante justice to help rein in the Sloink/cancer/tumor problem he has unintentionally helped to spread...)
• 9/27/06     "Welcome to Western Neurope!" (NOTE: Just to get this out in the open, the CNS is described as "communistic" because the CNS in the microcosmic world of Rooky's brain is meant to parallel the real-world USSR during the Cold War; "CNS" sounds more like "CIS" (Commonwealth of Independent States, the former Soviet Union), though; "Central Land" is meant to refer to Communist China (Zhong Guo, which means literally "Central Land"); the "spreading tumor" of Mol-Mart is meant to refer to the foothold that the capitalist institution Wal-Mart has found even in Communist China.)
• 9/26/06     "It's Raining Sloinks!" (Includes a reference to the film Labyrinth)
• 9/22/06     "Sloink 'Grows' on Spoink!"
• 9/20/06     "Sloink Is 'Special' "(Heavy New Online Edit)
• 9/19/06     "Commune Courtesy" (NOTE: The occipital lobe and the ocular orbits are on opposite sides of the human head. Duh!)
• 9/18/06     "Collective Withdrawal and Learning to Express Oneself Freely"
• 9/15/06     "Billy O'Reilly v. CD Goings-on" (Note about the title: "CD" stands for "Cavalier Daily" but sounds like "seedy," which means "morally degraded"! Nyuk nyuk!)
• 9/14/06     "Spinal Tapping" (Spoink makes first contact with Sloink)
• 9/13/06     "Damage Control"
• 9/11/06     "A Screw's Loose" (a.k.a. "Spoink's Awakening"; NOTE: The first two panels are meant to feel a bit like The Matrix; also, "Dominiquo"--if a name at all--would appear to be feminine...but I chose it, obviously, because I was trying to make a reference to Donkey Kong.)
• 9/8/06     "Footballoon!" (Published for Gridiron, the Cavalier Daily's annual football edition)
• 9/6/06     "The Aftereffects of Brain Damage" (Foreshadowing)
• 9/5/06     "The Cautionary Tale of Nobruskiforyuski, Part II" (NOTE: As you may be able to tell from the last panel, the Nobruskiforyuskis never learned their lesson...kinda like the Chinese and their addiction to opium--y'know, the one that lead to the Opium Wars? (From Wikipedia: "Concerned about the effects of opium smoking addictions during mid-19th century caused China to ban opium from being brought into the country. In 1839 Chinese authorities seized 20,000 chests of opium, including 7000 from the Jardine trading company. However British merchants were making a handsome profit from this trade which originated from India."))
• 9/4/06     "The Cautionary Tale of Nobruskiforyuski, Part I" (NOTE: Check out the rather clever description of the use of hard liquor: "It's for smart people who are smarting too much and need to kill some brain cells to dumb down a bit!" That right there is pure genius, if I do say so myself! (I should know--I drink myself stupid all the time!))
• 8/31/06     "Voyage to a New World" (a.k.a. "Deportation"; make note of the foreshadowing...)
• 8/30/06     "A Warm Welcome, Part III" (NOTE: "Elian" of course refers to the Cuban illegal alien, Elián González.)
• 8/29/06     "A Warm Welcome, Part II" (NOTE: The bit about Taco Bell refers to a promotion the fast food chain had when the Russian/Soviet Mir (???, which can mean both world and peace in Russian) space station came down on 23 March, 2001; Taco Bell had placed a 40x40-foot "target" in the South Pacific, and had any piece of the space station hit the target, every American in the US would have been able to get a free taco! Unfortunately, Mir missed the target. According to Wikipedia, "Mir was humanity's first permanently-inhabited long-term research station in space. Through a number of collaborations, it was made internationally accessible to cosmonauts and astronauts of many different countries.")
• 8/28/06     "A warm Welcome, Part I" (Rooky is back on Earth after 20 Earth years. NOTE: The INS didn't exist any longer in 2006...so what's the deal? (A little foreshadowing.))
• 8/25/06     "Home before Bedtime" (The Rooky Cola series prologue, Part III) (NOTE: The stuff about NASA refers to gneral predictions by scientists that a major collision between the Earth and an asteroid may occur within 25 years. Alles Klar, Herr Kommissar?)
• 8/24/06     "The Volley of Folly, Part II" (The Rooky Cola series prologue, Part II)
• 8/23/06     "The Volley of Folly, Part I" (The Rooky Cola series prologue, Part I)

Spring 2006 Season 2

• 4/28/06     Imaginary Head Injury (General setup/preview for the Rooky Cola saga...--I'm sure nerds can relate. It's sorta like how Doc Brown envisioned his ingenious "flux capacitor," only here the distraction was an actual stripper! (The pole-dancer outline shown here was based on a PSA drawn by Ellisha Marongelli.))
• 4/27/06     Why Ayman al-Zawahiri hates Comics! (Cut from print because the editors mistook Zawahiri for a depiction of the Prophet Mohammed)
• 4/26/06     "Fancy People Drink Bottled Water...Right?" (Probably not a fair accusation of Charlize Theron...but whatever. No one ever complained.)
• 4/24/06     "The Hazing of E. A. Poe"
• 4/20/06     "Freedom of the Press" (Probably had something to do with people getting pissed at our comics page...as usual. This comic basically parodies a possible reinterpretation of the First-Amendment that would suggest Congress meant people had "freedom to press anything" and not necessarily "freedom to print anything." As you can see, printers are now pressing flowers and printing stories about flowers. Get it? Hahahahaha.... Though likely all of the publications shown here are technically "independent," the UVA independent publications Cranial Mass and The Declaration are shown here with "fitting titles," suggesting that The Declaration is a tree-killing waste of paper and that Cranial Mass is really just a confusing bunch of nonsense--hence "Cranial Mush.")
• 4/19/06     "$10.72 per Manwhore" (This comic was a timely jab at on-Grounds student organizations who were using collective student funds to finance free "Gay? Fine by me!" T-shirts. Incidentally, a student at the Hereford Residential College sparked controversy when he posted a sign on his window that read "Gay? Not fine by me!" in protest to the waste of money that was the T-shirts.)
• 4/18/06     "Maidenhead" (Original version, drawn in 5 minutes or less. This comic was inspired by the clever name of the "little girl's room" at the SERP Frat House; "maidenhead" of course refers to the "hymen" found in female virgins; suggesting that the dorky guy "doesn't get it" is a double-entendre: in actuality, he does get the joke...but he still doesn't get maidenhead--in other words, he doesn't get the opportunity to deflower virgins...because he's a dork. Duh.)
• 4/14/06     "Old-School Cell Fun!" (Drawn in 10 minutes or less!)
• 4/13/06     "Six Degrees of San Diego" (Inspired by "Anchorman" and the game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon")
• 4/12/06     Teeny Mutiny Navy Turtles to the Rescue! (NOTE: This one was somewhat random, but I really just wanted to put in a reference to TMNT that would go along with the Naval motif of the punny "Pillsbury Cabin Boy" and "Royal Navel Fleet.")
• 4/11/06     "The Professional Hard Drive Wiper Supervirus"
• 4/10/06     "The Killian's Rabbit"
• 4/7/06     "The O'Buddy Seal O' Approbation" (This 'un was inspired by "South Park" winning a Peabody Award for political satire. Note the references to "Boondock Saints" (talk of "dispensing justice" and the barkeep who has Tourettes and keeps shouting "F**k arse!"); around the same time South Park received the award, Comedy Central ran a two-parter featuring Cartman's dastardly attempt to put an end to the controversial "Family Guy," thus this comic also suggests that "Family Guy" has lost some support ("an O'Buddy to love!"), save for old "fightin' Irishmen," who would support the show because it was created by and stars an Irishman.)
• 4/6/06     "Necrophilia and Mookies" (inspired by a The Declaration parody of "Rooky" that was titled "This Comic is Drier than a Mookie")
• 4/5/06     "Life's a Laugh and Death's a Joke" (a.k.a. "Death as a Comedian")
• 4/4/06     "M&M's" (A puzzle with characters most of whose initials are M. M...with the exception of the "Blasian" dude on the right, whose name is "Meng Tan"; the joke is in how cleverly I tricked y'all: the other possible odd man out is Mega Man, who potentially isn't "biodegradable"...although I believe a certain Ms. Alison Provost...or somebody...may have suggested that Mega Man at some point or other was biodegradable.... Feel free to email me to enlighten me, anyone who frankly gives a damn.)
• 4/3/06     "Booty and the Breast" (a.k.a. "Beauty is a Dirty Rose!")
• 3/31/06     Congo Square's April Fools' '06 spoof of Rooky (Focusing on Rooky's apparent randomness and incoherence.)
• 3/31/06     April Fools' '06: TCB Parody (TCB's "God" is a very confused man, here shown as having had breast implants done to enable his womanizing tendencies, and appealing to a "higher authority" when attacked by the Disney character, Rafiki.)
• 3/30/06     "Funny Doesn't Grow on Trees!" (A PSA encouraging students to try out for a spot on the comics page of the Cavalier Daily) (NOTE: I scanned in the image of the twenty-dollar bill only to discover that Photoshop thought I was trying to print counterfeit money! I used printscreen to copy the image to paint and then saved it as a JPEG; I then opened it in Photoshop again, edited it (adding the fedora and liquifying President Jackson's face a tad) and then, upon trying to save the final product, found that Photoshop STILL THOUGHT I WAS TRYING TO PRINT COUNTERFEIT MONEY! So I had one of the photographers at the paper snap a picture of the computer monitor (the problem was that Photoshop wouldn't let me SAVE it) and I simply cropped final product from the photo of the computer monitor. Thus, that is what you see! Notice how the text on the far right and "Graphics@cavalierdaily.com" are sharper than the rest of the text.)
• 3/28/06     "Heyday of the Viking Engineer!" (Featuring a guest appearance by Brad Fromm, the original viking engineer!) (NOTE: The last panel contains a reference to "Monty Python's Flying Circus.")
• 3/27/06     The Prince's Brigade (New Online Edit)
• 3/24/06     T-1000 Mechanical Penile (New Online Edit)
• 3/23/06     "Mechanisquito" (NOTE: This is a joke for people who use Photoshop: basically, the Micron couldn't blot out the obnoxious mechanical pencil bug because it's on a separate layer! Nyuk nyuk!)
• 3/22/06     "I Don't Wanna Grow Up!" (Makes numerous references to J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan")
• 3/21/06     "If all else fails, blow the hell outta it!" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. XIII) (NOTE: The sticky sock bomb has here been modified to be the "sticky squirrel sock bomb," which is like the sticky sock bomb, only better, because it can move really fast! The "DOMOLITIONS EXPERT" (yes, it's a typo) sends the "mobile sticky sock bomb" down through the steam tunnels into the heart of Laundaria (the dorm's Laundry Room); once there, the speeding sticky sock attracts the attention of the silly sock population of the Laundarian Hampire, who proceed to jump the squirrel and get stuck to the sticky sock! Once on the outside, the mass snowballs away and blows up in the distance!--Thus that solves the problem with the sock monster, the Sockult, the Freshman 15, and the Laundarian Hampire and its "freshmen" and "trainsfer students"...etc, etc. Of course, the next question is whether such "sock-o-cide" has been morally correct or not...)
• 3/20/06     Technosaurus-Rex! (NOTE: Supposedly, when Steven Spielberg was filming the scene from Jurassic Park where ripples appear in the cup just before the T-Rex shows up he set up his own bass with an amp and played it to create the needed rumble. Following that idea, I have shown in this strip that, with the amount of bass beat common at most parties these days, a large T-Rex could easily sneak up without being audibly detected!) (Also note that my Major at the time asked me: "Shaver! What would a T-Rex be doing at a party?!" The comical answer would be "dancing"; the logical answer, however, would be "eating people.")
• 3/17/06     VSOC, Spawn of Nylonsfootweartu, Winged Vampire Sockbat (He Who Wacthes What You Do in Your Dorm Room Just When You Think You're Alone...) (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. XII)
• 3/16/06     All You Need Is Love (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. XI)(New Online Edit)
• 3/15/06     "Buzzed on Suds" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. X) (NOTE: here we see members of the Sockult's "Freshman 15" causing mischief in Laundaria (the Laundry Room). They mix laundry detergent in with a keg of beer to maximize the "suds." The cops notice that the boy in the last panel looks pretty drunk, but also that he smells "clean"--a double entendre that could mean that he doesn't smell like beer, his clothes smell like they've been washed, or both.)
• 3/14/06     "Aw Hell! 4th-Year Trainsfer Students!!" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. IX) (NOTE: This strip is jam-packed with puns. For example, the "trainsfer" (transfer) student is an engineer, which in this case apparently means he drives a train; this student is behind in his degree because he has waffled between majors during his college career; the majors he mentions have the word "anarchy" in them...--YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU FIGURE OUT THE DAGGONE PUNS FOR YOURSELF, DAGGONIT.) ... ... (...okay, I guess I can at least point out that it is common for students to fail out of the engineering school and to select less technical majors; in this case, he selects a Bachelor of Science degree (B.S.) but can't finish it, so he settles for a Bachelor of Arts degree (B.A.), which has fewer requirements...--And President Casteen calls the sock student a "foot kisser" because he is a little suck-up...and a sock. Duh.--THERE. HAPPY? [:^)])
• 3/2/06     "Nuking the Sock Monster!" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. VIII) (NOTE: The last panel of this comic poses the ethical question of whether it is right for the Church of the Sockult to "launder tithes" ("tithes" might sound a little like "tights"--tights, pantyhose, socks...what's the difference?) by putting Laundarian Socks on spin cycle in the dryer so as to catalyze a reaction within their DNA that causes them to replicate--and then capitalize on the bountiful fresh batch of FUZZY FOLLOWERS! The Church of the Sockult is located in the heart of the Laundarian Hampire (behind the washers and dryers in the laundry room in the dorm). With the ability to replicate socks without limit, not only would the Sockult be able to bring new followers INTO THE FOLD (those "lost" socks that fall behind the washer and dryer machines, never to be seen by their human owners again), but the Sockult would also be able to "breed" its own race of blind followers! The hunchbacked henchman corrects his master ("No, you hoser!") by pointing out that only synthetic fabrics with soles that come into contact with human skin and thus receive rubbed-off traces of human DNA can be said to "contain DNA" and be capable of REPRODUCTION. Thus the argument here is that it is not the Sockult but the ORIGINAL HUMAN OWNERS of these "prodigal socks" who GAVE THEM LIFE!--Can a SOCK PUPPET that lacks a hand or foot inside to manipulate it truly be considered "ALIVE"?...) (Also note that the original high-resolution version of this comic was lost.)
• 3/1/06     "Do Socks Have Soles?" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. VII)
• 2/28/06     "Murphy's Law for Sock Phagocytosis" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. VI) (NOTE: Phagocytosis is "the intake of material into a cell by the formation of a membrane-bound sac," thus though the Greek "phagein" means generally "to eat," in terms of microbiology "phagocytosis" only refers to the consumption process of a cell; in the context of this strip, though, consider the female "sock monster" a formless blob that likely behaves similarly to a single-celled organism, eats a lot, and generally retains what it eats (because it doesn't have a real digestive tract). The doctor gets his foot put forcibly in his mouth because he unwittingly INSULTS the "girl sock" about her weight: "You don't have a stomach, just a really elastic midsection!" In the first panel the sock monster is shown having consumed the "Congo Square" characters, sort of like a snake; this comic idea ("Redefining the Freshman Fifteen") was NOT originally meant to feature a "sock girl," but I was already stuck in this rat trap of a series...) (Also note that the original high-resolution version of this comic was lost.)
• 2/27/06     "Beware the Curse of the Freshman Fifteen!" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. V)
• 2/24/06     "VPO Isn't for Socks! Vote Ryan!" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. IV) (NOTE: This is a political ad I made at the request of my suite mate; I decided to tie it in with the theme I was already stuck on...)
• 2/23/06     "Flaming Retarded Rectal Penetration and Fuzzy Footwear Fetishes" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. III) (NOTE: Yes, WOOL is naturally flame-retardant, which is why the Laundarian Freshman is "smoldering" and not burning.)
• 2/21/06     "Get on my Foot, Dammit!!" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. II)
• 2/20/06     "Cold Feet about Going to Class" (The Sockult of the Laundarian Hampire Saga, Pt. I)
• 2/17/06     "Ich War Betrunken" (NOTE: This strip is half "Paper Street," half "Men in Black.")
• 2/16/06     MUDs (Male Universifly Dropouts) (Parody of PSP ad campaign)
• 2/15/06     Post-Valentine's Day '06: "Breakfasts in Beds"
• 2/14/06     Valentine's Day '06: "Spice up your Life!"
• 2/13/06     "Less Dicks Ick" (NOTE: This one is full of subtle puns. First, "lesdyxia" is a common joke about how dyslexic people might read "dyslexia"; the second character calls the suggestion an "old wife's tail" (instead of "old wives' tale") because (here's a stretch) an old wife's rear end would generally have "less dicks" (be "lesdyxic"); he then goes on to say (a little more sensibly) that the reason dyslexic people might think they also suffer from "lesdyxia" (the illness under which you have less dicks than normal) is because dyslexic people can't tell one end from another ("can't tell their front end from their rear end"), thus a dyslexic person might think his dicks are missing because he can find them, when in fact he is looking in the wrong place--his rear. (President Scroob from "Spaceballs" comes to mind, where after being teleported from one room to another his rear end is physically where his front end should be; he exclaims: "Why didn't anyone TELL me my ass was this big?!") The second panel shows the progression of the comic characters being "corrupted" by an agitated cartoonist, after one calls him a "gutless cartoonist" for not insisting on drawing "anatomically correct" cartoon chacracters. "Atomically Corrupt" sounds like "anatomically correct," but it isn't a real term; in the context of this strip it is intended to give the irate cartoonist the idea to give the whiny dickless cartoon character something to put in his pants--namely a rod of radioactive uranium!)
• 2/10/06     Newcomb Hall Plays "Tim Burton's The Corpse Bride" by Physically Assaulting Jack Skellington (NOTE: This was meant to be a part of the joint effort "Ultimate Showdown" 4-comic-sized (quadruple) comic that ran on the same day, but Newcomb Hall attacking Jack Skellington was too big and too late. I added a dog alien ("Alien 3") to the joint effort and just ran this drawing as my comic.)
• 2/9/06     Snakes Pigskin Gets a Date...in Court, Part III
• 2/8/06     Snakes Pigskin Gets a Date...in Court, Part II
• 2/7/06     Snakes Pigskin Gets a Date...in Court, Part I
• 2/6/06     Cyclops' Mutant Brothers (NOTE: Think "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil," only replace "evil" with "violent energy blasts" or something to that effect.)
• 2/3/06     Starbucksanctuary! (NOTE: "Starbucksanity" forsakes the character, so he essentially says "to hell with Starbucks!" ...My sentiments exactly.)
• 2/2/06     Starbucksanity at 3 O'Clock Wee (NOTE: This and the following comic portray Strabucks as a religion of which the character has not partaken.)
• 1/31/06     Attack of the Hippopotomatic Oaf! (The Hell Week Saga, Part V)
• 1/30/06     Encounter with the Mighty StudHealCent (The Hell Week Saga, Part IV)
• 1/26/06     The Hell Week Saga, Part III
• 1/25/06     The Hell Week Saga, Part II
• 1/24/06     Tapeworms Are Eating your Brain! (The Hell Week Saga, Part I) (NOTE: This series was my first stab at jabbing the Student Health Center ("The Mighty StudHealCent") for its health insurance policies--chiefly for foreign students not otherwise covered. A fellow student was experiencing similar problems at about this time and risked being sent away from the University because he was not on a suitable health insurance policy. I also stabbed at the ludicrous practices of fraternities during an initiation period they call "Hell Week," which, needless to say, involves getting crazy drunk and doing all kinds of crazy things...basically stuff that "turns your brain inside out." In the comic strips of this series, Hell Week is presented as an allegory similar to "The Lord of the Rings," in which a student whose brain is beaten to a pulp by Hell Week is harrassed by the Mighty StudHealCent, a monster highly critical of his unhealthy behavior and the fact that he "lives in the dark ages" by not having an approved health insurance carrier.
• 1/23/06     Beer Goggles and Hell on Wheels
• 1/20/06     Family Outings (Snakes Pigskin on the Fast Food Track, Part III)
• 1/19/06     The Grudge against Starbucks (Snakes Pigskin on the Fast Food Track, Part II)
• 1/18/06     Plastic Surgery (Snakes Pigskin on the Fast Food Track, Part I)

Fall 2005 Season 1

• 12/2/05     Fatty the Snowman (Merry Christmas!) (NOTE: Yes, there is a typo in the first panel of this strip: "He doesn't no how to put fires out" should be "he doesn't KNOW how to put fires out." C'est la vie.)
• 12/1/05     Fratty the Snowman
• 11/30/05     Illegal Activity on Facebook
• 11/29/05     Turkula, the Silicone-stuffed Turkey Breast!
• 11/18/05     "MEGAGHOTI: Curse of the Flushyfish Worm," Part VI (NOTE: The strange character in the first panel is "The Hoo," the UVA mascot who preceded "CavMan." "The Hoo" was UVA's on-field mascot for the 1983 football season, but was largely unpopular--thus he got "flushed" in time for the year 1984. The appearance of a lady CavMan (CavWoman) represents how Steph Fisher is supposed to be a hero for the oppressed masses of UVA students, fighting their archnemesis, ISIS, and her new creation, the monstrous MEGAGHOTI ("Megafish," depending on how you pronounce "Ghoti"). The Microsoft Xbox, another well-known destroyer of academic careers, volunteers to sacrifice itself in order to vanquish the exposed form of ISIS; this scene is meant to imitate the scene from Ridley Scott's famous 1984 Super Bowl commercial for the Apple II computer, in which a female athlete hurls a hammer at a large monitor, destroying the images of Big Brother projected from it and thereby freeing the hypnotized masses. In this case, however, it's "a Microsoft product being hurled at a monitor." The name of the stadium--Ridley Scott Stadium--has been changed to "Ridley Scott Aquarium," simply because it is now full of water. [In case you haven't guessed it already, this over-complex allegory was not well-tailored to the medium of a daily newspaper, and it was not well-received to my knowledge.])
• 11/17/05     "MEGAGHOTI: Curse of the Flushyfish Worm," Part V (NOTE: The reason ISIS originally bestowed Steph Fisher with the suit of armor and the firepower that she ironically uses to blow ISIS's head off in this strip was because ISIS confused the unclassifiable "Steph Fisher" entity with the "Flushyfish worm" entity. In this strip, Steph Fisher finally turns that firepower back on the evil witch ISIS; ISIS requests a new head "befitting of her stature" from Ra...and receives the Hokie's head, of which she says: "At least it BE FITTING my shoulders!" (a pun!) Meanwhile, the blast from Steph Fisher's cannon blows a hole in the barrier between the digital world of the Local Area Wetwork (the "sewer-system" that connects all of UVA's computers together) and the "real world," opening a portal via the "Hoo-vision" monitor in Scott Stadium (here referred to as "Ridley Scott Stadium"). The COD fish, now in the monstrous form given to it by ISIS, is flushed out onto the football field...)
• 11/16/05     "MEGAGHOTI: Curse of the Flushyfish Worm," Part IV (NOTE: The "COD Fish" is the Course Offerings Directory, here portrayed as a shark and as a goldfish. The joke behind the goldfish ("flushyfish worm") is that it was originally a goldfish (a "codfish" in that they are edible) that got flushed down an on-grounds (on-campus) toilet while it was still alive; for some reason (due to the poor construction of the Integrated Student Information System), when the fish gets flushed, it ends up being uploaded digitally to the Local Area Network, which has transformed into the sewer-like system, the "Local Area Wetwork." When Steph Fisher destroys the COD (Course Offerings Directory) fish, she does not realize that it was ISIS itself, and not the COD, which was threatening students' abilities to register for the courses they wanted (ISIS is the source/enforcer of registration blocks and the threat of "final registration" disenrollment). In destroying the COD fish, Steph Fisher makes matters worse by giving ISIS the ability to "reconstruct the COD in her own image." ("Now that the COD is broken...ISIS can fix it!") Again, this ongoing allegory is about how the automated registration system ISIS has so much control over students' academic lives, while a student displaced by Hurricane Katrina attempts to infiltrate the system that cannot detect her presence as a student of the University (ISIS cannot technically recognize her as a student because she lacks the credits necessary to enroll as a transfer student) and to destroy it from the inside out!)
• 11/15/05     "MEGAGHOTI: Curse of the Flushyfish Worm," Part III (NOTE: The goddess portrayed here is Isis, Egyptian goddess of fertility; Isis refers to "Steph Fisher" (based on Tulane student Steph Swisher, who specifically asked to be drawn into my comic) as "Steph the Destroyer," which is a reference to Seth the Destroyer, murderer of Isis's husband, Osiris)
• 11/14/05     "MEGAGHOTI: Curse of the Flushyfish Worm," Part II (A Hurricane Katrina displacement/ISIS registration system/"Local Area Wetwork" allegory)
• 11/11/05     "MEGAGHOTI: Curse of the Flushyfish Worm," Part I
• 11/10/05     "The Parent Thesis" by-the-numbers Soap Opera, Part II
• 11/9/05     "The Parent Thesis" by-the-numbers Soap Opera, Part I
• 11/8/05     Original Sample Rerun/"MEGAGHOTI: Curse of the Flushyfish Worm" Lead-in
• 11/7/05     "Rip You a New One!" (How to [literally] Shift a Semi-Colon into a Colon)
• 11/4/05     "Full of Yearn" (NOTE: This is a Reference to a High School Band inside joke: one of the pieces we played (I think it was called "Escape") had a style annotation that read "yearnfully." Of course, because "yearn" is not a noun (it is a verb), the correct word would be "YEARNINGLY," which is an adverb.)
• 11/3/05     Unidentified Drunk Chicks Behaving Badly - Balloon Massacre
• 11/2/05     Ghostbusters vs. Congo Square, Part II
• 11/1/05     Ghostbusters vs. Congo Square, Part I (PRINTED VERSION)
• 10/31/05     Ghostbusters vs. Congo Square, Part I (official Halloween comic - CUT VERSION)
• 10/28/05     Artful Taxidermy (Halloween PSA spoof)
• 10/27/05     Half-hearted Assault on TCB, Part II
• 10/26/05     Get your own Gig [of Pirated Music]!/Half-hearted Assault on TCB, Part I
• 10/25/05     Laying on the Horn - Organic Passion (and roadkill)
• 10/24/05     Ricky Rat Teaches a Valuable Lesson in Entomology ("Calvin & Hobbes" pseudo-tribute)
• 10/21/05     What's your Sign, Bitchy Woman?
• 10/20/05     Dr. StrangeGoogle PC Crash
• 10/19/05     Joe Six-Pack
• 10/18/05     And then It Turned into a Pumpkin (UVA vs. FSU) (NOTE: This one was drawn a day late (Tuesday, when the game happened on Saturday, 10/15) at the request of a certain individual. What can I say to describe the theme for this comic other than that the game where the UVA Cavaliers actually won against FSU's Seminoles was MAGICAL, almost like a FAIRY TALE!) (ALSO NOTE: Click HERE to see a DISTURBINGLY POPULAR "Show Me Your Moves" strip in which this particular Rooky strip is among several Rooky-related objects of ridicule. As added testament to the general ignorance of some of our University readers, someone said this was a particularly funny [albeit random] original Show Me Your Moves strip, little understanding that it was parodying Rooky...)
• 10/17/05     How to Make a Paper Airplane (and Attack your Professor behind his Back) (NOTE: Please observe in particular fig. #4.)
• 10/14/05     Newcomb Hall is Revolting, Part V
• 10/13/05     Newcomb Hall is Revolting, Part IV (With Mothman from original samples)
• 10/12/05     War of the Squirrels (referenced in season 3)
• 10/11/05     The Stumbling Block to Success
• 10/10/05     Moonwalker at an M.J. Concert
• 10/7/05     Newcomb Hall is Revolting, Part III (Newcomb vs. Runk!)
• 10/6/05     Newcomb Hall is Revolting, Part II (Newcomb vs. the New O-Hill!)
• 10/5/05     Newcomb Hall is Revolting, Part I
• 9/28/05     Propaganda for that Revolting Comicartist Party
• 9/27/05     UVA Bike-Stealers RIDE!