World Series

Today's Strip

There are times where I wonder If I'm just spinning my wheels on the strip and if I am running a risk of burnout... And then you hit a moment you've been planning for months right out of the park and it makes it all worth it.

World Series

Today's Strip

Of course I find that the true humor of Nancy acting radically out of character is when it isn't just the reader who notices this.

World Series

Here is a rare case of Nancy's good side. Study it carefully we may not see it again for a long time

World Series

I won't ever defend Nancy and say she's a nice person but here she seems to be extremely confrontational.

World Series

In todays strip we return to Nancy's favorite baseball team the Providence Night Gaunts who have just won the American League championship and are about to play the hometown National League champions, the Homestead Pilots, In the world Series.

In case anybody is wondering yes this is more proof that Rhapsodies does not take place in the real world.

Zeppo Marx

I have a confession to make. I’m a Zeppo Marx fan. Feel free to laugh. The general opinion of him is either to brush him off as the fourth Marx brother or ask “Who?” I, however, always saw him as a remarkably restrained talent who served as the liason between the mundane world and the chaos of his brothers. Many critics say he was never successful because he was the straight man, or that he never gained a comic persona that held up against Groucho, Harpo and Chico, but I disagree.

I’ve always seen Zeppo as the necessary glue that held everything together. He always had a knowing smile that said he was in on the madness, and while he was not over the top like his brothers he was always an active participant. Even when he played the romantic lead he always seemed to me to have a subtle subversive streak that bellied the chaos. After ‘Duck Soup’ I sincerely thought the rest of the Marx Brothers Films lost something.

So here is my tribute.

Rhapsodies doesn’t take place in the real world. And before you say “it’s a comic, of course it’s not in the real World!” I will say yes, this is true, but since this is the case I see no reason not to exploit it to the fullest. Usually I stay low key about this, saving it for brand names and state senators. You don’t want to go too far, after all you want the audience to recognize this world and be comfortable in it. But every now and then I like to throw in some things that are blatant. This is one of them: in the world Rhapsodies takes place in Zeppo Marx had a VERY successful career as a romantic lead after he left the Marx Brothers; starting with a big break in 1936 when he beat out William Powell for the lead role in ‘My Man Godfrey’.

Continuity Error

After finishing today's cartoon I noticed what appeared to be a grievous continuity error. Blossom is sitting behind the store counter in a nice cozy office chair when for all of the history of the strip Lysistrata has only had stools... Well it's like this. Along with getting a new employee, Kate used the proceeds from Havana Sunset to get a nice ergonomic chair for the store...


Honest.

"Cauffee"

Speaking as a transplanted Yankee living out in the northwest, one of the things that made me stick out like a sore thumb were the different pronunciations of everyone's favorite breakfast drink... Being asked by waiters all over Seattle what "cauffee" was got old after the first week.

Tardiness

Considering how late I was finishing today's strip I think I feel obligated to apologize for the lateness of this strip and the occasional tardiness of others in the past. Part of me wants to say "well this is just a glorified hobby why should you care? Here's how it goes personal pride aside I feel that REAL deadlines are what keeps me going. I I sometimes imagine my muse as an irritable riotgrrl with a stopwatch and a lead pipe standing behind me. Knowing that I have to finish a comic strip before 12:00 whether I like it or not I believe guarantees it. Writers Block ceases to be an excuse and if the joke turns out to be mediocre because of it well that is my punishment. But every once in a I have a where I have been completely useless and uncreative and I finally have to ask myself do I want to post a piece of sloppy and unfunny gibberish created by a sleep deprived mind or do I want to get a good nights sleep and do presentable albeit late strip the next day. It's not something I like to do for one thing its a matter of pride and the other thing there my punishment of having to do TWO strips that day but there you are and I'll try to keep it down to an absolute minimum.

Celestial Bureaucracy

One of my favorite concepts in Chinese Mythology is the celestial bureaucracy. What the gist of it is is that Heaven is an even bigger mess of red tape than anything that we have down here. This can best be seen in Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West. To me this was a cosmology that reflected the society of the time (In this case the late Ming Dynasty) and I always wondered why this concept never caught on I mean for all the west's societal progress our view of religion doesn't stray far from the original Hellenic template that the writers of the gospels had been raised with. So anyway I thought it would be fun to look at it again... or at least at one of the smaller departments in the Department of Minor Nuisances a Subdivision of Fate.

Independence Day

Since this is indeed Fourth of July I would like to say a few words about it. We all like to wave our flags and shoot our fireworks when we’re drinking our beer but just to make it clear when we say “Birth of the nation” we’re not talking about Washington and Rochambeau kicking Cornwallis’s ass in Yorktown. We’re talking about the men sitting in an oven of a meeting hall and somehow through debate and painful compromise squeezing out the document that made it politically official.

So with that in mind I would like to give a very special thanks to Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton, Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross, George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall and George Walton

Time Passes

It just occurred to me while finishing Monday's strip is just how time passes in this comic strip. I'm not getting into the age old question of whether a character should age normally or not it's just the question of just how much time is passing. For example In this strip Paul tells us that he's been living in the northwest for a year... I've had Rhapsodies on line since November 2004. For that matter Kate's book tour is supposedly just three weeks long. However in real time she's been on the road since February (I'm still kicking myself for flat out saying three weeks in the Valentine's day strip Where we can all see the joke is taking place on that day.) for that matter I've had several storylines that took over a month to do that all took place on the same day... I know there's not much I can do to get around it but it jus irks the perfectionist in me.

Oh and on a lighter note I have to apologize for Monday's joke. it consists of something I try to avoid that being a joke that is completely dependent on being familiar with another strip for it to be funny. In this case Wednesday's strip 6/20/2007.

Welcome

Welcome everyone to the new Rhapsodies Blog! The purpose of this Blog is primarily to talk about and plug my webcomic, Rhapsodies but is also to talk about my other projects, my graphics career as well as my numerous and often contradictory (but hopefully informed) opinions about life the universe and everything. So come on in and I hope you enjoy the ride.