A bit little exciting to blog about after all that hiking and spice-shelf-building. My sweetie made chocolate cookies yesterday — there are two left. She’s been busy painting the living room and guest bedroom while I’ve been working — being tall, I’ve done the upper trim.
Thanks for the link from Quantum Vibe, which looks quite good (although I have not had a chance to read it).
FYI, Quantum Vibe, like the rest of the Big Head Press comics, is an Objectivist tract.
Wow, LOVE today’s strip (well, tomorrow’s, techinically)! But despite all the insightful things I could say about why it’s so awesome, all I can think of right now is the fact that with his configuration of legs, Rikshaw can sit in his own lap.
…and then someone else can still sit in his *other* lap. whoa.
So, that’s a flotilla leaving him behind? Up to this point I had missed that Rickshaw was commanding a group of ships.
This really is getting interesting, Christopher. Thanks!
PS: I don’t see Big Head Press as “objectivist tracts”, though they are definitely small-l libertarian. For whatever that’s worth.
Rikshaw’s species must have an amazingly complex pelvic structure in order to stand like a quadruped yet sit with all four legs side by side.
Only Big Head Press comic I’m familiar with is “Escape From Terra”, which I gave up reading about half a chapter in because it had an almost Jack Chick-like quality to it (subbing libertarianism/objectivism for Christianity). It was like the author read “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and thought it was awesome, but not quite one dimensional or ideologically Mary-Sue-ish enough for his taste.
RISHHKAW!!
Ahh, I still tear up over Mike’s fate in ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’.
@Mmgood, Rikshaw has mentioned that he ha built “an armada of pure fury.” :)
Should be fun when The Armada of Pure Fury meets The Starbanger of Psycho Eebs. My guess is that Rikshaw Boans is going to experience some unintended results when the Armada joins the Starbanger (as in “How long can you hold your breath?”)
Things could be worse. Rikshaw could find himself rescued by The Mitsubishi of Psycho Ex-Girlfriends.
(Suddenly, all this dialog sprang into my mind. I’ll spare you the cringing…)
Yay for Krep! Way to go you Cyclopian Cthuluian Hippopotamus!
“The Mitsubishi of Psycho Ex-Girlfriends” is a pretty good band name. As are “Cyclopian Cthulu” and “Cthulian Hippopotami.”
Wonder how long it will take Krep to remember that the ship he’s in is /faster/ than any spacetrawler-equipped vessel…
I’m not sure what’s happening with those other ships. When I first looked at it, I thought it was a fleet firing on them.
Reintegration into Nogg’s faction will be fun for Krep.
@Finale; as others pointed out BHP’s not Objectivist, it’s Libertarian agitprop (but yeah, the difference between those two is generally blurry). It teaches us plebs how awesome it would be if the world were run like Somalia and robber barons ruled supreme over the poor starving to death in the streets. Oh, and Space Cadetism. Truly a shining diamond of comickery.
@Prairie, huh. Didn’t think of “The Mitsubishi of Psycho Ex-Girlfriends” as a band name. What are you thinking, some girl group out of LA, or maybe some female punk group out of Minneapolis? And I’ll bet either of the “Cthulu” groups could be death metal groups out of Cedar Rapids.
@Barkeron, if you want to see what that life would be like, read some of the Emberverse books by S. M. Stirling. Especially good would be the first one of the series, “Dies the Fire”, with the descriptions about the development of and life in the Portland Protective Association.
So far Quantum Vibe just reads like a really good sci-fi space comic for me, although the blogs are a different matter. I like its art a great deal—could hardly be more different from your equally enthralling work.
I have received a post card, which opens as follows:
“Dear Joal, I am in space now.”
I have never before received a postcard which opens in such a way, and I most likely never will again.
Well, EfT was a nice Space-thing to read, but the agitprop seeed quite forced, and the resulting “discussions” on the forum not worth the name. Mostly “whoever agrees with my ideas ist smart, the rest are non-thinking idiots.”
There is better material out there for illustration an anarchist/libertarian society.
@spacetrawler
fine work again, Christopher.
Krep in existential angst? I love it!
Okay, I’ve gotten a little lost here. How many of these “greased light” ships are buzzing around the universe and who’s in each one?
@TB, with any luck it will be easier to follow when compiled and read all at once.
But there are three: Krep in one, Pierrot Emily & Gurf (and Ditherkers) in one, Shuar & Dusty were in one which is now occupied by Dimitri Haldeyis and Choan. :)
I’ll say this for “Quantum Vibe” — it’s a lot more fun than “Escape from Terra,” that same crew’s other comic. Yeah, it’s still pretty clearly a libertarian screed every now and again, but at least they’re bothering with character development this time around.
“Quantum Vibe” is much better in the department of not so obviously preachy than “Escape from Terra.” But in the end it looks fake no matter how well written and drawn. I like it because it is weird. I just don’t see it ever happening that way even if they got to set up their own enclave. Like reading Tom Clancy or Ayn Rand (after an editor got hold of it first.)
I always wanted to write a realistic version of what would happen if the Libertarians/Ayn Randroids really got their wish. It would be one weird place. What L. Neil Smith didn’t do.
I think it was Greg Bear who gave us a glimpse in one of his novels of Green Idaho. Clear cutting forests, everyone armed. A sort of Wild West-Somalia without the Islamic invaders that Southern Somalia has. Remember Northern Somalia/Somaliland is effectively separate and has no such problems.
I was wondering when someone would organize some defense from the Eebs. Now we see it and they come out of hyperspace weapons blazing!
God damn, this sneaky clever never shown in public greased dark light drive ship is all over the shop. Thanks for the update there Christopher – I suggest in the print form, you have a little diversion roundabout here saying
“And now, dear reader, ‘in Greased Dark Light Drive Ship ‘The Little Black Duck’ driven
by NumbNuts and Shuar”…
@ Quantum Vibe – it’s nicely reviewed here by Tangents …. ( http://www.tangents.us/2011/02/07/quantum-vibe/ ) but I have to agree, there is a weird ass libertarian thread that’s a bit (to me) unbelievable – reading the free-to-read webcomic (also on that website ) ‘the probability broach’ will show that mindset well enough. It’s a viewpoint of a type of Utopia that I just cant wear … but ‘the right to bear arms’ type folks who do, find it a very enticing one.
I read Quantum Vibe; it’s funny and I don’t mind libertarians with a sense of humor. Someone mentioned THE PROBABILITY BROACH by Neil Smith, which is the granddaddy of their whole vibe; Smith knows he’s way out in left field and has fun with it. Some of their other writers can’t seem to understand that there’s never going to be a ‘libertarian paradise,’ and Smith in the book of BROACH shows that one or two determined individuals could easily undermine one if it existed. Smith justifies the whole movement; if we never get anyone but him out of ‘libertarian SF,’ it was still worth it.
The story is sure going in ways I’d never expect starting out. That’s a good thing.
The Big Head stuff- I gave up on it due to weak writing and dumb/sloppy science. There is also a Jack Chick vibe to the art (as well as the material, as mentioned above) that’s a real turn-off.
@Muzhik; the Emberverse is fiction. It’s a logical fallacy of almost all utopians that you can “prove” the superiority of your pet ideology with a piece of fiction. Bonus points if said magnum opus turns out to be a travesty and insult for books everywhere (hellooo, Atlas Shrugged). Besides, wasn’t it explicitly mentioned by the characters that without the direct intervention of an external, higher force (the aliens or whatever it was caused the whole mess) there just wouldn’t have be any survivors and no emergence of new social structures?
For all those “I don’t mind the Libertarian propaganda” types, that’s like saying “Oh, I quite like Jud Süß. I don’t mind the Nazism.”
Liberetardianism is intrinsic to BHP’s output and should be judged accordingly. Don’t forget what they work towards: turning our humane democracies into minarchist hellholes (please note the direct connection to Nazism). After all, it were Liberetardian corporate gangsters who adopted it in order to have a bullshit pseudo-philosophy justifying their greed and rejection of any social responsibility that caused the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression through excessive deregulation of the financial sector.
We have it here to do with destructive madmen that would wind back the clock of history to the pyramidal social structure of the Dark Ages with the money aristocracy at the top and the lumpenproletariat starving at the bottom. They shouldn’t be supported in any way or shape, neither through praise nor recognition.
Ha! The dangers of linking to something I have not read. :)
Annnnnd…. on that note, I think I’ll end comments for this strip. ;-)