(Excuse me while I touch this live wire)

I am not a religious man, I am not wholly ignorant but (as observant and especially Observant readers) might note; I get a lot of things wrong and am basically just using some pop culture religion stuff combined with my own philosophy to help frame this story.

This is not theology, this is not what I believe, this is a story I wanted to tell but one thing has been bothering me for years and I wanted to explain. Not excuse. Not apologize. Just say my reasoning.

This is not a religious strip. If you’ve read the bible, you know how wrong I get things. Nor is it meant to be anything other than what it is; entertainment with a moral/philosophical message. I mean, I have some mild swear words, a ton of cheesecake, much beefcake, a man disrespecting his parents (especially his mother), violence, and on and on. No excuse, no apologies, it is what it is supposed to be. But not religious.

Some have asked me to market it as a religious strip, market it to Believers, and I’ve never even thought of doing that. I do not think they would object to the message, but the method of delivery? Yeah. I won’t disrespect them by asking for their money and attention. Not that I think most would object to the strip, not at all, I believe most Christians, Jewish people, and such can see beyond the trappings and see a message beneath that they might agree with but it would be disrespectful to ask them to do so. To sell them something that has the trappings of religion, without it being religious, or about religion (it is about morality and religion is concerned with morality but while the two things are related they are not the same) would be disingenuous at best, and dishonest at worst.

I respect most religions, I respect most religious people, I have absolutely no issue with them believing whatever they believe and acting as their conscience and their God instructs them to act. I admire their resolve. Generally I have found them to be good and decent people and I’m happy to live in any community with people like that in it.

Does this declaration mean anything for the strip? Will I tone down the cheesecake? Dress Jen Rose in the original costume I designed for her? Will I no longer have a few swear words? Will I cease taking the Lord’s name in vain? Will Dodge respect his mother? Will the respect I’ve proffered in this post make any difference at all to the content of Dodge the Bullet?

No.

I will not change one word. I believe in the strip as it is and I’m happy with it and the message I’m communicating.

I am not a religious man, and perhaps I shouldn’t have been appropriating religious elements to tell my story because of that fact. But that is the choice I made when I started this strip and it’s a choice I choose to stand behind.

And If I’m wrong, I’ma stay wrong.

Thanks for reading,

Steve

This is something that I’m circling in the story lately and I figured I should address it directly, namely;

Just how famous is Rick Dodge in his world?

When I started work on the strip he was always intended to be moderately famous, a rock star recluse with one hit album and a well-known website wherein he criticizes other musicians but as the story grew I came to realize something fundamental to how the world works and how Rick Dodge would fit into it:

Rick Dodge would be one of the most famous men alive in his world.

That’s a helluva statement, I realize that, and since I’m the creator of the world and the writer of the strip (forget the artist, he doesn’t matter) I could just SAY he’s the most famous man on his world and that would be true for my creation. But I don’t want to do that, just say it and make it so, I wanted to justify that position.

Take Kurt Cobain after the success of Nevermind, hugely famous, the voice of a generation (which irritates me for two reasons: One-I’m a member of that generation and don’t like his music and don’t feel it speaks for me. Two-All the cute girls in my high school who adopted the grunge look for grade eleven and twelve. Yeah. Baggy. Shapeless. Awesome.) and imagine he did what Rick did and pulled the plug without satiating the demand for Nirvana.

The audience would be thirsty.

Imagine that Kurt then took to writing incendiary criticisms of other musicians in a nationally syndicated newspaper column. And imagine that Kurt did it with style, wit, and humor. While simultaneously getting into public spats with fans of other musicians, and other musicians, every single day.

Kurt would have dominated the news cycle. A slow news day, see who Kurt is slagging, write an article about it and watch the attention roll in.

Pretty famous.

Then imagine Kurt went too far and got a famous musician (like maybe Michael Bolton) so riled up that said famous musician hunted him down and shot him ten times.

Imagine if instead of dying he hung on in a coma for six months as news crews kept vigil. The trial of Michael Bolton. The acquittal of Michael Bolton. Michael Bolton going free.

Kurt then comes out of the coma and resumes his job as critic with a few stunts (making a talk show circuit, critiquing 100 albums in 100 hours straight) to get his profile back up.

He’d be beyond pretty famous by that point.

A few months down the road Kurt is hired to replace Simon Cowell on the second season of American Idol and sets up a huge stunt to give the middle finger to a sponsor and ends up dying by electrocution. On live television.

Back in a coma.

A concert is set up to celebrate Kurt’s death. A concert at which Kurt appears and scares off all the acts that were there to join in the celebration. A riot ensues.

A month or so later news gets out that Kurt is dating Britney Spears, whose career he ruined via his harsh criticism. But she’s only a year or so removed from being the biggest popstar on the planet. They go out on a very public date. At the end of which he dies.

Again.

For the third time in public.

A while later they break up. He goes out on some other dates. Then they get back together and word leaks out that he’s helping Britney with a new album.

Imagine that the first single isn’t just a smash hit but also an incredibly good song.

That sounds like Kurt Cobain would be the most famous man on earth, right?

Rick Dodge would be even more famous. The added element of the wonder kids. The added element of the business oriented pushy mother. The added element of being tall and good looking. The smile and twitch of his eyebrows. The added element of the ubiquitous media of the modern era. The added element of having a hugely successful music website. The added element of speaking four languages and insulting the music of those speakers (Spanish, English, Korean, Hebrew).

He’d be Michael Jordon, Michael Jackson, and Muhammad Ali. All in one.

In a fragmented entertainment world everyone, worldwide, would have knowledge of, and an opinion on Rick Dodge.

Now, I wish I could show him as that famous in the strip, but basically it’s set up as a family sitcom with a tight focus on how Rick interacts with that family and sometimes I think I don’t do a good enough job of pulling back and showing you just how famous Rick Dodge would actually be.

In fairness to me, the writer, part of that is the fault of the artist (that lazy bastard) who is not a big fan of doing crowd scenes.

Luckily, there are many, many, many crowd scenes coming up in the next few months which I am very much looking forward to writing (sample of script; two panels, many, many angry faces yelling at Rick). My artist is not looking forward to them but I just tell him to shut up and get back in his cage (artists only understand mistreatment. They’re used to it. Prefer it in fact).

Hope that illuminates what’s been happening in the strip lately. I’ve been a little worried that people might have been a little confused and have taken for granted that they have been spending time reading the adventures of a major league celebrity instead of just a cranky critic with some hot chicks and some crazy toddlers.

Thanks for reading,

Steve

Drive along a road you’ve never been on before and you’ll see something you’ve seen all the time but maybe just that once you’ll see it for what it really is and not what you thought it was.

That old business that seems to need a new sign. The one that sells something you can’t believe anyone would buy. A plumbing store. Lighting store. Asian market in the middle of an industrial park.

Even if you drive down a residential street you may not see new things, but you may see things new if you look hard enough. Houses. Sure. Old, beat-up, rough-hewn, needing paint, needing their lawn mowed, hell, needing a lawn.

Does it look sad? Does it look rough?

Look at it with a new thought. Most of those houses aren’t houses. They are homes. And those homes were someone’s dream.

Most of those odd businesses were someone’s dream.

They dreamed of owning their own business.

Dreamed of owning their own house.

Maybe it didn’t go the way they wanted, maybe it wasn’t the panacea they sought, but they had a dream and they made it a reality.

The world isn’t built on concrete and asphalt, nor gold and silver, not on lies or truth, but on dreams.

Everyone has a dream, some simpler than others, some just want a nice meal and a place to put their feet up. Others try for more. Some don’t dream as much as others do but they still dream.

Drive down those back streets, see those odd businesses that you can’t believe are in business, start out with a sneer, then look at them again and see them as the owners saw them. Not now. But then. When they opened. When they saw their dream realized.

This world is a dream. A beautiful dream.

Rick’s dreams are complicated. Yes, he dreamed of a house because living in a business took his childhood, yes, he dreamed of a wife and kids, of family, of security, and yes, he even dreamed of music. Too many dreams? Hardly, there can never be enough as long as you work to make it a reality.

As for me? I love my home, I love my Angel, I love my son, and I love my daughter, but my dream was different. Was it to write and draw a comic strip? No, that was an accident, one I’ve enjoyed, mind you, but it was never my dream.

I do have a dream and I have worked to make it real.

But this has gone on a bit too long and seems a bit too philosophical so I’ll talk about that dream later and leave you with a joke, the first joke I remember hearing.

Knock knock,
Who’s there?
Bear.
Bear who?
Bear in his underwear!

(I swear I found that funny when I was a kid. I have no idea why. Worst part? My wife calls me Bear so when I told her the joke she couldn’t stop giggling).

Thanks for reading,

 

Steve