How to Increase a City's Tourism

Reno: Where the decent people won’t see what you’re up to.

Reno: A vacation you’ll talk about for years to come, at AA meetings.

Reno: Maybe you’ll win enough for a ticket to Vegas!

I could keep doing this all day.

HGTV is currently inundated with shows about renovating houses. In most of the titles they shorten the word “renovation” to “reno,” which always makes me think the show takes place in Reno.

Of course, there is no show called “Reno Reno.” The before segments would be too depressing.

“There’s a hole in the wall because the former owner sold the fireplace bricks to pay his outstanding brothel bill.”

“The hardwood floors are in pretty rough shape, but those bloodstains should sand right out.”

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Flatter

I can’t think of anything particularly interesting to say about this comic, so instead, I’ll point out that They Might Be Giants’ most recent album, I Like Fun, includes a song that I loved instantly upon hearing it for the first time. I spent two weeks constantly singing the chorus under my breath, much to Missy’s dismay.

Here’s a copy of it on YouTube. (I looked for a more legitimate way to link directly to the song so you could hear it, but I couldn't think of one. If any of you know of one, please let me know.)

Recently, the band released the song’s original version, which was the soundtrack to a video they play before their concerts, and having watched it several times, I like the song even more now!

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Compose a "Tweet"

Twitter has never really been my forte. It requires brevity. I submit any Basic instructions comic as exhibit A in my case to prove that brevity is not my “thing.”

(Note: Ironically, this commentary would, in fact, fit in a tweet, even if you include this additional note.)

Note from Missy: It’s funny seeing which of these comics from 7-8 years ago end up having outdated information.  If only we’d had 280 characters back in ’11!

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Assert Your Beliefs

I picture a special device, similar to a tricorder, where you’d press an electrode or a lens or something to an object to scientifically measure how brown it is. There’d be a dial on the front with various readings, ranging from “not brown,” to “hardly brown at all,” all the way past “quite brown indeed,” to “absolute brown.”

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Conclude a Story on an Uplifting Note

Sadly, this comic remains just as relevant now as it was when it first ran, because, despite society’s constant drive to become more enlightened, we still have no idea what Phil Collins meant by “going down like a monkey.”

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Synergize

THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN!

I’m telling you, if the credits of Ant Man and the Wasp ends with a sequence where the heroes foil some evil-doer’s scheme by throwing the villain a package of Hostess Fruit Pies, it will instantly become my favorite Marvel movie.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Unite Against a Common Foe

In comic books, movies, and TV shows, teaming up with your greatest enemy is always a big event. It isn’t nearly as glamorous or interesting in real life, as I find that most of my greatest enemies at any given time have been people I worked with. Nobody wants me to entertain them with the thrilling tale of the time I joined forces with my nemesis and we used our combined powers to check a family into the resort hotel where I worked.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Give Someone An Intangible Gift

When I was a standup comic I tried to write a joke about how the inhabitants of a distant world would feel to find out that their star was named after a random person whose friend or family paid a small fee. I could never quite get it to work.

Later, as you can see, I used the same idea in panel four of this comic.

Later still, I used it for a throw-away joke in my novel Master of Formalities.

In a sense, my entire career, or series of careers, could be seen as a still uncompleted quest to find a form of expression in which a joke about naming a star after a friend or relative will work.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Daydream About What Might Have Been

Panel two is based on a real conversation.

At the time, I was absolutely convinced that ministers did not, as my coworker believed, “make good money.” Of course, as I write this, there are news stories about a “minister” who is asking his followers to buy him a new, nicer private jet, so I guess when I say that ministers don’t make good money, I have to be specific about what type of minister I’m discussing.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).

How to Introduce a "New" Superhero

Having two or more superheroes with similar or identical powers is not uncommon, even within the same company. DC has Captain Marvel and Superman, Plastic Man and Elongated Man. Marvel has the Human Torch and . . . The Human Torch. Both Human Torches have roughly identical powers, the main difference between them being that the first one was an android, not a human, which bothers me to no end.

As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).