How to Explain the Origin of Your Nemesis

I recently saw Black Widow, which I enjoyed quite a bit.

I bring this up because there’s a character in it who we are meant to like and root for, who is highly proficient with knives. In one scene this character ends a fight with a knife attack across the opponent’s belly that, in a hard-R movie, would have requires a special effects artist to spend days perfecting their disembowelment splatter animation.

Black Widow was not a hard-R movie, so the opponent who received this attack clutched their midsection, groaned, fell over, and died with almost no blood. The victim did have enough life left in them to say a few words to their attacker. As they opened their mouth to speak, I was kind of hoping they would say, “Why am I not bleeding more? That’s weird, right?!”

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How to Find Meaning in Symbols

This comic was written after I had attended a wedding where they did the sand ceremony I describe. The problem was that the receptacle the bride and groom poured their sand into was about four times larger than was needed for the amount of sand the couple poured in. When they were done, their lovely sand art just sort of pooled in the bottom.

It's not a great start to your marriage when you display the finished artistic symbol of your marital unity and it gets a noticeable laugh.

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How to Analyze a Failed Purchase

The character who I describe in this comic as “Lando Calrissian’s butler” was named Lobot, and I was irritated that we didn’t meet him at all in the movie Solo. That said, there’s been talk about a Lando Calrissian series, so there’s still hope for a rich Lobot backstory.

The thing on Lobot’s head was surgically implanted, which is a bit much, but I think there’s merit to the idea of a computer attached to headphones that you wear while doing your job. Science fiction writers often picture some sort of eyewear to convey information to the wearer by superimposing graphics into their field of vision, but it’s going to be a long time before that’s possible to do with the kind of quality you’d want, and it may never be possible with glasses that look stylish or unobtrusive. But imagine a pair of headphones that whispers reminders about your schedule, answers your questions, offers useful information, and identifies the person you’re talking to by name, like the digital version of a politician’s body-person. I feel like that could be done relatively soon. It would look like the user is constantly listening to music though, so parents would hate it, which means kids would love it.

Note from Missy: I’m picturing the whispering headphones sounding like Baby Secret, which both terrifies and delights me.

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How to Understand the Power Structure

In life, people seldom delegate the fun parts of their job to someone else.

I have to say seldom, because I used to work operating thrill rides at Walt Disney World. Every morning, as part of the extensive safety check regimen the cast members must perform in order to open an attraction for the guests, someone must perform a “ride through.” Often, depending on the attraction, more than one ride through is required in order for every show element to receive its full inspection. Because of this, and the fact that some cast members have physical reasons they cannot ride, or are simply so busy with other parts of their duties that they need help, a cast member can find themselves in the position of being told that—for the good of the park—they must ride the ride.

Usually this is a very good thing.

One morning, however, I was working on the opening crew of Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster, a high speed, catapult launched, roller coaster in darkness with multiple inversions. We were short-staffed and behind schedule, so in order for us to get the attraction open on time I had to single-handedly perform four ride throughs back-to-back. Before that, I had never been made queasy by a roller coaster. Since then, that coaster and several others make me feel at least a little “urpy.”

In a real sense, that morning broke me.

I don’t think listening to Love in an Elevator over and over again helped.

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How to Illustrate the Conflicts Within a Team of Superheroes

I was watching an episode of What If . . . ?. Missy overheard the Watcher describing himself and his role, and asked, “Oh, is that who you based the Judger on?” I think the laws that govern parody and fair use are robust enough that I can admit some small inspiration on that score.

I enjoyed season one of What If . . .? and am looking forward to season two. Ric also enjoyed it, but not as much as I.  His reason was fascinating. He says he doesn’t like the idea of fictional stories about fictional characters.

If you need further explanation, you’re not alone.

His point was that the series supposedly explores interesting possible events that are different from what really happened, but these are made-up superheroes. None of it really happened.

He has a point, a nit-picky, confusing point, but a point none the less.

Note from Missy: As stated in the comic, I hate to agree with The Knifeketeer. But I kind of agree!  It’s more AU fanfiction than the “alternate history” it feels like they’re pushing.  Ugh, I DO feel weird now!

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How to Handle a Surprise

The beauty of cake in the breakroom when one of your officemates has a birthday is that everyone pretends they’re doing a nice thing for the person having their birthday, but in fact it is a gift for the entire staff. Everyone gets something they want: fattening food and an excuse not to work for a half-hour or so. Sometimes the person whose birthday it is actually makes the experience less enjoyable for everyone else by blowing all over the cake.

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How to Make History Come Alive

When I wrote this, I had just spent some time researching life in Victorian London, and I had far too much material about how awful it was to fit in one strip. Here are some details I had to cut:

Between the horse hooves and wagon wheels hitting the brick pavers, people shouting to be heard, the animals and the other people shouting, and the echoes off of the brick buildings, visitors to the city compared the sound to standing at the base of a tall waterfall.

Poor people stood on most of the street corners selling fresh watercress for people to eat. They got the watercress by picking it themselves along the banks of the Thames. They would get up early in the morning and fight to get the best watercress picking spots, which were always close to pipes releasing untreated sewage into the river.

The bear grease thing I mention in the comic was real, and barbers really did trumpet the freshness of their bear grease. In fact, often they would have a live bear chained up out in front of the shop with a sign saying they had just bought the bear and promising that they would soon kill it to harvest and sell its grease. Only the savviest Londoners knew that a bunch of barbers all owned one bear, and they just passed it around, transporting it all over the city and chaining it up in front of a different shop every few weeks as a marketing tool.

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How to Help Someone Help Themselves

I’d advise a young person that if they are interested romantically in someone who seems to have no interest in them, their best move is to give up immediately and move on. You can’t want it enough for both of you. Far better to pick from among those who are at least semi interested and work on improving that relationship than to try to sell yourself to someone who doesn’t want anything to do with you. And if they are into you but are playing hard to get, then you moving on serves them right for playing mind games.

Note: This is easy advice to give when you’ve been happily out of the dating scene for over 25 years.

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How to Explain the Way the World Really Works

I should write a management book based on this idea. The general theme would be that the attitudes of the people at the top of an organization will percolate down through the rest of the organization in the form of disfunction and abuse, and will eventually flow into the customers, who will take their business elsewhere, hurting the bottom line, further damaging the outlook of the company’s leaders, and starting the whole process again.

It’s a gross oversimplification, based on a half-thought-out theory, by me, a man with almost no real business experience.

I suspect it would sell.

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How to Manage Other People's Expectations

There was once a man, an infamous man, named Fred Freiberger.

He came in as the executive producer for the third season of Star Trek, a season famous for a noticeable drop in the show’s overall quality. At the end of the third season, Star Trek was canceled.

Later, he executive produced the second season of Space: 1999, a season that saw many drastic changes to the tone and cast of the show, and in many people’s opinions, a noticeable drop in quality. At the end of the second season, Space: 1999 was canceled.

Fred moved on to a spot as the executive producer of the fifth season of The Six Million Dollar Man. There was no sixth season.

It’s tempting to blame him for killing these three beloved science-fiction series, and many people do, but it’s not entirely fair. He had a hand in many successful, long running shows, including the Super Friends and All in the Family. (Didn’t expect those shows to share any creative staff, did you?) Also, all three of those shows had seen drastic budget cuts and creative changes as he was brought in. Indeed, that’s why he was brought in.

So, it’s not fair to say that Fred Freiberger killed TV shows. But, it is fair to say that the hiring of Fred Freiberger as an executive producer was not a good sign.

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