How to Show Character

The Emperor of the Moon is trapped in a repeating pattern that makes his own life much less pleasant, but he seems unable or unwilling to take the minimal steps needed to break the cycle.

As I write this comment, one of our cats is walking back and forth on my desk, intermittently blocking my access to my keyboard and my view of the monitor. She does this every day, and I never kick her off of the desk.

I’m just saying, I drew the Emperor to look like Rick, but there’s more than a little of me in him as well.

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How to Discuss Something Unimportant That Bothers You

I have a game I play with one of our cats, Flapjack. Missy and I call the game “Bip.”

The rules are simple.

The cats have a pile of toy mice. I keep these mice on the table next to my favorite chair. As I watch TV, Flapjack hides around the corner of another piece of furniture and peers at me as if plotting a sneak attack. This is the signal that it’s time to play “Bip.”

I hold one of the toy mice by the tail and fling it in the air in a high arc, so that it will land near her. When I do this, one of two things will happen.

She may leap out of her hiding spot, often surprisingly high. Rather than catching the mouse, she hits it with both of her front paws as if playing volleyball. The mouse flies in a random direction, where it will be very difficult for me to find.

We repeat this process over and over until all the mice are gone. Then I search the living room for them, usually losing at least one.

We call this “Bip” because Missy will often talk for the cat, in a high-pitched voice, and when the cat hits the mouse, Missy will yell, “Bip!” That’s the whole game, and I find it adorable.

That’s one of the two possible outcomes. The other is that I throw the mouse. Flappy watches it fly, land, and bounce on the floor near her without moving, then she looks at me like I’m an idiot. I also find this adorable.

I don’t understand why non-cat people think cat owners are crazy.

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How to Fully Understand the Employer/Employee Relationship

Can you tell that I wrote this comic after I had gone through the editing process on my first two books?

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How to Propose Sweeping Changes

I looked up the meaning of the antiquated slang phrase twenty-three skidoo recently. When I was a kid, people would throw it around mainly as a joke: making fun of themselves, or someone else, for being out of touch and hopelessly behind the times. I always got the impression it was a popular phrase around the same time as singing into a folded-cardboard megaphone while wearing a sweater with a big letter on it.

Anyway, it turns out twenty-three skidoo means that it’s time to make a hasty exit, so it would also work as a good starting announcement in panel two.

Next time you must flee in a hurry, yell “twenty-three skidoo!” It will mark you as a person with both a fine sense of humor, and a fine sense of history. Also, it might confuse your tormentors enough to give you a tiny head start.

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How to Give the People What They Say They Want

Man-Man wears one of my most well-rendered superhero costumes. It’s still incredibly lazy, but well rendered laziness.

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How to Remain Optimistic

If we ever create an artificial intelligence that is truly superior to us, it may well keep us around to make itself feel superior. It also may to try to improve us, in the spirit of helping the less fortunate.

Imagine a future where robots constantly criticize us or instruct us how to do things, then smother us with condescending praise as we try to follow their advice.

I might prefer extermination.

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How to Address an Ongoing Argument

Of course, the problem with the stun setting is that whoever you stun falls down, and could easily break a bone, suffer serious neck or back injuries, receive a concussion, or “accidentally” die in any number of ways.

I figure the Starfleet equivalent of Internal Affairs would be bugging Kirk on a weekly basis.

Starfleet Inquisitor: I’m here to talk about that Klingon you killed.

Kirk: I stunned him.

Starfleet Inquisitor: In the back, and then he fell three hundred feet.

Kirk: It’s not my fault he was standing on the edge of a cliff.

Starfleet Inquisitor: We have reason to believe you stunned him, then dragged him to the cliff and rolled him off.

Kirk: (stuns the Starfleet Inquisitor.)

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How to Defend a Questionable Purchase

In the time since I wrote this comic, I have purchased another version of Blade Runner. It’s a new copy of an edit I already had, but in 4k, so I can see all of the smog and steam more clearly.

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How to Tackle a Project That Seems Impossible

I was the receptionist at an office where everyone had to fill out a specific form every day. Almost nobody did it. The person in charge made it my responsibility to make sure everyone filled out their form.

Of course, I was the lowest person on the totem pole in that office, so I couldn’t use fear of punishment to make them fill out the form. Instead, I had to rely on charm and their respect for me and my opinion of them.

I’d bet that you can predict how well that worked.

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How to Explain Yourself

A mutual friend once asked Ric how someone gets through my shell to know “the real Meyer.” Ric told them that there is no shell, and what they thought was a shell was “the real Meyer.” Ric told me that later, and I found it funny. He also told me that the person he was talking to looked horrified at that idea, which I found hilarious.

Which, now that I think about it, might be part of the problem.

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