End Of An Era - And It's A Good Thing

The Pontiac Aztec is dead. General Motors announced today that their nearly ten-year-old threat to shut down Pontiac is now a done deal. This is a surprise to anyone only recently immigrated to the Planet Earth. Pontiac has been on the cut list since 2001. So at last, it's possible to visit a GM dealership without wearing those goggles used for viewing Medusans.

Happy Birthday To Me!

For those of you who haven't guessed, I'm a year older. I'm 42. I wish Douglas Adams were still around to curse.

So either I am to ponder the question to the ultimate answer...or I'm to have my brains extracted by a couple of white mice.

Not sure which I would dread more.

At any rate, I'm 42 and no closer to understanding Life the Universe and Everything...

For Those Of You Playing At Home

Meet the engineering leads of the Protectorate Space Platform. Yes, I do name my aliens. I leave you to struggle with pronunciation. Don't email. I won't help you.

An Open Letter To the Sci Fi Channel and Mr. Tim Brooks

For those of you who don't know, the SciFi channel is changing its name to SyFy (pronounced SiFee and an accepted short name for syphilis). Stupid, yes but nothing worth getting worked up about. After all, we've known for some time now that the SciFi channel executives weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Spoons, some would say. What upsets me is the opinion that the SciFi channel has of its own viewership. Says Mr. Tim Brooks one of the "founders" of the network -

"The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular..."

For those who wish to express a dissenting opinion, Mr. Brook's email can be found here. I sent him my thoughts. You may read them below, if you wish...

Mr. Brooks,

With all due respect, your expertise on television, the recording industry and copyright issues clearly has a hole in it where SciFi fandom is concerned. The impression that SciFi fans are dysfunctional only pervades those professions which require little if any creative work. I imagine that many investment brokers, accountants and bureaucrats would agree with you. But if you polled surgeons, pilots, editors and physicists, you would find many who not only vehemently disagree with your generalization but count themselves among those ranks.

In short, you are wrong.

So to say that the SciFi channel is stigmatizing itself by remaining with the ScFi moniker, is to ignore the fact that anyone who might watch the SciFi channel wouldn't be aware what a minority of the public feels about its name.

In short, your assessment skews well outside the SciFi channel's demographic.

I guess the reason that your assessment angers me so is not that I fear that it is right. Not that I fear others might agree. But that others, being uninformed might trust you because you should be. And sadly, you are not.

I could point out that there is (and verifiable so) a general belief that people who love books, write or pontificate on the value of literacy are antisocial, reclusive and add little of value to society. In short, they are 'bookish'. While both you and I know this to be false, it does little to dissuade the general public of this notion. Is Book TV doing itself a disservice by tying its programming to such an image? Should Book TV become BTV to avoid appearing 'bookish'?

All this is to say that only those who wish a stigma upon fans of science fiction see a stigma there at all. Science fiction is mainstream today and only those who are themselves reclusive and uninformed see a disconnect between SciFi and pop culture. I do not wish this letter to be a direct attack on you, Mr. Brooks because I truly wish no malice upon you. But I do honestly, keenly longingly hope that you take an opportunity to see where science fiction is today. Where its fans are. And generally notice how much science fiction shapes the way average people everywhere view their own lives, their jobs and their futures. You should take time to ask them but when you do, don't look in basements, libraries or comic book stores. Look in cockpits, barracks, hospitals, universities and the halls of government. Because that is where fans of SciFi hang out today.

With optimism,

Hunter Cressall

Mr. Brooks won't listen. Neither will SciFi. But we owe it to ourselves to be heard and not herded. I find it ironic that the group of Americans most unequivocally sheltered, secluded and uninformed - specifically network executives - believes that their own audience is more reclusive than themselves. Some support a wall along our southern border. I'm thinking that one around Rockefeller Plaza would do more to serve the interests and security of the United States.

I mean network execs - they are fine folks and all - but would you want your daughter to marry one?

Asteroid Misses Earth By Inches...Spotted Only Monday

That's right, an asteroid discovered only this Monday will whiz past only 85,000 km away or so this morning.

We didn't see it coming.

It didn't hit - this time. But had it been slightly closer and slightly larger, we would have had sufficient time only to rethink our transgressions. Nothing more.

I reiterate and I can not say this in a more serious or forthright manner: If you do not support the space program and Near Earth Asteroid intervention, please select another phylum to inhabit. Mine does not need you.

New Shirt! And it GLOWS!

Have you seen The Watchmen?

If not, why not? It's about as good an adaptation of The Watchmen as you are likely to get in a two hour and forty-five minute movie made by simian descendants.

If you have...then you saw it.

You know - IT.

So if your inner child was trampled flat by Dr. Manhattan and his...er...Lower East Side, then I have a shirt for you!



Buy this new, glow-in-the-dark shirt and proudly announce that you've been to see The Watchmen and that yes, it is impressive!

(and the movie is impressive as well)

Late late late

Traveled this weekend, Daylight Savings Time begins and I found an important meeting suddenly moved to Monday morning.

You know what this means...

Monday morning will begin at 4pm CST!

Or the comic will be a tad ate today...

Whichever.

The Oscars

This is the first and only thing I will say about his year's Oscars. Travesty.

It is clear that the academy has drifted too far from the process of making motion pictures and has a frail grasp of even the individual categories over which they preside. (BTW, I'm not really talking about actor/actress / leading / supporting here)

I saw nearly all of the Oscar contenders in the major categories. I enjoyed all of them. Virtually none of the winners displayed excellence in their field.

Loved Slumdog. Best editing? It would have been nice for that film to have been edited. Best makeup? Same complaint. The list goes on and on.

Academy: Retire. Leave. Change careers. Your gray is showing. Please let working filmmakers and professionals in their respective fields have a go.

One last thing. Is it time to allow a little transparency into the process?

You tell me.

No News is...Well...My Fault

I retro-reposted my News Section.

Read: wrote over the archives online with older archives from my laptop resulting in a loss of several recent postings.

Thank god for the cloud.

Let's Party Like It's 1234567890!

Because it is.

For those of you who are potentially nerdier than am I (I count six on Earth) you already know that at 23:31:30 UTC, the Unix epoch clock will tick up to 1234567890. That's an event worth cracking open a can of Jolt and watching your variable internet clock roll up to the sequentially significant digit.

Making this stranger for me is the fact that just last Tuesday, I deposited a Dollar amount which was exactly $1234.56 into my checking account. I noticed no significant folding of space or shifting of causality.

There was a mild odor of brimstone but I was at a bank...

Professionally Speaking

My professional website is up. I'm the professional. It isn't. AT the very least it shows what I do and why I ask for money when I do it. So if you need audio/video media produced for your business or sea monkey farm. Here is where you can find me.

(www.huntercressall.com)

Happy 600!!!

That's right, 600 strips. I know the exact figure varies depending on whether or not we count holiday strips, joke strips or whatever. All I know is the wordfile .doc I used for today's comic was numbered 600.

Woot.

So this ends the long run of Vexxarr. Hope you enjoyed the trip. I just lost interest and decided that I had batter things to do.

No...Not seriously.

Many more strips to come. A book IS in the works. (Adobe Acrobat is the Devil) I would ask that as a celebratory measure you go out today and force someone to read this comic. It will make you feel better. I know it will raise my spirits.

I promise.

Anyway, I just wanted to send out a special note to all my readers who were with me from the very beginning...

I'm sorry. I'm very, very sorry.

I'll burn in hell for this.

Tell a friend...or a bitter enemy.

Oh, and for those who obsess over stuff like this, here is the alien's dialog:

Giant Alien - I do not understand you little green thing.

Giant Alien - I am working as fast as I can!

Giant Alien - Strange, tiny alien...I have no time for this. We have a schedule to keep.

I hope this brings peace to your strange, fitful world.

Not A Rant

Today is Election Day in America. Hopefully everyone reading this will be either on their way to or returning from their polling place. If the media is to be trusted - and why start now - America is going to see voters turn out in record numbers. Given that it is all but a forgone conclusion that Barack Obama will emerge victorious, I wanted to clarify an aspect of his tax reform platform that often goes ignored or misunderstood. Actually, I wanted to clarify something about our attitude toward taxes and who pays more - but I'll get to that in a bit.

First, a bit of melodrama:

IF Barack Obama passes his tax reform bill as outlined on his website, I will likely be unemployed.

Let me restate that.

Should the tax reform program - as outlined on Barack Obama's website - become a part of the US Tax Code, it is very likely that I will no longer be able to make a living as an independent contractor in the commercial video industry.

Honestly, I'm not an Obama detractor. He has a lot to recommend him. Obama and I see eye to eye about Iraqi oil financing the US presence in Iraq. We are both firm supporters of a sustained manned presence in space. Both fine voting issues.

But what disturbs me is the fact that his economic plan - far from being counter productive or evil or even socialist - is simply nonsensical.

I'm not a fan of McCain's economic policies either - so don't start with that old saw. McCain offers more of the same play-both-ends-against-the-middle tax policy which congress has tossed around for over one hundred years. But reading through the Obama case for reform leaves me scratching my head. Couldn't anyone in the Obama election office hire an eleventh grader to point out the spiral of death his tax structure will create?

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

OK, so how exactly does a tax cut for my own tax bracket lead to my unemployment? Easily. I'm being given money that, by rights, I should simply have been allowed to earn on my own.

OK, I'm being intentionally obtuse. Forgive me. Let me start over.

The Obama Tax plan seeks to increase or at least not mitigate the tax burden on households or business grossing over $250,000 annually. His platform insists that 95% of small business in the US make under this amount. I can pick at his numbers but in a sense, he's dead right. The problem is that most of those "small businesses" aren't operations anyone would normally consider businesses. They are more typically referred to as a sole proprietorship. And like myself, they actually could use the tax break.

Problem is, our clients are business grossing well over $250K. Worse still I'm in a sector largely considered discretionary. When my clients feel the pressure of an increased tax burden my line item is the very first to be cut - right before the coffee and hot coco at the office sink. What will happen - what has happened in times passed - is that video will become internalized. Cameras and computers are tax deductible expenditures and unlike myself, they depreciate.

What makes this situation all the more painful is the fact that many of my friends seem to think that the "big" business who employ me (I do not currently and seldom ever work for anyone earning less than $500K ) have it coming. I was told just last week that these new taxes "...will simply come out of their profit margin...right?"

OK, fair warning. My degree was in Economics. Don't use a term like "profit margin" in my presence unless you want the full one-hour lecture. And take notes because the quiz is a bitch.

Let's start again at the top.

Businesses don't pay taxes. Let me rephrase that. Business don't take taxes out of their earnings. Businesses have accountants who can calculate estimated taxes based on their offsets and revenue. They then roll those taxes into their variable costs of doing business. Given that the market, for all intents and purposes, determines the price they are allowed to charge for what ever the hell they sell, they then have to balance these new tax outlays against their revenue stream. The extra expense therefore, has to come out of operating expenditures.

Advertising is always the first to go and that's me.

After advertising, any outsourced activity that can't be cut is internalized. And there goes my other job. Anyone with a camera and a laptop can do what I do, right? Well as it turns out, no...but it typically takes two years before they give up trying.

OK, let's ignore my specific plight and look at the bigger picture: The Obama Tax proposal is aimed at households and businesses that earn more than $250K. Smaller businesses and households will be given a tax cut.

Fine.

Only problem is that businesses earning less than, say, $300K don't usually have employees per se. And those business and households earning less than $250K (or $200K or $150K depending on which proposal you read) basically work for those business who earn $300K and over. The next line item that goes after advertising, outsourced services, coffee and coco is manpower. Given that the price of goods is set by the market. Given that operating costs are generally fixed as well. Given that most businesses don't make profit beyond the salaries of their employees, what happens when they need to find a few extra dollars to shed?

How much is a tax cut worth to a man who has just lost his job?

Yes. It really is like that. Basically, I'm not saying that Obama's tax plan is bad. I'm not calling him a socialist. I am saying that his tax plan is silly. It's silly because it just patently, obviously, rationally does not work. It doesn't work on any level. Accountants know this. Businessmen know this. Eleventh graders know this. Why doesn't Obama seem to know this?

And yet there is a bigger picture still:

Placing taxes on those earning above the $250K mark does, at the very least, discourage wage increases. Employees not losing their jobs as a result of increased taxes will at least not receive their usual cost of living increases. That is a proven historical trend. I've personally lived through it twice.

As wages slip next to inflation or simple cost of living, consumers tend to spend less (obviously). Worse still, what money they do spend will be spent at larger discount retail chains - yes, Walmart. The smaller business simply can't offer the high volume-low prices that the large retailers do. The consumer then chooses Walmart over small business with their reduced income. In the end, despite a tax cut, the small business winds up suffering anyway.

What you create is a situation where, due to tax increases on larger entities, those earning below $250K are left with with so little taxable income that they don't benefit from the proposed tax break they were target for in the first place.

Honestly, I have to assume that Obama's election committee was just making campaign promises here. I have to assume that when he does present his actual tax plan it will look more like a functioning, job-generating tax package than the employment depth charge he currently touts.

Why?

Because he has smart people working for him. They won't let him worsen an economy already on the brink of recession.

So why is this happening?

Somehow in America, we've gotten the idea that those earning 'a lot of money' aren't contributing to the market. We see successful businesses and imagine huge bank accounts with Scrooge McDuck money bins and surfboards. What we forget is that any money we take home, one way or another comes from these successful enterprises. To the extent that these enterprises have enough revenue to spend with discretion, we can negotiate a portion of that money into our own accounts. We look at companies like Microsoft and wonder what exactly they do with all that money. Apart from employing 39,000 some odd people, they cut me a check every year in the form of dividends. I own Microsoft. Lots of people do. When you cut into those earnings, you cut into my bottom line.

I guess what I'm disturbed by is the fact that people are so quick to blame successful enterprise for their own problems.

I don't think Obama feels this way.

I do think that he believes we do.

When the stock market dropped last month, I pulled out the last of my meager spending money and sank it into some very large companies. Their stock had dropped precipitously and I knew that an opportunity like this comes around maybe twice in a lifetime. The experience only served to reinforce something that I had always felt. Tearing down those who achieve success helps no one. Taking part in something that has earned others prosperity helps everyone. And even if I felt that the government really was correcting an injustice by placing the tax burden on those with more money to lose, what was going to do me the most good in the long run?

A few hundred dollars from the IRS once a year?

Or a contract with a company that could afford to pay my invoice in-full every month?

So please, please, please vote your conscience. I would never tell anyone not to vote for the candidate that served what they felt were their best interests. What I do suggest is that as you vote, make sure that you are voting for something you feel will improve your life and not against something that improved someone else's life more than yours.

Been Awhile

Just a note to let everyone know that I'm still alive. I know that all the recent on-time updates have thrown everyone for a loop. I must apologize for my timeliness and promise that it won't happen again...until it does. See, I've actually gotten ahead AND managed to keep up my schedule. This of course can only mean one thing...I'm unemployed. Well that isn't entirely true but for the purposes of my blog and your sympathies it's true enough. One good thing about this global economic downturn is that it will push me all the harder to turn this web comic into an actual revenue stream. That isn't a hint. Rest assured, when I do drop a hint, you'll see the donate here button next to it.

I'm working on that.

Dragon Con...Who Knew?

I don't announce my Con attendance because it is always at the last stinking minute. This year I was not going to Dragon Con - Absolutely Not - but then The wonderful people at the Film Track (Matthew Foster) and the Webcomic Track (Scott M. Jones) agreed to let me pontificate about things which only I and a few thousand other nerds would care about so I was in - IN!

Four days, Little sleep and the complete loss of my voice conspired with hurricanes, late paychecks and client revisions to make it a hectic, exciting and slightly disturbing trip. No, I did not meet Pete Abrams. Yes I got to shake hands with Jerry Doyle. The bastards at the Hyatt and Marriott won't give up wireless internet for less than $29 a day so I was forced to drag myself home and promise you two strips Wednesday. There was free wireless at the food court but either the crushing weight of nearly 40 thousand attendees rebooted the router or the owners pulled the Ethernet cable defensively less our digital thirst exceed their bandwidth limits.

Which reminds me - if you have Comcast. Drop them. They are adopting bandwidth limitations that in effect put an end to streaming media usage. You can read about it here but the only option is to drop them cold and tell them why. Seriously, pay an extra $20 a month and use anyone else. These guys need to understand that the consumer decides what is and what is not broadband. Comcast is just the mule.

Parenthetical Comments

Seldom will I allow myself to write a comic that requires such a fine grasp of Vexxarr's internal continuity. Yet the opportunity to dig at the Aztek whilst revisiting the Mead was too sweet to pass by.

For me.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy one of the more subtle (read vague) punchlines. Let me know on a scale from 1 to 10 how much it hurts...

Vexxarr's Scheme

Thanks to Koolbeans who introduced me to WORDLE.

I have composed a little randomized piece of Vexxarr's mind for you here:



She contributed the following which I believe needs a little front page treatment:



A little on the so-real-it-is-disturbing side, Ratzmandious presents us with his SPORE authored vision of our favorite evolved Cnidarian here:



Now you can go about your day knowing that whatever else may or may not happen, your life has not been a waste.

Bat Fatigue

I was one of the millions of nerds (you heard me) who stayed up late Thursday night to see Batman: Dark Knight. It was amazing. This is not a review.

As of today, the film has grossed over $155 Million and beaten Spiderman 3 as the top grossing opening weekend for a motion picture. Already the media is pontificating and analyzing the effects of 'sleepy Friday' and hyping the drowsiness of the fans who stayed up as late as 4:00am to see the Bat do his thing.

This only bothers me because I know damn well that the core Midnight Premier audience is not Joe and Joanna six-pack and they do not typically have jobs where sleep is held in high regard.

Break down the audience and you'll see what I mean.

Males and females between the ages of 17 and 21: This group can be disregarded out of hand. First, their mix of youthful energy, hormones and consumption of Bawls (beverage) make sleep largely irrelevant. Second, they were just as likely to be up playing World of Warcraft till 4:00 am anyway.


Males and females between the ages of 22 and 29: Were probably just leaving work at 11:00pm and drove directly there. Given that at that point they had likely already worked 100 hours for the week, losing another 3-4 hours of sleep wasn't going to significantly alter their job-place demeanor.

What's the boss going to do anyway? They control all of the IT department's passwords and half those of their sister companies. If they get chastised at work for falling asleep, then maybe the boss just "misses" a paycheck that week...month...

Assuming they bothered to show up at 8:30 the next day, they probably didn't look any more exhausted, overworked or under slept than usual. Besides, they only show up early to check on their clan's next raiding party anyway.

Males and females from 30 and over: Likely run their own business or have enough seniority to take Friday off. The boss is still a little gun shy from the last time they changed all the master codes and locked everyone out of the network (where do you think that new car came from anyway?).

Assuming any work-related activity suffered as a result of the nocturnal outing it was probably their UO guild meetings which take place from 11:00pm to 4:00am anyway.

So let's get over this sleep deprivation fairytail and just accept that for most of us, being at a movie like Dark Knight at 3:00 am does more to improve our performance at work than the twenty hours of rest that our boss has been promising us since 2006. Should we hear anything about attending late night premieres, rest assured that we are not without recourse.

What am I doing on this computer? I dunno. Gonna check that letter there from the IRS? Looks important.

Late Comics - The Why

I'm working another project this week. Easier than the nightmares which have kept me separated from you these past long weeks. Still, only this eve did I pen the script for Friday's strip. That - believe it or not - is the hard part.

Someone once said:

Writing is easy. All you have to do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until blood beads on your forehead.

Well, I find that writing a comic is just that hard. Often I have to drive around, or take a shower or go to the gym expressly for the purpose of dislodging a joke from my fevered brow. You would not believe how many times a story has sprung forth whilst doing squats. SQUATS.

Never let anyone tell you that writing isn't physical. It's damn near herculean.

I got some nice feedback about the artwork I posted. But then again my Mother can dote sometimes. You lot were nothing but hateful.

Hateful!

But I thought I'd post it again because I like to taunt you.

So once again:

The Plan/Profile of the Command Ship and Warp Sabot.

Also:

The Locutron Landing Field.

I like the tiered burr effect which took more time to create than was warranted. Also, I could have spent more time on the JOKE. I am often reminded that irony and humor while related are not synonymous.

Then the man in sunglasses dunks me for another twenty seconds. I hope they bring hot porridge again for supper.