The Return of Stickman #1532

I was cleaning off my desk and under a pile of paper I found the dialog for this strip penciled into place. I have no idea why I didn't finish and use it at the time. The strip is based on a news article that bobbed to the surface last year. Like so many of the stories that inspire me, it has since sunk out of sight. However, I'm tempted to do a follow up. In fact, the idea for it has formed like a crystal in my head. It will have to wait a little while. I've a number of strips lined up already.

The Return of Stickman #1531

Every night I have vivid dreams. I would love to post all of them in the strip. But, that might bore people completely to death. So I try to limit showing a dream strip to maybe once a year or so. I thought about making the gag line of the strip a detail from the dream: "The cold keeps them from growing."

You might have noticed that I'm sometimes forgetful about updating this blog. If you want to see the strips you've missed, links to them can be found on my main website at http://www.markmonlux.com

The Comic Critic Reviews Animal House

Animal House is the frat-house movie. Its success launched a wave of imitations and variations. But when it comes to portraying the juvenile behavior of young men lurching their way through college as they encounter freedom outside the nest, no other film does as good a job. What makes Animal House great is an underlying theme that the heroes of the film were losers and misfits before they got to college; once there, they were still losers and misfits to such an extent they were expelled. During all of this they do one thing: party. One of my favorite moments of Animal House is at the end of the movie when viewers read what happens to our heroes in the years to come. Each of them found a life filled with revelry, and you know that they did it just like they had in college. That was the main theme of Animal House, to live life as a party its moral. Of the frat movies that followed, the weaker ones latched onto gross-out scenes or crass antics. The better ones managed to touch a theme similar to Animal House. The wonderful fount of revelry portrayed in Animal House gives the movie its legs and sets it above the rest. It’s just as funny, crass, and entertaining now as the day it was released.

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