30,000 Feet of Uncomfortable

Artist's Comments:
Here is the story I hinted at yesterday...

While I was on the plane I took to working on the next comic. As I put it together, my new single-serving friend - a small Peruvian woman in her mid 40's who spoke little to no English - watched me intently. Perhaps she saw me as the "young artist" and felt I was therefore more approachable; I'm not sure, but she seemed to grow fond of me far too quickly.

It's somewhat unusual to have a captive audience while I draw. Perhaps it was because I was drawing on my tablet (which she and a number of other people saw as a modern wonder) or she may have just been quietly judging my work, but she was attentive to every detail of the creation of Black Vatican #9. A number of times during the flight she tapped the bottom right area on my screen where Windows keeps it's clock, asking silently about the time.

We had a number of small, broken conversations as well. My Spanish is terrible, and her English was not much better, so we ended up communicating mostly with hand movements that were decidedly not ASL. At one point in the flight, after the now familiar finger tap, she decided it was time to know about my marital status (thankfully, not for herself). After a few moments of strange communication, I indicated I was single by pointing at my bare ring finger and shaking my head vigorously. This, it seems, was not the proper answer.

To her mind, if I was not in a relationship, then surely I was looking. In an attempt to help me narrow my search, she pointed at the female flight attendants and numbered them - "uno, dos, tres..." - then with a somewhat rudimentary grab-and-hump sign, indicated that she wanted to know which of them I found to be the most attractive.

I answered too quickly the first time, embarrassed that despite the language, culture, and age barriers - never mind that we just met - the one topic we communicated easily on was who I felt like screwing. After that first, hasty decision she scolded me like an eight-year-old who has been caught looking at his father's Playboys, so I tried again. This time I took more care, looking over each woman slowly, while wearing the face one makes while inspecting a race horse. She was more pleased with my selection and told me so.

As we were debarking, she decided that we should keep in touch [shudder]. She told me her name (Angelica Something Latina Sounding) and then asked for mine. I hesitated for a moment, then smiled broadly and said, "I'm Reverend Linus - look me up on MySpace."

Reverend's Comments:
Well, that explains all the Latina Mile High Club MILF pr0n advertisements in my inbox - and here I was, blaming Benedict for those...

Black Vatican #9

Click to Enlarge

Reverend's Comments:
Ah, my beloved BCPs (say "bee-see-peas"). Like the Oleander, they are both beautiful and deadly, as they slink about the Black Vatican in their armored lingerie (please Jebus, let some hot fangirl decide to cosplay a BCP...)

You see, the funny thing about this is that, like you, I have yet to actually SEE the BCPs. We have brainstormed ideas, sent pics back and forth, discussed hair, body type, uniform colors, cape or no cape - and yet, only Flynn knows what they actually look like.

Of course, I've been seeing them in my mind's eye ever since that fateful day in August of 2004. Since then, the BCPs have never been far from the action here at the Papal apartments; they are the backbone of the messianic maelstrom that is the Ministry of Linus.

I hope you enjoy their debut on Monday.

Artist's Comments:
Sorry for the late post. The comic was done on time, but my travel was plagued with problems, one of which being the spotty availability of internet.

This comic was, for the most part, a snap to put together. I did have to redraw NGtU's character for different poses (and because we're working on it) which was interesting on my turbulence-ridden aircraft.

I would ordinarily make a comment here about how fighting turbulence was an artistic challenge; or how this comic is the second to have been completed at 30,000 feet (which is an achievement I think worthy of noting). However,
the story of the flight is far better...

But Linus, anal-retentive asshat that he is, won't let me tell you that story now.

Suffice it to say that it was a very special flight, and I hope the awkwardness of the distraction on the plane isn't apparent in the art. The whole story will be coming soon to a comic panel near you.

Guidelines

My 500th post has come and gone.

This is actually post number 508; who knew the Ministry would grow from its humble beginnings as a topless lemonade stand into the global juggernaut of sin and damnation it has become? As I look out over our Hunter S. Thompson style walled compound, I am reminded of the early days. Back then, there were no comics, no limos, no lunches with the Dalai Lama, no hot and cold running BCPs - just a man with a dark vision and a small community of believers. Things were simpler then. Take for example, the sidebar.

The sidebar was once a family affair. I could walk to the house of every blogger listed on it in about 15 minutes. If they fell behind in posting, I could call them and ask if everything was ok before making them a "sinner." Now, the sidebar is a nationwide thing, and although I love the new members of the Flock, I am not in personal contact with them all. In order to keep things fair and equitable, I have to, as I hinted elsewhere, institute some new guidelines for maintaining your Redeemed status.

Minimum Requirements to Acheive Redemption
- A post that makes HSBP smile.

Minimum Requirements to Maintain Redmption
- One post per week.

These new guidelines go into effect over the weekend, and compliance will be checked each weekend from now on. If you're going on vacation or you have some personal emergency, let me know, and your status can be held for you. If, however, you failed to post because you had to take your rare hairless guinea pig to the to the hairless guinea pig specialist in lower Kamchatka, I don't want to hear it. You could have done a fabulous travel blog - what do you think laptops and cell phones are for?

30 Years

In 1977, I was 12 years old. My mother and stepfather had just split up, and he was taking me for an evening visitation. I was not interested in visiting him in the slightest - my 4 year-old sister, his biological child, was of much more interest to him - but he was taking me to the movies, so I consented.

Try to understand, young ones; there was no cable. There were no VCRs, no Blockbuster, no Netflix, no internet downloads, and even second run houses ("cheap seats") were hard to come by. If a movie came out and you missed it in the theatre, your only hope was to wait 3 to 4 years for it to come to television. When something came out, you went to the theatre, or you accepted your position among the losers and the culturally backward.

I was still mad at him for the last visitation, which turned out to be him dumping me in the backyard of his new girlfriend's house with her son, a cigarette-smoking thug several years older than me. Although the thug's collection of pilfered Playboys was impressive, I spent most of the afternoon trying to avoid being punched in the shoulder for flinching.

In an attempt to atone, he was taking me to see some kind of SciFi thing that I had never heard of, but some of my friends at school had seen it and said it was awesome. Lots of explosions, gun fights, sword fights, a bipedal talking dog thing, and a pretty girl. Rather than throwing a tantrum about not wanting to go, I decided to give the movie a chance and extract my vengeance from my stepfather's wallet at the concession stand by ordering a large everything.

That movie was Star Wars. It was the end of my relationship with my stepfather; that 7:00pm showing was the last visitation I ever had with him. He had realized that visitations with me would give him no leverage with mom where custody of my sister was concerned, so there was no need to continue the charade. But it was the beginning of my relationship with SciFi... well, with SciFi that wasn't Star Trek.

Star Trek had been a part of my life almost since birth and it was a comfortable old friend, but this was different. Star Trek had been puppy love - Star Wars was the real thing. I had the very first set of action figures - the ones you had to send in a coupon for and then wait six weeks. I had lightsabers and ships and models and tee-shirts and the soundtrack and jigsaw puzzles and posters and Halloween costumes and lunch boxes and novels and comic books and boardgames and...



Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Star Wars. It was on the cusp of my teen years, and just like the Arthurian novels that had been my obsession before Lucas colonized my mind, it shaped my perceptions of right and wrong, good and evil, and the grey area between them. For those of you who never lived in a world without Star Wars, it is hard to imagine how much it has changed the mental landscape of my generation.

I suggest you all break out that boxed set and give it a watch tonight... and may the Force be with you.

A Higher Power

Artist's Comments:
This comic was completed on my flight to Houston. It was a bit of an experience trying to draw the last bits while fighting the turbulence, and making all the rum gone (yeah - we have tickets for the iMax opening tomorrow - w00t!). The original had called for the view to be on an angle to Nerdygirl's head. After completing the panel sketch I realized that the view would distort the shrine image, and produce very strange text placement options. So I redesigned the layout for a flat-back view. All in all I'm happy with how this turned out, especially the candles - they are very hard to make look just so...

Reverend's Comments:
With this comic, I wanted to give you all a glimpse of Nerdygirl's inner workings... without the use of a speculum. I think the fact that she maintains a shrine to a dead comedian does that better than all the expository dialog I could possibly construct. The opportunity to simultaneously hack on Christians was just a pleasant serendipity.

Raksha was the first to introduce me to Bill Hicks, or as we call him around the Black Vatican, "St. Bill." He was funny, but more than that - he spoke the truth in a way that only a guy with a terminal disease can (he died young, of pancreatic cancer). I share the Unbeliever's love of his work, but not her dedication. She can quote him at length, while I can only produce the following:

"For me to settle down, it would take one very special woman... or, several average ones."

Nerdygirl's (much more explanatory) comments, including links to some of St. Bill's performances, can be found here.

Volleyball Report

The Naughty Smurfs kept their play-off hopes alive last night, splitting a double-header at the rec center!

Ok - to be fair, the Benchwarmers kind of killed us and the other team didn't even show up, so we won by forfeiture. However, we are still in the tournament and playing again tonight at 7:00.

No prayers this time; I'm asking all of the Flock to put their voodoo to work instead. Burn candles, throw salt, sprinkle chicken blood, stick pins in your Beach Volleyball Barbie - whatever it takes to keep the other team from showing up...

In other news - a new Black Vatican comic will be up tomorrow at 7:30AM, Black Vatican Soul Savings Time. It features a glimpse into the inner life of Nerdygirl the Unbeliever...

Random Bits Update

I forgot to mention - the first game of the volleyball playoff tournament is tonight for Jim, Squid, and me. Pray for the Naughty Smurfs (that's our team name - I don't know exactly why...) as we face the Benchwarmers in first round playoff action!