News post – Catch-23 No. 955 Day of rest

I was searching around for an idea for today’s strip – on the shortlist was the growing concern around North Korea, but it doesn’t really feel like ‘joke’ material right now. That led to wondering what Trump thinks ‘diplomacy’ means. I figure he either thinks it means either a long-necked dinosaur, a French cheese sauce or just two plomacies.

Then I moved to something more general, like overused platitudes. I had settled on using ‘it has to be somewhere’ in regards to lost items. That idea led to Sunday being the ‘day of rest’. I even got to sneak a second platitude in there with ‘practice makes perfect’.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 954 Standing is the new Not Sitting

A few years ago, we were told that sitting down all day – on the couch, in an office or in your car – is super bad for you. Get a standing desk or treadmill desk, spend all day on your feet and you can live forever.

Except that it turns out standing all day is super bad for you as well.

The moral of the story is everything is bad for you, but try not to let it bother you.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 953 Define ‘funny’

We’ve been re-watching The West Wing, so the original idea for this strip was having CJ, Josh and President Bartlett doing things that Trump’s White House has been doing. Then I asked: is this idea actually funny, or is it just meme funny.

I could see it more easily as list on Buzzfeed – 25 times the West Wing appears to be talking right to Trump – so I took the meme funny idea and turned it into this.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 952 Bunnings’ Day

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Don’t spend your Bunnings Gift Cards all in one place.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 951 Unable to separate the art from the artist

 

This was not an easy comic strip to make. I’ve been a Joss Whedon fan for a good many years – his blend of humour, heart and feminist ideas made his creations resonate with me.

A week ago, Joss’ ex-wife Kai Cole revealed that, during their marriage, he had many affairs with other women, including some with women that worked for him on his TV shows.

Yes, he’s not the first person in Hollywood to do something like this, but his pro-women agenda has always been front and centre in his work. If he is someone who can take advantage of women who reported to him and treat his wife in such a terrible fashion, then he is definitely not practicing what he is preaching.

His shows (Buffy, Firefly) and his movies (Avengers 1 & 2) are still good, but can the artist ever be separated from the art they make?

The main Joss fansite doesn’t think so – after 15 years, Whedonesque closed up shop right after Kai’s essay was published.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 950 Totally recalled

A couple of days ago, news sites started covering the recall for Ford Focus (2011-2015) due to an issue with the fuel tank. Words like ‘safety risk’ and ‘fire’ were tossed around, so I got in touch with Ford to find out if my little Focus was going to try and kill me.

I was told to wait for a letter from Ford, which would cover the recall and possible repair.

This is not the first issue with my car – earlier this year the clutch was replaced as it suffered from the same problem that the ACCC are taking Ford to court over.

I love my little car, and the fuel tank thing is unlikely to be an issue for me as it’s only worrisome when driven in dusty in environments, but how dusty is too dusty.

Time to check the letterbox again.

Mat

 

 

News post – Catch-23 No. 949 Voting postal

A plebiscite for marriage equality is an expensive scam – if Australia votes yes, the Libs are going to consider allowing a free vote in parliament. They could do it now without the postal vote, but they don’t want to and the people will have to make them.

If you’re having trouble figuring out if the plebiscite is a good move or a bad move, look at the supporters and detractors. Trumpist bible-bashing buffoon Tony Abbott thinks it’s a great idea and pro-equality groups don’t. Equality groups would rather see the money spent elsewhere, and the vote will give a voice to all the close-minded morons to shout and scream about how this will ruin the sanctity of marriage and won’t somebody think of the children, on our dime no less. Some same-sex marriage campaigners are even encouraging a boycott.

I think you should absolutely vote Yes for marriage equality when the material comes in the mail, but know that this is the government’s $160 million Get Out of Jail Free card – a way to defer a decision about same-sex marriage without looking like, well, old white homophobes.

How is that working out?

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 948 Really Real News

Lara Trump really is doing a Facebook news show called Real News to cover all the great things that Trump’s doing and the real fake news media aren’t talking about.

As my comic strip Trump said that Orwell’s ‘1984’ had some terrific ideas, it made sense that if someone was speaking for him, that person would be the Minister of Truth. The Ministry’s slogans tied nicely into the North Korea comments and saying he’s more Presidential than all previous Presidents (except Lincoln).

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 947 Wild Winds

Melbourne has been a little windy this weekend – 109kph gusts in the city and 130kph gusts up in the alpine regions. Some international flights got diverted to Sydney and The Age did, in fact, have photos of fallen bicycles to show how windy it was. They weren’t attached to the building, that part I made up.

Sadly, the bike photo appears to have been replaced by a couple of fallen tree photos.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 946 Spicing Doors

Poor Sean Spicer – he put up with so much for Trump and then gets treated like this? I thought that in hindsight, he may wish he took a leaf out of the Japanese Prime Minister’s wife’s playbook and pretended not to speak English.

Mat