News post – Catch-23 No. 1086 All Due Respect

In the week, I saw a post on a software forum – someone was asking for guidance on communicating with people in lockdown suburbs about not coming into their business location. The thread was quickly hijacked by someone questioning whether they should be open to the public at all, beginning the judgement ‘with all due respect’.

This made me think about how we argue about stuff on the internet, and how the faceless nature of online interaction, as well as the lack of tonal indication, leads to a less filtered and less caring method of communication.

My rule of thumb is that if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it on the internet either.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1085 Tinted

OK, this one is based on a true story. I accidentally bought a tinted version of my regular moisturiser. I realised it was tinted when I ran out of the previous stuff, but thought ‘so what? moisturiser is moisturiser’.

How wrong I was. As soon as it went on, I noticed that I looked less blotchy, more even, and just more healthy in general. The power of a tinted moisturiser became clear to me, and the comic strip was born.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1084 The Beagle in the Plastic Bubble

Sorry Australia, looks like big family gatherings in Victoria are responsible for the bump in Coronavirus cases (not the BLM protests? I’m shocked). Imagine you’re in a 3-metre hamster ball and behave accordingly.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1083 Self-care

Self-care is needed now more than ever, but at the same time it feels more difficult to practice self-care at the moment without that little voice telling you that you’re being indulgent or just avoiding your responsibilities.

Be gentle with yourself right now, figure out what puts the energy back into your body and carve out some time in your schedule for it.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1082 Rocking the boat

As someone well inside the white privilege bubble, I was initially going to steer clear of any mention of the current Black Lives Matter movement, for fear of saying the wrong thing or being labelled part of the problem.

What I realised is that with my comic strip, I can still say something about injustice and the kind of radical change that is needed without it coming across as patronising or mansplaining (whitesplaining?).

The metaphorical rocking of the boat came from an earlier draft, where I was going to point out the hypocrisy of our state and federal governments here in Australia, saying that Black Lives Matter protests were unlawful due to COVID-19 distancing restrictions, whilst having no such issue with the tinfoil hat morons protesting 5G a couple of weeks ago. The government would prefer to not rock the boat, disturbing the status quo of racial inequality, because if they acknowledge it exists and how deep it goes, then they would have to do something about it.

Well, the people are saying they want something done about it, and sometimes you have to swing that pendulum hard to the other side in order to change heavily entrenched beliefs.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1081 The Snyder Cut

The long-rumoured to exist Zack Snyder version of Justice League is now a thing that’s going to be released. Why people think this is something worth having is beyond my knowing. Joss was brought in to fix the trainwreck of a movie that Zack Snyder left behind, and somehow people think that the stuff on the cutting room floor MUST be better than the hot mess that the long-suffering DC fans were served.

Spoiler alert: this cannot be the case.

If there were some supposedly good bits anywhere, Joss would have used them… ergo… these good bits did not exist. You know I love me some superhero movies, but the terrible ones don’t need to be released twice.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1080 Validation

I’ll be the first to admit I’m bad at Facebook. I forget to check it, and I usually only find out about the likes and shares on last week’s comic strip when I’m posting the next one. It makes me happy to know that people read and enjoy the comic strip, but it’s not why I make the strip.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1079 Troubleshooting

If someone tells you that you should be crying and shaking after a mindfulness or meditation session, you tell them they’re doing it wrong.

Same goes for Coldplay – Just Say No.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1078 Two Thousand and Twenty

I was thinking about the meme that 2020 is a year written by Stephen King, but the themes reminded me of a couple of songs by the thrash metal band Slayer, so here we are.

Not really a Mother’s Day comic strip, but happy Mother’s Day out there to all the mums of humans, fur babies and so forth.

Mat

News post – Catch-23 No. 1077 Rock on

Would you prefer Trump to be as incompetent as he appears, or pretending to be this incompetent so you stop paying attention to all the lies, nepotism and corruption?

Damned either way, I guess.

Don’t inject any disinfectant, give the bright lights a miss, and if Trump tells you to do something, the opposite is probably a good place to start.

Mat