Below is the latest The Pain -- When Will It End?
Updated 4/11/07

Artist's Statement

Note: Megan Kelso’s "Watergate Sue" continues in the New York Times magazine. http://graphics.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/magazine/20070408_FUNNYPAGES.pdf

Thanks to my friend Carolyn Ewald, who a.) flew me out to Seattle for a week for my 40th birthday and b.) gave me the idea for this cartoon. What a great week I had with my old friends out there. We dissected owl pellets and broke open geodes while on Vicodin, watched episodes of Land of the Lost and Mystery Science Theater 3000, hiked to Bridal Veil Falls, and I finally faced and conquered my spelling bete noire, "exhilarate," onstage at an adult spelling bee. And of course I got together for cocktails, oysters, and cigars with my lovely evil friend Liz. I even made a new enemy (see enemies list). I was reminded that it is possible for life to be easy and even pleasant in places that are not New York. It’s like getting out of the sterile, joyless domed city of Logan’s Run and into the real world. You suddenly remember that cities can be beautiful; that not everyone is consumed with ambition and greed; and that everyday life does not necessarily have to be a red-toothed Darwinian struggle. And such a relief to be around sloppily-dressed people again.

Carolyn actually presented me with three cartoon ideas, all of which she came up with while having sex. She strongly urged me to pursue the theme of Chocolate Jesus instead, but this was the one that really resonated with me. A cartoon for spring. Not that it’s very springy here on the East Coast, which seems to be enduring a belated winter, but in Seattle there were days in the seventies and the ladies were breaking out their spring wardrobes. It was very very distracting. The British writer Malcolm Muggeridge, in his youth a great womanizer, said in his old age that the diminution of his sex drive was like finally being allowed to dismount a wild horse. I know just what he means. It sometimes seems like I would have no real problems if not for sex. I’ve gotten punched and stabbed in the throat and made to have serious relationship talks. And I get tired of seeing the whole world on a sort of Terminator viewscreen with everything black except the pretty women targeted in infrared. Really the full story will not be told until I have completed my mammoth pornographic autobiography, Unfuckable.

Nevertheless, in the unlikely event that I have any attractive female fans in New York City, now would be a good time to contact me.


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