But if you click here, you will.
Fair warning, though, this webcomic from way way back in the early 2000s is EXTREMELY dark and at times very gory and/or explicitly sexual.
It is also one of the most extraordinary artistic achievements I have ever experienced. Don’t let the funny cartoon animals fool you, like with Maus, they are used to tell a story far deeper, darker, and more emotionally penetrating than what can be done without using the power ot cartoon animals to bypass our emotional defenses.
They speak to the child in all of us. There is a reason everything aimed at children, especially preschoolers, is filled with cartoon animals.
It’s because we can relate to animals. In fact, before the age of five, animals make a lot more sense to us than adults ever do.
That’s why little Timmy or Tammy takes that little stuffed animal everywhere with them. It is their touchstone companion, an imaginary friend who can be or do or say whatever the child needs it to in order to help it cope with a very confusing world.
Not that I know this from experience. I never did any of that. No imaginary friends, no play-acting with toys, no little fluffy toy animal I took everywhere with me.
I was fucked up from the very start.
Anyhow, back to Jack.
To summarize the plot of a webcomic that went on for years is impossible. But the plots most often revolve around or involve the titular Jack, a resident of Hell who became the current incarnation of the sin of Wrath after going on a vengeful killing spree then getting killed by the cops.
Boy, the children’s cartoon practically writes itself, doesn’t it?
I was reminded of Jack when I was perusing Rule 34/furry porn and came across a character that looked really familiar.
So I clicked on the image to see who it was and lo and behold, my gut instinct had been right and it was fan art of a character from Jack.
Drip, meet everybody. Everybody, meet Drip.
But uh, don’t touch, kids. Trust me, he is NOT nice.
The memory of Jack having been invoked, I just had to find out if someone out there was hosting the original webcomic.
The last time I had checked, it was nowhere to be found, online or anywhere else. But that was well over a decade ago, and thank every star in a desert sky, since then someone has rectified that situation.
Now I am going to go through the whole series again, and this time, I am going to save every damned one of then to my hard drive.
Nobody is going to get between me and my Jack again. It had a profound effect on me and pretty much every other fur who read it Back In The Day.
And greedy old archivist that I am, that means I have to HAVE it!
More after the break.
But that’s Impossible!
Just finished watching an episode of the original Mission : Impossible with Le Gang.
The details of the plot etc are not important, but it takes place in an unnamed South American country and starred the incredible BarBara Luna and the combination of these two factors guaranteed it an episode with a very high emotional temperature.
And that got me thinking about my own historically chilly nature and that whole English v. French, Northern European versus Mediterranean, Coolheaded versus Hotblooded, Ant versus Grasshopper thing that has preoccupied me for so long.
Because by default I am on Team Ant. I side with the practical, reasonable, sensible, pragmatic, and well grounded side of things. I prefer to deal with people like myself who are both hard of head and soft of heart and who can therefore focus on achieving high minded goals via practical means.
I want results, god damn it. Positive change. Nothing else will do.
But here’s the thing : I know that this is not the only “successful” approach to life. I might be an Ant but I know damned well that those Grasshoppers know things I do not and have a wisdom and an understanding of life that could do me a lot of good if I could only free myself of my narrow and earth-bound mindset.
I know that my deep understanding of and focus on the pragmatic realities of life can be as much a trap as it is a useful tool. It ties me far too strongly and deeply to the here and now and does not let my soul fly free so it can find a place for itself in the world outside the limitations of dreary quotidian reality.
I mean, what is the use of all this sensible logic and clarity of thought and mind if I am still unhappy? Maybe I could use a little nonsensical delusion in my life.
Where’s the joy? Where’s the fun? Where’s the spirit of celebration? My soul is a bright and beautiful bird in far too small a cage and it is crying to be set free.
But I am scared. Scared of everything this little coffin of mine keeps out. Scared of that big bad burgeoning world out there, all bright and busy and bustling away just waiting to flood into my mind and overwhelm me till I am lost forever.
Or at least that is how it feels. Like if I leave my cage the world will crush me.
And there is no way to let myself out without letting the world in. That’s the deal. And letting the world in will change me so much. It has to. It’s the only way I’ll survive.
And primitive critter that I am, it is hard for me to see that much of a change as anything but death. Or if not death, madness. Chaos. A move totally beyond my current understanding into a world where nothing makes sense any more and I have to start all over again, with the mind of a child, and build a better version of myself.
And that is a hell of a lot of ask of my sad little self. I want to transcend my current state of being. I want to level up my spirit. I want to finally grow.
But there is no paved road from here to there. No continuous path. At some point I am going to have to take a leap of faith into the unknown and I do not have any faith to leap with. I am bound by and bound to that which I know and understand.
And to go beyond that feels like chaos and madness and death to me.
So I drive around in big wide circles instead, searching for the easy offramp that I know damned well does not exist but too scared to go offroad in search of solace.
By my current understanding, you just plain can’t get there from here.
And yet, I have to get there somehow.
I am a thing without wings that must learn to fly.
But I am too scared to try.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.