My comic posted in the telethon sometime between 10:30 last night and 9:30 this morning. You can see it here. A lot of other good comics posted overnight as well – make sure you catch up on the archive.
The telethon has raised well over $21,000 so far, and enough of the webcomics community has come together on this one that they’ve extended the comics a third day, to the 15th.
Marin and Rex (Remember him? The blonde supervisor? Oh, come on, I know it’s been a while but still…) cameo in a comic I wrote that’s running in the Hurricane Katrina Webcomics Telethon. The telethon site is updating with a new comic every 20 minutes for the next two days. Make sure to check it out — and if you can help, please do.
Updated 12:44 am 9/13/05:
I had a post about politics in this spot.
It was the first time I’d written a post about politics, and since I’ve written it, I’ve done nothing but regret it.
I didn’t regret it because anyone said anything about my beliefs. (In fact, what few conversations it did spawn were much more positive than I expected.)
I regretted it because this has never been a place to write about politics, and I don’t want it to become one. Writing about politics directly, for me, is probably harder than writing about religion. I know what I think and I believe and a lot of people disagree with me. I doubt that they’re going to change my mind. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to change theirs.
Discourse on the subject, then, is probably better suited to places where progress one direction or the other could be made. In the meantime, I designed this site to be part blog and part comic, and it will return to that. And if occasionally my political (or religious, or other) views seep through, well, that’s just part of the act of expressing myself. In the meantime, I’m taking advantage of the fact that the Internet is editable and taking back something I regret.
It’s been a long, strange week. Most of them are.
I’ve spent a good part of the week angry at the Phillies, as I imagine anyone in my position would be. When they’re winning the wildcard for the first time in a damn long time, I let my hopes grow. And of course, when the Phils drop three to Houston, and are suddenly in third place for both the wildcard and the division, with a two and a half game gap in September, it concerns me. They’re breaking my heart, and I knew they were going to break my heart (they haven’t been in the playoffs since ’93) and I let them in anyway, and now they’re breaking it. So of course I’m going to call them heartless bastards when they give up a two-run single in the seventh. (I’m telling you, they’re playing the bullpen too hard — why the hell can’t we get some starters who can play more than 5 innings in September? And now we’ve lost Padilla for God-knows-how-long…It’s been a long September and there was reason to believe maybe this year would be better than the last.)
I watched them play while cooking dinner tonight, cursed a bit, then we flipped through the channels for a while, and landed on AMC, about a minute and a half in to Field of Dreams. Now I’ve seen The Natural more times than I can count, and though I’ve never seen all of Bull Durham, in order and complete, I know enough to mutter “eight and sixteen… how did we ever win eight?” under my breath when the going gets tough. But somehow I’d never seen Field of Dreams for more than ten minutes even once.
I won’t tell you about the movie. You’ve either seen it, and know how it makes you feel the grass between your toes, or you haven’t and there’s no way I could describe it any more than I could describe how ghosts in a corn field turn into a baseball movie. Watching it is playing wiffle ball in every yard we’ve ever owned. It’s learning how to score at my brother’s little league games. It’s standing on the mound – any mound – and listening to the air crackle around you. The smell of the leather, the rough feel of the bat, the sound of the dirt and the taste of the air. Doesn’t matter who’s playing, or at what level, or what time. The choice between a fastball and a curve, between a pitch and a throw to first, between an all-out run and a head-first slide. I breathe baseball.
And it took a movie about a corn field in Iowa to remind me of that feeling you get when the sting of the Eagles’ season end is still fading, and the grass is green for the first time. The sky is so blue that sometimes, it doesn’t have to be about the pennant. Sometimes, it’s about the curve of the blue plastic seats at the park, and the hot smell of suntan lotion on my husband’s neck, and the sound of Harry Kalas calling a long fly ball.
Boys, I forgive you. Even if you manage to come back this season and make it to the playoffs only to break my heart again… I’ll still forgive you.
Try to win a few more next year, huh?
Thanks to ideaphile Nighthawk for the screenshot!