Apple:
iTouchmyself – Comes with either Tube or Socket attachment.
iRadiate – Treats cancer as fast as it causes it.
iHaveAGun – Settles the abortion debate damn quick.

“We all got to thinking, maybe it’s not just up to the candidates, or the people at the top who can do things,” said history professor Darwin Adams. “Maybe some problems are actually better solved by Joe Sixpack fixing his own life than by Joe Biden trying to fix someone else’s.”

“At first, we were put off by the McCain campaign’s ‘No You Can’t’ ad campaign, but after a while someone just said, ‘Screw it, I read The Little Engine That Could and I think I can,’” reported Yanni Holbes, taxi driver. “Insecurity and fear were the first to go, and you’d be amazed what a difference that made! After that, rampant consumerism went out the door pretty quickly, which made the environment awesome, and it made racism and xenophobia a lot easier to solve, too.”

“Now that I no longer feel paralyzed by fear of the impending doom of all that I know and love, I’m finding it much easier to be positive,” said sports fan Donald Bumsa. “As a result, I’m spending much less time abusing drugs and watching TV. There was a middle period where I was abusing my TV and watching drugs, but I got over that.”

“Education and personal responsibility have improved health, lowered the number of abortions, and ended poverty,” said Dr. Trevor Bolts, M.D.. “No one’s really playing the lottery much anymore, now that everyone realizes that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but that’s okay. My wife and I have been cooking more, anyway. Yesterday we made this mushroom risotto. Delicious!”

The political campaigns had not stopped their back-and-forth for a minute. However, they were still eager to win votes so, seeing the tides had changed, they changed the messages of their campaigns to “More of the Same from Palin and McCain” and “Actually, Wait, This is Fucking Awesome ’08.” However, the extent to which this will influence voters is uncertain, as news reporters are now spending time with their families instead of reporting on dubiously relevant polls.

So that’s it. Turns out that many of our problems needed personal action and not legislation. So, whoever wins on Election Day, whatevs! (say voters), because man, we are set. After all, government is the fruit of our wickedness, and now the only wicked that’s going around is wicked AWESOME. Oh, and the musical. Because the musical is GREAT.

This article was originally written by Sgt. Earth and published concurrently by readme.

I am an expert on terrible webcomics.

About half our ads are for webcomics so abysmal, they make Minimum Security look like Calvin and Hobbes. I always browse through our Project Wonderful advertisers’ sites to see if I find any gems, which are exceptionally rare (see also: Grade D but Edible, Buttersafe). I’ve only found two webcomics I’ve really enjoyed among dozens that have bought our advertising. That says a lot about how many people simply do not belong in that business. Some of these unremarkable strips are solidly “pretty good”, but their potential is wasted by either a bad partnership or a lack of a badly-needed partnership; some are just in all ways conventional, been-done, and uninteresting. There is nothing memorable to distinguish 97% of all webcomics. Trust me: StudKickass is different. StudKickass is one of the most memorable strips I’ve ever seen… but I do not wish this experience even on my worst enemies.

Judging by how much more money most of my advertisers are making off their sites than I am, my theory is that every webcomic creator apparently thinks to themselves, “I shall advertise on a site even worse than mine.” That is how the okay or passable webcomics wind up here. But StudKickass couldn’t find any websites worse than his own, so couldn’t do that. I have only two reasons not to block his ads: firstly, they are hilarious in all the wrong ways, and secondly, he’s paying me what appears to be all of his ad revenue for me to make fun of him, and he apparently doesn’t even know it.

There are subtleties about this comic that lead me to believe that the misogyny in it is not intended to be the joke.

I regret that I must taint the pages of my own website with the name of StudKickass. Even just speaking his name gives him more power. It saddens me that my attempts to degrade him have actually gotten him more money–anyone who goes there to laugh at him will drive up his ad revenue to a whopping four cents a day. But I cannot mock him thoroughly without actually showing you the horrible evils he has brought into the world. And so I have a moral conundrum. The terrorists have won.

Speaking of “the name of StudKickass”, what the hell does the name mean? How is it in any way relevant? He’s not a stud. He does not kick ass. In fact, he’s portrayed as a loser, but not even in a funny way.

The artist gets his ideas from real-life experiences.

This very unconventional, intriguing, new, and not-at-all-hackneyed character (^^^lie) is offset by Drew. Drew is distinguished by having what could be passed as a real name and by being an even bigger loser than StudKickass. Both characters are one-dimensional, on the same, uninteresting dimension. Their interactions are beyond boring, beyond dull, and likely to push weak readers into a persistent vegetative state. Add to that the fact that Drew didn’t even exist for the first few months, and wow. You just have a guy talking to his annoying fucking cat.

Because this punchline is SHIT.

And this cat is identical to Garfield, except that he is even more easy to hate. The things that he does are usually supposed to be irreverent, taboo, or zany, but just come across as asinine. “Bubz”, a word that irritates me for reasons that should be obvious, may or may not be the name of this unfunny cat. I am making this guess judging by this comic:

Here, StudKickass drops trou and forces out a foul-smelling shit on the entire medium of comics. All that’s to it is a static image copy-pasted in three panels with stilted, contrived dialogue below it in a default font. What makes this comic such a botched abortion isn’t the failed delivery–it’s flawed from conception. The comic and its “punchline” make less sense than gnawing off your own testicles: nobody but StudKickass understands the appeal. And the cat is named nowhere else but here, so I sure hope the “writer” doesn’t expect his “fans” to get to know his “characters” too well.

This is THE ONLY instance I can find of her speaking, and she’s using it to say she’s a gold digger. Nice characterization! It really comes through in the way she’s dating StudKickass. Uh… wait, no, that isn’t true at all.

Lastly, we have his girlfriend, who is literally no more than a prop, and never gets any lines. I would say she’s a plot device but that would imply that there is a plot. Her treatment in the comic is borderline-misogynistic, that of a domestic baby machine, reflecting a juvenile or undeveloped idea of what girls are like and confusion about whether or not they are real people. I don’t think she even has a name. There is quite plainly no reason whatsoever for her to be in the comic.

Which brings me to my next point: there is quite plainly no reason whatsoever for Drew to be in the comic, as he added nothing new, or Bubz to be in it, as he was regurgitated garbage, or StudKickass to be in it, since he is an uncompelling, uninteresting, and fundamentally boring protagonist. I am convinced that the comic exists for no reason other than to fill a perpetual, mercilessly unending stream of panels. No comedy or story holds it together. No characters compel it to be. Nothing happens. It can be directly, and disfavorably, compared to Garfield. Garfield. You know, the one with only jokes about Mondays, fatness, and Jon being a loser. Yes. That strip has more dimensions than StudKickass. Compared to StudKickass’s unidimensional world, Garfield is fucking String Theory.

I may never understand why, if you were ripping off and cheapening Garfield–a feat so difficult it had never before been achieved–you’d admit to it. He tried, with a resounding lack of success, to exploit his own uncreativity for a not-even-half-baked storyline.

They look so happy!

According to the Associated Press, Illinois Senator Barack Obama appeared at a “Faith Forum” in Lake Forest, California with Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

It was the first time the two men had appeared at such an event. Senator Obama spoke mostly on his support for legalized abortion, while Senator Obama talked about the biblically-outlined responsibility for people to help those less fortunate.

According to the AP, “Their comments came at a two-hour forum on faith hosted by the minister Rick Warren at his megachurch in Orange County, Calif. Obama joined Warren for the first hour, and Obama for the second. The two men briefly shook hands and hugged each other during the switch.”

The event did reinforce the images of elitism and arrogance that plague Senator Obama’s campaign. Said one rural Arkansan (called simply because when in doubt, Clunkline asks a rural Arkansan, given their very clear views on issues like trailer decoration and proper hayseed-chewing technique) “It’s just like Obama to get up on stage and give himself a big hug. I’m surprised he didn’t kiss himself, but I guess Muslims frown on that stuff.”

Pundits have theorized that the reason John McCain doesn’t have a similar event is that ancient Inca legends warn of a “Patchacutichanca”, which loosely translates to “Jowlpocalypse”, a tragic, world-ending event brought about by an oversatuation of jowls in too small a space. Jowlpocalypse is rumored to conclude with the entire world being flattened under a layer of saggy, wrinkly, liver-spotted skin, where those who aren’t crushed will eventually suffocate.

It isn’t known whether Senator Obama will make any more appearances with himself during his campaign, but Senator Obama is rumored to be on the Vice Presidential short list. Senator Obama refused to comment, instead saying “We’ll all know once the convention rolls around.”