In Vancouver, Home Soon

What? What other info do you need, pinkboy?

Free Comic Readin'!

I found a comic I wrote back in the Jurassic Period for Tyim Courts' Narcoleptic Man. Check it out here!

Quiz Kids

I asked the kids in my classes a question: do you believe your generation is more intelligent than, less intelligent than, or equally intelligent as your parents' generation?

Some said their parents' generation had more common sense. Some said they're equally intelligent, but today's generation is much lazier, so they do less with it.

I was struck the most, though, by the number (about half) who said that their generation is more intelligent because of the technology we have today. It suddenly dawned on me that these kids view the exponential development of technology over the last few decades as THEIR OWN. They see the advent of computers and DVD players and Blackberries as evidence that they're a quantum leap beyond their predecessors.

Ah, but it was time to throw a monkey wrench into that ointment. When I asked them, by show of hands, how many of them can build a computer or DVD player, though, or if they'd be able to repair their Blackberry if it went belly up, the room was strangely silent.

What they fail to realize is that they're merely the recipients of the magic boxes, the beneficiaries of technology which requires little beyond the memorizing of which buttons to push in what order (something "lesser" primates have been doing just fine for years; these kids got nothin' on Koko the gorilla).

Y'know, our parents and grandparents may have had nothing more sophisticated at their disposal than indoor plumbing and a rusty Studebaker. But my dad could fix that plumbing when it went wonky, and my grandfather could put a new water pump in that Studebaker when the old one breathed its last.

I just quoted the great Robert Heinlein in my last post, but another bit of his wisdom comes to mind at this moment:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."


And sometimes, especially here lately, I find myself sitting up in the middle of the night, worried that the colony just keeps on growing...

Bob Got It Right

"The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it… which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses.’

‘Bread and Circuses’ is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome."
— Robert A. Heinlein (To Sail Beyond the Sunset)

My Favorite Ebay Description Ever

From a current post selling the Rush album Signals:

This LP is the ninth studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush, released in 1982 . Signals was the follow-up to the successful Moving Pictures and highly influenced by Geddy Lee's input. Stylistically, the album was a continuation of Rush's foray into the technology-oriented 1980s through increased use of electronic instrumentation such as keyboards, sequencers, and electric violin. The album reached #10 on the Billboard album charts and was certified Platinum. The opening trackfrom Signals is "Subdivisions." The track would become a staple of the band's concert setlists for many years. "The Analog Kid" and "Digital Man" served as the inspiration for writer Troy Hickman to create the comic book heroes of the same name, Digital Man and Analog Kid, in the 2004 comic Common Grounds. "New World Man" would become an FM radio hit for the band. The song was written and recorded at the end of the recording sessions. This LP is getting harder to find now, especially in this EXCELLENT CONDITION !

I Wish!

I would wear the banner proudly!

The Trippy History of Troy Hickman

Hiya! Sorry I haven't posted much here lately, but as you may have heard, Twilight Guardian won the Pilot Season voting, and I've been spending a lot of my free time on interviews and such for a while.

I'm back, though, and I thought what I might start doing, along with the rest of my usual goofiness, is present some of the oddities from my small press days.

This time out, I'm going to show you a very odd piece that I did with Max Traffic some, I dunno, fifteen years ago? Max asked me to write eight pages of text to go along with his rather psychedelic artwork, so I did. What resulted was mighty peculiar. Check it out (you can click on 'em to enlarge them). Artwork (c) Maximum Traffic