Benson, Robert Frost, Firefly, and Star Trek. Possibly the Best Year End Post, Ever.

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”  -Neil Gaiman

So, here we all are, the end of the old year, and the beginning of the new year. It’s a time for resolutions, it’s a time for promises, it’s a time where we reflect on the past year, on past accomplishments and past... well we won’t really call them “failures” so much as “oopsie daisies.” 

I’ve always found it both odd and interesting that we take this time to reflect. On the one hand, nothing really changes. Today is Monday, tomorrow will be Tuesday no matter what the calendar says. Same bills are due. Rent is due. All that really happened is that when someone asks me the date I’m going to type 2012 instead of 2013 for a little while, much in the same way that sometimes I’ll accidentally type “February” when we reach January 31st. Really most of the Earth stays the same.

But on the other hand, it is another year, insofar as we understand time, gone. We do have a need to recognize time gone by, whether it be some kind of anniversary (That I swear I’ll remember this time) or birthday (until you reach 39) or some other significant event that you want to recognize (11 years since Firefly was taken off the air. We want your adventures back, Captain Mal.)

The other interesting concept is the idea of New Years Resolutions. I used to enjoy making these, back when the stakes were lower. I mean, “Hey I want to get in shape” means something different. But I don’t like making them now. Not that I think people should, (especially me) but because they’re so easy to break. Yes, I made a promise to myself I’d write more, but there’s this Firefly marathon on, and I don’t want to miss an episode that I’ve already seen twenty times. (Damn you, Joss Whedon!)

So, this year I have decided I’m not making any resolutions. I’m not making easily breakable promises that I’ll forget in a couple of months and chalk it up to “Not keeping my New Years Resolutions”. No, the Twenty Twelve Michael Bay Explosion Monster really did a number on me. And the only way that things are going to get better is if I make some changes. Real changes that will improve my life and ensure that there’s no Twenty Twelve Michael Bay Explosion Monster Part two. I’m at the point that I need 2013 to be better for my own general sanity. So I’m not making resolutions. I’m making actual promises that I must keep. There is no other option. So...

I promise to actually start do do more with my writing. Yes, I blog here at Bad Shakespeare, and I will continue to do so. And I love each and every one of my readers, thank you for following these adventures. But I need to do more. I need to finish my comedy novel that got mired in my own melancholy and was stalled. (That’s a good line. Remind me to do something with that.)

I promise to finish my degree and become a teacher. I’ve spent a good number of years learning what I’m not good at. I’m an ok editor. I’m a pretty good writer. I’m a so-so government acquistioner. I suck at working at Best Buy and as a Lifeguard. But I’m an excellent teacher. I love literature. Keeping me out of a classroom is bad for me. I have so many ideas, some original and some standing on top of desks like Robin Williams in that one movie.

I promise to do more that scares me and makes me uncomfortable. Like all of life’s big questions, I usually turn to the philosophy imparted in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. (Two science fiction references in one post! Score!) In it, Constable Odo, who’s a shapeshifter, was a blob of goo that was found by a scientist. The Scientist “tortured” him until he finally showed him that he was a living, thinking creature that could shapeshift into the guy that played Clayton on Benson. The kicker was the scientist wasn’t torturing him. Odo loved being a blob of goo. That was comfortable to him. It was being uncomfortable and challenging himself that allowed him to eventually become humanoid, then help round out the cast of the best Star Trek series on television to date. We all need to be a little uncomfortable or scared. Taking the well-worn path is easy. Look at the Frost Poem “The Road Not Taken”. While people love to quote it and hold it up as an example of adventure! Of course once you read it you find out that the speaker has decided to just call the path he took as the one less travelled. Probably to impress the ladies. So rather than just saying I’m taking the scarier path, I’m going to actually take the scary path.

Star Trek, Benson, and Robert Frost in one paragraph. I’m on a roll today!

There are more, and I will update you all on them as they occur. From me, I hope you all have a healthy, happy, exciting, wonderful, unsafe, book reading, suprising, adventure filled, twitterpaited, gravity-defying, goal breaking, path not taken, Cow and Boy reading, Yippie Kai Yaying, Bad Shakespeare reading, Firefly-watching, Benson-referencing 2013. 

And as for you, Twenty Twelve Michael Bay Explosion Monster... you didn’t win.

Twenty Twelve Michael Bay Explosion Monster vs. Cow and Boy

Twenty Twelve has not been the greatest year for me. I supposed I could have written it as 2012, but it looks better when it’s like that. It looks more like the enemy, which right now I kind of consider it. Amongst the bigger setbacks that I’ll eventually talk about one day (including the one that was the REAL secret origin of this blog) there have been a few, smaller incidents that really get under my craw. Despite the fact that I’ve really no idea what a “craw” is and this is just an expression I’m going to steal. And I’ve decided that I can let Twenty Twelve defeat me like it’s some kind of Michael Bay-eqsue explosion monster, or I can buck up and do something about it. So today, I’m going to use my blog as a forum to talk about one of the smaller things, and see what I can do about it: The cancellation of one of my favorite comic strips.

Remember, I said, “Smaller.” When things aren’t going well you look to the little things to make you laugh. When things aren’t going well, you look to the little things to make you laugh, and then you find out said little thing is going away, well... it really takes the wind out of your sails. It’s comforting. Then, the Twenty Twelve Michael Bay-esque Explosion Monster takes that away that last sliver of comfort. It’s not good.

It’s no secret that I quite enjoy comic books. If it is, then go back and read this closer. I not only enjoy comic books, but one of those things that really gets me started in the day are the morning comics. You know, the cheesy ones like Garfield, or the zombie ones that won’t go away despite the fact that the original creator and then the creator’s successor both died centuries ago and for some reason they still need to keep publishing them and take up space for new comics. I don’t really read zombie comics, I tend to stick to things like Garfield, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, or one comic that consistently made me laugh, Cow and Boy. Unfortunately, Cow and Boy is being cancelled.

Cow and Boy is a comic that is about... well, a boy named Billy and his best friend, a Cow. Her name is Cow. It has been compared to Calvin and Hobbes in the way Billy and Cow interact, often talking about deep social issues (In fact, one of the funnier jokes involved one of the characters commenting that they liked the comic more when Cow was a tiger.) Then it will take a huge left turn and someone will get smacked down with a cat-copter, or Johnny Depp will get blackmailed into writing a check, or they’ll get attacked by gnomes. Yeah. It’s that kind of strip. The kind of clever strip that comes along every once in a while, the art and the theme make it look inviting... the kind of inviting that draws in those regular readers of the zombie strips, or the long-term strips. Then it hits you with a man dressed as a bear wrestling Billy’s stunt double. That’s the kind of strip that scares people with it’s mad-cap madcapness. People are scared by things that are this brilliant, insane, and clever. 

Now, Bad Shakespeare is no shill. That’s not by some moral choice. No, if someone wants to pay me to endorse something, I’m all for it. And I have no affiliation with Mark Leiknes, the writer and creator of Cow and Boy, and to the best of my knowledge the original writer and creator and not the third in line recycling jokes from the 1960’s. (Garfield sure does hate his Mondays.) I’ve never contacted Mr. Leiknes, either to let him know how much his strip did brighten up my day, or that I’m saddened his comic is ending on the original site, but I’m happy to hear he’s working to try to keep it going in some form. (He has a donation page at www.cowandboy.com. I’m a poor graduate student, so I’ve not had a chance to contribute, but check it out, because everything on the site is funny.)

So what’s the point of all this? Basically what I’ve already talked about, just to draw attention to a writer in need. I’m hoping in a few decades (oh the cars they’ll fly) when I’m a struggling writer, I’m someone’s favorite thing enough for them to write their futuristic space blog that will be beamed into the minds of their readers instantly about how much they love my work. Karma, people, karma. In the meantime, www.gocomics.com which hosts Cow and Boy (and I guess needs  to cancel it so it can have more digital space for Peanuts reruns) still has it up until the end of the year. Make sure you check it out.

I’m going back to battling the Twenty Twelve Michael Bay-esque Explosion Monster for a little bit. But here's a little sampling of why this comic is so freaking brilliant.