There’s a new sexual epidemic sweeping America and possibly the world, and it has conservatives and religious officials up in arms.

They’re calling it breastfeeding. All across the nation, mothers of infants and toddlers are participating in what they claim to be an ancient practice, placing their nipples in the mouths of their children for extended periods of time, in an apparent attempt to substitute the act for nourishment.

Undine Proctor, a mid-western mother of twin babies, staunchly defends her ritual of putting the mouths of her children on her breast several times each day, despite their obvious inability to give sexual consent.

“There are plenty of studies out there that say this is better than formula,” says Proctor. “It’s good for your baby’s immune system.”

Dr. Ungress, a Professor at Brown University who teaches several graduate and undergraduate courses on sexuality and sexual health, disagrees.

“There is significant research to suggest that infants who are breastfed [against their will] grow up to be [un]healthy … and substantially [less] resistant to disease [and corruption. In addition, most clergy agree that breasts serve no reproductive function.]”

As many as 66% of American mothers “breastfeed” their children (the number is believed to be even higher in developing nations), and of those, nearly 22% do so for longer than six months after childbirth.

The trend has become pandemic in recent years, with Pope Benedict XVI issuing a condemnation of the act, in an attempt to stem the breastfeeding tide.

“In this time of widespread questionable morals, we must remember that it is God’s way to test our faith, and this was most apparent when He created womankind. The regular temptations that females provide must be resisted, or our society will crumble into a chaos of hedonism, sex, and breasts. We must take care to reeducate the world’s mothers that ‘breastfeeding’ is impure in the eyes of God.”

A disturbing ritual…

Under conditions of anonymity, one mother agreed to demonstrate the act of breastfeeding. Please be advised that the following description is of a sexually graphic nature.

“I can tell by the way my baby cries whether she’s hungry,” she began as she lowered the strap on her dress, exposing her swollen breast. A small amount of a milky white substance was dribbling from her nipple.

“I just raise her head up to my breast like so,” she said as she brought the infants mouth dangerously close to her nipple, “And she latches on and begins to suck.” The baby then took the nipple into her mouth and stopped crying immediately, most likely due to suffocation.

The child unknowingly participated in the act for several minutes. During the duration, the mother smiled coyly, clearly enjoying the intercourse.

What to do if your mother puts her breast in your mouth…

Most mothers commit the act of breastfeeding with noble intentions. While we cannot fault them for allowing themselves to become swayed by the agenda of the mammary activists, you must take action to protect yourself and your mother from the repercussions of this practice.

Women are frequently emotional and are easily upset, and so you should be careful to keep the situation from becoming a potentially violent confrontation. If your mother puts her breast in your mouth, you should gently remind her that you do not approve of breastfeeding.

“Offer an alternative activity, such as Bible readings, to help distract her from this urge,” says Dr. Allan Milo, a psychologist who runs a breastfeeding reeducation center in Vorhees, NJ. “It is unlikely that any mother will be willing to change overnight. Patience is important.”

There are many centers like Dr. Milo’s set up around the United States that offer courses and reading material to help you to educate your mother about the potential danger of breastfeeding.

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There is an eternal debate in comics over whether writing is more important than art. Overwhelmingly, readers point to writing as the most important aspect in a good comic, while the poor saps who are drawing the damn things fight endlessly to convince everyone that art is just as, if not more, important.

The argument on the writing side is that, no matter how pretty a book is, if there isn’t good writing to back it up, it’s merely pretty. There are plenty of popular comics out there, especially in webcomics, with terrible or nonexistent art but excellent writing. It is easy to see that good writing can make up for bad art, while good art cannot salvage bad writing. Writing, it would therefore seem, is the necessary and sufficient condition.

But isn’t art what makes comics comics?

I’m not here to argue one way or the other. Anyone with any degree of intelligence knows that both are crucial. While a comic can be great despite lousy artwork so long as it has excellent writing to make up for it, effective artwork is still extremely important in order to properly convey a narrative. There are things that art can do that writing cannot, and vice-versa, so why is there a debate here?

Let’s consider the subset of people who can write well versus the subset of people who can draw well. I imagine your first instinct is to say that there are more good writers than good artists, and I would share that reaction at first. After all, I consider myself to be (screw modesty) a highly talented writer, but a merely average artist. Sure, I can draw a great deal better than 95% of the people that I meet, but I certainly don’t draw better than the majority of people who draw well. Writing is my strongest suit.

This is where the common argument that writing is most important is rooted. There are a great deal more people who believe that they can write well than those who believe they can draw well, and the good writers/bad artists most frequently argue that writing is paramount, perhaps out of a desire to take the more skilled artists down a peg, or perhaps because they simply feel a bigger connection to the writing end of comics.

One way or another, though, people who tend to think writing is more important to comics generally do so because they believe themselves to be good writers.

Well, here’s some bad news for the people who think they can write well: Most of you can’t. You think you can, but you can’t.

I understand why so many people think they know how to write. It’s easy for a person to tell that he or she can’t draw well. If you cannot draw anything better than a crooked stick figure (hint: use a ruler — the lines comes out straighter that way), then of course you don’t have any significant artistic chops.

Getting a picture in your head down on paper is hard. I can’t do it most of the time, and even the best artists in the world can’t do it consistently. The same does not go for writing, though. Translating an abstract thought into words is easy. We do it all the time, every time we talk to ourselves or to another human being.

But writing is not talking. A good writer knows how much care must be taken to properly convey a thought. He understands the subtle differences between the myriad 25-cent words that apply to a certain piece of imagery. He arranges his sentences so the reader will subvocalize them with the correct cadence. He recognizes the techniques needed to elicit feelings of blinding speed or plodding deliberation when necessary. He knows how to force the reader to picture specific things in the mind’s eye. 90% of the people who consider themselves good writers cannot do these things.

Good writing is a difficult art. There would be a lot more balance in the debate of art vs. writing if most of the people who fancy themselves writers would realize that they have no place working with language. Until then, these errant novices will continue to support the writing side of comics at the expense of art. Writing is not the most important aspect, though, and it never will be. For that to come from an outstanding writer such as myself, it must be true.

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Today, I’m going to teach you that it never hurts to ask.

About two months ago, I bought a big box of Nature Valley granola bars at Costco for around $15. It was supposed to contain 48 individually wrapped packets of two granola bars each, but two of the packets only contained one granola bar. Hmm.

Deciding what the hay, I flipped the box over, found the URL for General Mills, the manufacturer of Nature Valley bars, and used the website’s customer service form to email the company about the missing granola bars.

A week later, I got an email from General Mills’ customer service asking how much I paid for the box. I told them, and two weeks later, I received a check for $15 to replace two granola bars.

Those customer service phone numbers you see on the backs of your food packages are there for a reason. General Mills will never miss the money — they’re far more worried about such situations inflating out of proportion into the top story on the 7 o’clock news. I’m living proof: For three minutes’ effort, I made $15. That’s the equivalent of a $300/hour job! Remember that the next time you get a box of Raisin Bran and aren’t convinced that they really used two scoops.

Always be on the lookout for little freebies like this. Every dollar counts.

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I’m having a self-doubt day today. Anyone who’s ever had a creative hobby that they really love has felt this — you spend all day wondering whether it’s really worth the time and money that you have to sacrifice to make everything happen. Boy, the things I could do with the extra twelve hours I could buy myself each week by quitting TMABB. I could spend more time with my girlfriend, write a Flash game (which would have WAY better potential when it comes to monetization), read more, start homebrewing, etc. That’s not to mention the money that I keep socked away for expenses, hundreds of dollars that I could be investing elsewhere.

It comes with the territory. Days like this hit me about once every three or four weeks, and the more often I get them, the easier they become to deal with, because every time one comes, I’m able to remind myself that I have yet to let one bad day pull me over the edge to quit drawing.

If you can’t handle occasional doubt and depression, you’re going to have a tough time keeping a creative hobby going. I imagine webcomics are one of the worst offenders when it comes to this. Every year I see a dozen-odd newcomers zip by me on nothing but word of mouth, while I continue to fight to build my readership no matter what I try.

I’ve learned this past year to focus on doing strips to amuse myself, and it’s paid off. It gets me through the harder days like today. Tomorrow, I know I’m going to be able to take a look at tmabb.com’s stats, feel a little unsatisfied, but still remind myself that the readers that I do have are rampant fans. As long as I still have that, I’ll keep making comics. I just hate days like this.

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I’m going to catch a lot of flak for this entry, I have little doubt. If you are averse toward opinions that do not conform to that of the average television addict, I would suggest moving on. This one is going to hurt, especially if you live in Texas, ’cause you guys are nuts. Anyway, here goes.

I don’t vote.

I figure what the hell, today’s as good a day to talk about it as I’m gonna get.

Oy, should not have said that…

I have never voted in my life. I’ve never even registered. I have no party affiliation, no favorite candidate, no desire to participate in America’s faux-democratic system, and I never will, so long as I have a choice.

I will pause for a moment while I wait for the bright crimson in your face to subside. Also, please put that fountain pen down. You may remember that stabbing is illegal.

This is not a matter of apathy; I happen to have viciously strong political beliefs. Nor is it a matter of laziness; I expend more energy fending off the endless castigations spewing from the voting masses than I ever would if I just relented and stood in the booth to be counted.

My abstinence from the system is rooted in a simple logical conclusion that I reached as a teenager: Representative governance is inherently flawed such that it eventually and inevitably trends toward corruption and, consequently, oppression. Put more cursorily, a Republic is nothing more than a Dictatorship with the blessing of the people. Even shorter: A desire for power precludes the right to wield it.

That is what a Republic is principally based on, after all: People who desire the power step up and say that they want it, the people decide which ones to give it to, and that’s it. Someone is put in charge, gets to do whatever they want for four years, no accountability, no consequences.

What I wanna…

Have we already forgotten the promises made when the Democrats took over Congress in 2007? And what of the general discourse against the Republicans who held it before them and who still exercise their influence? Is the system really doing its job when it leads to the election of a President that most people did not vote for, and whom is now loathed by the majority of the population? How can we impeach a man for not wanting to admit that he cheated on his wife, and yet let a man who has brought about the deaths of thousands of foreign civilians go scot-free?

And worst of all, why has there never been a middle-class citizen in office? How have we descended into a system whereby only the wealthy have the means to seek power?

The bloggers are bright and alive today, beseeching their readers in the Super Tuesday states to go out and vote for their preferred candidate, often stressing that participation in the system is one’s civic duty, a blessing from our forefathers, a righteous privilege that must be exercised at the exclusion of all other obligations. After all, the country is a mess! We need to bring in new blood to get us out of it!

There are other options, though.

It’s systemic…

The solution to our problems is NOT to be found via the system. The system is the problem, and worse yet, it is also self-perpetuating. Vote for the people who preach change all you want; You have no assurance against the notion that they are only flourishing their sweet words to get your support. When they don’t come through on their promises, you’ll go back to the polls to vote for the next wealthy snake oil salesman, and the whole thing will repeat. Each vote that you cast guarantees that the system will survive.

The cycle needs to end. Already, the majority of those eligible to vote do not do so. One might conclude that this means that the government no longer represents the will of the people. This is completely true, and always has been. That is clearly not enough, however, as we can plainly see that the government still exists, corruption and all. Nevertheless, if the state of things can reach such a deep trough that 100% of Americans lose faith in the system and refuse to participate, instantly, the government will be invalidated, the offices of those with power will become void, and the entire machine will fall apart to at last be replaced.

Of course, we all know what will take its place. We’ll draft a new so-called Democracy, with new ideas designed to minimize government, assure accountability, and promote the will of the people. If that sounds familiar, you are reminded of the Americans of the late 18th century who already tried that. Look at where we are now and tell me if they were really so visionary.

Here is my plea to you: Do not vote today, and do not vote in November, or ever again for that matter. The promises of change are mere words, spoken by individuals who would say anything to taste the sweet nectar of power. Want to really make a difference? Help the old lady next door take out her garbage. Adopt an abused child. Give money to cancer research. Recycle. But don’t try to effect change by voting for the people who say they’ll do all of those things and then some. They won’t. They don’t have to. They’re in charge.

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