Note: I wrote this for the Tee-mab book (still available for purchase!) well over a year ago. Not many people have gotten to read it, but I really like it and consider it amongst my best material, so I’m recopying it here for everyone to devour. Yum yum yum.

In most parts of the world, superheroes comprise an extension of local police forces. Though modern superheroes are revered by the citizens that they swear to serve, the world’s superhero systems have a long history of vigilantism and blatant showmanship.

The first reported superhero appeared in the mid 1800’s, a flamboyant performing crimefighter who called himself Mr. Splendid. Splendid, with his trademark handlebar mustache and billowing pants, captured the public’s imagination as he independently defeated criminals in epic battles featuring dazzling displays of acrobatics. His service to the law proved to be indispensable, but in time, Mr. Splendid’s handsome looks and flashy pageantry began to attract criminals who sought to build similar fame for themselves. Thus the first supervillains entered the spotlight.

According to news records, Mr. Splendid’s first encounter with a supervillain was in the spring of 1867, when he faced off against the rogue physician, Dr. Smallpox, in a small town in Pennsylvania. The hours-long battle that ensued was filled with brilliant pyrotechnics, gripping drama, and carefully choreographed hand-to-hand combat. Citizens all throughout town came to gawk at the spectacle, and after nearly an entire afternoon of rave critical reviews, Dr. Smallpox offered a draw. Mr. Splendid accepted the offer, only to challenge Dr. Smallpox again several weeks later after having recruited the world’s first super sidekick — a local adolescent who took the name Jonathan Magnificent — to tip the odds in his favor.

Dr. Smallpox responded by recruiting a comrade of his own: a mad vagabond named Frederick the Rabid. Seeing yet another stalemate, Mr. Splendid sought out further allies, prompting Dr. Smallpox to act in turn. So the cycle continued until the conflict, though entertaining beyond the wildest imaginations of all who witnessed it, became a meme that spread out-of-control throughout the world.

The fights, while dangerous, had proved too delightful for the public to be willing to live without them. Nevertheless, the wanton destruction that typically accompanied superbattles necessitated legislation, and so the North American Stylized Crimfighting Commission (NASCC) was founded in 1877 in an attempt to minimize — through careful regulation — the impact of the rapidly proliferating superconflict, while still maximizing the entertainment value that it provided.

Today, in America, there is one superhero or superduo for approximately every 5000 civilians (duos are allowed to share posts, and have similar rights to married couples in most states). To ensure that the balance between villains and heroes remains even enough to keep the battles interesting, most district posts are reserved for heroes who have acquired the single-minded attention of a similarly-abled supervillain. It is not uncommon for new college graduates to spend several years making a meager, independent living before entering a nemesisial relationship with a supercriminal.

Controversy over the superhero system continues to this day. Supporters maintain that heroes are needed to combat the ever present supervillain menace, while detractors frequently point out that these villains only came to exist in the first place because of the vanity of the superheroes. One thing, however, remains clear: The battles are really damned cool to watch.

Ray Merkler
Accredited Superologist
October 5, 2007

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I left the webcomics world a year ago today. I still don’t quite know how I feel about it.

The TMABB site is still there, still showing the goodbye entry, still advertising the book that people finally stopped buying a few months after the end. I don’t load the site very often, but it’s never easy when I do. I miss it, even despite how much I hated working on it half of the time. It’s sort of the way you miss an ex.

The whole thing is still incredibly disappointing for me. Webcomics has always been a pretty tight community, and I guess I just really wanted to be a part of it, to be known. Part of me still does. Tee-mab was simply not succeeding, though, despite my best efforts.

I was trying! Really! But two years of giving it a solid go without seeing any significant growth in audience? If it was going to succeed, it would have after the first year. I stuck it out longer than I should have, though, because I wanted to be really sure that things weren’t going to turn around. And they didn’t. I mean, okay, at least I broke even on the book, but I only printed 15 copies. So I quit.

The good news is, my life has gotten a lot better in the last year. My weekly routine is now basically free of stress. I’m making real progress on my current big project, after having stalled on Ultimate Epic Conflict Advance!. My fiancee and I have managed to build a homebrewing blog that pays for more than its share of my Dreamhost account. I have a fiancee. So things are totally better now. Quitting proved to be the right decision.

There’s just still a lot of guilt. I still have the story in my head, but it looks like it’s never going to get finished. I hate that. It’s a really good story, I swear. I’ve told it to a select few people and they seemed to like it. We were about six months away from the most awesome-sauce plot twist ever when I quit. You’d've loved it. You would’ve crapped your pants and it would have smelled like feces.

Maybe I should have quit sooner. If I had realized the strip was failing before I used up all of my energy on it, I would have had it in me to at least close out the story.

I hope I can revisit TMABB some day, give it a full blown do-over from square one. For now, though, I have more potentially lucrative projects that I want to give my attention to.

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So here’s what I figure. I’ve already ruined my parody breastfeeding post by having to explain why the fucking thing is funny. Why not go all the way and explain the jokes bit by bit? Really destroy it, you know?

Here is the entire post all over again, with my explanations:

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT — Could Your Mother Have Put Her Breast In Your Mouth?

Setting the tone right from the get-go, this satirizes the common alarmist investigative journalism tactic by asking the dire question: Could this horrible thing have happened/is happening/be going to happen to you?

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

Establishing the “sexual” nature of breastfeeding, which there obviously isn’t one, and satirically citing conservatives and religious figures as the end-all-be-all authorities of all manner of whatnot.

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.

A few layers here. First, you’ve got the stereotypical first sentence in any investigative journalism tape: “They’re calling it [whatever], and it’s taking [whatever] by storm.” Second, we establish the spin of the piece by wording the obviously normal act of breastfeeding to sound grotesquely clinical and immoral. Finally, a statement of absurd ignorance, suggesting that people “think” that breastfeeding provides nourishment, which it obviously does.

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.”

Spinning the interviewee as stubbornly immoral, and painting the absurd picture of breastfeeding as an act of sexual assault. This also causes the reader to subvocalize the quote in a hostile, immoral tone.

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.]”

This quote has obviously been edited, using AP standard markup, to mean the opposite of what Dr. Ungress actually said. The correct quote is probably to the effect of, “There is significant research to suggest that infants who are breastfed grow up to be healthy … and substantially more resistant to disease.” If it wasn’t obvious that this quote was being mangled, the insertion of the mention of “corruption” and the citing of clergy as scientific authorities ought to drive the satire home.

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.

This is one of my favorite lines in the whole post. First, we point out the alarming statistic that the majority of mothers breastfeed, and then — this is the really brilliant part — we point out that breastfeeding is more common in developing nations, suggesting that people of less civilized status are more likely to indulge in this heinous act. It should be noted that every single word of this line was verified through research. 66% of American mothers do indeed breastfeed, 22% of them do indeed do so for longer than six months, and the number is indeed higher in developing countries. Using carefully arranged context, we can make this sound awful.

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.”

These two paragraphs satirize the air of infallibility that Christians afford to the Pope, primarily by their very inclusion in the piece. No sane journalist would ever suggest that the Pope’s opinion on a scientific matter is, to wit, gospel. Yet here it is. We also get a bit of misogyny, which is always funny as hell.

A disturbing ritual…

An ominous subheading…

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.

Again, satirically calling breastfeeding “sexual”, and warning the reader that a description of it might be disturbing.

“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.

The detail is a bit creepy here, and almost suggests that the writer is enjoying the show (obviously, I’m wring this in character). Also, we see that the writer is so ignorant that he does not realize that milk comes out of breasts.

“I just raise her head up to my breast like so,” she said as she brought the infant’s 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.

“Dangerously” close. I could have just said “close”, but no, it was also “dangerous”. I also satirize the writer’s obvious bias, by saying that if the baby is no longer crying, it couldn’t possibly be because it is now satisfied. It must be suffocating!

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

“Intercourse” is the key word here. It’s not enough that I’m referring to breastfeeding as sexual. I must also call it intercourse, as if the mother is actually teat-raping the baby.

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.

We have some very careful word choice here by saying that one “commits” breastfeeding, as one might “commit” a crime. “The agenda of the mammary activists” is a veiled allusion — although what allusion isn’t veiled? — to the conservative Right’s use of the term “gay agenda”. This paragraph also satirically rouses the ignorant reader to action.

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.

Satirizing blatant, unrepentant misogyny, something stereotypical in extremely conservative rants.

“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.”

The only real joke in this paragraph is the suggestion of Bible readings in place of breastfeeding. “Breastfeeding reeducation” is a pretty funny term, too, though.

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.

Not really any joke there, just needed a closing. On that note, this post is over. I hope you agree with me that the joke is thoroughly ruined now.

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Does parody even work anymore?

This has been on my mind ever since I wrote a post last year about the dangers of breast feeding. In it, I began by describing, for those unfamiliar, the recent trend in which mothers of infants and toddlers put their breasts in their children’s mouths, as if to substitute the sexually deviant act for nourishment. Through interviews, scientific studies, and even a graphically detailed description of the practice as personally witnessed, I provided evidence, proof positive, that breastfeeding is a real threat that everyone must be aware of and vigilant against. It was incontrovertible, airtight, and a great service to good conservative Christian morals.

And no one got the joke.

I wrote it in an exaggerated investigative style. I used AP standards to mangle invented quotes to serve an asinine thesis. I cited clergy as scientific sources. I used the word intercourse to refer to breastfeeding, for Magic Space Wizard’s sake, and somehow, it just wasn’t ever absurd enough. Hardly anyone realized that it was a parody of investigative journalism and conservative morality. People thought I was being serious.

I was baffled for weeks before my short attention span came back and I found something else to be outraged by, but the whole thing stuck to the back of my mind like an atomic Band-Aid. How could something that I thought was so obviously satire be construed as genuine?

The same problem can be seen in reactions to The Onion’s editorial cartoons and the Onion-affiliated parody conservative Christian blog ChristWire.org. In the former case, many people think that The Onion is creating genuine conservative satire, and in the latter case, people think the blog author honestly is “extremely terrified of the Chinese” and believes that prom night is “Satan’s plan to get your daughter pregnant“. Both spout endless absurdities that no sound-minded person could ever honestly believe in, and no one gets the joke.

Many months ago, I discovered Conservapedia, a wiki-based encyclopedia founded by conservative Andy Schlafly, who felt that Wikipedia contained “liberal, anti-Christian, and anti-American” bias. Fair enough, was my first thought. I’ll give anyone my attention for a minute or two if they don’t sound crazy, so I clicked around the site for a bit, figuring there can’t be much harm with hearing an opposing argument.

What I found though, was in many instances bizarre. Bible verses cited in arguments against homosexuality; criticisms against feminists for going against tradition; McCarthic links between Atheism and Communism; a note that President Obama uses mind control in his speeches.

That was when I realized… this is why the parodies don’t work. These people really do sound like this.

Conservative far-rightists should find this terrifying. Their rhetoric has become so ridiculous that, when we as satirists try to make fun of them, people think we are them. When one cannot make it through a conservative treatise without thinking it might be a joke, that it’s just too out there to be real, while at the same time interpreting a piece satirizing those same conservatives as sincere, something must be wrong.

There was a time when conservatives just wanted minimal government and fair laws. But then, at some point, they found morality, and now, they themselves have become a parody.

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