Comics Archives - Page 22 of 57

Kissing Spider-Man

The famous scene from the Spider-Man movie (2002), where Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) is kissing Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) while he hangs upside down, easily entered the list of the most iconic scenes in film history. In fact, according to Wikipedia, Entertainment Weekly put the famous Spider-Man kiss scene on its end-of-the-decade “best-of” list, saying (quote): “There’s a fine line between romantic and corny. And the rain-soaked smooch between Spider-Man and Mary Jane from 2002 tap-dances right on that line. The reason it works? Even if she suspects he’s Peter Parker, she doesn’t try to find out. And that’s sexy.”

In the mood for some more superhero cartoons? Here’s Spider-Man’s virginity test [NSFW], and here are some lions impersonating as superheroes.

Supergirl vs. Superman – on Gender Pay Gap

Supergirl vs. Superman – had they been paid, should they really earn exactly the same?

The rather disputed, yet widely quoted, statistic says that women earn 78 cents on the dollar compared to men.
Why is this number problematic? First, it relies on a rather simple calculation from the U.S. Census Bureau: the difference between women’s annual median earnings and men’s annual median earnings. (That difference is 22 cents, hence the 78 cents on the dollar statistic).
Second, it measures annual wages. The gap gets smaller when you look at weekly wages (18 cents) or hourly wages (13 cents).
Third, it doesn’t take into consideration other aspects that may affect you salary. For example, some men might be more assertive compared to women when it comes to annual salary negotiations. Some women might prefer professions that pay less (like teaching). Some women, especially younger moms, prefer to work less hours so they could spend more time with their kids.
So while there is little dispute about the actual numbers, there is a lot of room for interpretation, and whether they imply that intended gender pay gap indeed exists.

Now that we compared Supergirl vs. Superman, how about reading about some other superheroes? Here’s one about Superman marrying Wonder Woman. And here’s the bizarre story of Reverse Psychology Man.

So I Heard You’re Doing Stuff Behind My Back

When a love story begins, it’s all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns with fluttering butterfly wings. After years of searching you’ve finally found your soul mate. You date a couple of times, there’s a sudden “spark”, and then you fall in love. But it takes weeks, months or even years to develop a meaningful relationship, based on love, acceptance, and most importantly: trust. And then one day that trust is ruined. You find out your spouse is having an affair. The person you trust the most is cheating on you behind your back. They call it a life shattering moment, maybe because it’s the moment you realize your spouse has just shat all over your life.

In a way, finding out you’re a victim of infidelity is like finding out Trump won the presidency: the odds for it happening are more than reasonable, yet you’re amazed to find out that it actually happened. People who found out their spouse had an affair usually go through the five stages of grief – Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. It’s not surprising, because in a way, adultery often means that the relationship has ended, though many couples may seek to try and rebuild their marriage after an affair.

Personally, I don’t understand how could anyone who has a job find the time to have an affair. Especially married people with kids. Between my job and my kids, I can barely find the time to manage one relationship, let alone two. If there’s one that I gotta hand to adulterers, it’s that they have excellent time management skills, because affairs are so time consuming. They require so much handling – there’s so much logistics, and coordinating, and lies. Maybe that’s why so many managers and politicians have affairs – they’re not hornier than the rest of us, they’re just very good at time management and bullshitting people.

You may wish to go behind my back and check out some more cartoons about having an affair. Here’s a comic about the risks of cheating (NSFW), and here’s infidelity as presented on a Woody Allen movie. And to finish on an optimistic note, here’s a cartoon about how love eventually triumphs.

The Art of Faking

Believe it or not, I drew this cartoon way before the latest public discussion about “fake news” and “alternative facts” came to surface.

The recent debate about the authenticity of major news sources follows President Trump’s latest clash with CNN. Trump claimed that CNN, as well as other news networks, intentionally published distorted figures regarding the crowd size during Trump’s inauguration ceremony. Trump went further and accused CNN of spreading “fake news”. With your kind permission, I’ll steer away from this discussion. I’ll do this since, much like most of you, I have no way of finding out who is right and who is wrong in this argument. Also, I really have no interest in participating, or knowing the results of, this stupid argument inauguration-crowd-size-comparison-slash-presidential-dick-measuring-contest between Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Instead, I would like to take a few moments to discuss the the media’s role in this discussion. I’ll also try to find out whether or not the growing suspicion some people have with regards to the credibility of their news sources is justified.

Anyone who was ever first-hand witness to a story which was later published in the news, knows that reported news are not, and can never be, 100% accurate. 100% accuracy is impossible even if we’re talking about the most professional and ethical reporters. There’s a really good explanation for this: A good news reporter gets the story from several sources, cross-checks the facts, and filters what he sees as important. The story he or she writes then get through additional filters (usually by an editor). The final, cross-checked, filtered result turns to a story that you read in the paper or hear in a newscast. Since each source gives his subjective view on what happened, and since each reporter and editor applies different filters according to what he/she sees as important, two reporters covering the same story could provide different perspectives on the same story.

Most intelligent people understand the process of reporting news. Therefore, most intelligent people will accept the fact that a story can have different angles, and that it can be told in different ways.

However, most people expect their news reporters to be:

Professional – the reporter should try to get as many facts from as many reliable sources as possible.
Neutral – the reporter should leave personal beliefs and prejudice aside when reporting the story.
Authentic – the reporter should provide as many angles to the story as possible, leaving no important detail unheard. For example, at the end of an investigative story, it’s customary to publish the responses of the investigated persons, to hear their side of the story.

When a media source doesn’t comply with one or more of the above, it creates a a breach of trust between itself and its consumers. As it turns out, many news organizations are becoming less compliant the above terms.

When news organizations publish stories that contain numerous unchecked facts, or have misleading titles, just so they could get sell more papers, or get more clicks, it harms the professionalism.
When a news organization officially endorses a presidential candidate, it loses any shred of neutrality that was left in it. When news organizations omit from their reports the religious beliefs and/or ideology of terrorists, even though those terrorists say loud and clear that they are committing their acts in the name of that religion or ideology, they are omitting a very important part of the story, thus harming their authenticity.

When you add the close ties that many media moguls have with leading political and business figures, and the potential pressures the latter put on getting positive coverage, you get yet another possible reason to question the integrity of some news organizations.

Trust is the key element here. Once we start losing trust in our news sources, it’s harder for us to “believe” the news we hear, especially those news that contradict our system of beliefs or our ideology. Every new story, every piece of evidence, we start wondering: “Is this true? What is the hidden agenda behind publishing the story?”. Once we go this path, even important stories, which are based on reliable sources, start to sounds like fake news.

So in one thing Donald Trump is right: as media bias continues to become more common, major news sources continue to lose their credibility and their rating. And this should alarm us all, because a strong, independent media is a crucial part of a healthy, functioning Democracy. And if we let go our watchdogs of democracy, we’ll end up with coyotes and wolves roaming freely in our back yard.

In the mood for some more cartoons about the media and journalism? Here’s one about how news anchors are chosen, and here’s one depicting a prehistoric newscast full of fake news.

In God’s Own Image

Since our lives is basically one big dick measuring contest, it only makes sense that this was the first thing on first Man’s mind.

Just for fun, I made an alternative bonus panel, to demonstrate how adding one additional detail can change the entire meaning of a comic. You can find it here.

“In the Image of God”

Let’s get back to the scriptures. According to the Bible, Man was created in God’s own image:

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:27)

I always wondered what does the term “in God’s own image” mean. Is the bible trying to suggest that God actually has arms and legs and kidneys like us, or are we similar to God only in spirit, behavior and our way of thinking? And if we’re similar in spirit to God, does this mean God is also competitive like us?

“Thou Shalt Not Compare”

Many people prefer the literal interpretation – “we look like God”. And this usually brings out the next question – what does God actually look like. Is God male or female? Is God white? black? Chinese? These kinds of debate are fairly common, and you can find them even in popular culture: For example, in the movie “Bruce Almighty”, God is portrayed by actor Morgan Freeman, an African American actor, who wasn’t picked for the role just because of his remarkable acting skills. And in the Broadway Musical “Avenue Queue”, Kate Monster argues with Gary Coleman on whether Jesus was black or white, until they are both reminded that Jesus was… Jewish.

I find the debate itself amusing, since its whole purpose is to prove one group’s of people superiority, due to the fact that “they look more like god”. Seriously? If God is white, does it mean that white people are better than black people? We’re back at the same point we’ve started at – man’s irresistable urge to compare himself to others – the endless dick measuring contest.

In the mood for some related comic? Here’s another comic about the long lasting debate between science and religion regarding what did first man look like.

And here’s a comic about how the serpent tempted Eve.