1249 Power Of The Dark Side.

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This is one of those pages that started out okay, but got improved exponentially by inspiration. I happened to see a little article about Star Wars just before I started inking and this came to me. After a few minor modifications this strange amalgam was born. X3

A reader told me that since I created Between Failures fathers day was also for me, and I instantly saw, in my mind, the face of my own father if I had been foolish enough to say something like that in his presence. XD He’s never been one to tolerate flowery sentiment. They’d been married for a decade before he even started signing his name to cards for my mother, and for hi that was a huge show of affection. I don’t think they make men like him anymore. If they do I’ve not encountered one other than him. Probably why the world is considerably more fucked up that it was when I was a kid. I wouldn’t have left things in my generations hands…
It should come as no surprise that the Teen has not been cheery today. Against my mother’s better judgement she is alone at her father’s grave as I type this from my phone. Her sister will probably be along shortly, but she wanted some alone time. We left her out there with her backpack, which I supported against my better judgement. I’m the custodian of her father’s knives now, but you never know. I just decided trusting her was the right thing to do and went with it.
When I gave dad his present he said “Well, bless your heart. You’re a good kid, even if you are worthless.” Which, while not spoken with any particular malice, perfectly encapsulates our relationship. Still, passive aggressive dad is better than no dad, so I’m not gonna complain.

55 Comments

In that last panel, Ithink you mean “Felines”

I came by to encourage you to -actually- change it to that, because it was just too damn awesome not to. Nice surprise to see you already did. =)

Oh, and of course – (somewhat) long-time reader, first time commenter (wouldn’t even have commented if I didn’t want the ‘felines’ there XD ), blablabla. Just keep doing what you do, and you’re good. BF is just amazing. =)

Too much god damn cute.

Now they’re just being silly.

Aren’t they?

It’s hard to believe my Dad will be gone ten years this September. He was quite a noble character, however reserved. Scots by blood, he could squeeze a Buffalo nickle and sell the buffalo chips for a penny. For example: in 1975, my brother bought a ten-year-old Plymouth for $40. Twenty years and 100,000 miles later, Dad sold the car for $100. Born and raised in Ohio, he wasn’t one to speak out of turn or attract attention needlessly. Still, after serving in the U.S. Army and finishing College part time, a prospective employer drove from Connecticut to Akron to interview him for the job from which he would eventually retire. His name appears in a book of ‘Who’s Who in Organic Chemistry’. The job he had a Baccalaureate of Science to fill in 1951, required a PhD to replace him in 1996. He was a transplanted Yankee, spending the rest of his life in Connecticut. Everything about New England suited him but the climate; he swore that Hell was cold. He heartily approved of the Yankee philosophy of Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.

Those would be awesome shoes to fill.

I’m of the perception that they were different times, not necessarily better.

My mom and uncles told me stories about how my grandfather would beat (not merely spank) my uncles, and that wasn’t necessarily a socially frowned on activity.

I don’t think people viewed human life in that era the same way we do today. I mean, I have a late great aunt who never married because she lost her fiance to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Well, in the times before, life was, to quote Thomas Hobbes, “Poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Human life was certainly not viewed — or valued — as we see it today. Both of my parents lost their mothers to pneumonia when they were five, in 1929 and 1931. Heck, it was still serious business when I had it in 1961 (I was 4½).

Medicine and technology have advanced so much in the past century that we can now die of catastrophic illnesses and calamitous accidents that were unheard of in my parents’ time. Once, Tuberculosis, Typhus and Typhoid (they are separate and distinct) and Smallpox killed tens of thousands a year. Polio killed and crippled thousands more. When is the last time you heard of a kid with Mumps? I had it, once in the left, and again in the right. Our Pediatrician made a house-call for the first one. I had Chickenpox, too; vaccines exist for most of these, now. Today most of these are almost as rare as Plague, although they do arise in Third-World countries and antibiotic-resistant Tuberculosis is making a comeback. Your Tetanus shot is actually DPT, a combined vaccine against Diphtheria, Tetanus, and Pertussis. These three diseases killed and disabled many in the old times.

Beatings, regardless of what the Media want you to think, have always been frowned upon, but Society interferes more now than it used to. People are closer today, in part due to the move to the suburbs and the city, and because the population is so much larger and denser. It’s harder (certainly not impossible) to get away with child abuse, but public attention also interferes with what would have been normal correction when I was a child. A swat on the butt that would have gone unnoticed in the early 1960s will land Mom or Dad in jail today. Need I bring up the specter of Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Adam Lanza and a dozen other cases of undisciplined monsters run rampant? There has to be a balance.

My Dad’s great Aunt (yes, Granddad’s Aunt) was born shortly after the end of the Civil War. We used to visit her when I was a child. She died a spinster at the age of 97, because she vowed she would only marry when she found a man as good as her Father. He must have been quite a man.

Wow.

Thank you for sharing, Perfesser_Bear.

Those details are very helpful for one to gain perspective on the past (and are some great stories, too).

FWIW, your story, about the hurtful thing your Dad said to you, [struck a nerve with me].

***If READERS don’t like reading unhappy, true stories, please stop reading this comment, NOW!***

I love my mom to death, don’t get me wrong. She was a very good mom, when doing mom stuff.
She passed on a few years ago, may she rest in peace.

But, sometimes, over years- she + other people she knew- would hit me, on my shoulders + torso, when they got frustrated with someone else. They didn’t bruise me, but these actions that they did, were still wrong.

Some schools she sent me to, had kids who did the same thing.
I told many teachers + adults about it,…and they didn’t believe me. So I wasn’t helped at all.
So, I developed a habit of big…flinching, when- someone/something startled me, or if- it looked like someone I cared about, was going to swing on me.

…Fast forward, into my 20s…my parents + I went to a friends wedding, in Connecticut.

We stayed in a small hotel.
After the wedding, Dad went out shopping, + mom + I stayed in the hotel room.
Mom had the TV on, + had the volume on very low.

I asked her if it would be OK if- I took a nap for about 2 hours, while we waited for Dad. She said that was OK, and I took a nap.

2 hours later, I’m woken up by my mom saying, in a sneering-kind of way: “Are you going to GET UP, NOW??? Or do I have to STARTLE YOU into FLIGHT?”

I was just waking up, + was not…at all…believing that she’d say that kind of vicious sh*t to me.

So I said,”What…?”, And she replied, mockingly, “Uh huh,…”what…”.”

I let the matter go, because I knew she wouldn’t apologize for what she said, + she wouldn’t ever repent from saying abusive stuff like that, either.

But at the time, I wanted to say to her:
” You…Complete…BASTARD!…You KNOW I didn’t deserve to have THAT vicious [crap] said to me!…AND YOU KNOW IT!”

But you have to pick you battles, I guess,+ I knew she’d never see that her action was wrong. My pointing out her bad behavior would have gotten me nothing. That’s how that was.

Some people just don’t learn [not to say abusive things like that, to people], I guess.

But that’s how [that went]. the heck with it.

Thus endeth the story.

These puns left me catatonic.

Seriously? Of all the things we could be doing, we’re doing this?

*sigh*

Mew’ve gato be kitty’n me. We can’t have de-scent conversation beclaws of all the cat talk going nyan.

Purrhaps I’m being a litter heavy-pawed, but come on nyow! Enyough is enyou- uh… tunyan later. The can opener is ringing and I’ve gato take this clawl.

I think you’ve got this licked, I had to paws and admire your de-tailed and a-mew-sing response that was so littered with purrfectly … hey, ow, your hurting ma-nek-i-nek-o …[SNAP]

lives–

Sorry, but “Mew know it”? Try “You mew it to be true!”

Besides “You ‘mew’ it to be true” would be akin to saying “You ‘knew’ it to be true”, due to the rhyming nature of word play. Since that would imply past-tense here, it just really doesn’t work.

I’m not even lion – this whole thing was hilarious! I mean, you cheetah bit by using mew multiple times, but in the end, the comic is purrfect

“Well, bless your heart. You’re a good kid, even if you are worthless.”

When a line like that is uttered by family, and it doesn’t end in tears or butthurt, that’s a great relationship.

By “butthurt”, do you mean ” genuinely upset over a comment that could be considered cruel in many circumstances?”

I hope The Teen feels better.

Okay, I’ve been trying to figure this out for ages, and I thought I was close, but you just shattered every theory I had.
What is your relation to The Teen?? This has been plaguing my mind forever and I give up!!

All we need now is for a latter scene to have them doing a play-test of the mew … er new …. cat based horror RP game …… http://www.catthulhu.com/ ….. boxed sets sold out by the second day at Origins. I did not even hear about the kickstarter.

The rules-light RPG where cats save the world, and the humans just open the tuna.

Funniest strip ever, anywhere. I’m not even going to try and add any cat puns; they’d be completely inadequate. I’m a bit jealous that your relationship with your dad is a lot better than the one I had with my dad. He’s gone now, and I try to remember the better moments.

At least you still talk to your dad man, me and my dad haven’t been on speaking terms in 22 years. Mostly because he’s an immoral prick who the more I find out about him the more I hate his guts. So at least it’s good you’re still on (somewhat) good terms with your father sounds like.

Finally working my way through what I’ve missed; it’s all great.
And then this page happens. It’s just so fucking cheesy… I love it.

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