We see in today’s (not exactly brilliant) comic that Lothar’s claustrophobia shows up again today, as well as me ripping off a joke from Red Dwarf. If anyone can name the episode it is from and what characters were used to tell it, I shall tell you what one of our forum members say is the best insult ever. He said it, not me.

We have fan art, but I’m ill so I can’t be arsed farting on with the uploading. So now I’m going to post a load of random bollocks to try and pass off for a rant before I collapse in my own mucus.

Being basically a 6’4” child, I tend to enjoy watching old cartoons from the 80’s and 90’s when they come out on DVD. For example, spurred on by my love affair with the demo of the new Incredible Hulk game (“Ultimate Destruction”, FOR THE LOVE OF ZOMBIE BRUCE WILLIS, TRACK DOWN A DEMO NOW!) I picked up a DVD of the old 90’s cartoon and enjoyed watching it. Though I did again notice one thing that plagued cartoons of the era. Despite there being approximately 100 billion rounds of ammo used, enough punches thrown to lay out Tom Jones on Viagra and military equipment exploding all over the place, nobody ever gets hurt.

I’m serious, whenever the Hulk brings down a helicopter, the animators make a point of showing you that the pilots got out safely, unless they are robots which means they explode violently when hit by a light breeze.

It’s weird isn’t it? You have all these evil guys going out to kill everyone, yet they take so much care to not actually hit anyone with their bullets. And then when the good guys come out, they fight back but never actually hit the bad guys. Take the old G.I. Joe cartoon, nobody EVER got shot in that. What the hell is the point in this Cobra? You’ve got all this military-grade weaponry that you’re using to implant secret mind control technology in teddy bears or whatever your inane scheme is this week, yet when push comes top shove you can’t actually bring yourself to kill anyone? And you, G.I. Joe, one of the most effective ways to stop a bad guy is to kill them, or at least incapacitate them,. But no, you just make sure they hide behind some rocks for five minutes. The only time I’ve ever seen a person get shot in a cartoon is when they’re a super-powered being who can’t possibly get hurt by a bullet. Or in most cases, they get shot by a laser on the stun setting.

Oddly enough, most cartoons use laser more than real guns. Take the 90’s Spider-Man cartoon. The police, villains and everyone else had fucking laser guns. IN 90’S NEW YORK CITY. Why the hell are they carrying round something that wouldn’t look out of place in a sci-fi movie? Surely lasers are more expensive that proper guns? Perhaps it is because they are more humane, leaving the wound cauterised instead of just a gaping bloody wound where the target’s chest should be. AND THEY STILL CAN’T HIT ANYBODY WITH THEM!

Not that I have anything against lasers or plasma weaponry. Hell Lothar uses one in EN and Grim because it can do more damage than a ballistic weapon of similar size. But still, EN/Grim is a sci-fi universe, not present day New York. Still when the show features a guy who can walk on walls and lift up a car with little effort, I guess they think we can suspend our disbelief a little further.