Interesting Times Friday Mailbag: "Get to the choppah!"

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keep sending those questions,
(to journalcomic at gmail dot com don’tcha know)
and also keep sending those guest comics!
got some good ones so far, stranger!

BEGIN COMMENTARY: Sometimes, what I like to do is lie to readers. Of course there was never any Predator hidden in the specific comic I refer to nor any other. Okay, “lie” is a very strong term. I like to play small practical jokes in which I make up things that are totally untrue about the comic. (I exaggerate about myself all the time — why wouldn’t I exaggerate about the site itself a little?) I suppose my hope is that one day I will get an irritated email from somebody who says “You know I actually went back and checked out all those comics and there are no Predators anywhere! >:(”

Anyway the tendency to lie about past comics is a running joke of mine, for myself. I guess I really am a jerk sometimes?

P.S. I really like panel 2, and I did a surprising amount of research on how to do the Predator cloaking effect for panel 3 before giving up and faking it myself. I don’t remember what I ended up doing (all the guides are for Photoshop, which I wasn’t using) but I think it turned out nicely! [March 13, 2012]

make sure to emphasize the first syllable in ‘papsi’ and ‘ravel’, and you are golden

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Honestly I cannot even really explain the reference in the first panel. It’s a shibboleth for Mennonites from in/around Winkler, Manitoba; it may have been a popular snack combination at one time, or is possibly just funny because it really gives one the opportunity to play up a particular characteristic of the “Mennonite Accent”.

I don’t naturally have a “Mennonite Accent” (having never learned to speak Low German properly) but I can switch it on to the delight and amusement of others. I’m actually a little baffled as to why it’s so funny. I slacken my jaw a little and start dead-panning my way through a story about Peter Heinrichs getting his tractor overturned out by Schoenwiese (pronounced sorta like “Shine-vays”) and people from my area are in stitches. Not that I don’t find it funny myself, but I’m the sort of person who likes to think about why things are funny and this sort of eludes me. [March 13, 2012]