Gonogo.

Gilded Age Rocketry

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Sketch of GONOGO comic
Pencil Sketch of Season II Episode 10

I have always had a complicated relationship with spaceflight. I used to host a  very successful, (if I do say so myself) Yuri’s Night space party, which celebrates the first human spaceflight on April 12, 1961 by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. But nowadays celebrating billionaires playing astronaut feels a bit ooky. (and a Russian themed party also seems a bit ooky too) Part of the joke of this cartoon was to point out the desire to get away from all of BS and start fresh, which is a fantasy for all us non-billionaires. But as it turns out, this fantasy might be the thing we have in common with the Elon Musks of the world. He has said he wants to die on Mars, I wonder if he might be trying to outrun his creditors too…

 

Alexa, Drones and Black Sites, Oh My!

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The strikes at Amazon announced today make this months GONOGO comic particularly relevant. I freely admit that I get lots of things from Amazon, and it is a necessary evil for most Americans. I also happen to believe that the relationship between Management and Labor is a pendulum, which has swung over into Management’s side for far too long. (I suppose the other aspect of the comic, the drones, are also particularly relevant today too…) Anyway, please be nice to your Amazon driver (or other delivery folks) especially around Christmas. Those cheap delivery fees do have a human cost that is not reflected in the price you pay. And as always, be careful what you say around Alexa, she’s always listening. Merry Christmas from GONOGO!

Postal Possum

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Process Watercolor: Postal Possum Delivers

I have been searching for a metaphor for the rumor mill, Washington leaks and social media all rolled into one. This months episode introduces that character: Postal Possum. I always enjoyed the episodes in the Sunday comic “B.C.” when the main character would float a stone tablet across the water and then receive a response at the end of the strip. I felt that Postal Possum could provide that kind of device to GONOGO. We are living in an age of disinformation as well as an age where all of our information is not only second hand, but much of it is from unqualified sources. A possum rooting through the garbage under the streets of DC seems kinda on the nose these days. I hope that he becomes a recurring character, because depending on how things shake out in November, he may just be the only news source we can trust…

Teddy’s Paradox

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The whole point of this months GONOGO (with Teddy Roosevelt professing to love animals in order to shoot the bejesus out of them) is the contradiction (or paradox?) that someone would preserve wildlife in order to shoot it. I hope that it is not lost on my readers that this was the Republican stance over a hundred years ago.  In a way, Teddy’s paradoxical view is light years away from where the current parties stand on these issues. It will be interesting to know how the Republican Party will react to the attempted assassination of Trump, however I doubt the answer for them will ever be “fewer guns”. It will not be lost on my readers that Teddy Roosevelt also survived an assassination attempt (and kept his speech rolling for a 50 minutes after being shot in the chest) which proves that GONOGO is once again “predicting the future”… It is my sincere hope that we, as Americans, can steer our parties away from the extremes and towards the center, even if it’s a paradox like Teddy’s.

A Bridge to History

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Season II Episode 3 Pencil Sketch

I have often said that the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge is a character in GONOGO. But this month’s episode takes it a step farther by unlocking the ghost of the former President himself. I am cautious about introducing new characters too often, because it can feel like there are too many people to keep track of, but I feel that this one is worth it. The comic would suffer if Foggy and Smithson only talked to each other. Having new characters is a way for them to communicate with the outside world and react to the profound weirdness that the DC area provides. In a way Teddy is personifying a feeling that any DMV resident carries with them subconsciously all the time; the weight of history in this place. All of the monuments, the civil war, the revolutionary war, civil rights, the world wars, Vietnam, 9/11 (the rest of America may forget that the Pentagon was hit that day, but folks around here find it hard to forget) even Jan 6 is part of the history around here. So, that is part of why Teddy has popped up in GONOGO, he’s a refection of the ever-present feeling of history that we have around here, and as a bonus I get the opportunity to make another republican look ridiculous (although they don’t seem to need my help doing that lately…)

Groundhog Day Watercolor

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Scanned watercolor used in panels 3 and 5

I have said many times before that I am intentionally being a luddite when making a webcomic. That is, while I do assemble the comic in Photoshop, each panel is a painstakingly hand-crafted watercolor painting. (I buck convention with webcomics in lots of other ways, specifically the one page format, which not the “vertical infinite scroll” format which is very popular with people consuming comics on their phones) I did make a small, but significant, concession to my luddite process in Episode 2 of Season II. I made a watercolor of the background which I then inserted as the same background in 6 of the 8 panels on the page. I have heard that when contemporary webcomics do this with background characters (sometimes main characters) the term is “Sprites”. I can see the appeal of not having to draw characters over and over again (and to be fair, for the gag in this comic I have used the same watercolor of the characters in panels 3 and 5) but I think that the “wonkyness” of repainting each character is part of the, ahem, artistic point of this comic. I have always tried to play up the hand-made nature of GONOGO, but I am not so dogmatic about it that I don’t allow myself to cheat on my ideals from time to time…so there, you caught me. Happy now?

“Sprite” Elevator Background in panels 2-7

Cue the Dramatic Music

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Welcome to the blog post about the penultimate episode in season I of GONOGO. It has been a wild ride, and I am really excited about posting “The Hatch Part II” next week, as it will be the capstone on two years of hard work. When I started this comic in the early days of the pandemic I had high hopes that I would be able to dash off episodes in a manner of minutes and spend my days drinking DC Brau beer in a hammock. The reality is that because I decided to “buck convention” in webcomics and “kick it old school” I set myself up for around 20 hours of labor for each episode, start to finish. That, my friends, is a part time job. I am not complaining, but as this season comes to a close, it has given me reason to reflect on how I might make the process go faster for season II.

I do hope that my musical friends appreciated the insertion of the “dramatic chipmunk” music into the last episode. I don’t read music, so I don’t know if it actually says what I wanted it to, but I haven’t had any complaints either, so the internet must get things right occasionally…

MK ULTRA EXTRAVAGANZA

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Eagle eyed readers of GONOGO will be able to spot many references to earlier plot points featured this season in this weeks comic. Diving into the psychedelic horror that would exist in the minds of Foggy and Smithson, I wanted to highlight the paranoid and conspiracy theory driven world we are living in at the moment. I also added in a healthy dose of sixties era psychedelia art references because, lets face it, a little goes a long way, and the Federal Government is going to save money by using up the old stockpile. These last three episodes have been the most popular yet, which makes me wonder what that says about you, dear reader…
We are heading into the home stretch for season one. This was episode 22, and we are ending on episode 26. I am interested in collecting data from you folks about the future of this strip, but I will ask you all more about that in the coming weeks. Thanks again for reading, and as every Youtuber says, “Like and Subscribe!”

For the Record, I am NOT “Q”

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The Facebook algorithm is at it again. Last week’s comic featured the last panel where Foggy states “I am “Q”.”  If you are a human being, you read the comic and find it amusing that the troll claims he is “Q” in order to earn $100. But, if you are a soulless AI you decide that this is an affront to your very purpose in life. Yep, the comic was flagged for “Misrepresentation”. The Facebook AI believed that I was claiming to be “Q”.

So, just to be on the good side of our robot overlords I want to state for the record: I am NOT “Q”. Now, enjoy your comics, humans.

Two All Beef Patties of “NOPE”

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Mayor McChez stumps for votes under the Roosevelt Bridge

The bots may have won this round. Facebook has denied me the ability to advertise this week’s cartoon, for nebulous reasons, but I suspect it’s because I have the words “Republican” and “Asinine” in the same sentence. Its funny that the week I get blocked is the same week that the former President gets blocked by Facebook. I have been aspiring to have this little satiric cartoon be “politics lite” because it is part of my lived experience here in DC. That is, while politics is ever present in my life, it is not the main focus. There are, however, certain universal truths, like putting “Republican” and “Asinine” in the same sentence.

 

Fortunately there are things that the bots simply wont catch. I doubt that they have seen the commercial with the gorilla and the Samsonite luggage from the 80’s. The derecho of 2013? Or my universal metaphor for a corrupt politician, Mayor McChez. Mr. Mayor is the first outside character to be introduced in the GONOGO Multiverse. How can you not love a politician with a cheeseburger for a face? We will be seeing some more of him in the coming episodes, but rest assured he’s not moving in under the bridge with the boys, he’s going to be long gone before the bots catch on….