Commentary (on-going)I would feel foolsih writing commentary for this, so I'm not going to. Andy does not like being toyed with. I finally broke this joke!!! If you do not know, this is a continuation of these comics: 4, 19, 53 and 62. For ages I had LABE written down in my journal as a shortening of LABIA and I fussed over how exactly it could work for an Early Conan. My original idea was a doctor writing a diagnosis? Like a form that asks "WHAT AREA IS EFFECTED?" and he'd write "YOU'RE LABE," but that hella doesn't make sense. I somehow I figured out a way to do it, loosely based on my award-winning tweet. Also, the "Don't forget the blood" joke: man, I knew it might've been a stretch, but it was sort of based on Bob Odenkirk talking about the director of "Monkey Bone" sheepishly explaining to Bob (who appeared in "Monkey Bone" as a surgeon) that the studio wouldn't let him have blood in his movie. Bob talks about it on Doug Benson's "I Love Movies". I made up the phrase "don’t forget the blood!" in my head for ages and no proper place to actually use it. This is gonna be a boring commentary. This is based on various 40s/50s era Goofy cartoons where Goofy learns a sport or whatever with an instructional book and record. That's it, I think. Sorry. There was always a moment from a movie I saw on TNT that haunted me, but whenever I try to describe it people insist that I'm remembering it wrong. It seemed like a crappy horror anthology movie, and I just saw the end. It was some thing where a cat saved a little girl. And then the girl thanks the cat as she drifts to sleep, but then before the credits roll the cat sucks the kid's breath out of her body and kills her? Even though she knows its going on? Like she’s not actually asleep, and it was so ambiguous and weird like I couldn't tell if this cat was magic and evil and doing it on purpose or if the whole point was that it was a dumb animal and that's what it does? I don't know. But anyway, I intentionally didn't draw this as an ANDY'S FEAR strip because I wanted it to be more ambiguous. Is this a dream? Is this something actually happening? Is Andy aware it's going on? Who knows? I don't. So, I took a week off because my job was sucking the life out of me and there was a big holiday weekend and I didn’t have a day off for a while. I was also sick as shit. Luckily my good friend Lacey made a couple of “fan” comics that were probably better than what sick-and-tired me would’ve come up with. They are in the extras section if you wanna see them! So this comic is based on an old joke that never got used for anything else. It was a joke me and Mark shared in conversation: Mark Riddles: I went outside
I looked up where Andy was born, which was Grand Rapids, and came up with the name of the “Them Sluggers.” I have no idea if Andy was living there when he was of Little League age. Please don’t write me and tell me the answer to this. I was talking to Mark Riddles and he mentioned how he wanted more Max. So I came up with this comic. Also the phrase "stinky garbage" was on TV at the exact moment as I was just coming up with what the comic would be, kinda making it up as I went along. Some commercial, I forget which. Also, this is the first official heavy-duty cuss of Early Conan. I honestly try to avoid using bad words on Early Conan, but we're in Max's world now. In Max's world, the f-word flows like water. I almost changed the name of the comic to "Maximum Max" because I've always been open to the idea to using swears on any of my spin-off comics, but never actually took advantage of that. I've now talked myself into thinking I've made the wrong choice. I'm gonna go throw up. Early Conan now has a new updating schedule: Thursday/Friday. Those are my days off from work, so those are my best bets as to actually finishing drawing comics. "How to Get Wet for Free" was a concept for a video I came up with a couple years ago. I wanted to make an instructional video about different ways you can get wet and cool off during the summer and not pay any money for it. It was mostly an excuse for me and my friend Andrew to go play in fountains and break into apartment pools and film it. My other big idea for how to get wet for free was to wait outside of those self-service car washes and wait for somebody to get done, hoping they have time left-over that we can use to hose each other down with the high-pressure rinse. All that has been boiled down to a fake headline that appears in a single panel of Max Month. Oh well. This comic is based on a true story, which I actually WAS NOT PRESENT FOR. My sister and my cousin were both at Costco when they noticed an unattended child being making faces and being a jerk AS CHILDREN ARE WONT TO DO. They ignored him at first, but then were suddenly were confronted by him as he sneakily made his way ahead of them, hiding behind a corner and waiting for them to turn said corner. When they did he met them, making the face depicted here in this comic (pulling down the bags of his eyes and jowls) and singing "JAMAICA WE HAVE A BOBSLED TEAM" from the Disney motion picture "Cool Runnings." (VIDEO LINK @ 9:35) Note: This was a few years AFTER Cool Runnings was a hit, so it was a bit of a RETRO reference. I don't know how the story ended beyond that. I assume my sister and cousin just ran away from the child, like he was a monster. Because lets face it, he kind of is. Max is a jerk. This is based on my own bathroom anxieties. I don't think it's that uncommon for men to be uncomfortable using the urinal in the presence of other men. But occasionally going into your own stall simply is not an option. So in my life I’ve had to use the urinal and try to psyche myself into peeing, either to start before anybody else walked in or perhaps is already in there. I actually have two stories about situations like this. I’ll tell the more boring one first: At work somewhat recently, I ducked into the restroom at the visitor’s center and began using the toilet in the stall. The only other person there was another tour guide by the name of Andrew. Andrew, just so you know, is a chowderhead of the highest order. He was a creepy pill-popping loser who fancied himself a debonair scoundrel and loved the sound of his voice. He held court about his shoulder surgery, his ability to make money selling his prescription oxycontin, and bedding a 35-year-old married woman, who he had naked pictures of on his phone. He was 20 years old, and regularly bored me with his drinking knowledge and stuff he’d learned in college. He was also a creep in other ways that got him fired. It also got somebody else who didn’t really deserve it to get fired, but that’s a story for another day, and the reason why I’ve been kinda blowing this comic off. Stupid life-related bullshit like that. You get it. So anyway, I’m using the stall to go pee, and Andrew starts yelling whatever boring conversation he wants to try and start up. I yell at him to shut up, because I’m in the bathroom. “WHAT, YOU REALLY CAN’T PEE WHEN SOMEBODY’S TALKING TO YOU?” In reality, if a person whose company I enjoy is talking to me it might not be a problem, but dinks like this who I can’t stand might give my bladder pause. So I just concede, “yes, I can’t go to the bathroom when people are talking to me. Now leave me alone.” He then ENTERS the bathroom. “DUDE, WHY AREN’T YOU USING THE URINAL?” “Jesus fucking Christ, will you get the fuck out of here?” I yell at him. When I get done he’s sitting outside chuckling and shaking his head, as if he’d been laughing over this for the past 5 minutes. “SO, YOU GOTTA USE THE STALL WHEN YOU PEE, HEH HEH.” Wow, I guess we’re in 7th grade again. Another story involving pee anxiety: When I lived in Eureka (which is where I started Early Conan), I worked at a Borders book store. On my final night, I wore a Mervyn’s t-shirt I got from a thrift store (a fact I’d always mutter under my breath when somebody asked me where I got it) which advertised the Mervyn’s Super-sale. The back of the shirt read “OPEN OPEN OPEN” (a reference to the commercials where ladies would stand outside when it hasn’t opened yet trying to will the store to open, since they were so excited for the sale, by repeating OPEN OPEN OPEN at the door). I walked out of the office after I clocked in, and on the way to the cashiers a very swishy fat dude asked me to show him my shirt. I would later find out he worked at Mervyns in the mall, which is why I caught his eye. Not the only reason, it turns out. He also thought I had it going on. He wanted to read the back of my shirt. I show him. “Oh! OPEN OPEN OPEN! That could mean more than one thing, like you’re OPEN OPEN OPEN!” “Yeah I KNOW, RIGHT.” I said in what I thought was a completely sarcastic, dismissive tone. I jet to the cash registers. Later, I need to use the restroom. I excused myself to do just that, requiring me to pass by Mr. Swish and his group of fag-hag hanger-onners. I enter the bathroom, and go to the urinal. I am alone. Then, somebody else enters. I don’t know who, and I’m not even suspecting it to be anybody. So I think, great, now I won’t be able to pee. This guy enters the stall right next to the urinal, and begins humming and tapping his foot in a weird way. His foot is actually kinda crawling underneath the stall wall so it’s half hanging out of the stall. Now that I’m completely distracted by this, I decide I need to enter the other stall in order to actually accomplish my urination. So I leave the urinal, leapfrog the stall that Hummer is in, and enter the handicapped stall on the opposite side of him. His tapping feet? HE SHIFTS THEM OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE, and begins humming even LOUDER. So now I realize what’s going on. This is Mr. Swish. He’s trying to get me to tap his foot in order to let him know that we’re on for a bathroom fling. Also, he probably thinks I went into the handicapped stall in order to get more privacy for the exchanging of our vows. I get the fuck out of there. My suspicions of it being Mr. Swish are confirmed when I spot his group loudly wondering if he “fell in” or not. I use the bathroom at the Bed Bath and Beyond next door. I found out later that this guy has a history of being a creep. He was actually fired about a week later from Mervyns for spying on a young man in the dressing rooms. The young man in question was actually an under-aged teenager. Later I found out another event from history: As I was telling this story to my cousin (who also lived in Eureka; we were sharing this story when we were both in Redding), he knew exactly who I was talking about. In fact, he did the same exact thing to HIM. Followed him into the bathroom, hummed, tapped his foot, etc. Anyway, none of that REALLY had anything to do with this comic. But that’s life. I am getting bad at updating this thing. But I’m quitting my job soon, so hopefully I’ll be a little more willing to update. I came up with this while talking to my friend Lacey while we were making fun of Costco. This was a comic I originally was going to do as a three panel comic, which might’ve made it a little more clear. Max sees the free samples in Costco, doesn’t believe they are actually free, and questions them out loud. But then I thought of putting a message at the end about Max Month being over and making it a two panel comic (not including the message). Obviously, the idea of drawing less panels appealed to me greatly, so I took it to the next level here. Also, did any of you notice how in the last comic I wrote “how can I be expect...” instead of “how can I be expectED”? Yeah, I didn’t either until today. I’m such a fucking idiot. But I DID notice that I forgot to draw Max's BASEBALL shirt in the last comic, so I drew that he actually had his shirt off. But in an earlier comic you may have noticed he had chest hair. Well, he shaved it off. See, I thought of everything. Hi everyone. Sorry for the delay. You have to understand: I lost the will to live in July at my awesome/horrible tour guide job, but then found a new lease on life when I got accepted to Portland State University. So basically classes kept me busy. But being the miserable fuck-up that I am, I botched my winter quarter and wound up a student without classes. Also, did you hear Conan is getting fucked by NBC right now? So let’s resurrect this horrible comic. In December I was in beautiful Hollywood California staying in a Best Western. I scribbled this comic on a piece of Best Western stationary. I forget what lead me to this joke. It’s obviously based on people I’ve known who use “badass” as if they were saying “okay.” Like the way Conan says it is unenthusiastic, just stupid filler. You know, like these commentaries. What better way to exploit Conan’s final week as the Tonight Show host than to make a lengthy Goof Grief strip? This is pretty much the entire reason I made a “Goof Grief” spin-off, so I could draw this comic. “Goof Grief” basically came from me misspelling “good grief” during a chat I was having with Mark Riddles. Then I jokingly insisted that it was a book Goofy wrote about his son passing away. Then Mark riffed that he’d bury his son in the snow but not the ground (like an idiot) and come spring the snow would melt, revealing Max’s skeleton. I actually wish I could find the chat (I think it was on my laptop that died; I’ve yet to make an attempt to retrieve the hard drive’s contents). The way Mark said it was really funny. Somebody give me a book deal and maybe I’ll try harder to find it. I should’ve done this as the first “comeback” strip, but I didn’t have the idea at the time. Do I really have to explain how I came up with it? No? Good. Okay, here’s some historical context just in case you’re reading this from 50 years in the future: Today (or maybe yesterday?) is actually the day we all found out that Conan O’Brien’s Tonight Show is officially cancelled and Tomorrow is actually his final episode. Jay Leno will be taking back the Tonight Show. Jay Leno, in case you don’t know, is awful. Bing search it if you don’t believe me. I’m going for the absurdity that I’m mentioning Jay Reatard’s death on Early Conan, as if he has anything to do with Conan or my bullshit comic. But I’m genuinely a fan of Jay Reatard, just in case any of you dickheads feel like yelling at me for making fun of him dying. Oh yeah, I also did this yesterday. 1. Tonight is Conan's final Tonight Show
Mark Riddles pretty much wrote this strip, and came up with the whole “Early Leno” concept. I might have suggested that Leno would replace Early Conan as a joke during a private chat. I guess what I’m trying to do is take credit for something Mark came up with by being intentionally vague. I only pray every night that you don’t find him funnier than me. Hey, he has a blog now. You should all check it out, and tell him Early Conan sent you. |