Pointless Man

Trivia: Dastardly Bank, owned and operated by the Whiplash family, triggered the American financial crisis through its practice of tying clients with variable rate mortgages to train tracks and walking away while laughing maniacally.

Trivia: Pointless Man folds his futon daily, airs it out weekly, and uses it to make a fort in the living room at least once a month.

So, I decided to just be lazy and get this series done (digitally) using a few quick filters, instead of the gruelling process I used on these first few pages. (Screw that nonsense.) As a result, I'll be able to get the rest of the comic up at my leisure. I think I'll put up pages three a week 'til I'm done. There's only 11 pages, so it won't take that long.

--Preamble: I would like to flesh out my remarks from June 23, 2008 . This is an attempt to make a more coherent whole out of comments made at the Forum over at GameFAQs. Those familiar with my postings there may find little new in this entry.-- There are no acts of will. For there is no will. Thus concepts such as 'free will' or 'constrained will' are meaningless. In denying the usefulness, meaningfulness, and existence of the will as a special faculty (and thus any basis for questions of free will), I deny terms and distinctions such as 'determinism'. Of course, not everyone agrees with me. Determinists claim we do not have free will because either some deity, arbitrary fate, or the laws of physics constrain the will in an important and meaningful fashion (typically due to everything being thus predetermined), perhaps leaving us without personal responsibility. Some supporters of 'free will' (as concept) respond, 'Determinism is meaningless to eve...

If you had to choose, would you call this a depiction of contempt, anger, or something else? Scott McCloud's Making Comics has a section on basic expressions, which he thinks we will all recognize. I found that I disagreed with some of his characterizations there. More so, when he 'combined' base looks to show more complex emotions. Outside of context, human facial expression seems wildly interpretable and subjective to me. Yourself?

A lot of people tuned in to the debate last night, more than watched the first Obama-McCain face off, according to Nielsen ratings . Some of them had to be hoping for or expecting gaffes, which didn't quite materialize. By this token, both Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin are said to have outperformed expectations (and, in the process, disappointing Jon Stewart). From the onset, Biden's strategy was to attack McCain instead of Palin, tie McCain to Bush, and explain in concrete terms how an Obama-Biden administration would be different. Palin's was to avoid specifics, dodge questions and rebuttals she didn't like, and keep after Barack Obama (and thus to put Biden on the defensive) while smiling and delivering as many folksy colloquialisms as possible. She made a point of saying that she would not necessarily respond to the moderator or her debate partner, because she wanted to talk directly to the American people. Both made attempts to exhibit their 'mains...