The Sheriff of Babylon #5

At this point, I don't know why the blurb writers haven't taking over the writing of this comic book. They're so much smarter than everybody else! Here's another that uses the term 'realpolitik'!

The Review
I wish I could come up with the kind of poetical blurb that Paste Magazine has come up with! I mean with which Paste Magazine has come up! Damn it! I hope they don't read this and think, "Why is this stupid man reading a thinking man's comic?!" Actually, I hope they do think that. Fuck them for implying that comics are for stupid, illiterate, vacuous staring cowpeople and only occasionally is one written that is worth somebody's time! Fuck you, Paste Magazine! Sit on my stupid dick and spin smartly! You fuckgarbage! I hope Paste Magazine isn't too busy jerking off into their own mouths over the sentence "corpses of patriotism litter yesterday's battlefields" to read the next issue! I'm going to use that statement as my Facebook Political Views blurb! And I won't give any attribution! People will read it and think, "Whoa. Tess is a real thinking man!" Currently my political views is this quote by John Steinbeck: "And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about. I can understand why a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for this is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from the uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed, we are lost." Maybe that should go on the cover of the next Sheriff of Babylon! And while I'm proving that I'm not smart enough to come up with a terrifically smug comment like Paste Magazine's, here's the quote by Philip K. Dick which I use as my Religious Views blurb on Facebook: "Our partial knowledge of reality is sufficient to get us by--for a while longer. Cause and effect bumble on, and we go with them; like good middle-class Americans we keep paying on our insurance policies, hoping to outbet the actuary tables. What will destroy us in the end is synchronicity; eventually we will arrive in a blind intersection at 4:00 A.M. the same time another idiot does, also tanked up with beer; both of us will then depart for the next life, with probably the same outcome there, too. Synchronicity, you see, can't be anticipated; that's one of its aspects."

Was that a clear enough review of this issue? I hope so because I haven't even read it yet! But I figure it's going to be just as good as the previous four issues. Plus, Paste Magazine already said everything that needs to be said when they modified 'horror' with 'realpolitik'!

Wait! I've read it now! It's wonderful! So wonderful! I cried multiple times. And I know that sounds sarcastic but it wasn't meant to be at all. This is truly a moving and touching piece of storytelling. Plus it features a bit about cats which is the best because cats are the best and anybody who writes a story that includes cats is obviously a realpolitikal genius.

The Commentary
I have never had a conversation with another human being where they used the word 'realpolitik'. At least not one that didn't immediately end with me punching them in the throat and pissing on their face.

Currently in The Sheriff of Babylon, a whole bunch of stuff has been happening that I don't understand because I never take the time to think about my comic books. I just flip through the pages and think, "Oh yeah! Violence! Boobies! A Superman sheet! I wish I was reading Superman so I didn't have to keep using my brain and my online dictionary to tell me what words like 'realpolitik' and 'zzzgrwchhazzx' mean!

The online dictionary didn't have a definition for 'zzzgrwchhazzx' but the Urban Dictionary says it's the sound a goat makes when you suck its dick after filling your mouth with your own shit. I don't think Tom King is using it in that way here though. I think it's just meant to be snoring sound effects.

Oh! I get this part! He's drunk! Ha ha!

The drunk guy must be drunk on hard liquor because you probably shouldn't drink beer on Atkins! You can drink rye though which is ironic! Isn't it? It might not be. Nerds on the internet have made me afraid to describe things as ironic because apparently nobody in the history of ever has ever used the term correctly. Let me try to use it correctly: "The irony, of course, was that the newly entrenched invaders bringing about their strange laws and new rules had never heard the word 'realpolitik' used in any conversation." Damn it! That isn't right! I hate not being a thinking man! So frustrating!

I can't wait until somebody pipes up in the comments to educate me on all the stuff I'm pretending not to know!

Actually, I'm only pretending that I'm pretending not to know so I don't look stupid! Is that ironic?!

The problem with thinking man comic books is that they don't think they need to remind me what the name of the main character is so now I'm six pages in without any idea what Christopher's name is. Oh wait! It's Christopher! I was casually reminded on page two! Good thing I picked those things up subconsciously! I know the broad's name is Fatima and that I shouldn't call her a broad. I'm not stupid!

Have you ever noticed how only stupid people have to claim they're not stupid? That's the best way to pick them out of a crowd since everybody believes they're smart. Okay, most everybody. Occasionally you'll come upon a person who knows they're a dumb-ass. But then maybe they're just trying to seem wise because they once heard that Socrato declared that he knew nothing and that's what made him smarter than the people who thought they knew everything! Sometimes people will know they're not "book smart" but then they'll go on and on about how much common sense they have while I make a jerk-off motion with my hand, usually directed into my open mouth. I'm the kind of smart that isn't book smart or common sense smart! I'm the kind of smart that most people wouldn't categorize as smart at all!

Christopher and Fatima decide to get bombed on the edge of a bombed out pool.

Is it ironic that Fatima is Muslim and she drinks? She also kills. She also has loads of sex outside of marriage. I bet she even draws pictures of Muhammad. Which--let's face it--isn't the big deal some people would like to make it out to be. Just because a religion has a tenet that followers should respect doesn't mean somebody outside of the religion has to respect it as well! That's arrogant bullshit. It's also just an excuse for assholes to kill. It's like when a drunk guy at a bar keeps bumping into you aggressively and you finally say, "Hey, dude. Chill." Now that you've confronted him, you've given him an excuse to punch your stupid face in! And he feels like he's in the right because you fucking started it, man! I doubt most Muslims even care if a non-Muslim draws a picture of Muhammad. Just like how I can tell my Christian friends the joke about Jesus not being able to walk on water now because of the holes in his feet. They won't kill me for telling that joke but they will groan and probably walk away because it was in poor taste. I should save jokes like that and my drawings of Muhammad for my secret atheist meetings where we wring our hands and snicker maniacally while planning the downfall of all earthly religions! Actually, the wringing of the hands is just to get the Cheetoh's dust off of them and the snickering is usually because we just blew up one of our friends in Call of Duty and the planning the downfall of all earthly religions is just not thinking about religion at all. Or at least hardly ever in the context of destroying them. I think about religion a lot because I'm fascinated by it. Plus I was a literature major so I have to know The Bible to get 90% of the allusions being made in practically everything written before 1945. And a whole lot of it after that, too!

Although now I'm rethinking that bit where I tell that Jesus joke to Christians. I bet if I told it to the wrong group of Christians, I could be endangering my life! Because a lot of people have that double standard in their own minds where they believe violence is wrong unless it is justified. And what justifies violence for any single person is completely different depending on their beliefs, their passions, and their time spent in anger management classes. I would justify violence against anybody who might harm one of my pets. Or somebody who puts on a voice and says to me, "Fatty fatty two-by-four, can't fit through the bathroom door."

You know why I think drawing a depiction of Muhammad is so offensive? Because it represents one of the biggest splits between two of the People of the Book, Christians and Muslims. While Christians seemed to ignore the whole idol worship thing and went off to basically found their religion on the worship of a man (who was possibly the son of God although probably really just a prophet and/or lunatic), Islam proclaims idol worship to be one of the greatest sins a person can commit. So Islam went another route and declared all depictions of prophets and, well, anybody, really, were considered idol worship. Which makes sense if you're a prophet and believe Allah is the guy to concentrate on. You'd go out of your way to tell people not to paint pictures of you, the prophet, which might eventually get held up above Allah. Just as happened with Christians and their worship of Jesus. So basically Muhammad was taking a huge dig at Christians! He was pointing out how backwards they got it and didn't want Islam to fall into the same trap. Ban the iconography and less attention is pulled away from the whole "there is no god but Allah" refrain.

Why did I take that digression?! Those are topics for my secret writings and not my public comic book writings!

This should be published in the newspapers alongside the other strips every single week. Because this is all you need to know about life.

Fatima and Christopher talk about 9/11 (Does that confuse pretty much the rest of the entire world? Are children of other countries going to hear it called 9/11 and believe it happened on the ninth of November?). Fatima admits that the only problem she had with US sanctions against Iraq when Saddam was in power was that she couldn't masturbate properly. I think. She says she couldn't get batteries and I don't know why else a woman would need batteries. They never get to operate the remote control, right?! Brozingo! That joke time traveled from 1984.

Near the end of their time hanging out, Christopher shows Fatima an old fertility idol he was given by his predecessor. And now I'm glad I got into the digression because Fatima takes it, and looks at, and admires its beauty, and suspects it's an old god, and then tosses it in the crater saying, "There is only one god. And Muhammad is his prophet." So see? It all came together in the end! It should mean something.