I like this joke! I was also proud of not having to actually refer to the text of Ulysses, which is why I didn’t even know how to mispronounce “introibo” and why some sentences are missing. Presumably Mona owns the expurgated version or something, or maybe she blacked out sentences herself when she was in her rebellious early twenties! (Also, I haven’t read Robert Musil, so I’m dissing his work in a really frivolous and uninformed way, and if you have strong opinions about why I should read The Man without Qualities, PLEASE LET ME KNOW YOUR REASONING IN THE COMMENTS, or I’ll assume that you, too, haven’t read this book)
The thing I like least about the art in this comic is trying to draw Betty well! The Man Who Hates Fun has kids in it, and has had for a while, but it’s really distinctly hard to draw kids for some reason, especially when they’re supposed to be very young. Betty is supposed to be five going on six–how many people get that? Probably none, unless it’s by context! That said, I think the second panel here is one of the better efforts, and I’ll figure out how to do it better in time — already we’re better than something like this, where she looks like twelve.
News: I judged a short story contest on Tuesday! Here are the finalists, plus my comments on their work. My favorite wasn’t the one that won the finalist voting, but that is the nature of democracy in fiction!
Should be a new comic on Tuesday!