This text message came to us this morning by surprise:
”I gave the guy in the cell next to me half of my soyburger to send this text. I don’t get any news from the outside but I’m sure it wouldn’t be good. I wish I had left you some scripts. I’m okay but do you want to know something strange? The Beacons of Night prison gang has always caused a lot of trouble here but suddenly they’ve become very quiet.”
I asked Lmao if he still eats vegetables; he said they’re on the chopping block.
My previous post told about an editor who was so impressed by the courage shown by Dans Cartoons that he decided to reinstate Alien Resort comics. Later that day, more editors wrote me and said that they too would run the comics and begin using the ones with Plucky’s scripts. Apparently readers from all over the world have been writing to the editors asking for the return of Alien Resort to their local newspaper. I told Deadpan that the horizon makes me queasy; he said it’s not the end of the world.
Earlier this week an editor wrote us and said he was going to reinstate Alien Resort comics and that he would begin using the ones with Plucky’s scripts. He said he had heard the news about the courageous offer from Dans Cartoons and had done some soul-searching. He said he concluded that we’re men, not mice. I had to look that up. Deadpan used to work in a research lab but he got tired of the rat race.
Just when our spirits had sunk to their lowest low, a voice from out of nowhere has sparked a glimmer of hope. Dan Rosandich, the owner of Dans Cartoons, wrote to say that he will not be intimidated by the Beacons of Night, and has offered us a gig. Mr. Rosandich says he has a spot for our comics in the extraterrestrial section of his cartoon catalog. Dans Cartoons creates cartoons for professional and commercial projects, and will custom make them for any purpose. We wrote back thanking Mr. Rosandich for his courageous offer and letting him know that we’ll keep it in mind as we sort through our current crisis. Lmao used to associate with a business crowd but he lost all his ties.
We sent out the first of Plucky’s scripts and the results aren’t encouraging. Every editor who has written back has told us that although the comics are just as funny as anything written by Mr. Davis, they are going to hold back on publication until Mr. Davis is released from jail. Right away we suspected that the Beacons of Night might have a hand in the matter, and a recent post on their website confirms this. After we got the news, Lmao plopped down on his pillow; he had eaten his fill.
This is my last post before I turn things back over to Coy. Deadpan and I had an interesting conversation yesterday. Every time I talk to Deadpan, he surprises me with his insight and depth of understanding. He told me that he’s cognitively aware of his inability to express emotion. He said he also knows that I like him, which made me blush but at the same time feel a sense of warmth that we knew each other well enough to lay our cards on the table. He then asked me why I would like him if he may never be able to reciprocate. I thought about that for a while, and then replied that my father wasn’t emotionally available. This made me gravitate toward relationships where closeness was unlikely, and in that way I couldn’t be rejected again. I asked Deadpan what would be a good way to study psychology; he said there are different schools of thought.
While Lmao has a natural sense of humor that’s similar to a human comedian, Deadpan’s sense of humor, if he has one at all, isn’t conventional. This doesn’t surprise me, because his right brain functions are largely elusive. Still, he says some very funny things. The way he explains it is that he used to stay up late listening to a particular all night Earth DJ who would say something using a double meaning and then play a laugh track. From this Deadpan surmised that Earthlings enjoyed double meanings. When we got the internet, Deadpan spent his time scouring databases for double meanings, and now he’s built up a large repertoire that he’s contributing to our comedy team. I asked Deadpan to assist me with some brain wave research; he said he would put on his thinking cap.
