Fecal Matters

A cartoon I did for The Hawaii Independent about how Honolulu is, once again, inundated in smelly, poo-poo water (500,000 gallons of raw sewage spilled onto Waikiki beaches and shorelines alone - the entire island has "brown water" warnings posted at all beaches). The cause? Less than 4 inches of precipitation. Now I know that's not an insignificant amount of rain, but if we can't even handle 4 inches in 6 hours without our sewers exploding diarrhea water all over our streets and beaches, what happens when we get another 40 days of rain scenario like we did back in 2006? What happens when we add an estimated 20,000 new residents to the urban core over the next 25 years? 

If we don't fix the sewer infrastructure now, we may very well be up a literal shit river in a canoe with no paddle. We have very few politicians who will actually fight for better sewage infrastructure. Our councilmen joke that infrastructure is "not sexy." Well it's also not funny, and it's vitally important; so stop joking about it and actually do something, please (like drawing a cartoon about it).

INhonolulu 3.0

We just switched our lifestyle and entertainment website INhonolulu​ over to a new platform (again!). The new platform gives us a new, slimmed down, simpler look, and does a lot of great things for us structurally as well. At the same time, it does sacrifice some of the "flair" of our elaborate Wordpress template.

Sweet Jesus Christ though, I'm so happy not to be using Wordpress anymore. It's like suddenly having a bed that isn't infested by bedbugs after having slept in one for roughly a year-and-a-half. Maybe that's an exaggeration but, if so, it is a slighter exaggeration than you might think. Which reminds me: I need a new bed.

We're going bat-shit overdrive on Pow! Wow! 2015 coverage and I'm personally playing both Deltron albums back-to-back on repeat getting ready for next Tuesday's performance at The Republik. The image above is of local musician Mike Lundy's "Tropical Lightning," the debut press from Roger Bong's new Aloha Got Soul record label. It's rare groove goodness.

"Bottom line is, just keep trying things 'till you find the way that works." - some asshole

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Yes, that is the Dome of the Rock in the last panel, converted into the Thirty-Meter Telescope. If this incredibly sacred mosque in old Jerusalem, built in 691 AD on the Temple Mount site where the second Temple of Jerusalem once stood, were to be converted into the TMT, a lot of people would lose their shit. The name is derived from the site's significance to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths: the rock it is built upon, known as the Foundation Stone, is sacred to all three religions. We hope that by drawing a giant telescope coming out of such a holy place, we remind people that Mauna Kea is just as sacred to Hawaiians. #MaunaKea #WeAreMaunaKea #TMTshutdown #TMT #aoleTMT #BulldozeYourOwnTemple

For there are indeed valleys low enough.

Ozymandumbass

All that you need to know about this comic is wonderfully encapsulated in Sam Laird's article on Mashable. Of course, if that doesn't do it for you, there is, literally, a metric shit-ton of news on this, largely from Europe and the Middle East because, well, America doesn't generally give a shit about soccer. At least not during the NBA finals.

By the way, you might notice that this comic was created not entirely just by me, which is mostly why it's a lot better than the first three. No really, having someone you respect in your field (comics, in this case) vet your work first will make it much better. When that someone is your Freshman year roommate who kicks ass at being hilarious, and actually takes fairly large segments out of his day to work on the script with you, the comic is going to be cash. Or at least, collectible Magic the Gathering cards. Which could be sold for cash.

Thanks so much to Vince Fitzgerald for whipping this comic into shape and helping me with several more in the works. For you, the reader, I hope this means more laughs and more insight into this crazy world of ours.

Reporting in Honolulu, but not necessarily paying all my attention to it, I'm Will Caron. Thanks for reading.

Watch less T.V.

Burnin' Down the House

Hopefully a fairly self-explanatory comic. We now have four heavy-weight political contenders for the office of Governor: incumbent Neil Abercrombie (D), James "Duke" Aiona (R), David Ige (D) and Mufi Hannemann, who just declared his official entry last week as the newly formed Hawaii Independent Party candidate.

But honestly, the capitol building could literally be burning down and these guys still wouldn't stop being politicians. I really don't know who the best choice would be among them. Abercrombie has proven that he doesn't keep his promises (a new day in Hawaii my ass); Aiona is supposedly a stand-up guy, but he's probably still too close to the Hawaii Republican Assembly view point when it comes to equality and helping the working class (which is to say he won't); Ige is fairly unknown, other than the fact that he's managed the state budget for awhile as head of the Senate Ways and Means committee; and Mufi (former Honolulu mayor) is, by many accounts, a vindictive bully, albeit an efficient one.

All I know is, none of these talking heads are really who I'd want to see as Governor, but at least the choices are better than they are in Idaho.

Not a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but not far from it.

Why couldn't they have taken Rush Limbaugh instead?

You might have seen the dozens of celebrities, including Michelle Obama, that have tweeted pictures of themselves holding up a #BringBackOurGirls sign, in support of the 300 or so Nigerian school girls that were kidnapped by radical Islamist and terrorist group Boko Haram.

Of course, holding signs isn't going to bring a happy ending about on its own, but it helps raise awareness and might help build a critical mass of people who actually give a shit. Once this critical mass of shit-givers is achieved, maybe the Nigerian government (which has been doing a horrible job of handling the situation) will actually get its ass in gear and go after the dirt bags.

Speaking of dirt bags, Rush Limbaugh (naturally) felt it was more important to find something to criticize Michelle Obama over than to be an actual human being, and made fun of the First lady's hashtag picture saying, "look how sad and pathetic she looks." Well, Rush, I think you'd look pretty sad and pathetic if it had been you that had been kidnapped. Unfortunately we weren't that lucky.

If you're like me, you watch The Daily Show as often as possible and, if so, you probably saw the episode where John Stewart goes after Rush for being such a dick. He came up with the hashtag #FuckYouRush, and I intend to help get as many people using that tag as possible... by making a comic about it.

Even though we still have to put up with you, Rush, while innocent school girls are being held captive, at least I can make myself feel a little better about it by imagining what that stupid, pathetic face of yours would look like if you had been kidnapped, and then drawing it.

#FuckYouRush

Introducing "In Honolulu" 001: Golf Corrupts

This is the first strip I'm classifying as an "In Honolulu" strip. Unlike TSASOTM, In Honolulu will not generally feature consistent characters or any semblance of plot progression. It will simply be.

The name is derived from my online magazine INhonolulu which, together with my work for The Hawaii Independent will form the backbone of my idea-mining (idamining).

In fact, this first strip was created along side a story I wrote for the Independent about ethics violations among city employees. The strip also appears as the accompanying image for the story post, which can be viewed here. What I found most interesting is that there were around 40 city employees that took "gifts" of free food, drinks and golf from a company here in Honolulu, many of which reimbursed the company immediately, thus avoiding penalty. But there were a few who didn't. But this Ethics Commission report singled out the employee who used a sick day to play golf as the one who deserved suspension. Because the other gift-recipients used vacation time, they still got to play on the naked pizza trampoline.

And yes, there really is a Cheese-rolling Festival in Gloucestershire, though I (unfortunately) have never attended. It involves chasing wheels of cheese down a rather steep hill. Each year there are several broken bones, ruptured organs and putting-out of eyes. You win if you catch the cheese and your prize, naturally, is more cheese.

The primary goal of In Honolulu will be to highlight the absurdities of what goes on in this city, vis a vis politics, news, nightlife and lifestyle. The artistic style has also changed from a moderately realistic, comic book/manga feel to a straight-up-and-down web-comic look, clearly influenced by my favorite web comic, Penny Arcade.

Other comic-related news is that I will be sending some editorial cartoons to Civil Beat for a trial run at becoming their new in-house cartoonist to replace John Pritchett, who's work--in my opinion--has really gone down hill in the past 3-4 years.

There will be more... something.