2 March 2006

[subject heading: "Make My Stupid Idea Funny"]:

Archduke Ferdinand found alive. First World War officially declared a mistake. Kaiser Willhelm proclaims, "Ach, du Scheisse!"

--not quite anonymous, but close enough that only donkeys would really care

3 March 2006

Please tell Tim that I absolutely love his work and attitude and I'm sorry I don't live close by because I'm really good at doing the special thing.

Lots of Love

Mel

Mel:

Mr. Kreider is currently at his registered offices of winter in New York City if this is more convenient to you. He is full with hope that your name is an abbreviation of Melissa.

Respect,
C.-H.

6 March 2006

Please tell Mr Kreider that I apologise if I've given him false hope.  Mel is short for Melanie.

Also, I failed to mention that I'm located some 14,000 kilometres away in Cape Town, South Africa...

To make amends for any disappointment this may cause, I've attached two pictures which show my best asset.  [Photos of ass attached.] I hope you approve.

With much respect and warm regards

Melanie

Melanie,

I regret to tell you that Mr. Kreider now pines for your buttocks. They torment him in his imaginations. With the maudlin bitterness he curses the distance between you. Can it be that these are really the buttocks of you and not of those of a certain professional model of buttocks, he wonders?  Always it is too good to be true, he says. Always with Mr. Kreider the lust is inextricably mixed with the covetousness and the rue.

Respect,

C.-H.

7 March 2006

Tim,

"TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER..." is a bunch of very funny and poignant short stories that when YOU illustrate it, will become a hard cover book/movie smash $hit$ for hip adults.  "HAIRMAN," is a comic book/feature film.  Please read and start drawing and we'll become 50/50 partners.  Look at my web and you might be impressed.  Great sight!!  Thanks.

Sidney G.

Sidney G.:

Thank you for your offer but unfortunately Mr. Kreider does not have any interest in work of any kind.

Respect,
C.-H.

8 March 2006

Tell Tim he forgot Ann Coulter's Adam's apple. 

Owning both his books, I'm aware he changes the illustration, Artistic Statement and chronological order of each weekly edition of The Pain, so I know he'll be able to fix this little nagging issue next publication. 

Kisses XXOOXX

Jen

(Australia)

Jen,

Still another reader confused the likeness of Ann Coulter with that of Iggy Pop. Mr. Kreider is certain that with the addition of the Adam's apple this confusion will not arise.  Then all will know unmistakably it is Mrs. Coulter and not Mr. Pop.

Mr. Kreider thanks you for your counsel and your attention to his work. He accepts your virtual kisses gladly, although not as gladly as he would in person. (He is a terrible man I am sorry.)
Respect,
C.-H.

9 March 2006

Howdy.

How many quatloos must I yield to reproduce your Science vs. Odin comic in my weekly blog?

Sincerely,

Alex Firestone, Pornographer

Alex Firestone:

Mr. Kreider does not have any objection with your including his drawing of the Mythology of the Norses on your "blog."  He asks only that you include a link with his website.  He is not very familiar with the denomination of the quatloo and dubious of the rate of exchange.  He suggests in its place that you compensate him with the pornography, for which I am assuring you he is a glutton.

Respect,
C.-H.

9 March 2006

Though I'm definitely no Christian and certainly not very learned about that bible thing.  Chris should know that somewhere in there it says that Jesus had "feet of burnt brass" and "hair of lambs wool".  I'm black and though many people will try to say that he probably was, that can't be right.  Jesus should be drawn as Middle-Eastern or Egyptian if you want to make it even nicer for all the damned americonservatives.  OMG, what do you mean that Jesus isn't a white, hippy-looking guy with long hair?!?!  Yeah, that's right, he looks just like one of them damned terrorists.  (That statement being purely ironic of course)

Hoping that you take this into consideration,

davy

Davy,

Although Mr. Kreider is impatient for any new information which will enrage the excessively pious people of the right-hand side, he doubts the passages that you quote appear in the Bible.  He is ignorant of any physical description of Our Lord in the New Testament and defies you to direct him to it. He does however regret that his drawings of Christ so much strongly resemble the magician Gandalf.

Respect,

C.-H.

I was a bit taken aback by your response at first, but then I realized that it's all for the sake of truth, so I am not offended.  But since you doubt that this passage appears in the bible.  Here you go!  Specifically Rev1:14-15

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Rev.%201:1-20;&version=8;

Please note that some translations point to the fact that the color matched lamb's wool and some merely said that it was "of lamb's wool".  And even though turning this into a racial thing was never my goal, I feel that it's pretty funny that so many depictions of a true "Jesus Christ" are still Caucasian.  Alas, I'm not Christian so maybe I'm taking it all out of context and I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Please tell Mr. Kreider that I definitely enjoyed his drawing and think that the message sent was very worthwhile.  My intent wasn't ever to get him to change it or anything, I just wanted to see how you guys would respond.  The rhetoric and doubt of your email is pretty standard and was not surprising, even considering the supposed time and place of the bible's events.

To close I just want to say that I hope that Mr. Krieder's comic is hugely successful and that he received a bajillion hits for his recent comic.  Anyone who challenges the right is okay by me.  Thanks for the dialogue.

-davy

Davy,

Mr. Kreider did not have the intention that his tonality seem rancorous.  It is perhaps the defect of my English, who is not my first or even second language, and for this I apologize. He only did not identify this passage as from the Gospels.  He is corrected, but remains dubious that the figure concerned is indeed Jesus rather than an angel or the Holy Phantom or the Phantom of Christmas Past.  Moreover he specifies that this description comes from the ravings of St. John the insane one. However, Mr. Kreider concedes certainly that Jesus should be depicted as Semitic rather than the white hippie. He does not want to mean any disrespect by this controversy and thanks you for your wishes of success for his work.

Respect,

C.-H.

Hey Davy,

I don't want to pester you, but I did want to clear up any misunderstanding over your exchange with my lovely intern Ms. C.-H. The thing is, she is not so good mit ze English, no? So sometimes my offhand comments assume convoluted and ambiguous form in her correspondence. Suffice it to say, you and I are on the same page RE doing everything possible to maximize the antagonism of Fundamentalist Christian dingbats, up to and including depicting Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with a 'fro. I did express some dubiousness about the accuracy of the Book of Revelation's description, but this doubt concerns the reliability of the lunatic visions of St. John, not your scholarship.

You may well wonder why I employ someone to answer my mail who does not speak English very well. All I can say is, you ought to see her answer it.

Regards,

Tim

10 March 2006

"...But I sell a lot of Cheeseburgers!"

Dear Sir (or Sir's Aide-de-Camp)

    In your latest (03/08/06) cartoon, panel one's inset depicts a gaunt scarecrow of a possibly female gender denouncing President Gore.  Is that supposed to be Ann Coulter?  Because, as you well know, in an alternate (sane) universe, she would be doing 'Alien MILF' porn with Jenny McCarthy...

Regards, Tom P.

Tom P:

It is Mrs. Coulter represented.  Mr. Kreider is not very familiar with the McCarthy she-ass but is dubious if he would wish to look at this pornography which you pose in theory.  (They are not the aliens to which he is opposed.)

To speak about this experiment I say to you in confidence that he would look at it.

Respect,

C.-H.

10 March 2006

Please excuse my awkward English.  I am of the Netherlands.  Tell please Mister Kreider that I hold and think he is talented.  I know quite little of caricatures, but like as art and also hatred of George Bush. 

Our country is not in the news, different to Denmark. We are more than only tulips and wind mills.  Please also that not all Dutch is hedonisten (too much loving fun?) as that in Amsterdam.

The Best Wishes,

Mahault Knoedel

Mahault Knoedel,

I will transmit your pleasant words to Mr. Kreider.  He has been in the Netherlands and speaks well about them.  He wishes all Europe to know of his hatred of President Bush.  However he will be disappointed to learn that you are not a hedonist.  Mr. Kreider himself too much likes the recreation.

Respect,

C.-H.

12 March 2006

To the Nice Lady Who Reads Tim's Email for Him:

Please do let Mr. Kreider know that while reading through his archives after being directed to his comics by Paul Riddell's LiveJournal (http://sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com/), I stumbled over the Feb. 02, 2005, comic. (http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly050223.htm)

I promptly laughed so hard I nearly passed out.  I was forced to shut off my computer monitor in order to allow my lungs time to re-inflate.

He's awesome and I would have his love children, were I not male. ...and straight.  (Do let him know I'm willing to negotiate on that last point.)

Thanks!

RH

Slacker:

Mr. Kreider thanks you for your pleasant words about his cartoon.  Always scientists they appreciate his humor due to their high intelligence and weak socialization.

He refuses, with respect, your surely pleasant offer.  Mr. Kreider is alas fiendishly heterosexual. Also, he abhors children even more than to be sodomized.

Respect,

C.-H.

13 March 2006

[Subject heading: "No Groupie"]

.... but a grateful fan. I haven't laughed as much in a long time. Congratulations on being a worthy heir-apparent to Crumb.

Peter K.:

Mr. Kreider is always grateful for fans although never as grateful as for groupies.  Your compliment is high and Mr. Kreider appreciates it much (although he never thought that R. Crumb was all so much funny).

Respect,

C.-H.

15 March 2006

Dear Ms Hautpanz,

Please tell Tim that I love him and that we readers in the shithead states really need our weekly dose of lefty humor and executive-branch slapdown.  If we don't get it, we get cranky.  I'm cranky right now.  It's been Wednesday for 12 hours, where is my weekly fix? 

Please help.  Thank you!

Ms Jonesing [e-mail address "learningtobebold"]

Ms. Jonesing,

The defect is with our Master of the Web Dave.  He in the state of shitheads Texas, occupied in significant work to facilitate our return to the moon, and will not be capable to update the website until Friday.  I regret this progress unachieved, but M.  Kreider and I are dullards, forsaken vis-a-vis all technology.

Thank you for your impatient interest.  I wish you well with your research into the boldness.

Respect,

C.-H.

18 March 2006

someone is ripping off your fear tower idea!

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/wtc.ideas/designs/page.117/

3rd row, 3rd column.

Nick M:

Without any doubt the page which you recommend will lead only Mr. Kreider to the impotent fury, as always when his ideas are coopted by the bastard ones. It is a crucial part of my work to protect him from all such information.  I know that you will join to me in this effort Mr. M..

Respect,
C.-H.

19 March 2006

I love your artist's statement comparing Southerners to Germans, claiming that Southerners are like Germans but without the remorse. I like that.  Makes me almost feel proud to be German, proud to feel guilty.

A few years ago some controversy I read about in the news of flying the Confederate flag on top of government buildings somewhere in the South led me to design this parody of a blend between the US, the Confederate, and the Third Reich flag:

http://www.ulrichschreglmann.homepage.t-online.de/NSSA.SWF

I was never quite sure what compelled me, but your Artist's Statement from March 15 expressed what I must have been unconsciously feeling about the issue at the time.

When I look at contemporary American history I can't help but draw parallels to Germany's history.  Bush may be no Hitler, but he's always reminded me of the Kaiser, Emperor William II, the upstart who is to a large part responsible for World War I.  Extrapolating from that it tends to make me a little nervous thinking that there might be a Hitler or Napoleon waiting in the wings 15 or 20 years down the road, whom the willing executioners in the red states are ready and waiting for even now.

At any rate, I'm a great fan of your work.  Keep it up!  And if your country ever goes all-out totalitarian and you're forced into exile, don't hesitate to drop me a line if you don't know where to go!

Ool:

Your image is quite striking and powerful. Even I, as cynical and dissenting an American as is to be found, felt a certain gut-level recoil at the sight of it. The cognitive dissonance it provokes is the political analogue of looking at the word "GREEN" printed in red ink, or "YELLOW" printed in blue. The brain keeps stuttering, "But--but--but--".

Indeed, I think you should be proud of being guilty. Being guilty, if it's appropriate guilt, is an indication that you have a healthy, functioning conscience. It's those who are full of virtuous certitude of whom we have to beware.

Speaking of whom, I sometimes catch myself hoping that we are in the American equivalent of the Weimar years, for the totally selfish reason that I would then be the contemporary American counterpart of George Grosz. Rest assured that when we do descend into real, rounding-up-the-intellectuals-and-artists Fascism, I will appear, on very short notice, on your doorstep.

Tim

21 March 2006

Misses C.H.

I ask if he played the game Amersterdam Beer Slapping?  It is old and funny. 

Someone takes up without warning places a complete glass of beer on its head and holds them with a hand.  Others follow its example.  The last one will do has been slapped so on the head and brings the beer again to the others.

The Best Wishes,

Mahault Knoedel

Mahault Knoedel:

This game of which you speak is old and much liked by Mr. Kreider.  Except that in the variation appreciated by him and his drunk friends there is not the purchase of beer, only the humiliation of the defeat.

Respect,
C.-H.

22 March 2006

It's difficult to express how utterly brilliant The Pain is, but it is. Brilliant.  My local paper already runs it, but if it didn't I'd chain myself to it's HQ until it did. Even in South Dakota, I would. Please continue to draw the pain until there is none left in the world. Thank you.

P.S. My friends and I all think your alternate-universe wamminal-pimping self-portrait is pitch perfect.

Mr. Kreider would make me thank you for your pleasant words about his work.  It is on complements like yours that the integrality of his fragile self-esteem rests.  He hopes much that your local newspaper is the paper of Baltimore and not Philadelphia, for alas if it is the latter then it is to be ceased soon.  If Mr. Kreider is fired by very many more papers he will become soon the lovable mediocrity represented in the universe of Waminals.

Respect,

C.-H.

23 March 2006

Misses C.H.

I am glad that he knows the game.  But he must want to get beer when he wins!  Do I surprise or are his friends Dutch also?  

I am fearful that the civil war caricature is past my complete notion.  It appears to be many jokes over America. 

The Best Wishes,

Mahault Knoedel

 

23 March 2006

tim,

ok first of all anyone pretentious enough to place two dots above the second e in preemptively should really know how to spell hennessy. secondly it was a tiny bit confusing when you said maryland was solidly red. but i guess the rural parts are, even if the state overall has been safely blue in the last two elections. third, the most famous confederate flag, that you've illustrated, is not the one called the stars and bars. i'm know this is a widespread use, but it would probably irk the more serious type of confederate sympathizer. maybe that's a good thing. most importantly, in every browser i've used, your site displays too wide. this makes it really annoying to see the comic and especially to read the artist's statements, because you have to keep scrolling left and right.

i am loving the comic, though!

dan (leanne's friend)

Dan,

I apologize for the delay in my reply. Mostly my intern answers the fan mail and the few messages I get from personal friends tend to pile up.

I love using all the special characters on the keyboard whenever possible, hence I jump on any opportunity to write preëmpt or naive, æon or cæsar. I am however mortified at having misspelled Hennessy. This is further evidence that I am not down with the Black Man.

I ought to have said that the area where I live in Maryland is solidly red country. Maryland has consistently voted blue, but this is only due to the existence of Baltimore City. Thank God for the Black Man, despite his taste in cognac.

RE the Stars and Bars: yeah whatever dude.

I believe webmaster Dave has jiffied up the problem you griped about with the artist's statement being too wide.

Glad you're enjoying the recent cartoons. I enjoyed your party a lot. I don't know whether you heard, but the dorkwad cognoscenti at my publisher's were able to produce the apocryphal Peanuts strip (ca. 1958) that your friend Laura was trying to track down within 48 hours.

Regards,
Tim

23 March 2006

Ms C.-H.,

I was gratified by your kind and quick reply last week, and would have continued the exchange but could find nothing to say humorously. 

With all kindness and sincerity, allow me to express my hope that New York quickly de-crank-ifies Mr Kreider.  When I read last week's artist's statement I had an impulse to do a point-by-point lameness comparison between rural Maryland and "urban" Nebraska but the impulse has (thankfully) passed.  It wouldn't help anybody anyway - being alienated by your cultural surroundings is one of those things that people have to face in single-file, and knowing that it's a widespread experience doesn't make it any easier to take. 

I find myself remoralized by certain reminders that I'm not alone in my irritation and alienation, which is why I'm writing to reiterate my impatient interest in The Pain.  I'll be looking for it on Friday and Saturday, as instructed. 

When Webmaster Dave's schedule calms down, would he consider creating links for individual comics in the archives?  I want to be able to point people to my particular favorites.

Not bold yet,

S

23 March 2006

I lived in South Florida for over ten years ... which, while not the Deep South, forced me to pass through it on my way to almost any destination more interesting than the supermarket. If I don't regret choosing to spend those years in the South, it's only because the choice wasn't mine. My girlfriend still lives in the Deep South now most of the year.

I used to live in close proximity to the speaker in Panel 1 of this week's strip. I used to leave in close proximity to about 40 of him.  Despite that compelling argument in favor of Sherman's solution, I would note that there are still tons of worthwhile people living in the South, hating every femtosecond of it, but trapped there by jobs or relationships or parents or whatnot.

I envision trap-and-release, wherein the beleaguered gays, liberals, intellectuals, non-Christians, liberal Christians, and other minorities can be caught and then stored in shelters until the war is over. I have a mental image of a big crate on a street corner held up by a stick with a rope attached to it, with a big heap of Indigo Girls CDs / Utne Readers / literary criticism / bagels and lox / fuck if I know under it to attract each respective quarry. While this violates their rights, the whole "sorry I couldn't make the morning meeting, dude, but I was being shipped to Seattle in a wooden crate" factor may give people the excuse they need to finally GET OUT.

It all works out especially well because it leaves us with a large population of cool people needing homes just at a time when a large territory will need resettlement. Before long, we may be considering

Dallas to be an intellectual center, and the second half of road trips to Disneyworld will occasion muttered swearing about how no small town needs three radio stations playing NPR ...

Cynthia W.

Cynthia (R.) W.:

Mr. Kreider recognizes that there are many intelligent and educated people isolated in the American south, just as with the rural pockets of the north infested with the trolls moronic.  He wishes that I tell you he is impressed by the brilliance of your plan of "trap and release" and touched by your vision of a new south repopulated by the liberals.  Nevertheless he is resigned to accept casualties among liberal Southerners like "collateral damage" necessary for this great atomic blow against the religious bigotry and ignorance.  Freedom, he says, is not free.

Respect,

C.-H.

23 March 2006

To Ms. Phelatia Czochula-Hautpanz, for Tim "Mr Awesome" Krieder-

This isn't exactly timely, but I just noticed that your New-Year's comic:

http://www.thepaincomics.com/weekly051228a.htm

bears a striking resemblance to this old comic book cover:

http://www.samuelsdesign.com/comics/pages/two-fisted41.htm

Please tell me that it was on purpose, and not just a freaky coincidence!

Anyway, I fucking love your comic, and I just wanted to tell you that.

Regards,

Phill

 

25 March 2006

Hello, Pain folks!

The 3/22 posting was a great comic, well worth waiting for.  What does it say about me that I got the Lovecraft reference immediately but had to google to figure out the Buffy reference?  [Give me a couple of months and that might change - since seeing Serenity a few weeks back, I've watched the Firefly DVDs to the point of memorization.  I'm looking for somewhere to rent Buffy, just to get more glimpses of the fabulous Joss Whedon's worldview.]

Sorry about calling Tim cranky in my last message, it was a poor choice of expression.  I do hope he's feeling better now that he's getting a breather from rural Maryland.

-S, no longer jonesing.

Sarah,

Although Mr. Kreider is also a lachrymose viewer of the Firelfly show of television, which he recently looked at courtesy of DVDs de Netflix, he is not very familiar with Buffy the killer of the vampires.  The "big board" line is an allusion "Dr.  Strangelove, "the comedy by his most liked director Stanley Kubrick. As for what it can indicate of you that you identify the language of Lovecraft immediately, on this will I not speculate.

In confidence, your evaluation of Mr. Kreider as an eccentric is completely astute I assure you.

C.-H.

27 March 2006

Ms C-H,

Re The Big Board:  Oh, how embarrassing.  I will never again run with the answer I get from a google search, never.   I did watch Dr Strangelove in college but apparently I don't remember it very well.  I'll put it on my to-do: cultural literacy list.

I too am a lachrymose Firefly viewer.  I was so unhappy about the cancellation of Firefly three years ago that I couldn't bring myself to obtain the DVDs, and I put off watching Serenity until this month (I didn't want to have seen them all, and know there was no more).  I was so pleased with the movie, so hungry for more, so utterly unable to find the DVDs to rent, that I bought them.  And watched them, over and over, with increasing sadness.  I gave them to my mom yesterday, just to get them out of my reach (well, and because she might enjoy them).

I didn't recognize the Lovecrafting language, I just knew that whatever was on the other side of that door was more or less an Old One.  With tentacles and enormous eyes and the frustration that results from waiting millions of years for the earth to produce intelligent life.  (I'm probably mixing my Lovecraft with Old One stories in general (Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, etc) but it'll do).

Eccentricity makes the world go round.

-Sarah

31 March 2006

Thanks for making the archives linkable!  I'll be taking full advantage of that to handpick cartoons for my more squeamish friends.

My friend Em is first on my list.  She wrote me to announce that her sister has given her a subscription to The Unfortunate Animal of the Month Club ( http://ticklishideas.blogspot.com/2006/02/unfortunate-animal-of-month-club.html).  Her plan worked, I'm jealous.  I want to hide it though, and was planning to reply with some vaguely related Cthuloid art links, and that's how I discovered that this week's grass-is-greener comic is saved over the Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow-Asshole comic.  Aww, that's not cool!  Do you think it will be available again online?  Or maybe in limited-edition-signed-print form?  (It's one of my favorites). 

Tim, I wrote a couple of weeks ago speaking as a reader from a Shithead State jonesing for my "weekly dose of lefty humor and executive-branch slapdown."  I would choose different words now that I've read in this week's statement that you feel locked into doing political cartoons - I don't want to join in that chorus.  The political commentary isn't why I'm reading (or jonesing), whatever, man.  It's all about the humor and the outrage and thoughtfulness conveyed by your comics. 

I'm not turning to you website for an antidote that will allow me to survive the mental insult of Fair-and-Balanced Reporting, because I unhooked the cable and moved the TV to the basement a long time ago.  Rather, like to read things like your comics to take the edge off my generalized alienation.  For that purpose, I think I prefer "oh-ho-ho-the-hilarity-of-the-human-condition" comics to President Monkey-boy comics (of course, I'm happy to read either kind).  You do good work.  Thank you. 

Sarah