Below is the latest The Pain -- When Will It End?
Updated 6/29/05

Artist's Statement

I can't seem to let go of Scott McClellan's mendacity. His one-panel cameo appearance last week has blossomed here into a full-fledged comic premise. Apparently a number of readers share my reaction of visceral distaste to him: "He is not at all an accomplished liar, and I am pretty sure he doesn't care," wrote Tom, my lone fan in Kansas. "It seems rather galling that he lies, and we all know he is lying, but it just doesn't seem to matter. No outcry of 'Liar!'" My colleague Emily Flake was more concise: "What a waxy little stooge." Lately I've been thinking that, in addition to the lovely and capable Phelatia C.-Z.'s manegerial skills, I could use the talents of a good P.R. flack who'd cover up, dismiss, dissemble (or disassemble, as the President has it), prevaricate, stall, make excuses, stonewall, and flat-out lie for me as shamelessly as that toady McClellean does for the Bush administration. Because, like the Bush administration, I have made some decisions that were not strictly reality-based and then proved to have unforeseen consequences, and, also like them, I am loath to own up to it. I dithered in choosing between Boyd, Michael, John Patton and Jim; in the end, however, Jim's smooth bullshitting skills won out over Boyd's poker-faced outrageousness, Michael's oily assurance, and John's professional credentials.

This is still the Old Testament Jim I'm drawing; I haven't yet learned how to draw the New Testament Jim. A cartoon on the differences between them is forthcoming.