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"Sour Grapes at the Rapture" (ca. 1997)
Artist's Statement
We're all aware that the world is ending next year, in 2012, thanks to the predictions of those rigorous and visionary scientists the Mayans, who never got around to inventing metal tools but accurately foresaw the apocalypse millennia in the future. But lately I've been disturbed to see an even more alarming prediction in that prestigious peer-reviewed journal, New York City subway ads, announcing the end of the world on May 21st of this year, only (hurriedly checking my datebook)--holy fuck!--only one week away! [See official website of the end of the world for more information: http://judgementday2011.com/may-21-doomsday/] This is very bad news, especially for me, since I'm nearly finished my book and things were starting to look up for once. It fucking figures.
I'm going to have to remember to check back in on that website on May 22nd to see their official response. I wonder whether they're already working on one, like that speech written for Nixon in case the Apollo 11 astronauts died on the Moon, or if that would be considered a failure of faith? For some reason religious cults that predict the end of the world never just say Oh well! and take the money and run after their predictions have proven to be horseshit. Always they claim that their intercession by prayer successfully saved the world or they postpone the date and ask for more money or (in one case cited by Carl Sagan in Broca's Brain) they insist that the world has indeed ended despite the notoriously unreliable evidence of the senses. Eschatology is still an imperfect science. I fear that far more people are aware of and acutely concerned about next Saturday's global apocalypse than have even heard of the National Research Councils' report on the urgently pressing necessity of limiting greenhouse carbon emissions.
A reader wrote in to remind me of the imminent destruction of all we hold dear and suggested I run this old cartoon by way of commentary. Since I'm pretty immersed in my writing these days and uninspired to draw new cartoons, taking requests seems as good a method as any for updating this website. Consider this your cartoon jukebox. Any other old favorites you vaguely remember from my books or minicomics that you'd like to see again?
