Heaneyland!

Re: panel #1 -- I would settle for public flogging of parents who bring too-young offspring to movies rated PG-13 and above. Especially if we can do this as pre-movie entertainment instead of those damned commercials.

I don't know what I like better: The possibility of having a mini-lion (lion lite? The choices are endless!) or the fact that They Might Be Giants would still be around a hundred and seventy years from now. Come to think of it, was your pirate/private eye strip based on "She Was a Hotel Detective?"

Also re #1: I remember seeing "Blue Denim" at age 6 and asking questions during the entire thing ("Mommy, what's getting in trouble? What's an abortion?"). My parents mistakenly thought it was a wholesome teenage movie. (This also came up on someone else's blog recently.)

Another time, we were driving to Montreal and stopped in Glens Falls for the night. There is nothing to do in Glens Falls. The family headed to the one movie theater in town, playing "Tom Jones." "This is an adult movie," warned the ticket taker. "Well, these are adult children," said my father of my sister and I, ages 10 and 11.

I think the movie started with an orgy scene, but don't really know as we were out of there within minutes. We then found a great ice cream place that let you make your own sundaes buffet-style, much better suited for "adult children."

Hell, I think talking of any kind in movies post-previews is a capital offense!

My mom took me and my sister to "Saturday Night Fever" when I was in 6th or 7th grade and my sister was a year older. We stayed for the whole thing. I don't think I asked a lot of questions during the movie, but my sister was happy to explain all about blow jobs afterwards. (She was far more worldly than I.)

My mom and a neighbor lady took me and my sister to see The Who's "Tommy" a couple years earlier. The snakes going through eyesockets and whatnot were a bit much for them, so we walked out. I don't recall objecting to the content myself...

I like your science guy in panel 4...

Robin: No, the pirate/private eye strip was based on nothing more than the pleasure I take in drawing pirates and private eyes.

Re children taken to grown-up movies: My father took me to see "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" while it was in theaters, which would have made me...5 years old? That seems implausible; maybe it was a revival in a second-run theater a couple years later. He also took me to "Car Wash" when I was 6 (I hated that one so much for some reason we had to leave before it ended), "Damnation Alley" when I was 7 (of which I mostly remember there being sewers and roaches involved), and "Alien" when I was 9 (whoo, did that one gave me nightmares). Can't remember if it was my father or mother (they were divorced) that took me to see "The Swarm" when I was 8, but I spent a while convinced that death in the form of killer bees was imminent.

I may have been a quiet, brainy kid, but I was not precocious in the fashion of, you know, loving Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson and Puccini and whatnot. I've always been a sucker for pop culture.

See, I always thought that I was just going to the wrong concerts, minimal concert-goer that I am.

Hah! Yes. I comment on internet-ancient Six Thingses. Now I'm off to look up this Jason Falkner person. His "Both Sides Now" is really that good?

Obviously I can't guarantee that everyone will love it as much as I do. But I think it is awesome. It is in a sped-up, power-pop vein.