Today you get two strips for the price of one. 😉 We hope that everyone likes at least one of the two versions. Do you know if anybody has done something like this in a webcomic before?
We have created the following colored version of Doctor Woo as a little gift for donators. Now we wonder if there’s interest in merchandising products with Doctor Woo on it… And if so if you have special wishes regarding a clever slogan for it. (completely fails to hide the fact that he was not able to come up with one ;-))
Democrat version:
- Man: And you two are… insurance salesmen?
- Sandra: No, no. I’m Hillary Clinton and this is my fellow party member Al Gore. We’d like to ask you for a generous donation to support starving children.
- Sandra: Otherwise we’d feel impelled to educate you about all the beneficial effects of public healthcare for the poor and weak…
- Cloud: … and about all the things you personally can do to save energy and thus leave future generations a world worth living in.
- Man: AAAAAAAA
- Cloud: This is working much better than it should.
Republican version:
- Sandra: Otherwise we’d feel impelled to educate you about all the beneficial effects of public healthcare for slackers and illegal immigrants…
- Cloud: … and about all the things you personally can do to save energy and still enjoy a standard of living comparable to that of a Bangladeshi!
- Cloud: You were right. They are pretty damn scary.
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NICE. Now THAT’S something to laugh at XD
I don’t know… I like the deconstruction of the D version much better than the demonization of the R version. But if you mix the panels right (R1 D2 R3 D4), it might even be funnier.
Perfect.
i might get this better if i was in touch with american politics. which partyis the one that mr. burns supports again?
Just about the best Halloween costume idea I’ve seen so far. And yes, that could be quite scary to some people, I’d imagine. For example, those who pay $300/month for electricity… I really have no idea what they could possibly be using it for, but if I can use that fact to shake some candy out of them, all the better =3
Doctor Woo? Is that parody at Doctor Who? 🙂 If not, Daleks will exterminate you 😀
Ambi’s right. the order he talked about would make it funnier but the execution is still quite clever and should be used more often. By others not just you.
You should choose which one you want to see. That way you won’t be nonplussed by the one based in a party affiliation you don’t agree with, tainting your view of the one you do agree with.
Or you could not base comics in politics, polarizing your audience and alienating half of them all the time. Politics are dumb and the only comics that have successfully included them are comics like Bloom County that regularly lampooned the entire institution and not one side or the other (like the incredibly leftist Doonesbury).
Regarding Doctor Woo… Could superimpose him over the time core of the TARDIS, get even more takers… As for a slogan, “The Doctor Is In”.
I may have to take a cue from Precocious on this… E-vil… EVIL!
Loved both versions.
I don’t get it, those are both the conservative version…
either approach would work for me…
just one teeny little thing, though…shouldn’t it be “compelled,” instead of “impelled”?
btw…love your strips!!!!
According to Dictionary.com, “impelled” is correct(as is “compelled”), but I’ve never heard that word before in my life.
It reminds me of the story I read about the people who run Conservapedia rewriting the Bible to remove “liberal bias” .
As hard as it tries fiction is never as strange as the truth.
great comic make fun of the govrment and get candy sweet 😛
So wrong its good.I think you could go either way with both versions regardless of your views XD.
Nice.
Apparently, you cuss more when in Republican mode. Who knew?
I find both versions humorous. I have seen others do two versions of the same comic before, but it’s been a while. Long enough, that I can’t remember who else it was that’s done this in the past.
I always knew those two scared both parties. >>
I may be, but, don’t Sandra and Cloud look smaller than usual ?
Also, Dr Woo more looks like a Dr Woo-se to me. 😡
LOL! Those kids know how to play the field. 😀
LOVED both versions of the comic! I guess this shows that Hilary Rodham Rodham and Al “I Got The Nobel Peace Prize For The Same Reason That Barack Hussein Obama Did” Gore are equally scary to both Democrats and Republicans.
Unlike Moxie Man, I’ve never seen a webcomic do this before. Certainly not for the sake of two political viewpoints. I wonder if not being American makes it harder or easier for you to make good bipartisan humor on the matter.
@Tom Flapwell: Actually, I’m American, and I think I could easily give a bipartisan satirical spin on something like this, mostly because I don’t believe in politics.
Also, I found this very funny. I like when people make fun of both parties equally. It’s refreshing to see both sides getting an equal roasting.
I found most of the humour came from the juxtaposition of the two versions.
A much more time-consuming possibility that might be fun is to draw two versions, from slightly to the left and right, and put the strips vertically, side by side. Then you’d have a cross-eye stereogram where each eye saw a different side of the political debate, and the places where it differed would stand out.
Yeah, I’m a 3D geek. But I have no idea if it’s possible to do a stereogram in inks alone – I know I’ve never seen it done, at least. Come to that, unless you count “spot the difference” puzzles, I’ve never seen a stereogram that deliberately showed inconsistent scenes to each eye.
Speaking as a conservative, you have a fatal flaw in the so-called “Republican version” there. Chiefly, conservatives’ complaint over the health care plan isn’t “health care for slackers” but rather “government undermining of the private insurance industry with a public option and strangling choice with additional regulations when Medicare and Medicaid already exist to provide health are to the old, infirm, and poor, and they’re already being swindled out of hundreds of millions of dollars by unscrupulous individuals and are so bloated that people who really need their help don’t get it half the time. Really, government does not make things better, it makes things worse.”
Oh, wait, that can’t fit on a bumper sticker. I’ve noticed that with Liberal vs. Conservatives: Liberals use sound bites and slurs and throw them around like stones. Conservatives try to reason and so get ignored by people like half the persons who have stopped reading this by now and are already typing up a flame post to drown out discussion with shouting and protest.
So if you kindly would re-label the “Republican Version” to something more accurate, like “What Democrats Think Republicans Think Version” then I’ll be happy.
OMG, LMAO!!! Oh man, hold on, gotta catch my breath….damn that was funny! I have to admit, that’s one way to scare people on Halloween…oh man…brilliant, simply brilliant. Quite a haul they got there, wonder how many bags they’ll go through before the nights over.
This one didn’t really stand out to me in any way, though I appreciate the bipartisan approach. I normally stop reading a comic if I spot them showing any political stance (even if I agree with them). Comics are for entertainment, radios are for politics.
I love that you can show them as terrifying to both sides x3
This is why I am an independant.
Ken wrote: I normally stop reading a comic if I spot them showing any political stance (even if I agree with them). Comics are for entertainment, radios are for politics.
You’re free to state your opinion. But I’m also free to completely ignore it and do what I want to do with Sandra and Woo.
I absolutle love thies strips i think prefetly show the recublican,democrat and nonpolitical sides of the jock.
@ezekel: broeadliy put, R is consevetiv and D is Liberal.
@rokas: I think Your argument looses a littel Whith the whole WE are reseneble but THEY are not.
@Garrett Williams: this may be way of from Your qustion. but ” one ligth does not put it`s naboer to shaem ” keep on mecking graet comics.
I am conservative and lean more Republican, but I actually preferred the “Democrat” version, although I do interpret it in a more tongue-in-cheek manner. (It is a very subtle reading of it, but fits nonetheless.)
And yes, my issue with government health care isn’t “healthcare for slackers” so much as it is “government trying to control our lives in another way”. When you delegate someone authority to handle your business, they gain control over that area of your business, doubly so with governmental entities.
Thought I would add as well, last Halloween, my wife’s niece (whose mother is very strongly pro-Obama) dressed as Sarah Palin. For those who don’t know, she was the Republican governor of Alaska and vice presidential pick for John McCain.
I always get the feeling that the ‘differences’ between the two political parties is entirely superficial. The way I see it, its just age old tactic of divide and conquer. The people can’t regulate you if they’re too busy bickering about whether one’s donkey is better than the other’s elephant. Most of us just watch the whole morbid farce, cringe a little on the inside, and let the masses follow each other off the cliff, led by that infamous ten percent that are always most eager to take the lead and are almost always entirely unfit to do so…here’s to extinction, cheers!
ROTFLOL! Sandra’s ankles should be thicker if she’s going to be Hillary though. Woo and Shadow should go out as the Lone Ranger and Tonto. 😀
Shippy Softpaw–Is that you, Shippou?
Political is bad enough, this is just mean.
Not readin’ this anymore.
http://www.pvponline.com/2004/12/30/dec-30-2004/
PvP’s 2004 December strip 😛 Not political, but choose-your-own-ending.
@Rokas
A negative conception of freedom right there. But each to their own. Still I would point out that while there is plenty of useless attacking rhetoric on what Americans call the “left” (and they aren’t really, if that’s good or bad you decide for yourself). But to say that the “right” try to use reason more than the left comes across as inaccurate, especially considering some of the blatantly destructive and (often) vile rhetoric that comes from the mouths of people such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. Now of course those two do not represent all Republicans (or Conservatives, take your pick), any more than all Republicans think that there were WMDs in Iraq. But that is how it can seem. Oh and I did read your entire post. But then again I suppose people see what they want to; Republicans see Democrats as spewing useless rhetoric and slurs and vice versa.
I liked the dual nature of the comic. It worked, I even found myself laughing at them both.
@Rokas
Did you just cross into “We reason, they don’t” territory? Yeah, that helps a lot.
As long as you guys keep up with the mentality that you always have bigger brains, bigger guns, blah blah blah than your rival, bickering will never cease. Especially in the case with generalizing the entire population inaccurately labeled by one ideology that nobody practice (mouth full I know).
Recall Washington’s words? Recall his warning against partisanship? Let be honest, do you think we all be better off had somebody shut their mouth about forming GOP? Democrat Party? Whigs, Federalist, etc.? If anything, party system worsen the effect of already hive-minded populace. Now we are dealing with fanatics from both sides who will destroy the principle just to advance that same principle.
“We reason, but they don’t”?
No offense, but that had to be the root of so many ignorance out there that it is not funny. You can start enlightening yourself by admitting that your opponent is equal to yourself. That is what real America is about, the America that had been corroded by egotistical mingering between two bull#### parties and false ideologies that everybody follows without question.
To the detractors out there, might I suggest that you take things as they come. It is natural that a comic writer’s beliefs will come out at least a little during the course of a comic, and sometimes the opinion inferred is one you disagree with. I try to glean from those comics the humor, and understand why they might think as they do. There have been a couple here I haven’t agreed with the core thought behind, but nonetheless found the strip humorous.
As for this comic, neither version of this is particularly mean-spirited, although the topic necessitates there will be some politics in the strip. So long as the author attempts to give all sides a fair shake, that’s fine by me.
If someone decides the thought expressed or the means it is expressed make this comic unpalatable to them, then they do have the right to stop reading it. I don’t understand what announcing this accomplishes, though.
As for the two-party system (which is what current American politics boils down to in practicality), I do believe it tends to divide people, especially today in the day where people have their identity in a party.
That said, there are some general differences in the general ideologies of the two parties. So where politics are concerned, I prefer to think of politicians in terms of their ideological beliefs and interpretations of things like the Constitution and the role of government. These things are important, whereas one’s party affiliation doesn’t matter a whole lot to me in the long run.
Shippou-Chan has a point. Actually two. I personally like the odd political comic, even if it goes against my own beliefs, so long as it is at least an attempt at humour and not a shameless shot at pitching political messages in a blatantly pushy way. I cannot stand people trying to force their opinions on others, something I think (though I could be wrong) most reasonable people would agree with. This comic has avoided that completely I think, and even when there have been the odd opinion/political belief etc, it wasn’t really pushy, and there was humour involved (the Monsanto one for example). Contrast that with that comic with the Blue Dog talking about being a vegetarian. That sounded like a Public Service Announcement.
As for two party systems… I do not particularly like them. The US could do with something like, well, not Italy, but rather Canada. The existence of other fairly major parties force the two larger ones to compromise, especially when the voters do not fully support any party enough to give a majority. Two party system leaves the voter with fewer choices and has a tendency to cause voter alienation and apathy (if neither side represents your view, why vote?). That being said this is just my opinion (and an outsider’s one at that), besides it would make for a pretty long comic to try to represent the views of three or four parties…
What cracks me up about the Republican’s fight against public healthcare is that they argue that the government option will undermine the private insurance industry AND the government is too incompetent to run healthcare. If the government is so incompetent, then they won’t be putting private insurers out of business. You can’t have it both ways!
@Rokas: I was taking you seriously up until the moment where you accused democratics of doing nothing but slandering while the poor republicans try futilely to reason. Both sides do it, get over yourself.
And now for the Independent Party version:
Only one panel needed. The kids are at the grocery store instead of a house porch:
Boy: “What do you mean we can’t go trick or treating?”
Girl: “As independents, we’re expected to make our own way through life and not be reliant upon the handouts of others. You’ll see. If we buy our own candy, we’ll be…”
Boy: “Awwwwwww…”
um… we already provide emergency health care for illegal immigrants. And, It was the Republicans that pushed through the bill through in the first place, so…WTF? Additionally, It’s the Republicans that started the “think about the Tyrannosaurus debt our future generations will have to suffer with … and they, the republicans, didn’t say bring any of theese concerns up when Bush was in office spending the money like there was no tomorrow.
Gore is an environmentalist which I pretty much equate with socialism and communism. I am opposed to socialism, but you can be a socialist whether your a republican or a democrat. additionally a hospital won’t turn down a patient who shows up at an emergency room with a problem whether they can afford it or not, the doctors pay extortionary amounts of money to the insurance companies, so that they get paid either way.
@ tony: The argument is a little more complicated than that. A government insurance plan, by definition of being govenrment, doesn’t need to run a profit. That means they can price thier service below what private “for profit” business will. Add to that the regulations the States put on insureancde companies that the Federal government dosen’t have to adhear to, and soon people will flosk to the government option in droves, putting the private industry out of business. As for the mismanaging of they system, well, that is what a govenrment does. A government is not setup to provide for the welfare of its citizens, it is there so that another government dosen’t take over, about the only things that they can do better that a private company is fight a war (and even then sometimes). One final note, as a person in the medical field, I have seen a few people come from accroos the border (or sea in one case) to get treatments here, because of the length of time it would take to see a a doctor in thier home country or the outright refusial to be given treament there. That is the fear that government healthcare brings.
P.S. sorry for the lenght of the rant
@ Rocket T Coyote
I’m not Shippy Softpaw. Anywhere I use a name similar to this, it is Shippou or Shippou-chan, named for the kitsune from Inuyasha, whom I have cosplayed as (the only adult male I know of who has.)
Sorry.