Conniving and Sinister: June 2010

Friday, June 25, 2010

Happy 200th Strip, Conniving & Sinister!

Today's strip was number 200. I can't believe it's run this long, since it was originally meant as a one-off riff on the long-running newspaper comic "Frank & Ernest"—the idea being that if its white, straight, male protagonists are "frank and earnest," then the biracial/gay and fat/female protagonists of my strip would be "conniving and sinister."

The Frank & Ernest strip that inspired C&S was this one. It ran in Aug. 09, right in the middle of the debates about healthcare reform, which left so much at stake particularly for the poor, for women, for people of color (especially poor women of color), and for gay men and lesbians, who largely can't get health insurance via partner benefits, and the dismissive "joke" about Congressional debates by two "frank and earnest" white guys, while I was spending my days plowing through Congressional testimony and sorting through details of complex reform proposals, just irked me to no end.

So I fired off a quick post about it, accompanied by a terribly, terribly drawn comic strip, lol. And then it just...stuck.

I've refined Deeky's and my avatars a bit over time, but it's still the same basic premise. And I guess I'll keep doing it until I run out of ideas.

Thanks to everyone who's been so supportive of the strip. And special thanks to Deeky, for being such a good sport.

-Liss