Arms and Ether - Nu 2 U

Hateball emerges from his basement staycation and back into the dark moldy dankness of everyday life--and dang-nabbit, he's got bills to pay! Find out what he has to say about it all in this week's magical Arms n' Ether.

Is "I Gotta Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas a song full of almost unbearable cosmic sorrow? The melancholy seems damn heavy in that sucker.

In other news, I really really miss my dog.

And finally, Montaigne probably had the right idea: sit around in a castle in pantaloons and just go off about stuff all the time. And get a stache. When my son Sam saw me with it as I picked him up from school, he burst into a big smile, started laughing and exclaimed, "Awesome!" Julie was less impressed. I think it was too much too soon in our relationship.

"But it's Movember!" said Scott before Christy handed him the razor and pointed him to the bathroom.

Montaigne: The Original Middle Aged Man

I'm trying to get a handle on drawing Renaissance-style ruffled collars (or "ruffs") because the Arms and Ether character, Ginger Childe, sports one. The "go-to-guy" for ruffled collars is, for my money, Michel de Montaigne. Here are my deep insights into "The Seigneur."

1. Montaigne was a sweet-assed bald man. That's the way you rock middle age, baby. Grow the 'stache, hole-up in your castle-shack and start discoursin' on whatever suits your eclectic fancy.

2. The pants-less lifestyle is a central theme of the first five Arms and Ether strips. I just realized that Montaigne, actually discusses the pants-less lifestyle in his On Cannibalism. "All this is not too bad -- but what's the use? They don't wear breeches."

3. I can say I'm a sharper fellow for having taken Claude Rawson's, Literature and Cultural Reticence: The Cannibal Theme, as a young English major. Now back to drawing that damned collar.

4. Literature and Cultural Reticence: The Cannibal Theme was my second favorite course title, topped only by Black Women and Their Fictions.