Sometimes the things we’re looking for are right under our noses. Or on the sound crew for the popular monster hunting show we happen to host. I’m sure you know how that goes.
Oh look, I drew Josh Gates of Destination Truth fame! If you follow me on Twitter you’ve probably figured out that I’m a fan of the show. Despite the fact that they rarely find anything definitive, Josh Gates and company are extremely entertaining. If you like monster/ghost shows, it’s definitely the best one out there. I’m going to tell him I drew him. Maybe he’ll like it and we’ll become friends.
I bet he’s best buds with Sasquatch and just isn’t telling anyone.
Enough of my gushing.
It’s been a while since we saw Sasquatch in a strip! Jeez! Sometimes I just want to draw nothing but Lil K and Sass but I like mixing it up and sometimes ideas for them just don’t pan out. Ah well.
Sasquatch is one of those crazy folk tales that just won’t seem to go away no matter how hard biologists seem to plead. The idea that a gigantic 8 foot monster ape-man would be traipsing about North American forests (and just about everywhere there’s wilderness these days) seems to set most of them foaming at the mouth. As for me, I’m not sure you can discredit the stories entirely, but it seems much more likely that what people are seeing are misidentified bears. They’re the right shape, inhabit all the right areas, and often stand up on their hind legs for whatever reason. Does it account for every sighting and foot print? Probably not, but it’s much more likely.
Whenever I hear about Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) or Yetis or any of their kin, I wonder what else it might be that drives people toward their interest in these creatures. Is it some kind of cultural memory that has persisted for tens of thousands of years? Did we once share space with creatures similar to these beasts or is it something more complicated? Do they, like most of folklore and mythology, represent something we are afraid to confront about ourselves? It’s an interesting question and a valid one, I think.
Whatever the explanation behind the noble Sasquatch, it will always remain a fascinating concept. The stories of ape men have been around for a long time from the forests of North America to the mountains of Nepal. No other cryptid enjoys as much popularity as the Bigfoot and even if you don’t believe in its existence, you have to respect the staying power of the myth.
I have a feeling it’s linked with ancestral memory, or something like that. Way back from the Cro-Magnon days. *Sigh* Those were the days.
And, while this is pure conjecture, I have a feeling the number of bigfoot ‘sightings’ have increased hand-in-hand with the rise of mass-media. Go back a century or two, and I have a feeling stuff like this would be a lot less common.
Then again, when Jefferson sent out Louis and Clarke, he expected them to find all sorts of bizarre creatures. One of which, if I recall correctly, was some sort of 10-meter tall super-bear.
Anyway, good comic. The art, as always, is fantastic–which begs the question, why are you distributing this stuff for free, online? Most of the people that ‘make a living’ as comic artists, in my opinion, have barely a fraction of your talent.
And before I forget… I’ve never seen much of the cryptozoology shows, but if they’re anything like the Ghost Hunters BS, I don’t think I could tolerate ‘em. Every time I see GH on TV, it’s always a group of tweens (and at least one old, vaguely creepy guy with unkempt hair) wandering around an old, abandoned building… with grainy, black and white cameras. They spend the whole episodes pretending to hear things and see things, and, basically, pretending to be scared. (Either that, or they’re all very susceptible to suggestion). With the Cryptozoology shows, I imagine it’s quite similar.
“What’s that, over there!”
“Oh, no! It ran away!”
Repeated forever.
I’d have a lot more interest if these programs were crafted with a more… nonfiction bend. Examining the historical roots and mythological bases of such things, and examining all possible reasons for the perpetuation of such odd notions. (Speaking of odd notions… when are you gonna hit on UFOs? Very much a ‘modern myth,’ I think.)
As far as Bigfoot sightings go, you’re absolutely right about increased media access. This is something that happened with UFOs very clearly in the 50′s after Roswell. The funniest part of that particular trend is that believers tend to look at the cause and effect as being inverse. For instance, instead of saying “Wow, since Roswell, there have been more and more sightings. That must mean that Roswell’s coverage made people aware of the phenomenon and thus more likely to “see” UFOs that aren’t really there.” they say, “Wow, since Roswell there have been more and more sightings. That must mean that aliens are visiting our planet more and that Roswell has got people looking for them more, thus increasing the frequency of sightings!” This happens with a lot of things, Bigfoot included. Since the Patterson footage, interest and “evidence” of Bigfoot has skyrocketed. It’s pretty laughable, really.
As for Ghost Hunters and stuff, I watch those shows sometimes just as pure entertainment at the stupidity on display. There’s rarely anything of interest and as that particular show has gone on it has got more and more ridiculous. Destination Truth, on the other hand, is all about the crew for me. They do some of the things you’d see in similar shows (hunting at night, startling moments of “WHATWASTHAT!?”, sometimes eerie music, but Josh Gates is absolutely hilarious and rarely concludes the show with something really outlandish. Typically he talks about the folklore roots of monsters and describes his trips with humor and a down to earth quality I find lacking in other shows. I really hope it continues as it has been really entertaining.
And finally, thanks for the lovely comment about the comic itself, totally appreciated. There are a few reasons I put this up for free, really. The first is that it’s something I love to do and something I want to share with other people very badly. I feel like if I can make someone smile or shed some kind of insight on subjects that are close to hearts (or livers!) then I’ve done a good job. I’d do this free for as long as I could, just for that, and I mean it. I also feel like the world is going in a different direction these days. You can’t really do things the way we’ve done them for years under publishers and big production companies anymore. People expect a certain amount of free things and if they don’t get it free, they will make it free somehow (pirating, etc). If you prove yourself to be worthwhile, people will try to support you when they can, and I, personally, am okay with that. I think I can make a living at this without forcing people to subscribe for something stupid or by withholding additional content. So here I am working away and spending a lot of time on this for myself but also for people I don’t know. Someday soon I will independently publish yearly anthologies of Happle Tea that might have some extra drawings, notes, and essays in them, I will continue to make shirts and buttons, and I will continue to allow advertising on the site for things I think people might be interested in.
It’s slow going and it certainly isn’t the old way of doing things but I think it’s a good way and I know that there are a lot of people that appreciate it. For those that can’t buy something or give me money to help me live, that appreciation is plenty.
I think this is the longest comment ever.
In terms of the comic industry, you’re probably right, and this is a good way to go about doing it (and why the hell am I even bringing this up? I love getting to see this stuff for free) but art of your calibur needn’t be limited strictly to ‘comics.’
Frankly, you’ve got both the art and the wit to warrant publishing something. Maybe not comics, but were I you, I would SERIOUSLY consider trying, say, an illustrated childrens’ book. I don’t see the internet effecting that particular venue any time soon, and God knows you can do better than a lot of the crap I had to look at as a wee ‘un. I urge you to at least to try to write something and draw something and to send it off to a publisher. It’s a better idea, I think, than harboring some idle hope of eventually, one day self-publishing.
Ah, maybe I’m getting too preachy here. I’ve known a (small) number of relatively talented artists who never really went anywhere… mostly because they never tried.
>.> IT’S A KITTY!
That’s not any old cat! It’s the long lost Malaysian Man-eating Cat. There have only been two sightings of it. All of which ended in at least three or four villages being eaten in one bite. Josh Gates finally captured this beast on film!
That guy is A-MA-ZING!
ROFL xD
Nice drawing and strip.
Is Bigfoot holding the boom mic?
Sass’s expression is priceless!
Well technically they are looking for bigfoot. And well, Sass is a sasquatch.