It takes an interesting sort of culture to revere cats and cat goddesses in an organized fashion such as the ancient Egyptians did. There are some…issues with cat deities that I think many people probably weren’t prepared for. Like, say, the sort of blessings a powerful feline god might confer on its worshipers.

Bastet, also known as Bast, was a major Egyptian deity, connected directly with Ra, the sun god, and worshiped heavily in the city of Bubastis. Like many of the gods worshiped by ancient Egyptians, her personality and her role within the pantheon were multifaceted and shifted over time. Also like other gods, she had a sort of mirror image in another goddess worshiped by Upper Egypt, Sekhmet. With the victory of Upper Egypt over Lower Egypt in the wars to unify the region, many of the changes in attitude toward various gods reflected the reality of the changing political climate. Sekhmet, the protector of Upper Egypt grew in power and popularity, while the strength of Bastet, the goddess of Lower Egypt, waned.

Bastet was seen, for hundreds of years, as a strong lioness, a protector of her pride in Lower Egypt. She was a war goddess, a mother, and a major deity associated with the sun. As such, she was one of the central figures in the Lower Egyptian Pantheon. As mentioned above, when her power and popularity began to wane in the face of Upper Egypt’s version of the lion goddess, Bastet began to be perceived as a more domestic personality. She became more strongly associated with women, particularly pregnant women, the home, and domestic cats rather than the lionesses of the savannah. As her personality changed, so did her image. There are many sculptures and images of Bastet that depict her as an elegant, domestic feline.

I’ve often heard people express confusion with regards to Egyptian deities and their perception of animals within their religion. One of the biggest points of confusion seems to be their reverence for pets, especially domestic cats. Nowadays, particularly in the “First World”, cats are loved by many but seen as essentially useless creatures. They kill the occasional mouse or rat, eat bugs, warm our laps, etc. It’s all well and good to love them but to revere cats would be seen as strange today. In Ancient Egypt, however, where plague and illness were a very real possibility, where vermin often carried diseases and ruined valuable food supplies, cats could be the only thing between a city and death.

The reality is that any Egyptian would likely have found the events in this strip highly pleasing. Dead rodents were ones that couldn’t infect people or food supplies and that’s mostly definitely a blessing in a time when physicians often prescribed animal dung as a part of someone’s treatment.

If cats were one of the primary defenses against illness and illness meant you’d be ingesting or even topically applying animal dung as part of your prescription, I think we’d all be worshiping cats.

In other news, Sasquatch made an appearance in Two Guys and Guy yesterday. Did you miss it? It was pretty awesome!

Being in a relationship with another human being is a lot like exploring a cave. They often seem shallow at first, easily explored and easily mapped, but there are secrets. There are tunnels and chambers of the human soul that house dark and terrible things. Impossible creatures, sightless monstrosities, diseases and horrors that no reasonable individual could imagine lurk in those depths and populate the darkness.

You start dating someone and you have expectations. You expect that this person you have, in some small way, committed yourself to is a reasonable creature.

Then you find out that they practice black magic and regularly make sacrifices to fiendish deities.

You think to yourself, ‘maybe I can live with this’.

Warlocks are just one of the many terrible things you could be dating right now without even knowing it! Those of you that are fortunate enough to be single, count your blessings. The rest of you, gather your holy water. It may help if your significant other is a lower ranking practitioner of the dark arts.

Here are some helpful tips to help you recognize a witch or warlock in your own home:

1. Watch your S.O’s mouth closely. If they begin to salivate at the sight of babies, you’ve probably got trouble.

2. Check their closet (when they’re not looking, obviously) for wands, cauldrons, tomes, and James Patterson novels. Evidence of any of the above may indicate vile sorceries.

3. Take note of any hell borne monstrosities that may reside in your home. If found, inquire politely about who summoned it.

4. Pay attention to the websites your boyfriend or girlfriend visits. Keywords such as “satan”, “black magic”, “demons”, and “Jersey Shore” can be early warning signs that your loved one may be possessed by demonic forces.

I hope these tips have helped you better understand the forces of darkness and how they may be hiding amongst your family and friends.

Be ever vigilant!

In other news, sorry for the late strip and blog post. End of the school and all that. Next week is only a single exam then I’ve got critique and I’m done! I’m so excited! This summer I will be working on publishing the very first happle tea book AND I will be starting my graphic novel! Oo la la!

Hope finals for everyone are going well! Good luck college people!

Liz drew you all a thing. Savor it:

Hey look, it’s more Nessie! Because sometimes you just need more dinosaurs in your life, am I right?

Everyone say thanks to Liz for this comic idea, she’s a genius. We were talking about Nessie comics for a day or two and she just randomly blurted this one out and I laughed out loud at the idea. I mean, you never really get to see what he looks like under that water. It only makes sense that he’d be a buff bronzed beefcake.

(I like alliteration.)

Nessie’s been around for quite a long time, it seems like he’d need some hobbies. Picking up ladies and tanning on the beach sounds like a reasonable thing to do when you live around a lake. Scotland is full of warmth and sunshine, right? Yeah, I thought so.

Since we already talked about Nessie on Tuesday, I’m going to keep this blog post pretty light and use the time to write some more strips instead. I’d like to fill you in on some goings on in the meantime!

William and I will be at Anime Boston April 22nd through the 24th. We will be at Table 96 which, if SPX was any indication, will be in an alternate dimension. I will be bringing some prints of things you can find on my tumblr and I will probably do some individual comic prints (I haven’t decided which ones yet). There will also be some t-shirts (still only have medium and up) and some buttons for cheap! I will probably also be doing commissions randomly and just saying hi and hanging out! If you’re in the area and going to the con you should definitely swing by and say hello and I will give you a high five!

I am, once again, looking into printing a book of Happle Tea strips. I’ve decided that I will probably do as other web comics of this nature have done and break it down by year and include some additional material in the end. This is something that gets asked fairly often in email and comments and twitter so I figured I’d let you know here. Yes, a book is likely to happen sometime this year, no I do not know when exactly, but I will keep you all posted. The problem right now is startup money, it is not cheap to self publish, so I might do pre-orders and offer something nice like a doodle inside the cover when the time comes.

As there seem to be a lot of new people visiting the site lately (I blame Reddit. [hello Reddit, I love you, I visit you frequently in a quiet, lurkerish fashion]), here are some things to look at:

Check out the HT fan page on Facebook.

Here is my twitter account where I tweet relatively frequently and chat back and forth with people.

Here is my relatively newish Tumblr. There is not much there, but I am updating pretty frequently.

And here is my email: K@10km.org if you’d like to send me an email about Nessie, the HT book, or just say hello. I try to respond to questions but I am not always the best at it.

Oh and I may do a live stream of the strip sometime soon, if anyone would be interested in that sort of thing.

Have a great weekend everybody!

SITE UPDATE: Over this week you may have noticed some weird stuff going on with the site. The databases were apparently corrupted by a combination of random events and my own ineptitude. I’ve got stuff mostly working again though there are a few random issues. I’m trying to get the buy a print button working properly while I’m at it. Sorry for the issues and the missing strip, I’ll try to make it up to you somehow.

RANDOM UPDATE: Oh yeah today is my birthday. Wooo!

People are curious. Many of us are always on the look out for some new fascinating fact about ourselves, as if simple self reflection weren’t enough. Our conscious minds aren’t good enough for this sort of thing so where do we look? Those wild ridiculous things called dreams hold all the answers. But what do these random things made up of seemingly disparate elements tell us? If you’re like Lil K (and I suspect you are, you maniac!) they don’t say anything good.

Oh hey look, it’s Morpheus. He’s finally got around to being in a comic. Cool!

There’s been some interest in dream interpretation for quite a long time; longer than you might imagine, even. It’s been something like forever. Dreams are strange things, deeply personal yet entirely alien. They reflect our daily lives and yet are unlike anything we know in waking life. While cognitive sciences have made strides toward helping us understand what consciousness is, it hasn’t yet adequately worked out what dreams are or what they are for. We know they’re necessary to humans and likely most other animals, but the exact nature and purpose of them eludes us. It seems pretty astounding that something everybody does has yet to be properly worked out. It’s really an incredible thing to study, it seems. If I were diligent enough for a career in science, it’s something I’d love to look into.

Dreams were absolutely fascinating to the Greeks and Egyptians and writings still exist today about the ways in which dreams were experienced and interpreted. It seems as if there have been dream movements over the years and across cultures. Different cultures and periods experience different types of dreams. Egyptians (at least what we have recorded) reportedly experienced a great many dreams involving their gods, as did the Greeks (who inherited a lot of ideas about dreams from the Egyptians) while later European cultures in the Middle Ages viewed dreams as evil visitations from the Devil. Human beings, being social animals with minds largely made up by the cultures in which they live, seem to give way pretty easily to pressure, even when it comes to their dreams.

It’s all a bit difficult to study dreams, as not everyone can remember all or even most of them. What we experience as large chunks of time passing in our dreams can actually be the firing of synapses in the space of just a few moments. It’s kind of amazing to think about.

As for good ol’ Morpheus, the fellow seems to have been a rather minor deity in the scheme of things, at least when it comes to the grand tales of Greek Myth. Not many stories refer to him and when they do he isn’t a stand out character. Even Ovid’s Metamorpheses doesn’t have much to say about him, though that’s technically Roman literature.

Types of dreams come and go and our understanding of what they are and what they’re for marches ever onward. As for me, I rarely remember my dreams, if I have them at all. I like to think that I get my dreams out on paper in this comic and on sketchpads. When I do remember my dreams, they are almost always terrible nightmares. The funny thing about nightmares is that they make waking life seem even more pleasant. Not a bad trade-off.

Until we work out exactly what dreams are all about, I suspect people will continue to search dream interpretation books and therapists about the stories their minds tell themselves at night. Whether it’s a valid process or not is still up in the air, but I suppose it can’t hurt to try to figure it out.

That is unless you have super hot dreams about unicorns.

Then you should probably just keep your mouth shut.

Sasquatches are world renowned as highly virile creatures. They mate for whole hours before moving on to their next conquest. Not unlike our politicians! Hurk hurk! Am I right?

In all seriousness, one of the most interesting things about the Sasquatch tales that seem to keep cropping up is the severe lack of a stable breeding population. While it’s true that it took many years and modern technology to uncover some of the more recently discovered animals, it’s also true that we’ve managed to find males and females of species and find enough of them to see that they’re able to create offspring and continue their existence. Sasquatches, unfortunately, have never been seen in any kind of number anywhere in the world. When one hears about a Sasquatch or a yeti or any of their myriad other names, it’s always some rogue monster terrorizing suburban or rural residents. One could make the case that it is exceedingly rare to see such creatures as snow leopards and panthers, we have, at least found some. We’ve seen males, we’ve seen females, and we’ve found babies and adolescents. Meanwhile, hundreds of people train eyes, ears, and technology, on Sasquatch haunts around the world and nothing has yet turned up.

I love discovery as much as the next person and I’m open minded about the idea that these things may exist, but as of right now there’s really no compelling evidence. Kind of a bummer.

The strange thing about this is that there are people that link monsters like Sasquatch with the idea of discovery and adventure. There are still animals and plants and places to be discovered and explored all around the world but because they’re “normal” critters, I guess it isn’t quite as romantic. Personally, discovery of any sort seems like an admirable pursuit.

Though I guess it would be totally awesome to capture and train a chupacabra circus….

Besides, there’s a lot of hard work, sweat, tears, and paperwork involved in discovery. There are footprints to analyze, blood samples to test, and…mating habits to…study.

Maybe watching two hairy Sasquatches do the deed isn’t really your ideal way to spend an afternoon, hm?

All I’m saying is be careful what you wish for.

This comic is a true story, though an abbreviated one. When I was a wee lad I jumped in a puddle during a rain storm and fell into an aquatic world of magic and mystery. The mer-people that inhabited the strange underworld I found myself in needed my assistance in slaying a particularly ornery sludge monster that threatened their homes and livelihoods. I wondered what a nine year old boy could do that fully grown merfolk couldn’t, but, wrapped up in the majesty of it all I resolved to try my best. It was about this time that I drowned, having forgotten that I was under the water.

After drowning, I woke up from the fever dream I was having. A few days later, the rather nasty disease boiling my brain away abated and I went on to live a healthy and semi-productive life into my 20′s.

True story.

Imagination is a strange and powerful thing. When you actively utilize your imagination, everything has significance in some fashion or other. Every tree could have a life of its own, every toy has a history, and every star harbors incredible alien life the likes of which have never been seen on this planet. Writing comics has forced me to engage my imagination, to grapple with it in a difficult way. When non-artists see comics or art, they are often impressed with the imagination that it takes to create the things they see and read. There is a mystique associated with creativity that most people fall prey to (I do at times, when I see artists I’m impressed by) that makes us think, “Wow, how did they do that?”. We often consider ourselves inferior in those moments, thinking it impossible that we could ever match what these individuals have accomplished. This is, in a way, our own imaginations at work.

The reality is that imagination and creativity are tools. Creativity is as much work as any other, though often more mental work than it is physical. We all have the capacity to create and conceptualize but it requires time and effort as adults. As children, our minds are free from the limitations of the physical and social world allowing us to come up with the most outrageous concepts. Part of being an artist (professional or otherwise) is getting in touch with that side of your mind again and it can be a struggle.

As for me, I find solace in imagination. Stories and concepts allow me to explore other worlds and people while I sit bored in class or at work. That’s a powerful thing. Having the ability to conceptualize the unknown is what has set humanity apart from animals and given us everything we’ve got. Admittedly, some of that has run out of our control to some degree, but it has, for the most part, been positive for us as a species. With a more responsible long term approach to our imaginations, life on this planet could be pretty swell.

At least we don’t have to worry about drowning on the sidewalk.

We tell children that anyone can grow up to be president or the CEO of a successful company or amazing painters, but the truth is that most people enter their cocoons and come out as regular ol’ caterpillars. I guess the truth isn’t always very appealing.

Honestly though, I personally see potential in everybody. We all have the ability to do these things, it is just a lack of will and dedication to what you do that stunts the growth of some people. There are others that choose an easier existence because that is just what they prefer, and that’s okay too. The fact is, while we all have potential to be amazing and live out the dreams we have, not everyone wants to or sees how.

For me, I’m starting to realize my dream of being a comic artist and that is thanks to you, the awesome people that visit the site and comment, send emails, and tell your friends. I always appreciate how many people stop by and check the site, its a wonderful feeling. I work hard, for sure. I don’t screw around when it comes to art and writing and I always push myself to do better partly for myself and partly for all of you. I realize that I have a ways to go, to keep pushing the art and the jokes, but its a process that will never stop.

That’s the only way to be if you dream of being good at something, I think. You’re always in a state of transition and growth.

Another God strip! Hooray!

An all powerful deity with human emotions was always something I found particularly funny in the Bible. There are many times where God is described as being angry or jealous or (as in the case of the New Testament) loving. I’ve talked about this before, but I find it hard to believe that a being with the power to create, animate, and infuse spirit into his creation would ever feel as we do. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. In the Old Testament, you get this sense that God is essentially a kid with an ant hill and a magnifying glass, just tormenting people for the fun of it. I mean, the Book of Job? What’s that all about?

I don’t think it’s wrong to believe in a God or anything like that, but ascribing such incredible flaws to a being we probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend is a bit myopic. Sure, it’s nice to think that he’s just like us, but that’s also really silly.

That said, that sort of God does make for an excellent comic character. Especially when he’s sulky and draping himself over things.

This is a weird strip, I’m not sure what to say about it specifically, really.

The problem with Modern Art is that most people don’t understand what the fuck is going on half the time. The idea here is that you make something so inexplicable that people are forced out of their daily routine and given something to think about. Unfortunately, this practice turns most people off to the idea of art as these sorts of things tend to be really weird. We, as a culture and seemingly as a species, no longer prize execution. We have narrowed the beam of our artistic focus and that beam shines almost exclusively these days on such idiotic ventures as Damien Hirst’s Shark in a Box; AKA The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.

This sort of art isn’t for me, I am a storyteller and a comedian at heart and my art is, more or less, the art of words and human experience. I am able to step back from my personal opinions and look at this objectively, even though it seems completely ridiculous. People are and should be allowed to pursue various artistic mediums. My problem is that this is what’s big right now and that we are not celebrating things that deserve to be celebrated in the way we should be. So-called “low art” (that is, comics, cartoons, animation in general, any art that relies on story rather than pure visuals) is spoken of pejoratively and with a sneer of disgust in art communities and schools. Meanwhile, people are paying millions for a preserved shark in a box. Seems a bit…strange doesn’t it?

The best part about this comic is that it is mostly true, minus the Sasquatch and deity disguised as a common household feline. My brother saw this very installation at the Philly Museum of Art and was appalled. When he told me about his experience in this white room filled with white panels hung from the walls and ceiling I was taken aback. He went on to explain that a strange hippie was sitting on one of the stools and listening to various voices robotically naming the days of the week in no particular order. It got me thinking…maybe that guy was the art!

Apparently he had come to the same conclusion independently. What can I say? We are brothers.

This points me to my main problem with Modern Art: people are no longer sure what art is and are, essentially, having to be told by gallery coordinators and school professors what does and doesn’t qualify. It’s a hilarious system but a shitty one at the same time.

Personally, all I want to see is some more diversity.

This comic is fast degenerating into a vehicle for my peculiar owl obsession. For some reason, I find these animals fascinating and entirely ridiculous. There is a plaque that was in my brother’s workshop for some time that featured a preposterous photo of an owl glazed onto it. When I moved into my new apartment, he delivered it to me as a house-warming gift, albeit with some modifications. I think this story starts to hit upon my particular illness.

I believe this particular strip truly illustrates the life and times of today’s owl population. I see them up there, sitting, watching, lurking. Why do they not, as the saying goes, get a job?

A valid question and one I will be sure to investigate next time I see an owl.

Anyway, Tuesday will be the last part of this mini story, then back to our regularly scheduled weirdness.