1. Why is the name of the comic strip "MK Ultra"?
2. Yeah, but why "MK Ultra"?
3. Is that guy you?
4. So who are these other people?
5. Didn't Joe's last name used to be "Abercrombie"?
6. Aren't you the guy who used to draw The Blasphemy Corner?
7. So why'd you stop?
8. Isn't that lady in the welfare cartoon Sammi?
9. What's this "Kephas" business?
10. Why are some MK Ultra comics in the Other section, but the rest are in the Archive?
11. Where's my umbrella?
1. Why is the name of the comic strip "MK Ultra"?
It's got to be named something, doesn't it? Originally, back in the days when I was first drawing these folks in my university student newspaper, Golden Words, the main character was named "Bipolar Joe" due to his propensity for erratic mood shifts. The strip, insofar as it was named anything, was eponymously titled after this main character. As time went on, two things happened: first, the character mellowed somewhat. Don't get me wrong, he's still somewhat of a high-strung, type-A personality, but he's not as likely to commit murder as he used to be (granted, his most notable victim was prop comedian Carrot Top, who surely deserved it, but it's still arguable something of an overreaction).
The second thing was that I realized the name might be offensive to folks with bipolar disorder. Not that I care that much, since they'll likely be sunshiny of disposition again in a minute or two, but I nonetheless figured that the less overtly offensive the strip was, the more marketable it also would be (just in case I ever wanted to do this professionally, or something). Joe and Kevin offer their take here.
Ah, that. Well, from the 1950s to the 1970s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted a program of human experimentation, using drugs, psychological and other means to attempt to control human behaviour. In addition to brainwashing, electroshock, radiation, and a number of other means tried, the CIA clandestinely dosed unwitting human subjects with LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide). At least one suicide is thought to have resulted from the erratic behaviour that resulted in some subjects, who experienced all varieties of mental roller-coaster rides, to say the least. Sneaky CIA researchers even dosed each other, in an equal combination of scientific research and practical jokery. You can read more about these CIA shenanigans at the lighthearted Government Psychiatric Torture Site. But why stop there? You might as well check out here and here.
What's this have to do with this comic strip? Well, it's mostly a convenient way of re-explaining Joe Avery's erratic behaviour (and why not? Comic book superheroes have their origin stories altered all the time). Would you believe that the CIA even dosed Canadian students at McGill University? Of course they did. They're the CIA. So the "retconned" Joe Avery's parents are now known to have been among these subjects. Not that he's going to get obsessed with uncovering shadowy government conspiracies, though--for that, you need to have a sister get kidnapped by aliens.
Well, who am I anyway?
They say that to some extent, most cartoonists draw themselves. They said it about Charles Schulz, and I know from meeting Philip Street, who draws the excellent comic strip Fisher, that he looks like his main character Fisher, only with glasses (note that he doesn't look like a fisher, however, which is a weasel-like creature which ate our family cat). I do have things in common with Joe Avery; we both have a degree in philosophy, for example. He might say things that I think, but that's only natural since I'm the one drawing him. He also does things that I wouldn't, however tempting.
Physically, he doesn't resemble me. His looks are somewhat based on a guy I used to go to school with, though Joe's facial expressions are generally much more animated. And after having been drawn countless times, he doesn't even really look like that guy anymore either. Joe's his own man.
4. So who are these other people?
Kevin Schinkenfaust is based on a big sweaty fellow I used to work with in my afterschool job at a supermarket, and that Sammi Cooper is based on an old girlfriend of mine. In return for her allowing me to use her likeness, I let her name the character.
Other people might pop up from time to time who look like somebody. Gunter the super, for example, is based on my memory of an aging rockabilly who used to prowl around my old apartment building. I think he was there to do maintenance work, but it bears pointing out that the place was a dive, and I often had to climb a couple of flights of stairs in pitch blackness, due to the hallway lighting either been broken or (for no good reason) turned off. On second thought, he might have just been some guy casing the place so he could come back and steal the light bulbs. Anyway, the name "Gunter" comes from a later landlord who was actually really conscientious, although he did let his co-landlord do all the actual work.
5. Didn't Joe's last name used to be "Abercrombie"?
Sharp eyes. Yes, Joe Avery's last name used to be "Abercrombie," and can be seen spelled that way in this strip. I changed it because long names are a pain in the neck to letter, especially within confines of a small cartoon panel. Besides, I like the "Joe Average" connotation that come with the new name. It makes him a real man of the people, it does.
6. Aren't you the guy who used to draw The Blasphemy Corner?
I am, although I don't know how you knew that if you didn't attend Queen's University during the mid-nineties. For those of you who didn't, the Blasphemy Corner was a one-panel cartoon that poked fun at biblical stories, and occasionally, other religious and classical traditions. I drew about fifty of them, which made it among the longest-lived features of my university humour paper. It was pretty popular. On the other hand, I just ran across an old review of Golden Words in some two-bit e-zine about e-zines in which Blasphemy Corner was panned as one of the following--and I'm not sure which--hard-to-read, indecipherable, or just plain unfunny. So, plainly, its appeal was less than universal. You can check out some of the strip here and judge for yourself.
Well, after drawing about fifty or so, I began to run out of bible stories to poke fun at. By the time I was producing stinging satires of the Feast of Belshazzar, I came to a realization: paradoxically, the only people who were likely to understand the cartoon were those who were least likely to appreciate the irreverent humour of it–namely, priests, nuns, archbishops, and the like. And while I could have done more with other religious and classical traditions, the real fun of the panel was that it had poked fun at Judeo-Christian tradition (which, around here, is the dominant one and needs a little more needling than, say, Shinto).
Plus, it's easier to draw a character-based comic strip. If they're good enough, characters tend to write themselves. And with the exception of King David–who's pretty complex, especially if you read Joseph Heller's God Knows–nobody in the Bible seems that terribly fleshed out.
8. Isn't that lady in the welfare cartoon Sammi?
No, but it does kind of look like her, doesn't it? However, one's clearly blonde and the other is clearly brunette.
It's actually a fairly old cartoon (the strips in the archive are out of chronological order, and are placed in the sequence in which they first appeared on another website). It was drawn prior to the introduction of Samantha Cooper as a recurring character (you can tell it's old since the name on the degree reads "Joe Abercrombie"). So, when looking around for a model for the unnamed lady behind the desk, I simply took the closest person at hand, who later became the model for Sammi. Pure coincidence.
9. What's this "Kephas" business?
On some of the older cartoons in the Other section, you'll see the word "Kephas." That was my pseudonym back when I wrote for Golden Words. Back then, writing under a nom de plume was the thing to do, mostly to keep ourselves out of trouble (See #6 above). My original pseudonym was "Sexecutioner," taken from heavy metal band GWAR. But, when GW held a staff party which we were supposed to go dressed as our pseudonyms, I really couldn't see myself forking over the cash for a chainsaw and bondage attire, which seemed the only appropriate nickname.
So, I switched my pseudonym to one I could easily dress up as, since "Kephas" simply means "Peter" (or "The Rock") in Aramaic, the language of that Peter-naming hepcat, Jesus; this seemed appropriate in light of my habit of picking on organized religion in my then-current work. I figured that, since if anybody actually worked out what it meant, it would just mean "Peter," so I, Peter Lynn, could dress any old way I wanted. And thus began my recurring habit of finding excuses to wear the same ratty bathrobe to pretty much every staff party thereafter, including one which–to my delight– I nearly ruined, due to my particularly morbid sartorial rationale. Best party ever.
10. Why are some MK Ultra comics in the Other section, but the rest are in the Archive?
Probably because I didn't want them in the archive to embarrass the other, better-drawn comics. The ones in the archive are generally older ones, first published in Golden Words which don't comply with the regular or Sunday strip formats.Also, they're more poorly drawn on the whole, as they come from a period when I was trying to draw with one hand while editing articles for the newspaper with the other. In retrospect, I should have been drawing with my right hand.
By popular demand, I decided to put them up. That is, at least one person asked to see them. And why not? There are some fairly amusing things there.
In that bag.