Comic Strip Where The Last Panel Is Always A Remote Oil Rig

 

EADJ Surprising Hostility: Duck Handled Umbrellas

You've seen 'em in stores. You've spotted them in terrible catalogs. You've even seen fat, un-marry-able women carrying them on overcast days. They're duck-handled umbrellas, and they're more annoying than they are charming.

No, let me change that. They're 80 times more annoying than they are charming. Meaning for whatever slight amusement they give one owner, they make 80 people want to kill them.

What's the attraction? "Hey, everybody, I've got a surprising, whimsical handle on my umbrella!" No, you're carrying around a perfectly functional umbrella that's been ruined by a lapse in good taste.

"Nice weather for ducks" is the expression I imagine duck-handled umbrellas are referencing. And what an archaic, unfunny "Family Circus" expression it is. Why not make an "I Dunno" or a "Not Me" umbrella instead? Do you understand that reference? You suck.

"Well, maybe they're for children," you might propose. No, if those umbrellas were really for children, they'd have Spider-Man handles and My Pretty Ponies printed all over the umbrella itself with an embedded playable Nintendo in the shaft. No, a real umbrella for kids would actually be fun, not a half-assed, hastily-painted carving of a duck's head. The people who own these types of umbrellas aren't allowed anywhere near children.

Even more detailed, more expensive versions of the duck-handled umbrella are tacky and unnecessary. All they do is make people question your judgement even more. Fuck duck-handled umbrellas with an angry, rain-soaked mallard penis.

EADJ Surprising Hostility: Santander Bank

A new corporate bank has taken root in different parts of New York City, and it's a great time for EADJ to hate them off the bat. Santander Bank. Fuck them. Why?

Because nothing instills confidence like a cheap vinyl banner stuck over the previous bank's name. Really tells people you're in it for the long haul. Better deposit my life savings with the bank that's living out of a suitcase in case the Feds come.

The logo either looks like a plate on fire or a baby chick doing the "Thriller" dance (turn it on its side). Plus it's red and white with the word "Santa" on it. Nice borrowed interest, assholes (yes, that is a bank pun). 

So go fuck your tellers' mothers, Santander Bank. Maybe one day you too will go under and will end up as umbrella signage on a fruit cart out front. FUCK YOU

EADJ Surprising Hostility: Kix Cereal

Hey Kix Cereal, FUCK YOU.


Ever since I was a little kid, Kix Cereal, your box has grabbed my attention with wacky, fun looking lettering and bright colors, promising a fun and sugar-filled Saturday morning. WRONG.

Let me just say that there is NOTHING fun about you as a cereal. Kix is basically Trix with all the coloring and sugar sapped out of it: small, beige round pieces that aren't even big enough to make a satisfying crunch. I'm sure this is the shit they palm off on the Trix Rabbit whenever he comes round Jonesing for the good stuff.


"Kid-Tested, Mother Approved" is the slogan they've been touting for decades. Notice they never said "Kid-Approved" or "Kid-Appreciated." Instead, they "tested" this stuff on kids like they're guinea pigs in some insidious government experiment about the opposite of fun. And for those of you who like your boring with berry taste, try new Berry Berry Kix! It's the same amount of disappointment and ennui-in-a-bowl, but with the faint flavor of berry to further frustrate you!

Kix, go to hell and suck m'balls.

EADJ Surprising Hostility: Jazz Dance

Okay, look, girls. What you call "jazz dance," isn't. It might be lively, energetic dancing, but it sure isn't jazz, so please leave the goddamned word "jazz" out of it.

You know what jazz is? Jazz is an unimaginably beautiful genre of music formed from pain, hard work and pure virtuosity by the disparate likes of Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughn, Jimmy Dorsey, Sun Ra, Count Basie, Diana Krall, Tito Puentes and Henry Mancini. You're just a bunch of part-time dancers in leotards running around onstage to "She's Like The Wind."


I know. How can I be singing the praises of one form of expression while questioning the legitimacy of another? Well, it's because you're attaching a hard-earned word to your thing that has already been claimed and well-established AND whose definition has already been strained to its outermost boundaries. Just don't call whatever the fuck you do "jazz" and I'll stop belittling whatever it is you all are doing up there in leotards and suspenders. I mean, you're not even dancing to "Blue Train." I'd like to see you try doing "jazz hands" to this:


I hereby formally rename "Jazz Dance" as "Stacy Dance." Just because a lot of you are named Stacy, and it really kind of fits.

EADJ Surprising Hostility: Watercolor Painting

As painting techniques go, watercolor is the no-gear version that thinks it's hot shit. It prides itself not only on its infuriating difficulty but brags on and on about how delicate and spare its textures are. It even requires a special kind of paper to paint upon. Well, fuck that. Fuck watercolor up its difficult, delicate ass. You hear me?

Here's how it works: you dip your brush in water, then you dip it in some watercolor paint that's been diluted a little bit by more water, then you have to move the brush just the right way to create a form, because otherwise there are no do-overs and...SHIT! You messed it up! Try again! Grab another sheet of WATERCOLOR paper (only $14.99 for a pad of 12).


Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention: you have to let some of that paint dry before you begin another stroke, because when working in watercolor, sometimes a wet spot will be contaminated by an adjacent color, then you wind up with an unerasable mix of the two colors, and then you have to grab another sheet of WATERCOLOR paper (only $14.99 for a pad of 12).

When you've finally finished with one after wasting fourteen pads of watercolor paper, you can stand back and look at the colored stain that you've left. Because when it comes down to it, most watercolor paintings are little more than smears that happened to be kind of shaped like something, like a bridge or a fucking basket of strawberries. Hotels in beach towns seem to eat that shit up for some reason. Old people.


Parents seem to think that kids love all kinds of art projects, so they'll often buy them a watercolor set. Then their kid will dip their brush in some water, then dip it in the red circle, then back in the water to make it wetter, then back in the red circle, but some of that water got into the blue circle, so now it's a purple circle, and it's seeping into the red circle, and it got on the brush, so now you're painting a big purple blotch when all you wanted was red...FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! MOTHERFUCKING COCK! Time to grab another sheet of WATERCOLOR paper (only $14.99 for a pad of 12).


And I realize, yes, there are some truly talented artists out there who have mastered watercolor and have possibly made quite a living from selling their beautiful paintings which actually look like things. Well, bully for them, because I sure as shit am not "painting with water" ever again. If you want a semi-abstract picture of some goddamned cardinals, just take a blurry photo yourself. You're the lazy one, see?

EADJ Surprising Hostility: Crushed Ice

Ah, crushed ice. You just totally suck, don't you?

I mean, you're ice, but you're not terribly useful; the instant I put you in a drink, you're already melted, so instead of rendering the drink colder and more refreshing, you've simply watered it down. Fucking awful.

And handling you is a pain in the ass, too. I can't just grab a few cubes. I have to grab that bitch-ass pewter scoop to grab a portion of you. I use the word "portion" because you even come in vague, unsatisfying amounts. And Lord knows that scoop is no good at containing you, because you always leave such a sloppy puddle on the floor or ground anyway. GOD, I HATE YOU!


What the fuck good are you, crushed ice? What, as an Italian ice or Sno-Cone? Good in theory, but essentially what that is is you being made more palatable with sugar water. You're just there for texture and temperature, and believe me, that's not a lot.


So whenever I see you in a urinal in the men's bathroom at some "fancy" bar or restaurant, I gladly piss on you. It is just so satisfying to burn a hole right through your useless, shapeless lump. Ladies, you don't know what you're missing. No, wait. Let me just leave a small crushed iceberg in your toilet and you can give it a go!

Do your work, sun. FUCK YOU, CRUSHED ICE!