Toonbots archive - episode published 20040902

First toon Previous toon Next toon Today's toon

The meteorological theme continues unabated, providing a trivial parallel with Frances' strength, while Mao's irritation with the childlike exuberance of the metafictional Frances ego/id-memetic pararepresentation points and counterpoints that parallel, the underlying script structure indicative of an amusing quasipositional posturing on the part of the metacartoonist, all this being of course a sort of tempest in a microcosmic teapot, itself a sublime commentary on the Republican National Convention in New York City, the currency boursen in Southeast Asia, and the ecological niches assumed by hermit crabs; the obvious conclusion to be drawn by the serious reader is of course that all things are both interconnected and essentially meaningless, that all meaning is a construct of our own fevered imaginations whistling past the graveyard of the immense vastness and silence of the physical cosmos.

The script used to make this toon:
<cartoon height="900" width="700" rowformat="1"> <panel> <character name="mao"/> <caption location="bottom left" size="12" fgcolor="red">Hey, Frances! How was San Juan?</caption> <character name="frances" aspect="2"/> <caption location="bottom right" size="12" fgcolor="green">Dude! Totally cloudy -- I didn't even stay.</caption> </panel> <panel> <caption location="bottom right" size="12" fgcolor="green">So I think maybe Florida, it's the Sunshine State and all. </caption> </panel> <panel> <caption location="bottom left" size="12" fgcolor="red">Frances, there's really something you need to under--</caption> <caption location="bottom right" size="12" fgcolor="green">What? What? </panel> <panel> <caption location="bottom left" size="12" fgcolor="red">Ah, heck. Say hi to Jeb for me.</caption> <caption location="bottom right" size="12" fgcolor="green">Totally! Ciao, Mao! <character name="frances" action="leaves"/> </panel> <panel/> <panel> <caption location="bottom middle" size="12" fgcolor="red">That boy really needs to wake up and smell the coffee.</caption> </panel> <panel> <character name="dot"/> <caption location="top middle" size="12" fgcolor="blue">Hey, Mao!</caption> <caption location="bottom left" size="12" fgcolor="red">Dot, I'm starting to gain a new understanding of your essential rage with the inanity of our existence.</caption> </panel> <panel> <caption location="bottom left" size="10" fgcolor="red">"Ciao, Mao," my nonexistent dead a--</caption> <caption location="bottom right" size="12" fgcolor="blue">WILL FRANCES FIND A SUNNY BEACH AT LAST? WILL MAO BURST A VEIN? TUNE IN NEXT TIME AND PLAY.... NAME THAT TROPICAL DEPRESSION 9!</caption> </panel> </cartoon> @@