clap clap blog: we have moved


Saturday, August 16, 2003
Judging by the lack of response to my last Tom Tomorrow post, not many of you really care about it. But I do, and hey, what's a blog for? So let me highlight the end of his interview with Salon. The exchange begins with a very astute question:

Have you ever written positive cartoons?

Oh, come on.

I don't know. Some moment when you were overcome by a burst of cheerfulness?

It is not a frequent occurrence. But I wouldn't do what I do if there wasn't an inherent optimism there. It's an optimism tinged with bitterness and frustration but if I didn't believe that things can get better then I would go live in some remote farmhouse somewhere and ignore the world entirely.


No, my friend, that's not it. Everyone has an "inherant optimism" by that definition, otherwise they'd kill themselves. What you're missing is an actual hope in humanity. You don't seem to believe that people can actually do better.

The real reason you don't go off to a farmhouse is because then you wouldn't be able to constantly remind people that you're smarter than they are, which seems to be the real message of the strip most of the time.