A Gerbil Named Artie

This one made me awfully happy. As I’ve mentioned before, I had a mouse named Artie when I was a teenager, but an actual gerbil named after my cartoon gerbil is really something. Until someone names a newly-discovered species or their firstborn child after me (bonus points if their firstborn child is a newly-discovered species), this may well be the highest honor I’ve received.

Pit bull owners may take offense at having their dogs compared to Mell, but in fact later in the strip Mell does put on lipstick and run for Vice President. I’m just saying.

What else do I have to share this Sunday? How about screencaps from Spore? Everyone’s enjoying this amazing new game from the creator of “The Sims,” except for me, because I’m too busy drawing stupid old comics. Eric Burns of Websnark fame sent me these images of “a newly uplifted tribal member of the race ‘Ur-Gerbil.’ Not yet superintelligent, he is slowly conquering the continent he is on, and one day shall reign as the Master of the Planet of the Daves.”

Writes Eric, “Sadly, there’s no good way to make the ‘ears’ rounder or black. And the muzzle could be better. But on the whole, it’s fun to have them scamper around. The above is a post-fast celebration around the campfire.”

“And here they prepare to wreak their rodentical havoc upon the world. Note the little poofy baker’s hat they now wear. Nothing says ‘violent massively powerful gerbil force’ like a little poofy baker’s hat.”

Indeed. Thanks so much, Eric!

8 thoughts on “A Gerbil Named Artie

  1. Pit bull owners may take offense at having their dogs compared to Mell, but in fact later in the strip Mell does put on lipstick and run for Vice President.
    Well played!

  2. In that last photo, Artie the non-ur-gerbil is staring in horror at the electric razor, realising that somewhere in the near future, Mad Science is going to happen to him.

  3. There’ve been a number of strips already that illustrate this, but while I’m thinking of it, I love the way the charcaters’ eyes roll up to try to see Artie when he’s talking if he’s sitting on their head.

  4. I can’t find those guys on the Sporepedia, sadly… they probably got wiped when they instituted purging.

    There is some other neat stuff related to narbonic, though! Link to a search for everything taged ‘narbonic’: http://tinyurl.com/narbonic-spore

    (It’s tinyurled ’cause the search links are CRAZY long)

  5. I’m pretty horrified that anyone would keep gerbils in an aquarium less than a fifth full of wood shavings. Peat, people (if you can’t get them proper desert soil), and a lot of it! They’re *burrowing* animals, not damn hamsters!(there also doesn’t seem to be much to chew in there, but that’s probably just because they already chewed it all up.)

  6. Did that line about the pit bull, lipstick, and running for Vice President remind anyone else of recent events?

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