I guess this was my own fault for expressing my nerdly love and admiration for They Might Be Giants in a previous Sunday strip, but I got a ton of TMBG entries to the battle anthem contest! They Might Be Giants have done a ton of songs about robots anyway. This one needed little alteration from the original.

Parke Matru went on to be a Narbonicon regular. Also, this is one of the best borders I found for the battle anthems. Check out those fat and/or muscular cherubs!

Until I ran this contest, I had no idea how many songs already existed on the subject of being a robot. I guess I knew about “Mr. Roboto,” and that was about it.

“The Statue Got Me High” is supposedly based on the origin story of semi-obscure superhero Doctor Fate, so altering the lyrics to turn it into a song sung by robots in a webcomic actually makes it less nerdy.

Like a lot of geeks in my age bracket, I was introduced to They Might Be Giants through the “Particle Man” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” videos in the music-video episodes of “Tiny Toon Adventures,” which are otherwise pretty painful to watch now. So major nostalgia here.

What else can I share? I know! Ages ago, Mark Berger wrote to me:

In my webcomic wanderings I have come across some very interesting things (Narbonic, of course, being one of my favorites). One of my latest finds is a beautifully-drawn French webcomic titled “Maliki,” after the protagonist (I can’t read it, but it’s PRETTY!). The author also has a flash-based paper doll toy of his character that allows you to change her clothes and hair and the colors of each. THE POINT: I have managed through this nifty toy to create an AWESOME likeness of your very own Mell Kelly! A screenshot of this is attached for your viewing pleasure. The only downside is that plaid was not available for the skirt…

And here it is! Look how cute and spot-on!

You can read Maliki (or, if you’re like Mark and me and can’t read French, look at the pretty pictures) at maliki.com. Thanks, Mark!