Live Nudes

by Wes & Tony on July 20, 2008 at 8:17 pm

Some of you may have noticed or were outraged by the fact that the Live Nudes comic had been trimmed from four panels to three panels. If you missed the boat and never saw the fourth panel, it’s been changed to a link located on the door in the last frame.

So why the change? Simple: We hate you and will do everything in our power to make your life worse. Remember your sandwich that disappeared from the fridge? We ate it. You know that girl who never called you back? We ate that, too. Remember that speeding ticket you got? Well, we had nothing to do with that directly but we support our local police.

In all honesty, we probably don’t hate you. In fact, we’d probably swerve if you were standing in the middle of the street, gazing at us with those large, glistening eyes of yours. The truth is that we received more than a few confused comments and e-mails from individuals who did not understand the strip. In most cases, people were held back from enjoying the strip because they weren’t certain if they understood it.

The fourth panel was included in the first place because of our delight in imagining the demand to check out some live nudes. In fact, not only is the place full, but there is a queue of people outside. We also appreciated the ambiguity of these people being either necrophiliacs or simply curious. Or CSI fans. Or bored. Whatever the reason, you yourself would probably be waiting in that line for the same reason traffic slows down next to a train wreck.

The problem was that people thought there was a huge criminal conspiracy they were missing, were wondering why the guy was being arrested, missed the sign, or something else entirely. The comic was ultimately changed because we decided that it toed the line from “subtle” to “vague.” With three panels, the joke lies in the resiliency of the owner of the strip club in question. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Except in this case, when life gives you dead strippers, the show must go on.