Benny & Sid Presents Chapter 13 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer Featuring the Mysterious Futoko

Learning only works when the student is self-motivated and curious.

(Your City, USA) -My name is Futoko. In Japanese it means "School refusal." But I am not ignorant, nor am I anti-intellectual. My followers are desperate to learn--and they do learn.

Sometimes their teachers are books. Sometimes they are videos. Sometimes they are people who simply know something that students wish to learn.

Comments

Benny & Sid presents Chapter 12 of the serialized graphic novel The Truant Officer featuring the Mysterious Futoko

(Your City, USA) -There comes a point when the story is no longer yours. The plot moves behind the scenes and while you may puzzle out the sequence of events later, at the time it all happens you are clueless. I may be a truant officer, a hand sanitizer and perhaps even a philanderer, but one thing I'm not is a psychic. from here I must turn the story over to the man whom I call my enemy. And maybe that's a good thing. It's best if both sides of the issue are shown in the clear light of day. Let you, the reader, decide who is in the right and who is a big, fat joke.

Comments

Benny & Sid Presents Chapter 11 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

We also need people who are ready to blow the whistle when maybe even those with the best intentions cross the line.

(Your City USA) -When a job needs to be done right, you call in a professional.

Sure Some things can be done by temps, but with the essential business of the day you want someone who gives it a little something extra, who gives it 110%, people who puts their hearts and their backs into their work.

Comments

Benny & Sid presents Chapter 10 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

The latest edition of Salem's only original, online cartoon series.

(Your City USA) -Fallen angels. They litter the ground and clog the gutters of every metropolis in the nation and can be found in between the furrows of our farmlands like weeds.

Men and women who everyone thought could be trusted let us down when they were needed most. They might be politicians, judges, police officers, tv repair men or they may even be hand sanitizers and truant officers.

Comments

Benny & Sid presents Chapter 9 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

All it would take is to find your way to the wrong part of town, meet the wrong person, yield to the wrong temptation and all the Sunday church-going of a hundred years won't do you a bit of good.

(Your City, USA) -You may be a Pastor and wield the Bible to turn aside Satan when he shows his pointed little head and pitch fork.

But none of it means anything until real temptation comes your way. You're out of town. No one knows you from Adam. All it would take is to find your way to the wrong part of town, meet the wrong person, yield to the wrong temptation and all the sunday church-going of a hundred years won't do you a bit of good.

Comments

Benny & Sid presents Chapter 8 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

The latest edition of Salem's only original, weekly online cartoon strip!

(Your City, USA) -Some guys finesse their way through life. They make the right choices. We can call this luck, but it's more than luck. It's a matter of keeping your eyes and ears open.

It's also a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Then there are guys who never know what to do next. They need someone to write out their next three steps ahead of time. They need someone to watch over them because left on their own they'd drop the ball.

Comments

Benny & Sid Presents Chapter 7 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

The latest installment of Salem's only original online cartoon series.

(Your City, USA) -Life is busy enough when everything goes smoothly. What drives you nuts is when something goes wrong. Like the flat tire you got last winter when it was 12 below.

Like the bank statement which tells you your account is overdrawn when it couldn't be. You can straighten it out, sure, but you're going have to take off from work to do it.

Comments

Benny & Sid Presents Chapter 6 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

What's the lesson to be learned about kids who won't stay in school and when they do attend continually disrupt the education of those who do want to learn?

(YOUR CITY, USA) -Why is our culture so violent? Why do men spit in the street and why are so many women attracted to guys who are going to make their lives miserable?

Why are so many people happy to watch, but not play sports? These are subtle clues as to who we are. These are revelations which we are blind to.

Comments

Benny & Sid presents Chapter 5 of the serialized graphic novel The Truant Officer

(Your City, USA) -There are days when not only does your "best" not work, it doesn't even convince yourself. You wonder why you're going through the motions. You wonder why they cut you a check once a month. You wonder why anybody smiles at you and wishes you a good morning.

If every day were like that you'd find something else to do. Something a little more rewarding like vacuuming car interiors at the local car wash or selling Hoovers door-to-door.

Comments

Benny & Sid presents Chapter 4 of the serialized graphic novel The Truant Officer

The latest edition in Salem's only original cartoon series.

(Your City, USA) -Nobody likes to be made a fool of. Sometimes you see it coming. Sometimes you've just got to clench your teeth and take it in the gut because it's your job.

I'm not sure what consolation it is to know that Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," or that Arnold Schwarzenegger said much the same thing in "Conan the Barbarian," but the jobs real men do take more than just swinging a pick or driving a long haul truck.

Comments

Benny & Sid presents Chapter 3 of the serialized graphic novel The Truant Officer

Salem's only original cartoon series!

(Your City, USA) -You never dream the dream that dreamers are supposed to dream. You never find yourself skipping in fields of brightly colored flowers.

Faces which should be friendly and familiar are foreign and blurred. You're late for class, or you can't remember your lines in the play you find yourself in and performing before hundreds of people. What's the combination for that lock which keeps you from washing your gym clothes?

Comments

Benny & Sid Presents Chapter 2 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

We've got a president who accepts the challenge dumped into his lap by the economic mismanagement of this nation by every president since Jimmy Carter.

(Your City, USA) -The unemployment numbers are obscene. Good men and women pick themselves up morning after morning and do their rounds only to be told to come back the next day.

"Sorry Mac, I've got nothing for you today." They grit their teeth into what passes for a smile and move on.

Maybe he's a logger. Maybe she's a waitress. Maybe they've got kids who need glasses and grandma needs a triple by-pass. Do they deserve a break? Could these good people use government health insurance? Damn right.

Comments

Benny & Sid Presents The Truant Officer, Chapter 1

You're just a click away from the serialized graphic novel "The Truant Officer", by Glen Bledsoe.

(Your City, USA) -The nightstand next to your bed spills over with dog-eared paperbacks by authors like Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, and Donald Westlake.

You selected the latest addition to your wardrobe from here [http://poeticlicenseprinting.com/artists/hardcasecrime.html], and every time you toss it into the laundry you pull it back out and wear it just one more time because it's so incredibly truck-stop.

Comments

Reverend Benny & Mister Sid`s At Your Service #62

Salem's only original online cartoon strip!

(Salem) -Some people work hard all their lives. They do the right thing. They go to school. They never stop learning whether they're in a classroom or not. They're interested in just about everything. They're kind and generous. They always have a kind word to say about everyone they know. They make good choices.

Then there are the people who are always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme...

Comments

Reverend Benny & Mister Sid`s At Your Service #61

Enjoy my take on Jane Austin's classic--all sixteen panels of it. Ride and Prejudice. Remember, you saw it here first.

(Salem) -My wife is a wonderfully complex woman. She is interested in so many things--some bizarrely juxtaposed. She likes samurai movies and Jane Austin.

We've watched and enjoyed Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai, The Samurai Trilogy and others repeatedly. But I can't tell you how many movie adaptations of Pride and Prejudice we've watched together.

Comments

Reverend Benny & Mister Sid`s At Your Service #60

I fantasize about a small army of activists who by assorted means turn off television (at least) in public places.

(Salem) -I'm sitting in the Phoenix Inn Suite continental breakfast area in Bend this past Sunday, but it could have been anywhere. Plates clatter. Silverware clinks. Toasters pop. The light buzz of conversations fill the air.

To one side hangs a wide screen television. Why is it there and why is it on?

Comments

Reverend Benny & Mister Sid`s At Your Service #59

Politics can change life in the wrong ways.

(Salem) -Those of us who are old enough remember a far more rational time. A time when the crazies of the right wing would have been impossible.

They would never have been given news coverage. Barry Goldwater was as right as it got and Goldwater was really a reasonable man even if you disagreed with him.

Comments