Scam Over

And that about does it for The Scam:

The Scam page 33

Hope you got a kick out of that one, untrue believers. It was a ball to draw.

I'm afraid we're gonna have to slow things down around here for the next few weeks while I play catch up. Too many projects not enough time. So Untrue Tales will be dropping back to weekly updates starting Sunday. And just to give myself a bit more breathing space, Gabe Stein himself will be taking over the art and writing chores for our next installment.

Check in on Sunday for the long-delayed debut of... THE HUNTER!

Winding down the Scam

It's all over but the denoument:

The Scam page 32

And a sketch:


























About time for another geeky ramble, I suppose. I picked up the Wolverine Saga the other day 'cause I like Wolverine and it was, you, know, free. Read it on the train and it struck me what a depressingly high ratio of bad to good Wolverine stories there are. The awful ones far outnumber the good ones with a great wide swath of mediocre in the middle. They've really mucked up this character. Never really liked those bone claws. Or the whole ORIGINS backstory. And now it seems as though they've jammed some dumb character named Romulus into Wolverine's entire history as the shadowy figure behind everyhting that's ever happened to him. I vaguely remember that Romulus had something to do with Jeph Loeb's horrendous run on the title recently, which I have mostly purged from my increasingly unreliable short-term memory . Whoever decided to make that story the keystone of Wolverine's new extended history has rocks in their head. Ah well. I'm hoping the new Jason Aaron series will be interesting. I do like me some Wolverine. I find that the best way to enjoy superhero comics these days is just to pick and choose whatever continuity fits your personal preference and just ignore the rest. Things like the Wolverine Saga just serve as a reminder of things best not paid attention to.

It's Thursday, which means tomorrow's Friday which means I'm inching closer and closer to a prolonged period of lying on the couch watching Mad Men. These are the things in life that I look forward to.

Have a good weekend, my friends!

The Big Reveal!

Aha! Oh ho! Hur hum! Oof.

That's what you'll say when you read:

The Scam page 31

Yeah, yeah, the oldest trick in the book. I never said I was Shakespeare. :)

Sketchy:
























Sooooo busy, folks. Hope you have a good week!

The Scam turns 30!

Yes indeedy! Quite a milestone:

The Scam page 30

And apropos of nothing:
























Good weekend!

Yes. We have Scam.

Good Monday, untrue believers!

New Scam is up and things look bad for the Gabesta:

The Scam page 29

Sketchydoodle:

So I been spending this week drawing lots of little lizards with lots of little lines on them and when I weren't doing that or drinking Mojitos I been working my way through the first season of Mad Men. Good show. Gee, they sure did smoke and drink a lot in the fifties. And it took me to episode seven to finally realize why that one guy looked so familiar. He was Angel's kid from the hell dimension. He's even more of a prick on this show than he was on Angel. Actually, pretty much everybody's a prick on Mad Men. But oh so compelling they are.

On another tv note, I thought I'd also check out The United States of Tara. I liked Juno. I like Toni Collette. Heck, I even like Aidan from Sex and the City. But this show sucks. Couldn't even get through the whole first episode. An interesting premise (multiple personality lady) realized in a completely unbelievable over-the-top fashion. Especially when Toni is possessed by her "toughguy" personality. Ugh. No thanks.

And finally, I watched the first episode of Breaking Bad. I thought it seemed really interesting. The wife did not. So that one gets relegated to the pile of "things to watch while the wife's out with the girls". This is why I've only seen four episodes of Lost this season.

Ah well. Back to the lizards....

Skippin' Scam

Hey ho!

Yeah, I was too lazy to post a reminder about Monday's update. The page was up but I didn't mention it on the blog. Is that so wrong? How long are you gonna hold this over my head like some consarned sword of Damocles?!! Damn you! Damn you right to hell!!!

Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry I yelled. SOrry I dropped the ball. Won't happen again. I promise. Until it does.

Anyways. Here's links to the newest page:

The Scam page 28 

And In case you missed it:

The Scam page 27

And a pretty sketch to show there's no hard feelings:

So I went and saw Monsters vs Aliens in 3D yesterday. Boy was it great. I laughed and laughed. There's a bit from way out of left field with Stephen Colbert as the President when he first meets the aliens that had me literally weeping with laughter. I think I actually kinda annoyed the other patrons with my whooping hysteria. And it sure looks great too. The 3D is amazing to experience. It's like an amusement park ride. Definitely the best way to see the film if you've got the opportunity. This is the stuff, man. I think I liked this even better than the Incredibles. Check it out.

Scam Bam Thank You Ma'am

The Scam hurtles slowly towards it's sense shattering climax!

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Can one hurtle slowly? Don't ask me, I just work here.

Another sketch in the tough guy series:

























So I finished another book - The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver.























This one is kind of a romance novel about a children's book author who one fateful night decides whether or not to embark upon a life-changing affair, and the novel then goes on to tell two parallel stories chronicling the effects that decision has on her life one way or the other. I'm not much of a romance guy, but I picked this up 'cause it showed up on a whole bunch of Best Books of the Year lists. I'm gonna spoil it here so if you think you wanna read it, I suggest you stop reading now.

I found the book fascinating, but ultimately annoying in the extreme. The lead character, Irina, is sympathetic, but kind of a doormat. She's in a relationship with a seemingly nice, stable, but boring kind of guy, but she's wildly attracted to a slightly dangerous and charismatic snooker player. Ostensibly the novel seems to set out to explore the pros and cons of stability versus passion. So far so good. But as it turns out, both guys are pretty much useless douchebags.

And don't say I didn't warn you, here comes the big massive spoilers: In the end Irina's life turns out pretty shitty either way. The dangerous guy is a tempermental dickbag who mostly treats Irina like shit but his one redeeming quality is his "beautiful dick". The book actually has long passages describing how wonderful this guy's dick is. Ugh. So mostly she's unhappy except when they're screwing. Then, after 5 years Mr. Dangerous gets prostate cancer and can no longer get it up and then dies. Irina is fucked. The boring guy turns out to be having an affair of his own, which Irina discovers only after spending 5 years of drudging loyalty to the guy whereupo she tries to take up with Mr. Dangerous only to find out he's got prostate cancer and can't get it up so she missed out on that wonderful dick. Irina is fucked again. So this nice lady that we just spent 500 pages reading about was really fucked from the outset. There was no right decision. Love sucks. Nobody lives happily ever after. The end.

I found this ending to be very annoying. Now I like dark endings. I usually love it when everybody dies, but here I don't get the point. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, but the lightness of the premise doesn't seem to match the doom and gloom resolution.

Whatever. I did find the book interesting and I've certainly found myself thinking a lot about it and the nature of relationships. Mostly that I'm glad mine doesn't appear to be fucked up beyond all recognition. Maybe that's the point. But I wouldn't recommend this one unless you're in the mood for a healthy dose of frustration.

So there you have it. Next on the reading list is a Norwegian book called Out Stealing Horses. I'll keep you posted.

Have a good weekend!