If you haven’t yet given up on this comic, also known in academic circles as the “meandering minstrel of the moronic” and you are still tuning in from your prison cell or Electro-Convulsive Therapy chair, then I owe you an apology. It has been over a month since the last episode I posted, and I blame the fun I am having at work. (True story, I swear.)

And fun comes in so many different guises and faces, and the latest one actually involved a cull of sorts. That of my wardrobe, and specifically of my pants, shirts, t-shirts, underwear with holes, etc., that were just occupying space and cluttering creativity and orderliness.

Which is an odd but appropriate segue to the subject of this particular installment of the skillfully crafted, deftly drawn, partially poetic chronicle known in the Oxford Literary Companion to the Bearded and Sexually Deviant Academics Association simply as Stanko & Tibor: Fodder for Folly and Asinine Alliteration.

You see, I was reading a book called You Are What You Speak that happened to coincide with an event of supreme idiocy that has become known globally as “Pastagate.” If you’re not aware, check out any of the reports on NPR, SoundCloud, Huffington Post or Facebook. The short version: Xenophobic Quebec government language zealots runs amok with my tax dollars when they could be funding hospitals, schools, the poor or just shutting the hell up.

(Yeah, I know it happened a month ago, but we creative types like to brood and eat sugary cookies and fatty, grilled steaks all in an attempt to spike our creative juices, but sometimes that cookie thing becomes a minor addiction and distracts us from the task at hand.)

So, how do I get from the clothes culling to the language police? Well, Pastagate was yet another upsettingly ridiculous event where the language spoken and written by allegedly free people came under the scrutiny of some linguistic idiots. And the  aforementioned book cites countless examples in dozens upon dozens of countries where some people have tried to do the same thing in the name of language purity (and xenophobia and, ahem, nation building). Governments,  kingdoms and religious types the world over since 806 A.D. have been trying to regulate language and keep it “pure.” They try to cull excess “foreign” words, cut down what some academy or such deems inappropriate, and thus through edict, fiat or policy keep things orderly and safe for society at large.

We wouldn’t want to introduce dirty, foreign words that have a certain “je ne sais quoi” or even worse that have “chutzpah” that could create “angst”, now would we?

Besides it was a chance for me to gratuitously refer back to my last installment a month ago with the inflatable unicorn hat for cats. Shameless? Sure, but since when have I had shame? A conscience, maybe, but no shame.

So please keep reading, keep commenting, tweet, forward, like, whatever you want to spread the word of this injustice (about me not being recognized as a brilliant cartoonist/auteur)  and maybe the universe will reward you with a nice toasted bagel with butter or cream cheese.

Kindest and fondest regards,

Django Django Druker