Cectic News Graveyard

Where Cectic news items go to die after they've fallen off the front page.

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 - "Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America."

The closer to Barack Obama's victory speech on election night. It doesn't do much for me, but I assume that it's a somewhat powerful and moving statement to believers.

Here's a mental exercise for you: What secular statements could a theoretical President Elect close with that would be equally effectual to believers and non-believers alike as that one may have been to believers?

Feel free to share in the forum.

Sun, 01 Nov 2008 - Meet the new Cectic, same as the old Cectic. Mostly. I'll do my damnedest to get a new comic out every Sunday from now on, but can't promise I'll achieve that 100% of the time. The monthly bonus comics will also resume starting this month, and I'll be throwing a couple extra ones up there in the coming weeks to make up for the missed September and October comics.

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 - Due in no small part to all of the wonderful and encouraging emails I've received in support of the comic, I've decided to keep Cectic going, albeit on a slightly more manageable schedule. Consider this to be the end of season 1. Season 2 shall begin on the first Sunday of November. See you then!

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 - I am sorry to report that there won't be any comics this week. (It gets worse.) Prior to my current job, I primarily worked from home and had a lot of free time to keep up on the latest happenings in the skeptical world, process it, and comment on it in comic form. This is sadly no longer the case—Cectic as it has been is an 8-10 hour per week commitment, and that's not something I can keep up with anymore. I will be thinking over my options in the coming week or two before making any definite announcements regarding the future of the comic.

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 - I just started a new full-time job on Monday, plus my Mom is visiting from Canada, so there's simply no way I'm going to get any more comics out this week. Sorry folks.

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 - For everyone who has sent me an email in the last couple of months who hasn't received a response, I'd just like to apologize. My lack of free time lately has robbed me of the pleasure of responding to them all—but please rest assured that I read each and every one of them and deeply appreciate the overwhelmingly positive feedback I've been getting since starting the comic. You guys are what keep it going.

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 - I'm still on schedule for resuming Cectic starting on Monday. This is just a quick update to point out some new Brazilian Portuguese translations (here, here, here, here, here, here and here). All thanks to RntPincelli!

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 - I'm going on a little road trip soon, so Cectic will be going on a 2 week hiatus after the comic on Fri, 01 Aug, and will resume its regular schedule on Mon, 18 Aug. All Cectic Store orders to date have been shipped out, but any new orders after today won't be shipped until I get back. Don't let that stop you from ordering a crapload of stuff though! For a list of things you can do to bide your time while waiting for the new comic, head over to the forum.

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 - No comic is planned for Monday—I simply didn't have time this weekend. Sorry :(

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 - Good news, everyone! There's a new T-Shirt design on sale at the Cectic Store, perfect for all you Godless heathens out there who desire to rage against the less enlightened members of your society. In celebration of the new design, I've decided to extend the free shipping period that I was originally going to end this month. So go order one now!

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 - Due to an annoying computer crash and corrupted GIMP document, there will be no comic tomorrow. Sorry everyone.

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 - Language Log has an interesting post today about Bush's Independance Day Speech. Apparently he used a Jefferson quote that was originally talking about escaping the bonds of religion and superstition, but distorted it in a way to hide its original meaning. Pretty sneaky there, Dubyah.

Also: a new Lithuanian translation!

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 - Thanks to the ever-vigilant Thomas Voß there's a bunch of new German translated strips up, and now also some Polish translations thanks to Nimai. As usual, all translated Cectic strips can be accessed via the little flags on the Archive page. Thanks guys!

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 - I've been trying to catch up on blog reading today, and came across this hilarious post on the Ridiculous Infomercial Review Blog: Hilarious Chinese Sexual Health Infomercials (probably NSFW). It's funny how many CAM proponents here in the West use China as the end-all authority on medicine, when over in China they're espousing America's superior "scientific" studies to pimp their nonsense sexual enhancement drugs.

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 - My apologies for not getting a comic out today.

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 - Cectic In The Media (CITM): Phil Plait says that Cectic can be "...pretty good at times."

You might also notice that Lars and Peter have been busy, providing a bunch of new Danish translations since I last posted here (accessible via the archive), and there's also a new Lithuanian translation up, courtesy of the Ateistas blog. Thanks guys!

Lastly, head over to the forum if you're going to TAM 6 and find out how you can become famous forever.

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 - The site outage this weekend is explained in the forum here. Also, there probably will be no new comics until next monday (not related to the outage, I'm just taking a little break)—but I will be putting up this month's bonus comic later this week.

Fri, 23 May 2008 - Hey, look! Cectic is exactly one year old today! Happy birthday, Cectic!

Mon, 19 May 2008 - Head on over to the forum to see the first ever Cectic Video Feature! Just a silly little something I made during the free time that I no longer have.

More translations! Thank you to Thomas Voß for a bunch of new German translated comics, and to Lars Althof and Peter Lind for providing a ton of Danish translated comics. You guys are all super-awesome! To make finding translations easier, I've added language flag icons to the archive page.

Tue, 06 May 2008 - You may notice that some of the comics now have alternate language translations available (for example, this one). If you have translated or want to translate any other Cectic comics to other languages, please let me know so I can link to them, too. Special thanks to Thomas Voß for sending in the first batch of German translated comics!

Mon, 05 May 2008 - To people who read the bonus feed, I'll normally do my damnedest to get the bonus strip out during the first week of each month. That being said, this month's is going to be a wee bit late—expect it some time next week instead.

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 - Just a quick note to let you all know that I'm staying at the hospital where my new baby boy was born yesterday (woo!). As a result, the processing of shirt orders or donations made over the next few days may be delayed until after the weekend.

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 - Poop jokes? Really?

Yes.

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 - Another little change behind the scenes—hotlinking the comics directly from cectic.com will now result in a little bar added to the top of the image that says cectic.com on it (like this). I absolutely allow and encourage you all to plaster Cectic comics all over the intertubes as much as possible. Also, feel free to download the comic and host it directly off your own site if you want to display a comic without the title bar added (as long as you give credit back to Cectic as the original source).

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 - I've received a lot of strongly positive and strongly negative feedback about the new scrolling thingy at the top of the pages. To make everyone happy, you now have the option to select between them (use the new "navigate" and "archive" buttons to switch).

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 - Hemant Mehta (a.k.a. the Friendly Atheist) has an interview with me up on his site over here. Definitely required reading for all of my potential stalkers out there. You know who you are.

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 - Attention Cectic fans! The Cectic Store is officially open for business! If you've ever wanted a t-shirt that shows the world how awesomely skeptical you are, now you can get one and help support Cectic at the same time! Click here to check out the store (including a photo of my lovely eight months pregnant wife modeling the t-shirt for you).

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 - I'm playing around with some new features for the site (a neat-o scrolling comic browser). If you notice stuff messing up, keep in mind it's only temporary. I hope.

Update (8:20pm) - I've finished implementing the change. Let me know what you think—particularly if you're using an uncommon web browser and it looks like ass (I could only test in the latest versions of Firefox, IE, Opera, and Safari).

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 - I have good and bad news today. The bad news is, I no longer have the time or resources to devote to Cectic, and am stepping down from running the site and making the comics for the foreseeable future. The good news is, you won't have to live without Cectic in the meantime! Please read the important notice at the top of the site for a message from my successor.

Update (12:00 PM) - In Memoriam: April Fool's 2008

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 - I tried the ad thing for a while, but it just wasn't satisfying to me. Sure, I made a few extra pennies a day—but at what cost? A really ugly website.

So I've decided to go another route in my quest to appease the almighty wallet. Now, in return for a small donation to support the comic, I will provide you with access to some super-secret extra Cectic goodness. Namely, an RSS feed that will contain at least one bonus comic per month, plus some other goodies that I haven't fully decided on yet (perhaps occasional alternate versions of comics on the public feed).

For more information about this, click here. If you already donated to Cectic prior to this announcement, don't worry! You'll be getting an email with the super secret details shortly.

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 - Captain Disillusion is my new favorite YouTubizen, ever since a friend linked me this "recut" version of the blue ghost at a gas station news report.

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 - Being both a skeptic and a gamer, I was highly amused by this article over on Kotaku. Just in case it ever comes up, if anybody who ever reads this feels like giving me stuff for free because you think it's haunted, I'm all for it.

Sat, 8 Mar 2008 - I just found this video on YouTube. I'd never heard of Shirley Ghostman before, but now I think I'll have to find the DVDs somehow.

Wed, 5 Mar 2008 - I'm going to be messing with the ads on the site a bit over the next few days or so to try and make them a bit more context sensitive, so if you see some broken-looking behavior on some of the pages then that's probably why (and it should only be temporary).

Sat, 1 Mar 2008 - I found this on Pharyngula today: Baby Bible Bashers on YouTube. The other four parts are also up on there (you can get at them through the "Related Videos" sidebar). This one scares me even more than Jesus Camp.

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 - Fair warning: the real life demands are many this week, so don't be surprised if miss the next comic deadline or two. I'll pick up again next Monday at the latest.

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 - Here are a few shout-outs that I've been meaning to do for a while, but haven't gotten around to it until now. The Reason Driven Podcast has been entertaining me immensely since it came out—you just can't go wrong with serious discussions about religion and Simpsons nostalgia. The guys over at BSAlert.com have themselves another good critical thinker's website and podcast (which has included an interview with James Randi and the crazy libertarian stylings of Scott Horton). Lastly, a Cectic reader wrote to let me know he interviewed Mike Zovath ("second in command" at the creation museum in Kentucky). Take a peek into the mind of a creationist on YouTube, in two parts here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 - Today's thingpart is truly a thingpart of beauty.

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 - Being a Canadian citizen living in the US during an election year is kind of interesting. Honestly, growing up in Canada, I'd never really followed local politics much—I probably knew more about the US government than about the Canadian one, even back then. But now I'm fascinated by the subject. Seeing Bush's public speeches, watching the debates during the primary, following who's endorsing who—it's like politics on cocaine! Secular America may think the government would be better off without any religious influence, and maybe that's true, but it certainly wouldn't be nearly as interesting for me. Then again, if it gets too bad, I can always go back to my wintery (and more politically-boring) homeland in the north.

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 - I know this has nothing to do with this site, and I'm over a year behind the times, but I just watched the Stargate Atlantis season 3 episode called Sateda (where they find themselves captured by the inhabitants of a planet that Ronon had been to before as a Wraith runner, and Ronon gets turned back over to the Wraith). I gotta say, I have never seen so many layers of cheesy cliches jammed into 40 minutes of TV in my life. It was ridiculously hilarious. Highly recommended.

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 - So, it appears that Cectic has reached the completely arbitrary milestone of 100 comics. That's trip-digits for those of you non-aliens who count in base 10. Feel free to go partake in the first ever Cectic poll over on the forum in celebration. Don't actually vote though, the question is entirely rhetoric in nature.

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 - I've had some requests lately to start a "Hate Mail" page for Cectic. I think it's a fantastic idea—the only problem is that all the email I've gotten so far (and there is a lot of it) has been overwhelmingly positive. So come on all you haters, I know you're out there. Get to work!

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 - When today's comic initially went up this morning, it was an older version where the Count didn't have his monocle yet. I just noticed this and put the correct version up around 0900 EST. I only mention this because at least a couple blogs had taken local copies of the no-monocle version already, so this explains it if you see slightly different versions of the strip floating around out there.

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 - Happy New Year! And stuff.

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 - Well, I was perfectly happy eating Kraft Dinner for every meal, but my pregnant wife has informed me that "normal" husbands and soon-to-be dads usually try to scrape together a little cash for their families instead of spending all of their time doodling on their computers, and that if I couldn't then she'd go find another one who could. I'm hoping the Google Ads will appease her for now. I tried to keep their intrusiveness on the site to a minimum.

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 - Quote of the week: "Either the theory is wrong, or I'm just incredibly stupid." –Todd Friel on Evolution, from The Way of the Master Radio for 24 Dec. The first true utterance I've heard on that show since I started listening to the podcast.

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 - I hope you enjoy this final chapter of the External Delivery saga (for now, at any rate). Happy Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it. To everyone else, have a good whatever this time of year means to you.

EDIT For posterity's sake, here are links to all of the various blog posts and discussions people emailed to me, or that I came across in the referral logs: Embracing External Delivery, ED The Future, Santa vs. FedEx, Christmas Hermeneutics, False Dichotomies in the ED Debate, New Theory on the Origin of Presents, An External Delivery Apology, Debunking External Delivery, The Delivery Institute, Don't Be Fooled, Santa Clausism by any other name still stinks, External Delivery, Just Santa Clausism With A Wedge?, The Theory of External Delivery, ED: External Delivery, Can ZP Rymers Refute This One?, (some site in a language that I don't speak). If you know of any I missed, let me know.

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 - The site ran into some technical difficulties this morning, but I've got those all ironed out now. Today's comic was partly inspired by the recent events in New York, reported here.

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 - Forms Most Beautiful had a great post yesterday pointing out a collection of hilariously absurd creationist comics.

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 - Here is some amusing insanity related to today's comic.

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 - They need to get Sherri Shepherd off The View and on to her own show. First the flat earth thing, and now this. No scripted comedy show could hope to be as funny.

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 - What is this Delivery Institute all about, and why is their crazy kid taking over my comics? Am I getting paid for this?

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 - Sorry about the no comic thing today. On top of having to deal with some work stuff, I've also been sent to bed by a nasty sore throat all week. (What? No, that's not a copy of Mass Effect by my TV. I have no idea what you're talking about.) Anyway, I'll get back on track for Friday. In the meantime, check out today's Thingpart, it's pure awesomeness.

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 - Thanks PZ and Shalini and everyone else who linked me over the weekend. And welcome to any new readers I may have gleaned from the ungodly torrent of traffic that was sent my way.

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 - Unfortunately, real-job demands have ambushed me again this weekend, so I may not have time to put out three new comics this week. I'll do my best, though. At any rate, Cectic will resume its regular schedule again on 03 Dec.

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 - Happy Turkey Day to my fellow residents of the United States! I'm pleased to point out that Cectic is now being published in Humanist Network News, the e-zine put out every week by the Institute for Humanist Studies. I'm in good company with some other great 'toons in their Cathartic Comics section. They also publish a lot of other great content in the zine, and do a podcast version once a month—it's definitely worth checking out.

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 - I just found this highly amusing thread with some modified Cectic comics over at General [M]ayhem.

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 - Cectic has a new feature page over at Freethunk, which also features a lot of other great freethinker and atheist comics. It's maintained by the talented Jeff Swenson, who also draws The Cynic (now available in print form). You should check it out!

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 - I've re-entered the jungle that is the Cectic.com web code, and added a new feature—a news RSS feed, available here. Now you will never miss a Cectic News update ever again, and you won't feel so left out when all your co-workers are talking about it by the water cooler the next day.

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 - It's my birthday today. Yay me! A special thank you to all of the various forums on which I'm a member that sent me loving automated emails to remind me. What a thoughtful bunch of software!

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 - From now on, when a forum discussion with a believer degenerates into fallacies beyond my tolerance levels, I'm going to quote one of their posts in a reply, but change the text of the quote to "King me, biatch!"

Instant debate-winner.

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 - I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween. I'll probably be holing up with a few horror flicks. If the past few years are a good indicator, we'll probably only have two or three kids come by for candy—so I'll have plenty of left-over mini-Almond Joys to snack on while I watch hapless (usually half-naked) college students get disemboweled and/or eaten. Good times will be had.

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 - A shout out to LOLquacks and the JREF for helping to further spread the gospel of Cecticism. (If you like Cectic and don't already know what the JREF is, then you need a smack upside the head.)

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 - Today's Lucid TV is pretty funny. It's a very odd webcomic in general, but that just makes me like it more.

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 - The server with the forum is experiencing some kind of catastrophic hard drive failure, or something. Until I can get it fixed up, the forum links on Cectic are going to be broken.

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 - Big thanks to everyone who emailed me over the weekend, and to Phil and Orac and everyone else who has helped spread the word about Cectic. You guys are all awesome. SKEPTICAL awesome.

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 - This comic is my tribute for International Cephalopod Awareness Day. The creature featured is a Blue-ringed Octopus, which you should definitely never have as a pet. Here's why.

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 - I just saw this story on Snopes about an email going around warning people that "In God We Trust" is being removed from the Lincoln Cent's design. The text of the email spews the typical hypocritical nonsense about how atheists are trying to turn their beliefs into law. Sadly, Snopes exposes the whole thing for the hoax it is. It makes me so mad, I think I'm going to go watch the police arrest people for praying in schools and at sporting events. Oh... Wait a second...

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 - I'm back, and Cectic shall now resume its regular schedule. As a completely unrelated side-note, I watched The Simpsons for the first time in many years last week (the season 19 premiere). I'd been told that the show had gone downhill since I stopped watching, but I had no idea just how bad it could be. This, from the same network that canceled Firefly and Arrested Development after only a few seasons! It boggles the mind.

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 - I'm taking a break from the comic next week so that I can give more attention to some real-job stuff that needs attending to. Cectic shall return on 01 Oct. Also, I'd like to say muchas gracias to P-D-F for translating a couple strips into Spanish.

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 - I stumbled across this slide show of some old comics published in Evolution: A journal of nature from the 1920s and 1930s that you might like. Isn't it kind of sad to think that comics like this are still relevant and funny today, approaching almost a century after they were drawn? When I draw Cectic, I like to imagine that in 100 years, people won't understand the humor because religion and pseudoscience will be so much less pervasive in society. I wonder if the guys who drew these comics were thinking the same thing.

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 - Thank you to everyone who has emailed me so far to tell me your opinions (both positive and negative) about Cectic—it's because of you that I'm still going and still having fun doing this. Keep the feedback coming!

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 - This comic is dedicated to the memory of Perry DeAngelis, co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society, and loved by skeptics around the world for his distinctive voice and personality on The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast.

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 - Sometimes I feel like I should be posting news here more often.

Mon, 30 Jul 2007 - Behold the Haiku about woo woo–which I have endearingly termed "Haik-woo." Check the forum for more, and add your own!

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 - I am loving a podcast I stumbled across recently called Hardcore History, hosted by Dan Carlin. If you like Cectic, you'll probably especially enjoy episode 7, The X-History Files, in which Dan covers a wide variety of pseudo-history (including the idea that aliens have intervened in mankind's technological development).

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 - I found a great lecture by a guy named Brian Brushwood on YouTube called Scams, Sasquatch and the Supernatural. It's split into 14 12 parts, so I listed links to them all over here on the forum.

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