Seven Things The Followers of Harold Camping Could Do to Make Bob Happy

BOB FINGERMAN, New York NY
1) Jazz up their graphics. Really, Judgment Day is coming and that’s the snappiest ad campaign you could design? (All the best artists are sinners, that’s why.) Lame.
2) Try harder. Shed their clothes and try jumping up to Heaven, anyway (God Raptures those who Rapture themselves, or some such nonsense).
3) Get really pissed that God didn’t Hoover them up Heaven’s vac-hose and become Satanists.
4) If their clothes fly off for the Rapture, have an airborne orgy on the way up to Heaven (Oops! That’s a sin! And so close, too. Once you’re in Heaven, anything goes.).
5) Combine their goofy numerology with Sudoku (though Sudoku actually makes sense).
6) On May 22nd renounce their faith and join the world of the sane when once again Jesus fails to make his comeback.
7) Kill themselves. A giant mass suicide of soul-crushing disappointment. That would thin the herd of a few thousand nitwits.

As a lifelong atheist, I'd like to propose a reasonable deal to these people: I'll repent and accept Christ as my lord and savior if the Rapture does arrive on May 21st. Presented with irrefutable empirical evidence, I'll admit I was wrong, even if it's the last thing I get to do. But when May 22nd rolls along and everything is the same as it's ever been (in other words, exactly what May 22nd will be), can they all renounce their faith and admit it's a bunch of nonsense? No, they can't. Because they'll find more excuses about how their math was off or whatever. They can always find a way to justify (I'd say "rationalize," but rational is never a part of their thinking) getting it wrong. Again.

Bob's Seven Favorite Single-Panel Gag Cartoonists

BOB FINGERMAN, New York NY
Best not only for the jokes, but for their cartooning, staging of the gag and overall timelessness.

1) Charles Rodrigues
2) S. Gross
3) Gahan Wilson
4) Chas. Addams
5) B. Kliban
6) Joe Dator
7) Eldon Dedini

Bonus who doesn’t quite fit: Erich Sokol, if only because he was the most artistically virtuosic gag cartoonist ever. Best watercolorist of the 20th Century. Seriously. But he didn’t usually (maybe ever, actually) write his own gags. And they weren’t especially funny, often. But oh mama, they were gorgeous.

And no disrespect intended to Lee Lorenz, Phil Interlandi, George Booth, Leo Cullum, Tom Cheney, Charles Saxon and scores of other top-flight cartoonifiers. I loves ‘em all.

Seven things that are always, unfailingly, 100% guaranteed to piss Bob off.

BOB FINGERMAN, New York NY
1. Holding the door open to a succession of impolite douchebags, none of which take the nanosecond to say, “thank you.” It always brings on my Tourette's-like "Irish whispering," where I mutter audibly under my breath contemptuous comments like “Am I your fucking doorman?” or “You’re welcome, your highness.” Especially when they’re college kids. Take a break from your formal lessons to learn some fucking manners, you privileged dickholes.
2. Articles about Peanuts that misspell its creator’s name. How fucking hard is it to get Schulz right, assholes? Schultz, indeed. I bet you’d never get Jim Davis’s name wrong. Grrr.
3. Beginning to do something and then forgetting what it was right as I’m about to do it. Come on, brain, whose side are you on? Jerk! (File under: thing I was about to say; thing I was about to look up online)
4. Any and all computer woes. I can’t reason with machines, and of all machines, computers are the most unreasonable. I have switched from PC to Mac, so finally, occasional hiccup aside, it’s been much smoother. But fuck Windows. Fuck it right in its mean virtual asshole!
5. Gravity overdoses. When I get a serial case of “the dropsies” and things keep hitting the deck. Why is it inanimate objects think falling on the ground is so goldarned funny? Grow up, inanimate objects!
6. When rich people of any race cry the blues or play the victim card. You’re rich; suck it up!
7. Smug religious people who think they’ve got all the answers because in their feeble capacity they do! God is responsible for everything so why question anything? Or learn anything? Ever.