Meet Captain Tranny - Blog Entry # 34

Captain Tranny is a transvestite superhero. His super powers include flying and sprinkling fairy dust. The fairy wings depicted in the image are basically for the flying part and he also does some pretty magical and amazing things with fairy dust he sprinkles around. Oh, and he can even kick like a Rockette too.

Captain Tranny teamed up with Super Crack ho and Crystal Meth Man to form a team of superheroes called the Dysfunctionals. All we have to say is that you bad guys just better watch out! He's a hell of a lot tougher than he looks.

The last blog entry spoke about how our comic strip is not politically correct. So we wouldn't be surprised if someone out there got all upset over us creating a superhero that is a transvestite. the point is that certain things in our society have become more common and maybe even considered "the norm" now and we thought that we would just run with it and start to include things in the strip that are part of that new norm.

So now we have a crack ho, a crystal meth addict and a transvestite in the team of superheroes. There are actually a couple of more that will be added down the road. we're pretty sure someone will get upset when we add those as well. Below is the comic  strip that introduces Captain Tranny. You can click on the image to view it at the full size. Enjoy.

Bob Craypoe, also known as R. L. Crepeau

The Politically Incorrect Comic Strip - Blog Entry # 33

Some of you may have already come to the conclusion that the Punksters.net comic Strip is generally not politically correct. I would obviously agree with that assessment and also state that it was never intended to be so and never will be either. 

For starters, if I worried all of the time about who I might offend, I wouldn't have any material to work with. Secondly, we live in a society now that any thing you say will offend someone, no matter how hard you may be trying to avoid that. So, to simplify matters, I just don't worry about it.

We often hear about how cartoonists are threatened for doing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Some will say that they are going too far by threatening someone's life and in some cases they actually follow through with those threats. However, mocking someone's religion is probably more offensive than anything else and yet it is often deemed acceptable. Whereas if you were to joke about other things like sexual orientation, drug abuse, sexual promiscuity or other things having to do with society, people are generally up in arms over it.

Now as bad as it is to threaten the life of someone for doing a cartoon of religious figures, some people will also do the same regarding other matters. Things like differing political views, different stances on social issues and etc. Some may not go as far as to want you dead but will certainly seek out to destroy you professionally or financially. In other words, they will seek out to ruin your life as a means of exacting revenge for your "hateful" or "offensive" jokes or remarks.

Recently, some famous stand up comedians have made public statements regarding how they don't want to perform at colleges and universities because of the excessively politically correct environment. They worry about how anything they say will be deemed as some sort of hate speech because someone will get offended by a joke.

Personally, I think that there will be a point in which there will be a backlash because some people just take things too far by trying to literally destroy people for saying something that offends them. At a certain point, people won't care what they say anymore because they know that whatever they say, someone will be offended. So, at that point, why should someone even try not to offend people anymore? After all, anything they say will do that anyway. And since that is the case, they could throw all caution out the window and really let loose.

My humor, or what I try to pass off as humor, hasn't gotten to that point yet. I don't go out of my way to offend people and I do take some things into consideration to avoid unnecessarily angering people. I also make no references to religion at all. However, I believe that I do have the right to poke fun at certain things without having to worry about being destroyed professionally or financially for doing so.

If I see something on the television that has a sort of humor used that annoys me, I don't try to contact the show's sponsors to have them pull their ads or try to get the show canceled. Instead, I simply turn the channel. I vote with my remote. I believe in the first amendment and the basic principal of freedom of expression. I believe that applies to views I disagree with just as much as the ones I agree with. I just wish other people felt the same way.

So if you are offended by a superhero who is a crack ho and another one that is a crystal meth addict, well then I am sorry. More characters that will probably offend people are going to be added in the future as well. So you should just get over it, vote with your remote and go seek your entertainment elsewhere.

Bob Craypoe, also known as R. L. Crepeau

Is It Worth It to Buy Social Networking Follows? - Blog Entry # 32

You may have seen some of the websites or some ads for those websites that sell followers for the various social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google + and so on. You may even be wondering if they are legitimate or just a complete ripoff. Well, to answer your questions regarding that: it all depends.

Some deals are better than others, some are just a ripoff and some are good for certain things. Some of those sites will not give you real followers. What they do is set up a bunch of fake, inactive accounts that they use to follow you from. 

One example is a site that I had gone to myself that gave me a number of Facebook followers that were fake accounts that they set up. The giveaway was the fact that many of those accounts did not have a profile photo. So if you really want to make a good impression by having people think that you have a lot of followers, you might not be so convincing if all of your followers don't have a profile pic. Shortly after I received those follows, they were gone because Facebook probably discovered that the accounts were fake and deleted them. So I was back to square one.

Now some will deliver real followers but not all of them may be active on a regular basis. Some might just send out a Twitter tweet once every week or once every month or so. So chances are, they probably won't be paying much attention to your tweets. However, it may help in some ways, in the sense that others are more likely to follow you if they see that you are already being followed by a lot of other people. This principle works regarding all social media sites, whether it is Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.

So let's say that you find a site that sells Twitter follows. Let's say that you purchase the package that gives you 1,000 followers. Let's also say that they are real followers. But how active are they? Are they on every day? The ones who are on every day are the ones who will see your tweets. The rest will only do so on rare occasions, since they are rarely logged into their account. 

So how do you prevent yourself from being scammed? First of all, check to see if there are reviews for the sites you are checking out. See what others are saying about it. Then, always purchase the cheapest plan they offer. See how it works out. first, check if they actually have a profile picture. Then, look at the accounts to see how active they are. If they are Twitter follows, see how often they send out a tweet. The same with Facebook. See how often they post. That will tell you how active they really are.

Now, you may find a lot of inactive people. However, you may also have a great deal of active people. But if as many as half are active, it can still be a good deal. Let's say I purchase 1,000 followers dirt cheap but 500 are fairly active. That's not too bad. Now if they are all fake accounts, that's a total ripoff, obviously.

So, those are some things to look out for. Always purchase the cheapest plan first to see how it works out. If it works out, then purchase a bigger plan. If it doesn't, never purchase from them again. Always start small to test them. Some you may not  even need to test if you can find some bad reviews of them online. Just do your research and test things out before you spend a lot of money on things that may not yield any real results. Good luck. I've included the latest comic strip with this post. Just click on the picture to view at its full size.

Bob Craypoe, also known as R. L. Crepeau