Air Raid Robertson

Author notes

Air Raid Robertson Strip 23

Air Raid Robertson

on Sept. 9, 2009

Because of virus issues, I'm not able to scan anything directly into my computer. My sister Cheryl, however, was goodly enough to allow me the use of her computer to bring you this week's strip.

I know that it looks pretty different from the prior Air Raid Robertson's. I don't really like how dark it appears, and I intend on fixing things once I get the opportunity.

Still, a flawed posting is perhaps better than none at all. (Right?)

I try to avoid making direct pop culture references in this strip as often as possible. References like that can date a comic pretty quickly. Sometimes a pop culture reference can be confusing, and often it's annoying if it's just sorta shoe-horned in to exist for its own sake. (Ninety percent of the jokes on Family Guy, for example)

I did make a few here though, and I feel the need to explain them….

1. Robert Crumb is an underground comics artist best known for his LSD-inspired cartoons of the 1960's. Among these works are a number of crude stereotypical images of black people. (The most famous being that of Angelfood McSpade) Air Raid Robertson is referencing this material in the first panel.

2. Ruggero Deodato is an Italian film director best known for low budget slasher movies. His films are often cited as the inspiration for "torture porn" movies like Saw and Hostel.

The most famous of Deodato's films is Cannibal Holocaust. That movie is about a scientific expedition into the Amazonian rainforest that ends with the entire party being brutally raped, dismembered, and eaten by stereotypical jungle cannibals. Ridley is referencing Deodato, and Cannibal Holocaust by extension, in the first panel.

3. Ridley's comment about "playing an incredibly sweaty game of Russian Roulette" is a reference to Christopher Walken's character in The Deer Hunter. Although an Oscar winner that's relegated to classic status, The Deer Hunter was subject to harsh criticisms in regards to its depiction of the Vietnamese people. Even the director has commented that he perhaps took things too far.

4. The Indian savage in the first panel is modeled after the mascot of a Major League Baseball team known as The Cleveland Indians.