Slopes and Sam

19-06-05 by Sam

I awoke this morning to a beautiful, sunny day.  It shouldn't have been; it's the middle of Winter down here in Australia.  And yet, once I opened up my e-mail a pall descended over the world, obscuring the sun and that sapphire blue sky.

I had been invited to join a group called "the spiral", an official Nine Inch Nails fan club.  A fan club that gave me access to a number of dubious benefits, such as the ones that appear in today's comic, for the middling sum of thirty-five American dollars.  Or, for a paltry thirty more dollars, I could get the premium deal: a T-shirt and access to Nine Inch Nail's e-mail forwarding service.

My initial reaction to the invitation was to be insulted.  I would have thought that Trent knows his fans better than this.  I was also taken aback by the overwrought title of "the spiral" for something that would have flourished with equal vitality under the inauspicious moniker of "the nine inch nails fan club".

But upon reflection I decided that this was nothing more than another choice.  And you can never have too many of those.  So this invitation was a good thing, in a way.  I imagine that this particular fan club is essentially the same as any other fan club: you'll get out of it what you put in.

Except the money.  You won't get that back.

By now you must be well and truly sick of Nine Inch Nails related comics.  However, I think today's one can function perfectly well in any fan club related context.  Feel free to pull this one out, dust it off and read it again when you have the opportunity to join other fan clubs.  I believe that the subtext, if you can manage to locate it, takes on the form of sound advice to anyone contemplating such an expenditure.

In other news, I should have gloriously sightful (and insightful) eyes by the time communicate my ideals to you again.  That's right, my contacts are on their way to my eyeballs as we speak, and therefore the next comic, and the next editorial, should be of a far more profound nature.  But I wouldn't place any bets.

If you've forgotten what profundity looks like, you can find a reasonable facsimile here.  You you you've been blindly doing everything I say, it should look familiar.

-Sam

22-06-05 by Sam

Today's comic will appear within twelve hours.  I was forced to leave the house, blow off some steam, and have a surprise (for both of us) catch-up with an old friend from Canada.  So I'm late.  You can sue me after you start paying me.