Welcome back to Strip 02 of “Collision 2016”! As a reminder, Racia’s introductory story (“Battlemon”) finishes today with two updates, so now’s a great time to read it straight through from the beginning!.

I’m not going to comment much on these strips. I know I said that a lot in the blurbs for “Battlemon,” and then usually went on to comment pretty extensively, but I’ve learned a lot since then. Not really, that was a lie. It’s just … these are all four-panel gag comics. If I need to be explaining anything about them, they were total failures.

I’ll talk about politics a little down here, though. Vaguely. This is a “political comic,” and you can read Giant Meteor and the role Antau is playing as being some commentary on whatever politician you like, but that was intentional and I secretly am still winning this game. I had some clear ideas of what I was trying to say when I first wrote this comic, but by the time these are getting published I stand convinced that Giant Meteor (and its campaign in general) serves as a real indictment of functionally all electoral politics and, especially, what it’s become in modern-day America.

Sort of tangential, but I’m tired of feeling like I need to pick sides. I think a lot of us feel that way right now? Personally, I think it’s because I spent a lot of years fighting for a cause that something pretending toward “community” told me was the cause du jour. The logic behind what we were doing always made sense. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that during those long years of being asked to be on one side or the other, no one was really making an affirmative case that they were on my side. No one out there still is; the issues I care about still aren’t being discussed. So I retreat, write, draw. We all find ways to make in this life. It’s the best, I think, we can do.