text: "FIVE MONTHS, THREE WEEKS": a research project
  In February 2007 at the New York Comic-Con, I was approached by Joseph Gregov, a student researcher at the University of Connecticut. He studied mass media effects, and was putting together a project to investigate the effects of subtle pro-social messages in American entertainment media. He chose comics because the nature of the panels and balloons allowed him to better edit the story and see if different versions produced different results in different groups of readers.
  As a card-carrying Skeptic with a strong conviction in the benefits and importance of "SCIENCE," this sounded like a fun, good, and meaningful project for me to contribute to. I low-balled a fee I would charge, hoping to solidify the position, and I got it. Here are the first four pages of the story I was given, before the word balloons were added. I worked from Joe's script.
  A guy, who's just out of a long, serious relationship, gets picked up by his friends to drive to a party, where they meet up with some girlfriends bringing their friends. One of the girls has sewn a banana design on her skirt.
  I assume this is where the research and study of people's reactions to pro-social messages begins. Notice the two below pages are an "alternate ending 1" and "2". Both begin with holding the car keys, and deciding what to do with them. Decision one: be responsible and don't give the keys to the drunk. Result: you'll make out with the girl and she'll come home with you. Decision two: the drunk asked for the keys, so give them to him, and let him drive you home. Result: the drunk will crash into a parked police car.
  Joseph wrote to me in December 2007 to give me some updates on the research project. It was posted digitally online, and he was able to recruit over 400 participants. The statistics showed that overall (65-70%) the primarily non-comics-reading audience enjoyed the art. He didn't tell me any specifics about the data of the study. For instance, I was interested to hear how people like morality stories jammed down their fiction . . . "DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE." I was interested if people noticed there was a subtle morality lesson by the lead character not letting his drunk friend drive, or if they just thought it was a nice love story. Things like that.
  Joseph said he was planning to post a public link to the story, but I haven't heard from him again (it being three and a half years as I post this), so I don't know what the story looks like completed and lettered. I had worked from a script, but he had told me the script would probably change once he saw the art.
  Joseph, we'd love to see the story! Are you still planning to post it?
  Caveman Robot pin-up
  As we revamp "Tabloia Weekly Magazine: The Web Blog", we find for the first time, going through the Tabloia vaults to pull out all this old work, that it really wasn't very good! Much of what we've posted here was conceived and scripted and lain out as early as 2001! "The Lump" and early "Doris Danger" stories which went to press in 2004, were actually drawn in 2002! This realization of outdated, amateurish shoddiness prompted us to begin publishing this latest Tabloia series … "Other Projects!" Expect to see pin-ups for other people's comics, a short story from an anthology, CD art, a trading card, and, well … that's about it, actually!
  Here's our first, which is still OLD! -Rob Oder, Editor-in-Chief!
  This is a pin-up I did for Jason Robert Bell's CAVEMAN ROBOT comic, "Oolar! Stories from the Wild World of Caveman Robot" and "Tetragrammatron One With Two!" (Tetragrammatron Press) back in 2005. Yes, that is all one title – it was a flipbook, with "Oolar! Stories from the Wild World of Caveman Robot" on one side, and then you flip the book over and there will be "Tetragrammatron One With Two." If you're like me, you'll read and re-read that book's title, and try and make linguistical sense of it.
  The book is 44 pages of black and white madness by Britton Walters, Jason Robert Bell, Shoshanna Weinberger, Luc Thomas, Chris Wisnia (my pin-up is colored and text is added) and Greg Cook! You can get more details at www.cavemanrobot.com!
  I later used a portion of the image for the inside front cover and title page of my second Doris Danger treasury, "Doris Danger Seeks … Where Urban Creatures Creep and Stomp!" (2007)
  I removed Caveman Robot and added a couple passersby which I swiped from another Doris Danger page from the same book, which you can see here, if you look around a bit:
  Fans! You can buy our self-published Doris Danger comics on our MERCHANDISE PAGE! You can buy the 96-page "Doris Danger Giant Monster Adventures at AMAZON.COM! (You'll find OOPF, but you won't find the above leg picture included!)