No wonder he was so afraid. Kevin was in hiding because he thought I was out to kill him. Me. An escaped mental patient. And from the way he was talking, it seemed like this kind of thing wasn’t totally out of the ordinary in his life.

Here I was, interrogating the guy I had pictured as the mastermind architect of all my problems, and suddenly I felt this overwhelming urge to explain to him what was really going on. I shoved my hands in my pockets and Mrs. Brisby bit one of my fingers. She’s kind of like my conscience in that way.

The next thing I knew I was turning around, walking up the stairs and out of the basement. Kevin was calling after me, “Hey! Where are you going! Don’t leave me down here!” but I had to get out. Blow off some steam before I did something I would really regret.

It was only when I got outside and saw the groups of kids running past in costumes that I realized it was Halloween. I had been about to pull off my mask, but now I kept it on, and joined the crowds on the sidewalk. I jogged slowly out of the remote Palm’s Reach neighborhood.

As I moved through the city, getting closer to my neighborhood, not really knowing where I was going, I started noticing these flyers. The first one I saw stopped me dead in my tracks.

An Environmentally-Friendly Halloween With JoyTech? I had a moment where I felt like they must be going out of their way to mock me, personally. Instead of letting your kids run wild in the streets, bring them to JoyTech where they can eat JoyTech candy, wear JoyTech costumes, and play JoyTech games. And at the end of the night, get a little printout showing you how much you can help the environment by buying everything you own from JoyTech.

Again I didn’t have to think to know what my next move would be. I called Meegan.

“Nemo?”

“Is your band playing a show tonight?”

“What? No.”

“How about a last-minute gig at JoyTech?”

We met in the parking lot just in time to pay off the family-friendly act that had been hired for the evening. Meegan and the guys in her band did their best not to look like gore-metal savages as they set up their equipment in the JoyTech cafeteria that had been converted into a ‘House of Horrors’ using enough cheap paper and plastic props to create a seriously spooky landfill come morning.

Meegan and her band got some weird looks, but they convinced the event organizers that they were just in costume for the occasion.

I had long since taken off my mask. It was too familiar a face to show around JoyTech, but I was letting Mrs. Brisby ride on my shoulder so she could take in the scene. The room quickly filled up with tiny kids, soccer moms, and doting grandparents.

“What do you think, Mrs. Brisby? Is Kill All Humans going to freak these people out or what?”
Mrs. Brisby sniffed at me, and call me crazy, but it seemed like almost a contemptuous sniff, like she thought my prank was pretty lame.

“Think you could do better?” I asked, and she cocked her head, like she was thinking about something. Then, I swear, my rat’s eyes suddenly flashed bright blue, like there was a little LED light in her brain.

Before I could take a closer look, the lights dimmed, and a voice said, “Is everybody ready to boogie down to the Monster Mash?” The crowd cheered, and then Kill All Humans started playing.

Meegan wailed like a banshee, and a guy in a leather vest and diaper spit fake (?) blood onto the crowd in front of the stage while the three guitar players competed with the drummer to see who could make more terrifying noises.

It didn’t take long for the crowd to start stampeding for the exits, but it was only once they got there that the real screaming started. Suddenly, people were climbing up onto table and chairs, kicking over apple bobbing games and candy bowls to get off the floor.

I craned my head over the crowd to see what was going on, and heard Mrs. Brisby squeak happily in my ear. Hundreds of rats were streaming in through every entrance to the cafeteria. There were so many you could actually hear them over the music, and the screaming. The scene was utter and total chaos.

As rats ran in a polite circuit around me, I looked down at Mrs. Brisby. Could I add ‘summoning other rats’ to her list of talents? “Did you do this?”

She squeaked again, then stretched one paw out and yawned hugely. Boring. No big deal. “I concede defeat, lady,” I said to her. “You are the Halloween prank master.”

Sometimes I forgot that no one had a bigger bone to pick with JoyTech than Mrs. Brisby. She had spent her life as a test subject in one of their labs until I rescued her. Obviously, she hadn’t forgotten.

People ran around me screaming. Meegan’s band continued playing in chaos-induced bliss. I grabbed a glass of punch that hadn’t yet been knocked off the table beside me.

Happy Halloween, Mrs. Brisby! Happy Halloween, readers! Happy Halloween, Toon-FX - thanks for the cool pics!

Oh, and Happy Halloween, JoyTech.

I had to call Jerry for a ride home from the trailer park because I couldn’t walk. My foot had swelled up roughly to the size of child’s party balloon.

Me and Meegan made a plan to meet up once my foot got better and investigate what JoyTech was doing experimenting with geothermal energy. Then she made me go wait at the top of the road because she doesn’t agree with using gas-powered vehicles for transportation. I told her it was bio-diesel, but she didn’t care.

Anyway, I made it home. It wasn’t hard to convince Jerry that the hospital was not the answer. And I even made it up to my room without having to answer too many questions. Then I did a bit of research on geothermal energy.

The big environmental conspiracy theory when it comes to geothermal power is that using it too much will cause the core temperature of the earth to go down, eventually causing our planet to spin off its axis or stop spinning, or something else equally science fictional and dubious.

More realistic problems related to the environment are things like:

- The destruction of ecologically important areas, like the Coal Mouth Hot Springs.

- The use of toxic chemicals, and the release of dangerous and toxic emissions during the process of extraction.

- The potential for depleting a source of geothermal energy to the point where it is destroyed.

It’s not a perfectly renewable resource, especially when it’s being used heavily - for example, by a plant, as a opposed to a private home.

And I’m not just after JoyTech for doing this, or for taking Meegan’s ancestral land. The reason I found out about the geothermal thing in the first place is because I knew JoyTech was keeping a secret about something.

If geothermal is part of positive future, why would a company that loves to brag about their ecological stewardship cover up the existence of a geothermal site with smokestacks that do nothing but emit smoke from burning garbage???

It makes no sense. I’ve got to get back on my feet and get more information.

THE THROTTLER, as she calls herself, took me back to her place. She lives with her grandma at a trailer park just up Blood River from the JoyTech plant.

She berated me the entire time for complaining about my foot, then she handed me over to her grandma, who rips off my shoe, pulls the slug out with a pair of pliers, then pours about an entire bottle of rubbing alcohol over the hole.

And the whole time I can’t even wince without the grandma saying sharply, “nothing broken, boy!,” and THE THROTTLER muttering insults at me for being, in her words, ‘a huge puss.’

To top it all off, somehow this chick gets her hands on Mrs. Brisby, and that traitorous rat just lies in THE THROTTLER’s lap like she just died and went to heaven.

So I’m lying on this family’s kitchen table, trying to catch my breath, and then suddenly my savior/captor is firing questions at me. “Why do you wear a mask?” “Why were you at JoyTech?” “Why did you attack the scientists?” “Why don’t you carry a weapon?”

I finally proposed a trade-off. I’d answer her questions, if she’d answer mine.

So check out these little factoids:

Turns out THE THROTTLER, whose real name is Meegan, is part of this tiny “non-recognized tribal nation” of American Indians that used to live in the area where the JoyTech plant now resides. They were politically autonomous until the whole Conurbation thing happened, and then they slipped under the Conurban Council’s radar, which is how JoyTech was able to buy their land.

The only thing Meegan’s tribe had going for it (her words!) were these Coal Mouth hot springs, that were originally discovered when the tribe sold the land to a mining company. But when the hot springs caverns were unearthed by digging, the tribe got all pissed off, said the land had some spiritual value or something, and took it back.

They were able to do this because all the miners had been hired by the mining company from the tribe, so they just kind of revolted. Meegan’s pretty proud of it. Her grandfather was one of the leaders or something. (Check it out: she let me toon his pic!)

Even since then, they’ve been sort of guarding it and keeping it a secret. No one knew about it because it never got put on a tourist map or anything, but apparently, JOYTECH knew about it, because they booted Meegan’s tribe off the land (literally, like, with giant booting machines), and set up some experimental geothermal lab down there.

Now, according to Meegan, her tribe’s been petitioning the Conurban Council to get their land back, to no avail, and the kicker is that they can’t even get it listed as an ecological preserve or anything, because no one knew about it in the first place. Again, according to Meegan, the whole area was covered in indigenous species of plants and animals that are on the brink of extinction, but JoyTech has all the power now and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.

Sound familiar? How do they get away with this stuff?

Things I have discovered which suck:

1 – New Guy and his family came to town at the same time as JoyTech because they ARE JoyTech.

Big question: Does Aurora know or doesn’t she?

2 – Everything I’ve been doing to expose JoyTech has just been making them stronger.

It wasn’t long ago that I called JoyTech’s recycling program a case of greenwashing. Turns out I’M the new greenwashing program.

Suspect 7, that’s me.

According to these guys, there are six ‘sins of greenwashing.’ In no particular order, they are:

No Proof: Claiming to be doing environmentally friendly stuff when you’re not. I.e. – the scam recycling center.

Vagueness: Making yourself sound like you care when you don’t by using vague language. Watch any of JoyTech’s commercials for examples of this.

Irrelevance: Bragging about something you do that seems eco-friendly, but really has nothing to do with the real problem. For example, JoyTech loves putting “ALL ORGANIC” stickers on products that were never non-organic to begin with.

Fibbing: This, of course, is just straight-up lying about how ‘green’ you are. Hmm, like accepting awards for environmental stewardship when you’re engaged in unethical animal testing? Remind you of anyone in particular?

Lesser of Two Evils: Making a big deal about how great some ‘green’ initiative you have going is, when the big picture is still a disaster area. Example: The new JoyTech plant was built using all these recycled and sustainable materials, but it farts black smoke into the air all day – uh, what’s the point?

And last but not least, the Hidden Trade-Off: Focusing on how one thing you do is great so it covers up the bad stuff. Like, how every time I force JoyTech into a corner on one issue, Mr. Giggles spins it into a big show of how great and responsible they are.

Someday, there’s going to be a class you have to take in school about how the JoyTech Global Improvement Company greenwashed the entire planet, while actually rendering it black, and poisonous, and dead.

The problem is that being eco-conscious has become just another trend marketed to consumers. You see earthy colors in packaging, you see words like ‘all-natural’ and ‘organic’ and you think, ‘Oh, I’ll save the planet by buying this product.’

Newsflash: You’ll save the planet by NOT buying any more stupid products!

Buy less! Buy used! Buy experiences instead of products! Live a life of the mind instead of the store shelf!

Shit. Sorry to rant at you. But sometimes I feel like the world is a pretty awful place. And it’s getting worse, not better, isn’t it?

Tonight, I’ll go back to the JGIC plant and hopefully get a better look at their testing facility. First though, I did some research on the arguments AGAINST animal testing.

This was a lot harder than the ‘FOR’ stuff, because animal activists fill their websites with the most graphic images you’ve ever seen, and they make you feel insane with sadness, which is unproductive for someone who’s trying to be an objective researcher.

Animal rights activists have a bunch of different opinions on animal testing. The extreme view is that it is never justified, because the only difference between humans and animals is our giant egos and sense of self-importance.

One level down from that are those who say animal testing is justified when it saves human lives, but that animals should never be made to suffer unnecessarily. Which is really confusing, because that means some kinds of testing are okay, while others are not.

The other big part of the ‘Against’ argument is that there are lots of alternatives to testing on animals, and that often, animals are not similar enough to humans to make testing worthwhile. Hence, a lot of the experimentation done is pointless and often, useless.

According to the U.S. Animal Welfare Act, any procedure can be performed on an animal if it is scientifically justified. But what means ‘justified’? Who are we to say which animal’s life is forfeit for the greater good, and which isn’t? Who are we to say that species like dogs and chimps have rights, while rats, birds, and fish, have none?

Animal testing.
Hunting and fishing.
Deforestation and ecological damage leading to extinction of species.
Dog fighting.
Horse racing.
Factory farming.
Fur farming.
Animal entertainers.

In the future, they’ll look at how our so-called ‘enlightened society’ treated animals, and we’ll be seen as no better than the colonizers and slave-owners of the past.

I thought I’d start today by looking at pro-animal testing arguments, since those are the ones that I’m most naturally against. (Notice the unfairly cute rat toon.)

According to a lot of the scientific community, and lots of universities where testing goes on, animal experimentation is necessary to help human beings. Some of the greatest scientific advances of all time are thanks to animal experimentation.

Researchers argue that the things that humans and animals have in common make them invaluable test subjects. Untested products released on the market have led to the injury and death of humans in the past.

To make sure that animal testing is not done unnecessarily, or with unnecessary cruelty, various regulations are in place that apply to large animals, but not to rodents, fish, or birds…

It’s also long been debatable (and you’ll like this one) as to whether or not animals have feelings and experience pain the way that humans do. If they don’t, experiments that cause too much suffering and distress to be ethically performed on humans can be done on animals with clear conscience.

Finally, and this is a pretty dumb argument if you asks me, but the NCABR says that if you like having pets and eating meat, then you should shut up about animal testing, because way less animals get chemicals poured in their eyes than sleep at the foot of our beds at night…

Okay, that was over the line. Clearly, I am not an unbiased researcher here.

That being said, if I was dying of cancer, would I care about them growing tumors on rats if it meant saving MY life? Or Jerry’s life? Or Aurora’s?

I guess the question is: exactly what is JoyTech doing with these animals. Testing cosmetics and bathroom products? Or curing pediatric AIDS?

What do you think?

I wonder if I made my last post into a comic so it would seem less real and freaky. Like, if it’s just another crazy adventure of my superhero self, then it’s not a big deal, right?

I’m glad that so many people liked my comic on Friday. But I also feel like I have this huge problem, and I really want to know what you think I should do about it.

To get you up to date: I was snooping around JoyTech, and I overheard some scientists talking about these experiments they were doing on animals, and how all the animals were dying.

I snooped around a bit more, and I found this storage facility where they’re keeping all their “test subjects.” I didn’t have long to investigate, but what I saw was pretty horrible. All the animals looked rough, and some of them looked…deformed or something.

I don’t really know.

My very first instinct was to rip open all the cages, open the door and get those animals out of there, but I know it doesn’t work like that. I’ve seen 28 Days Later. I’ve seen Free Jimmy (which you should check out, if you haven’t).

Point being, I know it doesn’t work to just free animals from captivity.

According to Wikipedia, most of them are bred specially for testing, and euthanized once the experiments performed on them are over. The animals never know life outside of the lab, and would probably need special care, if they did.

That’s why there are now retirement facilities for chimps that have been used for entertainment or research purposes. They can’t go back to nature, we basically ruined their chance at a normal life, and now we are morally obligated to provide them with a decent home for the rest of their near-human lifespans.

The idea of chimp retirement communities is fine, but all of this seems like a nightmare to me.

I’m going to do some research, present for and against arguments, and you tell me what you think.

Is JoyTech perfectly within its rights here, or do these animals need to get out of that lab? I wish I could talk to Aurora about this…

Okay, maybe it’s just me, but it seems like there’s an almost anti-planet-friendly hysteria building up in Ring City right now?

I don’t know if it’s because people like to argue, or because they don’t want to change their lifestyle, but more and more I’m hearing “global warming doesn’t exist,” and “there’s no proof that we created the holes in the ozone layer,” and “looking for alternative fuel sources is a waste of time.”

No kidding!

In Ring City, first it was this “recycling doesn’t work” thing, and now there’s all the trouble surrounding the JoyTech plant. All in the space of a week. WTF?

Some background: When all the towns and cities that got surrounded by the Ring Road became the Western Conurbation Area a,k.a. Ring City, there was all this green space in the middle that divided a few of the bigger cites, and only had a few small towns (or ‘neighborhoods’ as they’re now called) in it.

I live in one of those towns.

The Conurbation Council originally promised that all the green space would become protected parkland.

Then the JoyTech Global Improvement Company came to town.

They bought up a huge chunk of land between my ‘neighborhood’ and the urban center across the Blood River, and built the plant, outbuildings, and sprawling parking and warehousing areas surrounding it.

So much for green space, and so much for clean air.

The JoyTech plant belches black smoke 24/7, viololating “every CO2 emissions standards law in existence,” according to Aurora. Standards which, Jerry is quick to point out, are already pathetically low.

The point of all this is to say that Aurora has somehow miraculously mobilized this big protest, planned for tomorrow in front of the JoyTech plant, and we just found out that there’s going to be a counter-protest to protest Aurora’s protest!

They say the air quality in the area hasn’t gone down, and that the original protesters are just left-wing nutjobs that are trying to destroy the industries that built this country.

It seems like everybody is missing a simple truth here: the planet is fragile. Our ecosystem is not indestructible, and the nicer we are to it, the longer it will take care of us.

Show me all the facts and statistics in the world to prove that a problem doesn’t exist, you’ll never convince me that what we’re doing to the ecosystem is without consequence.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens tomorrow. I’ll be going as my regular self, because something tells me they’ll have some thugs on crowd control that might recognize my mask.

As usual, all the photos in this post were tooned using Toon-Photo.

Nothing good ever lasts. That stupid old saying is true, isn’t it? Every time you think something’s going to be different, it’s not. Every time you think someone’s going to change, they don’t.

Every time you’re convinced that the evil multinational corporation you’ve been trying to take down is going to do something good for a change, they wriggle out of it.

No rest for the wicked. Not even the toonified wicked.

The Conurban Council formed this special committee that was supposed to be in charge of independently overseeing quality control at the JoyTech recycling center, but as it turns out, there is no quality to control.

What the special committee found inside the center was a big warehouse filled with boxes. Nothing like the pictures supposedly taken by the Daily Ringer when they did a big editorial on the place.

Predictably, JoyTech blamed the whole thing on the same ‘independent contractors’ that were supposedly at fault for the Blood River dumping. Said contractors have managed to disappear, unnamed and without penalty.

Now the recycling center is closed until further notice, and the worst news is that everybody in Ring City is jaded about recycling now, like they think that because of what happened, recycling doesn’t work!

Yes, let’s just let the city turn into a bit toxic waste dump. It will look pretty, in a post-apocalyptic wasteland kind of way.

It’s weird to be back to the regular old grind of school and pretending to be looking for an after-school job. I wish someone would pay me for that. Or better. I wish Jerry would pay me to look after his stupid truck, which I have to do all the time for free.

However, it is cool to know all about making biofuel and running a biodiesel vehicle. The conversion isn’t actually hard, because you can put biodiesel through a regular diesel engine. In fact, the guy who invented the engine, Rudolf Diesel, ran his original prototype off peanut oil.

Rumor has it that Diesel, the man, was killed by Big Oil to keep his engine from catching on, and after his death, the oil companies made a petroleum derivative, called it diesel fuel, and hushed the whole thing about biofuels up.

If you are switching the engine out of an old vehicle, the important thing is to convert your fuel lines and filters, too, because biofuel will react differently with them, as I recently discovered.

In terms of the fuel itself, there’s all this controversy right now, because people are saying that we’re in the middle of a food crisis, and turning crops and land that are needed to feed people into fuel for vehicles is not the solution.

But, uh, hello, who ever told you to use food crops to make biofuel? The way most people, like Jerry, have been doing it since the sixties, is by recycling used vegetable oil, of which there is tons and tons going to waste in landfills every year.

What Jerry did was go around Ring City and strike deals with restaurants that normally throw out a buttload of used cooking oil. Some of them let him pick it up for free, some of them charge like their deep fryers are crapping gold.

Either way, the whole point is to take something that would normally be waste and turn it into something useful again.

The idea is not to turn corn crops into fuel. That is totally insane. Oh, the media. You so crazy.

Anyway, once you’ve got your fuel, you just need a processor set up in your backyard so that you can clean and thin your dirty old vegetable oil and make it into fuel. This process is called transesterification. One of the best resources online for learning how to do this here.

Just be careful. You’re going to be working with flammable materials and fumes, so explosions are possible.

On a brighter note, you’ll be sending about 60% less CO2 into the air with your fuel, and you won’t be supporting Big Oil – one of the most destructive forces on the planet.