On the Swing by Agahnim

It's funny, even though I haven't drawn those comics since 2007, I think you're the first person who's asked me about that.  Anyway, here's the answer:

After Kent Hovind went to prison for tax evasion, I originally was planning to start a new storyline about the Prattmaster going to work for another organization that's a parody of Answers in Genesis.  As I researched Answers in Genesis and their Creation Museum, though, I eventually realized that parodying them wasn't going to be as easy as it had been in Hovind's case.  Even a sizable portion of creationists don't take Hovind seriously, but some of the papers published in Answers Research Journal (such as this one) have received over 30 citations on Google scholar.  What's more, now that most parts of Talk.Origins are no longer updated, some of these publications haven't received any mainstream response.  I think the response that's needed to the material published by Answers in Genesis is a scientific book or website refuting it, rather than comics making jokes about it.

I began working on such a book around the same time that I stopped drawing my comics.  It's been virtually complete for more than a year, but the publication has experienced one delay after another.  My current plan, if everything goes as hoped, is for it to be published next spring.

I originally was intending to continue my comics after the book is published, but now I'm not as sure about that.  Over the past eight years, I've come to the conclusion that a greater threat to scientific truth than creationism is blank-slatism--the belief that a person's intelligence and personality are determined entirely by experience, rejecting the conclusions of behavioral genetics.  The science in this area is about as settled as it is for evolution (this paper is a pretty good overview), but blank-slatism has far more influence in academia and educational policy than creationism does.

Once I'm entirely finished with my anti-creationism book, it's likely I'm going to decide that combating blank-slatism should become more of a priority for me.  I hope fans of my comics can see the value in that also, even if it means I don't have the time for cartooning anymore.  I'm proud of the work I've done, but at this point I think I'm needed more for other things.

I actually think I’m a little less that way than I was when you and I were together. I’m getting more exercise, and I’m also eating a lot more—at one point recently I ate an entire pizza in one sitting. Almost all of the weight I’ve gained during the past couple months is muscle, though, and since I’m 6 feet 4 inches tall it takes a lot of that to make any noticeable difference.

And yeah, these deer are pretty tame. Ferahgo’s father often leaves food out for them, so they don’t seem to be afraid of humans at all.

I couldn’t actually see them while they were behind me, but when my sister was taking this picture she commented on how she was trying to include them in it. So I figured they probably would be.