Porkopolis

[Originally published in the Porkopolis Notebook in 2008.]

the Porkopolis guest strips

Since 2003, Chris Bishop, the creator of the web comic HER! [GIRL VS PIG] has invited readers to create their own Guest Strips for his birthday — September 8th — which he would then post on line. The result is one big litter with four years of progeny.

2006 was Chris’ 30th birthday, and I created four strips for the event. I worked up some story ideas, copied a selection of strips off the HER! [GIRL VS PIG] site, butchered them up in Photoshop and put them back together as comic ‘sausage’ strips ala Porkopolis.

About the time Chris had promised to post all the 2006 Guest Strips, his life got extra busy. He suggests it was work and bills. I’m thinking maybe a (real) Girl was also involved — one who broke his heart and his futon… Anyway the Guest Strips for 2006 never got posted and new installments of HER! [GIRL VS PIG] slowed up, and then stopped after 5/03/07.

So, here are my four submissions. These are my stories, done in the spirit of HER! [GIRL VS PIG], with Chris’s own copied art work, gently adapted by me. And, littermate status is confirmed. If you’re uncertain, then do a blood test, there’s plenty of it here…

[Originally published in the Porkopolis Notebook in 2008.]

[Originally published in the Porkopolis Notebook in 2007.]

Who would do this to a pig or a dog, and why?

Fengjing and Shar Pei breeds both originated in China. The Shar Pei dog breed is over two thousand years old, while information on the age of Fengjing pig breed is unclear. Both breeds came under US scrutiny relatively recently.

Imports of Char Pei began in the late 1970s as part of a Hong Kong based breeding program to re-establish the then almost extinct dog breed. The first official importation of Fengjing swine was in 1989 as a cooperative effort of the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture), the University of Illinois, and Iowa State University.

These organizations planned cross–breeding Fengjing with popular western pig breeds to take advantage of some of their characteristics such as taste, disease resistance and large litter sizes.

The most distinguishing characteristic of both the swine and dog breeds is the wrinkled skin, especially on the face and shoulders. Shar Pei fanciers say the dogs were bred for intelligence, strength, and for the valued “warrior scowl” that would increase their menacing appearance and help to intimidate barbarian invaders, foreign thieves and the like.

Again, information on the Fengjing swine is incomplete, but I wonder, could that same ‘warrior scowl’ on these otherwise tasty swine make them seem unpalatable to hungry barbarians and assorted foreigners?

In a distant time and place where you most often caught your meat alive and butchered it yourself, this might have been a clever defensive breeding technique by Chinese farmers to discourage foreign invaders from swiping their swine. This seems to be a case of convergent human–engineered evolution, and so, littermate status is confirmed.

[Originally published in the Porkopolis Notebook in 2006.]

The Blue Dog	The Blue Pig
About the Artists
Name:
George Rodrigue	Capt. Xavier Fronius, USN, Retired
Born:
1944, New Iberia, LA in the heart of French Louisiana.	1921, Palenburg, OH — just a ways upstream from Cincinnati on the Ohio River.
Family History:
Grew up surrounded by the myriad myths and legends of the unique and colorful heritage and folklore of of his families Cajun heritage.	Immersed in swine history and folklore from an early age, as family worked for generations as “killers and gutters” in the pig processing industry of Porkopolis.
Education:
University of Southwest Louisiana and the Art Center College of Design; Los Angeles, CA, USA.	US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, USA.
Accomplishments:
Today, the Blue Dog hangs in the homes of Tom Brokaw, Whoopi Goldberg, Harry Connick Jr., and Hillary Clinton, and was even featured on the set of NBC’s hit sitcom Friends. Blue Dog is for sale at personal galleries in New Orleans and Carmel, California and did stints as both the advertising icon for Absolut Vodka and a pitchpooch for the ill–fated $200 million ad campaign by Xerox for their inkjet printers.	‘Cap’ is the owner/creator of the Roadkill Carpet Co. — door mats, throw rugs and wall–to–wall carpet depicting realistic scenes of animal roadkill on highways. Recent patterns include: African Safari IV — Sacred Cows of the Masi Urban Idiom V — White Miniature Poodles Before the Wheel I — Mammoth Stampede
Quote:
“Over the past decade, I’ve discovered that I simply cannot not paint Blue Dog. Painting her has become as natural to me as eating and sleeping. I have become Blue Dog Man because I can never separate myself from her. Blue Dog, I’ve discovered, has become the story of my life.”	“I been haunted my whole life by dreams ’n visions of this damn Blue Pig… Probably ’cause a’ how I couldn’t ever stand ta’ think about all my family fer generations havin’ been hog slaughters. I needed an exorcism and I decided ta’ paint the pig jis like I saw it, sort’a bring it into reality and then say ‘Shoo!’ “