This story was inspired by an episode of This American Life that someone pointed out to me. Ira Glass was talking to a young girl who raised a prize chicken that her family eventually ate. The girl was quite fond of the chicken and considered it a childhood friend. This led to Ira asking, in his awkward way, what it was like to eat one of your friends. The girl basically shrugged and said she didn’t think that much about it.
That’s kind of what it’s like growing up a farm. You establish a relationship with things you eat before you eat them. Not with everything you eat, but with some things. And it’s no big deal.
The tragedy of mankind is that there is no sustainable way for us to have such a relationship with everything we eat. No way I know.
Very nice, Ryan. I figured there was a punchline coming.
So is this a pre-vegetarian comic, a sentimental look back at your meat-eating days, or just a clever jab at meat-eater hypocrisy?
BTW, Planet Comicon is next weekend in Overland Park, KS. Hope you can make it down. I won’t have a table this year, but I’ll be there Sat and Sun hawking my wares unofficially.
I would love to go down to Planet Comicon, but there is no way I’ll be able to with my current schedule. I’m trying to get a new minicomic (as well as a new book) finished before SPACE in April. Hope you have a good time there, though!
It’s not quite a pre-vegetarian comic. I think this was made during my first year of cutting out meat. At the time I wanted to make a comic that was fictional as possible (almost everything I had done to this point was autobio) and having the character joyously eat meat was part of that. I wasn’t trying to make any specific judgment on the character. I wanted to leave that to the readers.
Hey, it’s eat or be eaten, whether you’re human, animal or plant. It’s just that eating plants is less wasteful and an option in tempered climates. In places where it’s bitter cold, it sucks to be a vegetarian, because you can never eat enough to sustain you while burning all those calories to keep your body heat up.
I liked the comic. Growing up on a farm gives you another perspective on animals than only seeing them in refrigerated form in the supermarket. You also get the difference between pets and production animals, which city kids not always do.
Rant over.
I really, really try not to preach vegetarianism. It was a personal decision that I made after I found myself gravitating towards it. I realize that it may not be feasible or palatable for everyone. There’s enough vegetarian propaganda out there anyway.
Although I’m not sure if I do see the difference between pets and production animals, other than the way they’re treated. What makes a pet and what makes a food source seems to vary from culture to culture.
I loved this story and was so happy to have it featured in SFC. Are you looking forward to SPACE?
I see what you’re saying Rene, but I agree with Ryan. There is no difference b/w a pet and a “production animal” except that one gets killed and eaten. In many eastern locales, they eat dogs. So is it a pet, or a production animal?
The fact is animals are animals (including humans), it’s just that we are the only ones with the means to kill and eat any other animal we want to. Does that mean we should? Of course not. But I can’t argue that it means we *shouldn’t, as if we have some special assignment from on high to protect the animals. (In fact, in Genesis God gives Adam “dominion” over all the creatures of the earth; but does that mean we should protect them, or that we can do what we want with them? The argument could be made either way.)
My reasoning for being vegetarian is probably 25% ethical, but 75% socio-political. Or environmental, if you prefer. The amount of resources used up in the production of livestock–and I’m talking about the industrial kind, not local farms–is astronomical. I really wish people would look into just how wasteful an industry it really is. Not to mention the social and economic impact the fast-food industry has had/is having on America and the rest of the world.
I always say if you want to eat meat, that’s fine with me. Just try to make an effort to know where you meat is coming from, and it’s impact on the environment, economy, and the lives of the people producing it. Buy local, organic, etc.
To me, it comes down to a matter of choice. I chose to stop eating meat about 3 years ago, and I can tell you the reasons. When did you choose to *start* eating it, and why? I hope you’re answer to that question gets you thinking.
aaaannnnd…done ranting!
Believe it or not, I don’t like to preach about vegetarianism either. I find it’s just the sort of topic that makes enemies out of perfectly good strangers, and strangers out of perfectly good friends.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t have something to say about it!
Yeah, I do try not to be militant about it. I did have plans to produce a parody of militant vegetarianism called “Veggie Rage!” where I would go around slapping people who annoyed me, but I could never get the project off the ground.
And I am looking forward to SPACE!