Night of the Living Dead Miners
Yeah. I went there. I’ll see you all in hell.
Let me tell you how I feel about this whole miner thing though. That night when they were looking to rescue them, and the word came down that they found them alive except one, my wife and i were just floored! We couldn’t believe it. We stayed up watching the news until like 12:30 even though we had to be up early the next morning… we stayed up to see if we could catch a glimpse of these guys who literally cheated death we finally hit the sack when there was nothing going on. My wife and I got a chuckle before bed, because GERALDO shows up at the last minute and everything is OK! And he’s on the phone and hugging families and stuff. And keep in mind, this is West Virginia, and Geraldo is proclaiming “Everyone is related here! Everyone are brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles…” — We just burst out laughing and then went to bed….
. When I woke up the next day, I flicked the TV on expecting to see pictures of these guys all in glorious survival, and instead I saw the headline of:
“Lone Survivor of Mine rushed to hospital, 12 dead.” — and my jaw dropped. I thought what EVERYONE thought.
Who fucked up? How did this get so fucked up from the time I went to bed until the time I woke up??? And, what about all those families who were celebrating the night before? Dear god!
And here I am making light of this tragic situation. I think I was trying to comment more on the media than I was the miners themselves. The media never wants to admit they fucked it up. They’re ALWAYS right. And I wasn’t going to do this because I thought it might be too soon to do this…. but, alas, I have this darkened twisted heart that is beyond saving, you see?
Plus, something about a Zombie moaning, “Menthols”…. It had to be done. I did forget one thing on this.. Geraldo was suppossed to be running away and yelling “AIM FOR THE HEAD!!!” — but I forgot it.
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Recent Topics: miners, Sago Mine, tragedy, zombies, Geraldo Rivera, media, news, cable news, hyperbaric oxygen chamber
January 6th, 2006 at 4:01 am
Its only in the news till west virginias, with their highly more-interesting-than-reality-tv accents exit hysterics. After that happens, surely someone else will have raped a tree which damaged a comatose woman into pregnancy. And it’ll be Geraldos kid.
January 6th, 2006 at 4:10 am
I will be in hell DJ…. you will have PLENTY of company.
January 6th, 2006 at 4:37 am
From what I’ve seen, it’s all chalked up to miscommunication and people getting their hopes up. Still, that’s no excuse for the media fucking up like they did. I work at a newspaper, and that was the talk the whole time. We didn’t run with the whole “They’re alive! They’re alive!” because we knew better than to speculate on the subject.
I mean, someone who wants to raise hope tells someone that they’re alive, and not to worry. Then that person, getting the wrong idea, tells another hopeful person, until it gets to the Gov., who isn’t paying attention to what someone asks him, in all seriousness, if they’re alive. He says yes, then once word spreads that the Gov. said it’s all good, he himself gets word that it’s all good, and goes to the media.
It’s good for people to hope for the best, but they should know all the facts before they start spouting of at the mouth that everything’s fine. It was a damn gas explosion in a mine. Under the earth. Personally, although I hoped for the best, I honestly thought that all 13 poor bastards were done for.
This lone survivor’s probably gonna be fucked up for life now, if he survives. One, he’s probably gonna have brain damage for oxygen deprivation and breathing in the gases for, what, 42 hours? Second, he was a rookie, and he’s going to be all “why did I survive and all these seasoned vets not?” This thing will definitely leave him with mental scars.
I just hope that he does survive somewhat intact.
I hope. I don’t know for a fact this will happen.
All you can do is hope.
January 6th, 2006 at 4:39 am
Oh, and the above wasn’t a slam or anything on the comic. Just the media, like the comic.
…which was excellent, by the way. You never fail to entertain DJ.
January 6th, 2006 at 5:27 am
How do you keep this run of sheer brilliance maintained? It seems like Bob was some sort of talent leech that just dropped off when he had gorged himself to satifaction on your sweet, savory comic genious. Yirmuhmah has gotten crazy good since he left!
January 6th, 2006 at 7:01 am
Well, at least I won’t be the only one in Hell, see you poolside. As for the miners, I’m surprised this made the news. Mine collapses aren’t all that uncommon. I lived a couple of hours away from where that mine was located until last May (I was in Ohio, not WV. Where not everyone is related to each other.) and shit like this happens. Not all the time, or to this degree usually, but it happens.
As for the menthols, that shit wouldn’t happen. Most of the people in WV don’t touch those things, those are “darky cigarettes”. I’ve actually heard people say “real men smoke full flavors” and “lights are for women and queers”. Just to give you an idea of the level of intelligence that’s going on around there.
January 6th, 2006 at 9:09 am
I actually watched a short bit of the ABC special last night, because I don’t normally watch the news, so I hadn’t heard a damn thing about it. Supposedly, word from the rescuers to the command center was misunderstood, and for some reason, BLASTED OVER A LOUDSPEAKER within the building, where a shitload of people were. People got on their cell phones, etc etc.
What is REALLY fucked up about it is that they didn’t tell anyone for over THREE HOURS that word was wrong, even though they knew within something like a half hour to a full hour that it was. They were trying to pass the blame to the rescue workers, for fuck’s sake, saying that “They had their breathing gear on, and relayed that all but one were alive” and “Then they got to clean breathing, and took their gear off, to find that twelve were dead and only one alive”
Now, I admit, it’s hard to see shit with a respirator on. I’ve used one while working before, and that was OUTSIDE, well, a couple of times inside a massive empty shore tank. It’s a bitch to see in them. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like in that mine. But do you honestly think there’s any way they would think the dead ones alive and the live ones dead? Give. Me. A. Break.
They must’ve said something like “We’ve found all thirteen, one confirmed living, the others we aren’t sure about,” or some shit, and some idiot heard it the other way around because it’s what they wanted to hear. I dunno, but that was just a fucked up way to spin it. “The rescue team said they were all alive” And they had the team of miners that was BEHIND the blast on, but not the rescue workers? Hrm….I wonder why that is…..
On another note, I bet Geraldo did it! He sent out the false message to fodder a new TV Show! “Families of dead miners want to know WHY they were lied to!” That man gives a bad name to standalone mustaches everywhere.
January 6th, 2006 at 10:10 am
The Media is trying to make the news.
Here these guys are the living dead, and CNN has someone showing graphs and charts on how deadly mining is compared to Knitting, someone running experiments on mine collapse with paper mache, someone choking the shit out of another guy to see if he really does indeed die, etc.
January 6th, 2006 at 10:30 am
DJ, you have some HUGE fuckin balls. If there is a Hell, you’re toast. You’ve also just lost the crucial “Coal-Miner” segment of your webcomic audience. You’d better start putting stuff up on Ebay to make up for the revenue shortfall.
January 6th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I’ve gotten a good bit of semi-hate mail this morning. Blah.. people need to chill out. My wife is dissappointed in me too, she finds it “horribly tasteless”.
I have no defense but the fact that I have a dark, twisted mind.
Your right though, I probably lost all my coal miner readers.
Wait…. is there such a thing??
January 6th, 2006 at 10:48 am
If you’re going to hell I’ll be right beside you because I laughed so hard I woke my dogs up. Hysterical.
January 6th, 2006 at 11:25 am
Okay… I bow down to your masterful ability to so hilariously offend.
Outstanding comic.
But, where’s the fucking zombie canary?!
January 6th, 2006 at 11:47 am
January 6, 2006 - Trapped West Virginia coal miner Martin Toler Jr. lay weak and dying from carbon monoxide poisoning when he scribbled these heartbreaking final words to his family from a hole deep below the surface of the Earth.
“Tell all I[’ll] see them on the other side,” the 51-year-old mine foreman wrote. “It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep. I love you.”
January 6th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Unfortunately monoxide poisoning isnt allways that pleasant
Anyone else feel like a dick for finding this strip funny? Damn over active concience, maybe it will die if i go on a killing spree
January 6th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
He signed it “Jr.”
Toler’s older brother, Tom Toler, said the note was “written very lightly and loosely’ in block letters on the back of an insurance-application form found in his brother’s back pocket.
“I took it to mean that it was written in the final stages,” he said. “I’d call it more or less scribbling.”
John Groves, whose brother Jerry died in the Sago killed, said that he knew that at least four notes were left behind, although his family did not receive one.
Peggy Cohen, whose father, Fred Ware Jr., 59, also died in the Sago mine, said he did not leave a note. But she was told by the medical examiner’s office that messages written by other miners carried a similar sentiment as Toler’s.
“Your dad didn’t suffer,” she said officers told her.
January 6th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
I found it kinda tasteless, but I completely understand the message you sent forth. Hell, so did my girlfriend. Both of us getting a comics joke at the same time…it just doesn’t happen. Ever. The media really dropped the fucking ball on this one. Controversy sells things though…you yourself know this
I dunno if the media would intentionally do something of this extreme…but yeah. They’re capable.
Don’t worry about burning in hell though, I’ll probably be there for something I did when I was 2 and didn’t know what a bible was. Seriously…you ever sit down and read this thing? I wouldn’t be worried about being alone down there.
If you have any guilty concience in your head though, DJ, just remember the famous Nine Inch Nails line…”God is dead, and no one cares. If there is a hell, I’ll see you there.”
I think in the end, we all burn. Heavens for like…fish or something.
January 6th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Toooo Sooooon.
January 6th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
“Too soon?” Don’t you mean I beat you to it, you twisted fuck! hahahaha..
Seriously, if I had waited– I’d get people coming in and saying “Oh, this is tasteless AND old”
I’d rather have hot and fresh guilt.
January 6th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Geraldo will burn with you if anyone does..
He took a “mob rumor” and ran with it as fact on national TV..
There was no Official News Conference, No Press Release..
No Confirmation..
Is that Professional Journalism ??
I mentioned to my brother something about “Al Capone’s Vault”.. and a couple of beer bottles..
Turns out I was right, and didn’t know it until 3 hours later..
Still takes Balls to run that though..
January 6th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
I never liked Geraldo. He told everyone on national television that William Freund killed those people because his Aspergers made him violent, which is total bullshit because he was just one of those troubled teenagers who happened to be taking pills that are known to cause violent behavior.
haha sorry for going offtopic there.
January 6th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
It’s not too soon. Somone needed to make fun of how ridiculous Geraldo is. Hell I’m surprised he didn’t report that he was personally going to save them. I mean he is the reason anyone survived Katrina. His ego is only matched by the size of the universe.
January 24th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
i am doing a paper for our school newspaper on how the media fucked up and i agree with you. and you are not a bad person for doing that because if it wasn’t you someone else would have done something. so more power to you.