My favorite Tom Tomorrow, possibly, ever.

Those freaky aliens and their arbitrary belief systems! Thank goodness that most of us on this land mass bow down to the correct diety and are the only ones who can properly interpret his celestial texts. After all, we are at the center of the universe. How can our ruling class be wrong?

Shouldn't that be crazy asaucerians?

If your invisible friend has the same name as everyone else's invisible friend then your credible. If your invisible friend has a different name you are obviously insane and need therapy and drugs.

is it accurate? Saucerians are the predominant religion, equivalent to Christians. Asaucerians are those religionists who are not Christian, a rather broad category. So would that include Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Wiccans, etc.? I cannot believe the dominant religion would be so exclusionary. If they were, they would never say so out loud. However, everybody hates atheists. One of the atheists (MMO) even tried to appease the exclusionary ones by starting her own church to no avail. They are still hated.

By your reckoning, what the exclusionary ones must really want to avoid is the election of a A-Christian. That would be Marilyn Manson, the AntiChrist.

Just to piss off the exclusionary ones, I think we should run Marilyn as a candidate for President of the United States! Of course, he probably would have had a better chance if he still had Dita. She was on the WWD best dressed list, just like Jackie Kennedy.

-actually this comic is pretty good.

Are the Saucerians the beings on the saucer or the believers in the beings on the saucer? Maybe on that planet the same term covers both.

Or maybe unbelievers are called something like 'aparabolic.'

As all good people know, the true knowledge of God and the end of times comes from the words of the disciples of a zombie fisherman that may or may not have actually existed. Spoon.

...the "Saucerian" language looks a lot like Hebrew. That first (or last, depending on which way it's read) letter on the middle word is definitely an "aleph"...I think I spotted a "tav" in there somewhere, too.

Highly derivative.

Aparabolic is perfect.

I like the little red Mormon one. Cute.

one of the best, if not THE best, strips he's ever done (and there's a lot of competition). It's so subtle that I actually might be able to post it on one of my classroom walls and get away with it (in a Deep South Christian town).

... only in the deep South could it be called subtle.

If you posted it in your Christian town they wouldn't get it. Even if they did the embarrassment of it's utter ridiculousness wouldn't overcome the deep seated conditioning. I recommend invasion. We must fight them over there or else we'll have to fight them here. *zik zik zik*

Am I the only one who isn't getting any images from Salon today? I've tried Seamonkey, internet explorer & safari. The only images I get are ads (before I login). I'm not having problems on any other site, just Salon.

There must be a problem, seeing the same as you are.

I've never actually been to Glox, so by all means take this with a grain of dilithium:

But could it be that the true motive for the Gloxian litmus test of faith for sentients campaigning for Supreme Leader is an unconscious realization that the decadent political process on Glox, such as it remains, has devolved into a belief system fueled by acts of faith? And that a sentient who is unable or unwilling to flout its capacity for blind faith to the exclusion of reason will be perceived as too alien to be trusted with supreme power?

If I'm right, this is a good cautionary tale. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that here on Earth, advanced cultures govern according to the dictates of benevolent reason and common sense!

Before this comic I really didn't believe amorphous cephalopods had elections somewhere in this crazy, mixed-up universe. But now I do! One has to suspect that all they want from us is our vast supply of switchgrass to power their wastfully-individuated transport craft. I hope they will leave us alone. No blood for switchgrass!

But subtle? I think not.

Of the cult of personality.

There's no connection between the beliefs of the Gloxian Saucerians and those of any earthly sect worshipping the Flying Spaghetti Monster—neither the Tomato Saucerians nor the Clam Saucerians.

That false assumption, while understandable, cannot be rebutted too frequently.

I can read the high praise for this strip and Tom Tomorrow was the number-one reason I subscribed to Salon - but this edition appears to be invisible from the UK.

Yes, you're completely correct; only here in the Deep South could this cartoon be considered subtle. For my students, it certainly would be subtle. In any case, my teaching environment isn't as it was in New York or Arizona. It's great here, but it isn't exactly a place with people who appreciate nuance (and, by the way, before I get slaughtered, I'm not insulting the South ... I love it here, despite the politics).

Zik zik zik!

And a new phrase enters the lexicon, or should.

Zik zik!

As a bonus, the cartoon is spot on in its observation that in Americ -- I mean our northern planetary land mass -- withholding your belief in some guardian space spook is weird and suspicious while claiming a personal relationship with that same space spook is normal and desirable. And just think: all you have to do to prove that relationship is to claim that you have it!

Zik zik!

My fellow Northern Land Massians, our Founding Sporefathers based our unique and special form of government on their strong faith in the Celestial Saucerians. They never intended a separation of Altar and State; that's why, when I'm elected, I promise to appoint only strict Traditionalists to our Supreme Horde of Tentacles. We must stop teaching the blasphemous lie of Mutationism to our impressionable spawnlets. And finally, we must remain strong in our Great War on Anxiety (GWOA), comforted by the certain knowledge that we are the Chosen Land Mass of Glox, and our Celestial Saucerians are stronger than the Enemy's false 'Alien Prophets.'

Thank you, and Saucerians bless the Northern Land Mass!