Guys, we’ve been lied to. Turns out, not everything we see in the movies actually works in real life. I know, crazy right? But it’s the cold hard truth. We’ve endured countless chick flicks to make our dates happy, and all of them tell pretty much the same story. 2 guys. 1 girl. Guys fight over her. And to the victor go the woman’s heart. So naturally when we see our dates swooning over the brooding jealous type, we are left to assume that we can apply these same principles into our own lives.

Bad news gents. Turns out it’s soooo much more complicated than any given movie starring Sandra Bullock or Reese Witherspoon. You can’t just do something crazy and dramatic in the 3rd act to make the girl love you and forget about the other guy who EVERYONE can clearly see is a total jerk anyway. You can’t win the girl based on your sweet endearing humor despite the fact that your yearly income is suspect at best. I know, this hardly seems fair after a lifetime of Hollywood movies, but it’s the lot that we are left to deal with.

So what  DOES a girl want? After much research, I am left to conclude that she has absolutely NO IDEA what she wants. Not. A. Clue. It would appear that this is the part of life the movies actually got right. In preparation for writing this, I googled around a bit and found some real-life internet profiles of women and what they claim to be seeking from men. It reminded me of why I am no fan of online dating. Here are some excerpts (you know they’re authentic sadly, because I didn’t correct the spelling, punctuation, and grammar):

• “Men are like parking spots, the good ones are taken and the free ones are handicapped! I want to be treated like the princess I am”

• “someone who can make me smile with a glance knows french loves movies and music wouldn’t mind dancing in the rain even if they were wearing a nice outfit happens to be in the milatary humble, kind, gracious, bruised”

• “I would like to meet an amazing man who loves to dance, cook, cuddle, kiss, who is intelligent, confident, knows exactly what he wants… and gets it…with dark hair and light eyes… Guys with long hair.”

• “You have to be able to keep up. If you like television marathons, interacting with video games, or devouring several bags of Lays while doing these things, you need not apply.”

• “a guy who loves me no matter how i look or how out of shape i will get. i want someone who likes to read and has realistics dreams. ofcourse a romantic guy. someone who brings me a single rose or small flower just because

• “A guy who accepts my weirdness, loves the crazy moments, and has infinite patience. I’m just a sucker for the fawning attention. A guy has to be a little passionate, yes. No one wants a wimp.”

• “to tell u the truth at first I want a guy who is dangerous, I want a bad boy, but when it starts to get serious, I want him to be serious, and cudly,,”

• “I’d tell you one thing, but I’d secretly be hoping for something else. But the first thing that came to mind [is] chocolate and someone to do my homework.”

Did you guys get all that? Wow! It’s all so easy! And I’m TOTALLY not being sarcastic to prove the absurdity of our expectations of the opposite sex! All we have to do is do all of those things until we finally succeed in becoming the likeness of every woman’s dreams! Like this guy:

Yes! We can do it guys! This is totally within our reach!! Oh wait…here’s one more personal I found:

• “The best thing a guy can do is try to be himself. Be yourself.”

Crap. Looks like we’re screwed, gents.

The post Need a Hand? appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Encounters. There’s an interesting word. I’m not talking about those close ones from the 3rd kind. I’m talking about those dreadfully unpleasant ones. The ones you take all precautions to avoid. Those terribly uncomfortable and awkward ones.

I think we’ve all probably got people in life that we’d love nothing more than to NEVER SEE AGAIN. You know who I’m talking about. Right now at this exact moment you have someone in mind. Maybe it’s a bully from the 3rd grade. Maybe it’s that girl who broke your heart after she told you that she loved you. Maybe it’s that pathetic loser ex-boss of yours who fired you and ushered in an era of living out of your car. Maybe it’s that crazy stalker you had in high school who memorized your class schedule and totally followed you into the library that time, forcing you to hide in a crumpled ball behind the non-fiction section. Maybe your nightmares are still haunted by one or all of these experiences. Maybe you should go create a website and write about it. That’s supposed to be therapeutic. Or something.

So what do you do when the unthinkable occurs and you find yourself in that terrible moment when you realize that you are about to cross paths with one of these…”people?” In preparation for such terrifying and gruesome events, and after much contemplation, I have developed this handy dandy list for you, my faithful and loyal readers, so that should the unthinkable happen and one of these encounters should occur, you will be prepared to handle it with the utmost dignity and grace.

• If you should encounter a former bully you might consider the following prepared statement:

“Hey. Remember back in the 3rd grade when you thought you were cool and you used to kick me in the stomach during recess soccer matches? Haha! Yeah! Isn’t it funny now, how you’re a fat tub of lard, and I have solid abs and can bench almost twice my own weight?? SO funny! Maybe you should get a gym membership. Fatty.”

• If you should encounter a former boss or coworker who you loathe or despise:

“Oh hey. How’s that “career” working out for you? Still single huh? Imagine that. Me? Oh I’m doing great. I draw cartoons and have this totally awesome website that’s probably read by like, at least 7 people. Yup. Totally famous now. I’m in the background of  TV commercials. Very reputable companies go out of their way to contact me because they see  how totally awesome I am and know that I deserve to have a better job than you. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m on the Tonight Show within the year. Your breath smells.”

• If you should encounter a former love (or loves):

“I’m sorry. Who are you again? Oh…yes. Now I remember you. Yeah, it IS funny running in to you. Especially since I vowed never to return to your town, you black-hearted incarnation of evil. I’m doing great. I’m going on the Tonight Show. I totally date women hotter than you now. Like all the time. You should probably feel bad about that for some reason. Your husband is a tool, by the way. He reminds me of Ben Affleck. That’s not a good thing. At all. And no, we cannot be Facebook friends.”

• If you should encounter a former stalker:

“I’m sorry? No. You must have me mistaken for someone else. I have no idea who you are talking about. That sounds like someone who is dead though. I’m pretty certain that person is dead. You should forget about them and follow someone else into the library. Anyway, I’m kind of busy. I’m about to go on the Tonight Show. But I think I have a former boss you should meet.”

All grace. All class. All dignity. You might want to go ahead and print out that list. Save it in your wallet or something. That way you’ll be prepared at any given moment. Yeah, we are SO ready for this. Bring on the encounters.

The post The Encounter appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

There’s nothing worse than another guy stealing your girl. If there’s one thing that television and movies have taught us, it’s that everyone hates that guy. Everyone.

It’s happened to me. Obviously the girl couldn’t have been in her right mind (obviously…), but it has happened to me nonetheless. At the time, I was young and somewhat immature, so naturally the fitting solution to this problem was to prank the new guy mercilessly.

There were several ill-advised attempts that worked in varying degrees, but the best one really showed off my skills as a prankster. You see, my newfound enemy had a habit of drinking soda. Dude drank soda like it was going out of style. Naturally, this seemed like an opportune method to deliver a prank that would surely somehow result in his removal as new boyfriend.

After much diabolical scheming, I stumbled upon the answer. Lemon flavored laxative. Oh yes. You read that right. It was time to fight dirty.

You know what happened next… There was much laxative dumped into many giant-sized sodas, I can tell you. I even overheard him mentioning that his colas had been tasting different lately. I have no idea how adversely the laxatives affected him. But in all of my imaginative scenarios, the poor fool was dropping a messy and greasy bowel movement every hour on the hour. And he deserved it. Jerk.

The post Obsessive Ex-Boyfriend appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

I’ve been working hard. I’m working on the “FAQ” section right now, and it’s going to be a sort of press conference type of thing. I think it will be really fun when I get it all finished. Check back for it at the end of the week if it isn’t up in the next few days.

On a completely different note, I think my paperwork finally went through so that I officially graduated college. Hey. How about that. After years of jumping through hoops with school, it’s still a little hard to believe. I’ll feel better when that terribly expensive piece of paper with the word “diploma” finally arrives in the mail…

The post Getting Dumped appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Update 13th May 2010 – There’s a new cartoon in the “toons” section! Be sure to watch “A Storybook Tale.”

It’s been both interesting and challenging to take the comic strip back to a storyline. When I first started drawing the strip back in 2002-03 all I did were long story arcs. When I started getting published in newspapers, I tried to tailor my work more to fit the needs of the demographic I was being published for. Anyway, it’s fun to do a story arc like this. I haven’t done one like this since Michael was causing trouble in the cafeteria.

You all need to come back and check the site again tomorrow (Thursday the 13th). I will be adding the much awaited “Storybook Tale” cartoon to the “Toons” section. It’s something I’ve a fun flash project I’ve been working on for quite some time, so be sure to check it out!!

The post Trash Man appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

23 – April – 2010 Update – The “Cast” section is up. Meet the characters!

Michael likes garbage. He is a raccoon, after all… Beginning of a new story arc? Perhaps…

There’s a lot of fun new additions coming to the site. The “Cast” section will be up very soon, sometime this week I should think. After that will be the “FAQ” which will be a sort of reoccurring press conference with the characters. They’ll answer various questions from the media, and yes, they’ll answer your questions as well. And finally, after that the “Sell-Out” section will be up, which I’m really excited about. Mark my words, it will have a catchy theme song. So please, continue to check back regularly. A new comic strip is added every Wednesday as well. We’ve had lots of new visitors to the site as of late, so we hope you enjoy your visit to the site. The content aside from the comic strips is all Flash based, so turn off your blockers if you have ‘em on, and if you’re visiting via an iPhone or iPod of sorts…from the bottom of my heart, I apologize for Steve Jobs’ hatred of all things Adobe.  I hope you’ll continue to come back again and again as the site continues to grow!

Thank you for stopping by,

~Matt

The post Where’s My Lunch? appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

03/05/2004 – Won’t be any new strips next week due to my Spring Break. Next update will be on Monday, 15th of March. See you then! Oh yeah, be sure to vote too!

The post Freedom! appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

02/25/2004 – Sorry there was no strip on Monday. There were some good reasons as to why, but I won’t bore you with my excuses. Anyway, despite there not being a strip for that day, my Monday still proved to be highly enjoyable…

The post Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen… appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

02/20/2004 – I guess it’s actually the 21st since it’s 4:04 in the morning… I think I’m going to go to bed now…

The post C12 appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

02/09/2004 – It must be Monday. I scored a hat trick on Saturday. (That’s three goals for those of you that are hockey illiterate.) Here’s two things I would appreciate: 1. For you Logan UT readers, head down to the Statesman office and fill out their comic survey! 2. Vote for the site! Always appreciate the voting!

The post Dignity appeared first on Raccoon Toons.