Mr. Squish’s memorial service.

When I first conceived this brilliant idea where Leonard Squish stayed dead, I figured I’d make it into a regular thing.

The characters in the strip would frequently refer to the recently departed Leonard, much like the Bloom County regulars kept referring to the recently departed Bill the Cat (until they cloned him). The strip would thereafter consist of Randall, Armand, and any other characters I added, and they’d continue the strip without him. And whenever it came up, “So why’s the strip still called ‘Mr. Squish’?” I could point out that I could rename it “Randall”… but there was no guarantee Randall wouldn’t get whacked at the end of the semester.

Nah. The strip would still be “Mr. Squish,” and regularly, to justify the name, they’d refer to the late Mr. Squish.

Yeah, dumb idea.

Mr. Squish is dead. Really most sincerely dead.

I killed off Leonard Squish in fall 1990, and I meant it. He was honest-to-goodness, no-fooling-around, dead.

Okay, some fooling around.

If you’re familiar with the term “comic book death,” you know when comic books kill someone, they never stay dead. They can always be brought back. Even when bringing ’em back would seriously mess up the storyline. Fr'instance Bruce Wayne’s parents, whose murder caused him to become Batman. If one of the Batman writers decided it’d be awesome to bring ’em back to life, via magic or some convoluted retcon or zombie science or Black Lantern power rings, they’ll be back before you can cry, Zatanna-style, “Srehtaefesroh!” Anyone can be brought back, and nearly everyone has. If you know of any exceptions, give it time. They’ll be back eventually.

Your vote matters. Sometimes.

In the United States it’s Election Day—one of ’em. According to the Constitution it’s the first Tuesday of November, ’cause they couldn’t make it Monday, ’cause back in the 1780s it might take you a whole day to travel to the polls, and religious folks didn’t wanna travel on Sunday. So, Tuesday. It’d be more convenient on a Saturday, but then again you can vote by mail, y’know.

The previous Election Day was back on 3 June, when we already voted for most of these people. California being a heavily Democratic state, the Democrats won by huge majorities. But the way our state’s elections work, there’s gotta be a runoff between the top two vote-getters in all the partisan offices. (Even if the top vote-getter had such a lead over all other candidates, there’s no point in any runoff. Which happened. Often.) So that’s what this election is: People looking at the ballot and saying, “I thought he lost. Why’s he on the ballot again?”

Hence turnout is expected to be low. Which is dumb, ’cause if enough people skip the election, and the number-two guy can mobilize his supporters, he might win this time around. But he likely won’t. The stats aren’t in their favor. I tell you though, if any of them actually pull it off, it’ll be the last time: Everyone will remember the freak occurrence.