Dr. Lovetalk again, appearing in yet another thread to push the plot along. This is based on the idea that the taste of semen can be changed through diet -- eating garlic is bad, but eating vegetables makes a sweeter taste (I'd return to this idea in a Shibata strip and base three Scientific Erotican strips on this as well). I knew from a childhood incident that eating an entire bag of black licorice would make poo turn black, so it stood to reason that there must be ways to improve on the taste and smell of feces.The last panel with Martha Stewart was really serendipitous. I wanted to use someone famous in a final panel like in Bloom County but I had lived out of Canada for over a year, so I didn't know who to use. I had bought a cookbook by Martha Stewart to show people here what kind of foods we ate here, and possibly allow me to cook them myself, so I used her. I thought for sure the punchline would go over everyone's head, but to my surprise, she had at that time become such a phenomenon that everyone got it. I didn't think she was that famous, but in 2000 she was a household word. At that time I was starting to feel culturally stupid, so I was pretty lucky that it worked out the way it did.
Speaking of culturally stupid, I made a short strip back to Canada two weeks after drawing this strip. It was my first trip since coming here, and I recall everyone talking about this show called "Survivor." I thought they were talking about some wrestling show. It took me a while before I figured out what they were talking about. To this day, I have never seen an episode of Survivor.
Strip Published Online: September 23, 2000.
Commentary Written: May 26, 2007.
