A new level of profoundly disturbing.

...sweet stinkin’ murder, Axe Cop’s nuts. I mean, he’s done pointlessly cruel and destructive things before (no candle of him on the cake!), but this is just… wow. Babysitter locks the baby in a room where it eats its own feces and gets punched repeatedly by cyborgs, and then leaves for a magic planet. Great job, Mr. Smartist.

Punching babies? I don’t know whether to be amused or disturbed right now.

Amused.

I was horrified until I read the alt-text.  It reminded me that yeah, this comic’s being written by a little boy… and little boys hate annoying babies.  This is to be expected.

Wow, I never knew there was alt text! On IE 7 on this PC it just says “image”.
It looks like it’s because you have it set as the Title attribute of the link, instead of the Alt attribute of the image, and I think showing the Title text only started being supported in newer browsers. (If it isn’t too much trouble, can you you add it in both places?)

I’ve noticed it only seems to work for me in the blog section, but not the comments section.  I’m browsing with Safari, if that matters.

On a side note, isn’t Axe Cop *already* a cyborg?  But flute cop’s still in Dino-mode, so maybe this is before he got robot powers?

I think that soon enough, the AC continuity stream’s going to get more convoluted than the Summers family tree. haha

This is pretty disturbing.  I know that horrible things happen all the time in Axe Cop—the entire population of England died just in Episode 3—but the idea of our hero starving and punching an infant somehow crosses a line for me.

I really dig Axe Cop and I’ve been reading it since the beginning, but I hope this storyline is over soon.

Malachai’s in that phase, huh.

I understand why people are offended/disturbed by this one, but I do hope that Malachai (if he reads the comments) isn’t deterred by their offense. He is a very provocative storyteller, and it looks to me like he’s TRYING to offend, and so the integrity of the story is based at least in part on how offensive it is. True, he is not making an obvious social or political commentary, but it is sparking a discussion in the comment thread about whether or not child abuse can be funny, which I think is a very important question. So, Malachai, if you read this, don’t stop being provocative, because you’re damn good at it.

On another note, is the unicorn horn like a genie? It seems to be able to do anything with some serious exceptions: kill people, impose on free will, and take you to another planet.

@chris, you work in IT and use IE7? ...why?

I do love how the plotline and premise was pretty much dropped immediately.

Ahahahahaha! I was right! We’re just a Judy short of a Punch & Judy show!

Malachai needs to get a job with the Jim Henson company, Cartoon Network, or possibly Comedy Central when he grows up. If any of those are still around. (His ideas might be a little too violent for Nickelodeon.)

Oh man.  Dinosaur Soldier’s tail completely disappeared in the bottom left panel =O

Awesome. Love punching babies.

Am i right when i suppose that when Malachai grows he’ll start doing stories about vaginas and stuff

@Hardcore Macho: I’m pretty sure Ethan would have the tact to nudge his little bro away from sexual overtones… but somehow find a way to include his changing tastes in the story.  Malachi will probably look back on these coming episodes years from now and do quite a lot of facepalming

@ TG: “He is a very provocative storyteller, and it looks to me like he’s TRYING to offend, and so the integrity of the story is based at least in part on how offensive it is.”

Dude, he’s 7. Pretty sure he’s not thinking, “Let’s write this story in a way that’s provocative and offensive to some people to see how everyone reacts;” It’s most likely along the lines of “Hey, babies are stupid and annoying, I wish I could punch them when they cry in real life. If I can’t, at least Axe Cop can!” People need to take Axe Cop less seriously and remember it’s mostly written through a little kid having play time.

I adore Uni-Baby’s expression between the two robots. Classic looney tunes scenario.
I find it hard to take offense, but you have to consider the source.
I still think Daffy Duck being shot point blank in the face by a shotgun multiple times is among the funniest things in God’s creation. And Baby Finster threatening to stab Bugs Bunny with a chef’s knife, then being subject to all kinds of physical abuse at the hands of that wascally wabbit is also lung bustingly funny. You can argue that Finster is not a baby, but….

@TG @Jeremy Yes Jeremy has it.  TG, you are thinking too much like a modern artist rather than a child.  The modern artist thinks art is anything that offends the Middle Class.  Malachai doesn’t see any value in offending people… it’s not even a concept to him.  He just doesn’t see any difference between punching a baby for comedy, or punching a clown or a cartoon bulldog.  I am going to get into it more in tomorrow’s blog, but suffice it to say that offending anyone is the furthest thing from Malachai’s brain.

He isn’t old enough to know any moral equivalence.  But really.  Why is it ok to punch a clown or animal but NOT ok to punch a baby?  Punching should be wrong in all instances.

It’s funny because….it’s NOT REAL. NO BABIES WERE ACTUALLY PUNCHED. I thought we should clear that up…

Lest we forget, Uni-baby was on the same team as the murderer of Axe Cop’s parents.  She’s not just a baby with a horn, she’s a bad guy!

@Ethan and @Jeremy: Obviously you know where Malachai is coming from best, but I wasn’t “thinking like a Modern Artist.” I do remember as a child doing things for the simple reason that I wanted to provoke a reaction. Telling excessive poop jokes was a way of annoying my parents. And I’m not taking Axe Cop seriously, I’m taking people’s reactions to it seriously. Even if Malachai does not mean to provoke a reaction, the reactions he provokes are still meaningful, in my opinion.

I like that Ethan took the time to address the baby punching in detail in the blog.  I gave this a bit of thought overnight but I didn’t want to post another comment until I saw where the storyline was going, in case it was going to turn out okay for Uni-Baby in the next strip.

I think for me the issue is that Axe Cop is entertaining to me because it’s an escape from the real world into Malachai’s boundless imagination as interpreted through Ethan’s excellent art.  Here, we have an adult starving and punching an infant because of the stress of providing care for her and then taking delight in her suffering.  Unfortunately, the action and the context surrounding it remind me too closely of something horrible that happens to millions of people in the real world.  It’s not just the punch but also the circumstances under which it’s delivered—this is why I didn’t have the same gut reaction to Axe Cop blowing Uni-Baby up with an avocado grenade or Axe Cop eating a baby sandwich for strength.  While those things would also be awful things to do to a cartoon baby, they don’t mirror widespread problems in the real world.

Unfortunately, that means that this particular strip was a bummer for me because it keeps me in the real world thinking about something horrible that exists, instead of being an escape from the real world into Axe Cop World.  I’m not trying to suggest that the strip shouldn’t have been run, I’m just trying to explain why I personally had a negative reaction to it, when I previously have enjoyed all sorts of crazy, questionable things that Axe Cop has done.

I totally respect that this was not Malachai’s intention and that he has no idea of the context of punching a baby and why it could be disturbing to someone.  I understand how he could be an equal opportunity puncher—I’m sure that I said equally ridiculous things when I was seven.