The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic Panic has inspired its share -and then some- of attempts at humor, obviously because the bacon-loving denizens of the Web and American Society really don’t want to admit that the Jews and Muslims might be right in their rejection of things porkish. Of course, right now, there have been more cases of the New Flu being spread from people to pigs than from pigs to people, and the virus may need to make a mutation worthy of one of the X-Men in order to be a real threat. So, we can sit back and laugh, ha ha, ho ho, cough cough.

But if anything has provided a little joy in these troubled times, it is the plethora of pig-related puns that have emerged from the quasi-crisis. I like Gawker’s category for Swine Flu-related Stories: APORKALYPSE NOW (and wonder who they stole it from – JUST KIDDING).
And the Twitterer who responded to Rainn Wilson’s “Rename the Disease” campaign with HAMTHRAX

But nobody has brought home the bacon better than a webcomicker, of course, in this case the shift-key confused jOEL WATSON of HijiNKS ENSUE, who not only came up with the term HAMDEMIC, but also the largest batch of pig-related punny-cute names I’ve seen in one place.

Sir Francis Bacon
AbraHam Lincoln
Simon and River Ham
Porkins
Sparkling White Swine (an albino pig)
Alien pig visitor Pork from Ork
Vince with Ham-Wow!
Icelandic Pig Singer Pjörk
Ham Stoker
Seven of Swine
and (way too obviously) Kevin Bacon

Of course, I respond to something like this as a challenge to come up with more of my own (but can I top Pjörk?)

Ham Solo
Amy Swinehouse
Piggie Smalls (The Notorious P.I.G.)
Bā-khan Noonien Singh (come on, imagine Shatner yelling out “BĀ-KHAN!!!”)
Stephen ColBoar (or should that be spelled with a silent t?)
Hammah Montana
Pigmund Freud
Porker Wagoner
Hogust Wilson
Isaac, Taylor, and Zac Hamson
Hamuel Adams
Humphrey Boargart
Boar Diddley, Boar Derek and Little Boar Peep
Donnie Porko

and everyone at the evil insurance company APIG

PIG PORK SWINE BOAR HOG BACON HAM

An interesting addendum to the Burger Klingon story; at the Star Trek premiere where the alien burger mascots were introduced, Nicki Finke (the only Hollywood reporting person who never lies) reported:

I’m told the catering company got the wrong date and location for the after party. Which meant that, at 7:30 PM, the staff had to run to Whole Foods and find some eats. It looked like a full-frills premiere except for the guests snacking on dinner rolls, salad, pita and hummus. What, No Tofu?

Now if I were going to point fingers about that food-related snafu, I’d say that the Klingon Burger King HAS NO HONOR!

Wendell’s Law of Fair Equivalence: If Evolution is “just a theory”, then by the same standards, Creationism is “just a myth”.

Wendell’s Law of Relative Mathematics: The correct answer to “what number am I thinking of” is ALWAYS “Never Enough”.

Wendell’s Law of the Scalability of Quality: Only in Lake Wobegon are all the children above average.

Wendell’s Law of Theatrical Analogies (stolen from @StephanieInCA on Twitter): All the world’s a stage and most of the actors are desperately under-rehearsed.

Wendell’s Law of Marketing: Never back away from an idea just because it serves no useful purpose. That’s the kind that sells big!

Wendell’s Law of Medical Collaboration: The authority of a doctor is in OPPOSITE proportion to the number of partners sharing his/her office.

Wendell’s Law of Responsible Actions: If your greatest regrets are the things you DIDN’T do, then you’ve never done ANYTHING.

Wendell’s Law of Christian Soldiering: When Religious Fundamentalists give up on politics, their next option is usually Holy War.

Wendell’s Law of Corporate Practices: A company with a “bad Corporate Culture” usually doesn’t fail until it has run all the companies with “GOOD Corporate Cultures” out of business.

Wendell’s Law of Pedantry: There’s nothing wrong with being pedantic… except when dealing with people who think it’s a communicable disease.

One of the Celebrity Twitterers, @rainnwilson, in between tweets promoting movies he hasn’t finished making yet and observations like “Why is it called “Alvin and the Chipmunks”? It should have been called, ‘Alvin and Two Other Chipmunks”, prompts his followers to write funny stuff for him. Recent examples were the obvious “Rename the Swine H1N1 Flu” (best suggestion: “Hamthrax” from @BrennaWilson) and “New Ad Slogans for Corn” (“Corn: It’s A-Maize-ing!” @KenGHarrison).

Just after April Fools Day, he called for “ambiguous, wry, self-composed tombstones”. I only liked a few:
“Over My Dead Body” (shouldn’t that be “YOU’RE Over My Dead Body”?)
“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.” (yeah, obvious)
“Yes, that was my final answer.”
“Can you hear me now? Good!”
“Looking for inspiration here? Don’t be an idiot.”
“GET OFF OF MY LAWN!” (because once you reach a certain age, you’ll never change)
“When I said over my dead body, it was meant as an expression”

And let me say that Twitter’s heavily-praised ‘real time search’ apparently thinks that time stops about 2 weeks ago – these were found via Google which suspiciously didn’t include the ones I came up with:

“Rest In Peace. And nobody’s gonna interrupt me.”

“No need to whisper. I’m really not interested in what you have to say.”

“Like your family’s going to do it better.”

“In case you were wondering what I’m up to, I’m not.”

(and I have actually considered this for myself) “What more can I say?”

But nobody can top Merv:

Although Oscar-winning Actor Jack Lemmon came close…

The world continues to be in a Pandemic Panic over the H1N1 Swine Flu and attention is now focused on finding the origin of the semi-deadly disease, with one tactless UK government official blaming Susan Boyle, which is at least funnier than the US politicos who blame “Illegal Aliens”. The earliest known case of this specific strain is a 5-year-old boy in a small Mexican town downwind from a pig farm where everybody got the flu in the last couple months, but everyone else who was tested showed a less infamous strain. But an item in the background of one of the pictures of the thankfully-recovered kid prompted me to make another Exclusive Investigation.

Now, anybody who attends a comic book, sci-fi or tech convention knows that these congregations are breeding places for disease and many attendees have come home with cases of “Convention Flu”. The Disease Known as Legionnaire’s Disease got its name from its outbreak at an American Legion Convention (and it’s fatality rate from the advanced age of most American Legion members).

From March 20-22, there was a gathering known as the New England Webcomics Weekend, which included a plethora of the most popular webcomic artists from as far away as Los Angeles and Sweden, and from my past experience blogging about the field (which I may soon resume, under an even better blog name), the Webcomickers are a notoriously unhealthy group, known for practices like “group panels” and “guest strips” that spread disease and yet, those who have been in the semi-business for any amount of time have developed an ability to survive some of the awfullest afflictions, but usually only after taking what they euphemistically call a “hiatus”. It is well documented that 27.2% of the attendees of Webcomics Weekend had comic updates delayed or missed in the week following due to illness, suggesting that the event was a potential incubator for new and dangerous infections.

After a few inquiries, I became aware of one particular encounter at NEWW. It was between Jeffrey Rowland, who not only sometimes does two strips, but also is the CEO of Webcomicdom’s first MegaCorporation, the poorly-named Topatoco, which does business (often in a hot tub) with at last count 1,327 webcomic artists, and a fan who commented in a thick Mexican accent that his little nephew reminded him of Rowland’s Wigu character. Thus, a strong (but circumstantial) connection is made between one of Webcomicdom’s most contagious characters and “Patient Zero” 5-year-old Edgar Hernandez in this picture:

Maybe it’s time to rename “Swine Flu” to the “Wigu Flu”.