Why I Don’t Believe in Cars, Page 1

TITLE

Why I Don't Believe in Cars

by Rachel Nabors SubcultureofOne.com

A unicorn emits fumes near a car.

PANEL 1

Brenda talks to Rachel on public transit.

BRENDA: "Why are you taking the bus?"

BRENDA: "Too poor to buy a car?"

PANEL 2

Brenda continues guessing while Rachel responds calmly.

BRENDA: "Can't get a license?"

BRENDA: "I bet you can't drive."

RACHEL: "No."

RACHEL: "I just don't believe in cars."

RACHEL: "And I can drive stick, thank you very much."

PANEL 3

Brenda is baffled while Rachel explains.

BRENDA: "Ha! Don't believe in them? There are cars everywhere!"

Cars are shown floating around.

RACHEL: "There are homosexuals everywhere, too, but plenty of people deny their existence."

PANEL 4

Rachel next to a graph showing rising temperature and CO2 levels.

And right-wingers continue to deny that Global Warming is real even though the planet's average temperature and carbon dioxide levels are rising in concert.

PANEL 5

Rachel smiles serenely.

RACHEL: "Obviously we can deny the existence of something to make it go away."

And to think, mere years after posting this comic, the American Big Car Market would collapse and need bailing out in an economic crisis and gas price surge. (That’s what we call “foreshadowing!”)

When I moved out on my own, I chose Roanoke over Floyd, Mt. Airy, and Christiansburg as my new home because it had the best bus system. I managed to go a whole year without a car, but I did have to get a motorcycle to get to my community college classes. See, you can be a total badass and future-friendly! My little Virago 250 went sixty miles on a single gallon.

Then I moved to Raleigh’s suburbs to live with my husband, then fiancé. You need a car to get around the Triangle. So I got a smart car! I want to live car-free again one day, but it will be a few years before we can make that move.

Comments (Archived)

  1. Senyah

    In this we do not agree. I want a car. I’m a 17 year old otaku that never leaves the house except to go to school. On rare occasions my dad will take me and my sister to the movies or somewhere else fun. We have to BEG just to get him to take us to the Library and Barnes and Noble, which are our two favorite places(also known as our happy places).

  2. Rachel the Great

    I feel your pain, Senyah. I lived in rural Virginia where my mother discouraged me from driving because of the cost of gas. It was one of the deciding factors when I moved out on my own–to a city with public transit. Eventually I got a motorcycle when I needed to go places I could not reach on the bus.

  3. Reese76

    “The world will be saved by Steam !” And frame four is why I am in College to become an Auto Repair Mechanic, cause there will always be a need to work on cars of some shape or kind, be they Gas, Diesel, Hybrid, Electric or Steam Powered.