91. BILL HICKS: It’s just a ride
This is one of the most requested quotes I get so thanks to everyone who sent it. It’s from Bill Hick’s Revelations special and you can watch him deliver it in this clip. Here’s my first Bill Hicks comic.
I’ve had the quote saved for months but I only figured out a way to to adapt it after recently watching the 2010 Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job. It explains how a bunch of super-rich banking assholes broke America’s economy and sent the world into a recession. While it’s pretty far-fetched to think one of these super-rich CEOs would give up their position of power and turn to philanthropy, it’s not totally unbelievable. Bill Gates has given over $28 BILLION to charity, and along with Warren Buffet, have started The Giving Pledge, with the goal of recruiting billionaires to give away their fortunes. One member is George Lucas, who just announced he would be donating most of the $4 billion he made when he sold Lucasfilm to help improve education.
- RELATED COMICS: George Carlin “On assassination”. Henry Rollins “Who’s the crazier man?”.
- MelodySheep has made an autotune mash-up using some of Bill Hicks and George Carlin’s best material.
- Fun infographic on why Bill Gates is better than Batman.
- In case you missed it, the latest Zen Pencils Reader of the Month features an interview with an explosives expert currently in Afgahanistan saving Coaltion troops lives. It’s a great story.
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Wonderfull. I love this speech. And this comic is perfect for it.
Thank you.
Perfect as always.
Amazing comic as always! It is so awe-inspiring to read about all these people that want to change the world around them. When I heard what George Lucas intends to do with the $4 BILLION it made me take back every single bad word I said about him. We need more people like him, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, but it’s good to know that at least we have them.
I really believe that an educational revolution is in the air. One that will permanently change us. For the moment, we are on the right track.
Thank you for an awesome quote, again. I’m really going through a rough patch in my profesional life (or eventually-going-to-go-profesional life), and I cherish every one of your comics. They are a great way to raise some spirits when everything seems a little too blue.
Thanks, again.
This was fantastic. Thank you again for inspiring me to go on.
A big hug.
M.
Thanks for this man. I’m a big fan of Bill and of your comics, and this is just awesome! Thanks!
Almost brought tears to my eyes. I love Bill Hicks and I love Zen, and in turn this comic strikes me in all the right places. I forget that it’s all just a ride too, and this was a lovely reminder.
Thank you so much, your work is amazing.
Wonderful Adaptation, Gav!
ANOTHER MASTERPIECE SIR
COMMENDABLE. REALLY! 
This quote is the only thing that sees me through sometimes. I have it embedded in my skin so that I will never forget <3
I love the idea, and it works if everyone buys in, but history shows acts of kindness are often exploited by greedy corrupt individuals. Until this changes I would keep guns on those CH47s to make sure the aid is getting to the people who need it.
“We always kills the guys who tell us that.”
That reminds of a skit George Carlin said about Assassination. I belive you’ve done a ZenPencil on that.
Was waiting for this. Thank You so much, this has been one of the most inspirational speech for me.
This is a really great history, thanks a lot for it!
You’re doing a really great work
I think you made the right choice switching to once-a-week comics.
This is pretty great, even though, as joe says, it won’t work until every single person buys into it.
Dear Zen Pencils,
I love your drawings, and I absolutely love Bill Hicks. The Youtube clip image is just perfect, as I’ve shown friends that clip dozens of times.
I do have one concern. The “Zachs Foundation” has a plan that begins with the distribution of food – the classic image of an aid organization delivering sacks of food to a famine-stricken reason. It turns out that this strategy is usually a terrible idea – it’s much better to distribute money to famine-stricken areas so that people can buy food. Almost never is famine an absolute lack of food, but rather it occurs when the price of food gets too high locally. When aid organizations step in and distribute food instead of money, it can make the problem worse as the local merchants who distribute food have their businesses undercut, rather than being encouraged to find more ways of distributing food more cheaply.
Even the Red Cross, for example, prefers cash for disaster relief instead of donations of food – cash can get to the places it needs to go much faster.
Thanks for all your amazing work! And sorry if I’m taking it a bit seriously!
Dan
Appreciate the info Dan, no need to be sorry, I’m glad you’re taking it seriously!
This is weird to notice that in all the panels, only Coleman is the person who ever opened his eyes.
Panel 19, Coleman’s courtesans.
… all the better to appreciate the Ride as it proceeds.
Thank you for making a comic out of this awesome quote. I downloaded it onto my computer and iPhone some time ago to help remind me of the truth whenever I find that the illusion of this world starts to get to me a bit. Bill Hicks was one of the best comics of the 20th century and very much underrated and under appreciated by many especially in his native United States. He opened the eyes of many people to what was really going on in the world. If only we had more Bill Hicks’ in the world. It would be a much more compassionate, less pretentious place, filled with truth, honesty and humor.
Amazing comic!
I do wonder about the woman handing out sacks of grain, though. She needs to watch what she’s doing, because there’s no way that kid is going to be able to hold that sack on his own.
*thump*
That was superb. I’m a big fan of Bill Hicks and your interpretation really is spot on
I loved the dig at all those rich MNC’s . Hope lots of people would see this.
I think the quote has also been done in the movie Zeitgeist (they show clips of Lennon and such also during this quote).
I like a lot that you reused some elements and ideas from previous post to build up this one.
I’d be seriously interested to ship a version of this one in France.
I never heard of Bill Hicks until I started reading Zen Pencils.
Now I’m going to watch Inside Job.
You have opened me to a lot of great things.
Th…Thanks Gav!
Love it, but you left out one spokesperson for peace and non-material living – Jesus. I’m not even a Christian, but his message was pretty much in line with the others don’t ya think?
I agree, but going along those lines there’s many other folk that could’ve been included in the panel as well. 3 is a good number, there’s some holiness to it if that’s your cup of tea, and most importantly those icons are pretty recognizable from recent history.
You mean the Matthew 10:34 – 36 Jesus? The “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” Jesus? Not such a prince of peace, when the idea is if you don’t follow him, he will smite you, no matter how much you love humanity.
Great comic. I loved it (so much that it made me post a comment for the first time).
Since you’re posting less often, your work has really improved.
Thanks Gav! Greetings from Argentina.
Wonderful. Thank you.
Finally! Thank you so much!
Take a look at the book
El espejismo humanitario: La especie solidaria al descubierto
Jordi Raich
Debate Editorial, 2004
http://www.amazon.com/espejismo-humanitario-descubierto-Humanitarian-Supportive/dp/8483065908/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1352225399&sr=8-3&keywords=jordi+raich
As an Englishman I’m not too familiar with Hicks, but I followed the various links emanating from this strip and watched some of the videos of his shows. I’m afraid he came across as quite shallow, espousing the philosophies of an idealistic but unworldly student wrapped up in world-weary cynicism. “All Marketeers are the spawn of the devil – kill yourselves”; “If we stopped making weapons the money saved could feed thew world and we could explore space together”; “America has more crime than Britain” (I paraphrase, but you get the gist). All true (well, maybe not necessarily the marketeers), all simplistic, all completely ignoring human nature. They’re as much use as the babblings of the acolyte photojournalist in thrall to Kurtz played by Dennis Hopper in “Apocalypse Now” – “Do you know that ‘if’ is the middle word in life?”; “Dialectic logic is there’s only love and hate, you either love somebody or you hate them”, etc.
I’d have been more impressed if Hicks had added a few “hows” amongst the “ifs”.
Now it’s possible that the videos posted on YouTube and the like don’t do him justice, but I somehow doubt it.
I think you may be missing the point of the quote, and what you really want to hear isn’t a ‘how’ but ‘why should I bother’.
The point Hicks is making there, takes human nature into account. The point is about realizing that its human nature itself creating the illusion. Human nature is to imagine that the “ride” is real, and that one has no choice but to stay on it until the bitter end. Many cynical people dismiss key truths because, they say “that’s too simplistic. It can’t be that simple, or we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
And that’s the secret. It really is that simple. The big truths really are that plain, and childlike. The unstated continuation is that it’s human nature which clouds that fact, convinces us it cannot be that simple, and makes us cynical – so that we continually walk away from the simple truths believing we haven’t found an actual truth yet.
And the bigger point in all of this, is that just because the truth may be simple, *does not mean acting on the truth is easy*. It’s similar to the way that we mistakenly, and arrogantly, look down on someone who say, has a weight problem. We tell them “Bah, just don’t eat so much, you lazy person.” Which is technically a simple truth, but acting on it is not actually as easy as that. Acting on the simple truths that would change the world is not easy. We are afraid; deep down, we’re terrified of what might happen if we let go of the rope attached to the ride. Because yes, there’s real danger there. We could fall into a pit and die, or we could land on our feet.
All the great peacemakers, including the ones shown in this cartoon, are often looked at by cynical people as mere idealistic fools who “didn’t understand human nature” even if their goals were admirable. This is the fear-servicing cynicism at work. It deludes us, and makes us believe that, for instance, those great peacemakers were merely fools – not the extremely brave and disciplined people they were. It takes an extreme amount of courage and self control to stand up in front of the mob of humanity and yell “everyone stop what you’re doing right now”.
And so in the end, the cynic often asks “so, peacemaker, tell me just how we’re supposed to bring about your better world”. When the problem that the peacemaker has, is that until one crosses a certain threshold of realization, the problem looks impossibly complex. And ultimately, there’s one reason why: when you’re still hanging on the ride and in motion, the world outside it goes by in a chaotic blur. It’s only when you let go and tumble to the ground that everything stops and you can see clearly.
I like your art, Mori, but I think you need to look into game theory a little. The problem with altruistic “Hicksian” behaviour (lets all stop this, cooperate and we’ll all be better off) is that the outcome is often lower than that for the absolute winner. And you only need one or two dicks to realise that and you’re back with winners and losers except more so, as the altruistic are more easy to take advantage of until they lose; then cynicism sets in and you’re back to square one.
So you’d need a simultaneous movement by all people towards altruism and a desire, say, to give up weapons and put the proceeds to feeding the world (the Hicksian desired outcome). Well that’s easy – just look at how good we are as a species on cooperating on smaller stuff and there won’t be any vested interests resisting the change either (yes, that is sarcasm).
Humans are fundamentally a cooperative species, which is one of the reasons why we have been so successful, but that cooperation evolved in family groups and small tribes. We also evolved to attack and disenfranchise (sometimes with extreme prejudice) other groups that are not as we are. Humans also will, depending on individual nature, strive for supremacy within our own group (the alpha male syndrome).
Once you overcome all that (to use your analogy to let go of the rope, all of us, simultaneously), then you can invoke the Hicks model. We may be prisoners of our own nature and there is even a theory that there will be no more evolved species in the universe as intelligent, self-aware life is doomed to destroy its environment and ultimately itself.
Against that, of course Hicks is right, and of course it’s our nature that stops us and we should all be better and altruistic and act together and make the world a better place. But we won’t – because it’s not in our nature.
Oh, one more thing – we also assassinate our tyrants too.
This last statement deserves a comic too.
Jim – you are right that it is near impossible to get everyone to be altruistic and cooperate to get the ideal. But the impossibility of the ideal state does not have to stop us from taking small steps towards it. The activist for peace may not stop all wars, but if he/she has prevented a small local conflict and saved 5 lives, that is better than you or me will ever achieve with cynical inaction IMO.
I entirely agree with you. I’m deliberately taking a fairly extreme (but probably accurate) position as a counterpoint to all the shallow acolytes who seem to have regarded Hicks as some sort of prophet with a monopoly on “the truth” about society. As I said before, all he did was take the accurate but shallow, unconsidered and unrealistic musings of a second-rate student , wrap it in world-weary cynicism and feed it to the unthinking in order to pay his bills (no pun intended).
That bit’s easy.
The bit worthy of the applause, hero worship and applause are the people who can talk about the “how” not the “if” – people like your activist for peace who prevents a local conflict and saves five people. Because people like that would know the “how”. And they probably wouldn’t have the praise, publicity adulation (and money) of Hicks in his pomp.
JIM, I think you are making a moutain out of a molehill here, No-one is saying that Bill Hicks is the messiah come again ( incidentally this ‘Jesus’ person that everyone keeps banging on about was pretty short on the ‘How’ stuff too ).
My opinion is that he was a (for the time) unique comedian who included his political views in his stand up, and lived his philosophy as well –
He wasn’t very well known or very famous when he was alive, and was actually better known in the UK then in some parts of the US.
He never ‘sold out’ by endorsing products for like er… every other celebrity ever – His career suffered for not KowTowing to corporate media, such as having his stand up act cut from his appearance on ‘Late Night with David Letterman’.
And as for “espousing the philosophies of an idealistic but unworldly student” – Students are the ones are told they are the future leaders of the world and that the power to change and shape the future into a more idealistic one is theirs – They protest and rage against injustice, opression and inequality, not for political point-scoring or to appease their lobbyists, but because it is the righteous thing to do – they can and have changed the world, and describing Bill Hicks as such gives him a compliment I just can’t match.
This is my favourite quote ever…. thank you so much for making it into such an epic comic.
I really admire your work, and find it truly inspirational. A very interesting quote is that of Charlie Chaplin in a movie of his “We think too much and feel too little. The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way.” This speech is still true 72 years later and I think combined with your extreme talent it would become a great comic.
Excellent comic that does the quote justice! Many thanks!
The economic crisis was started by the government forcing banks to give out tens of thousands of mortgages to people who had no chance of ever paying them off in the name of altruism. This caused the mortgage bubble, and banks trying to dump these mortgages caused the economic collapse.
You are better off blaming altruism than human greed.
I blame poor policy.
Dear Zen Pencils,
Your comics are so inspirational and they’re just perfect. I dont mind if the sourcing is inaccurate whatsoever because your comics and the way you potray them is just P.E.R.F.E.C.T. I got introduced to Zen Pencils by my brother whose school uses Zen Pencils during lessons! I have been reading Zen Pencils every now and then and i look foward to new comic strips everytime. I really admire your artwork and commitment to Zen Pencils! Keep up the good work!
Thanks Martin! Can you ask your brother to email me … would love to learn more about how his school is using the comics
nice work Gav, love those crazy roman candle types, the freethinkers and brutally honest voices in the wilderness, they burn so bright before they self destruct. the clarity of vision without despondence, the ability to speak the truth and convey that message with dignity and humour, these poet/philosophers, humanitarian guerrillas – they shake, they bake but they never manage to wake the masses they need to reach. Real change, like real Anarchy are just pretty, nebulous notions but they do inspire, put a smile on yer dial and fill your head with the thought “I am not alone” if only for a little while… cheers
“burn so bright before they self destruct.” – Do they self destruct or is that your negative self smothering them? I suspect it’s the latter.
Love the quote. Not a fan of the backdrop or what I found to be a rather petty attempt at political commentary in and below the picture in the artist’s explanation. Most of the great art on this site follows the site name ‘zen’ rather well and is applicable for many aspects of life. I find most of the work is really amazing and non judgmental. Rarely in the previous pictures do you find actual writing meant to lambast corporations or people. I can find that kind of political satire many other places and was pretty sad to find it here. Showing and calling a whole group of people ‘assholes’ because of a movie you saw seems really shallow and not in the spirit of the website. The art was more derogatory than inspirational. This picture seems to go against the grain of almost all the wonderful work done previously and I think that is a shame.
Thank you for your other inspirational works.
Hey! I really love your work, it is inspirational, maybe more than a written quote because with the art and comics you make the experience more complete, thanks!
This is a suggested quote, I personally think is very inspirational and motivating: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” from George Bernard Shaw.
In fact there is an organization called the Unreasonable institute (http://unreasonableinstitute.org) that helps people who have an idea of an enterprise with a social development objective to become real and that really work, the help that provides this institute is by the guidance of mentors and with the conection with people that might finance your project, etc. I’ve discovered this organization just last weekend, but sounds so interesting.
Thanks again
HAHA! I was watching that EXACT special in my cubical TODAY! Love Bill Hick RIP. Hope you and Ron are riding off into the sunset.
Love this one, a classic! Great rendition!
Tears, man!! I love it. I love Hicks. Beautifully drawn.
Really beautifully done Gav!
Lennon being labeled a good guy when he beat his wife?
Should have put him along side Lenon, Ghandi and Luther
Oh, Love your work and love your head!
Congrats!
This is beautiful
I adore Hicks and the reason he comes off as shallow (to Jim, for one) is because even shallow has been difficult to grasp for his audience. You have to start small and sometimes that’s as far as you go. I fully believe Hicks realized all the trappings of human nature’s complexity that Jim talks about. But the idea has to be reiterated every once and then, lest people forget it is our only common goal. And if that goes through changing human nature, so be it.
Also, I do not agree that game theory dictates that the cooperative gain is always lower than the highest individual gain. That all depends on two things: how do you define worth (and hence gain) is one, and chaos is another. Fate makes gains immaterial. The only worthy gains are those that are not subjected to chaos and also – and i hope humanity grows up to reach that level of value system – those that are elevating us all together. We are stronger together – it has always been the case.
sounds like the story of Sir Richard Branson.
I wanted to take a moment and thank you. I found you site yesterday and have since gone through all of your strips. Even though the quotes are from others, your art work behind it, emphisising the words, is truly inspiring. I decided to comment on this one in particular, because it has moved me the most.
I recently moved to a new state with my wife, and have been struggling to find work. I now work 3 part time jobs, 2 at minimum wage, and can barely make ends meet. At the end of the day, I’m so exahusted that I veg in front of the TV, while things I used to enjoy and my creativity languish.
But no longer. After reading these amazing strips, I have picked up the novel I was working on, and started writing again. It feels great to stretch my creative legs once more. I am also looking into going back and finishing collage. Getting out of the rat race and doing what I love. And a big motivator has been what I’ve read on this site.
You are inspiring! Thank you for the comic strips and keep up the great work.
Hey there,
I have been seeing these comics pop up all over tumblr and finally decided to trace them back to the source. First off, well done. You’ve got a create collection of quotes here and even better is the way you’ve interpreted them into comics. I really dig these. Secondly, is there any chance you’ll be adapting this one into a print? I know its bigger than some of the others, but I’d definitely love to buy one if you did. Finally, any chance you’ll ever convert this quote by Bukowski (http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/39207-if-you-re-going-to-try-go-all-the-way-otherwise). I think you could make it even more killer with one of your comics. Anyways, that’s all I really wanted to say. Keep up the good work!
Jordan Canio
I hate star wars and have always thought george lucas was a complete fuck. but now i respect him after reading that he’s going to do that with the money. what a champ.
This does not make true justice to the thrilling speech Hicks delivered. This is heartless
I find it funny that the name “Coleman Zachs” comes from “Goldman Sachs”, one of the demons XD
Anyway, love this comic
Keep up with the good work 