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I know that when I post a new Evil Twin, I tend to use this space to write something goofy, or silly, or comment on the action in the strip. But this time, instead, I'd like to use this space to write something a little more serious. I hope you'll bear with me, because I've brought along a soap box, and I'm going to climb up on top of it now, and make a little speech.

Still with me?

Here goes.

Way, way back a long time ago, back before the VCR, before Cable, before Television, even before Motion pictures...

Before Radio, even...

...there was a thing known as Vaudeville.

Vaudeville was the popular entertainment of the day. Performers would come up with various acts, and hone those acts day by day, week by week, out on the road as they traveled by whatever means they could afford from one grungy, badly lit theater to the next. And while there were a number of these performers who would later go onto big things, most didn't go anywhere.

For every George Burns or Groucho Marx, there were a million unknowns. Poor players who would strut and fret their hour upon the stage, and then be heard no more. (To steal a phrase)

It was ramshackle. It was low budget.

It was far from glamorous.

But it was entertainment.

And it was a way of life. A working livelihood for everyone from dancers, to singers, to jugglers, to comedians, to animal acts... it was sometimes funny, sometimes bawdy and hey, sometimes there was even music.

There have been many retrospectives over the years, about those halcyon days. Remembering the performers, and the venues. Remembering the hardships of the open road. The good times, the bad times... they talk about them all. But these parades of remembrance always tend to end on the same sour note.

They always end by talking about when Vaudeville died.

When Radio came along, and people didn't need to go to the theater for entertainment.

When moving pictures took the best of the acts, and theaters started putting up movie screens instead of booking shows.

And how little by little, Vaudeville was whittled away to nothing.

The last theater closed or converted. A bygone era. Never will we see it's like again.

Nothing left but fading posters, fuzzy memories and dust.

Well folks, I'm here to tell you... Vaudeville lives.

And it lives right here, and right now.

Just by reading this screed of mine you are, in fact, participating in it at this very moment.

We are the actors, and performers. We are the comedians and the strippers. The web is our venue. Sites like Fur Affinity, Weasyl, and Inkbunny are the stage whose boards we tread.

Ramshackle. Low budget.

Entertainment.

Sometimes Bawdy, sometimes funny.

And hey, there might even be music.

And while some of us may someday make it big, most of know that most of us won't. We're here for the long haul, because this is it... This is the show, and the show must go on.

So, when you pay your favorite artists to draw, When you support your favorite musician, or even your favorite webcomic (like a certain specific one I could mention) you're not just supporting the arts.

You're taking part in something bigger and grander than us all. A tradition that goes back over a century.

Welcome to vaudeville, folks.

Whadda ya say.. let's do the show right here.