White, Ben – Snake Pit #14

Ben’s Facebook page

Snakepit #14

On a lark, I went back and rent my ramble for #2 of this series, from 3 or 4 years ago, to see how much it’s changed, maybe it’s just me, etc. Nope, it was pretty much exactly the same thing even then, although apparently I wasn’t as deeply cynical. This one is more of the same, with the notable difference being that Ben sees this rut for himself more and more, and even tries to give up his 4 major vices (alcohol, pot, meat and the internet) for a week. He fails in at least two of them and doesn’t mention the others, which is a bad sign considering that he was doing this to prove to himself that it was possible. At the end of the book he runs an older, slightly longer strip about him getting carjacked as a kid, to which I say: more like this please! I’d love to see him take some time with some ideas and/or relationships with girlfriends and other friends and expand, maybe making the diary strips a page long and only doing a couple a week. Maybe even changing the names of people would be a good idea, as it let him be more honest and open about everything. Hey, it’s a thought at least. It just seems at times that he’s doing the diary strip out of almost a sense of obligation, and that’s no good for anybody involved.$2