My sister’s boyfriend suggested this Rommelhok comic was at least partly autobiographical. I can’t for the life of me imagine where he got that idea. For starters my wife (who actually does look somewhat like the wife in the comic) and I (who actually does look a little like the main character in the comic) have not, not now or at any other time in our lives, lived in the suburbs. Nor do we have spectacularly well paying yuppie jobs. And a garbage den full of Melanasian art? I would certainly love to have one of those but I don’t.

I do, however, own a wooden statue that looks suspiciously like the statue that comes to life on these Rommelhok pages:

My dad gave it to me when he returned from teaching at the university of Jayapura in the Indonesian half of New Guinea for a few weeks some time in the late 1980′s. Connoisseurs of touristy knock-offs of original ethnic art will recognize the unique patina (shoe polish): unlike authentic dark wood, this statue gets lighter with age.

And this much of the comic is, in fact, autobiographical: my wife hates it.