Comics and posts about Dr. Chris Cary | Bassist Wanted

Clone Project is a Success

DR. MERRILL: Now, sadly, none of the cloned bands have actually become good musicians.
JOEL: So, the project is a failure.

DR. MERRILL: Oh no! It's actually a success. We're friends with the band clones! We've proven that Ph.D.'s and rock stars aren't genetically predisposed to dislike one another.

JOEL: That was your hypothesis?
DR. CARY: Yes, we've submitted out findings to several bands along with invitations to hang out. No one's replied.

DR. MERRILL: Well, Mark McGrath said he'd get a beer with us.
DR. CARY: Yeah. We never sent him anything though.
JOEL: Look, I, uh... I better go.

New Wave and New New Wave

JOEL: You know, 20 years after you guys made all these clones of "New Wave" bands, the whole "New New Wave" thing started. Quite a coincidence.

DR. CARY: Yes, it certainly is a coincidence and nothing more.
JOEL: Yep.

DR. CARY: The Duran Duran clones certainly didn't escape. And they certainly didn't move to Las Vegas and become the Killers.

JOEL: Wait, what?
DR. CARY: That certainly did not happen.

Devo Clones

JOEL: Have there ever been any security problems at GeniTECH?
DR. CARY: Yes, the Devo clones took over the entire facility two years ago.

JOEL: My God.
DR. CARY: They created multiple clones of themselves. Hundreds. A veritable army of Devo.

JOEL: Was it some strange plot for world domination?
DR. CARY: No, no, it was just this large-scale performance art piece.

JOEL: Sounds a little obtuse.
DR. CARY: Yeah. Most of us don't really... "get" the Devo guys....

Nature vs. Nurture

DR. CARY: Now, it's not all genetics a lot of what makes a musician great is how they grow up.
JOEL: Nature vs. nurture, sure.

DR. CARY: So we tried to raise the clones in situations similar to those of the original band. Here's where we raised the boys of Chicago, for example.

JOEL: This is an 8-foot cube with padded walls.
DR. CARY: Yes, but... with a Bears poster!

JOEL: You guys really do have funding problems.
DR. CARY: They used to have a Bulls poster, line, but we had a tough winter in '94, and the Peter Cetera clone burned it for warmth.

No Beatle Cloning

DR. CARY: Sadly, soon after the project began, we lost a lot of funding, so later bands like the Pixies and Nirvana were never cloned.

JOEL: But what about older bands? Like the Beatles? Why not clone the most successful rock band of all time?

JOEL: I guess back then you thought those bands would be just as successful.
DR. CARY: Well, there were also legal issues.

DR. CARY: Michael Jackson owns the rights to the Beatles DNA...
JEFF LYNNE: I was the fifth Beatle!
JOEL: Hey! A clone of Jeff Lynne!

Clone Gameroom

DR. CARY: Here they are, clones of every band with a Billboard Top 10 hit between 1983 and 1985.
JOEL: Wow....

DR. CARY: There's the clone of Bananarama, the clone of Wham!, the clone of Wang Chung.
JOEL: Ooo, and a clone of Roland Gift of Fine Young Cannibals!

DR. CARY: No, no, that actually is Roland. He's Todd's friend and he needed a place to crash for a month.
JOEL: Oh.
ROLAND GIFT: Hey.

ROLAND GIFT: Good thing! Doo doo doo doo doo, good thing!
DR. CARY: Roland! No! What'd I tell you about busking in here! Just ignore him, I'm sorry....

Just needed a bit of DNA

DR. CARY: To clone these bands from the 80's, all we needed was a bit of their DNA. And it's never hard to find pieces of the world's most popular bands.

DR. CARY: Foreigner, for example, was recreated from hair grabbed by crazed groupies. The Cars from dandruff left on skinny ties. Gary Numan from dried saliva on moog keyboards.

JOEL: That's incredible.
DR. CARY: Incredible... and true.

JOEL: You're telling me Foreigner had "crazed groupies"?
DR. CARY: Yes, Joel, in 1985, we... we all wanted to know what love was....

Cloning is not instantaneous

DR. CARY: Hancock Records wants GeniTECH to do what exactly?
JOEL: Well, my boss, he... this'll sound silly, he wants to make clones of current popular bands.

DR. CARY: Ha ha, well, Mr. Dever, I appreciate your boss's ambition, but human cloning is a new science, and for starters, it's not instantaneous.

DR. CARY: Even if I were to make a clone today, it wouldn't be a mature adult for 18 years. We simply don't have the capability to do what you're describing.

JOEL: Of course, sorry to waste your time, I--
DR. CARY: What we do have are fully grown clones of every popular band from 1983 to 1985. Come, I'll show you....