If the Claremont Colleges were Middle Earth

Editor's Note: Tina is our other new cartoonist. Click "Read More" below to see her comic for this week.

I think the Scooby Doo metaphor is dated and stupid.  Har har!  Look guys, the Claremont Colleges are like this retro cartoon that no one watches anymore!  But when your grandchildren ask you about your college years, how are you going to describe them?

"Well, Velma was Harvey Mudd, because she was a huge geek—" you start.

"Grandma/pa, what are these obscure things you're talking about?" they say.  "I think you have dementia."

But as long as there's imagination, storytelling, and dorks who shelter themselves in puerile escapist fantasy, the Lord of the Rings will remain a cultural cornerstone.

Plus, Viggo Mortensen is kind of rad.  (In this world, he's John Faranda.)

Harvey Mudd = Dwarves

Dwarves live in the dark recesses of the earth, tinkering endlessly with metal and forging beastly machines.  They rarely leave their caves to interact with the other races. No one believes that dwarves breed, but in fact they do.  The women just look like men.

CMC = Rohan

Are you a dude?  Do you like fighting, public displays of athleticism, comparing the length of your spears, and drinking lots of beer?  Then Rohan is for you!

(Women do the same thing, except without spears.  Women don't have spears.)

Pomona = Elves

The oldest residents of Middle-Earth, Elves think they're totally awesome. They live in fancy palaces and consider themselves very, very wise. They are super beautiful and can glow in the dark. The men are so light they can walk on snow. In fact, Elves are too good for Middle-earth and they all want to disassociate themselves from the rest of the inferior races and go into the west to mingle with the higher beings.

Everyone else in Middle-earth thinks that elves are jackasses.

Scripps = Ents

Ents are obsessed with trees and plants and live in a magical forest. There's only one gender of Ents, as they scared off the opposite sex. Also, they like to violently destroy phallic figures.

Pitzer = Hobbits

Bare feet and pipe-weed.