The Comictitian's Muse

If you needed further proof of my inspiring qualities, please check out this post from one of my (many) favourite webcomics, Welcome To The Future.

Re-Examining The Instructions

I always try to resist making this blog a simple diary of What I Did Today, or What Shit-Dripping Hoop I'm Jumping Through This Week. I don't think that's why I started it, and it could possibly be why I end it (I'm not ending it. Calm down). But arse-farting around with attempting to move states isn't exactly the mighty travel blog I had in mind.

Right now the Finding A House part of the equation is as follows:



And the motivational aspects of the rest of life (think exegesis, work, writing, creativity, health and well-being) can be summarised pictorially thus:

You are all plebians

A while ago I began to notice a tendency for writing longer comments on other people's posts than the actual posts I was writing. So I vowed that next time I was inspired by someone else's blog, instead of plopping my long-windyness on their blog, I would pollute, ahem, fertlise my own.





On the thread for my last post, which received more comments than things I post which contain actual words, Adam Y chortled knowingly at my threat to begin writing about internet comics in order extinguish the last remnants of my readers (Adam himself is an internet comictission). I don't use this threat lightly. I know what poison comics are to readerships and also the frustration of trying to explain how good they really are.

I used to write a shitload of articles for my uni newspaper, and they were mostly really well received - the editors would tell me what a good job I was doing, people would stop me and tell me they liked my article, girls would offer me much sex in these elaborate fantasies I would concoct in between wanking and writing more articles for the paper ... except for the one week when I submitted an article giving a brief run-down on my favourite internet comics of the day.
Silence.
Utter silence.
"Did you get my article?"
"Yep."
"Oh."
"Anything else?"
"Um ... did you like it? What did you think?"
"It was good."
"Right..."



People are boringly short-sighted when it comes to comics. I'm bloody serious when I say that they're better than poetry, because they ARE poems, but they're illustrated, which makes them more difficult to do than simply being able to type and they're funny, which makes them much much more difficult than droning on about daffodils or broken hearts or the war. They're a fusion of two very difficult-to-master talents: art and comedy. Internet comics add another fortifying dimension to this duo that can be found in the mantra of every half-way successful internet comic: update regularly. In other words: keep working. Any artist experiencing any kind of success is doing so because they practise their art every single day. That's what makes them so good - just take a look at PhD or Penny Arcade. This is true art people!

But, I know I'm not preaching to the choir - I'm preaching to the frigging dust bins outside. I was so excited when my copy of the Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker turned up in the Amazon box the size of a microwave oven that I told everyone I saw. Blank stares. If I had bragged about receiving the Complete Collection of Type Faces I would have at least garnered a few interested questions, such as: "What's that?" and maybe "How did you get in here?"

Years ago, a whole bunch of close friends and I were out to see a movie. We were a group who had grown up together - close-knit, caring, loving, sharing. We are at the ticket counter, deciding which picture to see. One is a ye olde period piece about knights'n'jousting made by Hollywood, the other is an animated feature film. That pack of morons were actually about to lay down cash to go into A Knight's Tale, simply because the other movie was a cartoon. You know - kiddy stuff? I literally had to barricade the Knight's Tale box office with my body and force those brainless boobs I call my closest allies to go and see Shrek. Was I wrong? Sadly, this is a trick question, because I was not wrong and if you answered "Yes, you were wrong, you should have let those poor dears in to see Heath Ledger smashing up other dandy's lances to modern rock music", then you are also a foolish person and are wrong.

Shrek brought subversive pop culture to the mainstream in a way that The Simpsons have done for years and that Disney never could or will. It was highly referential - everything from WWF to Indiana Jones to Eddie Murphy's Delerious made it in there. They called a main character Fuckwad in a movie rated for children and got away with it. And yet, cartoons are still seen as simple childish mush.
Cartoons and comics haven't been childish mush since 1990 when Homer first throttled Bart, along any relevance Hanna-Barbara had to do with anything.

But back to my beloved comics. They shall be studied - mark my words - they shall be studied as microcosms of meaning and humour for many years to come.




















***
GTH - No one is losing any points for stabs in the dark. However - no one is gaining any points for guessing flags either. Adam Y takes away the points for his hilarious story about punching himself in the face.

A Flowfield Duality?

A month or so ago I left a comment on one of the few of my favourite comics that actually encourages reader feedback, The Flowfield Unity. It's a weird comic; eclectic, imaginative and simple. It's creator, Adam, writes his comics like small stories instead of punchline-directed ramps to laughter that don't always propel the reader over the requisite number flaming of buses that they should. The title of my small collection of internet comic links below - Comics are better than poetry - is probably mostly inspired by his desire for succinctness and talent for compactness. His comics often concern themselves with alternate realities as directed by scientists or madmen or both. They take a small change and explore the possible reaches of its effects.
As I always do when confronted by creativity, I get all excited and inspired and jumpy-up-and-downy, so I left the following comment on this truly hilarious comic, Teach a Man To Fish:

"I have an idea for a comic that I feel only you can draw: my digital camera (and I'm assuming many other digicams) has a setting where it will play the sound of an SLR shutter clacking when it takes a photo. It doesn't have to do this, but the option is there. I've noticed that some mobile phone cameras do this too. Why is this necessary? What other new, improved technologies are designed to emulate the things they replaced so that people don't get too freaked out at the New World Order? I'm thinking mobile phones with ye olde winde upe telephone ringtones already exist, why not laptops that play a soundtrack of harddrive checking, floppy disc-drive grinding, and screen turning on boinking? How about an iPod that plays a bit of needle-find-the-groove static before each song? A Prius with hidden external speakers that play super-loud V8 sounds?
Flow it, field."

You can imagine my ecstasy and pleasure when this morning I checked my email and came across this note:

"Being as speedy as I am, I finally came up with this, an ode to televisions of yesteryear:
http://theflowfieldunity.com/?p=262
I've given you a shout-out, but if there's anything else I can do to say thanks, just let me know..."

What a scholar! What a gentleman! Yet, for some strange reason, he believes that he should be thanking me, and not the other way around. So people, please, visit The Flowfield Unity, link it as recommended by franzy, or (if that little endorsement doesn't help) just leave a comment, subscribe to his RSS and enjoy!

***

GTH - I'm going to give points to River and Milly Moo here because they were both correct in guessing Germany. River for her diligent research and Milly Moo for having a go. Everybody wins a prize! The wall in question is in Coburg, which we did indeed visit on our EuroHoliday last year. Gedenke translates (in my muddled German head) roughly as "Memorial" but I can't read what exactly it's for in the original picture.

I refused to spellcheck in support

Television and film writers in the US are on strike. Which you have to admire, given that their's is a profession that practically guarantees unepmloyment for at least 75% of the time.
Their employers are working very hard to work out all sorts of ways to make money off of new technologies like podcasts, but not very hard at all to work out fair ways to share these new profits with the people who provide the words. And the stage directions.
I'm not sure if blogging counts as scabbing, but I guess not because I'm not making any money. Instead, I will be posting the two comic tributes to my striking cousins stateside:





***

GTH

River slipped in again with a sly guess at a dusty field. I was actually hoping for more interest around the whirlwind that was blowing in the picture, symbolising all kind of seemingly uncontrollable turbulence in the Australian desert. Or something.

Franzy's Law #2

You know your life is heading in the right direction when the anchovies move from the food cupboard to the condiment shelf, never to return.

***

Also, the trendy dude at Flowfield Unity liked my comments and linkage so much that he linked me back. What a dude.

One thing that's not really taking off is the Great Guessing Game Challenge involving the picture that appears as a background to the word "Writing" at the top of this blog. The reason for this failure obviously lays with me, so I'll explain the rules (again)

1. Look at the picture.
2. Guess what it could possibly have to do with the most recent blog entry.
3. Write your guess in the comments section.
4. WIN WIN WIN!!! If your guess is the closest or most original YOU will go in the new scoreboard section at the bottom of the blog with the tally adding up over the weeks, months and years.

Good luck, all of those who can be arsed having a shot.
This entry's header is an easy one to guess the connection, but there are MAJOR points for guessing the geographic location...