Friday, April 28, 2006

Cathy's Requirement For Declining Interest

"To me a strip should run forever because it's a classic. They have meaning to me, and no new newspaper strip is going to earn that place in my heart." So says Cathy creator Cathy Guisewite on the subject of so-called legacy strips. Which is to say that Guisewite doesn't actually see quality as the pre-eminent requirement for a syndicated cartoon. The comment was reported in this review of an upcoming panel on the state of newspaper comics. Which seems like an utter waste of time. Print newspapers are in decline. Full stop. No matter how much you debate it, basing your sole revenue source around it is just foolish. If you want to find out where the future lies for cartoonists ask Scott Kurtz or the lads over at Penny Arcade or Ryan North or any number of others. Berkely Breathed asks, "what can we offer them as 25-year-old new workers that might interest them enough to pick up sheets of paper and examine them for several minutes a day?" The answer is pretty much nothing. Now move on please.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Privatising The Internet

Right, right, two posts in one day - before I'd normally even be out of bed - something's gone awry, I guess. Well, yes, no, maybe, I don't know. I stumbled across this post at copyblogger talking about The Four Horsemen of The Internet Apocalypse and I thought it worth mentioning. Essentially it's about how these four corporate giants are trying to influence US legislators into doing away with net neutrality. Which boils down to them wanting to privatise the flow of information on the net. Which, in turn, boils down to them nullifying the core value of the internet to the average Joe Soap. And while it's largely only states side that any legislation will be implemented, it's still going to have a huge influence globally. And, either way, it's only a matter of time before they start spreading their wings. If you want to learn more, it's worth having a look at this article by Doc Searls and then drop by Jeff Pulver's blog, where you can do your bit by entering his Save The Internet Viral Marketing Contest. If you're fond of freedom of information and free choice, then you probably should have a look.

Oh The Horrors

Yup, my weekend had all makings of a bad film noir. Friday, I went to buy new shoes - got very, very drunk instead. Woke up Saturday with very little memory of the night before. Stepped out of my door to find a news crew and Gardai standing round. That's not a sight you want to see in the grips of a horror hangover. Still I got to watch Liverpool beat Chelsea, even if Cork City losing to the Drogs took the shine off that.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Pretty Photographic Fondness For Self-Potraits

Ok, there's probably a couple of ways of looking at this and, quite possibly, it relies on just how well you know me. You see, it could be that I never wanted to do this blog which Frank talked me into because it would help drive traffic to the funny cartoons and, now that Frank is updating his own blog with the freqeuncy of a solar eclipse, I feel I now have the leverage to indulge my fondness of pictures of pretty girls. Or you could think I have a deep and abiding love of photography which I sometimes feel the need to express to the world. Answers on a postcard, if you wish. There might be a clue in the fact that I actually stumbled on much of these photos after stumbling upon this site, of which I have now grown very fond.

Really though, I do have a fondness for self-potraits - other peoples self-potraits that is. I don't know why exactly. It could be the intimacy or some such guff. But the fact is I could look at pictures like this or this all day without ever getting bored. And, yes, I expanded that sentence more than once just so I had an excuse to link to more of the pictures.

Now, just as a point of order, it's worth taking a look at some other work by the photographers I've just linked to. I particularly like this one by Sophie Saller. And, in case you're wondering, no I don't have even remotely as much interest in self-potraits of men. Take that how you want.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Bill's Nonprofit Jumpstart Creative Season With City

Friends of Lulu, an American nonprofit set-up to promote female participation in the comics industry, have recently launched a fund to help women in the comics industry who have been the victims of a sexual assault. As the official jumpstart, they will be holding a raffle at CAPE on May 6th in Dallas. Gotham City Limits in Jacksonville, Florida, has donated a Sin City Prize pack worth approximately $130. The fund started in response to the plight of Taki Soma, who was sexually-assaulted at a pre-convention party.

Even if you don't love cartoons, you've got to love Bill Sienkiewicz's take on Top Cat or Peter Bagge's exceptionally strange Daffy Duck or Mitch O'Connell's Boo-boo or, well, pick your own favourites.

Dorothy Gambrell has made Cat and Girl available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License, which means anyone can use it or remix it, so long as it's on a non-commercial basis - with the added stipulation that it not be done in the name of the Avril Lavigne street team.

A Season with Cork City - which I'm really only linking because it's a blog about Cork City.

Friday, April 07, 2006

Bare Guest Experimental Crises

Yeah, Frank's experimenting with styles again. Seems to be going through some mid-artistic-life crises. This weeks funny cartoon is a real diversion. I think it quite suits the joke but I wonder how everyone will take to the stripped-down, bare-bones style. In his notes Frank has also posted the first version he did. I wasn't that keen on it but I was willing to give it a shot, except I didn't think the caption text fitted. In the end, Frank went away and came back with the new version. Which looked good but I still decided to change the text. Not that any of you'll notice.

We're still looking for guest art by the way. So if you fancy reinterpreting any of the funny cartoons from our first year, just give it a lash. We're pretty loose on what you can do with them and would actually like to see people trying out some less than usual mediums. If it makes you feel better, think of as a kind of meme.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

One-Sided Inanimate Conversations

Last Sunday, on my way to the pub, I stopped at a cash/ATM machine. When the machine duly dispensed my money, I thanked it - out loud. It has since occured to me that I might be unneccesarily polite to inanimate objects. In truth, I do wonder how often I do this without noticing. I know I'm prone to apologising to furniture when I'm at home but that's partially just because I talk to myself alot when I'm on my own. Outside, around other people, I generally keep these one-sided conversations to a minimum. However, I usually only notice I'm doing it when people start giving me funny looks. So it's possible I talk to inanimate objects all the time and just never notice.