Trawlerman's Song: 05/01/2005

My Friend Went to TCAF and All I Got Was This Stupid Blog Post.

Okay. Saturday, I spent the day in Toronto at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. I had a great time, especially enjoying talks by Chester Brown and Jeff Smith.

I subscribe to an RSS feed of a Technorati tag for the phrase "Krazy Kat"

I was surprised and delighted when this tag subscription revealed a picture of me! Technorati caught the word "Krazy Kat" amidst a photo report of TCAF, blogged by an assistant editor of the Flight Anthology. Krazy Koincidence. (As an aside: I just about swooned with glee as Smith began his lecture by praising Krazy Kat.)

The very top of my (shaved) head can be seen at the very bottom center of this photo that I've stolen from the aforementioned blog report of TCAF:

Rampant Violence

'The crooks never escaped by pleading the Fifth Amendment, but wound up riddled with bullets, or met a more gruesome end. It is not surprising that Gould has his critics in this day of parental concern about the extensive portrayal of violence in the entertainment media. Gould remains unconvinced: "If I were a kid, the thing I would fear most would be ending up with a bullet whilrling through my head. We need more graphic portrayals of where the road of crime leads."'

-Part of a description of Chester Gould's Dick Tracy, from Jerry Robinson's The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art

Holy Pepsi

1999 was a busy year. I'm just now catching up with news stories from early that year.

Evidently the RC Archdiocese of Mexico City set itself up as a corporate whore, in order to obtain widespread advertising for the Pope's arrival in the city. (read brief story here: Daily Catholic Monday January 11, 1999 or a short commentary here: Detroit Free Press January 22, 1999)

I'm not so much concerned with this appalling marketing campaign as I am wanting to share a short film that I really enjoyed, using the Pope's Potatoes as its context.

Las Papas del Papa

(all of this came to my attention via a Dr. Leithart post)

Stripped of Glory

1) Since the semester ended, I've been slowly (savoring every moment) working my way through Jerry Robinson's excellent giant historical survey, The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art. I picked it up for $9.95 at a local used book store.

I've really become fascinated/obsessed with old strips, and have begun looking for more and more reprint/republication volumes and magazines.

2) Not too long ago Rundy commented on Abigail's blog and recommended the Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary Edition Book. Most likely, under normal conditions, I would have noted the recommendation and then proceeded to do not much about it. Recently, within the last week, (before I read Rundy's comment), I was at Borders and saw this very book on sale for $5.99 and considered picking it up. I decided against it since I knew that the Complete Hardcover Collection is coming out in the fall. But, the providential coincidence of the recommendation and the recent sighting was enough to make me take the family on a special outing tonight to buy the book. Mostly Rundy's mentioning that it contained essays and commentary (that I don't think will be included in the future complete collection) was what convinced me to go out and get it.

3) After coming home, I spent some time looking on the internet for an article about Watterson that I had read a couple of years ago. I found it after some simple searching, but, even better, I found the Derkins Library for Calvin and Hobbes Research.

I especially enjoyed reading Watterson's speech, The Cheapening of Comics, which relates back to #1, my newfound passion for old comic strips. Go read the speech and weep with us. Then wipe your eyes, and pull out your Complete Little Nemo, and dream of a better time in the future, based on the past.

"Amazingly, much of the best cartoon work was done early on in the medium's history. The early cartoonists, with no path before them, produced work of such sophistication, wit, and beauty that it increasingly seems to me that cartoon evolution is working backward. Comic strips are moving toward a primordial goo rather than away from it. As a cartoonist, it's a bit humiliating to read work that was done over 50 years ago and find it more imaginative than what any of us are doing now. We've lost many of the most precious qualities of comics. Most readers today have never seen the best comics of the past, so they don't even know what they're missing. Not only can comics be more than we're getting today. but the comics already have been more than we're getting today. The reader is being gypped and he doesn't even know it."

4) I also recently signed up for DailyInk and My Comics Page. I had been buying the newspaper every day simply for the comics pages. I don't read the news (though Abigail does). Doing the math, I decided that getting strips online, for about $27 a year, is much more affordable than buying the paper for the comics at about $240 a year. MyDailyInk and MyComicsPage also have strips available (that I enjoy) that aren't available in the Buffalo News.

I'm toying with the idea of starting a comic strip commentary blog, pretty much a complete rip-off of The Comics Curmudgeon

Behind Bards

Most of you know that I'm hoping to end up in a correctional facility once I'm done with school. I found today's Speed Bump (which is almost always funny) to be very relevant to my chosen vocation.

Pickled Pretzels

I was going to stay away from this site of mine for a few days, but today's Pickles strip is too good not to share. The first thing that Abigail said when she read it (before I did) was, "Do you want a read a comic about us?"

Pickles -May 15, 2005

Too Much Blog for 24 Hours

I'm linking to one more thing, then I'm taking a blog break for a while.

The Nostalgia Zine has a great short essay on comics sales figures, highlighting mid-twentieth century numbers. Fascinating stuff.

Funny Business: A History of the Comics Industry

"It is rarely mentioned that Mad Magazine was the best-selling comic book for nearly thirty years. Or that, in the early fifties, Porky Pig sold as well as all three EC horror titles combined. Or in the nineties, that the pocket-sized Archie Digest Magazine regularly outsold both Superman and Batman? If any of this comes as a surprise, you owe it to your comics education to read on."

Folk

One of the things that I bought Abigail for her birthday was the new Alasdair Roberts album, No Earthly Man.

Roberts offers an excellent, haunting version of A Lyke Wake Dirge.

I'm sharing this song to give you a taste, so that you'll go buy the entire album right now.

A Lyke Wake Dirge (Mp3 file, 6.93MB, I'm using YouSendIt so this is a link to where you can download the file. The link automatically expires after seven days.)

Here are the lyrics:

A Lyke Wake Dirge

THIS ae nighte, this ae nighte,
—Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
And Christe receive thy saule.

When thou from hence away art past,
—Every nighte and alle,
To Whinny-muir thou com'st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon,
—Every nighte and alle,
Sit thee down and put them on;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane
—Every nighte and alle,
The whinnes sall prick thee to the bare bane;
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Whinny-muir when thou may'st pass,
—Every nighte and alle,
To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

From Brig o' Dread when thou may'st pass,
—Every nighte and alle,
To Purgatory fire thou com'st at last;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If ever thou gavest meat or drink,
—Every nighte and alle,
The fire sall never make thee shrink;
And Christe receive thy saule.

If meat or drink thou ne'er gav'st nane,
—Every nighte and alle,
The fire will burn thee to the bare bane;
And Christe receive thy saule.

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,
—Every nighte and alle,
Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,
And Christe receive thy saule.

5 in a day

This last post is especially short on content. I just wanted to link to James Jordan's thoughts on Answer 4 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. (Scroll all of the way down to the section with the heading "What is God?")

Thanks to Alastair for pointing this out a while ago.

Bearded Beer Belching

I've loved this post of Jay Horne's ever since I first read it sometime in late 2002 (Jay Horne's blog was one of the first blogs I ever came across, mostly because I was looking for James Jordan info and he hosts the Biblical Horizons site). It is a lovely defense of offense.

Here it is:

Disclaimers and Jesus

Rare Audio

It's rare to find a recorded Peter Leithart sermon (because he does not share sermons outside of the immediate congregation as a matter of principle.) So it's a complete pleasure to find this Ascension Day Leithart sermon posted on the Christ Kirk audio page:

Recent Sermons

The Peter Leithart sermon is titled "Satan is alive on planet earth."
The primary scripture being exposited is Rev. 12:1-17.

"Ascension Day marked the end of Jesus’ combat against Satan, and the beginning of ours."

Catechism for Little Saints

Where was Satan in the Old Testament?
In heaven, accusing the faithful people of God.

Why did Satan fall from heaven?
So that we can smush him under our feet.

-from Sermon Outline October 12, 2003

To Kill a Bull Moose

On October 14, 1912, an assassination attempt was made on the life of Theodore Roosevelt as he was about to begin delivering a speech. Roosevelt was shot in the chest. Instead of going off for immediate medical attention, he stayed and delivered a modified version of the speech that he came to deliver.

"Now, friends, I am not speaking for myself at all, I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap.

I have had a good many experiences in my time and this is one of them. What I care for is my country."

Hoax

At his confirmation, Nick took on a name for himself. I want to say that it was either Marty or Luke.

Here is one man's very well documented attempt to discredit those religious quacks that call themselves Jedis.

The Force Skeptics Page

Nom

Following up a response to Matt in the comments to this post,

here's a humorous (yes comics can be funny even though they don't have to be) take on the term "comics"....

What's in a name? by Peter S. Conrad

Then Krazy

Jimmy

Krazy

Escape

"Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?"

-J.R.R. Tolkien, from On Fairy Stories

I finished Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It was a pleasant companion for the past two weeks, providing me with a bit of escape during the end of a stressful semester.

The constant refrain of escape, so evident on every page, often explicitly so, finds a pure expression in two 20th century Jewish comic book creators.

Last night I began reading Jimmy Corrigan. Holly kindly gave me a hardcover copy as a gift over a year ago, for which I am grateful to her, but, for whatever reason, I have been unable to start this story, until now.

It is a dark story. I had to stop reading and open up a Krazy Kat collection instead. I'll read a dozen or so pages each night, though, I think, interspersed with some Krazy.

"The newspaper articles that Joe had read about the upcoming Senate investigation into comic books always cited "escapism" among the litany of injurious consequences of their reading, and dwelled on the pernicious effect, on young minds, of satisfying the desire to escape. As if there could be any more noble or necessary service in life."

-Michael Chabon, from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Read the whole story here:
Treasure Chest: This Godless Communism

Ga-ga

Try your hand at guessing a google....

"After creating Montage-a-google, several people wrote to me suggesting I make a game based on the same technology. Montage-a-google is a simple web app that uses Google's image search to generate a large gridded montage of images based on keywords (search terms) entered by the user. Guess-the-google reverses this process by picking the keywords for you, the player must then guess what keyword made up the image - it's surprisingly addictive."

Grant Robinson : Guess-the-google launcher

My comments: The game is lots of fun. My biggest complaint, though, is the repetition of images found during repeat play. The limited amount of images seriously undermines desire for replay. It's still fun, though.