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INTERESTING LINKS: webcomics.com : January 14th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S INTERESTING LINKS

TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:

For the last few months, webcomics.com has been posting a ton of excellent cartooning lessons… it is quickly becoming one of the best places to look on the web for this sort of information (along with the Cartoonist Conspiracy’s Cartooning Lessons rss feed, which you can find here). Many of the articles are user submitted, so if you have information to share, it is a good opportunity to do so. Go check it out!

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Tom K Tells it Like it is : January 14th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

Oy, another out of control long, long list. Been a while, huh? Anyone still reading? Well, welcome back!

Let me just dispense with the illusion/self-delusion that this blog is going to be updated on a regular basis. Starting now, it will be updated whenever I damn well feel like it, and only then, just as it always has been, only with no pretense of operating otherwise. It shall always be feast or famine in these waters. Are you with me, or are you against me?!?

Well, I hope you’re with me. I really do appreciate the fact that people choose to read this blog, in spite of my constant abuse of their expectations. Dear reader, I salute you!

In any case, to avoid the frustration of checking back for updates, I encourage you to subscribe to this blog with a newsreader, so the updates come to you. I use and recommend Google Reader if you need a newsreader… it is free and it works like a charm.

TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:

On his Transatlantis blog, my friend Tom Kaczynski hits the nail on the head…

THE CARTOON CRYPT: Nimbus Libéré

THE CARTOON CRYPT

A excerpt from a weird and ugly (but interesting) WWII propaganda cartoon made by inept and humorless nazis featuring Mickey Mouse, Popeye, Donald Duck, Goofy, Felix, and horrible Jewish stereotypes. I’ve seen a lot of WWII propaganda from the Allies, but not much from the Axis… presumably most of it was destroyed. If all their animation was this uninspired, it is no wonder we won the war.

WARNING: This cartoon contains offensive ethnic caricatures. If offensive stereotypes bug you, you may not want to view it.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : The Harvey Kurtzman Collection : December 19th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM:

Boing Boing points us to The Harvey Kurtzman Collection, where Joey Anuff is posting scans of his huge collection of rare Harvey Kurtzman art, including a ton of unpublished preliminary materials.

INTERESTING LINKS: Siegel and Schuster-Style Raw Deals, Updated by Time-Warner for 2008 :December 19th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S INTERESTING LINKS

Looking over the Time-Warner owned Zuda contract, cartoonist Spike of the webcomic series Templar, Arizona tellingly concludes that she makes more money selling 100 of her self-published books than Time-Warner’s Zuda creators make selling 10,000 books. It is also worth noting in bold that she also keeps all of the rights to her work, which in my view is a much more important distinction. Very few comics sell more than 10,000 copies any more. Click on the image above from Spike’s Templar, Arizona… which appears to be a metaphorical image of a Zuda comics creator getting throttled by Time-Warner lawyers… to go to the article the quote comes from on fleen.com.

“…with a 1% cover price share and assuming the books are equal in cost, a Zuda book would have to sell 10,000 copies to make the creator what I would selling 100 copies of Templar? And that’s assuming there are no penalties in the payout for deep discount/damaged/give-away books, and the payout isn’t be split in half between a writer and an artist or something.” -Spike

CRUMBLING PAPER: Taking a look at Newspaperarchive.org… The New Pittsburg Press Staff Includes the World’s Greatest Humorists Cartoonists Writers and Illustrators

STWALLSKULL'S CRUMBLING PAPER INDEX

Allan Holtz at the excellent blog The Stripper’s Guide (which, if you follow this blog, you have probably noticed I link to it almost every day I post) had a special offer the other day… he was giving away three free month-long memberships to newspaperarchive.com. Anyhow, I wrote him quick and I got one. Thanks, Allan!

I was just exploring it a little bit, and found the below article from the June 1, 1920 New Castle News. Ironically, the two issues of the New Castle News that I just explored had the comics cut out of them (other than George McManus’s Bringing Up Father, which was on it’s own page). I would guess most of the New Castle News editions on the site are that way if some of them are… presumably a comics fan or comic strip dealer “strip mined” the comics out of them before they were scanned, which is not at all an uncommon scenario (I would approximate that 60-70% of the bound books of newspapers that come up on Ebay have been cannibalized this way). Sunday editions appear to be entirely missing.

Strangely, this article seems to be referring to the comics section of The Pittsburg Press… I am not sure what the relationship was to The New Castle News. This is most likely an ad for a paper owned by the same company, I think.

Anyhow, the cannibals missed this article, so, enjoy! Click the image to download a pdf of the page. It is titled The New Pittsburg Press Staff Includes the World’s Greatest Humorists Cartoonists Writers and Illustrators. It has art by and photos of Herriman, McManus, Opper, Hershfield, Tad and many others… although, as I said, the quality is absolutely terrible.

The papers at newspaperarchive.com are simultaneously fascinating and heartbreaking… there is so much to see, but the artwork and text is all converted to vector art (and in most or all cases, they were first mutilated into microfilm or microfiche, and then to vector art)… the quality is abysmal, but the strips can usually be deciphered for their codified meaning with some patience, like the dead sea scrolls.

THE PEANUT GALLERY: Celebrity VD, and Translatophone

STWALLSKULL'S PEANUT GALLERY

Nobody believes me when I tell them this, but I invented the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Only when I invented it, I called it “Celebrity VD.” Players would follow the path of a theoretical strain of venereal disease passed from one celebrity to another based on movies or television shows they had been in together.

Usually this would involve thinking of two celebrities, figuring out the quickest way to link them to Jack Nicholson or Michael Caine, and then linking to the other celebrity the same way. Years ago I used to play this inane game in my head for hours while I had a gig doing landscaping work.

I told some people about it, and a few years later the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon meme is everywhere. Coincidence? Could be, it isn’t that great of an idea… but it is a good way to pass time while landscaping if you are somewhat of a movie buff.

It’s a lot easier to market it to the public under the much more wholesome name with Kevin Bacon than Celebrity VD, I suppose.

Yeah, I didn’t think you’d buy it either- but it is true, I tell you.

UPDATE: One other thing I should have noted is that one advantage of Celebrity VD over Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is that the VD angle makes it so you can play with different assumptions to make it more challenging. The beginners game would be “Hollywood orgy free-for-all” rules, where anyone can give vd to anyone else… but for more advanced play you can have it transmit only through the celebrity’s actual or rumored sexual orientation.

Anyhow, I have a new game I invented to share with you all. I’m calling it “translatophone.” It is based on the game “telephone,” but this is a version you can play solitaire.

To play, you simply take any phrase, drop it into Google Translate or another internet translator, translate it to another language, and translate it back. Keep going to a variety of languages and observe the amusing results. Here is an example:

It was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.

To Japanese:

クリスマスとは、すべての前の夜は家ではない生き物でも、マウスではなかった感動した

Back to English:

And Christmas, all the previous night in the house not a creature, was not impressed with the mouse.

To Hindi:

और क्रिसमस, घर में सभी पिछले रात नहीं एक प्राणी है, माउस से प्रभावित नहीं था.

Back to English:

And Christmas, all in the house not a creature is the last night, was not affected by the mouse.

to Ukrainian:

І Різдво, все в домі не витвір це останній вночі, не постраждали від мишей.

Back to English:

And Christmas, everything in the house not a creature of this last night, is not affected by the mice.

to Filipino:

At Christmas, lahat ng bagay sa bahay ng isang hindi nilikha ng huling gabi na ito, ay hindi apektado ng mice.

Back to English:

At Christmas, everything in the house not a creature of last night, and it has not affected the mice.

to Arabic:

في عيد الميلاد ، كل شيء في المنزل وليس مخلوقا من الليلة الماضية ، وأنها لم تؤثر على الفئران.

Back to English:

Christmas, everything in the house, not creature of the night, and that it did not affect mice.

to Greek:

Χριστούγεννα, τα πάντα στο σπίτι, δεν πλάσμα της νύχτας, και ότι δεν επηρεάζουν τα ποντίκια.

Back to English:

Christmas, everything at home, no creature of the night, and that does not affect mice.

HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Los Vampiros Del Aire at Viñetas : December 17th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S HEY! KIDS! COMICS!

TODAY’S FEATURED ITEM: Click the above image to check out some amazing covers from the series Los Vampiros Del Aire (which ran at least 38 issues!) courtesy of Viñetas. Google translate translates the above phrase “Era Una cabeza terrible. ¿Era de hombre?” as “It was a terrible headache. He was a man?”

Update: Reader Gabriel was nice enough to correct Google’s translation for me in the comments. A better translation is “It was a terrible head. He was a man?”

INTERESTING LINKS: Old Testement Christmas Ornaments at the Secret Fun Blog: December 17th, 2008

STWALLSKULL'S INTERESTING LINKS

TODAY’S FEATURED LINK:

Click on John the Baptist’s severed head above to see the Secret Fun Blog‘s bizarre collection of old testement Christmas ornaments. Note that this is not even close to the best one.