Waffle

After posting that last entry about the Queen "Reunion", I started wondering why I was so particularly hostile to this one when other band reunions either don't bother me at all or arouse my enthusiasm. I wasn't bothered by The Pixies' reunion, for the simple reason that they never did that much for me, and I was very keen, five years ago, to go and see the legendary Dutch pop group Doe Maar in concert when they reformed. And let's not even go into my abiding love for Deep Purple...

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Absolutely not!
I just heard that Queen (meaning Brian May and Roger Taylor - the writer of "I Want to Break Free" has been written out of history) are going to tour with Paul Rodgers on vocals. Online news reports quote Brian May as saying

We were both so amazed at the chemistry that was going on in All Right Now, that suddenly it seems blindingly obvious that there was something happening here.

which is the same PR bollocks that rock stars always spout. It may be true this time, of course. Indeed, there are worse singers than Paul Rodgers (Imagine they'd gone on the road with Paul Carrack!). A partnership between May, Taylor and Rodgers may well be worth pursuing to them, if they form a new band, write new songs and generally look to the future. But the reports show them trading on the name Queen, announcing that they will play Queen and Free material, and generally digging up the corpses of the past. I don't see anything good coming out of that.

John at Shot by Both Sides recently put up a post entitled "Ignorance Remedied in which he tries to clear up some misconceptiona about English laws, especially regarding free speech and self-defense in case of burglary. Crooked Timber's Daniel Davies calls John's attempts "a rather Sysyphean task" and that was what sprung to mind when I read the title as well. After all, The Straight Dope has been fighting ignorance since 1973, and made very little headway in those 31 years. And the good folk at The Straight Dope aimed their efforts at the general public, who on average are a whole lot less knee-jerk and closed-minded than the subsection of the population that blogs, so what John is trying to do is even harder.
Yes, I'm getting a bit disillusioned with this whole blogging thing, at least as far as political blogging is concerned. With few exceptions, I don't think a whole lot of communication goes on in political blogs. Community-building, yes, but if you look at the sort of community that results in places like the Blog that LGFWatch Watches, then that doesn't look like a great contribution to the common weal of mankind.
Nevertheless, I applaud John for trying, and I hope that his work will soon inspire me to do some Augian bullshit-removal myself. I have been looking at one life-and-death issue relating to my home town that received some coverage in the international press and in blogs, all of it that made it back to me appallingly uninformed, and have been meaning to put in a bit of work to correct the misinformation. The thing that's been stopping me so far is my own cowardice; I do not look forward to dealing with the fallout if that post gets widely distributed, which it should be if it's to be effective. However, I have not seen anyone else take up this gauntlet, so I just might end up writing it to get it out of my system. Just as soon as I work up the courage.
Meanwhile, go to John's site if you want to know what it takes for someone in Britain to get a conviction for "defending yourself" against a burglar inside your house (shooting a fleeing man or stabbing him twelve times in the back will do it) and why the new religious hate law there, while bad, will not cause Rowan Atkinson to go to jail.

Henry of Crooked Timber writes:

As I’ve mentioned before, I much prefer it when the more ignorant members of the American right-wing commentariat limit themselves to attacks on European anti-semitism, even if they grossly exaggerate its extent and effects. It’s much more disturbing when they praise Europe than when they damn it - they invariably latch onto the nastiest and most atavistic aspects of European politics and policy.

I've seen this myself as well. The only specific example that I can think of now —because seeing this phenomenon in action makes me reach for the brainbleach and the eyeforks— was an English Conservative Commentator (who will remain nameless and unlinked) claiming to be happy that the Netherlands had finally "woken up" just as the first mosques were going up in flames, but the phenomenon is real enough.

Update: Some good comments have been made to that post. In particular, read the reality checks provided by commenter Novakant, around 3 a.m on December 14.

After getting my very first paycheck ever for making comics last week, on friday there was another first: my very first review in a quality newspaper. Joost Pollmann, former conservator of the Dutch Comics Museum and comics journalist wrote a nice little piece about two comics set in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia. First about Rampokan by Peter van Dongen, the long awaited second part. It took him 13 (!) years to complete both books. The second part of the article is devoted to "Shadow" by l'il ol' me. Pollmann says little about why he likes my book, though he clearly does. He has rather a descriptive style of writing, which makes it hard to get a good quote. Thankfully Joe Zabel provided a nice one after reading "Shadow" as a Modern Tales longplay feature: "I really liked this piece. Beautifully illustrated, with a fascinating variation of approaches. It really develops a strong sense of atmosphere and realism."
We'll see where (if anywhere) this media coverage 'll lead: for now I'm happy for that half page of fame.

Pointed out on Deleterius

"Romeo and Juliet —the personalized romance novel!
Starring YOU and a special someone in the role of Romeo and Juliet
The ultimate romantic, wedding, or anniversary gift —now available in a personalized "happy ending" edition, with optionally your pictures on the cover! It's the way Romeo and Juliet should have been - true love with a personal twist!"

That's right, this site lets you change the names of characters in classic literature, from the Wizard of Oz to Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde to a Christmas Carol - and even give Romeo and Juliet a badly-written happy ending! Let's have a look!

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I was trying to register over with Websnark, but was faced with this.

What the bugger was it? 35631w? 3563iw? 3563lw?

Finally, in despair I showed to to Timmerryn, who spotted that funny blob was the top of an f in the odd font they use.

It rather goes against the point of these passkeys if humans can't read 'em.

Via Ren&eacute van Densen: this animation (11 MB download) about hiccup demons(?) taking a class on how to survive in a hostile environment had me rolling on the floor laughing at the end. It had another effect as well: it made me want to animate! I have no skills whatsoever at that, and rarely miss having them, but this one did the trick of infecting me with the animation bug.

I keep going back to the comment threads in these two Websnark postings:
Also, they're good at banter. But then, they would be, wouldn't they?
When did we become the No Fat Chicks club? I think I need to see the bylaws.

In the first post, Eric compliments Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content on his rendering of the body types of the three female protagonists in the recent QC storyline, and a number of commenters disagree, a few of them quite vehemently. I'm slightly more with the disagreeers — I think the main reason we know that Dora is squishy is because it is mentioned often in the dialogue. However, I think Jeph is trying within his abilities to render different body types, and deserves kudos, praise, biscuits and free heroin for that. Also the hysterical tone of at least of the disagreeers turns me off in the same way that second amendment absolutists who bring up the holocaust turn me off, making an argument I'd be viscerally sympathetic to look silly.
The second thread is inspired by the fallout from the first, and deals with body type, especially female body type, in comics in more general terms. My own perspective on this is that artists have to constantly remind themselves to draw different body types, otherwise through a combination of lazyness, deadlines, forgetfulness and simple preference (the discussion on the thread emphasises preference only, but that's only part of the story), a single body type will dominate throughout. Typically, my characters, male or female, are more different from one another at the design stage than after they've been in a few dozen finished pages, and I've made a habit of referring back to the early sketches and early appearances to remind myself of the distinctive physical characteristics of the characters.
But the comment about balding, bearded, beer-bellied blokes in comics still hit home.

Bizarrely, despite having relapsed into fever again and having my thoughts interrupted every five seconds by urgent demands from my autonomous nervous system that I sneeze, cough, sweat or zonk out immediately, I have managed to get ahead with work on Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan. Working only 5 hours a day on average, I've been nearly as productive as during the marathon work sessions of the past few months, with one exception: I've not been able to produce script work for Floor. I just can't do that until I'm fully fit - I find it a lot harder to do than anything about ROCR.
I will need to catch up, and catch up quickly, as soon as I'm really better. So here is my plan for the rest of the month:
ROCR will have two more regular updates in December, on Friday the 10th and Monday the 13th. These are in the can. On Wednesday the 15th, I will run a wallpaper filler based on the ad graphic used in the Clan of the Cats campaign. My search referrals are dominated by searches for wallpapers and while I prefer lighter designs myself, the Grimborg graphic will work well enough, especially with the new readers coming in from COTC.
Starting Friday the 17th, I will start running the guest comics that cartoonists have pledged, for as long as it takes until they run out. When they do, ROCR will go on hiatus until January 3, 2005. That's right, I'm sending the comic on vacation. I won't be on vacation myself (apart from a few days around Christmas spent in England with my brother, his family and my parents), but I need to take time off from the schedule to cover for the consequences of this damned illness, and Christmas is the time to do it, because the number of readers drops precipitously anyway.