Monthly Archive for July, 2008

Why is Marni Greene funny? The world may never know.

I don’t know why I find some things that Marni Greene says funny. All I know is that they are.

For instance, I’m just going through the recording of a gang-writing session, finalizing scripts for The Idiot Box’s take on “The Magic Clown,” and found myself rolling.

ANNOUNCER: And now….
MARNI: Bono!

The logical side of my brain that I usually use to dissect comedy tells me that isn’t funny. Every rule of comedy that I’ve been taught tells me that isn’t funny. Yet, I can’t help but laugh at the line after hearing it about five times.

Yes, it’s staying in the script.

The Calvin Index

A while back I was complaining about only having 274 subscribers for The New Adventures Of Queen Victoria over at GoComics.com (gee, can I think of any more links to insert into this paragraph?) and asking more people to sign up. Well, folks did. Ironically, however, I’m not that much better off.

You see, GoComics seems to have had a bit of an explosion in the user department over the four months since I mentioned that. So, while I now have (at last count) 1,170 subscribers, more than four times what I had before, I’m still near the bottom of the list. If anything, I’ve slipped slightly in the rankings.

Needing a new way to measure my progress, and to assuage my throbbing ego, I’ve figured out a new way to track my feature’s growth or shrinkage. I call it the Calvin index.

GoComics doesn’t publish the total number of subscribers (my reps there would probably tell me if I asked, but I’m too lazy) so I can’t calculate the percentage of readers that follow Her Maj. However, I do know that the top strip on GoComics (probably since its inception as a service) is Calvin and Hobbes. There are some people who probably signed up for the service because it was the only way to get access to the entire library of Calvin until that big hardcover came out. So, it’s probably safe to assume that everyone who subscribes at GoComics reads Calvin, and if they don’t, they’re too small a group to be statistically significant for my calculations anyhow.

This means that I should be able to chart the growth of my strip by comparing the number of people who read it to the number of people who read Calvin and Hobbes. x=Q/C.

Back in April, when I had 274 subscribers, Calvin and Hobbes had 2,877. This meant that my strip came in at .095 Calvins. Today, as I type this, I have just rolled over to 1,171 subscribers. Calvin, at the same time, has racked up his 7,465th subscription. As a result, even though I’ve dropped to #128 out of 142 in the feature rankings, I know I’m doing better overall, because the strip is now worth .157 Calvins! Yay!

Amazing how you can make anything sound good if you put it in the proper perspective, isn’t it?

Comicky goodness for you to look at.

I don’t shill for other comics a lot, but one recent arrival that I absolutely love is Corey Pandolph’s “TOBY: ROBOT SATAN.”

You honestly HAVE to love any comic that fits this description:


TOBY, Robot Satan is the story of Morris Gumboot and his befriending of the insane robot called TOBY. At a meager 4’8″ tall, Morris lives a depressing life as a bartender at McGullwack’s Pub in New York City. TOBY spends his days wearing a Viking helmet and claiming he’s the Devil incarnate. Lonely and feeling pity for TOBY, Morris takes him in as his roommate, having no idea what evil TOBY may, or may not unleash upon the populace. Together, their follies and foibles make them the modern day “Odd Couple”… Only with robots… And sometimes plutonium.


Go read it at GoComics.com.

Next big project announced.

There’s just a placeholder there right now, no real content, but the website for my next big project is now on-line:

http://www.idiotboxers.tv

Congratulations

to Jeffe and Amanda Boats on the birth of their first son, Michael, this evening.

The cover of “Stay Tooned,” issue #2.

They had a contest to see who could name all the characters drawn around Joe Staton in this picture. I know I lost, but this is what I came up with:

Hal Jordan, Elongated Man (or a very poorly drawn Element Lad), Ronald Reagan, Huntress, Ch’p, Saturn Girl, Power Girl, Guy Gardner, Chucky, Batman, Jughead, Kilowog, Carmen Sandiego, Inspector Clouseau, Mandrake, Shaggy, Scooby Doo, The Hulk…the Littles and Kwiky Koala?

Any I missed or misidentified? I’m curious.

Open letter to Michael Forrest (with permission granted to redistribute and reprint)

open-letter-to-michael-forrest-with-permission-granted-to-redistribute-and-reprint

To Michael Forrest, creator of “sungenisandthejews.com”:

I stumbled upon your site quite by accident. As you can guess from my last name, I was very intrigued by its domain name, and as you leave no way to contact you through your site, I have to resort to this roundabout method.

Again, as you can tell by my last name, I am more than familiar with the writings and rantings of Robert Sungenis, and found nothing new or startling in your treatise “Robert Sungenis and the Jews.” However, I must strongly object to the use of my last name in your domain name.

Had you named the site “robertsungenisandthejews.com” I would have no objection. Like I said, I am more than familiar with the opinions of my Crazy Uncle Bob. However, as my daily comic strip, other writings, and podcasts have arguably made me (outside of Catholic Apologetics circles, naturally) more famous than my Crazy Uncle Bob, it might be construed as implying anti-semitism on my part.

The opinions of Robert Sungenis do not necessarily reflect those of me, anyone else in our family, or the bunnies that live in our back yard. As sure as the Earth goes around the Sun (HA!) I want nothing to do with his opinions. I am especially disturbed by being connected, even unintentionally, to anti-semitism as I recently married (in a New Jersey Civil Union) my partner of 15 years, a Jewish man.

I am not going to ask you to change your domain name (or the accompanying Blogger blog’s name) because of the trouble that would imply for you. However, I do wish to make it clear that my Crazy Uncle Bob’s opinions are not mine.

Thank you, blessed be, and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
Paul L. (“Pab”) Sungenis.

Wow. I can’t believe this has been preserved.

The things you find wandering around the net looking for old TV.

It looks so different from even when I remember watching it (very early 1970′s).

I’m very happy that someone somewhere has preserved these shows, even if they’ll never air again.

Go buy a Big Mac today.

go-buy-a-big-mac-today

“Today, the right-wing American Family Association (AFA) announced a boycott of McDonald’s. According to AFA, Ronald McDonald and his gang are part of giant gay agenda:

“What the boycott of McDonald’s IS about

“It is about McDonald’s, as a corporation, refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars. McDonald’s has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×3560330
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/03/mcdonalds-boycott/