CSotD: Keep your friends close, and Ted Forth closer
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Tony Murphy's well-named "It's All About You" on the Facebook friending phenomenon.
If I were starting over, I'd have two Facebook accounts: One for people I am actually friends with in three-dimensions and another for virtual friends, business associates, fellow-hobbyists and the like.
As it is, I've set up some lists called things like "family" that I click on periodically because otherwise their posts get buried in the collective maelstrom, which leads to telephone conversations with my mother in which I have to say "ah-ha" and "mmm" because she's updating me on something I was never dated on in the first place.
This is not to say that I don't enjoy the postings of all those virtual acquaintances. Obviously, if that were the case, I'd just unfriend the whole lot of them and only post back and forth with "real" friends.
And we don't judge our Facebook friends. True, it's part of the Internet, but it's just not that sort of place.
Mind you, I do think that the "not here, it's Facebook" atmosphere of tolerance is going to be tested between now and November.
Facebook has, for the most part, been like the big table at a holiday, where we don't let discussions get too heated before the combatants get that under-the-table touch on the leg from a spouse, everybody kind of clears their throats and someone asks about a soccer tournament.
However, as we lurch toxically towards Elections in the US, the ability to ignore Crazy Uncle Earl or Little Miss Know-it-all is going to be sorely tested, and those coming from other countries are going to feel like the college roommate or new boyfriend, sitting there at the table wondering if all our family gatherings are like this?
(Here I was tempted to embed the Thanksgiving dinner scene from "Annie Hall," but, on second thought, the more appropriate Diane Keaton moment would be the one at the wedding where she's asking Michael Corleone "Why is that man talking to himself?")
Anyway, the Facebook Friends I haven't figured out what to do with are the ones who apparently collect friends at random by blindly sending friend requests to all their friends' friends.
If the thing they have in common with their friends is that they like comics, then, of course, they're welcome aboard. I've seen some nice artwork from people whom I had never heard of until they asked to be friends.
And I have to assume that they wouldn't bother asking to be my friend if they didn't read English, even if they never post in that language themselves.
On the other hand, you'll pardon me if I unsubcribe from the feeds of people who never post artwork and who only post in languages I can't even identify, much less understand.
By the way, cutting-and-pasting into Google translate will solve the mystery most times, and I've got to say that Georgian is the most beautiful script I've ever seen. Check this out: საქართველოს ყველაზე ლამაზი მე ოდესმე მინახავს.
But you'll forgive me if I marvel over how lovely it is and then hide it so I won't miss the posting where I find out one of my nieces is pregnant or that a sibling will be visiting in the area.
And now for something completely different: A man who writes in English and yet is still utterly incomprehensible.
Francesco Marciuliano is doing a multi-part memoir on his taking over of the Sally Forth strip some 15 years ago. It is, as all of his writings are, wonderfully interladen with wise-ass commentary, but it's also a thoughtful look at the process. Here's the first Sally Forth he did, and the start of his explanation of how it all came about and how it all works:
My favorite part, so far, comes in Part Two, where he explains, "I also made sure to follow the unwritten rule that Sally always got the punch line or final say, which ultimately led to a strip in which Ted asked Sal why she always had to sit to his left."
And finally today:
It's Ruben Bolling week over at Cul de Sac. When I heard that five cartoonists were taking over the strip for a week each while Richard Thompson gets some Parkinson's treatment, I assumed they would have fun with the characters, each in their own inimitable way. This can be entertaining for about once, then you start asking when Richard is coming back.
Rather, their respect for his work has been paramount. So far, Michael Jantze and Corey Pandolph have had their runs, and, while you know it's not Richard because nobody else is, the strips have been valid Cul de Sacs, without a lot of horseplay. (Links are to their Cul de Sacs, not their home pages.)
This is not only a testament to the respect in which the strip is held, but also a reflection on their respect for the cartoonist.
The dust jacket for the Cul de Sac compendium fundraiser megabook has been released. Can you imagine what a cool thing it would be to buy this and then, over years, get each piece of work signed by the artist who did it?
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