What I'm Reading: The Call of Cthulhu and Other Dark Tales

I was browsing the local Barnes and Noble recently, when a compellingly evil cover illustration caught my eye - it turned out to be for an anthology of H.P. Lovecraft's horror stories. I had read and heard many references to Lovecraft and his Cthulhu mythos, and I was vaguely aware of his historical importance to the horror genre, but I hadn't yet read any of his fiction. On a whim, I decided to buy it and educate myself. I was soon to find that the true horror of Lovecraft isn't necessarily his stories, but rather his appalling racism.

Now, I realize that racial perceptions were different in the early 20th century. I realize that we should be lenient about non-P.C. language in well-intentioned works by the likes of Twain, Faulkner, and Dickens. But Lovecraft's racism exists deep in the fabric of his horror; stories detailing the abhorrence of degenerative miscegenation; a passage blaming "negro blood" for the horrifying countenance of characters; and perhaps most amusing (in a kind of nauseating way), a main character's cat inexplicably named N*** Man. What what what?

If one can ignore his rampant racism, one can see how his writing had such an influence on horror. While his writing can seem antiquarian and overly turgid, Lovecraft does tap into some creepy, nightmarish themes, which were probably original at the time. Raising partially sentient bodies from the dead; secrets of a noble bloodline steeped in cannibalism; and of course the monstrous, mythological horror of Cthulhu and its stable of enormous and ancient creatures - these are ideas which I have to admire for their audacity and inevitable literary influence.

But can one separate an author's distasteful and immoral beliefs from his art? I can listen to Richard Wagner while mostly ignoring his antisemitism, but that is probably because his abhorrent beliefs aren't on display in the music or libretto. It is much harder to ignore racism that loudly proclaims itself on almost every written page in a work of fiction.

Alien Hands?

The affliction in today's strip is apparently for real. How freaky is that? I found out about Alien Hand Syndrome from an Internet list of the 10 most disgusting diseases. Gross.

Mary Worth Weirdness

I am always amazed at the amount of work people put into honoring / satirizing (the line can be very thin) their favorite serial comics, such as Apartment 3-G, Gil Thorpe, For Better or For Worse, and Mary Worth. This is great because these venerable comics have survived for decades, despite the fickle and unforgiving newspaper comics business, which has trended toward favoring gag-a-day strips (which I love too) to the detriment of serial dramas. These serial strips, which tend to be unintentionally hilarious and over-the-top outrageous, are definitely kept alive by their fans.

A case in point is a bizarre website installment I stumbled across while trying to search for a good Mary Worth RSS feed (still looking, by the way). I watched, in a state of unexplainable discomfort, these oddly hypnotizing movies: 3D Lego-styled characters acting out the geriatric, judgmental adventures of Charterstone's most meddlesome biddy. They speak in appropriately robotic tones and periodically pause to gesticulate and convulse with dead expressions on their smooth faces. What insane, dedicated fan spends the time to create this brilliant mess? I will certainly be following this site, which seems to contain a lot of other comic strip snarkiness and sublty funny strip modifications, in the future.

Congrats on 5 Years, Comics Curmudgeon

The Comics Curmudgeon, a blog that cleverly snarks on, lampoons, and lambastes the funny pages, had its 5 year anniversary this weekend. I wanted to give it a shout out because I truly think it is a gem that never fails to brighten my day.

Most people can agree that today's newspaper funnies are generally pretty lame, but I nonetheless could never give up my Sunday morning routine of reading the big, colorful comics section while eating breakfast and drinking coffee. I always marveled at the audacity of cartoonists making a living off of such blatantly unfunny strips such as Family Circus and Marmaduke; the Comics Curmudgeon's Josh Fruhlinger reinforces my obsession with cartoon mediocrity, and employs observational snarks that are brilliant in their high-minded ludicrousness.

Where else on the Internet would you find someone making reference to an obscure 1930s German short story to describe a lame Family Circus "ants in the picnic" punchline, or bravely calling out irascible old Crankshaft for the bitter, lonely sex offender that he is? Just as entertaining are the numerous comments after each post from the CC's many dedicated readers. Bravo Josh, and congratulations.

My (Short So Far) Experience with Twitter

As a computer professional I try to keep myself curious about new technology, even technology that I don't at first appreciate or understand. A perfect case in point is Twitter. I read about how microblogging was changing media paradigms and how everyone was integrating Twitter into their communications arsenal, from journalists to celebrities to special-interest websites.

To an extent, I understood the advantages of broadcasting short pieces of information; for example I think it's great fun to see what your friends are doing on Facebook. But I never quite got why there was so much hype, nor was I convinced that Twitter was much more than a fad. It seemed to be a lazy way to exacerbate our society's already epidemic attention deficit disorder, as well as an unnecessary tool for further increasing the noise-to-information ratio on the Internet.

But like a good curiousity seeker, I decided to bite the bullet and give Twitter a try. I signed up for an account a few weeks ago and have been tweeting pretty moderately since. Not on my phone - that would drive me crazy - but just in quiet moments in front of the computer. I found that Twitter is a great medium for broadcasting rhetorical questions and observations, as well as posting interesting links and special interest news, that you might never feel was appropriate for an entire blog post or for sharing with all your friends and family on Facebook. It's kind of a low-barrier outlet in which to throw your musings and stream of consciousness thoughts.

Most people who don't like Twitter, including myself just months ago, argue that they have no interest in reading inanities, such as what someone "had for breakfast" this morning. I think that may be a misconception - what I have found is that good Twitterers don't usually post mundane breakfast menus (although I am not proud that I once tweeted on flossing my teeth, which promptly led to my wife dropping me from her follow list). When you tweet, you tend to post your thoughts on things of interest to you - and presumably to your followers.

To that end I decided to start focusing more on The Remonstrance in my tweets, which you are welcome to follow, though I will continue to post whatever of my interests (music, computer programming, politics, sports) comes into my head. It may be that I will eventually lose interest and decide that Twitter is not for me. Or maybe something better will come along and leave Twitter in that same shadowy and moribund realm shared by MySpace and (shudder) Friendster. But for now I like that I found something positive about a technology that I used to think epitomized frivolous technological douchebaggery. Remember: cynism is fun, but an open mind will ultimately make you much happier and wiser.

UPDATE 8/16/2009: I have since created a separate feed for The Remonstrance, to allow for a tighter focus on things related to the comic. You can follow it at http://twitter.com/theremonstrance.

Vigorish: Touche Dilbert!

I thought I was the only cartoonist who tried to educate his audience with GRE vocabulary lessons in my strips, but lo! Today's Dilbert impressed me with its rather improbable use of the word vigorish - a word I had to look up (something I haven't had to do since I stopped getting Zippy the Pinhead in my local paper). Bravo Scott Adams, bravo.

Groggy Brainstorming

I keep a pad of paper and a pen on my nightstand so that when I get a creative idea while lying in bed, I can write it down before I forget it. This has sometimes been useful in brainstorming gags for my web comic, but lately... I don't know.

Not only is my handwriting almost indecipherable after years of exclusively using a keyboard for written communication, but I'm usually in some half-asleep dream state when I write stuff down. Here are my latest two entries: "Domingo (our cat) why do you meow all the time?" and "Funny pie restaurant." What on earth was I thinking?