Comic Strips 2020: Sumpin Arful

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Bisexual Super Son > Comic Strips 2020: Sumpin Arful

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Manuel Calavera posted:

Compu-Toon Charles Boyce, 1994. "If you�ve ever struggled to turn your cell phone off, thought cookies were just a delicious snack, and tried in vain to talk to a human customer service rep, Charles Boyce has created a strip for you. Compu-toon reminds us that technological innovations haven�t necessarily made our lives any easier -- maybe just more funny. " is how Boyce describes it. What is the strip actually?
It's a tech strip written by someone who's astoundingly tech illiterate. But sometimes Boyce has the weirdest moments of clarity.

Don't forget the mascot of the strip, the Keypad Kid, who's a... nonspecific keypad with a screen (which is its face). It's not anything specific, just some weird nebulous thing which doesn't correspond to any actual computer hardware.

StrixNebulosa posted:

why are we worried about serial killer RL

He used to run a serial-killing corporation and was a bad boss, and Kell worked for him. She since left to run her own, more ethical (in ways I don't think the strip is very clear on) serial-killing corporation.

i don't know why kell cares about him, she never seemed to like him before, uh, right now

class solidarity, I guess? Clearly the fact that she's currently a CEO and he used to be a CEO is much more important than the fact he used to, as I recall, attempt to kill her husband repeatedly.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2020 04:26

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# ¿ Jan 22, 2025 07:22

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

amigolupus posted:

What exactly is "the internet of things" again? Because that sounds like the stupidest way to call whatever your thesis subject is supposed to be. Also, wouldn't Dethany telling the appliances to behave mess up her boyfriend's thesis defense? I mean, how can the committee even be sure that the appliances are working as intended if Dethany told them to behave a certain way.

It's the current trend of making your lightbulbs and refrigerator and your door locks and poo poo internet connected. It almost universally has terrible security, so there's a high chance it'll end up as part of a botnet or something. Among other reasons it's almost always a terrible idea. This isn't a term Holbrook made up.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2020 05:26

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Vargo posted:

Curt- ahahahahaha what the gently caress is this, billingsley you suck so hard, lol

... That's it?

# ¿ Jan 3, 2020 19:21

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

goatface posted:

Don't loving sit outside then.

Dustin's dad locked him out of the house and the kid forgot his keys and nobody's home to let him in, obviously.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2020 22:08

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

gleebster posted:

No, but he's going to make a stupid mess of it. I know I won't read it, because I know Holbrook doesn't respect me as a reader. Why will you read it?

Oh yeah the fact that these are sentient entities means that, like, nothing about it has any relevance to actual IoT security issues

# ¿ Jan 4, 2020 08:51

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Kennel posted:

Dustin

how many times has religion come up in this strip before

# ¿ Jan 5, 2020 00:18

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Strontium posted:

Take It From the Tinkersons

it clearly does not have paint stains or holes

# ¿ Jan 5, 2020 10:53

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Karma Tornado posted:

I realize nothing in that strip works the way it's presented but I'd love to know why pheromones turn rats into rabbits and skunks into also rabbits

Because it makes them smell like rabbits, and also apparently nobody in this world can use their eyes to see that the visuals don't match the smell.\

they can see well enough to drive cars and use computers and poo poo, though. :thunk:

# ¿ Jan 9, 2020 14:06

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Archyduchess posted:

I want to give back a bit to a thread that I've gotten a lot of education and enjoyment out of. I'm thinking about posting Cathy and Crockett Johnson's initial 1942-1946 run on Barnaby-- the former because I think it's a fascinating barometer for what a comic predicated on being "relateable" to a mainstream demographic of (white) women looked at through the 70s-aughts, and the latter because it's an exquisite comic.

If either of these have already been posted in a previous iteration of this thread and people are burnt out on them or whatever that's fine, but otherwise I'll try to write up a little intro for both over the weekend?

I don't think we've had classic cathy, i'd be interested in seeing it!

# ¿ Jan 10, 2020 21:18

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

ukonvasara posted:

The problem is that you're giving it way too much credit for intentionality and coherence. What happened here is that there were no problems with the code because the concept of autocorrection simply locked the concept of computer bugs in a literal cage. The vehicles of these particular metaphors are so far from their respective tenors that they can see the curvature of the Earth (figuratively).

They stopped being metaphors a long time ago.

this is part of what makes holbrook comics such weird incoherent messes

# ¿ Jan 12, 2020 16:01

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

coronatae posted:

Encyclopedia Brown also had one where a stolen key was hidden in a hotdog and the giveaway was that the mustard and sauerkraut had been added in the wrong order and apparently "nobody eats hotdogs that way"

I believe it had one where the criminal's alibi involved getting their keys out of a pocket with the other side's arm, which is clearly impossible.

Except I have, in fact, done exactly that.

Julet Esqu posted:

WORKING THIRTEEN DAYS STRAIGHT IS A LOT, YOU LAZY BOOMER poo poo.

The most charitable possible explanation here is that the author is so boomer they don't realize that the weekend is "days off", or that it's possible somebody might not get the weekend off. And thinks they're writing Dustin as complaining he hasn't had any vacation days, when what they actually wrote is "I have been working 13 days straight"

# ¿ Jan 14, 2020 05:04

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Ghostlight posted:

Classic Cat

... Huh?

# ¿ Jan 16, 2020 06:15

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

My Lovely Horse posted:

Harvey you couldn't have told us about that before we took you on a expedition to the harshest mountains in the world

i feel like this would've come up before now, yeah

# ¿ Jan 16, 2020 17:56

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

you broke my grill posted:

I don't understand the third panel of Dustin

is Simone hitting on him?

Dustin's dad hates exercising and is glad that he no longer has a computer nagging him about it.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2020 20:13

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Tiggum posted:

The plot of Cats is very straight-forward and easy to explain. The cats are competing in a talent contest, but the evil cat is cheating by kidnapping the other contestants. There's a lot about it that's weird and hard to explain, but the plot is easy.

To the best of my understanding, the prize in the talent contest is getting to die.

EDIT: also one of the cats is a war profiteer, used confetti in Mobile, Alabama, mispronounced the name of Arkansas in Arkansas, violated FDA regulations on the inspection of eggs, built, maintained, and/or used a nuclear weapon within the city limits of Chico, California, wore a bullet-proof vest while comitting a murder in New Jersey, and trick or treated in Rehoboth Beach outside the hours of 5 pm to 8 pm.

Zereth fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jan 21, 2020

# ¿ Jan 21, 2020 17:05

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

ugh, the prize. price is a very different thing.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2020 17:11

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

plainswalker75 posted:

So Highlander is basically a low-key remake of Cats?

I haven't seen any version of Cats myself but one of the cats has "broken every human law"

there's a lot of things that means he has to have done

# ¿ Jan 21, 2020 18:05

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Hobnob posted:

When the trailer for the movie came out and everyone crowed about it I was nonplussed. Like, have you ever seen a production of Cats? It looks pretty much exactly like that. I've not seen the movie but as far as the plot goes, well, it's stitched up from a bunch of Eliot poems by Andrew Lloyd Webber:

Of course it doesn't make much sense. Have you ever seen Jesus Christ, Superstar? If you didn't already know the story you'd have no idea what was going on.

Are... are you trying to defend Cats?

Because this is phrased like a defense but you're not actually making it sound any better.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2020 20:23

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Hobnob posted:

No, not really trying to defend it. I was more that I thought everyone already knew that ALW's stuff (and Cats in particular) tended to the freaking weird, so some of the reaction I saw to the movie surprised me. Just a bad assumption on my part.

That said, if you have the ability to see a decent production of Cats (I saw the Broadway tour quite recently), it's worth watching for the utterly barmy spectacle of the thing.

I don't think most people are familiar with particular details of musicals, no.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2020 21:20

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Tambaloneus posted:

Wait hang on are the 'people' in this world descended from gremlins?

She's a ~~wizard~~scientist and drank a ~~magic~~DNA ~~potion~~potion to turn into a... I'm gonna guess lemur.

Darthemed posted:

That�s... pretty far off. It�s more like an episode of a kids� show with the budget and creative direction handed off to someone who�s written dozens of fanfics about it and has a lot of weird, uncomfortably horny ideas.

so the most recent powerpuff girls?

# ¿ Jan 22, 2020 05:14

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Ashsaber posted:

You know, when people called her DNA Wizard, I was expecting a bit less magic potions and more Reed Richards superscience bullshit. But really, just drinking a genetic sample to switch species? REALLY?

Yeah, when we call her a wizard, we loving mean it. She doesn't do things that are recognizable as even comic-book science, she just makes magic loving potions.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2020 08:06

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Darthemed posted:

Dick

Is this the size you obtained it at? because this is too small to read for me.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2020 03:37

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Darthemed posted:

After I cropped down my scan, it was 755x611, yes. I tried expanding it with Imgur's size lettering, but it wouldn't go larger, for some reason.

Here it is bumped up to 1200x971.

And at the same size, but with the nicest-looking Sharpen settings I could work out.

If that looks good, I'll go with that routine for the future strips. And if anyone has tips to improve the output (the sharpened one looks kind of chunky to me, especially with the lettering), please put in a word.

It... doesn't really look good but I can at least read it. The dailies have been fine, note. It's just this sunday was much smaller than them, despite the original preseumably being larger as a Sunday strip.

... Hang on, your scans? Are you scanning these in from a source yourself? If so could you just... scan them at a higher resolution?

# ¿ Jan 24, 2020 05:21

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Manuel Calavera posted:

Rose is Rose

since when do they live anywhere near a place that'd sell that kind of poo poo

they've previously had to drive like an hour to get a loving burrito, they live in the middle of nowhere

# ¿ Jan 24, 2020 14:34

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Darthemed posted:

Here's the same strip at 200, 400, and 600 DPI.

I'm thinking 200 DPI should be sufficient.

Yeah, 200 is plenty. Thanks for going to this effort!

How Wonderful! posted:

Rose is evolving because habaneros are actually pretty hot for many people! In one year she'll be grinding up bhut jolokias to sprinkle on stuff, in two she'll be bottling her own carolina reaper sauce. In five only blood will slake her thirst.

I didn't even notice she'd graduated to habaneros. dang

# ¿ Jan 24, 2020 16:13

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Darthemed posted:

Dick

what a professionally run police department

# ¿ Jan 25, 2020 14:53

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Darthemed posted:

Dick

Wasn't Minion Viller a lot thinner last time we saw him? :confused:

# ¿ Jan 27, 2020 20:09

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Strontium posted:

Fort Knox

Probably shouldn't be keeping it in a bowl then

# ¿ Jan 29, 2020 00:54

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

riderchop posted:

Overboard

does

does the Overboard guy just... not know what animals look like

because there's nothing that looks ANYTHING liked a seal, baby or otherwise, in this strip

# ¿ Jan 31, 2020 19:30

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Darthemed posted:

Dick

okay "flunky" viller but how are you going to do that with all the guards around you haven't addressed that part

# ¿ Feb 1, 2020 21:02

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

maltesh posted:

Am I correct in remembering that the Moon Lady is not actually a Moon Lady, but an initially-brainwashed and surgically altered impostor who decided to keep her surgical alterations after everything was resolved?

She doesn't have memories of being who she was before the brainwashing and such, and she's also go superpowers now, so she decided "might as well roll with it"

# ¿ Feb 3, 2020 02:43

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Crowetron posted:

Does she have two left hands there?

They're handcuffed behind her, so no.

It's two right hands :pseudo:

# ¿ Feb 4, 2020 08:14

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Selachian posted:

Retail

Stuart has an interesting definition of "save"

# ¿ Feb 6, 2020 00:16

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Ashsaber posted:

So, as someone who hasn't even been reading these threads for a full year, can someone give me a cliff's notes explanation of how and why there are moon people in Dick Tracy? Because suddenly, from my perspective, there's literal magic powers in the strip and you can easily acquire giant, cornucopia sized snails from the moon as a regular thing? What?

Correction: You can with difficulty acquire giant moon snails by stealing them from the zoo.

EDIT: and I think the answer is "the strip went bonkers with sci-fi stuff in the 60s" but nobody's ever posted stuff from that era in these threads to my knowledge so I have no firsthand experince

# ¿ Feb 6, 2020 01:09

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

amigolupus posted:

I'm not even sure what bothers me the most here. Lynn making this thing all about her with that "well I don't want..." line, Lynn thinking her son is stupid for having a dream of his own, or the dad's little "well, I got married" line and expression of misery.

she's not even using the actual accurate defense of her "no motorcycle" thing, that the "it's safe" claim the kid made is, like... wrong

it's way more dangerous to drive one than a car

# ¿ Feb 7, 2020 05:15

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Letmebefrank posted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_water

Technically, Ripley's didn't say it wasn't a terrible idea to do it. :pseudo:

# ¿ Feb 7, 2020 16:35

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

I've never read a single comic in my entire life.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2020 04:51

Zereth: Jul 8, 2003

Haifisch posted:

Dick Tracy

Major Crime Squad

Staton/Curtis' Tracy fanfic continues to be more action-packed than their actual Tracy run.

Good to see "Shaky Trembly" ( :rolleyes:

) isn't letting a neurological disorder actually impair him in any way, i guess.

Also even the early actual tracy run was more action packed than the current stuff.