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Haha, I love it. When I read the first paragraph of your post I couldn't help but picture Calvin on one of his voyages of discovery while daydreaming in class. Tumbling through space as words zoom in on him and resolve into letters, then pixels, then photons...

But are people who volunteer for fMRI studies going to try to screw the results? This reminds me of a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where Calvin fills in a marketing survey for bubble gum, and requests something weird like "curry flavor" just because he likes to mess with the marketing people.

The Calvin and hobbes from Sept. 15th emphasized this same uncertainty about modern air travel.

The idea that there might not be any other life out there isn't sticking your head in the sand, it's a valid theory, just working from a different philosophy. Since there's no evidence that life has formed from scratch more than once, it's not impossible that it was a incredible, once-in-a-thousand-universe chance.

There is a general flaw in your argument, in that we have only had any kind of technology on two objects in space: Our Moon and Mars. Granted, we have had probes pass by other planets, but still, they are still within our solar system, which only constitutes a microscopic fraction of the size of the universe. Now, I would say it is a very selfish argument to say that we have not, on the two extra-terrestrial objects we have been on, found life, that it does not exist anywhere in the Universe. The Universe is vast, spanning billions of lightyears. Can you truly say that The Moon and Mars are an accurate cross-section of the universe, and that if life doesn't exist there, it doesn't exist anywhere? Also, there's no proof that all life evolves as ours has. Though it may sound rather "Star Trekky" of me, I cannot imagine that all life in the Universe is biological in nature. Finally, if I may quote Calvin and Hobbes: "The surest sign that there is other life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." -Calvin and Hobbes.

-Dae

Calvin and Hobbes is already online, it's free, but you're restricted in how far back from "today's" comic you can see. You can become a subscriber and get full access though for 10 bucks per year. This doesn't cover only Calvin and Hobbes, it covers around 1000 other comic strips.

I don't know what happened to him, but Calvin and Hobbes strips are being posted one per day at http://www.calvinandhobbes.com/, but you probably could have figured that out on your own. It's a part of ucomics.com, which also hosts a Doonesbury archive. And it unfortunately has pop-under ads, so don't say I didn't warn you.

Seriously, though. I don't understand the infatuation that some people have with anime. Granted, there are some productions that really are classic (most notably Miyazaki's work; the animation is truly artful), but at some point it becomes just more of the same stuff; sci-fi, sex, and violence. Hmm, I may have just answered my own question there :). Nonetheless, lots of the anime I have seen on and off over the years seem to be quite similar. The characters all have the basically the same "design", i.e. big teary eyes and large breasts in skimpy costumes if they are women and spiked hair wielding big guns/mobile armor/$FAVORITE_WEAPON if they are men. The themes are all pretty similar (overblown comedies with strong sexual overtones or extremely violent science fiction/fantasy). I don't want to sound like I'm flaming, it's just that for me personally it's mildly entertaining at best, while it seems to me there exists out there a rabid diehard fandom. What's the "thing" that makes anime so popular?

As for me, I'll stick with the Tom and Jerry show on Cartoon Network. As Calvin used to say, "Falling anvils and explosions, now THAT'S entertainment!".

First off, let me save a lot of quoting and redundant responses by asking this: Where do you get off assuming that just because the poster you responded to doesn't like User Friendly that they are a Windows bigot? You are demonstrating first-hand the poster's assertions about User Friendly's problem being with it's fans, and you're giving fellow Linux users a bad reputation, especially with that "burn in NT hell" line.

A bit of jealousy perhaps? We never hear about "Suprise, Suprise. With the sale of new distributions Linus is once again bringing his sub-standard kernel to the universe". Why is that? Is it because he makes no money off of Linux and Illiad does? Money != bad.

That's a total non-issue. Comic strip artists like Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance do not have this issue because they handle marketing in a tasteful manner, unlike Illiad's crass "branding" web site. Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes fame once wrote an article in his 10th anniversary special book about how marketing in the manner Illiad is doing devalues and cheapens the art of the strip. Illiad can only hope to be half the comic strip artist that Bill Watterson was.

Audiences can not be commodized, product can.

Ah, but is that really true? Illiad has a fanatically loyal following of techie fans. Illiad is selling the ability for companies like SuSE to target and market to his audience by using his branded characters. In effect, Illiad is selling his audience to interested companies. Of course, this is just dithering about semantics, so I'll leave it at that.

First of all, since when has CARTOONS been considered art? It's COMEDY, by definition it's going to be formulaic, get over it. If you're looking for high-brow technical humor read some April 1st RFCs or something.

My, my. It's a sad commentary when a fan of an artistic media doesn't even recognize it as art. Perhaps your satisfaction with sit-com style formulae has stagnated your appreciation of what truly innovative and creative artwork and comedy should be.

Once again, I refer to Bill Watterson's 10th anniversary Calvin and Hobbes book on issues of the artform of comics. The essay there, which delves into the history of the artform before it became wedged into its current limited panel layout and forced schtick format is very educational.

The rich and gentle satire of politics and day to day living, Pogo, and it's modern day successor, Ozy and Millie, certainly qualify as a some of the best of the 20th century. Who can deny that the Sandman series of graphic novels are art? Certainly not the people who awarded it the Hugo award for Science Fiction and Fantasy. Perhaps you should pick up the latest offering, The Dream Hunters, which features a return of Neil Gaiman's strong evocative writing with Yoshitaka Amano's etherial, otherworldy artwork narrating the tale. Then you may still attempt to deny to the world that comics are art.

Just because User Friendly and many syndicated sellouts like Garfield and Dilbert seem increasingly incapable of producing art and non-formulaic humor as their profits from merchandising increase, don't assume that comics cannot be art. You are only appreciating the most bastardised version of it.

And this would prove what? You might has well have said "The first person that compares Tux to MS Bob gets a sticker"

That makes absolutely no sense. It's obvious you aren't familiar with the character Opus from Bloom Count or you'd be able to see the ways in which the Dust Puppy and he share many, many similar personality traits. The Dust Puppy is at best a tribute to and at worst a rip-off of Opus.

Jezus...what did they do to you to rip your sense of humour out so completely?

Perhaps, he just doesn't think that all comedy by definition should be formulaic as you do. Making fun of something can be funny. Making fun of someone making fun of something rarely is.

The keys to comedy are spontaneity, creativity, timing, and relevance to the audience. In the world of comic strips, #1 and #3 are usually handled in the layout and pacing of when certain lines happen, with the comedic twist almost always happening in the last panel. User Friendly well appreciates its market and has #4 well in hand.

It's #2, creativity, that User Friendly is sometimes seen as lacking in. This is much the same as Odie getting punted off a table by Garfield or Dilbert's boss saying something really stupid. They're running gags that have been run into the ground. Since you think all humor should be formulaic, you probably don't have an appreciation for the importance of this. However, those of us who do see the complete lack of creativity in a spoof of a spoof.

Do some exploring. There are plenty of good web comics that break the formulaic mold. I read about 30 or so of them a day. It shouldn't be hard to find one to match your tastes that is better than UF.

I was reading Calvin and Hobbes, and came across this cartoon. I think it's appropriate to the topic.


--Phil (That's all. i already poured my heart out in the previous articles.)