Author: TFHackett

My Snark Will Go On

Not to sound too dire, because I don’t know how this will turn out…

This week King Features Syndicate finally wised up, and went to some kind of dynamic coding scheme that generates a crazy, non-human-decipherable link to the FW strips; replacing the old format in which a human could easily edit the date string to view past, present, and next weeks’ strips.

The old format allowed me to preview each week’s story arc, and write and schedule each days’ posts in advance, scheduling them to go live each day (ok, the night before each day; maybe that was asking for trouble).

I don’t think this affects the availability of  FW strips already on the web. However, it’s likely that the daily strips will now “go live” only at midnight or even later every day. I’m going to have to post “on the fly”, and that’s not going to be easy, what with having to be at my real job every morning.

In order that the snark may still have a home, I will continue to schedule a “placeholder” post each day. You all collectively create the bulk of the content here anyway (as well as the funniest). I’ll add my own daily observations as time permits. On the bright side, my newspaper carrier delivers my Sunday funnies with my Saturday Bergen Record, so even though I won’t be able to link to the strip, I can lay eyes on it first.

So this kinda sucks, but SoSF is still my favorite place on the web, and hopefully one of your favorites as well.

Thanks as always, and stay Funky!

TFH

Tumblin' Dicey

Even as he pays lip service to Cayla’s “amazing” wedding scheme, Les searches for any excuse to get out of having it at his house (or perhaps having it at all?). October in Ohio can indeed spell “dicey” weather for such an event. Of course, Cayla’s had plenty of time to think this through while her betrothed was off on his mountain trek.

Cayla’s perpetually changing, often franky weird appearance (and the snark it has inspired from you guys) sent me off on a little tangent regarding persons of color in the funnies. Does anyone remember a relatively short-lived strip called Dateline: Danger? It ran from 1968 till 1974, and was about the adventures of two daring reporters, one white and one black: it was one of the first newspaper comics to feature a black leading character. The artist was Alden McWilliams, who got his start illustrating pulp mags before moving into newspaper funnies.

I remember as a kid being intrigued by the dramatic, theatrical shading McWilliams (a white male) used when drawing Danny Raven (ha) and other darkly complected characters. Never relying on halftone dots, McWilliams used solid tones and actual African facial characteristics to convincingly portray his black characters. Just shows it can be done, TB.