Tag: Becky

For Make Glorious Post of 10 June 2014

Because today’s strip wasn’t available at editing time, I’ll go all meta and describe my SOSF workflow. If you don’t care about such geekery, feel free to skip to the comments and snark away! Cheers!

I don’t like editing posts directly in a web browser, because I don’t like rich web editors or plain text fields for writing, and I really don’t like losing a bunch of work due to a silly web error or browser crash. Also, I like working in Markdown.

I made a little template (just a simple markdown file with all the relevant bits of a SOSF post), so when I start a stint as guest-snarker, I copy that into a folder and modify it for the first strip in my series. On each subsequent day, I duplicate the previous day’s file to make a starting point for the new post.

I put the title and tags up in the markdown metadata headers so that I don’t forget them. Because they’re in the metadata, when I export to HTML, they don’t mess up the actual body of the post. Looks like this:

Title: No One Mourns the Comics
Tags: Holly, Chester the Chiseler, Comics

Because
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.nj.com/comics-kingdom/?…

I then separately paste the title, tags, and body into the corresponding fields in WordPress.

I’m on a Mac, and use Byword to edit my markdown and Marked to preview and export it to HTML. Because Byword is also on iOS, I often start a post in Byword on an iPad.

Heres what my Mac screen looks like, with Byword on the left and Marked on the right.
Here’s what my Mac screen looks like, with Byword on the left and Marked on the right.

Half a Hug

“I’m so happy for you! I wish I could hug you with both arms, but as you know I lost my left one as a result of getting in a car with your good-for-nothing drunk ass!” I was puzzled by John’s startled expression in panel 1 until I realized he’s having an unpleasant flashback to his own near-proposal to Becky, which was derailed at the last second when MIA Wally turned up alive (the first time).

Skunk Head’s Little Helper

“Yeah, John really supports me during marching band season.” Bullshit. Unless by “supports me” you mean “complains to our friends about our nonexistent sex life“. When have we ever seen John lift a finger to “support” her, during marching band season or any other time? He can barely support himself: he runs a business that discourages casual shoppers and is not accessible by the disabled, he turned down a chance to acquire valuable inventory, and his store serves as a clubhouse for local misfits.

Espèce d’Idiot

Today’s strip

Funky Winkerbean is a reality-based comic strip that depicts contemporary issues affecting young adults in a thought-provoking and sensitive manner.

What kind of idiot goes into the business of educating teenagers, then changes careers to write a comic strip about teenagers, when he clearly despises teenagers and doesn’t know any teenagers?

Oh, that kind of idiot.

I’ve always liked Owen—no, wait, let me finish!

Owen, as his creator compels him to behave, is a dimwitted, resentful, and callow boy with hardly any redeeming characteristics. He repels me. He’s a lazy student known to plagiarize from Wikipedia and otherwise cheat. He wears a chullo in summer, for crying out loud!

The thing is, I think the poor guy does all that stupid stuff under duress. In the hands of a more capable author than our favorite auteur, Owen and Cody could be interesting.

The Owen I’ve always liked is one that Batominc will never cause to exist.

So we’re left with the bandos getting drenched in the H₂Os on the fields in front of the mommos and daddos who are stupidos sitting on the bleachos. And so it goes.

About the title: In French, you can call someone a species of idiot. It means that not only are you an idiot, you’re your own special kind of idiot.

Update: Here endeth my stint as your guest snarker. It was a hoot, and I hope you enjoyed it (the snarking, not the comic)! TFH takes on Sunday’s bundle of joy, and will announce our next guest then! Cheers! Wait. I mean gloom!