Tag: John

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.

Mr Sponge Worthy

Back to Starbuck’s Jones’ arc! For those of you just joining by popping in on today’s strip, Holly is the mother of a US Army Solider that’s currently deployed in the Gulf and retconned into collecting Starbucks Jones comic books. Despite coming out in the 1970s, apparently these comics are so rate getting the last 6 key issues is about impossible, or would be, for most collectors. More than a few times collectors that had the issues Holly needed just rolled over and gave it to her for free, or for “a buck” because her son is in the military.

It looks like the favor well has run dry. The last issue she got by winning it on eBay (A 6 day arc, seriously) and now she’s about to trade a piece of original comic art for the chance to buy the uber-rare Starbucks Jones issue.

Original comic art sold at Heritage is serious business, way out of Holly’s league. Would Cory even get $9,000 worth of enjoyment out of it? I’m sure the thing is slabbed in a tomb, never mean to be read. A single crease on the cover from a carelessly turned page could cut the comic’s grade (and value in half).

Me, I just look forward to seeing yet another maniacal comic collector depicted in Westview.

Comical Tragedy

Back to Starbuck’s Jones’ arc in today’s strip! The good news is, there is only two more comics to go, and both appear to be owned by Chester Hagglemore, who apparently needs a moniker despite the fact his last name is a pun.

Holly looks a bit green around the gills at the news, and considering she just took out a second mortgage on the house to pay for the last issue of Starbucks Jones I can’t blame her. She’s probably already wondering what Funky’s spleens would go for, or if her womanly charms could persuade Chester out of these last two issues.

Tactics of Conquest

Link To Today’s Strip

I always thought the term was “poaching” and not “sandbagging,” but what do I know?  I certainly don’t have a Pulitzer nomination on my shelf.  I would also think that someone snatching a last-minute prize wouldn’t “snipe”* it, but now I’m just getting all beady-eyed.

Judging by Harry and John’s wild gesticulation, the Starbuck Jones saga is something they find quite engaging.  And it serves as a good illustration of one of Funky Winkerbean‘s problems:  telling and not showing.  Stories about people in comic books can be very entertaining, since those people are usually doing things or plotting to do things.  Stories about people collecting comic books are not interesting.  At all.  Especially when they consist entirely of “I’m looking for an issue,” “Oh, well, here you are, then” stretched out over a week.   As pointed out some time ago by BillyTheSkink (thanks Billy!), it’s the reverse of Monty Python’s “Cheese Shop” sketch.

What would be funny (in a rather “meta” sense of course) would be if the object of Holly’s quest wasn’t Starbuck Jones but instead something more in keeping with the general tenor of Funky Winkerbean.  To wit:

Holly:  “Good morning, I’m looking for a particular comic for my son, who’s serving in Khahnistan.”

Wensleydale:  “Certainly, ma’am, we’re a comic shop.  What would you like?”

Holly:  “Have you got volume nine of the complete newspaper Spider-Man?”

Wensleydale:  “Ooo–that’s the one where he sits on the couch while his wife works, right?  And the other Marvel heroes keep saving him?  And there’s the special Sunday strip where he almost orders a pizza but stops himself at the last minute?  That’s a fairly rare item, I’m afraid.”

Newspaper Spider-Man and Funky Winkerbean are made for each other.

Speaking of artwork, initially, it looks to me as though the colorist here got Tom Batiuk’s notes in the wrong order.  You’d think the second panel would be the one shrouded in an all-encompassing darkness.    That is how my favorite character, the Pouncing Darkness, rolls in this strip.  On the other hand, we all know Holly’s going to get this issue no matter what, so perhaps Tom’s doing a bit of subtle foreshadowing by having panel two suddenly brighten.

Hey, it could happen.

*Seriously, check out definition 6 on that page.

 

The Men Inside

 

Link To Today’s Strip

Forget those first two panels–that smug smirk at the far right is the real Funky Winkerbean pay-dirt.  Ol’ Harry Lunaire is about to start lecturatin’ the folks all about the ways of them comical-book hunters.

You can see he is of a mind to speak on the matter; it’s too bad he’s not smoking a pipe so he can thoughtfully puff on it a couple of times before waving it to illustrate his points.

Other than that, I’m somewhat surprised to discover that the Komix Korner is large enough to have two windows.  My previous impression is that it was little larger than a shoebox.  A shoebox that holds someone’s bug collection.  And, lastly, there’s the expression on John’s face in panel three.

That is an absolute masterpiece of sheer, unadulterated boredom.   God, are you still here?  And still talking, on and on?  I am so sorry I asked you anything, John thinks.

And, well, that’s about all I can say.  I mean, how long was the last conversation you had with someone who started with, “I just bid on a comic book on eBay”?