I used to make comics. I know that because strangers would look at my work and immediately share their most excruciatingly banal experiences with me:

— that time a motorised wheelchair cut in front of them in the line at the supermarket;
— when the dentist pulled the wrong tooth and they tried to get a discount;
— eating off an apple and finding half a worm in it;

every anecdote rounded of with a triumphant “You should make a comic about that!”

Then I would take my 300 pages graphic novel out of their hands, both of us knowing full well they weren’t going to buy it, and I’d smile politely, “Yeah, sure. Someday.”

“Don’t try to cheat me out of my royalties when you publish it,” they would guffaw and walk away to grant comics creator status onto their next victim.

Nowadays I make work that feels even more truly like comics to me than that almost twenty years old graphic novel. Collage-y, abstract stuff that breaks all the rules just begging to be broken. Linear narrative is ashes settling in my trails, montage stretched thin and warping in new, interesting directions.

I teach comics techniques at a university level based in my current work. I even make an infrequent podcast talking to other avantgarde artists about their work in the same field.

Still, sometimes at night my subconscious whispers the truth in my ear: Nobody ever insists I turn their inane bullshit nonevents into comics these days, and while I am a happier, more balanced person as a result of that, I guess that means I don’t make comics any longer after all.

  • 0 Posts
  • 26 Comments
Joined 29 days ago
Cake day: November 23rd, 2024
  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoLinux@programming.dev•I Don't See a Reason to Switch to Windows from Linux Anymore in 2025
    0·
    24 hours ago

    Technologies like Electron make it easier for app availability: Controversial opinion but True

    I do agree, but currently Electron is great for apps the way Flash was considered great for the web. It solves one problem, but creates a bunch more.

    In itself, Electron is pretty bloated*, but I don’t dare check how many versions I have installed because different apps have stuck with older ones. I’d really like to see a less resource consuming, backward compatible alternative to Electron.

    * From my thrifty perspective of keeping older hardware alive with Linux, that is. On your high grade, best-of-class gaming rig, mileage will definitely vary.

  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoLinux@programming.dev•I Don't See a Reason to Switch to Windows from Linux Anymore in 2025
    0·
    1 day ago

    Like most articles on itsfoss, this one is only a notch over clickbait — a kernel of an idea not fully developed, written with the last minute energy of a student who pushed off the assignment until right before deadline — but I’ll be damned if that title isn’t beautifully turned.

    I haven’t had to have Windows installed for more than a decade, but on recent occasion I’ve borrowed Windows and Mac computers for work. Those revisits didn’t give me reason to switch back, only to long for my lean Arch install.

    As the next major version of Windows approaches like a Santa down the chimney with all sorts of “AI”-infested gadgets in his sack, I do hope more will make the more often mentioned switch to a Linux distro from the advertising platform OS that came with their computer.

    But this headline deliciously reminds us that there is already a good chunk of users who made the jump, or are sitting on the dual booting fence, one boot (sorry!) on either side. This article is for them, yes, but also a gentle nudge for those still gathering courage.

    At this stage, it is time to seriously change the perspective of that switch. The single reason for switching from Windows to Linux is … the utter state of Windows. Only the most blinkered of tech journos can continue to pretend that all is well on Windows, and not at all a sophisticated malware infection.

    So bravo itsfoss for the clever barb, less so for the depth of the article itself.

  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoFediverse@lemmy.world•how do I microblog?
    6·
    3 days ago

    There are different ways of approaching microblogs — reading, writing and interacting. You have @s and hashtags in mind already, they’re a good way of finding conversations and engaging with people.

    You’ll find users who write interesting stuff about your favourite subjects — you’d want to follow those to get all their updates. That includes boosts/reposts, i.e. posts by others that those you follow share to spread a message. That will also help you find more interesting people and organisations.

    Now, interaction. I have come recently to Lemmy from Mastodon instances, and I see quite a bit of difference in the etiquette and forms of socialising. Two generalisations that I can think of:

    1. Mastodon and other fedi microblogs were built by users who were fed up by Twitter’s lax moderation of harassment, so they built in safeguards against that; Lemmy was made in reaction to the commodification and heavy handed enshittification of Reddit, but largely expect the same conversations here. They are not the same mentality.

    2. On Lemmy, you post a question or thought in a dedicated community to get answers or start a discussion. Each community has its own room where the discussion is centred around one subject. On the microblog side, you might imagine one big, sprawling social club where people mingle and form smaller groups to talk about one thing, then disperse and join other conversations. And sometimes they just talk about their pets or hobbies to nobody in particular.

    Sorry, I’m writing this over morning coffee and I know I’m only covering broad fragments of the microblog experience as it differs from using a forum. I hope it helps though.

  • haverholm@kbin.earthtoFediverse@lemmy.world•As a reminder, ClubsAll is still showing all of Lemmy's content without federating back
    4·
    5 days ago

    Look, at a glance it looks to me like you’re populating a monetised platform with content off the fediverse without attribution. That’s strike one.

    Then you seem to stall for time to implement federation while admitting your developer quit… and continuing the above content scraping. Strike two.

    And from what I read in this thread it appears you’re actively dodging defederation by using subdomains to keep scraping content. Strike three.

    My concern in this is the integrity of the fediverse and its users. Yours, apparently, is “saving” a platform that leeches content off federated platforms to make a buck off those users. I don’t see much chance of agreement on “what is fair”.

    @[email protected], I stand by that request to defederate.