is a blog by Brendan
“It sounds like your girlfriend reads a lot of ‘women’s publications.’ I have worked for women’s publications. We make up those sex tips so that people who read sex tips are terrible at sex, and those of us who read William Gibson novels are astounding at it.”
I know I already freaked out about her two weeks ago, but I need to emphasize that Julieanne Smolinski is completely invited to my birthday party.
My favorite comic strips always go away! I am very sad about Bobwhite ending; it will leave a sore and empty socket in the jawbox of my daily comics list. For years it has been the funniest, smartest, most personal two minutes of my morning, and it was a privilege to read.
Unlike the bad old days, though, now when comic creators stop doing one strip they start another! I don’t know if Magnolia’s new Monster Pulse will ever replace Bobwhite in my heart, but I will pretty much follow her work anywhere at this point. The same goes for Kris Straub, of course, and F Chords has suddenly sprinted up to become my favorite outlet of his, with a distinctly more personal tone that echoes a little of what he used to do in Checkerboard Nightmare. So fucking go there already, I’m tired of telling you dicks.
In no particular order. Some of the following use their streams purely to deliver high-wattage comedy beams straight to your swimsuit area, others are just general life tweeters who happen to be funnier than I will ever be in my wildest dreams even with other people helping and also the audience is on nitrous because they make poor life decisions.
Kelly Deal was in the Breeders but will only admit it if you ask her about it enough times.
Kat is the only one of these people I could meet if I wanted to, specifically by driving a mile up MLK to her club and paying her twenty dollars. I would never do that. Where by “that” I mean “make it past the Mongolian BBQ place with a hot twenty in my pocket.”
Elisabeth really likes Jesse Thorn but look, we all have glaring flaws that will send us straight to Hell someday.
I guess Annie Wu does art that makes Warren Ellis and James Urbaniak clutch their faces and weep with adulation or whatever? Anyway I like it when she makes sitting in her room and drawing sound like an Upton Sinclair book.
Shelby Fero is not her real name, I hope, because she’s fucking seventeen years old for Christ’s sake I’m just gonna go learn how to drink alcohol now.
Okay, this is a true story. There are, by some estimates, 200 million people on Twitter. One day I was talking to my friend Joe and he was like “so have you found anyone cool on Twitter recently?” and I was like “well, I found the funniest person on Twitter, yes.” And he was like “really? The funniest.” And I was like “yup.” And then there was a pause.
And then he said “Boobs Radley?”
And I said “Boobs Radley.”
Anyway Joe and I are getting married now (it’s okay, he’s Canadian).
I have been such a big fan of Kris Straub’s for a long time that, when I fondly reminisced about a joke of his from 2001 today, Stephen told me I was the creepiest person he knew. Anyway, I sort of assume you all know that as soon as Straub produces anything new, I want you to get it. But that is not how the Internet actually works! I have to keep reminding you fuckers!
First, he restarted F Chords! Like, five-days-a-week restarted it! While preparing to get married! I think he wants to kill himself with work, but I like it better in its new incarnation already.
Second, I read through my copy of Starslip 4 last night, and wow, it works way better on the page than on the screen. I’d forgotten how big a leap he took art-wise when he rebooted the strip, and almost perversely, the vector sharpness really looks excellent in ink. Being able to read through big chunks of the story sequentially makes it easier to get involved, too. Buy it!
In the grand tradition of Dada Everything, and appropriately via Adam Parrish, comes Josh Millard’s Previously, on the X-Files… It’s fun! In a few minutes of hitting refresh to perform my valuable human function of sorting random nonsense from random inspiration, I was able to generate some pretty great stuff, like Dana Lebowski, Scully’s Terrible Realization and Scully/Langly: Dance Remix. But the best part about it is that the transcripts from which it draws seem to include a great many standalone ellipses, which work beautifully in the context of textual noise. Besides creating these amazing awkward moments, you also get tense standoffs and very confused Mulders and this spectacular failure to communicate.
Someone make one of these for Next Generation now please yes.
For your convenience and edification, I present herein the Brendan Adkins Lunchtime Heuristic Decision Chart. It has served me well for years, and I can confidently recommend its immediate adoption.
| Rachel: | HOW CAN YOU DENY BLOG COMMENTS when I must tell you Lev Grossman‘s book teaches children that being an amoral shit = magic? |
| Rachel: | I mean I know I disallow blog comments but DO WANT I WANT, NOT WHAT I DO |
| Brendan: | You give me warm feelings right in the confirmation bias. Blog comments are one of the few things worse than Lev Grossman. |
| Rachel: | Oh come now, I think we can all agree that Dick Cheney’s career is marginally worse than Lev Grossman! |
| Brendan: | That’s still only two things. |
How the HELL did it take me this long to find out about Hyperbole and a Half? Allie Brosh is the best humor columnist alive and she’s been doing it for years and nobody ever told me! (Until Leigh tweeted about it. Thanks, Leigh!) I cannot get through one of her posts without doing the weird crying soundless death-rattle laugh thing that always bothers my roommates, and lately “go to the motherfucking BANK like an ADULT” has been my private mantra when I’m trying to make myself do difficult things.
Super powers and Tits Akimbo! Oh, I do like seeing my microfiction RSS feeds wake in the foggy dawn and cast about, noses into the rising wind, mad and bright as raptors.
