davemerrill: (Default)
davemerrill ([personal profile] davemerrill) wrote2010-04-23 12:08 pm
Entry tags:

finally

It's kind of a famous Stupid Comic and I'm sure that everybody was wondering when we were going to get around to it. Well, here ya go, kids. I give you... SKATEMAN.



I don't want to say that it's a solid ironclad rule that artists shouldn't write their own material, but sometimes it's a good idea to run these things past other people before you go through all the hassle of pencilling and inking and printing and distribution. Don't miss exciting hard drivin' roller rockin' SKATING today at STUPID COMICS!!

Been seeing comments here and there across my LJ friends page from people who have noticed things on LJ quieting down now that a lot of people have moved to Facebook or Twitter or whatever. And there are some who think it's a bad thing. Me, I think it's swell. A lot of the urgency and the drama has completely vanished from LJ. I'm not getting hostile anonymous commentary every time I post a political opinion. Things I write about anime conventions aren't being taken as Company Policy any more. LJ is calmer and less paranoid, at least from where I'm sitting.

I have a Facebook, but I don't use it a lot. The experience seems to be centered largely around the kind of meaningless trivia that used to clog up my LJ friends page - quizzes, games, that current high-larious video that fifty people have already embedded and fifty more people will be embedding - and I think it's great that there's a place for that kind of thing, but it's not something I need to check more than once a day, if that much. If I didn't have to keep updating my Facebook security settings every other day it might be a more pleasant experience.

One thing I like about Facebook is that you can block other users whom you don't wish to have FB contact with. That's a feature that LJ should have adopted on day one, would have saved everybody a lot of trouble. Another feature about Facebook I like is that it's blocked from my work, so the amount of time I'm going to waste there is limited.

I never in my life used IRC chat and have turned off the chat functions on both Yahoo and Gmail. I'm not a chat person. But Twitter seems to be filling that void in my life nicely; it's like a chat room for the whole world. It's fun to bounce stuff off people and see where it lands. Also it's limited to 140 characters, no quizzes, clubs, likes, presents, videos, macros, memes; the whole inarticulate cliche-driven doofus culture that has conquered wide swaths of online space is having trouble getting a foothold there.

So now that these other social media networks have taken some of the air out of LJ. Users are forced to face the fact that LJ isn't an attention-getting device or a lifestyle choice or an online replacement for their real life, but a journal - something for you to write your thoughts in. Hard to work up drama about that.

[identity profile] hipsterdad.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 06:20 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, is that what happened to Neal Adams? He turned into Tom Grindberg?

[identity profile] tochiro998.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, don't worry, as we get more smart phones (everyone rushing to re-invent the iPhone even as they mock it and say it's just a fad. cha-ching guys and Steve Jobs says suck it) there will be twitter linkbombing with the overuse of the tinyURL thing. Then it's endless trips to f'ing Youtube. Come on, you know who will do it. :)

I have a MySpace page I don't do a thing with, and I have no desire whatsoever to grab a Facebook page, even tho that's where some folk I know have migrated (and otherwise dropped off the face of the earth).

I really have to sit down and write that essay on how the current communication overload is actually causing LESS communication. Check that, say less MEANINGFUL communication.

[identity profile] sobieniak.livejournal.com 2010-04-23 11:10 pm (UTC)(link)
ENCORE! ENCORE!

[identity profile] cmndr-x.livejournal.com 2010-04-24 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
Oh god, this comic. It has stuck in my memory, if only for the line "What the sh-t do you care, pigmeat?" I mean, that is even more awesomely awkward than the "My foot and your face!" bit.

Funny thing, I saw a copy of this on sale at a comic shop and someone had consulted the Crazy Grandma Pricing Guide for apparently a creased and crinkled looking copy of Skateman complete with a cover that looked like silverfish had nibbled on the edges was worth $10. Of course, the people running this store had up on the wall a copy of the first issue of some "event" comic from one of the Big Two on sale for seventy bucks - and it looked like it had been stomped on a couple of dozen times, maybe run over with a car.