Here it is.

UPDATE: Karmaburn chooses the 2012 Girl of the Year, and doesn't even consider Marika or Chiaki, let alone Yukikaze.

UPDATE: Here's Aroduc's season preview.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 05:04 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This link provided without comment.

UPDATE: Apropos nothing in particular, the US Constitution was ratified on this day, 225 years ago.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 07:05 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1 Fez's are cool! 

Posted by: Siergen at September 17, 2012 09:30 AM (Bv5ty)

2 You always wondered what would happen when he reached #12, right? Now you know!

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 17, 2012 10:13 AM (+rSRq)

3 Here's a related screencap from Joshiraku (no Framers unfortunately):

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 17, 2012 04:00 PM (RqRa5)

4 What with the flag being behind them, I wonder what they're all looking at so raptly?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 17, 2012 04:41 PM (+rSRq)

5 They are looking at the audience. Joshiraku is an anime about rakugo performers (a bizzaro comedy actually). Often the audience is inside the anime, but some of the comedy routine is directed straight at the 4th wall.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at September 17, 2012 04:52 PM (RqRa5)

6 I don't understand the comic; can someone explain it to me, please?

Posted by: Jaked at September 18, 2012 11:13 PM (jg3Wg)

7 Chthulhu

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 18, 2012 11:53 PM (+rSRq)

8

Anyway, Cthulhu is one of the horrors, the elder gods, the mere contemplation of which is supposed to bring insanity.

It says here. If you've been reading Lovecraft.

Obviously people will make fun of that, and it's become something of a meme. For instance, you can get a Cthulhu plush. Perfect gift for the baby in your life.

And someone did a flash animation called "Cutethulhu" which, if you're going to watch, you should watch all the way to the end.

So the meme is to try to put Cthulhu into any kind of place where he obviously doesn't belong.

By the way, I'm convinced that... spoiler about the web comic "Freefall" Sam Starfall is actually Cthulhu, or at least that he looks just like Cthulhu, if he takes off the suit he's wearing.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 19, 2012 12:07 AM (+rSRq)

9 By the way, you get bonus points for mixing the Cthulhu meme with another meme (e.g. Dr. Who), and even more bonus points for managing a pun. So this one is a three-fer.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at September 19, 2012 12:10 AM (+rSRq)

10 I see now, thank you for the explanation.

Posted by: Jaked at September 19, 2012 04:59 PM (jg3Wg)

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J spots an interesting commonality. I think he's right.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 10:43 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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My general rule is that if one of the blogs I follow goes a full month without posting, then their link falls off my daily visit list and goes into the "dormant" folder, which I go into about once a year.

As I write this, it's been five and a half weeks since Beta-Waffle has posted anything. Problem is, I don't want to put that link into the graveyard. Anyone know what's going on with DiGiKerot? (Did something bad happen to him? If so, is there anything I can do to help?)

UPDATE: Meanwhile, some tremendously good news: Sixten found another job. That means he won't be deported.

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1 His twitter is at twitter.com/digikerot and sees some activity.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 15, 2012 05:25 PM (5OBKC)

2 I rarely visit blogs "personally" - I just subscribe to the RSS feed and let Google Reader handle it from there.

Posted by: gaiaswill at June 15, 2012 05:36 PM (ar9uP)

3 Steven can keep dead blogs in a folder of a feedreader, I'm sure, but the question is about the blogroll rotation. I purge inactive blogs from blogroll too.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 15, 2012 06:07 PM (5OBKC)

4

I don't do RSS.

I don't do Facebook or Twitter, either. I'm an atavism, you damn punk kids. Get off my lawn.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 15, 2012 07:20 PM (+rSRq)

5 Oh, gosh darn it, I only thought it was about two weeks since I posted last. Doesn't time fly and all that...

Basically, I herniated a disk carrying my luggage back from an anime convention about eight weeks ago at this point, and it's still giving me some grief. It's pretty uncomfortable to maintain my usual drawing position for long enough to actually draw something, and otherwise I've just been kind of feeling too frazzled at the end of the work day to finish typing anything up. Throw in a few other diversions (spent most of last weekend in a London cinema - the most recent Ghibli flick was much better than I was expecting, lots of Mikan boxes), and it's just really been a case of trying to find both the time and something to post, as opposed to an intended absence.

I'll totally find the time to post at least something this weekend. Probably not something interesting, but at least something...

Posted by: DiGiKerot at June 15, 2012 09:07 PM (dXIkx)

6 I'm glad you're not dead, and I wasn't trying to nag.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 15, 2012 09:32 PM (+rSRq)

7 My sympathy.  I herniated a disk back in March. It's not a lot of fun.

Also, mikan boxes, yay!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 16, 2012 10:29 AM (PiXy!)

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John Kovalic aces another one.

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This is how they'll look, later.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 02:35 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Another candidate for the top-rotation? 

Posted by: Siergen at June 07, 2012 06:19 PM (PuIGa)

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There are some online comics I occasionally follow, where the art is amazing but the update rate approaches the abysmal.

Dresden Codak has been updating pretty regularly recently.

On the other hand, Outsider hasn't updated since March 5. Sheesh.

I stopped reading Freefall. He's been good about his 3-times-per-week schedule, but since it's a 4-panel comic, the story is moving very, very slowly, and it's reached a point where  potential genocide imminent in just a few story hours, with Sam and Florence trying to prevent it I just can't read it any more. I think I'll wait a few months and then catch up all at once. With luck, by then the crisis will have passed.

(I still think it's going to turn out that without his mask, Sam looks like Cthulhu.)

The most recent strip from Real Life has a reference I don't get. I'm woefully uncool, I guess. "Why doesn't Ted just tell his damned kids how he met their mother?" Who's Ted?

Update rate on Argon Zark is down to about a page per year. Just to show you how stale it is, Bill Gates is one of the villains in the current story line, and Gates retired from Microsoft in 2008.

UPDATE: Speaking of online comics, if you want a laugh (and a considerable helping of schadenfreude) check out this thread on Metafilter, about the Walker recall election in Wisconsin. They're trying to hold out hope that Barrett will come from behind and win it. As I write this, NBC, Fox, and the NYT have all called it for Walker. With 56% of the vote counted, Walker is 15 points ahead. It ain't even slightly close. This is a huge blow-out.

I stopped worrying when I started seeing columns written by left-wing pundits talking about how this didn't really matter, and how a Walker victory might actually be good for Obama. When your opponents start whistling loudly past the graveyard, it's time to invest in graveyard futures.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 06:30 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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1 I picked Outsider on your recommendation. But generally it's like anime: any two tastes have very little overlap.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 05, 2012 06:36 PM (5OBKC)

2 Outsider would be more interesting if he actually worked on it once in a while.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 05, 2012 06:45 PM (+rSRq)

3 I love Dresden Codak, but I tend to only visit a couple of times a year, and catch up all at once.

I really want one of those "I will do science to it!" t-shirts; wonder if he has them back in stock...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 05, 2012 06:48 PM (PiXy!)

4 I've unfortunately become acquainted with Ted.
You see kids, there's this TV show...

Posted by: karrde at June 05, 2012 07:25 PM (k+KSS)

5 Well, Schlock Mercenary is still going strong, 12 years after Howard Taylor started.  It is fairly internally consistent story and technology wise.  

Posted by: BigFire at June 05, 2012 07:36 PM (jSRcl)

6 Biscuit science t-shirt ordered!

Expensive, what with shipping to another planet and all, but well worth it.  For (a) it is awesome, and (b) as the store says: By buying this thing you are not only just getting something cool, you're also helping independent artists stay fed and protected from the elements. Over half of our artists now live indoors.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 06, 2012 06:51 AM (PiXy!)

7

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 06, 2012 08:21 AM (+rSRq)

8 I was worried about Freefall back when Florence was unconscious with her memory impaired, deep in the Ecosystems Unlimited complex.  However, she survived that, and has already demonstrated that the "robot-lobotomizing" program is reversible, so I'm not as worried this time.  Besides, Sam is on the case - what can go wrong! 

Posted by: Siergen at June 06, 2012 03:43 PM (PuIGa)

9 That second one must have happened since I stopped reading, and indeed it is a relief to know about it.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 06, 2012 04:47 PM (+rSRq)

10 I do not recall the second item being true at scale, just that for the two known test subjects, the damage wasn't permanent because their day memory hadn't been made permanent; they could still be reset to a pre-wipe state.. 

-j

Posted by: J Greely at June 06, 2012 05:36 PM (fpXGN)

11 The worst trend I've seen in webcomics lately is withholding the next strip until the donation's jar is filled (Typically somewhere around $20).  This is terribly destructive, since first, if you don't have a regular schedule, that cost's you readers right there, but the second is that not all strips are created equal, and as your storyline winds down to an end, so do the donations.

Hopefully this trend will be self-curing.

Posted by: Mauser at June 06, 2012 10:46 PM (cZPoz)

12 Some webcomics have been pulling in crazy money on Kickstarter for printed copies.  There's OotS'es $1.2 million, of course.  Erfworld was already in print but got $80k for a motion comic (i.e. partly animated).  Almond Quest got $60k, Modest Medusa got $11k for book one and $8k so far for book two, and TwoKinds (which I've never read) is at $177k and still climbing.

Of course, most of those put their stuff out there free for years first, but that's a whole lot of $20 tip jars.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at June 07, 2012 06:56 AM (PiXy!)

13

Awkward Zombie is doing that.

Katie has been doing a great job of posting every Monday, not to mention updating Aikonia every Monday.

Considering she's holding down a full course load in college right now, that's pretty good. (At least I think she is. Maybe she's graduated by now. The years pass by so fast.)

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 07, 2012 10:44 AM (+rSRq)

14 I don't thing I've heard of those Comics, PM.  But $1.2 million is mind-blowing.

Posted by: Mauser at June 07, 2012 11:24 PM (cZPoz)

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Don's got a rather nice picture that someone sent him.

My problem is that I don't really know too much about Sailor Moon so I can't tell whether the transplants are like the originals.

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James has a picture of a Japanese cosplayer and wonders what the story is. I don't recognize the character, myself.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 09:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Sez Rich Cohen.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in linky at 05:15 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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