|
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
@pnh.bsky.social
[ View ] |
“Fascism sucks up power left unattended” deserves to be carved over the entrances to grand public buildings
11 replies 455 reposts 1227 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam@mwosam.bsky.social |
196 followers 61 following 229 posts
My site is at www.superdoomedplanet.com .
|
|
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
@pnh.bsky.social
[ View ] |
“Fascism sucks up power left unattended” deserves to be carved over the entrances to grand public buildings
11 replies 455 reposts 1227 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes
|
That's Nelson Eggs
@nelsoneggs.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I would suggest my own comic, but we already follow each other so you're aware. Even in my longer ongoing narratives, I try (and certainly don't always succeed) to make individual pages work on their own.
0 replies 1 reposts 1 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The ones I’m currently keeping up with are Evan Dahm’s Third Voice (the one epic narrative I’m into) and anything John Allison posts. Most current webcomics I come across are long, relatively straightfaced narratives and I’m more interested in stuff with classic newspaper strip influences.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Reposting this one because I'm genuinely curious whether anyone has suggestions. Really feels like I'm not up on what's going on these days.
2 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Webcomics are where my hyperfocus has been lately but I haven’t read many recent ones; I like surrealist humor and with some exceptions I’m not into the straight-faced epic continuities that seem to be in style. Wondering where today’s web Klibans, Segars, and Herrimans are.
0 replies 1 reposts 0 likes
|
Anya Taylor-Ham
@griph.bsky.social
[ View ] |
stumbled onto this lynda Barry comic again which always makes me a little verklempt
9 replies 480 reposts 1827 likes
|
Kaitlin Has Had Enough
@gothamgirlblue.com
[ View ] |
Not to be rude to Michael whom I respect very much, but in 2012 Hillary Clinton was the most popular politician in the country and had a viral meme. In 2020, numerous people said that Biden was so great he should have run in 2016. The weaknesses of these candidates pale to the weakness in us.
13 replies 34 reposts 262 likes
|
Shannon Mattern
@shannonmattern.bsky.social
[ View ] |
One thing I don’t understand is why, when people are outraged by some injustice or affront — like book bans — they don’t first look to see who is already tracking the issue, who’s already working on education + organization. “We need to do something!” People *are*. Find them. Help them.
3 replies 108 reposts 303 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
|
Typebar Magazine
@typebarmagazine.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Interpreting the Abyss: An Ode to Christopher Manson’s MAZE by Angus Stewart
www.typebarmagazine.com/2024/05/29/i...
1 replies 5 reposts 4 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
|
gamera obscura
@ohrobin.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I can’t think of a clever caption for this. It just breaks my fucking heart.
307 replies 641 reposts 2500 likes
|
Jesse Farrell
@jfsculpts.bsky.social
[ View ] |
This is about film, not prose, but I think it was Howard Hawkes who described a movie is a series of hooks over plot, and if you have 6-7 memorable hooks, you've got a story. I think about this a lot.
1 replies 3 reposts 9 likes
|
evan dahm
@evandahm.bsky.social
[ View ] |
new lettercol bit up, addressing the "i'm worried that i do not understand the Lore" concern i have seen several times on webtoon rice-boy.com
2 replies 4 reposts 30 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
It's pretty easy for (for instance) a book to metaphorically describe something amazing in a different kind of medium. But that was an example of a visual medium metaphorically depicting an amazing fictional *visual* work, which is a nice trick to pull off.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
One best examples I've seen of getting around the problem described in that last repost is from a movie called I've Heard the Mermaids Singing. It partly involves some really amazing paintings. When seen onscreen they're just glowing white canvases—a visual metaphor for their effect on the viewer.
1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
|
Sunny Moraine
@dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Honestly the thing that made this writing trap click for me many years ago was the Slacktivist takedown of LEFT BEHIND where the Antichrist is described as having this overwhelming charisma, being a great orator, and then his speech before the UN is… listing all the countries in alphabetical order
7 replies 12 reposts 51 likes
|
Zach
@megapolisomancy.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Never agreed with anyone more than with Robert Aickman when he said weird fiction “must open a door, preferably where no one had previously noticed a door to exist; and at the end, leave it open, or, possibly, ajar.” Happy birthday to him.
2 replies 21 reposts 69 likes
|
Matthew Claxton
@matthewclaxton.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Thinking a little about how in space opera and epic fantasy, some books really make you feel the scope of the setting, and some falter, and the world seems small. Not sure why, but sometimes it's a function of using a very fast plot with sparsely-peopled settings.
1 replies 2 reposts 9 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I'm basically at the point in this comic narrative where the pages make no sense out of context, but I'm not sure whether I should keep posting them or stop until I have a one-off.
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes
|
Thomas Zimmer
@thomaszimmer.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The one constant in my conversations about “Project 2025” is that almost everyone is taken aback by what’s in these plans, even people who really pay attention to politics - if not by how radical it is, then by how far-reaching, detailed, and aggressively explicit it is.
11 replies 107 reposts 344 likes
|
Seth Cotlar
@sethcotlar.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The GOP is quickly becoming a party defined by issues on which 70% of the population disagrees with them. Dobbs and gun regulation has exposed this, and now same goes for GOPs increasing embrace of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and policies. And yet this race is 50/50. Gift link. wapo.st/3VvKTju
14 replies 106 reposts 317 likes
|
b-boy bouiebaisse
@jbouie.bsky.social
[ View ] |
like, why is anyone treating this like a serious proposal? the trump department of labor wanted to make it easier for employers to steal tips for christssake! he has an actual record!
38 replies 212 reposts 1143 likes
|
|
b-boy bouiebaisse
@jbouie.bsky.social
[ View ] |
relatedly, i am going to lose my mind at how 90 percent of trump coverage treats him as if he wasn't president for four years
24 replies 334 reposts 1589 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
#makeaterriblecomicday2024
Lunch break comic:
0 replies 1 reposts 14 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
My ability to concentrate on reading has also been worse—I must be skipping between about a dozen different books at this point.
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I've been fairly productive with comics lately, but along with that I've had an even harder than usual time writing for the blog. What I really want is to be able to do both at the same time.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
|
Peter
@pboothe.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Something deep is going on with this. We’ve made improvements in algorithms to the point where it is literally better to run new algorithms on 20-year-old hardware than it is to run old algorithms on modern hardware. Yet somehow everything keeps accreting slowness and RAM waste every year.
2 replies 15 reposts 53 likes
|
Greg Pak
@gregpak.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I honestly think this is part of the same movement as generative "A.I." Replace human artists with generic bullshit machines stripped of human agency and opinion in service of authoritarianism.
www.nytimes.com/2024/06/21/a...
14 replies 67 reposts 206 likes
|
CHOAM Nomsky 💭
@thielman.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Otto Messmer’s Felix the Cat is a pretty standard Sunday comic until a long Little Nemo-style dream sequence where Felix visits the land of playing cards, during the composition of which it seems to occur to Messmer that he can just… do whatever he wants. After that the strip is never normal again.
3 replies 9 reposts 38 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Every new Doctor Who is a different kind of character who can fit into the “Doctor” role, but new Masters are always just Roger Delgado or mid-80s Anthony Ainley turned up to 11. What the character needs is a new core concept and new motivation every time the actor changes.
0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
The thing about the Master is that Doctor Who writers mostly don’t seem to think about why the character ought to exist; Missy was the first time since “Keeper of Traken” that bringing the Master back was a good idea, because she was the first actually new take on the character.
1 replies 0 reposts 3 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say there’s a mysterious character on Doctor Who they still haven‘t revealed anything about. I’m starting to get the sinking feeling that instead of anything actually interesting they’ll just turn out to be the Master again.
1 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
|
Jake Casella Brookins
@casella.bsky.social
[ View ] |
But there does seem to be some kind of entrenching of the genre, on the fannish side anyway, as fundamentally opposed to stylishness, moral or philosophical rigor.
2 replies 1 reposts 4 likes
|
|
Jake Casella Brookins
@casella.bsky.social
[ View ] |
There is something worth thinking about in genre as "basically" non-serious: a playful, less critical space that allows ideas/artists to develop in ways they couldn't in fully "serious" modes.
1 replies 1 reposts 6 likes
|
Anya Johanna DeNiro
@adeniro.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I think people in the genre might be surprised about how few literary fiction novels are about ‘middle aged professors having affairs.’ Regardless of legitimate snobbery or reverse snobbery, this trope (and genre people do like their tropes!) is so fucking tiring.
7 replies 15 reposts 66 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Adding to this, even as an SFF reader there have been a lot of books I'd have enjoyed far more if I'd gone in with the expectation "this is a fun light read, on the level of a good Star Trek tie-in" rather than "lots of people are saying this is one of the best books they read this year."
0 replies 6 reposts 24 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
It doesn't help that SFF fans keep doing this two-step where on the one hand they insist that SFF is real literature, but when someone criticizes a popular but underachieving book they insist that SFF doesn't have to be literary and can't books just be fun?
4 replies 3 reposts 18 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Like, if someone wants to know what SFF can do, checks out an awards shortlist, and winds up reading a middling Murderbot book or whatever half-assed thing John Scalzi has tossed off lately, I will not blame them for asking "Is this it?"
1 replies 4 reposts 18 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Lot of literary vs. SFF discussion, and my probably unpopular opinion is that if litfic disdains SFF it's largely something SFF has brought upon itself. SFF fandom habitually gives ecstatic praise and award nominations to books that are fun but don't have anything going on under the surface.
4 replies 6 reposts 30 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
0 replies 2 reposts 5 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
I may have said this before but the political book I wish more people would read is Michael Lewis' The Fifth Risk. I feel like people aren't aware of how much boring and arcane stuff government does that is nevertheless vital to keeping our society safe and functional.
0 replies 1 reposts 3 likes
|
Kevin M. Kruse
@kevinmkruse.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Some reduce the 2024 campaign to a contest between two old men, but it's a choice of two slates of federal appointees who'll impact your life in a million ways. Biden has staffed executive agencies with excellent choices who are doing good work. Trump will empower an army of Stephen Millers.
54 replies 962 reposts 2283 likes
|
Dave Karpf
@davekarpf.bsky.social
[ View ] |
This should be front-and-center in every “hey why are so many VCs backing Trump this time” article. Joe Biden has spent 3.5 years rebuilding administrative capacity. We now have regulators actually saying “hey knock it off that’s illegal.” The VCs would much prefer autocracy to accountability.
23 replies 651 reposts 1595 likes
|
John Leavitt
@leavittalone.bsky.social
[ View ] |
There’s a roughly 40 year cycle in mass government funding in research and technology before you get consumer applications and guess what we stopped doing almost exactly 40 years ago
14 replies 175 reposts 490 likes
|
Iron Spike
@ironspike.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Groups who regard politics as an elaborate dog-n-pony show with no ability to affect their lives in a noticeable way are, in some ways, worse than the smooth-brain single-issue ideologues.
5 replies 19 reposts 203 likes
|
|
Wesley Osam
@mwosam.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Every time Russell T. Davies brings back a classic era Doctor Who villain as the season’s boss fight we get a little bit closer to the triumphant return of the Krotons.
1 replies 0 reposts 6 likes
|
Andrew Hickey
@andrewhickey.bsky.social
[ View ] |
Treating those creative individuals as replacable cogs in a machine that produces Extruded Content, and only caring about the label that is slapped on that Content, seems fundamentally antihuman to me.
1 replies 1 reposts 15 likes