I'm really uncomfortable with the way Truck is breaking the fourth wall here. 'Are you this guy's father? You, the reader? Well, if I remember my Roland Barthes then, yes, indeed, you could be described as a metaphorical parent to both of us...’
Rex Morgan, M.D., 4/29/06
If contemporary newspaper comics has offered a more unsettling image than panel three here — Rex with his eyes closed, about to slurp down a melting yet still nearly perfectly spherical blob of ice cream — I don’t wanna know about it. This level of disburingtude probably won’t be surpassed until FBOFW’s Liz decides to follow her incomprehensible heart’s desire and goes all slobbery on Anthony’s mustache.
For Better Or For Worse, 4/28/06
One think I respect about this particular installment of FBOFW is its determined adherence to its original vision. Consider: Clearly John’s statement in panel one is meant to be “she goes like a bat out of hell,” and, just as clearly, you can’t say “bat out of hell” in a family paper. But did they give in to The Man? Did they replace that mildly profane phrase with a completely new phrase that worked in context and made sense in and of itself? They did not. “Goes like a bat” it was, which implies that John’s sweet new ride navigates by sonar, eats insects and fruit, and dangles headlights-first from the garage rafters at night. That’s dedication!
Also, John’s emotional adultery with his cars: creepy. Also also, Gordon’s transformation into a doppelgänger of the soon-to-be-indicted Karl Rove: creepier.
For all of you who participate in the forums: I’m changing the permissions so that you will only be able to read messages if you are a registered user. Apologies in advance if this is an incovenience, but I am having some mysetrious server issues that I hope this will fix. Feel free to write me if this puzzles you. Registering as a forum user is still of course free.
Update: Sorry for any confusion: when I talking about the forum, I’m talking about the Comics Curmudgeon community forum, not the comments you can add to individual blog posts of mine. You don’t need to register to put comments on the main part of the site; you do have to register now to view the forum site.
Update 2: I’ve also updated my install of WordPress (the software that runs the blog part of this operation) from 1.5 to 2.0.2. This appears to have gone remarkably smoothly (much more so than the last big upgrade), but if anyone out there notices problems with the blog, please let me know. I’ve also installed a new, much more powerful comment-spam removal package, called Spam Karma, which for the most part allows me to dispense with the “see it before you say it” screen. If your post is suspected of being spam, you may be asked to prove that you’re a real person by entering a “catchpa” code — basically, you’ll be shown a series of numbers and letters and asked to enter them into a box. This shouldn’t happen too often, as Spam Karma learns over time, and it will figure out that you’re not a spambot in short order.
If you’re curious about the motivation for this flurry of late-night activity (warning: technical geekery aheady), my ISP just told me that either my blog or my forum software was apparently eating up a lot of PHP resources on the server. I took some steps to reduce the amount of work PHP had to do — that’s where the more effective spam-killing comes in, and the restriction of the forums site to registered users (since every time a non-registered user looked at the forums, PHP had to work to render everything). As a precaution, I also updated PHPBB and WordPress to the most recent and secure versions. I’m not sure if this actually has solved the problem. If anyone is experienced on why WordPress and/or PHPBB might suddenly be forking a lot of PHP processes, I’d love to hear it.
Update 3: OK, I’ve re-added the ability to “See It Before You Say It” because some people liked it. It’s no longer mandatory, however.