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kottke.org posts about comics

Diary Comics, Nov. 29

It’s time for another Thursday Afternoon With Edith! I’m still sharing these journal comics. Here’s one from the day I started guest-editing here, back in the fall.
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Diary Comics, Nov. 24

It’s Thursday Afternoons With Edith again! I’ll probably stop saying that after today. Here’s another installment of comics from my journal, from back around Thanksgiving. Jury is still out on whether this is a winning Kottke.org feature, but in the meantime I do enjoy sharing them.
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Diary Comics, Nov. 18-23

Welcome to Thursday Afternoons With Edith™! This is when Jason leaves the blog to me while he works on longer-term projects for the site. I’m thinking I’ll share some of my day-in-the-life comics here at these times, unless/until it starts to seem like a bad idea. I shared some back in November when I was guest-editing, and I’m basically picking up where those left off. I still wish I could hide most of them behind a “read more” button, though!

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Nov23

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Turtles (Comic)

From 2022.
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Diary Comics, Nov. 13-15

Final installment of this sampling from my journal! I’m not sure if it was a success, but it was interesting for me. Thank you for humoring!
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Baby Drawings

Some sketches of my daughter Georgia from her first few months. Forgive me! Made between Nov. 2021 and Jan. 2022.
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Diary Comics, Nov. 10-12

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Jogging Stroller (Comic)

From 2022.
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Diary Comics, Nov. 9

(Previously: Oct. 28 & 29, Oct. 30 & 31, Nov. 1 & 2, Nov. 3 & 4, Nov. 5 & 6, Nov. 7 & 8)
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Basement Sign (Comic)

From 2021.
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Diary Comics, Nov. 7

Nov. 8 was pure complaining, so I’m skipping that one. (Previously: Oct. 28 & 29, Oct. 30 & 31, Nov. 1 & 2, Nov. 3 & 4, Nov. 5 & 6)
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Owl (Comic)

From 2022, when my husband had facial hair.
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Diary Comics, Nov. 5 & 6

Keeping on with this series… This one may be too much for one post, apologies! (Previously: Oct. 28 & 29, Oct. 30 & 31, Nov. 1 & 2, Nov. 3 & 4)
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Note: Tooth discoloration turned out to be Goldfish buildup.

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Mermaid Entrepreneur (Comic)

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Diary Comics: Nov. 2, 3, & 4

Some more day-in-the-life comics, with some coloring assists from my daughter.
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Searching for a Wedding Dress Accessory (Comic)

From 2021.
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Diary Comics, Nov. 1 & 2

Continuing on… I feel a little weird sharing these; I realize they may not be especially interesting. But, for now, more days in the life!
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Trying Out ‘The Crown,’ Season One (Comic)

From 2021.
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Diary Comics, Oct. 30 & 31

I’m enjoying sharing some of these more-recent comics on this site. This one basically picks up after yesterday’s left off. Maybe I will try to keep up a string of them until it’s time for me to go.
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Running Pregnant

A comic from 2021.
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The Day Jason Asked Me to Guest-Edit This Site (Comic)

A journal entry from last month. I was hoping it would be more interesting, but I’m just going to keep throwing things up here and seeing what happens.
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Hello! And a Comic About a Bear

Hello, I’m Edith! I love this site, and I’m excited to be here. (Thanks, Jason!) I haven’t blogged like this for more than a decade, so I hope I’m not too rusty. Please feel free to email me any tips; I would be delighted to get them.

As Jason mentioned, since 2019 I’ve been sending a comics newsletter called Drawing Links, although it’s been on hiatus since last fall. However, I’m going to try running some old comics here – see below – in the hopes of working up momentum to bring my newsletter back. We’ll see how it goes!

More about me?? I’m originally from Cambridge, MA, and although I lived for 16 years in Brooklyn, a couple years ago my husband and I moved to a small town in upstate New York, not too far from Albany. We are now expecting our second daughter, due in a few weeks.

Thanks for reading!

…Okay, I was hoping to hide these comics behind a “read more” page-break button, but it seems Jason’s interface doesn’t have that option, so I guess I’ll be really taking over the main page.

And so, to kick this off, here is a little story about the first time I saw a bear (from 2022):

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Typical Urban Planning Opinion Progression

XKCD comic about titled Typical Urban Planning Opinion Progression

From XKCD, the progression of people’s opinions about cars & urban planning, from “I wish there wasn’t so much traffic to get into the city. They should put in more lanes.” to “Anything that makes a city a worse place to drive makes it a better place to live.” As The War on Cars said on Bluesky, “Randall Munroe, welcome to The War on Cars.”

P.S. Re: putting in more lanes, read up on induced demand and road dieting for why that’s often not a great idea.


Chris Ware Does Candide

extremely detailed comic cover of Voltaire's Candide by Chris Ware

This is apparently extremely old news (like almost 20 years old), but I ran across the cover that Chris Ware did for Voltaire’s Candide in the bookstore yesterday and it still slaps.

P.S. The book covers tag is pretty good if you want to get distracted/inspired by fantastic design for 30 minutes.


1968 Howard Johnson’s Kids Menu Featuring 2001: A Space Odyssey

In the 60s and 70s, Howard Johnson’s was the largest restaurant chain in the US — the restaurants and their associated hotels were ubiquitous while travelling America’s roadways. So it made sense that when Stanley Kubrick needed a hospitality brand for the Earthlight Room on the space station circling Earth in 2001: A Space Odyssey, he reached for HoJo’s.

And of course, even in 1968, you had to do some sort of cross-promotion and, bizarrely, what Howard Johnson’s came up with was a 2001-themed children’s menu.

1968 Howard Johnson's Kids Menu Featuring 2001: A Space Odyssey

Even more weirdly, the menu is not about the movie itself, it’s about a family that goes to see the movie. The whole opening sequence with the apes is omitted entirely, as is the HAL 9000 (arguably the film’s main character) — I suspect the HoJo’s people didn’t get to see the entire movie while putting this together (as evidenced by the “preview edition” graphic in the bottom right corner of the menu’s cover).

1968 Howard Johnson's Kids Menu Featuring 2001: A Space Odyssey

It’s cool to see scenes from the movie rendered in comics form:

1968 Howard Johnson's Kids Menu Featuring 2001: A Space Odyssey

1968 Howard Johnson's Kids Menu Featuring 2001: A Space Odyssey

You can see the entire menu here, including the activity page — just click on one of the images to enter slideshow mode. (via meanwhile)

Update: Fun fact: The food on the 2001-themed kids menu would likely have been developed by Jacques Pépin and Pierre Franey, who were the head chefs at Howard Johnson’s. (via @EineKleine)


Contra Chrome

Back in 2008, Google commissioned comic artist Scott McCloud to create a comic book to celebrate/explain the launch of their Chrome web browser. Since then, Chrome has become a vital part of Google’s core business, an advertising juggernaut that works by tracking users and their interests across the entire web. To better reflect the reality that “Google’s browser has become a threat to user privacy and the democratic process itself”, comic artist and activist Leah Elliott has cheekily created an updated comic book in the style of the original. She calls it Contra Chrome.

a page from Leah Elliott's comic about the Chrome web browser

a page from Leah Elliott's comic about the Chrome web browser


Yes, But…

you should wash your hands after using the bathroom, but then you need to pull the door to exit

spring flowers are pretty but they will make you sneeze

the finished cake does not look like the photo from the recipe

you bought your cat a huge play tower, but all she wants to do is sit in a cardboard box

the package says 'Happy Chicken' but it still got butchered

I love this series of simple comics that contrast two opposing views of the same situations. (via @thegreaterbombay)


When Superheroes Graced Marvel’s Annual Financial Reports

front cover of the 1991 Marvel Annual Report featuring several Marvel characters

front cover of the Marvel Quarterly Report for the 3rd quarter of 1991

a pair of interior pages of the 1993 Marvel Annual Report

Starting in 1991 and continuing through 1996, Marvel released their quarterly and annual financial reports to shareholders in the form of comic books. Columbia University librarian Karen Green writes:

Working with editor Glenn Herdling, and using the Marvel Method of story to art to dialogue, Fishman developed the plot, Herdling found some of Marvel’s best artists to pencil, ink, and color, then Fishman wrote the copy (conveying everything the lawyers and SEC demanded), and Herdling put everything together. And so, thirty years ago today, a slim four-page comic debuted, with a cover by legendary artist John Romita Sr. Inside, Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk (sporting, appropriately, an accountant’s green eye shade) discussed net income, publishing revenues, and earnings per share.

The report caused an immediate sensation. No one had seen anything like it. Even more impressive was the subsequent annual report. A 36-page stapled book on glossy paper, it combined information in comics form, introduced by Uatu the Watcher, with updates on licensing, advertising, and more, along with traditional financial tables and text.

If you’re interested, you can score copies of many of these on eBay for under $20.


What Will the Cannabis Industry Look Like In Ten Years?

(Hi, this is Tim Carmody filling in for Jason this week. Hope you all have had a lovely holiday and are ready for more bloggy goodness here at kottke dot org.)

For a variety of reasons, I recently found myself inside a legal marijuana dispensary for the first time. I wasn’t sure exactly what I expected the retail experience to be like — a liquor store? a coffee shop? a used car lot? the paraphrenelia shops I first checked out as a teenager? — but I was nevertheless surprised.

The closest analogy I can think of is a jewelry store. There was pretty decent security, including a whole separate room for customers to check in, and everything was presented in a secure display case. A salesperson walked you through the samples to answer questions, guide you in one direction or another, and take your order, while the order itself was filled in a secure area away from the showroom. The other shopping experience I’ve had that’s similar was buying medical equipment, which makes some sense given the origin of a lot of retail dispensaries in the medical marijuana era. You could also say it’s a little like a pharmacy (which again, is probably unsurprising).

Some of the setup of dispensaries is a function of legal regulations (do you need to check IDs and differentiate between medical and recreational customers?) and some of it solves some practical problems (weed is expensive and there’s still a viable aftermarket, so you are in principle a target for theft).

But it’s also a question of culture: who’s involved in the transaction as a seller and as a buyer, and what are their assumptions and competencies that they’re bringing to the party (so to speak)?

For instance, today Lifehacker (I know, right?) has a short interview with an entrepreneur who runs dispensaries in California, who comes out of the restaurant industry. (It’s titled “How to Break Into the Legal Weed Industry” which is, I think, a very rare kind of service journalism, or more likely, a simple explainer masquerading as service journalism.)

“My entrance into the cannabis industry was several years ago,” said Captor Capital’s Adam Wilks, who operates dispensaries in California, where he reported the business is “smooth sailing” for the most part. “I had worked in the restaurant industry for major brands, including Pinkberry. When I entered, we were just starting to see traction with federal legalization pushes like the SAFE Banking Act and statewide sweeps. I think I entered during the ‘sweet spot’ period where there was still a lot of excitement about an emerging industry and a lot of big money wasn’t quite ready to take risks. Now, everyone is funneling into cannabis.”

Now, a restaurant is a very different industry and has a very different culture than a pharmacy or jeweler or the marijuana sales industry as it’s existed pre-legalization. One might expect a very different retail experience by people with those competencies and expectations. As people from other industries enter the world of cannabis, an amalgamated lingua franca might start to emerge, or you might get very differentiated experiences in different markets.

There’s an Achewood comic titled “Marijuana is not coffee” that’s about five years old now that compares the emerging legal cannabis industry to coffee shops — not just ubiquitous but gentrified, made completely palatable by the American retail industry’s ability to turn anything into a consumer-friendly experience. The characters also imagine a whole cannabis-specific jargon, on the model of coffee talk. Here’s an excerpt:

Achewood - Marijuana is not Coffee Excerpt.png

I don’t know; someone with more than a passing acquaintance with these shops and their alternatives will have to do the full anthropology. But it does seem to me that with the legalization of marijuana, we are in the process of changing more than who is allowed to get high and who is allowed to get paid without being punished.


Who Are You, Charlie Brown?

Who Are You, Charlie Brown? is a forthcoming feature-length documentary about the Peanuts comic strip and its creator, Charles Schulz.

Honoring the “everyman” creator, Charles “Sparky” Schulz, “Who Are You, Charlie Brown?” celebrates the significance and global multi-generational popularity of the comic strip and its timeless artistry and design to profile the man whose simple characters would touch the lives of millions through the decades and become beloved cultural icons. Featuring interviews with Jean Schulz, the widow of Charles Schulz, along with Drew Barrymore, Al Roker, Kevin Smith, Billie Jean King, Paul Feig, Ira Glass, Noah Schnapp, Miya Cech, Keith L. Williams, Chip Kidd, Lynn Johnston, Robb Armstrong and more, the documentary interweaves a new animated story that follows Charlie Brown on a quest to discover himself.

Narrated by Lupita Nyong’o, the film premieres on Apple TV+ on June 25.