It started out as an apology of sorts…

So, as you may know if you are someone who follows this blog, this last week has been a little rugby-enduced fighty on the Facebook.

i had two people in particular who pointed out to me the problem [me] which seemed to somehow be linked to my having too much opinion on too many things on Facebook:

I’m troubled by the fact that you have an opinion about everyone and everything

Brett, you do seem to have a lot to say on Facebook.

So i was in two minds about what to post here. Part of me wanted to write something about why it’s okay that i have a lot of opinions about lots of things and a response of “You have an unfollow button at your disposal” [what they call a win-win] to those people…

Meanwhile i also had the idea of sending out a call to more people to have opinions on matters of importance [race, reconciliation, poverty…] so i wouldn’t have to have as many…

But then i kind of got distracted by a search for this Far Side cartoon strip which would have been far more appropriate for my train of thinking if it said “Stupid People” rather than “Jerks”

Because they really do abound on the internetwebs, and i do so often feel like i am also forced to respond in some way, almost as a means of civic duty to the world.

And then i stumbled upon this one which is ABSOLUTELY true to life for me that if such a society did in fact exist, that would by all means be one of the first questions asked:

And so i ended up not writing on any of those topics at all, but rather searching the house for a really large cardboard box:

Mark Twain might have been on the right track…

And as i looked back on the two comments from the people who decided i was too Facebook opinionated, i was pleasantly surprised to see that one of them [who i have since made peace with] wrote this absolutely amazing thing which i didn’t notice the first time around:

I think you could also be bit less ‘rude’

Which of course only made me think of this, my favourite Friends clip ever… i hope you “like” it.

Inject a little fun

i love being serious.

i love engaging with difficult topics and even difficult people sometimes in the hope that we can find some mutual understanding and maybe even each learn something from each other.

but sometimes, i also think we need to CALM THE FLIP DOWN PEOPLE and just be able to take a moment to sigh or smile or eye-roll or laugh or even write LOL even though we didn’t actually LOL but just kind semi-chuckled half out loud.

and so in the interests of that:

And…

And nothing like some Gary Larsen ‘The Far Side’ to bring some truth in jest:

[For some more fun stuff from my blog, click over here]

What is your favourite cartoon strip?

Well it’s like a joke or favourite movie really, right? How do you possibly pick just one?

i feel like i have so many that i really dig and so would maybe have to break it down into themes…

My all-time favourite Gary Larsen [of ‘The Far Side’ fame] is definitely this one with the unfortunate spider incident:

As you know by now, i’m a HUGE fan of Pearls before Swine by Stephan Pastis and have a whole gallery of his strips that i enjoy over here and it would be hard to have a favourite Pearls tha doesn’t include the Crocs, my favourite characters:

But, to be honest, among all the great ones there are, this is the one that jumps out at me when i think of a favourite Pearls:

Then there is a cartoon strip called Buttersafe that bounces between amazingly funny and completely random but it really does do misdirection well, which is one of my favourite forms of humour:

Garfield is a lot of really hit or miss but when it hits it is great and when it features this particular topic, then even better:

 

And then of course there is Calvin and Hobbes which was just pure greatness but my favourites tended to be his snow-related ones:

And so many more, because let’s face it, there have been some great comic strips…

But i want to know what your favourite is… currently my favourite strip is Pearls before Swine. Do you have a best ever? Or a current fave?

Stick an example or add a link in the comments section and let’s share the cartoon strip love…

Pastis before Swine…

so yesterday i got to meet Stephan Pastis, creator and draw’er [i guess] of the greatest cartoon strip alive, Pearls Before Swine… [more importantly, he got to ‘meet’ No_bob, the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin]

The Far Side, on it’s good days [and when it was good it was great, and it was usually good] is definitely up there.

so is Dilbert [Scott Adams who draws Dilbert got me started on Pearls Before Swine and i never looked back, don’t tell him, sh! no seriously cos i used to buy a bunch of Dilbert annuals and now i exclusively buy all of the Pearls books] and Garfield… but with less good days less often… and then Calvin and Hobbes was also definitely up there.

but for some reason, i have come to settle on Pearls. for the moment anyways [or the last ten or so]. i love the characters he comes up with [from innocent stupid Pig to cynical mean and despotic Rat to the ‘outrageously stoopid’ crocs and the exasperated ‘zeebas’ they are constantly trying to eat to the many lesser known or occasional characters such as guard duck Duck [usually seen holding a bazooka] and Andy the god with big plans for his life that are constantly thwarted by the post he is chained up to in his yard, and to the ridiculously silly such as Pastis himself reminded us, Pig’s ‘sea anenome enemy’.

i love the humour – cynical, witty, overly and obviously corny ad punderful on occasion [oh Pastis works for those puns] – the fact that he is the only cartoonist who features himself regularly in his own cartoons and usually about to be ‘taken out’ by Rat for another dreadful pun – the way he is able to laugh at himself, with himself, at us and with others and sometimes all at once.

yes, there is an occasional miss, but even like episodes of Friends, the bad ones are better than most of the good ones of most other stuff. [‘Friends’ is now ‘Parks and Rec’]

i dunno. it’s really hard to say why and do it any justice, i think there is a element of loyalty as i was one of the ones who ‘discovered’ him early on via Scott Adams blogging about him and i am so glad i did – has brought me much fun – and feels like i’ve been on this journey with him from close to the beginning.

[he still hasn’t agreed to create a stuffed dolphin character called ‘No_bob’ who doesn’t in his strip yet, but i think he’s just playing with me… and that the more people who emailed pearlscomic@gmail.com and suggested he do so, the sooner it would likely take place!]

anyways, i was perusing Twitter and saw that Stephan was going to be doing a book signing about an hour away and told tbV and she said we should go and so we headed out. i was expecting it to be a little awkward and stalkery i guess but he gave a brilliant and funny presentation and then he sat and working his way through 100 plus people in a line [i was 46!] posing for photos, drawing a character in each book and engaging in a little bit of small talk with each person. i was really impressed [and i think tbV was too cos she came home and grabbed an old annual and started reading!]. it doesn’t take a lot of effort to not be a jerk and Mr Pastis didn’t do so admirably.

Catch the daily strip here…