MythTickle by Justin Thompson for March 20, 2009

A mascot for the OTC at Pibgorn….

“Confusion, will be my epitaph”. King Crimson

That’s Lio inside that armor, right?

But the artwork on this one is awesome, especially that first panel

And is that litte reworking of the word ‘assistant’ pehraps a comment on the bleeping of readers’ comments that goes on here all the time?

Cute little anguished flame from Boody.

I wondered about that ass-istant myself. Maybe nannybot doesn’t proofread the artwork.

An army officer who lived upstairs from me 40 years ago said that the chameleons in his quarters in Viet Nam did fine until they got onto the mirror on the wall opposite the window. There was a neon sign outside, and the chameleons would finally get so confused that they’d fall off the wall (mirror.) After a little bit, they’d climb (stagger?) back up the wall.

“nanny-bot”? “bleeping of readers’ comments”? “Old Wolf”? “Mascot?” What does all of this mean? I feel kind of lame that I don’t even understand what’s going on in my own small community here. Are comments really getting bleeped? j

Yes, Justin, if someone types in a curse word of any heft (by which I mean dam with an N at the end or more), it changes to “bleeep”. Very picky filter with odd allowances.

As for the old wolf, you’d have to read Pibgorn. I haven’t seen today’s yet and suspect it’s a reference to that strip in particular.

The Old Wolf is one of the posters ‘round Pibgorn way. Look for his avatar–he goes by another name here.

Justin - what BlueRaven said… or any word that contains a naughty word inside it, even coincidentally. For instance, it won’t permit cir-cum-spect in its normal spelling, but it appears to allow the “s”-word.

Hmmm. I really hate censorship. I didn’t know that kind of stuff was going on. I’m thinking more and more about having my own site.

Guess I’ll have to start reading Pibgorn, I’m not getting any of these references. But thanks, folks.

j

Justin: a small warning that Pibgorn has a lot of comments daily, and it will be a major commitment to keep up. You’ve been warned. OTOH, the denizens there are pretty friendly.

Ha Ha Haaaa! I laughed.

Justin, a new story arc began at Pibgorn 17 March 2009, so this might be a good time to jump in (on the other other hand, the just-concluded arc lasted nearly two years!). Pib fans (myself included), because so often confused at the story’s direction, about which we speculate endlessly, have gathered themselves around an infinitely-expandable Comfy Couch of Confusion (and sundry accessory amenities, such as a hot tub, swimming pool, pool table, endtables for virtual treats, beanbag isolation chair for ill readers [colds, flu, etc.], and others). Recently, our Honorable Master, a.k.a. cartoonist Brooke McEldowney, dubbed us the Order of the Couch, OTC for short. Hope that helps get you started….

@Gweedo: >Thanks for the nanny-bot runaround Justin. I’m not sure about the dead mascot thing for Pib as the Old Wolf might try to eat it.   Hey, hey. First of all, it takes too many of them to make a decent meal… (no offense, Marmoe.) XP   Justin, I’ve been a reader for a long time, but RL limits the number of fora I can participate in. You do nice work…   If you want the “big picture” on Pib, visit the tribute site at http://home.comcast.net/~ccdesan/Pibgorn/Pibgorn.html which has character bios, story arcs and lots more. Brooke just barely started a new arc, so if you want to jump in at this point you won’t be much more confused than the rest of us!

@Justin The ‘boilerplate’ posted by Fearciuil at the beginning of each day’s comments gives access to a site by CCDESAN with an excellent intro to the characters in Pibgorn. Their personalities are at least as developed your characters’ personalities. BEWARE If you decide to join the OTC crowd you will lose several hours of productivity each day. If you go to the archives (highly recommended) you will lose several DAYS of productivity. Brooke is, by far, #1 in my list of top 10 authors of Serialized Graphic Novels (aka comics). You are in the list also. * Please visit, but be warned you will be sacrificing a significant part of your day. ( I’m down to 4 hours of sleep each nite to make time for Pib).

@Roger,bnTotoo - I think you’re confusing the comics.com nannybot and the GoComics nannybot. I’ve seen some problems here, but IMHO the GoComics nannybot isn’t nearly as braindead as the comics.com nannybot. Let’s try some words I’ve seen get bleeped at comics.com, just to see what happens: (I’m going to split this into three parts, in case I wind up tripping some sort of auto-delete filter…)

Part 1 of 3   Hitchcock - That is supposed to be H i t c h c o c k circumstance - That is supposed to be c i r c u m s t a n c e cockapoo - That is supposed to be c o c k a p o o

Part 2 of 3   hardcore - That is supposed to be h a r d c o r e preteen - That is supposed to be p r e t e e n bleeep - That is supposed to be d a r n

Part 3 of 3   bleeep - That is supposed to be d a m n hell - That is supposed to be h e l l

OK, I think you can see that the results are rather odd. d a r n gets bleeped, but not h e l l???

OK. Thanks for the explanations, this really helps me understand some things here. Mainly why there seems to be so much ‘intellectualizing’ when it comes to MythTickle. It’s because you all are just used to it. Sometimes I read the comments and I’m kind of confused why it seems so many people seem to be reading so much into the strips instead of simply enjoying them as they are. It make me wonder if anyone is laughing. And that’s all I’m after really. Oh yes, occasionally I throw in stuff that hopefully gets people to think about things a bit but really, it’s just a fun comic strip. I’ve read Pibgorn many times before, and I think Mr. McEldowney does a wonderful job. I’ve sent him an email and asked him if he’d like to be interviewed on my podcast, ‘Comics To Coast’. Hopefully he will reply and say yes. (Maybe if fans wrote him, hmmm?) I totally get why he has such fabulous fans. But my strip is not like Pibgorn, the approach is very different. And while I completely respect and admire Pibgorn, as a few of you have stated, it’s quite involved and time-consuming and sadly I just don’t have the time to get into it as deeply as that. I’ve got two young kids at home, that’s hard enough. Thanks for clearing some of things up for me. You just keep on overthinking this thing if you want to, that’s OK. Honestly, several times these comments have actually taught me things about a strip that I had not noticed. So cheers to you. Just remember, I’m not trying to make epics, I’m just trying to make you smile. Thanks.

PS: I’m going to start a blog that’s independent of this site very soon. I’ll let you know when it’s ready. We can have more free conversation there. Thanks again. JT

Excellent toons here, Justin. Don’t change what your doing, great job and fantastic art. Pibgorn does get rather intellectual and deep into meta physics and silliness. It becomes a real trip trying to differentiate one from the other. . What did I just say? My brain hurts, I gotta sit down.

First panel - tribute to Dr. Seuss! Lovely.

We do smile, Justin …we just can’t help prattling away about the possibilities your sources, intentions, and talents raise!

Oh don’t worry. I’m not changin’. So here’s some good news, Brooke McEldowney has graciously agreed to do my podcast show! I’ll let you know when it posts on the CC2C site but it should be some time around the end of the month, the 30th or 31st. Please email any questions that you would like me to ask him, OK? Justin@mythtickle.com

Cheers. j

Hope you have a robust mail server, Justin.

My own pattern when reading Mythtickle:

Read it. Generally, laugh out loud.

Read it again. Often, laugh again, but sometimes just feel good.

Go back and read a few more, just because I, a “pro”, can.

Read the comments. If I feel like it, and it fits in with the comments around me, I’ll post a comment. I don’t often feel like intellectualizing, but every once in a while, I just can’t help myself.

The same pattern applies, more or less, to Pibgorn, except that there, there are so many comments, it’s pretty hard to avoid jumping in at times. Especially when somebody says something particularly dumb, or particularly smart.