iTunes on Random

I give my brother in law a hard time for liking ABBA, but I have more than a few songs that I love that people would give me a hard time about (doesn't everyone?). One of those songs is Steal My Sunshine by Len. It reminds me of one of the best summers of my life (1999). It was definitely overplayed and almost everyone I knew got sick of it by that autumn, but for me it seemed to be a reminder that everything was going well. It took nearly ten years (2009) until I got that feeling again & hope I don't have to wait another decade before it comes around again. In any case, I'm glad that iTunes decided to shuffle that one in there for me today. Muchos gracias!

(the song also reminded me of butter tarts - which I love)

Discovered a new cartoonist

When I was growing up my favorite comic was Far Side, followed by Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County/Outland, and Fox Trot (in that order). All of them had the perfect blend of awkward social situations, nerdiness, and (with the exception of Fox Trot) complex questions made digestible by self-aware animals.

Not that I read a ton of comics, but those are still my all-time favorites... and aside from some funny stuff like xkcd and Bob the Angry Flower, I haven't really found anything that could rise to that level. Garfield minus Garfield definitely fits, but aside from the concept (which really is the funny part of the whole series), it is hardly an original piece of work.

A trending topic in Reddit this morning was the question of how many people under 30 knew (and loved) Far Side. That in itself is an interesting question. Comics which pre-dated my childhood, such as Archie and Peanuts, were still around when I was growing up - but those are comics that I still see in reprint today, unlike Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes (which I'm more likely to see resurrected in a powerpoint presentation).

Anyways, discussed in the Reddit thread was one of Gary Larsen's contemporaries & influences - B. Kliban, who was a cartoonist for Playboy and created the Cats cartoon which were on all the Hawaiian Crazy Shirts back in the day. Apparently Kliban invented the 1 panel comic which people like Gary Larsen and Jim Unger (Herman) made famous.

I looked up some of Kliban's shit - pretty impressive. I'm going to stick it in my humor section.