Thread "Happy 2023! General Discussion Thread" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 9:01AM, Jan. 19, 2023

J_Scarbrough wrote:
FANTASY ISLAND seemed to be the dumping grounds for certain TV actors whose once-successful careers were no more. THE LOVE BOAT to a lesser extent. I mean, just about all of the guest stars on those shows were actors who were no longer in their prime, but, once upon a time, were the among the lead castmembers of popular shows that had since ended their runs.

Lead cast members? Some were stars from Hollywood of the 1930-50s. Olivia DeHaviland, Gene Kelly, Van Johnson all sailed on the Love Boat. Reason why my mother never missed it. Me, I would watch the Million Dollar Movie until 10pm and come down for Fantasy Island.

I read that producers would be told by the network to provide someone from current shows for Love Boat and Fantasy Island season to season. Spelling had that kind of pull at the network.

Posted at 11:01AM, Jan. 19, 2023

Ugh. I am so fucking sick of Climate Change, I truly am. Honest to God, I cannot even remember the last time we had a normal winter season that was actually cold and, well, winterlike throughout the entirety of the months of December, January, and February without any springlike interruptions. Even today, in the middle of January, in the middle of winter, it's nearly 70F (21C) degrees today; the constant shift in temperatures is not doing my skin/neurological conditions any favors either: my "red lobster face" (as a friend of mine so eloquently calls it) has been flaring up like crazy, and I can't stand it.

I just want to be able to enjoy a full winter season the way Mother Nature intended without any interruptions from earlier and earlier springs (come to think of it, a fall season that's actually brisk and crisp throughout the full season from September to November without any prolonged summers would be nice as well).

Posted at 7:01PM, Jan. 19, 2023

J_Scarbrough wrote:
Okay, I didn't know that. I just know I started on YouTube at the tail-end of 2007, but it wasn't until 2009 when Google really began to make their ownership known, because that was their tyranny began . . . any remember those Beta Channels and how much the community hated them? Looking back on it now, the Beta Channels were small potatoes compared to these streamlined "YouTube One" channels we've had for the past several years. At least the Beta Channels could still be customized with your own personal color schemes, background images, and the like.

That was actually one of the reasons why I was a MySpace holdout before I finally, reluctantly migrated to Facebook: I loved how MySpace let us completely customize our profiles, as opposed to how everybody's Facebook profiles all look the same, except for profile and cover pictures.

Here's another fun fact: before Google bought Youtube, they had a competing video platform. It was called Google Video, and it sucked. After Google bought Youtube, they kept Google Video around for a short while before eventually merging most (if not all) of its content to Youtube. Eventually, the Google Video URL would just redirect to Youtube, and that was when it was officially dead.

It's pretty obvious why Google bought Youtube: Youtube had a large built-in audience after only a year of being online. Google's own platform wasn't doing shit. It was a hostile takeover.

Posted at 8:01PM, Jan. 19, 2023

Oh! And remember when Google wanted their own Facebook/Twitter, so they forced everyone to sync their YouTube channels to a "Google+" account in order to content commenting on videos and channels, or send DMs (yeah, remember when you could DM channel owners on YouTube? Me neither!) Even one of YouTube's original co-founders came out of the woodwork to protest this forced synchronization!

Luckily, that didn't last long . . . but in this day and age of streaming services calling themselves "Such-and-such+," doesn't "Google+" sound like a Google streaming service?

But I can date myself even older than YouTube: once upon a time, there was a website called My V TV, which was basically a precursor to what YouTube was originally intended for, in that it was where student and aspiring filmmakers could share their work online to gain exposure - some of it was live action, some of it was primitive CGI or other forms of animation, but nevertheless, it was all original work from budding filmmakers. My middle school Video Production class always had this site bookmarked on our work computers so we could see what other students like us were capable of doing in this kind of field.

Posted at 12:01AM, Jan. 20, 2023

Ha! I was an earl adopter of Google + and by some accident I got marked as a notable person. I was friended by heaps of important people constantly, and so when Youtube merge with G+ I was autocratically verified as a blue check-mark, VIP or whatever they do at youtube. Basically I had official status.
It was the strangest thing.

But then I lost it because there was this stupid fad of changing your name so it was represented with a weird font via unicode characters, as soon as I did that I lost my official status. :(

Posted at 8:01AM, Jan. 20, 2023

I've verified my YouTube channel years ago, but they never did give me the verification badge (checkmark). Know why? What they neglect to tell you until after you verify your channel is that you have to have an insane number of subscribers to be considered important/significant enough for the checkmark . . . so now I know, despite my channel being verified, I'll never get a checkmark, because it's taken me 15 years just to reach 400 subscribers.

It's been nearly two years since I've tried verifying my Instagram account, I followed all of their steps - including sending them a copy of my Photo ID to confirm I'm me, but I've never heard back from them either way . . . and I don't understand . . . even people who are even barely famous have blue checkmarks on their profiles.

Posted at 10:01AM, Jan. 20, 2023

J_Scarbrough wrote:
I've verified my YouTube channel years ago, but they never did give me the verification badge (checkmark).

Yeah, I had one! With very few subscribers hahaha!
Every time I posted a comment people would be asking me how I got it and complaining about my low subscribers and saying I didn't deserve it. Ah, I miss that XD

————

Oh my Gawd! I actually finished another page of Pinky TA! It will update on Saturday. I'm so happy.
Now should I start working on the next and final page of the chapter or do something else?
I really want to do some sewing.

Posted at 11:01PM, Jan. 20, 2023

I wanted to post this in the discussion about DD's birthday but I guess image tags are not allowed

Lol

Posted at 5:01AM, Jan. 21, 2023

Ha! I was spared that because I paid for Platinum. It was so cheap and the added bonuses were worth it XD

Posted at 9:01AM, Jan. 21, 2023

The Pond-cultural Revolution. You were either with the party, or you were omelette.

Posted at 7:01PM, Jan. 22, 2023

Ironscarf wrote:
The Pond-cultural Revolution. You were either with the party, or you were omelette.

Hahah, sort of! XD
And remember this was pre-Platinum Comics days. It was just a weird co-incidence that Volte chose to call his upgrade package "Platinum".

It was worth getting it cos you got a little icon next to your comic name, no worries about deletion if you didn't update for a month, you got some form of notification for when you got faved I think, and also extra "cookies" that you could gift out to readers who had good comments- which they in turn could gamble for "duck-bills" so they could buy stuff in the store, like a Platinum subscription, Manga Studio, a copy of the Drunk Duck Anthology and a lot of other things people had donated.

Maybe that sort of thing would be worth re-introducing when we do some re-coding? A subscription that just gives you extra features that help with community engagement…

Dylan Squires was a smart cookie back in the day when he set up DD.

Posted at 10:01AM, Jan. 24, 2023

Ozoneocean wrote:

Maybe that sort of thing would be worth re-introducing when we do some re-coding? A subscription that just gives you extra features that help with community engagement…

Interesting idea. I seem to remember they introduced something called moon power, or star power or whatever on ComicFury, which you could acquire (buy?) and use to highlight your forum posts. I don't think it had any solid benefit, but when you saw one of those posts you definitely thought 'Damn, I wish I had some star power!'.

Posted at 5:01PM, Jan. 24, 2023

Dang! We should totally have all that stuff. It would make this place even better. And also personal portals

Posted at 6:01AM, Jan. 25, 2023

Oh no, I don't want any more work to do personalizing my site experience.

All kinds of bells and whistles to attract more people who won't read my comics.

Oh joy.
Yuck dolls– nope.
Yuck sexploitation – nope
What an ass – well I can't argue with that one. 🤣🤣🤣 😆 lol xD

Posted at 2:01AM, Jan. 26, 2023

Ah you joke Bravo buy I see the tears in the eyes of the clown…😓😅
Come on man, your style is t for everyone but it's unique and interesting and stands out!
That's all any of us can do.

—-

I really appreciate the sort of communication we have here on the forums, it makes me realise more and more why I left Facebook:
Communication there was so regurgitated and artificial. The algorithms they used downgraded human to human interaction and instead promoted stuff that got reactions like political stuff, popculture issues and F***ING memes.
I don't mind memes but when they replace human thought with simple reshareing of that crap then communication becomes pointless.

It reminds me of the discussions around AI "art", in that people want to replace even creative expression with premade, generic, regurgitated pretend art, even the chat programs will be used by some to replace written creative expression, so actual human thought and intent is out of the picture.

One argument goes "what about people who can't do it? this allows them to join n in" - memes for people who aren't funny, fake music for people who can't play instruments, fake art for the non artistic, fake writing for non-writers…

I say bugger them. I say I can't give a crap about their lack of skill, tallent and humour. It takes years or practice to get good at things for a reason and while they were enjoying other things others were struggling to get good at being creative and clever.

It reminds me of Banes' newspost from the other day: don't envy what other can do because you can do it too if you're prepared to put in the same amount of pain they did to achieve it.

I digress hahaha!
I appreciate that we share real experiences and thoughts here, not artificially generated stuff or rhetoric.

Posted at 4:01AM, Jan. 26, 2023

Ozoneocean wrote:
Ah you joke Bravo buy I see the tears in the eyes of the clown…😓😅
Come on man, your style is t for everyone but it's unique and interesting and stands out!
That's all any of us can do.

You just want me to buy some more ads. Don't worry 😉

A problem is my depression is biological so I can be fine and things going well and just start crying and the mood goes all black. Only so much coping one can do anymore as I approach 60.

And I have been trying to come up with something not as explicit. Been collecting resources for a war comic anthology.

As for FB. I'd forgotten how many old friends I had there, so I've been ignoring the algorithm and connecting with them. Though hard to pass up baiting conspiracy theorists and flat esrthers. Can't look at any science post without a flood of deniers. Love all the evidence being collected for Dunning-Kruger study everyday. 😊

Posted at 5:01PM, Jan. 26, 2023

Ozoneocean wrote:

I say bugger them. I say I can't give a crap about their lack of skill, tallent and humour. It takes years or practice to get good at things for a reason and while they were enjoying other things others were struggling to get good at being creative and clever.

It reminds me of Banes' newspost from the other day: don't envy what other can do because you can do it too if you're prepared to put in the same amount of pain they did to achieve it.

It's impossible to convince non artists that artists weren't born with magical drawing ability. To them it's like being born with a cute nose and if you weren't born with a cute nose, what's to stop you from buying one? Even people who know you well and know how hard you worked on it will still say 'well, you obviously had a natural talent for it to begin with' if you dig deep.

Posted at 8:01PM, Jan. 26, 2023

I'd also like to add a "Bugger them" to the conversation.

Posted at 10:01PM, Jan. 26, 2023

I'd rather have a burger instead.

Posted at 11:01PM, Jan. 26, 2023

Yeah, struggle if you want something, but I'd still like to think of digital drawing tablets and tutorials and filters and just not having to mix our own paint unless we want to as positive contributions to the art scene and that my creativity doesn't begin with a finished product, even if to others that's its sole measurement. But you know, whatever. :D

I was meaning to say Bravo strikes me as the kind of person who would benefit greatly from picking up diorama making as a hobby and utlizing it for comics, I might even do that one day, when I have even more free time on my hand, but regardless, based on the things I've read so far, I agree he's definitely a Duck with things to contribute.

As I'm experimenting with filtering, I myself see options to contribute further, regardless of what impressions I've made so far.

Posted at 2:01AM, Jan. 27, 2023

InkyMoondrop

I was meaning to say Bravo strikes me as the kind of person who would benefit greatly from picking up diorama making as a hobby and utlizing it for comics, I might even do that one day, when I have even more free time on my hand, but regardless, based on the things I've read so far, I agree he's definitely a Duck with things to contribute.

Dioramas? I've been building models for forty years. Most of my techniques for depicting action come from an article on building dioramas in the Historex catalog. Historex was a French company that produced items for creating 19th century figures and scenes in 1/30 scale.

I use all kinds of diorama techniques in my set building so I'm still at it. Kitchen diorama/set from Belle's Best and some props built using diorama techniques. 🙂

Posted at 7:01AM, Jan. 27, 2023

I feel invalidated by the archaic, ablest system wherein web comic readership is based on merit. Therefore, I demand Ironscarf be required to produce my web comic.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish reading Harrison Bergeron.

Posted at 9:01AM, Jan. 27, 2023

Unka John wrote:
I feel invalidated by the archaic, ablest system wherein web comic readership is based on merit. Therefore, I demand Ironscarf be required to produce my web comic.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go finish reading Harrison Bergeron.

Speaking of Ironscarf, I had a dream last night that I was living in the UK(sleeping on Ironscarf's couch) and working as a security guard.
And my fellow employees (Brits all with a wide assortment of dialects) said I sounded better speaking in cockney than in American.

Really have to find more American and Canadian talking heads to watch on YouTube. I'm just listening to accents all day.

Posted at 1:01PM, Jan. 27, 2023

bravo1102 wrote:

Speaking of Ironscarf, I had a dream last night that I was living in the UK(sleeping on Ironscarf's couch) and working as a security guard.
And my fellow employees (Brits all with a wide assortment of dialects) said I sounded better speaking in cockney than in American.

That's hilarious, but not without substance. My couch is after all a sofa bed and I'm certain you'd make a great cockney security guard. I'd call my old friend Cockney Kev who married into an East End pie and mash shop dynasty, where they'd have you chirping like a true Cockney sparrow in two shakes.

Posted at 8:01PM, Jan. 27, 2023

Soooooo, I'm just gonna say this. . . .

Mindy Kaling has talked about how the powers that be in Hollywood would tell her she'd never really make it in the industry, and if she did, she would probably only be good for second-banana roles (everything short of telling her because of her ethnicity).

Obviously, she proved them wrong, because she does have a lot of clout and power in the industry now in spite of her ethnicity, and I'll give her credit for that . . . but, let's be honest here . . . has anything that she's ever been attached to turned out any good? And I'm not just talking about how VELMA has quickly shot up in the ranks of being among one of the most universally hated animated series of all time.