• Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Bill Griffith, the creator of Zippy the Pinhead, put out a graphic novel biography of Ernie Bushmiller and it’s really good.

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/98650852-three-rocks

    A lot of Bushmiller strips are standard comic fare, but every so often he did something funny and weird, like break the fourth wall.

    And then sometimes he would rise above it all to a level of comic genius.

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The first one is amusingly obsolete on several levels. If Sluggo had a device with internet he’d have something to read without having to go anywhere, and of course the strip isn’t being displayed on paper.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        That reminds me of the weird way the opening of William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer has become both obsolete while also taking on a completely different meaning-

        The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel

        He wrote it in the 80s, so he meant grey and snowy. Now it would mean a blue sky.

        • samus12345@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I’m old, so I envision the static first. I’m actually curious how many young’ns would get what he meant, since static is still commonly depicted in cartoons and games.

          • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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            5 months ago

            Out not-that-old Sharp tv does fake static on unused HDMI sources. I think I prefer blue though, the static gives me PTSD from being a kid without cable TV living in the woods in the 80s.

    • ArcaneSlime@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      Bill Griffith fucking rules. Zippy for president, and praise goddamn “Bob”.

      Ernie Bushmiller also rules, but Griffith is a fellow SubGenius and Zippy is right up my alley since reality is a sandwitch I did not order.