I love Thunderbird. It allows me to add a bunch of blogs right to my e-mail so I don't have to surf everyday to get my fix.
One of my favorite blogs now is Suspension of Disbelief. They take the comic world and do a 'fact check' on what is presented. The same idea that Bob Ingersoll used to do with The Law is an Ass in CBG.
SoD cover comics and cartoons. Everything from bad law to why Speedy wouldn't be able to hit anything but himself with his bow and arrow. Give it a read. I think a lot of you will enjoy it.
Posted by Star Boy on :
So is this through some kinda RSS thing? How do you do it? What is RSS anyway?
I use Thunderbird, but can't claim to have evena tenth of the tech savvy you have, Scott... Posted by Lightning Lad on :
Just take that URL and go into your Thunderbird, right click on News & Blogs and chose Manage Subscriptions. Click on Add and paste the RSS URL in the Feed URL field. Once you click okay, Thunderbird will check the feed and download the ten most recent additions. I think the initial limit is ten, I may be wrong on that.
Not too hard to do at all.
Oh, and RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. The newest wave of newsgroups I guess you could say. Thunderbird just makes it easy to get the feeds delivered directly to your inbox.
Posted by Fat Cramer on :
Thanks for the tech tip, LL. I've got a long list of blogs I've been following and this makes it more easier - they don't all update every day.
Suspension of Disbelief is pretty interesting - especially when they point out something that I just swallowed lock, stock and barrel without thinking. The Polite Dissent blogger, who's a doctor, does this regularly for medical stuff - which got me starting to read more critically.
However, I find it strange that I am perfectly happy to entirely suspend belief regarding superhero powers, but I want everything else in the story to be logical and factual.
Makes me wonder how much research comic writers do - and if we readers are becoming more demanding of the stories. Screwing up the details can really undermine a story, just make it seem amateurish instead of crafted and polished. With the internet, research is a lot easier and faster - less excuse for errors! Maybe the publishers need fact checkers?
Posted by Star Boy on :
Yay - thanx for the info Scott - i am gonna take my first tentative steps into the blogosphere/rssfeedworld...
Okay - I have it sussed now - as it happens I didn't have News & Blogs set up at all and had to add an new account deelie... But now I have successfully added 'The Beat' from Comicon Pulse and the site above...
Anyone got any other cool RSS feeds they want to point people to?
[ March 06, 2005, 03:58 AM: Message edited by: Star Boy ]
Posted by profh0011 on :
"Makes me wonder how much research comic writers do"
It cracked me up when Stan Lee said he "never" does any research when he writes. It never seemed to get in the way of his telling interesting (and often funny) stories.
In the late 80's, by comparison, I got bummed out by the early issues of THE PUNISHER, when fans on the letters columns were OBSESSED with all the technical details of the weaponry depicted-- how big, how heavy, how many bullets, how many fired per second. And nobody seemed to care if the book had NO well-told, entertaining stories (and did contain some unbearably UGLY-as-sin "artwork").
Posted by Outdoor Miner on :
quote:Originally posted by Fat Cramer: However, I find it strange that I am perfectly happy to entirely suspend belief regarding superhero powers, but I want everything else in the story to be logical and factual.
You are far from being alone in this respect.
It boils down, I think, to acceppting that the powers are too much a part of what makes the engine tick to worry about how to explain them.
But suspending belief in things like anatomy and real-world physics is much, much tougher. Ask anybody who cracked up laughing at Identity Crisis' "footprints on the brain" bit.
Posted by Lightning Lad on :
quote:Originally posted by Star Boy: Yay - thanx for the info Scott - i am gonna take my first tentative steps into the blogosphere/rssfeedworld...
Okay - I have it sussed now - as it happens I didn't have News & Blogs set up at all and had to add an new account deelie... But now I have successfully added 'The Beat' from Comicon Pulse and the site above...
Anyone got any other cool RSS feeds they want to point people to?
Glad you got it worked out Wayne. As for other blogs besides the two you already have there is:
http://www.fark.com/fark.rss : Fark.com. Link to very interesting and unusual stories from around the web. Some can be of an adult nature. If you add it you will actually get the pages they point to pulled into your account (if you have it set to load web pages).
All my others are strictly computer/net geek sites which I'll share should anyone want to know. So, anyone have any other good comic related ones?
Posted by Lightning Lad on :
Thought Baloons: <http://thoughtballoons.blogspot.com/atom.xml> Kevin Melrose collects news stories of interest to comic readers.
Fanboy Rampage: <http://fanboyrampage.blogspot.com/atom.xml> A brilliant 'let them hang themselves with their own rope' snark-fest. Graeme McMillian quotes from web pages and message boards to usually hillairous results.
The Beat: <http://www.comicon.com/thebeat/index.rdf> Heidi MacDonald's news column is fun, especially when she pulls together some observations about the industry.
Postmodernbarney/Progressive Ruin <http://www.postmodernbarney.com/atom.xml> <http://www.progressiveruin.com/atom.xml> Mike owns the comic shop, Dorian works there. They both blog about their retailing experiences.
A few of the blogs I like for their reviews: Precocious Curmudgeon: <http://precur.blogspot.com/atom.xml> Cognitive Dissonance: <http://www.comicsworthreading.com/blog/atom.xml> Yet Another Comics Blog: <http://yetanothercomicsblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml>
Tom Peyer's blog, SUPERFRANKENSTEIN, also gives me a lot of laughs. <http://superfrankenstein.blogspot.com/atom.xml>
I should mention my blog, Crocodile Caucus. <http://lyle.typepad.com/blog/index.rdf> I talk about a million different things, from comics, food, TV, City of Heroes and whatever else.
Posted by LyleLyle on :
quote:Originally posted by profh0011: In the late 80's, by comparison, I got bummed out by the early issues of THE PUNISHER, when fans on the letters columns were OBSESSED with all the technical details of the weaponry depicted-- how big, how heavy, how many bullets, how many fired per second. And nobody seemed to care if the book had NO well-told, entertaining stories (and did contain some unbearably UGLY-as-sin "artwork").
Well, I suspect that's part of the appeal of the concept... I'd imagine the Punisher draws a lot of "gun nuts". I don't use the term derogatoriy, my BF's a gun nut... he once identified a James Bond trailer before any other telltale sign was shown by recognizing the gun Bond uses. Whenever a gun shows up on a TV show or movie, he figures out what kind of gun it is... brand/bullet size. He also has a hard time believing it when the weapon/damage doesn't match, like if a 9MM does too much damage or if people manage to dodge bullets by ducking behind a car for cover. (The Mythbusters disproved that last one.)
'course I gave him no end of grief when he grumbled about Leguizamo firing several bullets out of a derringer in The Pest.
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