Recent Comments

1. about 15 hours ago on Frazz

   The manufacturing process for the paper cups also has to be taken into account.

2. 2 days ago on Bloom County

   “Discipline” of a sort is necessary, but that doesn’t mean abuse — which includes things like washing kids’ mouths out with soap and any sort of corporal punishment — is acceptable. I can speak from personal experience in saying it’s possible to raise a child without ever hitting them. As for Heinlein, he had some warped ideas. No one should take him as a guide on how to raise children, train dogs, or run a society.

3. 5 days ago on Peanuts Begins

   True. But to be fair to CB, the girls could also be pretty unpleasant themselves. Schulz used the kids to hold up a mirror to adult behavior, including narcissism and pettiness, and all of the characters exhibited some of those negative traits from time to time.

4. 5 days ago on Tom the Dancing Bug

   As nice as that must be, it wouldn’t be worth it. And if the MAGA cult wins this election, the whole US may end up as a one-party state.

5. 9 days ago on Luann

   This is actually pretty clever. The phonetic spelling adds an extra layer of challenge because you have to figure out what the clue is first. I’m not surprised that a lot of people don’t want to think that much (I haven’t decided whether I want to expend the time and effort necessary to puzzle it out myself), but anyone who thinks this shows laziness on Evans’ part frankly has a screw loose, as coming up with something like this almost certainly took a lot more time than the average cartoon does.

6. 10 days ago on Doonesbury

   For starters, a better system would simply not allow exploitative contracts and would have regulations to ensure that actual authors are fairly compensated when their works are used — though they should also be able to choose not to be compensated if they so wish (Creative Commons is a very good model in this respect).

7. 10 days ago on Doonesbury

   This whole arc reminds me of a brilliant original song (not a parody, though stylistically it is modeled on anthems like “We Are the World”) by Weird Al Yankovic called “Don’t Download This Song” (which he made available for free downloading on his website). Based on the lyrics, Al obviously felt that people like Mike and the RIAA were overstating their case somewhat.

8. 11 days ago on Doonesbury

   It certainly isn’t true that in all cases (and probably not even in most) that all parties are happy with the way the system works. Artists frequently feel, often with justification, that they are not properly compensated for their work, and that others (specifically the intermediaries you refer to) take more than their fair share. Consumers in turn often feel that they are overcharged. This is particularly the case with live shows in the US; More Perfect Union has an excellent video on the Ticketmaster/Live Nation monopoly and how it screws over fans, artists, and venue owners.

   But it’s also a matter of artists losing control of their own work. One example, though far from the most egregious one, was what happened with “Money for Nothing”. Mark Knopfler invited Sting to sing backing vocals on that, and the melody Sting sang was the same as that of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”. As a result, Sting’s publisher insisted that Sting not only should get songwriting credit, but half of the royalties (of which the publisher gets a substantial cut), even though the bit Sting sang was considerably less than half of the song. This wasn’t Sting’s idea; he’s said himself that he thought it was ridiculous. But even though “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” was Sting’s song, he couldn’t prevent his publisher from making unreasonable demands. All the publisher saw was a chance to make money off of Knopfler’s song, because to them all of it is just commercial product.

9. 11 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   Great song.

10. 11 days ago on Pooch Cafe

    Yes, while Knight’s work was arguably more original than Irving’s, in the case of a homage/tribute/parody like this, it isn’t necessary to credit the work you are referencing by name. With a comic, it would be rather hard to do in any case, as there’s not exactly a lot of extra space for giving credit every time you reference something.