Pixel Scroll 10/9 Pixellary Mercy

(1) While I missed the story when this was done for the 70th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz movie, the image is still good for a laugh.

Super-sized version of the infamous Witch’s legs, complete with sparkling red ruby slippers, replicating an iconic scene from the movie ‘The Wizard of OZ’ in central London on December 1, 2009. As part of the Wizard of Oz Christmas season at Harrods.

Harrods_2

(2) “The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise” is one of the iconic skits from Saturday Night Live’s first season in 1976. A.V. Club writer Phil Dyess-Nugent discussed it in a 2013 retrospective:

The acknowledged sketch-comedy masterpiece in these episodes is “The Last Voyage Of The Starship Enterprise,” a marvelously detailed Star Trek parody with a very fan-geek sensibility—which is a surprise coming from the writer, O’Donoghue, who you might not think of as the kind of person who would declare fealty to a cult sci-fi TV show. Maybe that, too, is in indication of how much the world has changed. Here’s another: The network suit played by Gould who appears on the deck of the Enterprise to explain the show’s cancellation has nothing to say about demographics or desirable marketing niches, but simply “low Nielsen ratings.” Chevy Chase’s Mr. Spock explains to his captain that Nielsen ratings “were a primitive system of estimating television viewers, once used in the mid-twentieth century.”

Watch it free on Hulu.

John_Belushi,_SNL_Vulcan_salute

(3) Another Lovecraft-inspired brew from Naragansett Beer will be released at a party October 10 in Providence, RI.

Back from the dead just in time for the spookiest month of the year, our beloved Bock has morphed into the Reanimator Helles Lager. At 6.5% ABV and 35 IBUs, we’ve reanimated our classic Bock by dry-hopping it with Czech Saaz to boost its hop presence with a sophisticated and spicy twist. You won’t want to miss this Lovecraft inspired brew and you can be one of the first try it on Saturday, October 10th at the Columbus Theatre! The party starts at 8PM and a special screening of Re-animator starts at 9PM to celebrate the film’s 30th Anniversary and the release of our latest beer!

lovecraft-reanimator-release

(4) Charles Stross is worried that low Earth orbit will eventually become as trash-strewn as an LA freeway onramp, which will make it nearly impossible to use it for satellites and navigation.

Here’s a technological question with philosophical side-effects that’s been bugging me for the past few days …

Today, the commercial exploitation of outer space appears to be a growth area. Barely a week goes by without a satellite launch somewhere on the planet. SpaceX has a gigantic order book and a contract to ferry astronauts to the ISS, probably starting in 2018; United Launch Alliance have a similar manned space taxi under development, and there are multiple competing projects under way to fill low earth orbit with constellations of hundreds of small data relay satellites to bring internet connectivity to the entire planet. For the first time since the 1960s it’s beginning to look as if human activity beyond low earth orbit is a distinct possibility within the next decade.

But there’s a fly in the ointment.

Kessler Syndrome, or collisional cascading, is a nightmare scenario for space activity. Proposed by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in 1978, it proposes that at a certain critical density, orbiting debris shed by satellites and launch vehicles will begin to impact on and shatter other satellites, producing a cascade of more debris, so that the probability of any given satellite being hit rises, leading to a chain reaction that effectively renders access to low earth orbit unacceptably hazardous…..

(5) In the meantime, space exploration continues unimpeded by junk in the sky, as they will be happy to explain tomorrow at JPL’s annual Open House.

Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11, 2015

9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

No tickets or reservations required

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, invites the public to its annual Open House on October 10-11,2015. The event is free of charge and takes visitors on a “ride” through the wonders of space. Highlights include a life-size model of Mars Science Laboratory, demonstrations from numerous space missions, JPL’s machine shop, where robotic spacecraft parts are built, and the Microdevices Lab, where engineers and scientists use tiny technology to revolutionize space exploration.

 

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(6) The work of composer John Williams is synonymous with science fiction media. He will be honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award on June 9, 2016. Williams is the 44th winner, but the first composer to receive the award.

John Williams’ storied career as the composer behind many of the greatest American films and television series of all time boasts over 150 credits across seven decades. Perhaps best known for his enduring collaboration with director Steven Spielberg, his scores are among the most iconic and recognizable in film history, from the edge-of-your-seat Jaws (1975) motif to the emotional swell of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the haunting elegies of Schindler’s List (1993). Always epic in scale, his music has helped define over half a century of the motion picture medium. Three of Williams’ scores landed on AFI’s 100 Years of Film Scores — a list of the 25 greatest American film scores of all time — including the unforgettable Star Wars (1977) soundtrack, at number one. With five Academy Award wins and 49 nominations in total, Williams holds the record for the most Oscar nominations of any living person.

Besides Star Wars, he’s written themes for TV’s The Time Tunnel, Lost In Space, Land of the Giants, and movies like Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Superman.

(7) Lela E. Buis tries to fathom what kept Michael A. Burstein from winning any of the Hugos he’s been nominated for

More today on Michael A. Burstein, who’s been nominated 10 times for a Hugo but never won. Just achieving the nomination shows he was a very popular author during these years. His nominations include the short story category, which requires at least 5% of the cast nominations in order to appear on the ballot. So what’s the problem? What was he missing that would have put him over the top?

(8) The third installment of Superversive Blog’s interview with Ruth Johnston, author of Re-modeling the Mind: Personality in Balance, is titled “If You Had Introverted Intuition, My Dinosaur”.

L. Jagi Lamplighter poses the questions in this series described as “Speculative Fiction meets Jung.” Rachel Swirsky’s now-famous story is the subject of analysis this time.

[Ruth Johnson] A: I think this story is a wonderful example of the hardest to explain, most mysterious mental function we can observe in personality: Introverted Intuition. Both kinds of Intuition are involved in a search for meaning, but Introverted Intuition is particularly intent on finding cloaked, disguised, suppressed truth.

I think that’s what this story is about. Of course, it isn’t really a story; it’s a scene that poses questions about meaning. There isn’t any movement in plot, rather the motion consists of a gradual revealing of the speaker’s state of mind. The scene: A woman sits by a hospital bed, where her fiancé, an archeologist, is in a coma. He was beaten by five drunken men for unknown reasons. The only dinosaur in the story is in her imagination, of course, as she envisions what would have been different if he had been even a small carnivore. The title poses the question: what if, instead of being who you are, you had been something else?

I think the key to the story is that she feels a small Tyrannosaurus Rex would have been a truer form for the soul of the man she loves. It would reveal his true nature, whereas his powerless natural appearance forms a kind of mask that makes him look like he ought to be a victim. The exercise in imagining is pointless if being a dinosaur wasn’t somehow a truer truth than the natural one; otherwise we could ask what if he were a Mack truck or an onion. By emphasizing that the dinosaur would be the same size as the human, she is making it clear that she sees the transformation as revelation, not random change. “If you actually looked like your true inner nature, my love, then people would see that you are strong and this would be a deterrent to getting hurt.”

When you posit that the appearance of a human being might be a disguise, a false archetype that covers truth, you are deep into Introverted Intuition’s territory.

(8) Disney and Lucasfilm will hold a massive world premiere for Star Wars: The Force Awakens in Los Angeles on Dec. 14, The Hollywood Reporter has learned. A premiere in London immediately follows.

(9) See the trading card with the most explicit Star Wars photo of all time.

The final chapter in the story of the biggest boner in Topps’ history.

The year was 1977 and the U.S. was caught in the throes of a pop culture phenomenon unlike anything it had seen before, all because of a little movie called Star Wars. The Topps Company, known for making pocket-sized stacks of popular baseball players since the 1930s, lucked out when Kenner’s subsidiary Donruss passed on the Star Wars license. What followed was one of the most successful series of trading cards ever created.

Five sets of cards and stickers were produced over the course of two years. In a time before the Wookiepedia, these were one of the few ways to get in-depth information about the beloved soon-to-be franchise. But the original editor of those cards, Gary Gerani, and his team made one small mistake that will go down in history.

(10) Today in History

Is the anniversary literally today? I don’t know, but Prague’s astronomical clock is 605 years old, and Google has marked the occasion today, October 9, with a Google Doodle.

The ornate clock, known as the Orloj, is one of Prague’s most recognised touristic spectacles, and is located in the Old Town Square in the centre of the city. Its hourly shows draw curious visitors from all over the world, where 12 apostles emerge from two windows to nod at the crowds below.

 

https://instagram.com/p/8GZCYnGeVg/

(11) Creature Features presents The Monster Squad on October 11:

1PM – Sun Oct 11, 2015

$15 – $65 – The Theatre at Ace Hotel, Los Angeles

Tickets on sale now

Creature Features haunts The Theatre at Ace Hotel with this special cast & crew reunion screening of THE MONSTER SQUAD, the epic 1987 smackdown between an intrepid band of middle schoolers and five of horrordom’s most fearsome beasties, led by Count Dracula himself!

This spook-tacular matinee showing will include two panel discussions before and after the film, hosted by Eric “Quint” Vespe of Aint It Cool News. Guests include: actors Andre Gower, Ryan Lambert, Ashley Bank and Stephen Macht, make-up FX artists Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, and composer Bruce Broughton, who will be on hand to premiere the brand new deluxe CD release of his score to the film, courtesy of La-La Land Records.

 

Monster Squad

(12) This brings back memories. The cartoon commercial for Bonomo Turkish Taffy

(13) A Gamera remake is on the way. There was a trailer shown at this weekend’s New York Comic Con.

(14) I know that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, so I will remain silent about “The Competitive World of AOL Disc Collecting”.

The discs came like a swarm of locusts, burrowing into post boxes and sliding through mail slots. They popped out of cereal boxes and appeared on meal trays during airline flights. They fell out of magazines and Happy Meals. They were stocked at the checkout counters of Best Buy, near the popcorn at Blockbuster, on bookshelves at Barnes & Noble. The ubiquity of AOL discs—those free marketing materials sent by American Online in the 90s to entice people to sign up for internet service—could be likened to world domination….

Of the bunch, Sloan Cline is arguably the most prolific collector. By her estimates, she has over 4,000 unique AOL discs stored in the basement of her home in Kansas. Every CD in her collection is different: There are discs in every color, ones in plastic cases or shrink-wrap packaging, ones promising various hours on the free trial. Versions one through three came on floppy disk, and some of the early ones came in metal tins—Sloan Cline has those kinds, too. There were also branded AOL discs, like her prized Marvel Spider-Man disc, and foreign AOL discs, which she got from her friends in Canada and Argentina.

(15) The National Toy Hall of Fame in Rochester, NY has announced the shortlist for 2015 induction. The selection will be revealed November 5. The Hall of Fame typically inducts three toys each year, with last year’s honors going to miniature green army men, the Rubik’s Cube and bubbles.

The 2015 finalists are: American Girl dolls, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, spinning tops, Twister, Wiffle Ball, Battleship, puppets, Jenga, coloring books, Playmobil, Super Soaker and scooters.

The National Hall of Fame said the toys are judged based on icon status, longevity, discovery and innovation.

 

National-Toy-Hall-of-Fame-announces-2015-finalists

(16) Today’s Birthday Boys

Born 1950 – David Brin

Born 1954 — Scott Bakula, famed for Quantum Leap and as Captain Jonathan Archer on Enterprise.

Born 1964 – Guillermo del Toro, acclaimed movie director.

(17) Guillermo del Toro talked about his second house/man cave which is filled with all sorts of horror movie memorabilia on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

And he graciously worked the crowd outside.

[Thanks to Iphinome, Will R., Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Sylvia Sotomayor.]

240 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 10/9 Pixellary Mercy

  1. Ryk Spoor is ‘seawasp’. I’ve known him (for online values of knowing) since the days when r.a.sf.w fluorished so I don’t claim to be objective,and I haven’t read most of his collaborations. But I like the stuff he’s done in his original fantasy multiverse. Not mind-blowing, but I want to see where he’s going with it.

  2. redheadedfemme:

    “When we get to your movie brackets, I’m wondering if it might be better to split them, pre- and post-2000, like the book brackets. So many recent movies (Terminator Genisys, Jurassic World, Abrams’ Star Trek etc) have been reboots.”

    We will see what happens after all input from others. Right now, none of those movies were on my list. 😉

  3. Fantasy films are a tough one. They don’t really make very many, and when they do make them they often ruin them.

  4. Fantasy films are a tough one. They don’t really make very many, and when they do make them they often ruin them.

    Horror films can make things seem insubstantial and not-quite-graspable by humans, but fantasy films often seem to be about taking numinous, magical ideas and making them look solid, lumpen and not terribly exotic.

    There’s a need for making the fantastic seem real, but there’s a need for making it seem fantastic, too, at the same time.

    Maybe a few directors of the more ethereal horror films should be recruited to try some fantasy subjects…

  5. Meredith:

    “Fantasy films are a tough one. They don’t really make very many, and when they do make them they often ruin them.”

    Fantasy films was actually easier than SF. Because there were fewer of them! 😀 And it also depends on how you define fantasy. I added in fairy tales, stories with magical elements and more. Those with a special magical feeling to them. Left out those with religious explanations. Also, their are quite a lot of animated movies of fantasy style.

    I think it will be an interesting run.

  6. I’ve been offline for over a week. Did I miss anything important? (I’m guessing probably not.)

    On the File770 costing Weisskopf a Hugo: the packet contained no material from either Baen finalist but IIRC had a pointer to the Baen website. The website itself did not have editor info (I looked). I simply did not have enough/any information on which to vote any Baen finalist above No Award. Contrast that with what Sheila Gilbert provided in the packet. In a notoriously hard to judge category, it wasn’t File770 that cost the Baen finalists.

    ::God stalk::

  7. @emgrasso

    Ryk Spoor is ‘seawasp’.

    Seriously? Mind. Blown.

    I also remember him from rasfw – with the little ascii jellyfish in his .sig, right? Always a great commentator.

    @Soon Lee

    Nothing vastly exciting. We’ve mostly been gushing about Ancillary Mercy.

  8. @Hampus

    Oh, does that mean no Time Bandits? The explanation is squarely in the religious realm. Great film though.

  9. Long time lurker finally prompted to comment by JJ’s list and love of comics.

    Rory Root Memorial Comics Bracket, round 3.

    1. Maus, Art Spiegelman

    2. Pogo, Walt Kelly

    3. Girl Genius, Phil & Kaja Foglio

    4. Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson

    5. Bone, Jeff Smith

    6. Digger, Ursula Vernon

    7. Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton

    8. Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau

    9. 2 Zot!, Scott McCloud
    3 X-Men 94-150, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum / John Byrne
    1 Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

  10. @HRJ: If I recall correctly, RedWombat herself said she’d vote for Understanding Comics over Digger, so I’m sure she’ll forgive you the slight.

  11. Huh. I can think of dozens of excellent fantasy films.

    (I’ll save the suggestions for the nominations, though. No need to clutter things up.)

  12. Rory Root Memorial Comics Bracket, round 3.

    I plan to close this one during my lunch break on Tuesday (note! that’ll be about 10 AM, File 770 time), and with luck post round 4 on Tuesday evening.

    1. DARN THAT CAT NEXT DOOR!
    Peanuts, Charles Schulz
    Maus, Art Spiegelman

    2. THE DRIFTING DREAM IS DONE
    The Sandman, Neil Gaiman and various
    Pogo, Walt Kelly

    3. SPACE FANTASY VS. GASLAMP FANTASY
    Saga, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
    Girl Genius, Phil & Kaja Foglio

    4. KILLER MUTANT SWAMP GOONS
    Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
    Swamp Thing 20-64, Alan Moore and Steve Bissette and John Totleben and Rick Veitch

    5. WHAT DO YOU GET? BONY FINGERS
    Bone, Jeff Smith
    XKCD, Randall Munroe

    Neither. May I have Tin Tin back?

    6. UNDERSTANDING TUNNELS
    Digger, Ursula Vernon
    Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud

    7. “…CARRYING A SIGN SAYING ‘THE END IS NIGH’. HOW TACKY.”
    Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
    Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton

    Neither. May I have Planetary back? Or how about Alan Moore’s Promethea?

    8. DOONESBURY VS. ASTERIX. YOU KNOW WHAT? I GOT NOTHIN’.
    Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau
    The Adventures of Asterix, René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

    9. DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANGST
    This is a 3-way matchup using IRV. Please rank your choices from first to third. If you choose only one, you are considered to have no preference between the other two.
    Zot!, Scott McCloud
    1. X-Men 94-150, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum / John Byrne
    Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

    I really have no preference between the other two.

  13. @Hampus Eckerman: Your vote in the 3-way is:

    1. X-Men 94-150, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum / John Byrne
    2. Zot!, Scott McCloud
    2. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

    I cannot tell whether you intend that Zot! and H&1/2 are tied for second (i.e., you have no preference) or whether that second 2 is a typo for 3 (i.e., you want the Brosh third). Please clarify.

  14. Alice Bentley on October 12, 2015 at 1:47 pm said:
    Long time lurker finally prompted to comment by JJ’s list and love of comics.

    These bracket things are like people catnip.

  15. Silly but True gets “contributing editor” credit for naming bracket 8 where I could not. Well done, gentlebeing.

    1. DARN THAT CAT NEXT DOOR!
    Peanuts, Charles Schulz
    Maus, Art Spiegelman

    Forehead-cloth time again. “Laugh and cry” narrowly beats out just “cry”.

    2. THE DRIFTING DREAM IS DONE
    The Sandman, Neil Gaiman and various
    Pogo, Walt Kelly

    3. SPACE FANTASY VS. GASLAMP FANTASY
    Saga, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
    Girl Genius, Phil & Kaja Foglio

    Saga started out really strongly but has gone downhill a bit. I find that Girl Genius holds up better for me right now.

    4. KILLER MUTANT SWAMP GOONS
    Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
    Swamp Thing 20-64, Alan Moore and Steve Bissette and John Totleben and Rick Veitch

    5. WHAT DO YOU GET? BONY FINGERS
    Bone, Jeff Smith
    XKCD, Randall Munroe

    6. UNDERSTANDING TUNNELS
    Digger, Ursula Vernon
    Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud

    Sorry, Ursula.

    7. “…CARRYING A SIGN SAYING ‘THE END IS NIGH’. HOW TACKY.”
    Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
    Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton

    8. POLITICS CAN BE GALLING
    Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau
    The Adventures of Asterix, René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

    9. DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANGST
    1. Zot!, Scott McCloud
    2. X-Men 94-150, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum / John Byrne
    3. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

  16. 1. DARN THAT CAT NEXT DOOR!
    Maus, Art Spiegelman

    2. THE DRIFTING DREAM IS DONE
    Pogo, Walt Kelly

    3. SPACE FANTASY VS. GASLAMP FANTASY
    Girl Genius, Phil & Kaja Foglio

    4. KILLER MUTANT SWAMP GOONS
    Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson

    5. WHAT DO YOU GET? BONY FINGERS
    Bone, Jeff Smith

    6. UNDERSTANDING TUNNELS
    Digger, Ursula Vernon

    7. “…CARRYING A SIGN SAYING ‘THE END IS NIGH’. HOW TACKY.”
    Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

    8. DOONESBURY VS. ASTERIX. YOU KNOW WHAT? I GOT NOTHIN’.
    The Adventures of Asterix, René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

    9. DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANGST
    2 Zot!, Scott McCloud
    1 X-Men 94-150, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum / John Byrne

  17. 1. Peanuts, Charles Schulz
    Maus is a great work. Peanuts is part of our culture. (although I suspect in 2115, odds are higher Maus will be read/referenced more often, unless Peanuts gets bought by Disney and becomes an evergreen media thing).

    2. The Sandman, Neil Gaiman and various
    I appreciate Pogo, but the setting and non-Portmanteau parts of the dialect are problematical to me due to where I was raised. At least it didn’t end up going up against Swamp Thing and its “Pog” story.

    3. Girl Genius, Phil & Kaja Foglio
    Saga’s just never fully worked for me. Dunno why.

    4. KILLER MUTANT SWAMP GOONS
    Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson
    Swamp Thing 20-64, Alan Moore and Steve Bissette and John Totleben and Rick Veitch

    Abstain. Both great, very different from each other. Other than attempting to be good work, they were trying to accomplish very different things.

    5. XKCD, Randall Munroe
    I think Bone could’ve been shortened a bit, while xkcd has done some innovative things with the concept of comics and, hey, I’m a geek.

    6. Digger, Ursula Vernon
    Like I wrote last round, Understanding Comics is both great and apples to oranges when comparing to fiction, so I’m compelled not to vote for it to keep my head from exploding.

    7. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
    Hark, A Vagrant is fun and interesting. Watchmen is seminal.

    8. Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau
    This was tough. Doonesbury gets credit for managing to combine biting political commentary (yes, I’m aware of Asterix subtext) with some great characterization over the years. Also, I tend to quote more from it than Asterix.

    9. 1 Zot!, Scott McCloud
    3 X-Men 94-150, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum / John Byrne
    2 Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh
    HaaH gets some points taken off due to Brosh’s non-comics text also being essential to the work.

  18. @Tom Galloway: HaaH gets some points taken off due to Brosh’s non-comics text also being essential to the work.

    Interesting — although I’m aware of her personal story (to the extent she’s shared it), the comic doesn’t seem to me to be less if one doesn’t know about that. (Adventures in Depression and Depression Part Two don’t seem to me to require any understanding of backstory, nor does The God of Cake (oh, sheesh, once again I am laughing out loud at “I went and played with my toys, but I did not enjoy it.”)) How do you see it affecting appreciation of the work? Individual comics, or overall, or…?

  19. Thank you. Looking at my spreadsheet, I see that is in fact how I recorded your vote.

    Since there are likely to be more 3-way matchups in the next rounds, I’ll note for the future that in cases where there is no preference, my preference as regards notation is to put no number at all. That’s to me the most clear.

  20. Rory Root Memorial Comics Bracket, round 3.

    @Rev. Bob, I will loan you a forehead cloth. At least until the movie brackets come up….

    It’s a 19-way tie! I’m sure there’s a term for “ennead plus ten,” but alas! I am too lazy to look it up.

    1. DARN THAT CAT NEXT DOOR!
    Peanuts, Charles Schulz

    2. THE DRIFTING DREAM IS DONE
    Pogo, Walt Kelly

    3. SPACE FANTASY VS. GASLAMP FANTASY
    Girl Genius, Phil & Kaja Foglio

    Hmmm, I seem to have a preference for humor in this set of brackets. I’d better go and reread my Buck Godot.

    4. KILLER MUTANT SWAMP GOONS
    Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson

    5. WHAT DO YOU GET? BONY FINGERS
    Bone, Jeff Smith

    6. UNDERSTANDING TUNNELS
    Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud

    Not a week has gone by since I first read Understanding Comics that I don’t think of the “He hit me!” car crash example.

    7. “…CARRYING A SIGN SAYING ‘THE END IS NIGH’. HOW TACKY.”
    Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
    Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton

    We approach “apples and sky” comparison territory here. I declare this a tie.

    8. DOONESBURY VS. ASTERIX. YOU KNOW WHAT? I GOT NOTHIN’.

    Duke has a lotta Gaul?

    I don’t have a vote at all on this one. As a kid, I felt compelled to read EVERYTHING on the comics page, even if I didn’t like it or get it. I’ve grown an adult appreciation for Doonesbury since, but part of me still slots it with “Mary Worth” and “Mark Trail” as one of those comics that I *have* to read but not enjoy.

    9. DIFFERENT KINDS OF ANGST

    Unlike any of Kyra’s IRV rounds, I actually have IRV-type preferences here.

    1 – Zot!, Scott McCloud
    2 – X-Men 94-150, Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum / John Byrne
    3 – Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

    Sorry Scott & Jean, you have nothing on Zot and Jenny.

    Oh, wait.

    4 – No Award
    5 – Toni Weisskopf

    Also, I think Kyra’s dice generate a special alternate time zone.

  21. @Kevin Hogan: “@Rev. Bob, I will loan you a forehead cloth. At least until the movie brackets come up….”

    Oh, good. Has LeBeau made any more streudel lately? Newkirk got the last of the last batch, y’know…

  22. Trying to do this on a tablet is too annoying, so the round end is postponed for about another five hours. We’ll see whether there are any last-minute voters.

  23. 1. DARN THAT CAT NEXT DOOR!
    Peanuts, Charles Schulz 15
    Maus, Art Spiegelman 13

    Maus gives Peanuts its greatest challenge yet, but doesn’t quite get there. (I’m kinda glad it didn’t go the other way, because I would have been tempted to announce the results in a way that would get me lynched.)

    2. THE DRIFTING DREAM IS DONE
    The Sandman, Neil Gaiman and various 22 (seeded)
    Pogo, Walt Kelly 9

    Morpheus explains to Pogo that talking animals don’t exist in real life, and Pogo fades into the Dreaming….

    3. SPACE FANTASY VS. GASLAMP FANTASY
    Saga, Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples 15
    Girl Genius, Phil & Kaja Foglio 14

    So close.

    4. KILLER MUTANT SWAMP GOONS
    Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson 22
    Swamp Thing 20-64, Alan Moore and Steve Bissette and John Totleben and Rick Veitch 7

    Not so close.

    5. WHAT DO YOU GET? BONY FINGERS
    Bone, Jeff Smith 13
    XKCD, Randall Munroe 16

    6. UNDERSTANDING TUNNELS
    Digger, Ursula Vernon 13
    Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud 10

    Digger continues to vanquish all in her path. But how long can she go?

    7. “…CARRYING A SIGN SAYING ‘THE END IS NIGH’. HOW TACKY.”
    Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons 17
    Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton 9

    8. POLITICS CAN BE GALLING
    Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau 16
    The Adventures of Asterix, René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo 11

    The IRV matchup needs a separate post to itself.

  24. Hmmm, the chances of brackets I can vote in are increasing. Of course, the chances of painful choices are also increasing…

  25. Okay, Hyperbole and a Half vs. X-Men vs. Zot!. The breakdown of first-round preferences is:

    X-Men: 8
    Zot!: 8
    Hyperbole & a Half: 11

    So before I can eliminate the candidate with the least votes, I have to figure out which one that is. I looked to the WSFS Constitution for guidance. Following its method would knock out both of the ones tied, and let through Hyperbole and a Half.

    Now, If you look at the voting breakdowns, it’s clear that there are two groups: one group likes Hyperbole and a Half and doesn’t care that much about the rest; the other prefers one of X-Men or Zot!. Notice that out of 16 voters who put (X-Men or Zot!) first, a majority put the other second, while only two put Hyperbole and a Half second; and out of 11 Hyperbole and a Half voters, a majority had no further preference.

    The (Zot! or X-Men) group is the larger, by 16 to 11, so I don’t think that eliminating both of those and letting Hyperbole and a Half through is the right answer.

    So how to break the tie?

    Out of 11 voters for Hyperbole and a Half, three put Zot! in second place, and two put X-Men. That’s a slender reed on which to break the tie, but it’s the most fair thing I can think of.

    So when X-Men is eliminated and its votes redistributed, the result is…a tie! Zot! 12, Hyperbole and a Half also 12. So I declare that both advance.

  26. Let the record show that at my last book tour stop, I was given an embroidered Official Bracket Forehead Cloth which means I have won the prize worth having.

  27. RedWombat on October 13, 2015 at 7:45 pm said:
    Let the record show that at my last book tour stop, I was given an embroidered Official Bracket Forehead Cloth which means I have won the prize worth having.

    You are clearly doing this book tour thing right.

  28. Lauowolf:

    You are clearly doing this book tour thing right.

    I don’t know; I also gave her a can of fish balls. https://twitter.com/UrsulaV/status/654036246210080768 And a jar of Cajun Flavor Creamed Herring (doesn’t everyone think “Cajun!” when they hear “creamed herring”?), which may or may not survive the trip back to Casa Wombat. And I won’t even mention the chocolate, err, confection that I picked up at a rest stop in Wisconsin. So I’d say she broke about even….

  29. Hampus: When I was first introduced to that particular kind of creamed herring, perhaps ten years ago, it was called “Cajun Blackened Creamed Herring”, which was even more wrong on even more levels. I must say, though, that I actually liked it a lot, much to my surprise. I do hope that the version I got for our Wombat is as good. It did come from the same store in Minnesota, and I believe it was made by the same company, so that’s a good sign. I hope it survives the trip to Casa Wombat and we can hear her verdict on the podcast.

  30. Minnesota Cajun Creamed Herring, actually. You can buy it from Ingebretsen’s Deli, and they mail order (but probably only in the winter, since you wouldn’t want the jar of creamed herring to be exposed to too much heat.) Here’s their website: https://www.ingebretsens.com/

    I’m sure they’d be happy to send people fish balls (in brine or in lobster sauce; I cruelly bought the brine version) any time of the year, since they’re canned.

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