{"id":2810,"date":"2011-05-12T17:47:30","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T22:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/?p=2810"},"modified":"2011-05-12T22:19:59","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T03:19:59","slug":"not-to-get-overblown-i-just-want-to-change-everything-about-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/12\/not-to-get-overblown-i-just-want-to-change-everything-about-comics\/","title":{"rendered":"Why make it elusive?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

He's our guy... entity... talking-thing... to do the job<\/p><\/div>\n

A while back I listened to the audio version of Steve Martin’s biography of his time as a standup comic, Born Standing Up<\/em><\/a>. In it, he talks about getting a whole new kind of reaction from the audience by passing on the stand-up’s standby: the punchline. <\/p>\n

So I started kicking this idea around. Could Steve Martin’s idea of humor… that is, basically, of never letting the air out of the balloon, be adapted into comics<\/u>? Maybe.<\/p>\n

I decided to try it. So, allow me to introduce my comic: Eat the Babies<\/a>. It’s about a walking talking TV. There is no continuity to it, other than the fact that the TV does have friends. The two most frequently recurring friends are Woody Guthrie and John Maynard Keynes. It veers into social and philosophical issues a lot, but mainly its concerned with using the TV’s confusion about humans to create a humor that is elusive.<\/p>\n

It means to be elusive.<\/p>\n

The idea is you’ll get to wanting to look for it and find it in your own places. <\/p>\n

I don’t know if I’m quite getting there, but if the comics don’t make sense yet it is because that is what I am looking to do. To explain my thinking behind strips would be to defeat the purpose, but let me point you to a few favorites so far.<\/p>\n

TV gets mugged<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TV talks to Woody Guthrie about songs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Woody explains adulthood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

TV is a talking head on tv<\/a> (my personal favorite so far).<\/p>\n

If you’ve seen the Charles Schulz tribute site, 3eanuts<\/a>, that’s the best example I can give of what I want to do so far, though it’s not quite there. Well, it is there. It is awesome at what it is. It’s just not quite what I want Eat the Babies<\/em> to be. But it’s close! <\/p>\n

For the hardcore arts crowd, there are genuinely avant-garde webcomics out there<\/a>. You should check them out. I don’t think I’ll be going to any conferences with those guys, as much as I might like to. So, if you’re interested in seeing someone try something, that’s the trick I’m trying. Feel free to click any of those links above and, you know… come see. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, allow me to introduce my comic: Eat the Babies<\/a>. It’s about a walking talking TV. There is no continuity to it, other than the fact that the TV does have friends. The two most frequently recurring friends are Woody Guthrie and John Maynard Keynes. It veers into social and philosophical issues a lot, but mainly its concerned with using the TV’s confusion about humans to create a humor that is elusive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15],"tags":[52,49,47,48,50,46,45],"class_list":["post-2810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brady-dale","tag-art","tag-avant-garde","tag-comics","tag-drawing","tag-steve-martin","tag-web-comics","tag-webcomics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9blZT-Jk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":890,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/11\/06\/reviews-of-lots-of-little-comics\/","url_meta":{"origin":2810,"position":0},"title":"Reviews of Lots of Little Comics","author":"BradyDale","date":"06 November 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"REVIEWS! REVIEWS! REVIEWS!So, I've been so busy that I've hardly had any time to read all the comics and mini comics I bought at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland at the end of last September.But I am finally getting started. I thought I would review all the comics\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":822,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/10\/07\/so-this-is-a-commitment-to-freedom\/","url_meta":{"origin":2810,"position":1},"title":"So this is a commitment to freedom ?","author":"AJ","date":"07 October 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Thinking about the deputy president meeting with Steve Balmer.","rel":"","context":"In "AJ Venter"","block_context":{"text":"AJ Venter","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/old-categories\/aj-venter\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":610,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2005\/05\/26\/groups\/","url_meta":{"origin":2810,"position":2},"title":"Groups","author":"BradyDale","date":"26 May 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Nat's first guest blog... So this morning (afternoon for Nat), he asked me if I wanted to be one of his first guest bloggers on here. Is this his first? I read back a little ways until I found him asking for guest bloggers, so maybe I am the first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1663,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/26\/interview-with-leah-beeferman\/","url_meta":{"origin":2810,"position":3},"title":"Interview with Leah Beeferman","author":"BradyDale","date":"26 July 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The following continues the series of paired interviews with artists carried out here and at This Too Will Pass. Leah Beeferman is a young artist who recently had the opportunity to show her work at Philadelphia's SPACE 1026. SPACE turned 10 years old this year, and it's one of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "art"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5709,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/07\/briefiew-of-thor-ragnarok-with-the-kids\/","url_meta":{"origin":2810,"position":4},"title":"Briefiew of Thor: Ragnarok (with the kids)","author":"nathaniel","date":"07 November 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"There are no plot spoilers in this review! Only a sprinkling of lines\/character development appreciations... The whole family went to see Thor: \u00c2\u00a0Ragnarok on Sunday morning, and it was super fun! Jack and Nonie and I were all always excited for this one, but Kitty mostly only wanted to go\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "briefiew"","block_context":{"text":"briefiew","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/briefiew\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Thor-Ragnarok-Easter-Eggs-Beta-Ray-Bill-Man.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Thor-Ragnarok-Easter-Eggs-Beta-Ray-Bill-Man.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Thor-Ragnarok-Easter-Eggs-Beta-Ray-Bill-Man.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":380,"url":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/2004\/08\/02\/eyebeam-reblog-women-scientists-unsung-stories-in-comic-book-form\/","url_meta":{"origin":2810,"position":5},"title":"Eyebeam reBlog: Women scientists’ unsung stories in comic-book form","author":"nathaniel","date":"02 August 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't usually reblog reblog's blog (anymore), but I couldn't resist this one: Eyebeam reBlog: Women scientists' unsung stories in comic-book form, which begins \"Rosalind Franklin's story is one of...\" As some of you may know, double standard (a large light box, and part of serial faces), is a portrait\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "me"","block_context":{"text":"me","link":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/category\/me\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2810"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2815,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2810\/revisions\/2815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielstern.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}