A thought about getting to know each-other on BBS vs twitter.

I’ve been reading and loving Cyberville: Clicks, Culture and the Creation of an Online Town by Stacy Horn, a 1998 book about her BBS “East Coast Hang Out” or “ECHO”. A BBS that is still running today.

“It’s the access to them, the line I have straight into the hearts and minds that keeps me calling back. But the key is repeated access. To really know a person you have to talk to them again and again. Like when we were kids.”

I love that idea. That even if people are trying to be private on the BBS, it’s inevitable that folks get to know them. Like many of us were stuck with the same group of kids day in / day out in school. Love them or hate them, you were for the most part stuck with these people. So, more often than not, you didn’t have a choice but grow to love some of them.

By contrast, in a community like twitter, where I interact with more than a thousand people, I get a sense of what my existing friends are up to, but I don’t think I get to know them any better.

By the way, I found out about Stacy Horn from an excellent talk by Claire L. Evans at XOXO in 2018. Claires book Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet,  it is next on my list.

Last December I left the job I’d been at for a decade, to give one final go at my lifelong dream of being a full time cartoonist.

I set a date to review my progress, to decide if I should keep going or retreat: July 1st.

Low and behold, I’m not looking for a job.

Wow.

The fluctuating plan for “Incredible Doom” during unpredictable times.

I just wrote a post on my Patreon about the logistics of printing Incredible Doom season 1, how we planed to improve our process with Season 2, and how things have changed for us in recent weeks.

If you’re interested in the behind the scenes nitty gritty of publishing print comics through Patreon take a look.

Get a Free Incredible Doom Post Card by Supporting Your Local Comic Shop

I just received these Incredible Doom postcards I’d had printed to thank my wonderful patrons for their support. Thing is, I’ve got about 100 extra, so I thought we could try something fun.

Starting today, the first 100 people who send me their address, and a proof of purchase from a local comic shop, will get one of these postcards in their mailbox, along with a note from me.

There are few things more magical than local comic shops and the post office, and both are having a hard time right now. Which makes today a great time to go order yourself or your friends some comics, let me know about it, and get fun things in your mailbox.

  1. EMAIL: matthewbogartcomics@gmail.com
  2. With your mailing address.
  3. And a proof of purchase from your local comic shop, preferably dated after Monday, April 13, 2020
  4. and the subject line: POST CARD

I drew characters from Bloom, The Tick, Valiant, Beverly Cleary, and Stray Bullets

I did some fan art from readers suggestions. There’s Hector and Ari from Bloom, The Tick, Ralph from The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Amy Racecar from Stray Bullets, Matt Feazells Cynicalman, and Magnus Robot Fighter (featuring Tara Bot).

This was lots of fun. I’ve been in a rut artistically the last few weeks. This was the opposite of that. Thanks everybody!

A unique experience.

It would be easy to just make this blog about [Trumps reaction to Covid-19] but this feels to me like a good time to be an alternative. If you want what’s on the news channels, it’s there on the news channels. Here, I’m more inclined to write about cats in my yard, comic book history and, of course, the unique experience we’re all having.

Mark Evanier

I sure am always glad when I dip into “News From ME, Mark Evanier’s Blog About TV, Movies, Theater, Comics, News Politics and Other Forms of Fantasy.”

I first learned about Mark from his work on the long running comic “Groo: the Wanderer” as a kid, but I think I like his blog even better.

It’s my favorite kind of site, one that makes things I normally would have little interest in, like the late night show landscape or little known 60s era television performers, fascinating.