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Kiel Christianson:
Indi Golf StingRay TT Wedges: Cult non-conforming wedges now in USGA conforming versions
I've always been pretty darn good friends with my wedges. Several years watching the likes of Phil Mickelson and a few other Tour pros perform slight-of-hand magic around the greens have instilled in me the joy of short-game practice. But I've got some buddies who are scared of their wedges. Lik…
SmartGolf's Smart Putter brings laser-precision to your putting stroke
2018 Father's Day golf gift guide
View from Europe:
Red Sky Ranch & Golf Club, a Colorado mountain hideaway
Colorado has always been one of my favorite golf destinations so I spent more than a week there during my recent road trip. Red Sky Golf Club boasts two of the state's best courses and is a must-play for any avid golfer. The "Greg Norman Course", designed by the legendary "Shark", is the more c…
Ocean Edge Resort & Golf Club, a classic Cape Cod retreat
Las Colinas Golf & Country Club is among Spain's best golf courses
Katharine Dyson:
Mark Fagan's book is a must-have for those bound for Alabama's Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail
It has been called the "most significant economic development project in Alabama during the past 40 years." Conceived in the late 1980s by Dr. David Bronner, CEO of the state's Retirement Systems (RSA), to diversify the state pension fund's assets by bringing more tourist dollars into the state eco…
The International Course at ChampionsGate in Orlando: World-class Greg Norman golf
Nicklaus adds another golden feather to his golf portfolio in Los Cabos: Quivira
Golf with Shanks:
Wales and southwest England: Golf's Road Less Travelled (Part 7)
Anyone who has played the Church Course at St. Enodoc knows it to be a pot o' gold lying in wait at the end of this rainbow of a trip into western-most England. As it rests on the shore of the quay, there aren't many places in the world that you could say surpass the views. But what is even better…
Wales & SW England: Golf's Road Less Travelled (Part 6)
Wales & SW England: Golf's Road Less Travelled (Part 5)
Jason Scott Deegan:
Bring a group of 8 golfers to score a free round at Walters Golf courses, Bali Hai or Royal Links, in Las Vegas
Walters Golf features some of the most creative promotions in Las Vegas. The latest is pretty good. Bring a group of eight or more golfers to play Bali Hai Golf Club or Royal Links Golf Club and your next round is free, plus your guests get $50 off their next round. If your group books three da…
Shop for your next holiday gift at Stonehouse Publishing, the home of great golf art and the new book, Green Glory
Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina: Where the renovated No. 2 moves to no. 1
The Accidental Golfer:
Bali Hai, Royal Links Golf Clubs make for great Las Vegas combo
A common question I get from readers headed to Las Vegas is an obvious one: Where should I play? Simple enough, right? The thing is about Las Vegas is that depending on your budget and tastes, I could give so many answers, but taking none of that in consideration, two courses always come to min…
On the golf course, finding the water can be good, especially if it's natural drinking water
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The Vagabond Golfer:
Luggage Forward gets your golf clubs to your destination, making even the most convoluted travel plans simple
Here's a scenario that doesn't come about every day, but perhaps you can imagine something similar: Heading from out-of-the-way Savannah, Georgia to out-of-the-way Lake Como, Italy, with the intention of playing half-a-dozen of the lakeside gems upon arrival. However, several days of sightsee…
Veteran golf course designer Larry Packard, best known for Copperhead at Innisbrook Resort, passes on at age 101
Orlando's Reunion Resort is the perfect tonic for those worn to a frazzle at the PGA Merchandise Show
Ron Mon:
Adios, Vaqueros
"Adios, Vaqueros," which means "Goodbye, cowboys," is where the expression "Adios, Buckaroos" originated. It has nothing to do with anything, other than this is my farewell post. I've enjoyed writing this blog over the past number of years and have had a terrific run with TravelGolf and WorldGolf.…
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|William Danson and Alice English - my grandparents , 1916.
|Bull Street, Poulton-le-Fylde, where my Danson grandparents lived until 1926.
|Me - enjoying the sun in Nantucket, Massachusetts, 1966.
|Onto 1981 and the back garden of our home in Hawick in the Scottish Borders. It is summer and this is my first attempt (and virtually the last) at cooking on a barbecue, but my efforts fell foul of the weather - hence the umbrella. Did I really need that watering can there as a health & safty measure? I hunted all over for this photograph for a recent prompt but found it last week in the loft, so am pleased to put it to good use here!

subset: commoncrawl


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A. that fit
B. that didn't require a second mortgage to afford them
C. that were "cool"
D. that weren't slutty (my criteria)
First off, let me say that I love shopping with Savannah. I really do. And I think she likes shopping with me too. Then again, Savannah's a smart kid. She knows if she goes with me, I'll buy her clothes and really, what's not to like about that. Hmmm, well, she may complain to her friends about how lame I am, but at least she pretends to enjoy shopping with me while we're out.
So we went to the mega-mall to look for a couple dresses that would be appropriate for church or other occasions that would require something nicer than flip flops and tank tops. Thankfully Savannah isn't big on name brands. She likes to look in Abercrombie (which is pronounced Abercrombie, not AMbercrombie. Get it right, people! If you can't say the name of the store, you shouldn't be shopping there. Just sayin'...) Anyway, she likes to look in the fancy schmancy, where-the-cool-kids shop kinda stores, but she's just as happy with a shirt from JCPenney or Target, thankfully.
We started our excursion at JCPenney where we found
As we passed a store called Hollister, Savannah asked, "Can we go in here and look?"
"Sure!" I answered good-naturedly. I was enjoying my time with Savannah and wasn't ready to head home quite yet. I looked at the store and realized it wasn't a store at all! It was club. I was pretty sure it was some sort of nightclub. Do you have these stores by you?
I swear I couldn't figure out how to get in. There was a door, but the entrance was completely blocked with a rack of clothes. Hmmm, maybe if I step up onto the this porch-like area? Nope, that's just a window. Hmmm, really where's the door? Well here's the deal folks, if you can't figure out where the door to a store is and you feel the need to ask the
Savannah rolled her eyes at me, took my hand and dragged me through the secret portal into Hollister. It took 10 minutes for my eyes to adjust to the nightclub-like dimness in the store. Apparently keeping the store in the dark not only saves on their electric bill, but it keeps customers from seeing just how tiny their shorts are, how amazingly tight their shirts are, and just how many pictures of half-naked guys there are in the store. Oh, I was just informed that there are just as many pictures of half-naked girls too. I have no idea why I didn't notice them.
And stores like Hollister, Abercrombie, Aeropostale, Gap, etc are really quite smart when it comes to advertising. They print the store name all over all their clothing. Teens everywhere are advertising the stores for free. In fact, they're paying the store to advertise for them! Personally, if I'm going to pay that much for a sweatshirt, I want it to say "Dawn Meehan" or "Dawn rocks!" or "Dawn's the awesomest!" But that's just me.
Since I'll never be young enough and thin enough to wear their surfer clothes, I turned on my heel to leave the store when the most awesomely awesome thing caught my eye. They have a huge wall covered with a screen onto which a live webcam shows a beach in California. I want one of those for my house! This would be so amazing for those of us living in
OK, so after I had sufficiently embarrassed Savannah in a number of stores, we decided to go to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. Do you guys have these restaurants? I guess in California, they're probably just called Pizza Kitchens, huh? While we were there, I kinda, a little bit, sorta hit the person behind me in her head. Then I might have possibly flipped a knife off my plate, nearly drawing blood from a poor passerby. Yeah, remember the embarrassment at the store, Savannah? Doesn't seem so bad anymore, does it? I think it'll be awhile before she goes shopping with me again.


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When selecting a hardwood floor for your home or place of business perhaps the last word that individuals want to hear is the term "engineered". Often associated with lesser quality material, the term "engineered" immediately sets off alarms of would be potential purchasers of engineered wood floors shutting off all further communication and explanation of the numerous benefits offered by engineered flooring.
The term "engineered" only implies how the flooring material is made as is of little consequence to the overall brilliance, dependability and affordability that engineered flooring is noted for. Ranked as one of the top choices of all available wood flooring materials, engineered wood floors continue to excel in performance with lasting quality that supports the composition of all engineered wood floors.
Depending on grade selected, engineered floors are comprised of multiple layers of either high density particle board (HDF) or multiple density particle board (MDF), which gives engineered floor superior strength and rigidity. Glued together in a cross-pattern format under extreme pressure and heat, engineered wood floors will not buckle, gap, cut or twist. The top, visible layers of engineered flooring are crafted from the finest Northern veneers and available in a variety of colors and finishes to coincide with all present interior décor and individual specifications. Grades of engineered flooring are often determined by layers of either MDF or HDF, with the higher or increased number of layers and overall thickness resulting in higher costs per square foot.
Associated costs for engineered floors are based on the lamella, or top visible layer, with exotic woods costing considerably more per square foot. With 3-ply (layer) construction, ¼" in thickness, engineered wood floors average approximately $3-$5.00 per square foot. With increased density to 5-ply (layer) construction, the cost per square foot ranges from $6-$9.00 per square foot. Top-of-the-line construction of engineered wood floors is the 7-ply (layer) ¾"construction ranging from $10-14$ per square foot. Overall pricing per square foot increases substantially in the selection of a lamella, finished layer, for hand-scraped and other exotic wood species.
Designed from an environmentally responsible standpoint, engineered wood floors are the latest in "green development" respecting the environment, with the production of an "eco-friendly" flooring material by:
• Using only half as many trees as solid wood floors
• Providing a faster, renewable wood for inner layers
• Less mills wastes and pollution omitted into the atmosphere
• Comprised of only water-based finishes protecting rivers and streams
• Using a formaldehyde free adhesive bonding inner layers that exceeds even the most rigid air quality standards
With millions of dollars spent annually by engineered flooring manufacturers to safe guard the environment, engineered wood floors remain competitively priced with distinct advantages over traditional solid hardwood flooring applications and installations which include:
• Lamella, top finished layer, available in dozens of wood species
• Applied surface effects can be applied to further enhance overall appearance
• Factory finishes often out-last site-applied finishes on solid hardwood floors
• No drying time for finishes due to prefinished surfaces
• May be installed in basements directly over concrete slabs
• Installation is quick and easy requiring basic installation tool knowledge
• May be refinished to repair wear and tear depending on thickness selected
• Core layer contracts and expands in all weather conditions
• May be removed and reinstalled at other locations
With beauty, integrity and overall value, engineered floors add significant value to all homes and places of business. To date, these floors continue to increase in popularity with millions of homes and businesses nationwide, having installed engineered floors. Where affordability and practical uses applications are of foremost importance, engineered floors continue to reflect the beauty of manufactured inspirations.


text:
USL 50 (Topiragen 50 mg)
Generic Name: topiramate
Pill with imprint USL 50 is Yellow, Round and has been identified as Topiragen 50 mg. It is supplied by Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc.
Topiragen is used in the treatment of migraine prevention; fibromyalgia; seizures; seizure prevention; diabetic peripheral neuropathy (and more), and belongs to the drug class carbonic anhydrase inhibitor anticonvulsants. There is positive evidence of human fetal risk during pregnancy. Topiragen 50 mg is not a controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Images for USL 50
- Generic Name:
- topiramate
- Imprint:
- Strength:
- 50 mg
- Color:
- Yellow
- Shape:
- Round
- Availability:
- Prescription only
- Drug Class:
- Carbonic anhydrase inhibitor anticonvulsants
- Pregnancy Category:
- D - Positive evidence of risk
- CSA Schedule:
- Not a controlled drug
- Labeler / Supplier:
- Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc
More about Topiragen (topiramate)
- Topiragen Side Effects
- During Pregnancy or Breastfeeding
- Dosage Information
- Drug Interactions
- Support Group
- 1 Review
- Drug class: carbonic anhydrase inhibitor anticonvulsants
Consumer resources
Other brands: Topamax, Trokendi XR, Qudexy XR, Topamax Sprinkle
Professional resources
Related treatment guides
Every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is accurate, up-to-date, and complete, but no guarantee is made to that effect. If you have questions about the drugs you are taking, check with your doctor, nurse or pharmacist.
Copyright 2018 Drugs.com, National Library of Medicine, Truven Health Analytics and Cerner Multum, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Whenever Tyler Perry is in front of the camera, he's usually behind it as well. A screenwriter, director, producer and star, Perry grew up poor in New Orleans, but he has become a movie phenomenon — he was described in the New Yorker as the most financially successful black man the American film industry has ever known.
Perry first developed his following on the African-American theater circuit. By the time he released his first movie in 2005, The Diary of a Mad Black Woman, his following was so large the film premiered nationally at No 1. Part drama, part comedy, the film introduced his most popular character, Madea, to movie audiences. Madea — Mabel Simmons — is the matriarch of a family, and Perry completely transforms himself to play the role. And as Madea's brother and nephew, Perry frequently co-stars in scenes with himself.
Several of Perry's films are told from female perspectives, which he says was a result of his childhood experience. "My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "And my mother who was trying to protect me from him as best she could, she took me everywhere with her, which gave me a tremendous amount of sensitivity to the things women go through. ... I would spend more time at the laundromat and Lane Bryant than any young boy should. [In my writing] I'm speaking from the little boy who's at her apron, looking up at the world and seeing all that I'm seeing these women go through."
Perry was 18 or 19 when he was first inspired to write and act. He was watching The Oprah Winfrey Show, he explains, and "[Oprah] said it was cathartic to write things down and I, at the time, didn't know what 'cathartic' meant, I had to find a dictionary to look it up. And once I did, I started writing a lot of my own experiences down." He didn't have much privacy at home, so he used different character names to disguise himself in case anyone found his writing.
Perry is currently starring in the new action thriller Alex Cross; he says it was the arc of the story that attracted him to the role. "I loved that he's a family man," Perry says. "And then he goes to work as this officer, a psychologist and he is someone else and then by the end of the film, he's this lion that has been unleashed that he has to tame within himself."
Perry's other films include Madea's Family Reunion, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, The Family That Preys and Why Did I Get Married. He created and produced the TBS TV series House of Payne and its follow-up show, Meet the Browns. In 2011, he was named the highest-paid man in entertainment by Forbes, earning $130 million. Alex Cross opens in theaters on Friday.
Interview Highlights
On creating the character of Madea
"Madea is a cross between my mother and my aunt and watching Eddie Murphy, the brilliant Eddie Murphy, do The Klumps. I thought — maybe I should try my hand at a female character. And that's what came up. I thought I'd imitate the funniest person that I know, and she is the exactly the PG version of my mother and my aunt, and I loved having an opportunity to pay homage to them. She's a strong, witty, loving, I mean really, just like my mother used to be before she died. She would beat the hell out of you but make sure the ambulance got there in time to make sure they could set your arm back, you know what I mean? Because the love was there inside all of it. I know it sounds really strange, but that's the old-school mentality. That's why I think the character is so popular, because a lot of people miss that type of grandmother, everybody is so worried about being politically correct that she's no longer around."
On forgiving his abusive father
"The thing that helped me the most was understanding who he was as a child. The man was found — he and my aunt, and my uncle ... they were all in this drainage canal and they were found by a white man who saw the kids and brought them to a woman named May to raise, who lived on some of the property that the white man owned. ... He left the children there with her and she was 14 years old. And her father was a former slave and a very old man who was bedridden at the time, very old and dying, and everything that she knew to do was to beat the children — so everything my father did, whatever he did wrong ... she would put him in a potato sack, tie him in a tree and she would beat him for everything he did wrong, so that is what he came out of. And understanding who he was helped me to be able to forgive a lot of his behavior and what he tried to pass on to me. It doesn't excuse it, but it gave me an opportunity to understand who he was."
On performing his first plays
"It was in Atlanta, Ga., at the 14th Street playhouse. ... It's a very small community playhouse. ... I was in the 200-seat theater and I thought 1,200 people would show up and only 30 showed up and I knew all of them so [I] lost everything, rent payment, car payment, all that money I had saved was tied up in the show. I lost everything, but I kept going. ... I was doing one performance a year ... out of every show I'd do, somebody would come along and invest in two or three shows and nothing would ever get off the ground. But what changed in 1998 was the show was about adult survivors of child abuse who had forgiven their abusers — and I hadn't forgiven my father. And somewhere in that time I forgave him so that was the thing that changed within me, and outwardly everything changed. I recast the show, put it up, same city six years later and sold out nine shows."
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, screenwriter, director, producer and actor Tyler Perry grew up poor, but he's become a movie phenomenon, the most financially successful back man the American film industry has ever known, according to the New Yorker. He first developed his following on the African-American theater circuit. By the time he released his first movie in 2005, "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," his following was so large the film premiered, nationally, at number one.
Part drama, part comedy, it introduced his most popular character, Madea, to movie audiences. Madea, Mabel Simmons, is the matriarch of a family, and playing her requires Tyler Perry to completely transform himself. He's often shared his scenes with himself, since he's also played Madea's brother and her nephew.
Perry's other films include "Madea's Family Reunion," "The Family That Prays" and "Why Did I Get Married?" He's also had two very popular cable TV series, "House of Payne" and "Meet the Browns." Tyler Perry fans who are used to seeing him in a floral housecoat as Madea are in for a surprise. He's starring in the new thriller "Alex Cross" as a homicide detective tracking down a sociopathic serial killer.
Let's start with a clip from "Alex Cross." The killer, played by Matthew Fox, is calling Perry's character Alex Cross on the phone to taunt him after having killed Cross' wife.
TYLER PERRY: (As Alex Cross) Cross.
MATTHEW FOX: (As Picasso) Good afternoon, detective. Am I calling at a bad time?
PERRY: (As Cross) That depends. Are you calling to tell me where you are so I can hunt you down like a rabid dog?
FOX: (As Picasso) Ho, ho, that's good. I can feel that. I mean, you looked so numb at the funeral today, but now the pain's really starting to flow, isn't it?
PERRY: (As Cross) Here's another emotion for you: It's pleasure, the pleasure I'm going to get when I watch your soul come oozing out of your body, you maggot.
FOX: (As Picasso) Well, Confucius said when setting off on the path of revenge, dig two graves.
PERRY: (As Cross) That's fine with me, as long as you're in one of them.
GROSS: Tyler Perry, welcome to FRESH AIR. So did you ever expect to get a role as an action hero?
PERRY: I never thought about action, actually. I don't - I didn't even, when I said yes to the script, I didn't even think of it as action, for some reason. I don't - and as I'm hearing that now, or in these last few interviews in the junket, I'm going, action hero, huh, that's pretty interesting.
What attracted me to the role was simply that I love the arc of the character. I love that he's a family man who loves his family and his wife and his kids and his mother, and he's trying to be a great dad, and then he goes to work as this officer, a psychologist, and he's someone else.
And then by the end of the film, he is this lion that has been unleashed that he has to tame within himself. And all of that intrigued me. I never thought action. I just thought this is a great arc and a lot of different nuances and levels that could be played in this character. That is the thing that made me say yes to it.
GROSS: Of course there is action. There's fighting, and jumping and hanging by your fingers from a building.
PERRY: Yeah, fingernails, yeah, sure.
GROSS: Yeah, fingernails, yeah. So you have your share of action in it. Did you have to get real buff in order to do this?
PERRY: Yeah, I work out pretty regularly, but for this film, the director, Rob Cohen, asked that I take Krav Maga, which is Israeli fighting technique - an Israeli fighting technique - and as I started it, I loved it so much. It changed my body completely, because I could work out, I could run three miles, I could do all of that stuff and have a great workout in the morning, and I thought I was in pretty good shape.
When I started the Krav Maga training, I couldn't get through one hour of it. I was on my knees after 10 minutes. So it was really intense, but what I loved about that is the way it made me feel, how it changed, you know, me physically. And I kept that going even after the film wrapped, because I really enjoy it.
GROSS: So this is the first time that I know of that you're in a movie that you didn't make yourself. So it must have been odd for you to be in a movie where you didn't write it, you're not, you know, you're not directing it. I know you've been in movie that you haven't directed, but you've written them. So what was it like to not be in total control?
PERRY: Oh, I rather enjoyed it, actually. This was a release for me. The first film that I did that I - was "Star Trek." I did a very small role in that because I hadn't been on anyone else's set, and I wanted to see how it went. So I spent time with J.J. Abrams on that, which I thought was great. So that let me know that I could do it. That was my little test for that.
And for "Alex Cross," this was a welcome vacation because it was great to just focus on the performance, to take every bit of energy that usually has to be divided into a million different areas, into just acting. That was really wonderful and profound for me.
GROSS: So is this your ability to say, you know, like judge me as an actor? You know, like, you know I direct and write and produce and all that, and I play, you know, lots of roles in the films that I make, but here I'm just acting, you know, just take me as an actor.
PERRY: I love the thought of that. I have been a person that has - I've done a lot of different things, and I never really think about anything other than how the audience will react and respond to it. So it's about what they think and how they're the only ones that I will take in judgment of, you know what I mean, because there's nothing there other than wanting me to succeed and celebrate what I'm doing.
GROSS: So let me ask you about your own movies, the ones that you make, yourself. You often play three parts: Madea, who is an aunt to many of the characters in the movie; her brother Joe; and Joe's son, who you also play, who is a lawyer. So let's talk a little bit about these parts. Let's start with Madea, who's your most famous character, again she's not in all your movies, but she's your most famous character.
Why don't you describe her and how you created her.
PERRY: You know, Madea is a cross between my mother and my aunt, and watching Eddie Murphy - the brilliant Eddie Murphy - do the Klumps, I thought, well, maybe I should try my hand as a female character. And that's what came up. I thought I'd imitate the funniest people that I know. And she is exactly the PG version of my mother and my aunt.
I loved having an opportunity to pay homage to them. She's strong, witty, loving, I mean really just like my mother used to be before she died. She would beat the hell out of you but make sure the ambulance got there in time to make sure they could set your arm back, you know what I mean, because the love was there inside of all of it.
I know it sounds really strange, but that's that old-school mentality that - that's why I think the character's so popular, because a lot of people miss that type of grandmother. Everybody's so worried about being politically correct that she's no longer around.
GROSS: Not Madea in your movies wears these, like, loose-fitting housecoats, these, like, big '80s-style glasses. Can you talk about how you dress her? Do you pick the clothes yourself?
No, it's all my wardrobe department, but I just - as long they know I don't want her to be sexy, I'm fine with it.
GROSS: I'm sure she's not going to be.
PERRY: No, no, I just can't imagine being - her trying to be sexy. That's just a little bit too much for my senses to take on.
GROSS: So were you uncomfortable about being in women's clothes and the assumptions people might make about you?
PERRY: No, I was never uncomfortable about that. What I was more uncomfortable about is just sitting there, and because I'm not really - the clothes aren't really on me. The fat suit is what's on me, and having those huge, let's see...
GROSS: Breasts?
PERRY: Gallon-sized breasts, yeah, yeah, that are just - that are under my armpits at times. All of that was pretty strange and pretty weird. But again, being a character actor, just like with Alex Cross, I just let go and submit and let the character be the character.
GROSS: OK, so let's talk about Madea's brother Joe, who lives with her. He's kind of the opposite of her in a lot of ways. Describe him.
PERRY: He's a cantankerous old fart who's always thinking about sex. And he's not politically correct, either. He's just from the old school. He just - he's always looking for drugs. He always wants to smoke pot and has nothing wise to say. He is strictly there for the comic relief.
GROSS: And explain - describe the character of Brian, the lawyer who is the nephew of Madea.
PERRY: Yeah, Brian would be the nephew of Madea, who has shown up in a couple of my movies, and his purpose for me was just to be - to see if I could just do a straight role because it's so easy for me to have a costume and hide behind that costume. You want me to play a tree? You know, give me the costume, and I can pull it off.
It's just - so for him, he was the most challenging and the most uncomfortable for me because I had nothing to hide behind. So as I've - he was my beginning, the beginnings of understanding or knowing could I - or trying to see if I could do something outside of having a costume.
GROSS: So now we're going to bring all three of those characters in a scene, and this is from "Madea's Family Reunion." Madea is always having to go to court for some reason or another, usually something, like, horrible she's done to defend someone in her family. But her offense this time around is that she took off her house arrest bracelet, so - and representing her is Brian, one of your other characters. So you're both before - you've just been before the judge.
And the judge has sentenced Madea to be a foster parent for this kid who's really troubled, who needs a home. And the judge figures the one thing Madea's really good is, you know, protecting kids and protecting her family, so I'm going to give her this kid.
So you and Madea have just driven back to Madea's house. Joe is waiting there on the steps. Joe sees Madea and this new kid, and he's like, what, you can't bring this kid to our home. So Joe speaks first, and so to sum up, here's my guest Tyler Perry in three roles from his movie "Madea's Family Reunion."
PERRY: (As Joe) I was so hoping they would lock you the hell up.
(As Madea) The only locked up around here is your bowels. Now shut the hell up.
(As Brian) How you doin', daddy?
(As Joe) Hey Brian, hey Tiffany, how you doin'?
(As Brian) Daddy, this is not my daughter.
(As Joe) Oh well hell, they all look alike to me. Who is (unintelligible)?
(As Brian) Madea is a new foster mother. You're going to have a houseguest.
(As Joe) That child ain't stayin' here. You can't stay here. Go on back to where the hell you came from. You can't stay up in this house. It's bad enough you let that gal move up in here with them two babies makin' all that racket all day long. Now you done brought her. Every time I send you somewhere, you come back with something. Take it back. We don't want it. Return to sender.
(As Madea) I remember I sent you somewhere, too, and you came back with something. You still itchin'?
(As Joe) Your mama. Oh hell, that's my mama, too, ain't it?
(As Madea) Don't say nothing like that in front of this child. Come on in the house. I'll show you where you're sleeping.
GROSS: (As Brian) Daddy, you gotta stop being so mean.
PERRY: (As Joe) I wish I had been mean to your mama. Then I wouldn't be sattin' here looking at your right now. I tell you, that's crazy as hell, all these people up in this house. I'm gonna call the fire marshal. That is against the law. Oh, I'm gonna need some weed to be dealin' with all these people. I'm hearing babies cryin' every five minutes.
GROSS: So that was Tyler Perry, Tyler Perry and Tyler Perry in a scene from his movie "Madea's Family Reunion." What's it like to play a scene where you're three of the characters?
PERRY: It can be a little - you have to have all sides of your brain working to make that happen, because I'm usually standing there either talking to a tennis ball when the other person is not in the scene or a stand-in, and they're giving me readings of the lines, and I'm trying to think of how I would say it or what ad libs I'm going to do and try and remember them.
So by the time it takes the hours for the setups to get around to all three characters, it's pretty interesting. So you need a lot of editing magic once that's all done.
GROSS: So the father in this movie, Joe, is based in part on your father, right?
PERRY: More on my grandfather. My grandfather was a man, my mother's father, who - his name was Willy(ph) and he owned a juke joint in rural Louisiana. And we spent times there, the summers, at his house, and this house was 10 feet from a train track. So the train would come through all the time. And he was just a great, great character who kept a straight razor in his back pocket and always had an apple and a cigar, (unintelligible) hat. He's just a great guy.
GROSS: Yeah, I'm thinking because, like, your father was not a comic character by any means, and I thought it would be hard to transform him into one because it sounds like he spent a lot of his time beating you when you were growing up.
PERRY: He was - what I know about my father is this, and what I've tried to learn over the years, is this, that his story, it's very interesting, too. And what I tell lots of people who are angry with their parents or children who've become, you know, older men or women, and they're trying to understand or get to a place of forgiveness, as I had to get to my father - the thing that helped me the most was understanding who he was as a child.
The man was found. He and my aunt and my uncle, I think my aunt was six, my uncle was four, and he was two, and they were all in this drainage canal. And they were found by a white man who saw the kids and brought them to a woman named May(ph) to raise, who lived on some of the property that the white man owned.
I don't know the man's name, but - it's possibly Perry because we don't know where Perry came from. But anyway, he left the children there with her, and she was 14 years old. And her father was a former slave and a very old man who was bedridden at the time, very old and dying. And everything that she knew to do was to beat the children.
So everything my father did, whatever he did wrong, she would beat him. She was 14 years old. She would put him in a potato sack, tie him in a tree, and she would beat him for everything that he did wrong. So, that what he came out of. And understanding who he was helped me to be able to forgive a lot of his behavior and what he tried to pass on to me.
It doesn't excuse it, but it gave me an opportunity to understand who he was. So in all fairness to him, now I have a clearer picture of who he was.
GROSS: How old were you when you reached that point of feeling like you could at least understand, if not forgive, his behavior?
PERRY: I think at 28. I didn't find out a lot of this stuff until I was in my 30s, but when I was 28, I started on the path of letting go, because what I realized is what I'd like for a lot of people to realize: If you're holding on to the anger and the pain of what someone has done to you, you are not hurting them at all, you are hurting yourself.
GROSS: But anger, it seems like anger was a very powerful fuel for you, because you probably worked off the fumes of anger for a long time in pushing yourself as hard as you did to get to where you got to.
PERRY: Absolutely, as do a lot of people who were abused. So the anger was the fuel, but what happens - and this is why a lot of people don't want to let go of the anger. This is why I didn't want to let go of the anger. I wasn't aware of it then, but I know now, looking back on it, because the anger was the fuel.
And once I forgave him, I was no longer angry. So I lost the motivation, and I lost the fuel. Because the fuel was I'll prove you wrong, I am worth something, I am better than what you're saying I am. I am - you know, and once all of that was gone, and none of that mattered anymore, I had to find another source of fuel.
GROSS: And that is where I came up with all of these characters and the movies and the place that I'm in in my life now with everything that I write and produce and direct. I want it rooted in positivity.
My guest is Tyler Perry. He's starring as a homicide detective in the new film "Alex Cross." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is writer, director, producer and actor Tyler Perry, and he's actually starring in an action movie now called "Alex Cross." Did you get to see many movies when you were growing up?
PERRY: No, I didn't, actually. The first movie I ever saw was, I think I was four or five years old, was "The Wiz," and I danced all the way home seeing Michael Jackson and Diana Ross in the, you know, Motown version of "The Wizard of Oz."
And I didn't see a whole lot of film. That was the only time I ever remember going to a movie theater.
GROSS: Was that because you didn't care or didn't have the money?
PERRY: Didn't have the money, weren't really allowed to and just - my family, we weren't - we never went to dinner. We never sat at the dinner table together. We never - none of those things ever happened. We were all, you know, you'd eat when you could or when it was there, and you'd get what you could, and you'd go to your room or go somewhere else.
So a lot of that wasn't - the things that I look at now that so many people take for granted, wasn't a part of my life growing up.
GROSS: Did you have a television?
PERRY: Yes, we did.
GROSS: What did you watch that made an impression on you?
PERRY: I loved - as a kid, I loved "Gilligan's Island," and I thought for sure that all of these people were little people living inside of the television, and they would come onstage when their show would come on.
PERRY: And I was so intrigued because it was a really big box floor model, and I knew they were in there. And all the time I would look behind, and I wanted to unscrew it to see if could - but I knew my father would kill me if I would do it.
GROSS: What other TV shows besides "Gilligan's Island"?
PERRY: I loved "Gilligan's Island," and I love "Laverne and Shirley." I loved Norman Lear, who is a man that I just - I have to meet. All of his shows, from "Good Times" to "All in the Family," I mean he was just a brilliant, brilliant - is just a brilliant man. I just want to spend some time with him.
GROSS: When did you think that you wanted to act or to write plays? Like at what point did that become a real idea for you?
PERRY: I was about 18 or 19 years old, and I was watching the Oprah show, and she said it was cathartic to write things down. And I, at that time, didn't know what cathartic meant. I had to find a dictionary to look it up. And once I did, I started writing a lot of my own experiences down.
And there wasn't a whole lot of privacy in my house, so what I did was I used different characters' names in these experiences because I didn't want people to know that I had gone through them. A friend of mine found them and said man, this is a really good play. And then I thought, well, maybe it is a play.
And I didn't have any money to see live shows. So when they could come through New Orleans at the Sanger Theater, I would sneak in at intermission. When everybody would come out to take their smoke, and they'd go back in, I'd go back in and find a seat. So a lot of times I only saw the second act of a lot of plays, but it was - that's where it all started for me.
GROSS: So when you were writing in dialogue so people wouldn't think it was your own story, can I ask you to tell the kind of thing that you were trying to hide by making it into a play?
PERRY: Well, everything I've talked about recently in the past years. I've talked about the abused adults, living with an adult survivor of child abuse. That's what the show was about. I was talking about all of that in the play.
GROSS: So how did you get to actually stage it the first time?
PERRY: I went to work, I saved $12,000.
GROSS: Went to work doing what?
PERRY: I was a used car - I moved to Atlanta in 1992, and I was a used car salesman. I was a bill collector. I worked at a hotel, and I saved all of my H&R Block tax returns, and I put the show up, called in a lot of favors.
GROSS: Being a bill collector, that must be a really hard job.
PERRY: You know what was so great about it, I realize now, is that everything that I did, used car salesman, bill collector, all of those jobs prepared me for what I do today; because in negotiating contracts or - if you can get the guy from Kentucky who is behind on his four-wheeler payment and the mortgage and everything else to send you a payment, you can negotiate a pretty good deal in Hollywood.
GROSS: Tyler Perry will be back in the second half of the show. He stars in the new thriller "Alex Cross." I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with screenwriter, director, producer and actor Tyler Perry. He's starring as a homicide detective in the new thriller "Alex Cross." He's best known for his films "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," "Madea's Family Reunion" and "Why Did I Get Married," and for his TV series "House of Payne" and "Meet the Browns."
(technical difficulties) director, he's famous for his comic character Madea, a family matriarch. (technical difficulties) Perry got his start on the African-American theater circuit in the early '90s with a play called "I Know I've Been Changed," which was inspired by his own story about growing up poor and being abused by his father.
We've talked a little bit about your mother and your father and how your father used to beat to you and how he was beaten when he was a child. Did your mother try to protect you from his beatings or was she as much a victim as you were?
PERRY: As best she could. I think here you have to again, that goes back to the story and you have to understand who she was. You know, her mother died when she was 13 years old. She had five brothers and sisters and she was the middle child. And my father came along and married her when she was 17, brought her down to New Orleans and they had nowhere to live and nowhere to stay so she had never known how to support or take care of herself. And every time she would go to one of her aunts or people in her family, they would tell - and she would say what was going on, they would tell you that he's a good man, he has a job, you stay with him. And that was her experience in life and that is what she was taught and that is what she knew. So she did the absolute best that she could with the situation that she was given.
GROSS: Your mother stayed with your father in spite of, you know, how he could be brutal. Did you want them to - were you hoping that she would leave him and take him with her?
PERRY: Many times. Many times. And she did once or twice. But what was clear about it, is that she had no way to support four children, and as bad as things were, as bad of a person as he could be, the man with the provider. He provided. There was - the lights were never off. You know, we did have everything we wanted, but everything we needed was definitely met.
GROSS: What did he do for a living?
PERRY: He was a carpenter - subcontractor. He built houses for a living.
GROSS: Several of the movies that you've made are very much from a woman's point of view, about women's relationships with friends, family, boyfriends, husbands, children. And I'm interested in why some of your films are largely from a woman's perspective.
PERRY: As a child, my father, who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model. And my mother, who was trying to protect me from him as best she could, she took me everywhere with her, which gave me a tremendous amount of sensitivity to the things that women go through. I would spend time, more time at the laundry mat and Lane Bryant than any young boy should of.
PERRY: But. But...
GROSS: Lane Bryant his like for large women.
PERRY: Yeah. Yeah. Lane Bryant for large women. But it taught me a lot about women and their issues and being there in the house with her and my sisters. So a lot of times I'm speaking from a little boy who's at her apron, looking up at the world and seeing all that I'm seeing these women go through, seeing how they huddled together, how they lean on each other, how they went to each other for strength. You know, it was fascinating, intriguing, powerful, hurtful, dark at times, but there was always hope. And my mother would always take me to church. She would always - that's where the, you know, I say this a lot, I said she didn't have much to give but she gave me Jesus. She took me to church every Sunday no matter what hell was going on in the house.
So I owe a tremendous amount of debt to them, and to her and to all the women that were in my life. And I'm hoping that - in a lot of my work I was hoping that I was speaking to my own mother and helping her find her own strength to stand on her own. And I'm hoping that somebody who sees the movie - and this is what motivates me and moves me - as people see my films, to get the thousands of letters that I get, of people were moved and inspired and left abusive relationships because of something they saw. These are people who can't afford therapy, for the most part, who've never had it, who don't understand why they're in the situation. And here I am with this very simple but complex mirror in front of them and going - and they're able to stay wow, that's me but what if I did that? You know, that's what makes it worthwhile for me.
GROSS: So you staged your first play, and where was it?
PERRY: It was in Atlanta, Georgia, the 14th Street Playhouse.
GROSS: And what kind of playhouse was that? What kind of - is it downtown or...
PERRY: It's just a very small - yeah - community playhouse that has a 400 seat theater and a 200 seat theater and a 90 seat theater. And I was in the 200 seat theater and I thought 1,200 people would show up and only 30 showed up and I knew all of them. So lost everything, rent payment, car payment. All that money that I had saved was tied up in the show and I lost everything, but I kept going.
GROSS: So how did you get your second crack and what changed? Because people showed up the second time around so what was different?
PERRY: Well, that happened between from 1992 up until 1998. I did - I was doing one performance a year, because what happened is I was out of money but there was always somebody in the crowd - out of that 30 there was a person who said I'd like to invest. So out of every show I'd do somebody would come along and try to invest in two or three shows and nothing would ever get off the ground. But what changed in 1998 was the show was about adult survivors of child abuse who had forgiven their abusers and I hadn't forgiven my father. And somewhere in that time I forgave him, so that was the thing that changed within me. And outwardly, everything changed. I recast the show, put it up in same city, six years later, and sold out nine shows.
GROSS: Did your father see your early plays?
PERRY: He did. He didn't see the very early ones that did not do well, but he definitely saw the - "I Know I've Been Changed" was the first show. He didn't see it in its early stages when he saw it in '99, 2000 when it was really successful and selling out theaters across the country.
GROSS: And did he kind of put together that there were - there were characters who'd been abused and that this connected to his abuse of you?
PERRY: No. You're assuming that he is a person that is connected in that way, and he's not at all. He's not at all. He's very, is a very disconnected human being emotionally, and I don't know if it's even possible for him to put those kinds of things together or think that I was - if I don't flat out say I'm talking about you, I don't think that he would get it.
GROSS: Hmm. Did he get that you were successful?
PERRY: Oh, yeah, he gets that. He gets that very well.
GROSS: Is he still alive?
PERRY: Still alive and I am taking very good care of him.
GROSS: Wow. So, what's it like for you to take care of him after he was so cruel to you?
PERRY: I - first of all, I believe you honor your father and your mother, period, no matter what, no matter who they were, no matter what they did; again, and understanding where he came from helped me to be able to do that. But what the man did do for me was, there was always - the lights are always on and the mortgage was always paid so we weren't out on the streets. So what kind of person would I be if I allowed him, in his older years, and now that he can't work, to be out on the streets, especially when I'm doing so successful? The money is an easy part. That's the easy part. What he doesn't have with me, which I think is worth way more than money, is a relationship - a father-son relationship. So what it is right now is I am doing for him, just what he did for me.
GROSS: In your first movie "Diary of a Mad Black Woman," there's a scene where, you know, the husband who had abused his wife ends up being shot and he's paralyzed. And so she takes care of him and while she's taking care of him she's a little abusive toward him for a while, and she kind of forces him to apologize to her. And then, eventually, things mellow out and he apologizes for real, which isn't to say she's going to stay with him. But I'm wondering if you had one of those moments with your father, where through helping him, like he finally said something like, I was so wrong to have been so hurtful to you. I see it now...
PERRY: No. Again, he's...
GROSS: Yeah.
PERRY: No, he's not that person. But that portion of the story came from my mother. My father, when she was - she had diabetes and was going blind and he would drop her off on the corner to find her way into the doctor. He wouldn't take her in and she was really bothered and hurt by it. And about two months after he did that, he was in the backyard building a fire and there were batteries in the fire and he didn't know it and the batteries exploded in his face and he was blinded. By this time her sight had gotten better and she was his caregiver. And I looked at her and I said OK, now what are you going to do? And she said I'm going to take care of him. And she told me then, she said you never let anybody make you somebody that you're not. So I watched her nurse him, take care of him and show him kindness and love. So that's where that moment came from. It was born out of a real moment between them.
GROSS: Was he permanently blinded?
PERRY: No. No, no, no. It was temporary. It was just some sort of acid or something from the batteries that made him go blind, but his eyes have never been the same.
GROSS: My guest is Tyler Perry. He's starring as a homicide detective in the new film "Alex Cross."
We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Tyler Perry and he's most famous for his movies in which he plays the character Madea, who is based on his aunt and his mother. He's now starring in an action film which is called "Alex Cross."
How did you learn to direct? Did you just learn by doing?
PERRY: Yeah. I did not direct my first film because I knew I didn't know what to do. So I brought in a director and I had him do the directing and I watched the film and a lot of those performances I was involved in getting the performance. And I'm thinking wait a minute, what you don't know is about cameras and lighting and cinematography. But when it comes to directing and getting performances, I think you've got that covered, so for the next film I decided to direct it myself.
GROSS: So I wanted to play one more scene from one of your films. And this is from your first film "Diary of a Mad Black Woman." In this scene Helen, the main character played by Kimberly Elise, she's been thrown out of the mansion that she's lived in with her husband because he has a mistress who has just moved in. So she is meeting with - she's talking with Madea. They're at Madea's house, and I'll just say that a little deeper into the scene, Madea is taking out an adding machine.
GROSS: ...and then when you hear her kind of pounding away, she is adding things up on her adding machine. So here's the scene.
PERRY: (As Madea) I called Charles this morning, and he told me before he hung up that you and him is getting a divorce. But what I can't seem to figure out is why you here.
KIMBERLY ELISE: (As Helen) He put me out of the house.
PERRY: (As Madea) Who house?
ELISE: (As Helen) Our house.
PERRY: (As Madea) Exactly. How the hell a man gonna put a women out her own house? He might put me out but he gonna put me out of half. I'm gonna go in the other half of the house. He wasn't put me out of all of it.
ELISE: (As Helen) The house is in his name, Madea.
PERRY: (As Madea) Lord, have mercy. That's how women get messed up, too busy out shopping when you need to be checking the deed.
(As Madea) Woo, that make me mad, girl.
ELISE: (As Helen) I don't have any rights to the money.
PERRY: (As Madea) No right...
ELISE: (As Helen) I signed a pre-nup.
PERRY: (As Madea) What the hell you sign a pre-nup? I ought to punch you in the face. Who the hell told you to sign a pre-nup? Didn't have none when you married him.
ELISE: (As Helen) Charles always knew he'd be successful and he said to me I want to know that you're here for love. And I didn't have a job so it's his money.
PERRY: (As Madea) It's - what was you doing while he was working, honey?
ELISE: (As Helen) Taking care of the house, cooking and cleaning.
PERRY: (As Madea) Exactly. That sound like a job to me - cooking and cleaning. How long you do that?
ELISE: (As Helen) Eighteen years.
PERRY: (As Madea) All right. OK.
(As Madea) Eighteen years, let's see how much he owes you.
(As Madea) Eighteen, you've been cooking, cleanting(sp)...
(As Madea) ...having sex with him when he wanted. Was it good?
ELISE: (As Helen) No.
PERRY: (As Madea) Major deduction.
ELISE: (As Helen) And I didn't tell you that he hit me.
PERRY: (As Madea) Ooh, hoo, hoo, ho, hoo.
(As Madea) Girl, that man only you $64 billion $283 million, $974 trillion, $5,020.82.
GROSS: That's, that's...
PERRY: That's pretty crazy. Pretty crazy.
GROSS: Yes. That's Tyler Perry as Madea with the person playing her granddaughter, Kimberly Elise.
So you want to talk a little bit about writing that scene?
PERRY: There is a lot of ad lib in that scene because what happens is when I put that costume on, whatever comes up comes out, so I just, usually when I'm writing I just pretty much write the guideline and the pattern and then let the characters rip and Madea just went in a few directions.
GROSS: I want to ask you a question. You know, some people have criticized your movies for having, like, stereotyped characters and I'm wondering, like, in your mind if - and I know a lot of this is intuitive and you're not, like, overly, you know, intellectualizing why you're doing what you're doing because you're letting it come intuitively. Which is, I think, a great place to work as an artist. But is there a line for you between archetype and stereotype?
PERRY: For me, what I've learned early on in watching this and watching the criticism - and I'm always open to it. I can take constructive criticism all day long but vitriolic, you know, things that are of that nature, I don't let them in. What I know for sure is this: The audience loves it. They get it. They know. They understand. They know me. I know them. And it works. And that's where I'm leaving it.
GROSS: Outside of, like, Oprah, whose shows suggest, like, she suggested on her show once that people keep a journal and that could have a cathartic effect. Outside of that, did you ever see anything in the movies or on television when you were young that had the kind of inspirational effect that you've given so many of your viewers? And that you hope to give more?
PERRY: No. I tell you, that's what was so amazing about seeing her and having her come along in my life when she did.
GROSS: Oprah?
PERRY: This woman on - Oprah, yeah. This woman on television who looks like she could be a relative of mine and she speaks well and she's respected and people really love her. And that gave me a lot of hope in watching her. But, no, there weren't very many people that I can say.
GROSS: Can I just ask you about money? When you started making money, which is something you never had and it was something that you lost - you lost everything you had on your first production - what were your dreams of what to do with your money? Was it to, you know, just, like, reinvest it into more of your work? Or were there, like, material possessions that you really wanted?
PERRY: I had one dream and it was to - and when I was a kid I told my mother I would take care of her so she wouldn't have to deal with my father. And I didn't know how much of a driving force that was until she died. That had been the burning fire in the pit of my soul for many, many years. And I never thought any amount was enough.
I know it sounds really crazy but I was working so hard and didn't realize it until the day she died when I had no motivation, no - nothing. Didn't want to do anything. Didn't want to get out of the bed. Nothing mattered, as far as work and success. So that was my motivational factor, just to be able to support and take care of her and give her the life that I felt that she deserved and should have always had.
GROSS: When did she die?
PERRY: 2009. December 8, 2009.
GROSS: So you were already very successful then.
PERRY: Yeah. Yeah. She had had an opportunity to see me do a lot of great things.
GROSS: And with all the money that you probably gave her, she didn't use it to leave your father, which had been, you said, one of your goals.
PERRY: Yeah. No and she never would. And here's the thing. She never asked me for money. It was just so bizarre. Everything I did for her, you know, was a gift because she never - she wanted me to have and just be happy. But, yeah, no. She never left him. And couldn't imagine - and what I realized about her is my mother's heart only beat in one direction, and that's love.
Which is very rare for a person. I mean, she only knew how to love. And as I think back on my childhood and my life, I look back at how - I remember sitting in the car barely able to see over the dashboard and her out in the streets trying to get a bird that had broken its wing. You know, or moments like that.
Or waking up and there was always a stranger in the house. And I'm going who is this person? She was always letting people come and stay and have shelter and food.
GROSS: So one more question. I grew up in Brooklyn and people are always saying to me, oh, how come you don't have a really strong Brooklyn accent? To which I always say, really, no one in my family did. And, you know, we were watching TV and it wasn't just like Brooklyn on television. You know, you just grew up surrounded by a lot of different voices. But do people often ask you how come you don't sound like Madea or like Joe?
PERRY: Yeah. Or like I'm from New Orleans.
GROSS: Yeah.
PERRY: Yeah. And, you know, a lot of people have asked but for me they always ask where are you from and are surprised that I don't have the accent. Again, I think that is a part of always knowing that even though I was born there, there was something else outside of the city waiting for me. And I don't know how I escaped it.
I don't know how I'm not talking like everybody down there, talking like when everybody be talking 'bout they mama and them and every day. But, you know, I can. But -and when I'm at home with everybody, it seems to slip by a little bit. But for the most part, I've never had it.
GROSS: OK. Well, Tyler Perry, thank you so much for talking with us.
PERRY: This has been my pleasure.
GROSS: Tyler Perry stars in the new thriller "Alex Cross." It's a change of pace for him, not only because he plays a homicide detective but because he didn't write, direct or produce the film. This is FRESH AIR.
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text:
This week's cover of the New Yorker magazine is a witty drawing by artist Chris Ware of a playground full of young children and their watchful parents. One woman wheels her son in a stroller, only to see that all the other parents are men. The image is called "Mother's Day."
But for all the memorable New Yorker covers out there, an equally large number of covers didn't make it to the newsstand. They were not quite on the money — or were sometimes a little too coarsely on the money.
Francoise Mouly, the magazine's art editor, is also the author of a new book, Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant to See. Mouly generally has a stack of rejected covers in her office, and she tells NPR's Robert Siegel that finding just the right image is the cornerstone of her work. "The one that will provoke discourse," she says.
One of the rejected covers comes from the era of the Diet Coke and Mentos Internet phenomenon, when viral videos showed the explosive results of combining the two products.
"The first [idea] by Barry Blitt, the artist who came up with this, was to show two little kids in an airplane, exchanging Diet Coke and Mentos," she says, "so they're about to make an explosion and the stewardess is walking past." Blitt reworked the image with two businessmen before he hit on the idea of having two Middle Eastern-appearing men passing the dangerous snacks back and forth.
"You're not mocking Arab people or casting them in a role; you're making fun of our own fears," Mouly says. But the image didn't make the final cut, in part because editors feared the Diet Coke and Mentos reference might be too obscure for New Yorker readers.
Another rejected cover poked fun at the Catholic Church's embarrassment over the child-abuse scandal. It showed the pope replicating a classic Marilyn Monroe pose over a subway grate, with his vestments flying up around him. While it became the cover image for the new book, it did not make the magazine.
"That image made immediate sense to me; I thought it denounced the hypocrisy of the church," she says. And she applauds the artists who don't censor themselves, who feel comfortable sending in whatever ideas cross their minds. But, she adds, this particular image didn't hold up to scrutiny by New Yorker editors. "What does the pope have to do with Marilyn Monroe? It falls apart."
The Marilyn pose is iconic, almost cliched at this point — in fact, it appears in several other rejected covers. But Mouly says cartoonists have to work with cliches. "A businessman carries a suitcase," she says. "And what you are hoping is that they will use those cliches to make new points, and to make you see something that you thought you understood in a new way. The challenge that they give themselves is a picture of our times."
It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
And I'm Robert Siegel.
This week's cover of The New Yorker is a witty drawing by artist Chris Ware of a playground full of young children and their watchful parents. One woman wheels in her son in a stroller, only to see that all the other parents are men. It's called Mother's Day.
Here's what we learned from Francoise Mouly's new coffee-table sized book, "Blown Covers." For all the memorable New Yorker covers there have been, she remembers an equally large number of covers that have not been - the rejects that were not quite on the money or a little too coarsely on the money.
Mouly is the magazine's art editor and she joins us from New York. Welcome to the program.
FRANCOISE MOULY: It's such a pleasure to be here.
SIEGEL: And I gather that you have a stack of these drawings in your office that never made it onto The New Yorker.
MOULY: Yes, there's a foundation of what we do. Every week, we search for just the right image, the one that will provoke discourse, such as what you described today by Chris Ware, that's an image that will get us to talk about fathers getting involved. And obviously mothers go to the park not just to take care of their kids, but also it's a form of socializing.
SIEGEL: There's one rejected cover that was drawn at the peak of the Diet Coke and Mentos moment, when there was a viral video online which showed the exploding geyser you can make by sticking a Mento into a bottle of Diet Coke. I want you to describe the cover that never made it.
MOULY: Well, the first thought by Barry Blitt, the artist who came up with this, was to show two little kids in an airplane exchanging Diet Coke and Mentos. So they're about to make an explosion and the stewardess is walking past. And then he tried it with two businessmen, and then he had the right phrasing for it where he had two Arab-looking men passing the Mentos and Diet Coke. And now, you're not mocking Arab people or casting them in a role, but you're making fun of our own fears.
SIEGEL: It didn't make it, though.
MOULY: But one of the...
MOULY: One of the reasons it didn't make, it's because of the point of reference that Diet Coke and Mentos was not necessarily widely enough known. There was an age gap.
SIEGEL: The cover of your book, "Blown Covers" - and I suppose therefore the emblematic rejected New Yorker cover - was, as I understand it, intended to represent the Catholic Church's embarrassment over the child abuse scandal. And it shows the Pope in the Marilyn Monroe pose, standing over the subway grating with his vestments flying up.
SIEGEL: Didn't make it onto the cover of the magazine.
MOULY: Right. And it's a good example of the images that are sent very generously by the artists without fear of embarrassing themselves. But that image made immediate sense to me. I thought it denounced the hypocrisy of the church, not just the scandal but the sweeping the scandals under the rug. And the rule is to not edit yourself when you're an artist proposing images to us. It's let us, or at least let me, look at everything that crosses your mind whether it's publishable or not.
But then I have to show things to David Remnick, editor of the magazine. But here, he happened to have been on a trip and I had one of those rare instances that many other art directors usually have to be confronted with, which is a committee type of editing. And since I work at The New Yorker, I'm surrounded with many very wonderful and smart and funny colleagues. But they tend to be word people. And once you try to rationalize an image, you start wondering what does the Pope have to do with Marilyn Monroe? It falls apart because it's visceral connection.
SIEGEL: Do you in the art department at The New Yorker or at other magazines refer to the word people as the others on the magazine?
MOULY: I may not want to discuss this. Can I draw you a picture instead?
SIEGEL: Now, I learned in the book that the Marilyn Monroe pose that's on the cover, that image of the Pope that didn't make it, there are others. There's a female suicide bomber who is in the same pose with her chador lifted up and the dynamite sticks revealed to us. There's another one of sort of an older - if Marilyn Monroe, I guess, had lived and she's quite old.
I mean, this is obviously quite an iconic image still.
MOULY: Well, that's exactly what the building blocks that the artists are working with, because a cartoonist has to work with cliche. A businessman carries a suitcase. And what you are hoping is that they will use those cliches to make a new point and to make you see something that you thought you understood in a new way. The challenge that they give themselves is a picture of our times.
SIEGEL: Well, Francoise Mouly, thanks a lot for talking with us.
MOULY: Oh, thank you so much. It's been a real treat being here.
SIEGEL: The book is called "Blown Covers: New Yorker Covers You Were Never Meant To See." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


text:
|Episode Description
|Thursday, Oct 11, 2012 - 12:00 AM
"As Goes Janesville"
From the day the GM factory closes through a showdown with national resonance at the state capitol, "As Goes Janesville" traces the impact of the economic crisis on the people of Janesville, Wisconsin. The film records two years in the lives of laid-off workers, business leaders and elected officials all trying to reinvent their lives and their midwestern town amid the closure of their GM plant and America's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The story begins shortly after the factory closed in 2008 and continues through a standoff between the newly-elected governor and 14 Democratic state senators, one of whom is a main character in the film. D
|More on WORLD (MT)
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text:
Sasquatch 2016 Rumors:
Monday, January 9, 2012
Lineup To Be Announced February 2nd
38 comments:
So the launch party confirms Junip, The Physics and possibly (probably?) Nada Surf. I say this because those who played the launch party last year also played at Sasquatch (thermals, das racist, mad rad). Although Nada Surf is playing in Seattle in March at the neptune.
Let's talk about what is out. The Black Keys are playing Coachella and also playing in Seattle in May, so they're probably not going to be at Sasquatch.
Radiohead is a headliner at Coachella. Does that count them out for Sasquatch? Do any of the headliners for Coachella count them out for Sasquatch?
Day 3 of Coachella is very electronic/dance themed and I think we'll see that at Sasquatch. Pretty Lights (almost positive on this one), Avicii, Porter Robinson, Flux Pavillion/Dr. P, A-trak, Girl Talk etc.
- January 9, 2012 at 5:14 PM
More thoughts:
Bon Iver: no tour dates within the US besides Coachella, so a definite possibility
DeadMau5: in Dublin on June 6th, but otherwise open and isn't playing Coachella
RHCP: Farthest northwest their tour reaches is Oakland, so it's extremely likely!
Sleigh Bells: New album comes out this year, possible return?
Major Lazer: Also has a new album coming out this year, possible return?
Fleet Foxes: One can only hope, I think choosing fleet foxes over mumford and sons is the classier choice to make. Though I'd take both.
I'm also feeling at least one major hip-hop/rap artist to headline/sub-headline.
- January 9, 2012 at 5:39 PM
- Tyler Smith said...
Do we have any idea if a headliner will be released prior to the lineup being released?
- January 9, 2012 at 6:00 PM
Frank Ocean and the Weeknd- both at Coachella... I hope they make their way North!
- January 9, 2012 at 7:02 PM
- Joshua Farnworth said...
How has the Coachella line up reflected the Sasquatch lineup in the past? Have bands headlining one also headlined the other? Has there been a strong trend of one or the other?
- January 9, 2012 at 9:42 PM
- know ID yuh said...
There will be plenty of crossover from the Coachella lineup on the Sasquatch lineup, probably 10 to 15 bands. Generally, the top tiers of the lineups are different, but that doesn't mean they will be opposite.
- January 9, 2012 at 10:07 PM
Looks like Radiohead's unveiling of their April date at the Key takes them out of the running.
- January 10, 2012 at 9:24 AM
Should also add that primus is not a possibility:
Primus will perform at the 12th annual Summer Camp Music Festival that takes place May 25th-27th, 2012 at Three Sisters Park in Chillicothe, Illinois. The festival includes 3 full days of fun, camping, and music with over 75 bands on 7 stages.
- January 10, 2012 at 10:48 AM
Coheed and Cambria: Just announced a sixth studio album in November 2011, so a festival appearance is possible
Crosby Stills and Nash are on tour in April playing festivals in Australia, they're an "old school" possibility.
Girl Talk: seems likely..
Old Crow Medicine Show: increasingly popular, sasquatch feel... it could happen!
Passion Pit: played in 2010, eh who knows
Thievery Corp: Would be a great mainstage dance band if they bring all 17 members
- January 10, 2012 at 11:09 AM
- echoic said...
Just from what I can pick up on, the smaller bands from Coachella are the ones that are most likely to crossover over to Sasquatch. From that I would think M83 and Neon Indian have a pretty high chance of making it this year. I think At The Drive In could be possibility, they are the loud reunited band that could be this year's DFA.
- January 10, 2012 at 11:34 AM
- know ID yuh said...
Doit2012, that does not eliminate Primus from playing Sasquatch, nor does it even make them less likely.
- January 10, 2012 at 11:46 AM
- know ID yuh said...
Tyler, there is decent chance a headliner will leak before the lineup is announced, but the festival gains nothing by officially announcing a headliner now. Announcing a headliner while tickets were still on sale would be beneficial information due to fluctuating ticket sales, but at this point, the entire lineup will be announced before tickets go back on sale.
- January 10, 2012 at 12:48 PM
You can change Bon Iver to at least a 99% possibility. I'm not going to say how I know, Justin told me to keep it hushed but I can't keep it a secret any longer.
- January 10, 2012 at 2:08 PM
I sent an email to Explosions in the Sky a while back who confirmed with me that they will be at Sasquatch in 2012, so that'll be another crossover. EITS sub-headlining for Bon Iver would make my life...
- January 10, 2012 at 4:57 PM
You know, I talked to the Beatles earlier, and they 159% guaranteed me they'll be there.
- January 10, 2012 at 9:14 PM
Hey Rosetta are confirmed to be playing a slot in the day time! Very reliable source has let this out to me.
- January 11, 2012 at 3:56 PM
The physics is a local Seattle Hip-hop group.
ATDI would be awesome considering the Mars Volta have been to the gorge before. It would be awesome to have them be this years DFA.
While I believe there will be crossovers from Coachella...not as much considering Coachella is all about electronic this year.
M83 would be awesome but they too have a Seattle date in April.
- January 11, 2012 at 5:19 PM
Website is back up. There are now 5 stages as opposed to 4 from previous years.
- January 11, 2012 at 7:41 PM
I like how buddy doesn't believe that I met Justin Vernon as if in all of the shows they did around the world last year he didn't talk to anybody after the show. I met Mikey too and Jesse Tabish from Other Lives. All amazing human beings and an experience I'll never forget.
- January 12, 2012 at 6:48 PM
- know ID yuh said...
I'm guessing I am who you are referring to as "buddy." Thanks for sharing the story, I have no doubt Bon Iver will be there, that is why I listed the percentage so high a couple weeks ago. It will be a huge surprise if he's not on the lineup. A (literally) anonymous post saying you met him isn't going to change my opinion that he'll be there, but it doesn't make your claim fact. There are a lot of bad people on the internet making stuff up that make your comment look less credible. Case in point, the Beatles joke above.
In general, those posting anonymously on this blog are pretty accurate, so I thank everyone helping contribute to the cause.
- January 12, 2012 at 9:41 PM
With new albums being released within the next few months what are your thoughts on Xiu Xiu and/or Shearwater making appearances?
Shearwater killed it (imho) a few years back to an unfortunately small crowd. Would love for them to get another at bat.
- January 13, 2012 at 9:54 AM
Any idea if Arcade Fire would make an appearance?
- January 13, 2012 at 6:20 PM
- I am Kingler said...
With the Coachella line up, Sasquatch looks it is going to be AWESOME. I even designed a for my friends and I for this special occasion :D
- January 14, 2012 at 10:10 AM
I think Xiu Xiu are a bit too out there for Sasquatch to be honest (although I definitely wouldn't mind if they were there). Also I'm still kicking myself for skipping Shearwater to get a spot (and a shitty one at that) for the boring boring Animal Collective set, so I would love it if they came back
- January 14, 2012 at 10:48 AM
I've been lurking here for a while and I've wanted someone to bring this up but I don't think I've heard anything so far. What are the chances of Beirut going? They're at Coachella.
- January 14, 2012 at 11:20 PM
I dont see why the Black Keys drop so low. A week after Coachella they play 2 dates in Cali. They head north into canada and then to the midwest. Sasquatch could be their return 3 weeks later.
- January 15, 2012 at 1:12 AM
not too many leaks yet eh. thought there would be more by now
- January 15, 2012 at 5:13 AM
Beirut seems likely.
- January 15, 2012 at 12:54 PM
sasquatch is adding a 5th stage and extending friday (it's on the website)
- January 15, 2012 at 6:11 PM
Can someone just tell me the Pixies will be there?
- January 15, 2012 at 6:55 PM
Friday is not extended. From the Sasquatch website - "Festival gates open at 11am (3pm for Friday show)"
Here is my prediction for some of the line-up:
Bon Iver (headliner)
Fleet Foxes (headliner)
Kanye West or Wiz Khalifa (headliner)
RHCP (headliner)
Girl Talk
Explosions in the Sky
Sleigh Bells
Pretty Lights
Dillon Francis
Duck Sauce
Old Crow Medicine Show
My Morning Jacket
Broken Bells
- January 15, 2012 at 7:59 PM
What are odds of Roger Waters headlining one night? He is in PDX May 22nd I believe
- January 16, 2012 at 9:21 AM
I hope 80% of your list is wrong.
- January 16, 2012 at 10:40 AM
I hope Explosions are there. I could see Sasquatch doing something extremely stupid like putting them on the wookie though.
- January 16, 2012 at 10:41 AM
Whiz Khalfia huh? Sasquatch really phoning it in.
- January 16, 2012 at 10:56 AM
@Know ID yuh: I wasn't referring to you when I said that buddy didn't believe I met Justin Vernon. It was directed at the person trying to mock me by saying they met the beatles. Honestly I don't care whether people believe me or not and I'm kind of glad that people didn't take me seriously because I feel bad that he shared that info with me and I leaked it. Obviously nothing is absolute but I know what came out of his mouth and you can take it or leave it. I have nothing to gain by saying it I'm just really stoked for sasquatch this year and its a bonus to know that Bon Iver will be there and I'll get to see them for a third time.
- January 16, 2012 at 6:53 PM
That shirt design is great!
- January 29, 2012 at 8:19 PM
so is there any idea what time its being released?
- February 1, 2012 at 10:35 AM


text:
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text:
Monday, April 20, 2009
XKCD Book
I'm not totally sure why the New York Times decided to write about this - unless I'm much mistaken, they didn't write about The Great Outdoor Fight or Your Whole Family Is Made Out Of Meat, which are the two webcomic books on my shelf now, or The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack, of which I read a friend's copy recently. Yet the Times manages to write a full article about this particular webcomic book. No matter. That's not what I'm here to say.
Anyway, this should be interesting. According to the article, the book will have 150-200 xkcd comics, and that seems like a very smart move to me. I think a book with the 150 best comics so far could be pretty high quality. It's once you try to find the top 300 or 400 comics that you have to delve into the newer ones and will inevitably find lousy comics.
I'm very curious to see which ones they choose - if it's mostly older (#100-#300 range) then it'll be good, but it will also sort of subtly imply that the newer ones aren't good enough to warrant inclusion.
I'm also curious which kinds of people will want this: mostly fans, who just want to support the strip and show it off to their friends, or people who like the concept of xkcd but aren't into the whole online thing? A print run of 10,000 seems to imply the former to me.
My last concern is how much new content there is in it: the new PBF book, for example, is 40% white space and 48% just the comics that are online. A few old sketches and an interview were added, but I wouldn't pay much for those. The Great Outdoor Fight, on the other hand, has a lot of stuff not seen online (not to mention that it's a story that works better all in a book together, whereas PBF is about the same experience either way).
Lastly, does anyone know how I might go about getting a review copy of the book? I am easily one of the top 15 xkcd critics, and I swear I will give it a fair reading and recommend it if it so deserves.
Also lastly: Randy's joke at the very very end of the article is pretty good, but gah, putting "he/she" into a quote like that is just so damn awkward!
42 comments:
Are you going to buy a copy, so you can criticize it's outcome?ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 21, 2009 at 1:48 AM
I have a hard time imagining that someone could enjoy the subject matter of xkcd, but dislike using the internet. But that's just me.ReplyDelete
The webcomic Jesus & Mo has now reached five volumes in print. It's also the best webcomic I know of.ReplyDelete
The cuddlefish has a point :pReplyDelete
Jesus Christ that is one creepy as hell pic of Randy.ReplyDelete
"Also lastly: Randy's joke at the very very end of the article is pretty good, but gah, putting "he/she" into a quote like that is just so damn awkward!"ReplyDelete
I've commented on it before, but Randall makes such a conscious effort to be gender neutral (in his comics and his writing, apparently) that it's almost painful.
You can have a comic with just two dudes hanging out Randall, I'm sure no one will be offended.
- AnonymousApril 21, 2009 at 9:23 AM
If we just used "they" as a singular thirdperson pronoun...ReplyDelete
In unrelated news, Jesus & Mo is pure crap. Is Trig the originator of this crap? Who knows!
- the_riistfishApril 21, 2009 at 10:15 AM
@Anon: that had better be a non-inclusive we, buddy, for I have no part in this "he/she" rubbish.ReplyDelete
He's trying so hard to be gender-neutral but he's SO GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT amiriteReplyDelete
okay i can't actually verify this because nytimes won't let me see the article without logging in! sigh.
I didn't have to log in.ReplyDelete
Be thankful you're spared from that picture.
I didn't hafta log in yesterday! Arrrgh. So I wasn't even spared the pic, hahah.ReplyDelete
But anyway he switches from third-person to second-person and that is just a no-no!
CAPTCHA: bearpox! Hahahah.
These guys have no idea how to sell a book.ReplyDelete
"I don't have hard numbers about this, but the impression I get is that the amount of eyeballs you get from being on the humor shelf at Barnes & Noble — it is almost insignificant."
Trans: People are going to flock from every corner of the internet to buy the book off of my site.
"Will there be review copies sent to newspapers and magazines? Good question, Mr. Ohanian said. There's no reason why not, he quickly concluded."
Trans: Hey, I hadn't thought of that!
"[Title text is] not supposed to be a punch line, but hopefully if you didn't laugh, you'll laugh at this."
Trans: If you didn't get the joke the first time, hopefully I can beat it into your head.
Ahahah. Adam, the first Randallian translator.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 21, 2009 at 12:14 PM
Theory: Randall and Carl are actually the same person and this is all a clever scheme.ReplyDelete
To get people to stop reading xkcd? Cool beans, mah boy!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 21, 2009 at 12:44 PM
No, to get the people who stopped reading xkcd because it sucked to still read it. Isn't that what all of us are doing? eh? ehhhh?ReplyDelete
Unfortunately, most webcomics make their money on merchandise sales rather than ad revenues. If you're getting hits because people want to mock you you won't get ca$$$$hReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 21, 2009 at 2:12 PM
Theory: Randall and Carl are actually the same person and this is all a clever scheme.
Anonymous, you are Carl, Randall AND other people all over the place. You're a whole cohort.
I can't trust anyone who chooses to hide behind a mask with this vengeful hatred.
Now that I think about this I'm sure Carl or Randall have done something to upset you a long long time ago and now that you see how well Randy or Carl are doing you were like "shiiiiii-" then you came here to spread rumors about both. You have the memory of an elephant so you hold the meanest grudge
Get over it and maybe have some real tasty pie to calm your angriness.
- AnonymousApril 21, 2009 at 2:15 PM
We should really get some usernames.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 21, 2009 at 2:28 PM
Man, he has such a creepy pedo-smile in that photo.ReplyDelete
Lots and lots of excellent webcomics have had books put out. Narbonic, for example. Also, many way overly-popular webcomics like Schlock Mercenary and Sluggy Freelance (probably the only webcomic which has an even lower quality-to-fanbase ratio than xkcd).
I'm proposing DC and Questionable Content, although I dunno if QC has a collection.ReplyDelete
- the_"godhe'sgrouchytoday"fishApril 21, 2009 at 4:33 PM
@fluffy: Phew! I was almost losing faith that he murdered babies because I couldn't see any in the picture. But now I resee (?) your point. That's a relief.ReplyDelete
@Schadenfreude: Apparently one is being planned. I dunno if you've heard of it, but there's this website called "Google", and you can type stuff into it and it gives you a long list of related websites! It's great. It's located at http://www.google.com . I recommend it.
(There were no results for "randall munroe ~kills ~babies", though. That's because he forces them to censor the evidence using his Internet popularity.)
I am certainly not the author of Jesus and Mo. I comment there occasionally. The humour is subtle, but highly intelligent and often topical.ReplyDelete
It's also British.
@Guy above trigonometry: You're implying QC is worth a collection, and therefore me being interested in looking it up randomly in crappy search engines. Also, have you looked at the comic, especially like the first half? Even shittier looking than DC and Jesus and Mo.ReplyDelete
Search Yahoo is my (& your) friend.
okay random fly-by comment:ReplyDelete
You have the memory of an elephant so you hold the meanest grudgeQUESTIONABLE CONTENT ha i feel so proud, i caught a reference
anyway TRiG why is only the i in your name not capitalized, apparently your name is Timothy Richard Green
HA oh wait I get it.
That's actually really clever, my intials only spell ACW, which sounds like a strange form of acne.
Wow, that's an impressively pointless article. I mean even given the tech-savvy audience of xkcd, you only need to take a look at all the huge gamer comics to see how what none-news this is. PvP, Penny Arcade, Megatokyo, Ctrl-Alt-Del *shudder*... they've all produced multiple print-compilations; hell Order of the Stick has two prequels that are print-only.ReplyDelete
It will be very interesting to see what strips make the cut, I can't think of any webcomics off the top of my head that have done best of type efforts rather than complete compilations, it does seem to imply an awareness of the comic's variable quality. On the other hand I guess there aren't many webcomics that are still almost completely composed of one-shots more than 500 strips in...
- AnonymousApril 22, 2009 at 8:51 AM
Book of Biff, Savage Chickens, and Doctor Fun all come to mind right away (and are all way the hell better than xkcd).ReplyDelete
But yeah, a lot of comics which start off as one-shots do seem to turn into massive canonfests (Sluggy Freelance, Goats). Often they gradually become unreadable in the process.
- AnonymousApril 22, 2009 at 8:52 AM
Oh, also, Penny Arcade has managed to avoid turning into a canonfest too. (Not that it's particularly funny, but at least it's gotten to be pretty well-drawn, and it's certainly influential at least.)ReplyDelete
I am pretty sure that the Qwantz book left a bunch of comics out.ReplyDelete
Fun fact:ReplyDelete
All gaming webcomics that are not Penny Arcade are shitty rip-offs of Penny Arcade.
- AnonymousApril 22, 2009 at 9:43 AM
Nah, they can also be shitty completely on their own.ReplyDelete
- the_cuddlefishApril 22, 2009 at 10:12 AM
@Schadenfreude: sorry, thought you meant you were proposing it as an excellent one &c. &c. I've never read it, but I hear it's popular, so rest assured I know think it's awful.ReplyDelete
Powerup Comics is the only good gaming webcomic there is ;).
Unrelated: music I like keeps being used on adverts! Now I feel like a target demographic rather than a person, and that makes me sad.
- the_cuddlefishApril 22, 2009 at 10:13 AM
*NOW think it's awful, NOW, screw you all.ReplyDelete
Budget day! Yay! Woo!
"Also, many way overly-popular webcomics like Schlock Mercenary and Sluggy Freelance (probably the only webcomic which has an even lower quality-to-fanbase ratio than xkcd)."ReplyDelete
I was working with ^this^, although given "Lots and lots of excellent webcomics have had books put out." comes right before it, I could see where the miscommunication occured.
- the_cuddlefishApril 22, 2009 at 11:43 AM
Glad to have that sorted out. (Unlike the economy, amirite?)ReplyDelete
Fluffy's last link... has caused temporary blindness. I have no idea how I'm typing this. Say what now?
- AnonymousApril 23, 2009 at 12:26 PM
Amanda said:ReplyDelete
You have the memory of an elephant so you hold the meanest grudgeQUESTIONABLE CONTENT ha i feel so proud, i caught a reference
Awww maaaaan, I put so much effort into bringing up memes into the comment without really naming them outright but no one really see it. :(
"Anonymous does not forgive. Anonymous does not forget." for example...
What if Randy tries doing something like that? Hiding as much memes as possible without them being out in the open like they usually are.
Will it be the end of xkcd's over-appreciation due to mass self destruction of his fan base due to them exploding in awe?
I feel like that's exactly what Randy does now, like with the latest sheepy comic. But I didn't know how to say it.ReplyDelete
- the_cuddlefishApril 23, 2009 at 1:09 PM
Maybe "that's exactly what Randy does now, like with the latest sheepy comic" would do?ReplyDelete
(You can make the cheque out to "The_Cuddlefish Corporation of Great Britain".)
I meant "bringing up memes into the comment without really naming them outright but no one really see it."ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 23, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Speaking of this, even Dresden Codak has put out a book already. Which sold for $175 and it sold out very quickly WHAT THE SHIT.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 24, 2009 at 12:40 PM
Also, Dr McNinja has already had 2 volumes printed.ReplyDelete


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