Curmudgeonly Compliments
I was quite excited recently to get another one of my letters into the For Better or For Worse Coffee Talk. However, I was even more amused to see it was noticed over on the Comics Curmudgeon:
http://joshreads.com/?p=1197#comments
188.CrabbyGenes says: Check out the August 9 COFFEE TALK letters at the Foobsite:
http://www.fbofw.com/fun/blog/
Letter #3 is the glurgiest glurge that ever glurged.
[Note: Letter #3 was mine.]
This comment caused me to actually look up the slang word "glurge" to make sure I understood it properly.
200.SecretMargo says: August 9th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
188: For once, I actually took a deep breath and clicked the link. I read the two letters you mention (and no other — I can only take so much). Brief thoughts:
KM from Toronto lays it out so well it should be sewn into a sampler somewhere and displayed in a museum of reasonable comix criticism. She comes off as an astute reader with a real love of the strip who just lays it out in the bleakest, barest of terms without any vitriol that Lynn could use as an alibi to ignore it. No matter what delusions are swirling, Sea-Monkey-like, within Lynn’s rapidly clouding cranial fluid, that letter had to hurt.
Paul S from Oro sounds like he longs for the days of arranged marriages, or is in a marriage
himself that resulted from him wooing his intended’s mother until she manipulated her daughter into his sweatily condescending embrace. The grim delight of his letter is realizing halfway through that by laying out the contrived series of events leading to this union in all their perverse glory as he praises Lynn for the “complexity’ and “depth” of characters shown contradicting themselves every few weeks as they lurch from plot point to plot point, he inadvertantly throws the problems with the whole mess in painfully stark relief. If she still has a half of her former wits about her, that letter should be as painful to read in its own way as KM’s.
SecretMargo’s analysis of my intent is quite good, although I would have replace “inadvertently” with “intentionally," and that is not the way I met my wife.
234.bats :[ says: 188. CrabbyGenes: as a resident of the greater Tucson metropolitan area, which barely includes Oro Valley, I humbly and sincerely apologize for the glurgings of Paul S over at Coffee Talk.
(Memo to self: seek out Paul S this weekend and beat the snot out of him…)
Bats comments make me nervous.
http://joshreads.com/?p=1197#comments
188.CrabbyGenes says: Check out the August 9 COFFEE TALK letters at the Foobsite:
http://www.fbofw.com/fun/blog/
Letter #3 is the glurgiest glurge that ever glurged.
[Note: Letter #3 was mine.]
This comment caused me to actually look up the slang word "glurge" to make sure I understood it properly.
200.SecretMargo says: August 9th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
188: For once, I actually took a deep breath and clicked the link. I read the two letters you mention (and no other — I can only take so much). Brief thoughts:
KM from Toronto lays it out so well it should be sewn into a sampler somewhere and displayed in a museum of reasonable comix criticism. She comes off as an astute reader with a real love of the strip who just lays it out in the bleakest, barest of terms without any vitriol that Lynn could use as an alibi to ignore it. No matter what delusions are swirling, Sea-Monkey-like, within Lynn’s rapidly clouding cranial fluid, that letter had to hurt.
Paul S from Oro sounds like he longs for the days of arranged marriages, or is in a marriage
himself that resulted from him wooing his intended’s mother until she manipulated her daughter into his sweatily condescending embrace. The grim delight of his letter is realizing halfway through that by laying out the contrived series of events leading to this union in all their perverse glory as he praises Lynn for the “complexity’ and “depth” of characters shown contradicting themselves every few weeks as they lurch from plot point to plot point, he inadvertantly throws the problems with the whole mess in painfully stark relief. If she still has a half of her former wits about her, that letter should be as painful to read in its own way as KM’s.
SecretMargo’s analysis of my intent is quite good, although I would have replace “inadvertently” with “intentionally," and that is not the way I met my wife.
234.bats :[ says: 188. CrabbyGenes: as a resident of the greater Tucson metropolitan area, which barely includes Oro Valley, I humbly and sincerely apologize for the glurgings of Paul S over at Coffee Talk.
(Memo to self: seek out Paul S this weekend and beat the snot out of him…)
Bats comments make me nervous.
posted by howard at 11:33 AM
7 Comments:
It's too bad that your excellent Coffee Talk letters are being misinterpreted outside the FOOBiverse. It reminds me of today's xkcd, whose alt-text says "Fun game: try to post a YouTube comment so stupid that people realize you must be joking. (Hint: this is impossible)"
So it is, I fear, with Coffee Talk. We have gotten so used to seeing astonishing amounts of praise heaped on unbelievably unworthy aspects of FBOFW, that our faith in humanity is harshly bruised, and we find it only a tiny leap to take your letters at face value as well.
I personally am glad to be in on it, lest I make the same mistake, and look forward to future Paul S letters with great anticipation!
Much appreciation to you for your blog and your comments on the FOOBiverse.
ellie,
Thank you for your kind words about my Blog.
I am not sure what to make of the Coffee Talk letters. They went through a stretch of nothing but adoration for Lynn Johnston, but today's round of them had a few which were quite critical.
I know that when I have submitted letters which did not have some praise for Lynn Johnston in them, they were not accepted. I also know that some I submitted where I went overboard in Johnston praise, were also not accepted. I will continue to work in a middle ground of praising, just in case the letters flip back to the praise-a-thon mode again.
I'm really surprised that the CC crowd didn't "get" it. Overall, the intelligence level is usually more perceptive. On the other hand, I'm sure the Yahoo Foobs think you are their standard bearer!
Although, I have noticed Yahoo is finally starting to get it's share of readers also sick to death of the perfect Patterson dregs the strip has become.
DebJyn
I'm also surprised that the CC crowd didn't get it. To me, it's evident what you're up to at CT!
I noticed that someone who is in on the joke came to your defense:
#423 Martingirl says:
August 10th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Umm. I really hope that you reconsider the response to Paul S. at Coffee Talk. He is on another site and is one of the best FOOB bashers ever. He wrote this as a total “reverse snark” just to get it past the “censors”. Part of the fun was to see if the Lynnions could catch it. The “over the talk” praise was totally intentional.
one of the best FOOB bashers ever.
She even used the aprilp_katje patented phrase "reverse snark"
Thanks to my defender, Martingirl, to restore my faith in the posters of the Comics Curmudgeon. Now if I can just get my ego back under control.
As for the poor souls over at the Yahoo group, I feel for them. Lynn Johnston has not made it easy on them with the strips over the last year. If you go back to strips just a little over a year ago; the characters, their appearance and situations are recognizable as ones the characters have been in for quite some time. This year most of that has changed. Lynn has taken away a lot of what the Yahoo group likes.
I did enjoy seeing the use of "reverse snark" in that post. :)
Such a great line and so descriptive--couldn't resist it!
DebJyn (aka Martingirl)
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