A Fool and his Comic

Ever heard of the comic strip Big Nate? It's written and illustrated by a Portland, Maine native named Lincoln Peirce. According to his Wikipedia page, he's "an American cartoon [sic]." I'd edit the Wiki page to say "cartoonist," but how do I know he's not a cartoon? I've never met the guy. Hell, I wanted to write "[sic]" after his last name, too, but apparently it's actually spelled "Peirce," not "Pierce." All I'm saying is, my Spidey Sense is outta whack on this one.

I don't know how widely Big Nate is syndicated in newspapers but as part of the GoComics stable, I'm guessing it's seen by quite a few people. When I occasionally flip through the criminally misnamed "funny pages," Big Nate is a beacon of mild entertainment, one of a scant few such dim lights in the cold, black, humorless night that is today's newspaper comics section. That is to say, I don't love it, but I'm not physically repulsed by it either. Sometimes I feel something like a smile approaching when I read it.

Not June 19th, though.


Look familiar? It should, assuming you're familiar with one of history's greatest works of literature: Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. (I understand if you never return after clicking that last link, as a C&H search engine is a transmogrifier that converts spare time into spent time.)


I don't know if the Big Nate strip is a less funny rip-off, a less funny accident, or a less funny homage. But without some clearer nods to its source material (for example, if Peirce's strip had appeared on the anniversary of the C&H strip's original publication date), I'm ruling out homage. It's possible Peirce was channeling Calvin and Hobbes accidentally, not realizing where his oh-so-clever inspiration was coming from, which happens to the best of us (even The Beatles; I'll let my dad elaborate on that one). I hope that's the case.

Either way, this reminded me a lot of my last post about sampling. Sure, everything's stolen, and I bet someone will point out a comedian from the '50s from whom Bill Watterson stole this bit (as a matter of fact, judging by the search engine, Watterson recycled his original strip with slightly enhanced colors four years later...is it stealing if you steal from yourself? As John Fogerty of CCR knows, yes, sometimes; once again, I defer to my dad on this explanation). But it's much less palatable when no personal spin is added, especially when these are two artists using the same exact medium. And it's worse when no explicit credit is given. Cite your sources, Peirce, if that is how your name is really spelled.

Edit, July 3, 2011: Whoops. In the second sentence, I originally called the creator of Big Nate "Leonard Peirce," but his name's actually Lincoln Peirce. I guess the "fool" in the title is me, too! Also, someone has since edited Peirce's Wikipedia page to reflect his job as a cartoonist rather than a cartoon. Looks like I'm making a difference in the world.

Ostrich Bird

When I was 14 I wanted nothing more than to own every version of every Beastie Boys album. I had just discovered some international versions in Germany and collected what I could. I sorta trailed off there, though, when I felt I'd gotten most of the stuff worth getting and when other music caught my attention. The Anthology was an excellent cross-section anyway.

Amazingly, 11 years later, the B. Boys are still putting out new stuff, and while I wasn't very impressed with their 2004 effort, To The 5 Boroughs, the newest release, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, is a remarkable return to form. You can stream it for free here (via Soundcloud) and you can stream or download a sweet megamix of the Beastie Boys through the ages by DJ Z-Trip here, which I'm jammin' to while typing this very post. Point being, if the Beasties can keep kickin' it after all these years, the least I can do is keep kickin' it after all these weeks, "it" in my case being Big Bird posts.

Another recruit from Easter, Stasia's aunt Meg requested to draw Big Bird on paper. Unorthodox, I know, but I allowed it: I don't say no to drawings in any format. Etch a sketch of Big Bird on an Etch-A-Sketch and mail me that if you really want. Just because I can't do it doesn't mean you shouldn't.

So here's our first colored-pencil-and-paper submission:


Magnificent. In case you can't read the inscription, the message reads, "This is what Big Bird really looks like." Can't argue with that.

Uhhhhhnless you've actually seen Big Bird. Then you've probably got a solid argument formulated.

The scan quality isn't perfect; some of the vibrancy of the colors were lost in scanslation. But this interpretation of Big Bird, with his gaudy head feathers and flamboyant neon orange- and pink-striped legs and neck, looks like an Ostrich of Paradise. This must be the mutilated extreme of the fabulous Big Bird envisioned by Stasia: Big Bird after years of wearing African neck rings to stretch out his neck in the vain pursuit of an ideal of beauty. (Or tourist dollars.)

Hollywood does terrible things to bird-people.

In Meg's defense, Big Bird wasn't of her childhood, nor did her kids watch much Sesame Street, so taking those things into consideration, this is a fantastic effort. Big Bird is also on the advanced side of Sesame Street characters you could draw from memory. Cookie Monster, my favorite, is probably beginner, since he's mostly just a blue blob with googly eyes and a gaping, cookie-devouring, black-hole of a maw. Snuffleupagus would be be intermediate to draw and advanced to spell (yeah, Google Suggest corrected it for me -- and that's Mr. Snuffleupagus to you).

So go ahead and try your hand at a drawing or painting or whatever, whether you're looking at it currently or you've only heard of it in passing and never actually seen one in real life. Hey, maybe you can find a field of blooming dandelions and strategically kick some of the yellow heads off to carve out a Big Bird shape. Now that's a picture I want to see (or a field I want to stumble upon while hiking). To inspire you, here's a poem I wrote in creative writing class in high school, after doing some tongues-on research by licking the head of a dandelion:

Dandelions
Ain't so dandy;
They don't taste at
All like candy.

My Lost Examiner Article

As a follow-up to yesterday's rant about examiner.com, here's the infamous (in my own mind), never-posted second piece I wrote for the site. Was it unpublishable? You be the judge. Or the jury. Maybe I should call in some surprise witnesses to influence your decision, each more surprising than the last. Bring 'em in, boys!

Chocolate ice cream, peanut butter, and bourbon: a novel milkshake

In London, there's a chain of American-style diners called, appropriately, The Diner. The food is decent when you've got a craving for fare like hamburgers and mac and cheese or even a bottle of Sam Adams Boston Lager. Most importantly, though, The Diner serves "hard shakes," or alcoholic milkshakes, a market woefully untapped in America.

The best of the bunch is one made with vanilla ice cream, peanut butter, and Four Roses bourbon and called "The Colonel Parker," named after Elvis Presley's manager. (Was the Colonel fond of Four Roses? Was this a signature drink of his? I don't quite understand the reference, so please, enlighten me if possible.) Here’s a chocolaty homage to The Diner’s delightful drink, which should easily serve two.
Ingredients:

1-3 cups of chocolate ice cream
½-1 cup of peanut butter
¼-½ cup of milk
3-6 ounces (or 2-4 shot glasses) of bourbon
Optional: hot fudge (homemade or store-bought)

This is a simple and decadent treat to blend up at home. Combine the ingredients in any order in the blender (the superb Euro-Pro Ninja Master was used here) and pulse in 5 second intervals until there are no lumps. The amounts listed are a very rough guideline, so sample the shake as you’re making it and adjust proportions based on desired strength. For example, if you taste your shake and find the peanut butter is being drowned out, simply add another spoonful of peanut butter and blend again.

For this recipe I grabbed what was in the kitchen, but substitutions are easy and encouraged. I used a mix of the local Smiling Hill Farm’s Dark Chocolate ice cream, acquired at the ever-enticing Rosemont Munjoy Hill in Portland, and Stone Ridge Creamery’s Chocolate Fudge ice cream. The peanut butter was standard Jif. Organic might work, though the consistency and taste are different enough that there's no guarantee.

The hot fudge was homemade but any, or none, will do. The milk was fat free, but a drink like this practically begs for a higher fat content. As for choosing a bourbon, don't worry about getting fancy here. Unless you refuse to touch cheap bourbon, use something low-end for this recipe and save your top shelf liquor for a glass with a couple of ice cubes.

This is an excellent dessert with two caveats. First, the consistency was a little thin even with all the peanut butter, so suggestions for thickening homemade milk shakes without sacrificing flavor are very welcome. Second, generally speaking chocolate is superior to vanilla. In this case, however, an exception could certainly be made. Vanilla ice cream is milder, allowing the other ingredients in this shake to really shine, while chocolate was nearly overpowering. If, unlike me, you have vanilla ice cream, try the recipe with that (leave out the hot fudge if you do, naturally). Bottoms up!

My Brief Stint as an Examiner

For those of you who show up expecting a Big Bird fix, I apologize for the interruption, but this isn't strictly a Big Bird blog (yet), so settle down. When I get another picture in my email or when I figure out how my parents' scanner works so I can scan the latest (hand-drawn) picture, regular muppet service will resume. In the meantime, either read this regrettably long, semi-serious rant or get to work drawing me pictures. Can you do any less?

Begin rant.

Recently I started writing for examiner.com, an employer that is constantly bombarding job sites like monster.com. They're always looking for both national and local writers covering topics as broad as "Young Adult Pop Culture" and as specific as "The Beatles" -- though my dad might argue that "The Beatles" is just as broad a topic, so let's say there are topics as specific as..."Handbags." (Seriously. Who are these people?)

I didn't know if I was enough of an expert in any subject to qualify, but I finally bit when I saw a call for a local "Food and Drink" examiner. I figured, Hey, I eat food and drink drinks. I also figured, Hey, I'm already cooking and blogging about cooking pretty regularly. I went on to figure, Hey, the Portland area's not a bad one for covering local food and drink. Finally, I figured, Hey, if I could continue doing what I was doing but get some slight professional cred along with some slight monetary compensation, so much the better.

I'm good with figures.

I was kind of excited, and for my first official article I fleshed out my application's sample piece about LeRoux Kitchen's Baker's Thursday event. I saved it for the editorial team to review it, which is allegedly what they do with each article before it goes live. My article passed muster, it went live, and I was officially a published Examiner. I posted a link to my piece on LeRoux's Facebook page so they could see the positive review. Slight professional cred attained! Cool.

Examiner.com wants you to write at least two or three pieces a week, so a few days later I put together a little recipe for a Chocolate Peanut Butter Bourbon Milkshake. Stasia and I had recently made it, it was good and simple, and I even had a couple pictures I could run with the article. I saved it for the editorial team to review it. I waited.

And I never heard back.

If that were the only problem, I would have made an effort. It would probably be simple enough to contact someone at examiner.com, figure out what went wrong, sort it out, maybe alter or scrap the article if for some reason it didn't follow their rules or they didn't like it. But I had already been feeling uneasy about examiner.com. Here are the other major problems I have with that make me prefer to let the matter drop rather than pursue a working relationship with the site:

Examiner.com purports to pay based on factors such as page views, session length, and so on. That's not uncommon these days; in fact, it's very similar to Google Adsense's model, as far as I know. Here's the rub: nowhere will they tell you the formula for payment. Not even when you're "hired" and get your whole introductory spiel, which is mostly a few editorial rules and tips on how to navigate the site. So I'm just supposed to trust that I'll get my fair share of whatever advertising dollars they collect?

The only concrete figure given is $50: the amount of money you'll receive for each additional person you refer to examiner.com who gets accepted as a writer for the site. I know there are employers, such as summer camps, that thrive on word of mouth. But this feels less like a summer camp and more like a pyramid scheme. Keep drawing writers to the site, pound the Search Engine Optimization pavement, keep hitting the top of search engine lists, fill the site with obtrusive and aggravating advertising, toss a few cents around here and there, and profit at others' expense (okay, profit has to come at others' expense, but usually "others" are the consumers, not the workers).

These are the glaring issues, and there seems to be a lot more seething just beneath the surface, enough that my gut tells me to get out sooner rather than later. Google "examiner.com scam?" for yourself if you'd really like to know more, including the frighteningly conservative politics of the billionaire owner of Examiner.com, Philip Anschutz. When I didn't hear anything about my second article, it was the final push needed to convince me to sever my ties to examiner.com and stick to personal blogging for now. (Technically I didn't "sever" ties yet, so this is kind of like when I hated my coaches in college and "quit" track by never showing up again my senior year, or when I hated the Pope and "quit" the Catholic Church by never showing up again after being confirmed, Christmas mass notwithstanding. Actually quitting is harder than it sounds.)

My sister's working on her homepage and very generously offered me a sub-site, so maybe I'll take her up on that. I might not know her secret formula for paying me either, but I prefer her frighteningly liberal politics any day.