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.

The Murky World of Sampling

Even if you're not a fan of rap and hip-hop, you surely know about "sampling," when an artist incorporates pieces of existing music into a new song. I like sampling when it's used to good effect, whether a sample is a fragment tweaked beyond recognition to create new sounds or a huge chunk of intact music with new lyrics added on top.

What I don't like as much about sampling is that it's so expensive to do legally and that it's so often done with little acknowledgment to the original music and, more importantly, the original artist. I think music sampling should be more like the citation of literary works: free, but with strict requirements about giving credit where credit is due.

Artists not backed by the world's top labels can't afford to sample if they want to sell their music. Making sampling free would level the playing field. Then if the original works and artists were cited more clearly and openly, they could greatly benefit from the increased exposure due to these contemporary borrowers. This is a half-cocked theory that I've had for years and in a way musicians are probably already supposed to do the latter part by listing samples in the liner notes. But who has liner notes when listening to internet radio or buying digitally? Anyway, my point is not to expound on the theory at length right this moment.

What I'm leading up to is this: listening to classic funk is always an eye-opening experience. I love it for its own sake, but it's even more fun to stumble across sounds I recognize from the more recent past. Funk is a seemingly limitless source of cool sounds and hip-hop never hesitates to return to that well. As with fashion, everything old becomes new again, sometimes with very little alteration, since younger generations don't remember the contributions of the older.

A Pandora station I've been listening to lately, which jumps around from classic funk to disco to modern techno, has recently played three songs I recognized as being sampled in famous hip-hop songs. One of them came up while I wrote this post, in fact: The Isley Brothers' "Between the Sheets," which I already knew was the "inspiration" for Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa." This is somewhat obvious because the sample is a largely intact piece of music from a very famous band.

But the other two sampled songs were never big hits, or at least not lasting hits, they seem to have avoided any resurgence in popularity despite their inclusion in two massive modern hits (is 1997 still considered modern? The movie franchise is technically still alive, so let's just call it modern). Below I've listed two more sets of youtube video links. The first link of each set is the original song, the second is the modern one that sampled from it. If you're under 30, you probably won't need the second links to guess the modern songs, but you've probably never heard of the originals either:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2XhhuM9GZo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7CePeRW6eM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol0ZyaGG5H4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjsXo9l6I8

Seriously, Jay-Z's "Empire Falls" is New York's anthem, and I hadn't even realized the most famous hook from it is taken note-for-note from a song called "Love on a Two Way Street." I love what Jay-Z and crew did with one epic piece of music from an otherwise boring song, but don't obscure the source. And "Forget Me Nots"...well, you have to give Will Smith credit for turning that into a catchy pop smash by changing the lyrics and adding a standard drum beat. But he should have given Patrice Rushen credit for providing the foundation for his music. Then we could have decided to ignore her on our own terms, rather than on his.

Birthday Cards

I had a good birthday. I got some solid gifts.

I got a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting from Two Fat Cats Bakery. My dad noted admiringly, "It tastes like a giant Funny Bone." True. A giant, delicious, handmade Funny Bone. I didn't put it in the fridge like last time, either.

I had some delicious, low-carbonation craft beers with friends at Gritty's. I hate carbonation.

I avoided all the storms while biking.

And best of all, I got some awesome handmade cards. Here's the card my sister made me (don't forget to click images to embiggen them and read the fine print):
My mom made me Ninja Turtles cakes when I was young, but I never got a "totally rad birthday 'za." Probably for the best.

My sister said she deliberately hid the hands and feet here since those are the features that give her the most trouble. I pointed out that that's true of professional comics artists, as well. Either way, she did a nice, subtle job of hiding the deformed extremities. I rate this card Totally Tubular, dude.

For purposes of comparison, here's a card I made for Stasia's birthday last year:

Sorry if that made you spill your coffee or gave you nightmares. Hopefully it's large enough that you can read the text, since that's much better than the image. I like the card in general, but I don't know what I was thinking when I drew that crazy-eyed close-up. I'll have to redo it with my improved mspainting skills, so as not to pervert the minds of innocents.

And here's a simply incredible card Stasia drew by hand and held up to her webcam so I could see it:

Whale done. (If you don't get that joke, try saying it the way Stasia would now: with a British accent. {And if you don't like that joke, kiss my blowhole.})

Birthday Raptor

Is it wrong to make yourself a birthday card? It doesn't say my name on it, so it could technically be for anyone. Anyone delicious...

New business idea: Raptor Cakes. Cakes made by, for, and of raptors.

Roses and Birthdays

I'm still alive. Here's a post to prove it. Could I have done this from beyoooond the graaaave?

I mspainted this card for my grandmother last week. I printed the rose on one side of a piece of card stock paper, flipped the paper over, printed the text on the other side, then folded the paper so it looked like a real card, since it was being sent in the real mail. And that was on my third try. This real world stuff is terribly complicated.

Don't forget to click it to enlarge it. When you do, you'll notice a distinct lack of snark. This is because my grandmother appreciates sincere, aka sappy, emotion. When I sass her, she appreciates that, too, but often I have to explain my sass before she fully appreciates it, and that's hard to do in a greeting card. Oh, also, her birthday's not about me, it's about her, or something. (If she's reading this she might be disappointed in me until I explain the tongue-in-cheekness of that joke. Then she's going to be mad at me for implying she doesn't get my jokes. Good thing she mostly avoids the computer. No one print this out for her, she already got her card and pretended she loved it. Let's not mess with a good thing.)

Anyway, all I'm saying is Hallmark ain't so great. Takin' back the greeting card industry.