Here is a new thing! In the Wondermark Caption Contest, I invite you to come up with the perfect caption for this image. The best caption will win a signed, personalized print of the cartoon, and your caption will be rendered CANON.
I’m holding the contest at Wondermark’s Facebook page — please submit your suggested captions there, so everyone can read them! (And check out other folks’ submissions too!) If you don’t have a Facebook account, you can email me instead; that’s fine.
Enter as many captions as you like! I’ll pick my favorite caption and announce the winner on Friday, February 18.
In a recent strip about Boggle, I used the word “glond” ostensibly as a made-up word, a word so obviously silly that no one could take it seriously, but yet which could be argued to be somehow real.
Well, here is a note from Marksman Nikolardo, who sends the following pictures to support an argument I would not have believed without documentation. This dictionary is used in the Nikolardo family for both Boggle and Scrabble:
And in this dictionary, there is a certain page…
And on this page there is something miserable:
GLOND.
Now, then: Nikolardo points out that the bottom section of the page, where “glond” is found, is a special space for “words which were variants and/or archaic at the time this dictionary was printed, which was 1918.” So it can be argued that “glond” is not really a word. Not anymore.
And what is glond? “Awlwort” or “Cowherb.” THOSE ARE NOT WORDS EITHER.
Due to this overwhelming evidence I am going ON THE RECORD as declaring “glond” NOT A WORD, either now or EVER IN THE FUTURE. Glond is BLACKBALLED from the English language FOREVER.
What a glommox we have made of this situation! (Thanks for the pictures, Nikolardo!)
I am uneasy with my fortunes resting in the hands of others.
As you may know, every year I design a hand-printed, limited-edition calendar. My wife and I use a RISO Print Gocco screenprinting press to create the actual pages. The trouble is that Gocco supplies have been discontinued by the manufacturer, and inventory on the secondary market is dwindling rapidly. Thankfully, however, enterprising and crafty folk have managed to create workarounds — one of them involves these aftermarket plastic frames. A savvy fellow in Germany manufactures them as replacements for the original Gocco supplies, and (in a fairly savvy business move) he has limited the distribution of them to a single retailer in the US.
Long story short, I am in the market for 38 of these frames for this year’s calendar, and the US retailer charges what I consider an exorbitant price. My question to you is this: how hard are these to make?
Are you involved in plastics manufacturing? Do you have access to a laser-cutter or a water-jet or a die-stamper or whatever would be appropriate to use to make these? I would be willing to manufacture a few hundred of these frames if it meant I would be assured of having calendar supplies for years to come. They’re pretty thin material, maybe 1/16″ or so, and I don’t think the specific plastic used even matters — they just have to be this very specific size so they fit the Gocco equipment.
I’m shifting calendar creation into high gear (watch for the pre-order going live next week!) and would love to somehow get a batch of these rapidly…or if nothing else, find someone who can make them for next year.
Would you like some business, Plastics Manufacturer Who Reads Wondermark? Email me please! Tell me how this process works. I want to seize control of this; I am tired of other people dictating how I can make my things.
UPDATE: Thank you for the kind emails, comments and suggestions! I am currently following up on several different options.
Now then! If you’re not in plastics manufacturing but you’ve still read down this far, here is your reward (hat tip to Kevin McShane):
My friend and colleague Todd Croak-Falen (who produced and co-wrote my short spy spoof Expendable) is applying to the Electrical Training Institute of Southern California’s apprenticeship program (Los Angeles Local 11 chapter). He passed the written test with flying colors and is now scheduled for an interview on Wednesday as the next phase of the application. He hopes to become an Inside Wireman.
I thought I’d use my soapbox here to ask: are you an electrician with a familiarity with this program? Would you be able to offer Todd a few words of advice regarding what to expect in the interview, or how to make the best impression? What are they looking for? Please email me (dave at wondermark dot com) and I will forward all comments to Todd.
His interview’s this Wednesday morning, so a quick note now is better than a treatise later! Todd’s a smart dude, a hard worker, and I’d love to give him the best shot at getting into this program. Thanks so very much!
While we’re happy to offer [a Kindle] version for folks who don’t want to deal with a physical book for any of a million great reasons, it should be said that Amazon treats a Kindle book as an entirely separate product from the printed book. Thus, buying the Kindle version doesn’t contribute to the main flash-mob campaign. If we can get a secondary campaign going for the Kindle version, great, that’d be amazing! But we’re also a little concerned about splitting the effort.
Should we make a Kindle version? What are the implications for the campaign? We also talk about time zones and some other stuff; go check it out and give us your thoughts! Other questions about the project can be directed over there as well, so everyone can see them and contribute (rather than sequestering them here on Wondermark).
I also feel like this is a fine time to share this photo sent in by Marksman Alexandre I., who explains:
Four of us share a suite in a dorm here at Pittsburgh University, with two rooms and a conjoining lounge. We despise blank walls and have a rather exorbitant printing budget of 800 sheets per semester, so we rasterbated Lincoln to the ambitious scale of 7×14 A4 sheets or roughly 6.5ft x 10ft.
Tremendous, Alexandre. Tremendous.
(Rasterbator is, of course, the website that blows up and allows you to print out massive wall-sized images made from individual sheets of paper. Should everybody do this, with every one of my comics? I think the answer is obviously yes)
I received a lovely email recently from Joanne, a reference librarian in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Joanne had a problem: her library had to get rid of some old books, and she had to find homes for them! Well, as you might imagine, this is hardly a problem for me, as I told her to send them on over.
And send them she did! Look at this delightful packing job. These books arrived in amazing condition and I eagerly flipped through them hunting for jewels.
Thank you very much, Joanne! And thank you to Toni, who just sent me a CD full of scans from 1882′s Collier’s Cyclopedia of Social and Commercial Information. Thank you to the kind chap whom I met at Comic-Con and who gave me an illustration of a man’s leg being amputated — that is just waiting to find a home in Wondermark somewhere. Thank you to Douglas who alerted me to a particularly great eBay find; thank you to Conch in Portland who brought me a whole stack of books at last year’s Wordstock (from whence came this); and to David in Colorado who sent me a massive box of 1880s Scientific American that I’ve been miningforyears.
Just a quick reminder that tomorrow (or TODAY, depending on when you’re reading this), the 13th, is the last day to sponsor our fundraising team in 826LA’s Spelling Bee for Cheaters. So far we’ve raised over $1000, which is amazing! You are the best.
But, as of this writing, I am lagging way behind both my teammates, Keith and Dave. I blame part of this on a weird link in the previous message that didn’t seem to load the page right, but now I’ve fixed that and there is no excuse.DO IT FOR THE KIDS
Thank you so much for your support! I’ll be sure to give a full report on the event next week.
Maybe you’ve heard of 826 Valencia, the organization founded by Dave Eggers that helps 6- to 18-year-olds with writing skills through community events and after-school tutoring. 826 has several branches nationwide, and my local chapter, 826LA, has its office just down the street from mine! In fact, I pass it every day on my way to work. My friend and fellow cartoonist Keith Knight is on the board of directors there, and when he invited me to participate in a fundraising event for 826LA, I gladly agreed!
It’s called “A Spelling Bee For Cheaters” and it takes place August 14 in Santa Monica, CA. Keith, Dave Kellett and I are on a team called “The Sweaty Hams,” because we are all men and, well, sometimes things happen. We’re somewhat late-comers to the fundraising game, so we are trying to raise pledges to buy “cheats” so we can be competitive in the event!
Cheats include passing on a difficult word, buying immunity after spelling a word wrong, swapping places with another team member, and other non-officially-endorsed-by-the-American-Spelling-Association deviousnesses. (See how I used a word that’s probably not in their official lexicon?) We only get cheats — and thus, a fighting chance against the other teams with loads of cheats — if we raise money! 826LA is a volunteer-based organization that helps kids in a number of remarkable and wonderful ways. Will you please help our team with a donation?
The event is less than two weeks away and thanks to rudderless team leadership we are entering the fundraising race way at the back of the pack. PLEASE DO NOT LET US FAIL IN THIS
With reference to today’s comic — a few weeks ago, Boston hosted a marathon epitaph-writing session between myself, Joey & Emily, Ryan, Randall, and Kris. Some of my favorites (that I can remember):
~ Here lies Emily Horne, or at least her most recent host body
~ Here lies Joey Comeau, or at least someone wearing his face
~ Here lies Randall Munroe and the items his atoms have been fused with
~ Here lies Ryan North, PROVEN WRONG FOR ONCE
~ Here lies Kris Straub / 1979-2004, 2005, 2007, 2010
~ David Malki ! / 1980-2005 / 2010-
