The publication La Culture Physique de la Femme Elégante is an exquisitely rare and beautiful testament to these early days of the widespread promotion of fitness for women. It was issued as a folio containing twelve pochoir plates on board depicting women in a variety of calisthenic poses.
The illustrations, by fashion illustration icon Germaine-Paule Joumard, are absolutely gorgeous.
Pochoir was a pre-lithography printmaking technique involving the hand-application of gouache paint in stenciled patterns. It was often used as a high-end way to reproduce (and was a perfect fit for) the bold shapes that were the hallmark of Art Deco illustration.
Check out the entire set — a full dozen of these full-color windows into a cheery, bright, pre-Pilates world — at the FIT blog or on the Slate Vault.
I. Wondermark book super sale!!
II. Machine of Death anniversary sale!!
III. How to claim the new “Library Ace” cast card, for free!
This year (come April) will mark THIRTEEN YEARS of me posting Wondermark comics on this website. This website is nearly in EIGHTH GRADE. It will soon be learning ALGEBRA.
I don’t want to wait until April to celebrate, though — we just hit comic #1200, and that’s a nice round number.
So I’m doing a special book sale for THIRTEEN DAYS, where you can get any three of my books for eighteen dollars total! It’s the THREE-’TEEN sale. That’s a terrible name for a sale. It is no longer called that.
If you’ve been meaning to complete your book collection, now’s the best chance you’ll have for a while. If you haven’t picked up a Wondermark book before, what a great time to do so! I am very proud of all my books. You can read more about all the different titles here!
All eight of the books pictured above are included in the sale — four strip collections, two themed collections, a book of drawings, and a big thick novel. (The latter two are available digitally, as well.)
I hope you take this opportunity to fill a bookshelf, or a slab of giftwrap, with some cool books!
The original Machine of Death comic appeared on Dinosaur Comics in December 2005.
And it was around this time of year in 2006 — a little while after the comic first ran — when Ryan, Matt, and I (along with some other folks on Ryan’s forum) first started talking about how cool it would be to put together a book of short stories.
That was ten years ago! Since then, we’ve put out two books and a card game…And you can grab any of them during this sale for JUST TEN BUCKS EACH.
The game normally retails for $35 (and the expansion set for $45), so this is a…killer deal. Get it? Because it’s called Machine of Death.
If you don’t know about Machine of Death yet, this video will summarize it for you in thirty seconds:
It would probably make more thematic sense to run this sale for ten days, but since the Wondermark sale is thirteen days long, we’ll call this one thirteen days as well.
You can even patronize both sales at the same time! They, and many other cool things, are all on offer together over in my TopatoCo shop.
OKAY NOW THERE’S ONE MORE THING
Yesterday I introduced the Cast Card Subscription program, via Patreon, in which I will produce and send you a cool limited-edition plaque every single month.
In that post, I wrote “Moving forward, there will be other ways to get other Cast Cards, too” besides the subscription.
Like this, for example! Today, in addition to the Patreon subscription cards, I’m issuing a new “Library Ace” cast card, pictured above.
There are two ways you can get this card:
FIRST METHOD:If you own five or more Wondermark books, you are a Library Ace right now! You qualify to get one of these cards, for free, to commemorate your great achievement!
To claim your card, take a cool picture of your five (or more) Wondermark books. They can be any five from the picture above, or older ones that are now out of print. (I’m pretty sure I’ll recognize them.) I wanna see what you got, and show your collection to other people too!
Then: tweet your picture with #libraryace, and tag either @malki or @wondermarkfeed. (And make sure you’re following one or both of of those accounts, so I can DM you your claim instructions once I see your post!)
That’s it! Just take a picture of the books you already have, and share it with me. I’ll send you the cast card as a thank-you for being a cool person with good taste in books!
SECOND METHOD: If you don’t already have five Wondermark books, well, coincidentally we’re running a sale on books right now! I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it recently.
If you happen to order books in this sale, and you end up with at least five books total — between the books you’re ordering, and any books you may already have at home — then congratulations, friend: you’re now a Library Ace!
You don’t have to wait until you get the books in the mail: feel free to forward me your TopatoCo order confirmation email (to dave at wondermark dot com) — and if you like, attach a picture to show any other books you’ve already got, so that everything adds up to at least five books overall.
When I get the email, I’ll share your picture on Twitter (if it’s super cool) and add you to the ACE STACK at once.
This promotion, like the others, will run for THIRTEEN DAYS! The sales, and the Library Ace claim period, will all end on MARCH 9.Beware the nines of March!!
…And of course, there are still a few days left to join the cast card subscription list in time to claim February’s Patreon-exclusive card. A few people have signed up so far, which is super great — I kinda like the idea that only those few people will get that month’s card, which makes that card super rare and thus extra cool for those folks!!
I love running sales like this when I can — I just want to get this stuff into your hands, and I know not everyone can afford to get all the things they might want right when they first come out. So I’m really happy to do discounts and promotions when I can, and I hope you take advantage of them! Hooray for books and cool books and enjoying books!!
These little commemorative plaques are neat mementos of events or moments in Wondermark history.
Folks who’ve gotten the 2016 Wondermark Calendar, or were a part of the Multi-Purpose Cards Kickstarter, have already begun seeding their collection of Wondermark Cast Cards.
And..so have a handful of my top Patreon supporters! I decided I would make a brand new one, and send it to my top supporters for the month of January. A little surprise thank-you, for the folks who’ve contributed over $20 so far.
(They’re all getting the lady in the green dress, at right in the photo above. She’s Mirabelle O’Denneghy, from Wondermark #1056. It looks like her organs haven’t exploded quite yet — bully for her!)
Today, I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be making the Cast Card rewards a monthly tradition — a new way to reward folks who want to support Wondermark and the other things I do.
If you’re not familiar with Patreon, it’s like tossing some change in the tip jar when you get a coffee. Lots of people giving 25¢ or $1 or $2 each month can add up to make a real difference in the life of an artist. It’ll allow me to make more fun stuff, like these cards for instance! Which I think are pretty fun.
So, if you’d like to toss in a few cents or a buck, by all means, please do! I’m grateful beyond words.
BUT, if you would like to go PREMIUM LEVEL, and receive a beautiful handmade item in your hands every single month, now there is this:
Every single month, I will send my patreonauts at this tier level a brand new monthly Cast Card, which will be exclusive to Patreon.
It’s like the world’s smallest LootCrate! (The shipping cost is included; there’s no extra charge to have one sent to you anywhere in the world.)
To make it fair, I’ll make the official count at the end of each month (when the pledges for that month are processed). So, the time is NOW to jump on board for the inaugural February offering!
Here’s this February’s card — good ol’ Bean MacBean, from Wondermark episode #1125, the “bean juice” comic! All his vital stats are on the back, of course.
Moving forward, there will be other ways to get other Cast Cards, too.
Most will be included free with various projects, or awarded for various things…In fact, soon I’ll talk about how you may already be a Library Ace. I’ll say only this for now: get your Wondermark books off the shelf, and make sure there’s film in your camera or whatever!
Until then, thanks a million for your support on Patreon, and please don’t delay if you want to claim a copy of the February card!
We’ve come to the end of Jeb!’s candidacy for president.
While he never had my vote, I have some sympathy for him, because he seems like a fundamentally decent human being — especially compared to the gargoyles and bridge trolls he’s been up against.
He is a candidate so dry that flights of wit can become indistinguishable from a sober default setting…
Those who defend his comedic instincts are compelled to hedge, contrasting Mr. Bush with his brother George, a wisecracking extrovert.
“Jeb appreciates humor,” Jim Towey, a close friend who served in the administration of George W. Bush, said diplomatically.
“It depends on your definition,” said Mac Stipanovich, a friend and former adviser, when asked if Mr. Bush was funny.
“It’s very droll,” Mike Harrell, a longtime golfing partner and Tallahassee lobbyist, said of Mr. Bush’s sense of humor. “He looks at you like he just told you his mother is dead.”
I, too, am drawn to deadpan. Sometimes that impulse makes it extra difficult to seem, or even to be, sincere. Earnestness can seem boring; it’s more fun to comment or riff on something, rather than respond straightforwardly.
So I know the struggle, Jeb!. You’re a dork, but unlike the other dorks running for president, you tried to embrace it, instead of papering it over with meanness or self-righteousness. Sorry it didn’t work out for you.
A few weeks ago, I signed up for all the candidates’ email lists. The thing that stood out immediately about the fundraising emails coming from the Jeb! camp in particular was their unique tactic of attempting to guilt the recipient into feeling bad for not contributing to the campaign.
In honor of this week’s Jebxit!, I composed a poem, using only phrases from Jeb!’s own fundraising emails.
Just prior to this past Valentine’s weekend, Marksman Rob D. wrote me with this note, about what could be considered an antecedent of today’s online abuse:
When first I heard of the concept of vinegar valentines (thanks NPR One) you came to mind, but your latest comic (#1197) cemented the necessity of reaching out to you about them.
Dating to 1840ish, they were illustrated missives sent anonymously on Valentine’s Day with the intent of insulting the recipient. The degree of burn ranged from ‘you drink too much’ to ‘kill yourself, no-one loves you’.
Annabella Pollen of UBrighton (UK) seems to be the foremost scholar on the matter.
Rob sent along this link: an interview with Ms Pollen at the site Collectors Weekly. Here’s an excerpt:
You could send them to your neighbors, friends, or enemies. You could send them to your schoolteacher, your boss, or people whose advances you wanted to dismiss. You could send them to people you thought were too ugly or fat, who drank too much, or people acting above their station. There was a card for pretty much every social ailment…
You have to remember that often they were sent anonymously. They were to say “Your behavior is unacceptable.” For example, there are quite a few cards that mock men with babies on their laps as being henpecked—the kind of thing now we would think was a man doing the right thing by taking his share of child care. But these cards were specifically designed to make the man seem emasculated and disempowered by being left holding the baby. Or there’d be images of women holding rolling pins, threatening their husbands.
The people sending such cards were usually not either one of the couple. It wasn’t the wife sending to the husband or the husband sending to the wife. It was somebody outside, looking in at their relationship and saying, “This doesn’t conform with what’s expected”…
The cards are quite a surprise to those who think the past was always so safe and the present is so very daring, and that we’re much more libertarian now than we have ever been in any other period in time. I think we only have to look back at this sort of stuff to see that that’s not the case.
The full interview is well worth a read, with a ton of pictures of vinegar valentines dating back to the 1840s or so. (There’s even a picture of what might be a relative to our friend Gax.)
