Comics and stereotypes

These are two great comic strips that deserve to be in more papers and other venues that will result in financial rewards for the artists. I especially love the battery low detail in Watch Your Head (the second strip). I'm glad that printed newspapers are not the sole source of comics. Thanks to the web (the Houston Chronicle and the Seattle P-I websites do a great job of using the web to expand the selection of comics available to the reading public without having to shrink things to include all the comics in the print edition.) I can enjoy some great comics. Of course this leads to some frustration because with all the great material to choose from why are some comics still in print?

Both of these comics feature of group of people that live in America. A group often pigeon-holed into a single stereotype. Both of these comics show that this group has a lot more diversity than the mainstream media would have people believe.

Candorville, the first comic, features the classical nerd stereotype of bad teeth, thick glasses, timidity and poor fashion sense. The only thing missing from this stereotype is the pasty skin. Lamont, the main character in Candorville (who does not appear in this particular strip), more accurately represents nerdiness in the real world. While a science fiction fan (particularly ST:NG - he wears a communicator on his t-shirt), Lamont holds down a job, has had sex, is generally well-groomed and well-informed about things outside of science fiction. Lamont is also not timid about expressing himself in a lot of areas.

Cory of "Watch Your Head" typifies the college age nerd. Embraces his nerdiness but remains aware of and somewhat frustrated by the hurdles that he faces as a nerd. He refuses to let those hurdles force him to turn into something he is not just to fit in. Very inspiring.

Both comics show that nerds have many interests and can function well within society without compromising themselves. Both comics also show that nerdiness is a lot more mainstream and common than people believe.

---------------------------

aperfectworld.org is still down. According to their website Ipower is having phone issues (their lines are giving busy signals in error). I must not be the only one experiencing an outage. I'm glad I don't make a living off this. I make some money but not a living. This is giving me a chance to create a larger backlog of cartoons. If it is not resolved by tomorrow, I will make a phone call, e-mail, chat or whatever has not crashed at Ipower.

I've been using this company since 2003 and this is the longest time my site has had an outage and also the first time that I've found support a bit frustrating.