Hello! Welcome back from Memorial Day, I guess. As a working man, 4-day weeks always mess up my clock. Let’s pretend it’s Monday and call it comic day. We’re still going to pretend tomorrow is Wednesday, which it is, so we’ll have a comic then, too. Then Thursday is podcast day, and everyone will live happily ever after.
I want you guys to check out The Brads, if you haven’t yet, and add it to your bookmarks in a folder called “Awesome Webcomics Based Around Design” right after 1PT.Rule. It’s a weekly, but creator Brad Colbow makes up for fewer updates with full-color and an ability to weave the very structure of comics in a web-based format into the humor of his strip that I find myself very jealous of. Check it out.
Raise your hand if you’ve done this. Now, the rest of you, raise your hands because you’re lying.
Since Wednesday, there have been developments in the ongoing Nebraska License Plate Debacle. And by developments, I mean the kind head-removal-from-anus that cannot be called anything other than “heroic” in the world of politics. What was once stonewalling and inability to admit failure has transformed into someone in local government actually standing up and saying “you know what? This is a little fucked up right here and we may have to do something about it.“
Throughout it all, the gang at CollegeHumor.com (which has only been identified as “a college humor website” by the local press — subtle, right?) has floored me as the strut about as some bizarre peacock-unicorn hybrid with their insistence of victory and balls-out unapologetic manner. They remind me of those two dudes who punked Boston with the Moonenite graphics for Cartoon Network a year or two ago. It’s sort of totally awesome. If I lived anywhere else I’d give that guy a high five. Living here, probably I’d fake the high-five and punch him in the balls.
But really, if these recent developments hold, his actions will actually guarantee that the worst option never gets made into the newest license plate, something we should all be thankful for, should it come to pass. The real problem here is how the designs themselves are “commissioned” and selected for presentation for the state to vote on. Until that’s fixed, we’re all just picking out our favorite turd to smear our cars with.
So yesterday this happened, followed swiftly by the general discovery of this having happened, followed moments later by College Humor taking crediten masse like insurgents from a cave. Officials deny the massive prank had anything to do with the outcome, but I’d wager the results would be quite different if they removed votes that came via the site. Not that we’d have better plates in two years or anything.
The plates, which vertically read “NEERASKA” (but don’t worry because it says “NEBRASKA” again right fucking next to it) was designed “professionally” by a dude or lady at the manufacturer of the materials that are used to make license plates. This is exactly the place I want my artistic representations of the state I call home because all of the most creatively talented and inspired artists work in the office of a metal shop.
The government response has been Political Sidestepping 101, with officials spouting platitudes such as “You can’t please everyone” and “nobody ever likes the license plate designs” coming from either the Gov’nor himself or the woman in charge of the situation, though I would posit the following:
I you gave everyone you know a present every year, but that present was always you kicking them in the nuts, you may come to believe “Well people just don’t like presents.”
While I don’t think the state would ever eliminate voting, they certainly could commission actual artists to deliver the selections the voters have to choose from, ensuring that any winning design would have actual artistic merit, and while no, it may not please everyone, it also won’t make us look like a bunch of idiots when we go on a road trip. I would be happy to spearhead a subcommittee to select these artists, Mr. Governor, and my door is always open to you.
Sometimes the process of writing these comics astounds me. I cannot recall the intended joke of today’s strip, only that it was far, far removed from what I wound up with. Somewhere around panel two things took a seriously unexpected turn when Newton started explaining his technique of meeting new clients. This is, of course, derived somewhat from reality. I do have a client meeting today and I do not intend to bring along a portfolio of work.
Some time ago I became a no-go-portfolio guy. I had a few meetings with potential clients that went famously well, and at the end, there I was, with this big black case filled with my previous work just sitting there, unopened. Once or twice I actually asked if they wanted to see it as we were winding down, and I cannot recall anyone answering in the positive. I occurred to me that I sent along my portfolio’s webpage (newest version here) long before the initial meet-up, and by the time we were in a face-to-face, it was really more about people getting to know each other and each other’s business, and less about “check out this sweet poster i did.”
You ever have one of those days where something you do doesn’t live up to your own expectations for yourself? So I had this sweet experience the other day…
I went to a skateshop to attempt some research for a client project that so far hasn’t actually materialized. I found, upon entering, that I had a full 90-seconds worth of imagined street cred to be standing there in my khaki’s and polo/Express shirt, pretending to be cool enough to actually look at anything in there. I could not muster the strength to look behind Skinny-Totally-Disinterested-In-Me guy to see any real skateboard designs. Mostly I looked at shoes. Owning one pair of cool sneaks myself — which of course I was not wearing that day — I figured this might be an adequate way for me to inch closer to people who actually have cred. For as it stands now, I know that I have none.
My wife has cred, and does not understand this in me. I believe that I am somewhat a master of the subset of cool known as “geek” and a few of it’s subsidiaries, but when it comes to anything that is actually cool — indie music, skating, scrapbooking — I become instantly socially incompetent. This is, I suppose, mostly imagined on my part, but is nonetheless the last bastion of my teenage insecurities that remains.
At least I have a boss-hog Star Trek movie to keep me safe.