Comics by Reinder: Bok and beer, but not bock beer

Yesterday

The 113th Greyfriar’s Isle comic, “Beer”, went up for paid Planet Nude subscribers yesterday. In it, we learn that Mycelia’s knowledge does have its limits

I wasn't super happy with the first panel, but Evan of Planet Nude picked it as the promotional image for the post, so probably it's not that bad?

Last Monday

The latest Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan page, page 114 of “Feral”, entitled Bok (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), was posted on Monday:

(S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)

It’s a coincidence that these two titles together almost spell out “bock beer”, a drink that’s in season right now. However, I’m staying away from alcohol right now for health reasons so I’m not partaking in any. A big change from when beer was the topic of half of my comics!

It’s been another quiet week for non-comic art. Physically I’m feeling better but these seasonal illnesses always take it out on my executive functioning and it’ll take another week or two for me to be fully back to normal. It shows in weird things, like the way my social media use has fallen off a cliff without anything more interesting or productive taking its place.

With the next Greyfriar’s Isle comic not due for delivery until November 2, I may just declare a lazy weekend, goof off watching some concert DVDs, and take it from there.

Items of interest

#tech: The Great Software Quality Collapse: (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)How We Normalized Catastrophe - Denis Stetskov, From the Trenches.

We're living through the greatest software quality crisis in computing history. A Calculator leaks 32GB of RAM. AI assistants delete production databases. Companies spend $364 billion to avoid fixing fundamental problems.

#tech #economy It’s giving Enron (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) - Dave Karpf. I mentioned the circular investment thing last week, along with Ed Zitron’s long post, part of which he spent arguing that it wasn’t quite as simple as that. I think it is.

#tech #policy Apple (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) and Google (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) are both giving aid and comfort to the brownshirts. We will not forget.

#tech #actionable #turnitoff: My interest in buying new Apple devices has dropped to a twenty-year low, but then again I may simply be getting too old to use the new Apple Ones anyway, or at least their new Liquid Glass interface designed by people with perfect vision for people with perfect vision. Here’s a few pointers on how to turn that off. (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)

And speaking of turning things off: Consumer Reports has a primer on getting rid of as much AI bullshit from multiple vendors as possible. (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)

#actionable Don’t ship any physical objects to the US if you’re not a professional at doing that, and if you do have to ship something, don’t use UPS (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre).

#video #literature The Smartest People You Know Still Read Novels (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) - Joan Westerberg (5 minutes)

Much earlier still, back in the 1990s, in fact

This week’s blast from the past is… actually, let’s do something different this week. Back in 1996, I met Daniel Østvold through a mutual friend. Daniel is a painter, cartoonist and musician from Oslo, and I ended up publishing the comic he did with writer Geir Strøm, The Double as a zine, and later as a webcomic - you can see the latest version here: Chronicles of the Witch Queen on ComicFury (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)

Daniel’s comic universe ended up intersecting with mine in the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan story Gu∂rún (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre):

But what Daniel excels at is presenting his fictional world across media: in comics, in paintings, in paper pulp figures, and in music. He made a musical version of The Double, recorded on 4-track at the same time as he was working on the comic. A few years after that, he came to the Netherlands to re-record it with my former bandmates in The Hooded Crow, plus some special guests. Fast-forward a quarter-century and he has given my brother permission to release the project on streaming media. I didn’t play on this, but I was involved in getting everyone into the studio at the right time, and it was one of the oddest projects I’ve ever been involved in. Here it is:

Daniel has a gift for hearing the music that is already present in the comic’s dialog. He doesn't have to change much to make it fit.

See you next week with a more normal blast from the past!