ThrisbyDude wrote:
There's also the old site layout this place used to have. Despite me being a young adult now, I already feel nostalgic for what the site was like back then. At least it was nice to know how lively it was back then.

The layout was the old style default BB code forum. Very spreadsheet looking. White backgrounds, blue lines, black text, blue and grey links.

Comic Fury didn't exist at all till years later.
It was us VS Keenspace, which is what Comic Genesis was first called. I don't think it had been renamed into Comic Genesis yet or if it had that was very new XD

The big interesting scoop is that the fellow who created Comic Fury started out as a comicer here and he was one of the problematic people in the Top Drawer, named PoisonV I think.
He wasn't popular or one of the main figures, he was just a mean hanger-on. He eventually became an issue that he had to be warned a few times and might have got a few temporary bans and maybe a permanent one?
That made him bitter and resentful unfortunately.

Eventually he returned and cleverly used an exploit in our PQ system to get admin credentials and start wreaking havoc on the site.
Basically he just made himself an admin and started deleting people accounts for fun and doing whatever damage he felt like.

Lucky me and a couple of other mods were online at the time and were able to get Volte6, chief admin, to put a stop to it. He restored what he could and patched the site.

And THAT is when I got made an admin- directly because of the event. Volte6 realised he needed someone who was active and had power in the wee-small hours when all the North Americans were asleep. SO I joined the Admin ranks.

And PoisonV eventually went on to create his own site. He matured a LOT. He graduated university, got a good job and made Comic Fury. We've since reconciled many times over what happened in the past.

Learning what I have about the one behind ComicFury since I got booted from there back in the summer, I am more and more convinced that my banishment from there was actually a blessing in disguise. Even in spite of working around the limitations of DD, I have to say that I've grown to be very happy here; VAMPIRE GIRL has been doing about as well here as it was on CF - it got featured when Season/Chapter 2 debuted back in October . . . I honestly can't see it having gotten such promotion as this on CF.

Like I said, in hindsight, I realized part of my problem on CF was that I got too comfortable with their community too quickly when they still barely knew me - it had been a while since I was reguarly an active part of a forum, and I basically just jumped in like I was one of the gang when I wasn't: they weren't used to my occasionally crass and immature sense of humor, and as such, I ruffled feathers and made people uncomfortable. Lesson learned the hard way, but as they always say, when one door closes, another door opens . . . ComicFury may have closed its door in my face, but The Duck opened its door and welcomed me here. Even if the community is a lot smaller and not as active, I'm still really happy to be part of The Duck.

Early 2008. That's where I came in. My joining day really was January 1, 2008. It was a New Year's resolution. My webcomics had already existed for a couple of years by then having been posted on action figure sites. Hopefully nothing from my first comic was archived.

Ozoneocean wrote:

Hhaha! You were still a member of he Top Drawer craziness. It continued after you joined in various was and you joined in with the Day Of The Alts in particular with your Ironscarf's Ghost terry Thomas persona LOL
Jeez, even I was a part of that particular shenanigan.

Thanks for reminding me of some of the fun to be had back then. It definitely wasn't all bad times, on which note…

I feel a little sorry for Kyo when this comes up, but it's part of both site's history and hopefully we can all laugh about it now. It lead directly to the creation of another site where people can post their comics and share their stories and its still going strong, so I'd say he paid his dues some years ago!

I knew about the script kiddie stuff Kyo did on here back then, but I didn't know how far it went. I knew he was involved with SmackJeeves for a time before he made ComicFury though. I know he has definitely matured a lot since those early days.

ThrisbyDude wrote:I meant this one from late 2006 to early 2008; should've clarified that earlier. There were blue, orange, green and gray all over the website in comic form, the white background was a good complement. All the other eras before this one look good too, with the ads and BuzzComix.

I love the compactness and the simplicity of that version.
A lot of us really hated the grey backgrounds. I think each post alternated between light grey and slighter darker grey.

Hahah, I remember some of those posts! And it's good to see those old names again :D
Real blast from the past.
Shame the actual posts aren't available.

—

I think the real difference between the DD community and CF (apart from them being busier), is that they're more sensitive generally.
I'd guess that's because they're mainly a younger generation, while a lot of DDer's are Gen X and older millennials.

We grew up in a far less partisan world, which is very important- so we're less likely to think of a person with different political views as being a bag guy, and also less likely to automatically assign people to a “political” (I mean that broadly) group based on certain views, preferences, humour, something they said or phrasing.

I think that's a important generation difference. You get older people doing it too of course but it's more significant with the people who grew up with it.

I don't know if anyone agrees with that?

That said we haven't had to deal with anyone with extreme, nasty or crazy views in a while so it's easy for us to be tolerant and easy going, but we also don't create issues where there aren't.

I don't really know if I can say with absolute certainty that it really is a generational thing or not, I'm not too sure, mainly because my social circles are very much multi-generational: I have some friends who are old enough to be my parents or even grandparents, but I also have some friends who are young enough to see me as something of a big brother . . . the only thing I can say for certain is that, looking back on it, I don't feel as though I really did fit in with the CF community that well - I mean yeah, before they got weirded out by some of the memes I shared and comments I made to report me to their forum staff and influence Kyo's decision to ban me, they did occasionally try to rope me into some of their more interactive threads, which I did, but even so, I couldn't really tell you for certain anyone from there who I really got to know within their community who I could even remeber looking back on it, other than but an odd number of other artists/authors whose comics I still follow (as a guest) who I'm on good terms with and even agree that my banishment was unnecessarily harsh.

Only one comic creator on CF has actually gone so far as to completely block me from reading/commenting on their comic (even as a guest, which I didn't know was even possible), and I wonder just what the hell I even did to them to warrant such, as I was very much a fan of his comic, followed it regularly, and always left amusing comments each new update.

@ThrisbyDude and @J_Scarbrough ah I see, so they're just mainly high strung and cliquey? Hahaha!
Oh dear.

We're a lot more phlegmatic, sanguine, sedentary, and laconic… i.e. we can't be bothered haha!

I think we're more likely to be roused if we imagine something has offended the community or something we like, but even then it's only temporary and we sink back down into neutrality

"What? Someone somewhere said 5 years ago that Drunk Duck is old and the community is stodgy? WELL they're just a big poo-head with no taste and feet that smell like cheese!!!! Now what was I saying about cutting my toenails on Friday…?"

I have been waiting, with great anticipation, for someone on these forums to come forth and reveal themselves as Kyo in the most Scooby Doo-esque way imaginable. It would be hilarious.

Like, zoinks!!

Kawaii is definitely Velma

I got an eye test on Friday and soon I'll be getting new glasses.
Hooray, I've upgraded my vision issues to not being able to focus on small stuff close up in addition to my fuzzy long distance vision. LOL!
47 year old eyeballs…

I can't complain though, they gave me a pretty good run and I can still get by without glasses for most things. I'm doing pretty good.

My new frames a nice and thin, rounded, old fashioned wire frames. I can't wait to get them!
The black plastic rectangular frames that I got for my first pairs are ok, but that modern look isn't me. Plus they're multifocals so maybe I can wear them more of the time?

Sorry for this becoming the Ozoneocean rant thread but I just had to comment on this:

News journalism is SO bad these days in the way stories are written. I find is incredibly frustrating! The headline tells you more info than most of the story usually, when it's not just an exaggeration.

Usually the opening paragraph gives you the thinnest skeleton of what happened, usually just a repeat of what is in the headline, sometimes even just word for word.
Then there are 15 paragraphs about the back stories of the people involved in the stories and people's reaction to what happened to the victims.
Occasionally through the text there will be a word for word repeating of what as in the headline again, maybe they will do that 5 or 6 times, with no new info.

When you get 3/4 through the entire story they MIGHT have a bit more into on the actual story that the headline refers to.

Then we will be back to reaction quotes and even a maybe a whole bunch of twitter reactions just re-posted in their original format. Sometimes those will be from officials who are at least sort of connected to the story, but just as often they're from moron celebs or just the general public.

A monkey could do journalism nowadays… my guess is that it's all done by interns and temps.

Journalism is bad in one more way that really gets under my skin: nobody (even “professional” organizations) bothers to proofread their shit. This is why “copy editor” is such an important position at a newspaper: you don't want to look like a dumb fuck when your story goes to print.

I think they replaced journalists with robots already

lothar wrote:
I think they replaced journalists with robots already

That's what a wire story is these days. Comes off the news service feed put it right into print and teleprompter and out it goes.

And copy editor? Spellchecker and that's it. The only corrections are about race and gender identification. Spelling and grammar? Ha-ha. That's white privilege colonialism.

(Lots of hyperbole but H.L. Mencken would understand)

How is it even possible that the 2018 remake of the Grinch is the highest-grossing Christmas movie of all time when everybody hated that movie? They all said Benny Who Cumberland turned the Grinch into a sassy gay furry.

The Chuck Jones Grinch Movie is the only true Grinch movie.

Even though Dr. Seuss himself hated it.

You mean the one where Jim Carey has his face painted green?

———-

I've just been reading about the cast of the 1970s British comedy series Dad's Army. The show was about retired older men serving as backup soldiers during WW2, it's quite funny but pretty old fashioned.

I was fascinated to learn that almost the entire cast were war veterans. It wasn't uncommon at the time because WW2 was the biggest war in history, but it's still really interesting. A couple of the actors were actually ww1 veterans and had served in BOTH wars.

It's like when I learned the same thing about the cast of Hogan's Heroes- A lot of the cast being WW2 veterans and many of those playing the Nazis were actually Jewish.
The Simpsons once criticised Hogan's Heroes for the bumbling and silly way it portrayed Nazis- I tend to think that Jewish men who fought against the Nazis in WW2 can portray them any way they please.

Ozoneocean wrote:
You mean the one where Jim Carey has his face painted green?

No, it was actually Chuck Jones's original animated special from the 60s that Dr. Seuss hated - he said he felt Chuck Jones strayed too far away from his Seussian art style and made the special look too much like his own animation style, which is why most subsequent Seuss animated specials went with Friz Freleng's studio instead, as they stayed more true to Seuss' art style.

Ozoneocean

I've just been reading about the cast of the 1970s British comedy series Dad's Army. The show was about retired older men serving as backup soldiers during WW2, it's quite funny but pretty old fashioned.

I was fascinated to learn that almost the entire cast were war veterans. It wasn't uncommon at the time because WW2 was the biggest war in history, but it's still really interesting. A couple of the actors were actually ww1 veterans and had served in BOTH wars.

It's like when I learned the same thing about the cast of Hogan's Heroes- A lot of the cast being WW2 veterans and many of those playing the Nazis were actually Jewish.
The Simpsons once criticised Hogan's Heroes for the bumbling and silly way it portrayed Nazis- I tend to think that Jewish men who fought against the Nazis in WW2 can portray them any way they please.

The German cast of Hogan's Heroes specifically Werner Kemperer insisted the Nazis never be shown to win. John Banner also requested that the Nazis be ridiculous. My supervisor is a huge fan of the show and we have a few Hogan's Heroes memes around including a portrait of our regional manager as Major Hochstetter.

"WHAT IS THIS MAN DOING HEEEERRRRREEEEE!?!!

J_Scarbrough wrote:
"WHAT IS THIS MAN DOING HEEEERRRRREEEEE!?!!

I do a pretty good Hochstetter and we totally break up every time.

If we ever make a mistake pffft- off to the Russian front.

I know noth-thing, absolutely noth-thing.

As you can probably tell from my icon, I wear one of those wool jeep caps like Kinch wore, though it was Radar O'Reilly who inspired me to wear one.

Speaking of which, HOGAN'S HEROES was a show I used to hate-watch, because I thought it was pretty stupid - especially in its earlier seasons, when it was incredibly broad, slapstick, and even cartoonish at times . . . but hate-watching it is how it grew on me, and I do very much enjoy it now (although, I do prefer the later, somewhat more “mature” seasons, as the show definitely got better with age.

Having said that, if I had a preference, I would still maintain that M*A*S*H was the superior of the two shows (until it got all preachy and depressing in its last few seasons), not just in terms a more sophisticated humor, but how it took the time to really flesh out the characters and allowed them to develop and evolve over time, which gave them many layers and depth, as oppposed to how the characters of HOGAN'S HEROES, for the most part, pretty much remained the same from the first to the last season (although, their performances seemed a lot more stilted in the last seasons, for some reason).

Interestingly, both shows had a lot of the same personnel behind the scenes: Laurence Marks, in particular, wrote extensively for HOGAN'S HEROES all six seasons, and was also a story editor on M*A*S*H in the earliest seasons. Gene Reynolds, who was the original co-creator/producer of M*A*S*H directed for both shows as well.

J_Scarbrough wrote:

Speaking of which, HOGAN'S HEROES was a show I used to hate-watch, because I thought it was pretty stupid - especially in its earlier seasons, when it was incredibly broad, slapstick, and even cartoonish at times . . . but hate-watching it is how it grew on me, and I do very much enjoy it now (although, I do prefer the later, somewhat more “mature” seasons, as the show definitely got better with age.

Hogan’s Heros followed my nightly Gilligan’s Island marathon in the mid-nineties, so the appearance of Colonel Klink usually signaled, “Time for bed, brush teeth, and turn off the television set.”

So in other words, you had to get to bed, or be sent to the Russian Front! Herrmph!!

M*A*S*H was a more mature 1970s style show. US comedies in the 1970s were usually more sentimental and had more of a social commentary aspect, and as you know it was a pretty MASSIVE commentary on Vietnam, using the Korean war.

Hogan's Heroes was 1960s style- broad and silly.

You pretty much said that already, but I think it was more due to when they were from than just the shows themselves. The broader, silly style of Hogan's Heroes and 1960s US comedies in general fits better with international tastes.

I think that 1970s sentimentality could get a bit much sometimes and it was way more appealing specifically to Americans more than anyone else. Though I do appreciate the cleverness of M*A*S*H.

Tastes in the US started to turn BACK to broad comedies in the late 80s, though with a more cynical edge, so Hogans Heroes came back into fashion after a while and even fits in with modern tastes -because we can imagine the use of Nazis in it as being part of a harder edge, even though it wasn't at all.

But M*A*S*H is part of a style that's over now so it seems more unique and special in its own way rather than part of the general mass of comedy.

J_Scarbrough wrote:
As you can probably tell from my icon, I wear one of those wool jeep caps like Kinch wore, though it was Radar O'Reilly who inspired me to wear one.

Specifically designed to be worn under a steel pot to warm the head and ears and shade the eyes a little.
Lots of WW2 pictures especially in the Battle of the Bulge, where you can see the brim poking out from under the helmet.

Gets awfully cold under that helmet with the wind blowing around your ears because of that high and tight haircut the first sergeant insists on. I typically wore an SAS balaclava. Which I still have and wear throughout the winter to this day.

That was always something from M*A*S*H. The old army senior NCO. Sherman Potter fit the archetype though and had been an enlisted man so it made up for it in part. There should have been an E-8 and a couple of E-7 walking around but I guess they had better things to do, like actually get things done so the unit will still be able to run the next morning.

To be fair, yes, most sitcoms of the 60s were definitely kooky and silly, but that was mainly because the 60s were such a tumultuous and turbulent decade, that primetime TV was a form of escapism from what was happening in the world around everybody. Shows were either fantasy-based like THE ADDAMS FAMILY, THE MUNSTERS, BEWITCHED, I DREAM OF JEANNIE, or they were just so completely campy and wacky like THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES, PETTICOAT JUNCTION, GREEN ACRES, and the like. HOGAN'S HEROES was a unique case, in that it was set during a war, and as they say on M*A*S*H all the time, war is hell . . . on paper, it almost sounds like an insensitive notion to build a sitcom around a POW camp in Nazi Germany, and there were some who took offense to such a notion - the pilot of HOGAN'S HEROES included a Russian POW as part of Hogan's band, but when the pilot went to series, the actor refused to sign on, because he felt the Nazis were depicted too lightly, which is how Carter ended up becoming a regular part of Hogan's band, despite being only a guest character passing through in the pilot. But otherwise, yeah, Werner Klemperer made it a condition of his that he would only play Klink if Klink always lost and was made the fool, and even John Banner once remarked, “Who better to play the Nazis then we Jews?” Robert Clary was even a Holocaust survivor; he spent time in concentration camps, where he was among the only ones in his family who survived (and he was one of fourteen children).