• Announcements

    • Robin

      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
Sign in to follow this  
Drasvin

NP: Friday January 26, 2018

Recommended Posts

This still answers the question of how would a dog wear bottoms.

2 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Hey, if God doesn't know then Hanma can be excused for not knowing.  ;-)

Well God did not create them, so she good? :demonicduck:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hmm...this challenges my theory that no era will ever be forgotten again, because they're all preserved on TV and in films.  This theory was first born from the annual Mindset List that Beloit College puts out, reminding professors what their students don't know.  The first one I saw included, "They have never seen a vinyl LP.  The phrase 'sounds like a broken record' has no meaning for them."  I thought that was silly, because I could think of several hit movies or shows that included playing a record and it skipping.  But I would have thought a poodle skirt would be one of those things people would know about from the 50s, so maybe our collective memory isn't as well-preserved as I thought.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

"No era ever being forgotten again" has the limitation that students have only so many hours of attention to devote to learning things, therefore there will eventually be too many eras to study for any student to know all of them in depth. There's how many tens of thousands of television programs archived in the English language alone? Nobody could watch every episode of every show ever--the shows are coming out faster than they could be watched by a single person.

Thousands of years hence, the 20th century as a whole will probably be remembered for a few highlights such as the beginnings of powered flight, spaceflight, nuclear energy, computers and computer networks, understanding of genetics, etc. Even WWII will probably only be as significant to them as the conquests of Alexander the Great are to us. Most of the pop culture will have faded except for a scant few which remained relevant through the millennia (similar to how we remember some classic Greek writers).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh, yeah, the "never" was hyperbole.  Still, I've had conversations where young 'uns were more familiar with Andy Griffith and Lassie than I was thanks to Nick At Nite or TVLand or whatever iteration is current.  My sister has several channels that are airing classic Doctor Who, stuff we hadn't seen in decades.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have two things to say about this comic.

One: Hanma actually has a good excuse for not knowing about poodle skirts. After all, she reset relatively recently and does not actually live in the culture 24/7 (not to mention that her primary interest in human culture is Anime). As for Dan, I suppose it's a relatively useless piece of trivia so no fault to him for not knowing, but I am still a little surprised; poodle skirts are one of those cultural things that I know about without knowing how I know about them, so I would tend to assume most people in western (or at least American) culture would know too.

Two: Yay for double-starburst background in panel 3!

10 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

There is only one solution.

Everyone who did not live through the 1970s and 80s shall be compelled to watch all the Happy Days reruns.  Repeatedly.  Over and over.

Just like those of us who were there had to do.

I lived through the 80s and have never watched a complete episode (in fact I don't think I even saw any clips of it until the 90s). I did however get a good dose of 50s nostalgia in the form of Back to the Future.

10 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Hmm...this challenges my theory that no era will ever be forgotten again, because they're all preserved on TV and in films.  This theory was first born from the annual Mindset List that Beloit College puts out, reminding professors what their students don't know.  The first one I saw included, "They have never seen a vinyl LP.  The phrase 'sounds like a broken record' has no meaning for them."  I thought that was silly, because I could think of several hit movies or shows that included playing a record and it skipping.  But I would have thought a poodle skirt would be one of those things people would know about from the 50s, so maybe our collective memory isn't as well-preserved as I thought.

Considering Vinyl has made a bit of a comeback, that bit of advice isn't necessarily true. Also, I'm sure plenty of people who have no idea what a vinyl record is still understand what is meant by the phrase "broken record" thanks to hearing it in context.

7 hours ago, ijuin said:

Thousands of years hence, the 20th century as a whole will probably be remembered for a few highlights such as the beginnings of powered flight, spaceflight, nuclear energy, computers and computer networks, understanding of genetics, etc. Even WWII will probably only be as significant to them as the conquests of Alexander the Great are to us. Most of the pop culture will have faded except for a scant few which remained relevant through the millennia (similar to how we remember some classic Greek writers).

I suspect (barring the collapse of modern civilization) that a large number of popular books, movies, tv shows, etc. from the 20th and 21st centuries will continue to be remembered and enjoyed for centuries to come, much like there are a large number of "classics" from the 19th century and earlier still being read.

However, thousands of years from now, only a handful will likely remain - stories which were popular enough in their time not to fade into obscurity before they became classics, but well enough made that continued to speak to people in entirely different eras. It's fun to wonder what might last that long. (I could see the Lord of the Rings books, the classic Star Wars trilogy, and Hayao Miyazaki's films lasting... Sadly, as much as I love it, I don't think EGS is well known enough or the early parts of it well made enough for it to last past the 21st century.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

I suspect (barring the collapse of modern civilization) that a large number of popular books, movies, tv shows, etc. from the 20th and 21st centuries will continue to be remembered and enjoyed for centuries to come, much like there are a large number of "classics" from the 19th century and earlier still being read.

Still, there is remembered, and then there is actually known.

The old (seriously old) book that the following text is taken from is very widely known-of, and of a subject matter such that one would expect it to be reasonably widely read. Yet I've quoted this text on several forums and only one other person has ever mentioned that they identified the source. (I wish I knew how to do spoiler blocks on this forum.)

Quote

The following are the arts to be studied, together with {a spoiler removed}:—

    Singing.
    Playing on musical instruments.
    Dancing.
    Union of dancing, singing, and playing instrumental music.
    Writing and drawing.
    Tattooing.
    Arraying and adorning an idol with rice and flowers.
    Spreading and arraying beds or couches of flowers, or flowers upon the ground.
    Colouring the teeth, garments, hair, nails, and bodies, i.e., staining, dyeing, colouring and painting the same.
    Fixing stained glass into a floor.
    The art of making beds, and spreading out carpets and cushions for reclining.
    Playing on musical glasses filled with water.
    Storing and accumulating water in aqueducts, cisterns and reservoirs.
    Picture making, trimming and decorating.
    Stringing of rosaries, necklaces, garlands and wreaths.
    Binding of turbans and chaplets, and making crests and top-knots of flowers.
    Scenic representations. Stage playing.
    Art of making ear ornaments.
    Art of preparing perfumes and odours.
    Proper disposition of jewels and decorations, and adornment in dress.
    Magic or sorcery.
    Quickness of hand or manual skill.
    Culinary art, i.e., cooking and cookery.
    Making lemonades, sherbets, acidulated drinks, and spirituous extracts with proper flavour and colour.
    Tailor's work and sewing.
    Making parrots, flowers, tufts, tassels, bunches, bosses, knobs, &c., out of yarn or thread.
    Solution of riddles, enigmas, covert speeches, verbal puzzles and enigmatical questions.
    A game, which consisted in repeating verses, and as one person finished, another person had to commence at once, repeating another verse, beginning with the same letter with which the last speaker's verse ended, whoever failed to repeat was considered to have lost, and to be subject to pay a forfeit or stake of some kind.
    The art of mimicry or imitation.
    Reading, including chanting and intoning.
    Study of sentences difficult to pronounce. It is played as a game chiefly by women and children, and consists of a difficult sentence being given, and when repeated quickly, the words are often transposed or badly pronounced.
    Practice with sword, single stick, quarter staff, and bow and arrow.
    Drawing inferences, reasoning or inferring.
    Carpentry, or the work of a carpenter.
    Architecture, or the art of building.
    Knowledge about gold and silver coins, and jewels and gems.
    Chemistry and mineralogy.
    Colouring jewels, gems and beads.
    Knowledge of mines and quarries.
    Gardening; knowledge of treating the diseases of trees and plants, of nourishing them, and determining their ages.
    Art of cock fighting, quail fighting and ram fighting.
    Art of teaching parrots and starlings to speak.
    Art of applying perfumed ointments to the body, and of dressing the hair with unguents and perfumes and braiding it.
    The art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words in a peculiar way.
    The art of speaking by changing the forms of words. It is of various kinds. Some speak by changing the beginning and end of words, others by adding unnecessary letters between every syllable of a word, and so on.
    Knowledge of language and of the vernacular dialects.
    Art of making flower carriages.
    Art of framing mystical diagrams, of addressing spells and charms, and binding armlets.
    Mental exercises, such as completing stanzas or verses on receiving a part of them; or supplying one, two or three lines when the remaining lines are given indiscriminately from different verses, so as to make the whole an entire verse with regard to its meaning; or arranging the words of a verse written irregularly by separating the vowels from the consonants, or leaving them out altogether; or putting into verse or prose sentences represented by signs or symbols. There are many other such exercises.
    Composing poems.
    Knowledge of dictionaries and vocabularies.
    Knowledge of ways of changing and disguising the appearance of persons.
    Knowledge of the art of changing the appearance of things, such as making cotton to appear as silk, coarse and common things to appear as fine and good.
    Various ways of gambling.
    Art of obtaining possession of the property of others by means of muntras or incantations.
    Skill in youthful sports.
    Knowledge of the rules of society, and of how to pay respects and compliments to others.
    Knowledge of the art of war, of arms, of armies, &c.
    Knowledge of gymnastics.
    Art of knowing the character of a man from his features.
    Knowledge of scanning or constructing verses.
    Arithmetical recreations.
    Making artificial flowers.
    Making figures and images in clay.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Three more comics and Goonmanji 2 will take the title of "longest running NP arc" away from Escape From the Mall.

I intended to quote Pharoah Rutin Tutin here, but quotes don't seem to be working for me right now. Anyway, I was late for poodle skirts in the real world. By the time noticed girls they were all wearing Capri pants. However, I was around for the very first version of what became Happy Days, an unsold pilot that ran as a segment on Love American Style in 1972. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Love American Style...

I wonder if we will ever see anthology, or even variety, series really be successful again?

Or does the audience need to see the same faces dealing with the same situations week after week to understand what is happening?

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's all about the money. Going with a well established format means the risks are low, but also that it probably wont bring in the really big money. A new and untested format or blowing life back into an old format means more of a risk, but could potentially pull in a lot of money. Problem is that if the new show is a success then there will pop up several similar series that dilutes the market share and cut into the earnings.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I wonder if we will ever see anthology, or even variety, series really be successful again?

Well, America's Got Talent is pretty similar to a variety show, and that's pretty popular. And Saturday Night Live is still hanging in there...

According to the Wikipedia article on variety shows, the reasons for the decline in variety shows were "changing tastes" and the fracturing of the television audience with the rise of cable and satellite channels. I suppose when you can get a huge variety of content just by channel flipping, there's not much need for a single show to provide variety.

Also, apparently there are some parts of the world where variety shows are still popular, particularly many Asian nations.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Oh yes, variety shows practically dominate several channels in Japan for example.

The days of getting fifty million viewers without a major blockbuster event such as the Super Bowl or a major awards ceremony are gone, due to the aforementioned fracturing of the audience.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 1/27/2018 at 6:36 AM, CritterKeeper said:

Hmm...this challenges my theory that no era will ever be forgotten again, because they're all preserved on TV and in films.  This theory was first born from the annual Mindset List that Beloit College puts out, reminding professors what their students don't know.  The first one I saw included, "They have never seen a vinyl LP.  The phrase 'sounds like a broken record' has no meaning for them."  I thought that was silly, because I could think of several hit movies or shows that included playing a record and it skipping.  But I would have thought a poodle skirt would be one of those things people would know about from the 50s, so maybe our collective memory isn't as well-preserved as I thought.

It wouldn't be completely forgotten. It would, however, move from common knowledge to "only people interested in that era would know".

The archaeologists of future will not spend time digging in mud. They would be digging in digital archives.

On 1/27/2018 at 4:37 PM, ChronosCat said:

However, thousands of years from now, only a handful will likely remain - stories which were popular enough in their time not to fade into obscurity before they became classics, but well enough made that continued to speak to people in entirely different eras. It's fun to wonder what might last that long. (I could see the Lord of the Rings books, the classic Star Wars trilogy, and Hayao Miyazaki's films lasting... Sadly, as much as I love it, I don't think EGS is well known enough or the early parts of it well made enough for it to last past the 21st century.)

They will remain. However, hardly anyone would read them, despite being literally few clicks away.

Most likely, there would be as many people who read original Lord of the Rings books as there are people who read Iliad in original greek dactylic hexameter poem today. However, there will be quite a lot of people who saw the 2150's remake of Jackson movies in 3D, and most of them would be convinced Tolkien personally watched the shooting. Just like there are lot of people today who read or saw SOME adaptation of Iliad. In English. Starting chronologically with Judgement of Paris, which was only briefly mentioned in Iliad in flashback, instead of with Chryses asking for his daughter as the original.

(Also, who's Hayao Mi - oh, Studio Ghibli.)

On 1/27/2018 at 6:49 PM, Don Edwards said:

The old (seriously old) book that the following text is taken from is very widely known-of, and of a subject matter such that one would expect it to be reasonably widely read. Yet I've quoted this text on several forums and only one other person has ever mentioned that they identified the source. (I wish I knew how to do spoiler blocks on this forum.)

... of course, in days of google, it's easy to find out. Very funny, wouldn't guess it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
22 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

They will remain. However, hardly anyone would read them, despite being literally few clicks away.

Most likely, there would be as many people who read original Lord of the Rings books as there are people who read Iliad in original greek dactylic hexameter poem today. However, there will be quite a lot of people who saw the 2150's remake of Jackson movies in 3D, and most of them would be convinced Tolkien personally watched the shooting. Just like there are lot of people today who read or saw SOME adaptation of Iliad. In English. Starting chronologically with Judgement of Paris, which was only briefly mentioned in Iliad in flashback, instead of with Chryses asking for his daughter as the original.

EGS a few clicks away, thousands of years from now? Only if people become much more diligent about keeping archives of inactive websites (or Webcomics in particular), much more so than they are these days. I've seen too many sites vanish without a trace over the years to have much confidence that very many things available mainly or solely online today will still be available decades from now, let alone centuries or millennia.

As for the Lord of the Rings, of course once modern English falls out of use, not many people will read the originals - but there will likely be translations that are more well read. And yes, based on how we treat classics these days, it won't be as popular as the things made in that future era. The point though is that it won't be completely forgotten (or at least I don't think so).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

In the 1980s, we had Happy Days, set in the 1950s.  In the 2000s we had That 70s Show, set in, well, the 1970s.  In the 2010s, we had Downton Abbey, set in the 1910s to 1920s, and the Murdoch Mysteries, starting in 1895.  I wonder if some sort of rule of thumb will evolve about how long ago a historical drama should be or can be in order to be popular.  You probably couldn't set an entire series in the 500s, or at least not an accurate version instead of a fantasy, as life would be too different from the modern day.  There would be very little point to setting a series two years ago, as things haven't changed enough.

Part of the appeal of Downton Abbey was seeing how much things have changed, and indeed in seeing many of those changes happening.  Another part was seeing the manners, mores, dress, jewelry, cars, etc. of the day recreated, with the producers boasting of how much research went into it. There's just not enough material for that part before a certain point. And the introduction of chimneys or soap would only be good for one-note jokes which would get tired pretty quickly, so there's another limit to those era, too.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
10 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

You probably couldn't set an entire series in the 500s, or at least not an accurate version instead of a fantasy, as life would be too different from the modern day.  There would be very little point to setting a series two years ago, as things haven't changed enough.

It can be done. There was an amazing book series set in Rome around 73 AD that was written as noir pulp fiction. It was well researched and got everything historically right while at the same time written in a hilariously anachronistic 1930s hard-hitting two-fisted detective style. I wish I could remember the name of the author but it escapes me at the moment.

I understand that unfortunately the TV series made of it got nearly everything wrong. It made the smart and independent heroine into an appalling witless save-me tofu princess, for example. But I still think that it could have been really good if they had gotten a decent producer and director to do it.

As to things having not changed enough, it is amazing what a difference two years can make if it is the right two years. Back in 2002 I spent some time thinking about how I could hardly recognise the world of its day compared to the one I used to live in. I suspect that many Americans would have said the same thing in, say, November 1942. There are more examples of this even in our lifetimes if we stop and think about it...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
21 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

EGS a few clicks away, thousands of years from now? Only if people become much more diligent about keeping archives of inactive websites (or Webcomics in particular), much more so than they are these days. I've seen too many sites vanish without a trace over the years to have much confidence that very many things available mainly or solely online today will still be available decades from now, let alone centuries or millennia.

While it would be great if it included EGS, I was referring to "large number of popular books, movies, tv shows, etc. from the 20th and 21st centuries" being few clicks away (forgot to add that to quote).

Surprisingly, even very small comics might be preserved when part of some bigger package ... like drunkduck. Self-hosted comics are at disadvantage, but they might still be stored in webarchive for example (and EGS is on webarchive at least partially).

For any piece of art, the hardest time to survive is the last few years before it enters public domain. Author is dead, any copying is illegal and people who liked it when it was fresh are dying as well ...

... the moment it enters public domain it became valid target for any preservation project like Wikisource or Project Gutenberg. With storage being less and less issue, I think the reach of such projects will get wider and wider.

21 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

As for the Lord of the Rings, of course once modern English falls out of use, not many people will read the originals - but there will likely be translations that are more well read.

Reading itself is falling out of use.

4 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
5 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

You probably couldn't set an entire series in the 500s, or at least not an accurate version instead of a fantasy, as life would be too different from the modern day.  There would be very little point to setting a series two years ago, as things haven't changed enough.

It can be done. There was an amazing book series set in Rome around 73 AD that was written as noir pulp fiction. It was well researched and got everything historically right while at the same time written in a hilariously anachronistic 1930s hard-hitting two-fisted detective style. I wish I could remember the name of the author but it escapes me at the moment.

I would say we know more about Rome around 73 AD than about what was happening in 500s.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Reading itself is falling out of use.

Then maybe people will listen to audio-book versions instead?

At any rate, if people stop reading books entirely (or except for a few scholars) it won't just be the modern classics that will be be lost or drift into obscurity - all the ancient classics will be in trouble too.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
14 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
17 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Reading itself is falling out of use.

Then maybe people will listen to audio-book versions instead?

I already said that most people would probably prefer the 3D movie.

14 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

At any rate, if people stop reading books entirely (or except for a few scholars) it won't just be the modern classics that will be be lost or drift into obscurity - all the ancient classics will be in trouble too.

Even if the number of people who read books will be steady, percentage-wise it will go down.

It's already happening. There are probably more people who saw movie about Trojan War than people who READ book about it, even when you count prose. In fact, there are probably already more people who saw LOTR the movie than people who read the book. And wasn't Hobbit 3D?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
33 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I already said that most people would probably prefer the 3D movie.

Well, an audio-book is at least accurate to what the original author wrote (assuming it's not abridged), though if it was a translation there would be some shift from the original. Movies on the other hand by their very nature must take a few liberties with the text, and usually they take a lot of liberties.

Also, hearing a story is an ancient human tradition, one that has faded somewhat in the past few centuries; it would be nice to see it make a comeback.

...But I certainly don't expect audio books will ever become the primary form of entertainment.

38 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Even if the number of people who read books will be steady, percentage-wise it will go down.

It's already happening. There are probably more people who saw movie about Trojan War than people who READ book about it, even when you count prose. In fact, there are probably already more people who saw LOTR the movie than people who read the book. And wasn't Hobbit 3D?

If the current numbers or close to them do keep reading books, the classics old and modern will continue to be known; I don't think the percentage of people that read them matters all that much. Unfortunately, that assumes the population will continue to rise; unless we start colonizing other planets (which admittedly I would like to happen) eventually we'll reach the maximum population the Earth can hold even with technology to improve food production.

However, I've been thinking about it, and for thousands of years literacy was not widespread, and only a relatively small number of people were familiar even with books contemporary to their time, let alone classics. And yet they were enough to allow many of those classics to be known about and available to read today. So even if only a handful of people keep reading and passing on the old stories, they'll be kept alive.

Also, movie adaptations are a good thing. They allow the ideas of the old stories to be spread to a much wider audience than they would otherwise have, even if the skill of the original writing is often lost. They serve as good advertising too; I'm sure a lot of people were inspired to read the Lord of the Rings because they saw the movies (and this would apply to other book-to-movie adaptations as well).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this