Tuesdays with Media: Sheldon

Comic strips are great: in a small space, they give you the setup and punchline for a joke.  Since there are so many comic strips, it easy for creators to set their's apart by giving their setup a unique spin or theme.  Maybe their comic is about the army or about vikings or about a chubby cat.  And with the internet, webcomics are available to more people than ever before.  In particular, I enjoy Sheldon, a comic that often pokes fun at nerd topics:

Those are all real comic book characters.

Written by Dave Kellett, Sheldon is about a genius ten-year-old boy that runs his own software company.  He downloaded some speech-recognition software into his pet duck's head, Arthur, who can now talk.  He lives with his grandpa, "Gramps" and is friends with the two other kids in the neighborhood: Dante, who wants to be and artist, and Emily, who wants to be an actress.  Despite some fun characters to play with, Kellett sometimes drops everything for fun diversions.  For example, lately he's been doing "Anatomy of ..." comics about different animals:

One thing that can be dangerous about webcomics (verses traditionally printed ones) is that they may not appropriate for all audiences.  Kellett, however, keeps things kid-friendly.  That's not to say that kids will get all of the jokes, but there won't be anything inappropriate.

If you're looking for a fun comic with a nerdy bend that you can share with your kids, Sheldon is a great pick.

Cutting Ties

This last year has been one of self-reflection.  I've thought a lot about who I am and how I interact with other people; I've also recently started reviewing media: it really was only a matter of time before the two intersected.

For the most part, when I begin following something, be it a TV show, a webcomic, or a band, I generally stick with it.  Giving up on a source of entertainment takes a lot of effort for me.  When I declared myself no longer a fan of Metallica, it was after about a year of not really enjoying their music but not wanting to admit it to myself.  Maybe I get caught in routines or something but it's difficult for me to move on.

Well, very recently, I've given up on a few things.  Parks and Recreation hasn't been consistently funny for nearly a season but I kept with it.  I think since I had stuck with them for so long, I was hoping it would be funny again, but I decided a few weeks ago that it didn't deserve my time anymore.  I do think that there are some very talented people involved with the show, but it's just not working for me anymore.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal started out as a webcomic that poked fun at geek culture and often used charts and pie graphs and [gasp!] math to convey the punchline.  It was occasionally a bit off-colored with its humor, but those strips didn't seem to show up that often.  However, since the cartoonist, Zach Weinersmith, became a father within the last year, he's been using his strip as a way to stand on a soapbox and share his personal philosophies.  I do not fault him for doing that but the philosophy that he seems most fond of lately has been atheism, which was the message of three strips in only two weeks.  I was supporting his webcomic because I thought he was funny or at least clever, but I can't continue to support someone who attacks my beliefs.

I don't know why I hang onto media franchises well past the point of enjoyment but I've started making progress in recognizing when it's time to say good-bye.