John Walker's Electronic House

Rum Doings Episode 41

by on Aug.19, 2010, under Rum Doings, The Rest

As you’ll have noticed, by Episode 41 we’re not funny any more. But it’s fun to remember when we were.

You may also be wondering where episode 40 is. Well, it’s slipped out of time, and you’ll have to live with that. It might come back later.

Together we don’t discuss whether we should bring back fox hunting, but we do drink blackcurrant and rum wine. Then Nick demands that John talk about web comics. We discuss our favourite comic to hate, User Friendly. And as mentioned, here’s John’s decade-old spoof:

And then Nick makes John talk about Brian’s Guide. And banks. And FOSDEM. There’s a horrible story about the Discovery Channel, and uplifting stories about people’s generosity.

Then Mega Drives. And the future of consoles. And somehow Nick initiates this discussion. And just in case we’ve not been funny enough, we talk about speed cameras and car accidents.

Tweet it, Facebook it, do whatever it is that makes the internet work. And writing a review on iTunes makes us happy in our tummies.

If you want to email us, you can do that here. If you want to be a “fan” of ours on Facebook, sigh, you can do that here.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

Or you can listen to it right here!

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/rumdoings_e41.mp3]
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15 Comments for this entry

  • George

    Re: comics, here are a few that I like and that you might like too: Dinosaur Comics ( http://www.qwantz.com )
    Hark! A Vagrant ( http://harkavagrant.com/ )
    XKCD Explained Explained (http://xkcdexplainedexplained.tumblr.com/ )
    Nedroid Picture Diary ( http://nedroid.com/ )
    Three Word Phrase ( http://threewordphrase.com/ )

    Hope this helps!

  • James

    Are you familiar with Dave Walker’s Guide to the Church? Some of them are quite funny.

  • mister k

    Comics- surprised Mr Walker, the champion of story, didn’t mention any story comics- girl genius, order of the stick and schlock mercenary are all splendid (although the latter has lost its charm for me a little recently), and I still have a soft spot for sluggy freelance- at its best it was terrific. As for gag a day strips, saturday morning breakfast cereal is pretty good, and rob and elliot is excellent, but updates veeeery slowly.

  • Jambe

    Another enjoyable listening adventure! It massaged my eardrums whilst I consumed delicious Blue Bell cookie dough ice cream and Traders Point Creamline milk.

    XKCD’s SNR strikes me as consistent. It’s mostly average material punctuated by total flops and gems. The rubix cube bra (457) was great, I thought, and encapsulated the comic’s ethos. There’s more schmaltzy romance lately than math or geeky observations, but the good-to-meh ratio is the same.

    Some suggestions:

    Abominable Charles Christopher: http://abominable.cc/
    Rice Boy: http://rice-boy.com/
    The Meek: http://meekcomic.com/
    Sin Tutulo: http://sintitulocomic.com/

    If you’re not reading Sin Tutulo, go ahead and slap yourself. Beautiful AND intriguing? Cameron Stewart, I adore you.

    Is the “honor system” always practical? I very much appreciate the goodwill it exemplifies, I just don’t know that it can always be sustainable. For every Audiosurf, World of Goo or Braid, for example, how many gems remain hidden? The system’s sustainability seems heavily dependent on popularity.

  • Codicier

    I’m going make a recommendation for the work of John Allison.
    His current comic is called Bad Machinery and it’s hosted at
    http://www.scarygoround.com

    Im not sure it’s what John or Rick are after since allot of the comics mentioned in the podcast seem to be mainly gag strips and this is something with a (semi)continuous plot lines and updates only twice per week.
    Both the storyline and the dialogue have a tendency to ramble off on a tangent constantly. In some ways it reminds me of early Izzard stand-up.

    Additionally Allison is one of the few creators I can think of who has made genuine efforts to evolve over the years.
    If your interested take a peak at how much he has improved his draughtsmanship since he did his first comic Bobbins
    http://bobbins.keenspot.com/ar.htm
    After he got the technical style nailed down his style has varied a bit if your interested take a look at the title images in the Scary Go Round archive.
    http://www.scarygoround.com/sgr/index.php

    Allison also tends to keep a vague thread of continuity from one comic to another. Although its not necessary to know past events to enjoy the newer work it can add something to it.

    anyway, apologies for my no doubt appalling grammar and hope you enjoy the comic.

  • Mike

    I would quite like to know what sites Nick visits in his lunch break. Or at least I think I would… Can you tell us?

  • Arthur

    I’d also throw in Bad Machinary, which is a sort of restart of Scary Go Round. You don’t have to read the Scary Go Round archives to keep up with Bad Machinery, it is independent of it. Something Positive is also good, and Questionable Content has a sort of quirk to it that is pretty enjoyable. Johnny Wander is an enjoyable one off comic, as is Sinfest. Hope you try some!

  • Xercies

    I was just thinking maybe nick should write some articles on here, i bet he has a lot to say about certain matters and it would be interesting to see his opinion on things. It would definitly kind of ileviate the bareness of this website soemtimes.

    Also John write more about TV shows!

  • Flameberge

    I still like Ctrl+Alt+Del. It’s not the most narratively experimental of comics, and when John was talking about ‘dud’ comics in the podcast, I was thinking of CAD at the time. All the same, I do like it, usually gives me amusement 3 mornings of the week. That’s all I really require of a comic.

  • James Campbell

    It’s now only updated very rarely but I heartily recommend the Perry Bible Fellowship.

    http://www.pbfcomics.com/

    Like any comic it’s got a few dud jokes but there are some really excellent ones and the drawing is varied and occasionally wonderful.

  • Arthur

    I’m fairly certain that Perry Bible Fellowship is dead. It hasn’t been updated in over a year.

  • Alex Bakke

    Arthur – I’m pretty sure that I’ve never seen http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF248-Transmission.jpg before, in fact I’m pretty sure it’s replaced the ‘Gee Golly Geepers’ comment.

  • James Campbell

    Yeah, it was only Transmission that had me typing “updated very rarely” rather than “no longer updated”.

  • Arthur

    Huh, I pulled up the RSS feed to see the publish date, which was June 6th of this year for Transmission. But the last comic published before that was in 2008. Interesting.

  • Gassalasca

    Some of Brian’s Guides are rather wonderful, actually.