Aside From the Fact I Have a BlackBerry Storm, Not an iPhone, This is Accurate
Posted on August 24, 2009 Posted by John Scalzi 63 Comments
Of course, you’ll have to click through to see what this is. And then you’ll have click back a few days to get the whole story. But what the heck. What else do you have to do with your time, right?
Unrelated: I’ve changed the look of the site today and will probably do some additional tweaking. Don’t panic.
Presuming, of course, that you could get a cell signal in Hobbiton…
Is the new (currently new) design an homage to the daily newspaper?
Yes, the Whatever logo is huge and in your face. Maybe that’s your intention.
AAAHHHHHH! AAAAAHHHHH! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
(sorry man, I’m panicked)
Lauren:
A bit.
Christopher:
Dude, it’s a masthead.
My iPhone thanks you for not having a background pic.
Back to the comic: funny enough, but if that is intended in any way to be a charicature of you, it is not. Not even close.
pwstrain:
I think the illustrator is working off pictures, which are notoriously unreliable in showing what I actually look like. Except this one.
Scalzi:
Dude, I know it’s a masthead. Maybe it should be smaller so you have more space for the other awesomeness you post. Just a suggestion.
Nah. One bit of ostentation in a minimalist design appeals to me.
So it wasn’t that you didn’t have anything to say recently, it’s just that your new Hobbit overlords didn’t let you have access to enough computer power to do much. Oddly, that makes sense.
Bonus points for the kid thinking he can drive to New Zealand.
“It’s not the size of your masthead, it’s how you use it.”
Excellent, you’ve been comic-fied. Though comic-you does appear to be related to American Dad.
Honestly, I think they should have based your cartoon on your Facebook picture.
This is ACCURATE?! omg
Dude, when did the hobbits get ya?
Didn’t you read the sign on the outskirts of the Shire?
“Bigger, Don’t Let The Sun Set On You In Hobbiton.”
Sarcastro’s joke makes me uncomfortable.
I don’t know which pics of you the artist was working from, but I’ve never seen you with such huge eyebrows.
And good work getting abducted by hobbits. You had no business being in The Shire in the first place. Early in the Fourth Age, King Elessar decreed that Men are not to enter The Shire, a law he observed himself. To my knowledge, this decree has never been rescinded.
The best way to deal with bad hobbits is with an intervention.
Tweaking? Dude, just stick to coke zero.
There was another definition, once!
I like the new design very much. Nice.
The comic is kinda sad, though. A “Get out of the basement” joke? Okay. I assume the comic before this one had “Take my wife… Please!” for a punchline.
I miss the cool background image, which I saved and use as my desktop wallpaper.
@12
http://sageblogger.com/googles-directions-from-new-york-to-london/
doesn’t seem to work anymore, but perhaps New Zealand
Scalzi@5: I was gonna chide you for massive jargon FAIL. The title across the top is supposed to be the “flag.” The masthead is supposed to be the part where it says “Whatever. Taunting the Tauntable since 1998. John Scalzi, Proprietor.” But I see in my current dictionary that “masthead” has a secondary definition that backs you up.
WHO’S OUT THERE CHANGING DEFINITIONS ON ME!?
—–
Regarding the comic, I presume you’ll be eaten by a grue.
I’m looking forward to Krissie & Athena riding to the rescue, myself.
This is a secret, so keep it on the down-low: I have found that if you put the name of a famous person in some on-line project, you can get a lot of extra hits from fans of the famous person. I put the name “Shannen Doherty” on a YouTube video of the song “Oh Shenandoah” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QragU7hmmQY
YouTube tells me that almost all of the hits for that song were from people searching for “Shannen Doherty”. But of course, putting the link here will generate even more traffic. Heh! Shameless!
@25 ntsc
Kayaking is still a viable option:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Seattle,+WA&daddr=Honolulu,+HI&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=34.885931,-138.164062&sspn=50.720121,79.013672&ie=UTF8&ll=34.885931,-140.185547&spn=50.720121,79.013672&t=h&z=4
@26, Jeff Hentosz
Is it better to be eaten by a grue or be Will Wheaton and have your fan-hugging arm cut off while fending off psychotic cat-girls?
When did you invest in some Rogaine?
If I going to kayak to New Zealand, I better get a lot of bacon as a reward. I mean, tons.
Beware, the Hobbits are very stubborn. Like the fans of Pluto-as-a-planet:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/08/science_by_plebiscite.php
That strip was just hillarious!
I wonder how many of us felt hit by the comment about wow and leaving the basment.
I know I did, that could have been me, a few years ago.
I am a Pluto is a planet fan because the definition they come up was so arbitrary and voted on by just 400 people.
I don’t have a problem with the idea of Pluto not being a planet, I just have a problem with the process that led to that decision.
I love this comic strip!!! Glad you found that they were paying homage to you- did you see the ones they did on Bruce Campbell? Hilarious!!!
“Krissy & Athena Mount A Rescue” sounds like it could be a very bad deal for the shire, especially if they bring LopCat and Kodi. Kodi would blast the nasty evil tricksy hobbitses with her laser-beam, whereupon LopCat would, er, “clean up” the mess.
Faced with a monster dawg the size of Kodi, if I were an evil tricksy hobbit, I think I’d run the hell away, or try to convince Krissy it wasn’t my fault, I’m not to blame, the other nasty twicksy hobbitses made us do it. Really, We didn’t have anything to do with it, precious. Nice Krissy, Tolerant Krissy. Krissy wouldn’t hurts us…not Smeag…er…nice Krissy.
Gollum…gollum…gollem.
Love the comic strip. Not crazy about the new design. I want the background back (please).
I prefer the old design. Dammit, this is your site, you have to do what I want with it! And who are you to tell me not to panic about the changes?
Snark aside, the old version did look nicer to me.
That’s a good ploy, Mr. Scalzi. Change the whole site around, then get us to go somewhere else before we even realize you’ve done it. When we come back, … well, we comment on the comics, not the masthead.
Masterful.
Two questions, though …
1) what font is that, me like the ink flowing into the paper 17th century style
2) did you get your hugo in the post, yet?
Re: resemblance between Scalzi and his cartoon likeness:
All those years of leaking photos of John Scalvi to the press have finally yielded the desired result.
Bwahahahahaha!
I assume the website change was intended to draw annoyed comments. You are a huge masthead baiter.
“You are a huge masthead baiter.”
Quote of the day.
Oh, good — the daring rescue will give Athena a chance to use her mad whip-cracking skillz.
Hey John – I can’t click on the cool Masthead and return to the main page – are we missing a link?
(the Masthead is cool, but I miss the cool pictures and sayings/quotes/phrases)
BeVibe:
That’s what the “Home” button is there for.
Also, who says the saying/quote/phrases are gone?
I don’t see them at the top. If they’re there, then I’ll chalk it up to the filters here at work. :(
(can’t see flickr pictures, can’t twitter, can’t go to icanhascheeseburger – no internet lovin’ here…)
Heh….”Bacon”
@47 BeVibe
CTRL-A (or Select All). You’ll see the white-on-white text. (^_^)
Hey, I like the new site design.
I’m going to print it out and pretend it is a newspaper – it makes me nostalgic, you know, for the days of my youth when there were still printed newspapers.
#49. LovelyAngel Amy. – Thank you kindly, Ma’am.
Okay, is it just me (it probably is), but does the masthead appear to be getting … Bigger?
Cradle the copy, stroke the masthead.
*koff*
Er.
You people. I’m telling you.
I like the new look. It’s very easy to read. Now that you’ve been immortalized in comics, do you get to join the Justice League?
The illustrator probably didn’t know that you’re hobbit-sized, either.. ;-)
I keep getting Patrick O’Brian flashbacks, where offenders, particularly smartass midshipmen, were ‘sent to the masthead.’
Jim@50, When you’re done, will you be using it to train the puppy?
I have no opinion of the gargantuhuge “Whatever” logo, masthead, and/or flag, but I do miss the occasionally-changed phrase that used to be part of the old logo, masthead, and/or flag.
It’s the whole disastrous New Coke campaign, in WordPress template form.
On the same note, anyone know why they stopped selling that awesome Crystal Pepsi?
Paula @40, that is what laser-printed text looks like BLOWN UP REAL BIG, probably with a little bit of massaging to get the interiors of the strokes to look more uniformly black.
I quite like the new layout. It’s deliciously plain, like an unbroken expanse of cheesecake. Please keep it.
KatG@54:
Are you saying you actually want to see the Scalzi in a Spandex outfit?
Hey John – I clicked on Rocket Road Trip today, and Wilbur wrecked his van. You haven’t been eaten by Hobbitses, have you? Aren’t you still fending off the hords of Star Wars & Star Trek rabid fans?
Are you taking on LoTR trilogy in next week’s AMC column? Dude – it’s fantasy! No Science necessary!
I see that it didn’t take too long for you to fold under the Dwarven Coke Torture.