Notices by Glenn Fleishman (glennf@twit.social)

Accidentally purchased a personally inscribed first-edition Charles Schulz book. This was via an online bookstore that I guess didn’t recognize the “Sparky” signature. Schulz seemingly signed his full name to people he didn’t know and Sparky—the nickname given to him at just days old—to friends.

How Comics Were Made has started shipping! Copies are still available for order: https://howcomicsweremade.ink/order

This book covers 130 years of newspaper comics history, from the artist’s pen to the printed (and web) page. Features interviews with Bill Watterson, Lynn Johnston, Garry Trudeau, Barbara Brandon-Croft, Derf Backderf, Dave Kellett, and dozens of others!

Read more about it at https://howcomicsweremade.ink

Michael Chabon wrote the foreword to my book, How Comics Were Made, and the New York Review of Books apparently liked it—it appears in the “current” issue https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/12/19/the-midnight-world-michael-chabon/?lp_txn_id=1593238 (cover date is Dec. 19, but it’s out online and in the mail today)

Wearing my crowdfunding and printing consulting hat: If you were counting on printing a book or having other printed work done in China in 2025, note that while there is a 0% import tariff, it could easily be 25% to 100% in a few months with little warning. Obviously messes with budgets. I printed my last book and advised client @mwichary to print Shift Happens in North America partly due to uncertainly in tariffs, US/China relations under Biden (including tariffs, many of which remained 1/

or increased), ocean shipping rates, and human rights in China. Everyone has different red lines (no joke meant here) about how they measure different moral, political, and financial factors. If tariffs rise tremendously on books, that will mean a huge shift in business to printers in the U.S. plus Canada and Europe (tariffs less likely on books for them). 2/

Vote like someone else’s life depends upon it.

Trump and Johnson’s little secret.

Whatever.

Biden could resign, Harris would become president, and she could use the special SCOTUS-minted superpower to use executive action to overcome any bullshit games they try to pull about her taking office for her full term. Boo-ya.

Wired: USB-C
Tired: Mouse undercarriage plug
Expired: The designers responsible for advancing generational change at Apple?
https://mastodon.macstories.net/@viticci/113385871397692422

At the UPS Store dropping off prepaid package: "You know, you can use the self-serve kiosk next time so you don't have to wait."
Me: looks around store, sees a bunch of signage and machines, none of which seem to be that—"I'm not seeing it."
UPSer: "You don't see the sign labeled 'self-serve’?”
Me: Looking at large bubble type and small faint yellow all-caps on white type: "Ah, it's entirely illegible. Thank you!”

@mcc He’s trying to be Musk for no reason I can understand.

@drdrang @Shelly It is turning from a promise to a lie, I agree. I'd like to drop; my wife is resistant because we use it enough for low-dollar items at free shipping as opposed to trying to find them at stores which would require more time and more driving…I also am watching some Amazon Prime Video. I look forward to the day when the "deal" is bad.

@thomasfuchs Back in the early days of Wi-Fi, there was this bozo who was a PR guy for a weird ISP association. Turned out he had done comms for 3 Mile Island, too.

It is not shocking to me that an anti-transgender politician is pansexual and hates himself because his ideology prevents him from accepting himself. If I learned anything in the last decade, it is that nearly all hatred is self-hatred.

(The exception is hatred of one’s actual oppressors, which can be expressed in many ways, but isn’t an othering act.)

What if there’s never anything better than the iPhone (or something very much like it)?

I’ve been considering this with the future of printing. Offset is awesome; digital printing keeps improving. I’m not sure the latter can ever replace the former for mechanical advantage reasons (omitting lots of detail). What if there are no more printing-on-paper improvements to be made in real terms?

What if we’re at the end in the evolution of some technological and material forms?

This whole manufactured controversy about animals being eaten could have been avoided if people had remembered to spay and neuter their Republicans.

Musk just lost a Brazilian dollars

@thomasfuchs one of mine is on their one-year anniversary for long COVID and then just got it again despite our best efforts.

Ok, so Biden said that Trump had “said” he wouldn’t accept the election outcomes.

Mainstream factcheckers said that was not entirely true. But this is the problem with literal factchecking. If I were in this business, I would say: INFERENCE, NOT FACT.

I just heard the term “private universal user” to describe all-gender restrooms in the renovated Portland, Oregon, airport, and it reminds me strongly of the legendary nonbinary person Public Universal Friend. I think they would approve?

Just keep doing this! He always folds! If reporters actually challenged him, he would either start screaming obscenities, make racial observations, or admit he was wrong! There’s no penalty to pushing back on Trump! You get a response 100 % of the time that shows he’s incapable.