Fleen: The Awkward Christmas Dinner Of Our Obligation To Existence

Hard on the heels of last week’s Twitshirt … I think we can safely use the word fiasco … comes a new player. While Twitshirt is circling the wagons (its website has had a parking page for about three days now that seems to indicate a wholesale abandonment of its core business model), a new group called Fair Trade Tweets has popped up to try to fill the void; information is sparse at this time (that link contains all known policies and practices of FTT), but if even half of what they’re promising is true, Twitshirt is dead as the proverbial dodo.

The lesson here? Things move fast here in the future, social media are quick to anger/slow to forgive, and when roused must be placated with the blood of their enemies. Those who would tread these territories, go carefully.

Today’s Hey Kids! [Web]Comics! story comes from the venerable New York Times with news of the first xkcd print collection. Is it just me or do they get it almost completely wrong? Is anybody in the webcomics world (or more broadly, digital media) so enamoured of bits and pixels that they would turn down the chance to do reprints? The Times seems puzzled that Randall Munroe would even consider collecting strips into a book. Hey, Times, those of us that live on the internet still like books, honest.
Even further into the realm of paper, Gunnerkrigg Court makes the leap to classroom reading to second graders in Thailand, prompting the creation of puppets on sticks (be sure to check out all the video). The poster teaches English and was looking for other strips that might be appropriate for youngsters.
Although it’s not laid out page-style, but I’m going to suggest Little Dee. And Copper doesn’t have a plot per se, but might be usable. And fun as Lil’ Mell is, we don’t want the kids getting ideas. So the best recommendation I’ve got is Jellaby. Any ideas? We got comment space right down there.
Lastly, quick note that the Wallopers of Koalas have gotten a little more wallopy as Bear and Kitten (which I like a lot) and The Secret Knots (which I don’t know but will be checking out) join up.

Oh my goodness, The Secret Knots is so wonderful, my only complaint is that there isn’t more of it. I’m happy to see it become a Walloper and hope that more people read it!

Is it just me or does anyone else find that when they happen to know anything about the subject they discover newspaper articles to be about 75% wrong?

That’s funny that you say that Eliza. I was just thinking the same thing today. I was reading “Moneyball,” and realized nothing the press says about baseball is right. Then I was reading “Blink,” and realized all discussions about police brutality are oversimplified. And it goes on and on.

I guess it’s a good thing that eventually blogs will take the place of most newspapers. At least they are written by experts in their respective fields.

Thanks for the shout out to Fair Trade Tweets! Right now, we don’t have much else figured out yet, all we know is that its not right to print someone’s tweets without permission, and $0.50 royalties don’t seem fair.

At this point, we still need to source a printer, finish the website, and work out some other details. We’re currently planning on splitting the profits 70/30 with the tweet authors, but don’t know how much that will break down to.

Minor correction: We’re aiming for something like a 70/30 split. A heavy skew towards the authors.

We realize that most of the value comes from the clever tweet, therefore most of the proceeds should go to the author.

Thanks for the Jellaby recommendation.

It’s tough finding webcomics that are suitable for the classroom. I think I may have to create a list and post it on my site for other teachers.

Most of the stuff I read and personally enjoy just doesn’t work with kids, especially EFL learners.

Can’t imagine what they’d make of Sam & Fuzzy, although I’d bet they’d get a kick out of Fuzzy’s “friend”, Roger! :D

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