Fleen: The Awkward Christmas Dinner Of Our Obligation To Existence » Less About Webcomics, More About Melted Cheese

Less About Webcomics, More About Melted Cheese

So Howard Tayler, mad scientist behind Schlock Mercenary, has opened a new website devoted to ~~an ostensibly-fake foodstuff~~ a foodstuff that one might think existed only in a fictional universe, but which has made its way into our own reality, draped in gooey perfection.

Recipes, discussion of various cheeses, and a tribute to cast-iron that would make Alton Brown moist are to be found here.

This could be the start of a trend. Already, Greg Dean, Tayler’s Blank Label-mate, has shifted his life (and update schedule) to attend culinary school. Could there be more webcomickers making the leap to food-themed endeavors? Because that could be awesome. Or sad. Guess it depends on what’s cooking.

I can make grilled cheese.

I feel I should tell you my webcomic is food-themed: http://www.thesordidaffairs.net

I did it before food was cool.

I know a couple big webcomic people who apparently LOVE food. Apparently.

And then, and then, we need some Yakitate! Japan grade culinary webcomics. That would be awesome.

“Ostensibly fake?” I’m curious about your definition of “ostensibly.”

Please know that I’m not taking issue with you calling the chupaqueso “fake.” I’m taking issue with your use of “ostensibly.” Because definition 1, “Represented or appearing as such,” would indicate that I’m representing or causing the chupaqueso to appear fake. I’m not — I’m representing it as REAL food, and causing it to appear that way (and whether or not I think it IS real isn’t the point.)

Definition 2, “from appearances alone,” would suggest that regardless of my intent (and the intent of Jay Maynard who is handling hosting), the chupaqueso “from appearances alone” appears to be fake. Well… I guess if you think it appears to be fake, then from your perspective it’s “ostensibly-fake.”

But I have to wonder whether that’s what you MEANT when you used that word. Perhaps what you meant to say was “people reading Howard’s comic may think the chupaqueso is fake, but it’s not.” THAT meaning nicely explains why the chupaqueso entry got pulled from wikipedia — not that you had anything to do with it, and not that I particularly minded one way or another. The fact that you linked to a strip where the chupaqueso was mentioned lends support to this argument, but it still seems to me to be poor word choice.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this. Maybe it’s waaay past my bedtime, and I’ve already typed more in response than you wrote in your original post. And maybe I should have spent more time addressing the central point, which is that webcomic geeks (and lots of other geeks) have the creative power to be pretty good cooks.

Make yourself a chupaqueso, and maybe if you’re in town sometime I’ll treat you to some bacon-wrapped chicken, veggie-kababs, or a nice masaman curry.

–Howard

[…] Ordinarily when a blog gets blogged, the blogged blog is the only blog to mention the blogging, and may blog back. When Fleen blogged Chupaqueso.com, however, the blogging blog was also a blog followed by the blogged blog’s blogger’s OTHER blog, and happened to be a topically related blog besides. Which means that the blogging blog and the blogged blog both get blogged by the blogged blog’s blogger in his other blog. […]

Maybe Gary just wants to believe that it SHOULD be fake.

It’s sad that my initial reaction to Howard’s comment was to haul out a thesaurus to see what Mr Roget had to say on the matter. With any luck, this could have erupted into a pedantic flamewar over the precision of English language usage. And nothing drives traffic like a flamewar!

But in the spirit of comity with my cast-iron-loving brother Tayler, I’ll offer the rewrite above.

That’s not sad, Gary — that’s pedanticism at its finest. If you and I continue to refine our use of language, eventually our postings can be so erudite, so precisely worded, that our true meaning is completely obfuscated by sesquipedalianism.

True enough, Howard, true enough. But there’s not enough time in the day for you and me to engage in that kind of pedanticism … not when there’s DVD sets of Battlestar Galactica to watch and webcomics to draw/read.

Howard is just adding to the list of items seen in science fiction which have been created later in the real world. Look at some of the Star Trek items now in reality.

I’m waiting for Ovalquik.

My cousin Kurt made some ovalkwik — he mixed Ovaltine with Nesquik, and reported back. Apparently it’s not very good. He left out the fullerenes, I suppose.

[…] Gary This page has previously wondered when webcomics might shed the weight of their past and focus on what’s truly important in life: food, glorious food. This is particularly important on a day when I’m living through The Great Smell of Aught-Seven (and one NYC disaster was all I needed, thanks), and eager to think about something that’s more appealing than the stench which is only now disappating. […]

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Less About Webcomics, More About Melted Cheese

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