The Political Thread

[The Legendary Shark]

Of course it's hard. If it was easy the world wouldn't need so much fixing.
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[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Of course it's hard.
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Oh my!

[ZenArcade]

Been using the tool of your trade again Shark?? Z

[The Legendary Shark]

Chance'd be a fine thing.

[JPMaybe]

I do believe in people, Bear, I truly and honestly do. For just as it was people who got us into this God-awful mess it's people who will get us out of it as well.
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Maybe I am a woolly-headed dreamer but I believe that Everyone, even Cameron, Obama and Assad are all basically good at heart. The elites are afraid of us - we outnumber them millions to one - so we need a way forward for all of us. Somehow we need to work through their fear and ours. If we don't, we're screwed.
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I've said it before - we need a global Truth and Reconciliation plan. It will be hard and there will be a lot of pain and anger but we need to get through it together so we can move forward together.
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I know I might come across as some kill-all-the-bankers kind of lunatic but I'm really not, I'm a different kind of lunatic altogether. I'm the kind of lunatic who thinks Every human being is a creature of infinite worth and potential.
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There's no way we're all going to be friends but we can at least all try to respect one another. But that kind of thing doesn't come from above, it can't be ordered or legislated into being. We all, each and every one of us, must do it ourselves, personally, and treat those who can't (and you know who you are) not as enemies to be reviled but as mental health victims to be pitied and helped.
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Cameron isn't evil, he's a sociopath who's had his disability taken advantage of by the terrified 'elites.' Cameron, Obama, Assad and the rest are to be pitied, not reviled.
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And yes, that is a hard thing to do and I often forget it myself, to my shame. It's the system that is the true enemy. Attack that, not the ignorant and damaged people who run it*.
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*Not that I'm accusing you of attacking anyone, I hasten to add!

Shark, I don't disagree with what you're saying here, but the arbitrary capitalisation literally makes my toes curl.

[TordelBack]

Shark, I don't disagree with what you're saying here, but the arbitrary capitalisation literally makes my toes curl.

'Everyone'? That seems like a deliberate stylistic emphasis on inclusivity, a modern parallel for oft-capitalised 'Mankind' or 'the World'. I don't see any other examples of arbitrary capitalisation, unless this is actually a really clever joke about the world economy.

[Fungus]

The Everyone (and later Every [human being]) look fine to me, if a bit high-falutin'...

To bump this political stuff briefly  , misplaced emphasis is a comics bug-bear of mine. Possibly Marvel are worst offenders here, the more dramatic the exclamation, the dafter the use of bold fonts. I used to wonder if this was due to American intonation or that bold meant something other than emphasis but decided finally that it was often just random and wrong.

[Professor Bear]

That's just a way for a writer to replicate accents or speech patterns.  Getting angry at it is like getting angry at Comic Sans, or a letterer using an upper case crossbar I in speech balloons.

[Fungus]

I knew I'd need an example or 2. May dig something out...
My point is that it is often objectively wrong, and why go to the trouble of emboldening some words when you muddle the sense of it. Emphasis is William Shatner, this is something else.

[Jim_Campbell]

My point is that it is often objectively wrong, and why go to the trouble of emboldening some words when you muddle the sense of it. Emphasis is William Shatner, this is something else.

Not all writers get the emphasis thing. Bolding words to indicate naturalistic stresses as if the dialogue was spoken is a relatively recent thing. It was far more common for the rules of bolding to favour bolding character names and the most 'important' word in a sentence, rather than those that would be emphasised in natural speech.

Sometimes, the traditional way will coincide with the naturalistic, fooling you into thinking the words are being bolded for spoken emphasis, which makes it doubly confusing when it reverts back...

Cheers

Jim

[TordelBack]

Every time I think I've read just about all I need to know about lettering, Jim comes up with one of these illustrations of just how complex and mutable a part of the medium it actually is.

[Fungus]

Thanks Jim, I was going to invoke you but didn't want to derail the politics 
From here on I'll watch for those proper nouns as an explanation for boldness.

[The Legendary Shark]

I will try to use more BB Code in future in order to emphasise words I want to stress.
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Capitalisation's just easier and I'm a Lazy Bugger at heart...

[TordelBack]

Thanks Jim, I was going to invoke you but didn't want to derail the politics 

All speech bubbles are political. 

[The Legendary Shark]

I seem to recall reading somewhere (I forget where) that bold lettering is used in comics to stress important words so that you can get the gist of the story at a glance, without having to do too much of that exhausting reading. I have no idea if that's true, or even plausible, though.
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Jim has lettered enough of my scripts to know that I often overuse emboldening. It's something I'm trying very hard to limit. Sometimes I read the finished strips and even I have no idea why I embolden some words and not others.