#theres a difference between criticism intended to make things better in the world & help a person/cc grow

[carcinized]

fuck the internet honest to god

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep.2 - Ghosn escapes to Lebanon

K: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru, this is the second installment of The Freedom of Expression. Um, Joe san, Tasai san, here we are again.

J, T: Yep *laughing*

J: Why are we laughing at that?

K: Well, somehow, while I was introducing you two, I was wondering whether I should also introduce the third, no, fourth person..

J: I see, I see.

K: I thought I'd leave it at that.

K: Yes, lets leave it there.

Kami: No, don't leave it there.

J: Ah, of course, we try to ignore him, he'll appear.

K: Ahh, but during the first episode, there were times without him, weren't there?

J: Sure

Kami: Ah, but I was just being quiet. I was waiting until the end to come in.

J: I see.

Kami: You played right into my hands

*everyone laughs*

J: We played into your hands? This god has a nasty personality, doesn't he? *K laughing* A god saying that?!

Kami: Of course you would tell me I have a nasty personality.

J: This god is surprisingly small, right? *K laughs a lot*　..saying such things?!

K: Okay, so lets get to the freedom of expression, the concept which we started on the radio and are now doing on youtube. Last time was our first try, how do you think it went, for anyone interested?

J: Well, just how DID it go?

T: Right, I'd like to know the reaction.

J: Yeah, I'd like to know. I'd like it to spread on social media.

K: Yes, me too.

J: Please, by all means, share this for us!

K,T: Yes

K: Right, well for our first item, over to you Tasai san.

T: Well, this is news from Tokyo Sports newspaper..

J: Oh, from Tokyo Sports? Like, is it a UFO or a monster kind of story?

T: Well, I know what you mean, but its not that today. Its about (Carlos) Ghosn.

J: Was Ghosn a monster?!

T:*laughs* No, no, no, its not that.

J: Really?

T: It was really big news at the end of last year. The news that Ghosn escaped to Lebanon. Firstly, what did you think about this, Joe?

J: Oh me? Well, Im one of those that thinks the Japanese judiciary system is terrible, so I thought it was convincing.

T: Ah, I see.

J: Of course it was an illegal thing, but for someone as rich as Ghosn, I think it was nothing.

T: Well, as for Ghosn, he is now in Lebanon, but its been said in the news that the recent worsening of relations between America and Iran will be really bad for him.

J: Can Tokyo Sports really report such a serious story? *K laughs*.

T: Yeh...We have to report this kind of thing.

J: Right

T: So, America killed Iran's number two, General Soleimani in an explosion, and with Iran calling for revenge action, the tension is such that, people are fearing WWIII breaking out. With the current leader calling on Lebanon's Shia military organization, you know the organization Hezbollah?...there is a possiblity that Lebanon could become a battle ground...in which case Ghosn would lose his place of saftety and he would have to flee from there, and might get arrested in a different country. Thats the story, how Ghosn might still be facing danger.

J: I see, direct.

T: Its really like a story from a movie.

K: Yes, thats right.

T: Hiding in a musical instrument case..

J: For sure!

K: A band came to his house right?

J: Yes, yes, he was having a party.

K: Yeh..and like hiding in the case...its interesting isn't it? *everyone laughs*

T: Its a case for a very large instrument, and the makers of it have issued a warning, that this case is not intended to be used in that way. *J, K laugh*

J: But there are not many people who escape overseas, its impressive!

K: Yeh, it really is like a movie.

T: Its great...there is even talk of making this into a movie.

J: Ghosn's story?

T: Yeh

J: Wow. Kaoru, have you any thoughts about this Ghosn news?

K: Well, while being quite simple, the scale is outrageous *laughs* I wonder how much it cost..

J: Oh, probably a considerable amount...its been said that it seems like his fortune has decreased..but it probably hasn't disturbed him too much.

T: On the issue of bail, he paid 15 billion yen, which was apparently further confiscated, but Ghosn probably doesn't give a damn about that.

J: Probably not

K: When he came out, he disguised himself right? Its also kinda interesting from that angle.

T: Oh, dressed like a cleaner, right?

K: Yes, yes, yes.

T: It seems like he thought it would work

J: Well, another thing is, the Japanese judicial system is said to be a so called 'hostage judiciary'. In Japan, the prosecutors have the right to charge people with a crime, but out of all charges made in Japan, 99.9% are found guilty. In other words, if you are charged, the court case is more of a formality, you will almost never be found innocent. It equates to one out of a thousand cases being found innocent. Now, as far as I know, the conviction rate should be a bit lower, ninety-something percent, but if you lower the conviction rate much, the authority of the prosecutors is suspected, as if the original charges were wrong. Its difficult, but a conviction rate of 99.9% is quite extraordinary. So with the fact that prosecutors have so much power, and with this 'hostage judiciary', so called criminals are pushed to confess. At first they are questioned without the presence of a lawyer, and there are many cases where foreigners confess to the crime, even if they havn't done it. The police will say to people, 'you are not leaving here till you confess'. Now, if you really didn't do it you could provide your evidence to the court, but in Japan, the court will take a self confession as the strongest evidence. So, in the end, once you've said 'i did it', you might as well have done. And even if you later say 'i didn't do it', it will only be seen as a lack if repentence, you will not be found innocent...and Ghosn must know all this. This court case is predicted to go or for 5 or 10 years, and say, if it was ten years, his life is already nearing its end. Whether its right or wrong, he probably arrived at the conclusion that he had no choice but to escape.

T: He can do it because he has money.

J: Exactly

K: Ah, its turned into that kind of conversation.

J: Eventually, yes. We are not all equal.

K: But, couldn't you say it would better that he had stayed in an orderly place like Japan?

J: Yes, yes, especially if the place he has escaped to becomes a war zone. Theres a chance that Japan might end up being the safest place for him.

T: Which do you choose, an approaching war with your freedom, or a safe place facing a court hearing?

K: Oh this is gonna be a movie.*laughs*

J: It seems likely...But who would play Ghosn? Who looks like him?

K,T: *????* 1*

J: He's the only one who could do it! If it was dramatized..

K: It makes you wonder how Japan could let this happen, Ghosn was probably surprised too.

T: So for people who are out on bail in Japan, they do sometimes make them wear gps locating device, or restrict thier movement. It seems like Ghosn has really thrown Japan into disorder.

J: Hmm, in Japan, whenever there is a happening, the measures taken against it are often 'too much'. So, if you talk to people in other countries, recommendations will differ. For example, in France or somewhere like that, a traffic accident happens, and someone dies...Well, i mean, if it was in Japan, they would install a pedestrian crossing and traffic lights, which is ok in itself, but if you do this type of thing too much, it starts to get inconvenient. But if it was overseas, a traffic accident where someone dies, they would just warn people to be more careful next time. Rather than doing sonething physical, just encourage people to be safer, and after that finish with it. In Japan, they would definitely either install facilities or place equipment, measures to prevent it happening again, but on the other hand if this is done too much, you may eventually end up with restrictions on you speech or movement, so thats something we have to be careful about.

K: Mm, if you blame other people or things, you may end up losing your sense of self responsibility.

J: Things primarily happen due to our actions, we need to remember that, but people will end up blaming other things, for a sense of security. This becomes a vicious cycle, I feel.

T: This has been excessive recently, funny stories about celebrities being criticized for saying certain things, and then nothing happening.

Kami: Um, is it wrong to be on Ghosn's side?

T: No, I think its ok.

K: Its a personal opinion.

Kami: If you were on his side, he might give you money if you ask him *everyone laughs*

T: What a wierd opinion for a god!

J: You really are working for money, aren't you!

Kami: Well, I just thought if I was rich I could be in control of everyone.

J: I see, I see.

Kami: Like if I told people to cooperate with me, they would say, yes, yes, and just do it.  Like, I would say to Tasai san, can't you write a nice article about me, and throw over a bit of cash..

T: I would be quivering

K: *laughs*

J: If it was Hiranabe san, you'd have to take him to dinner.

Kami: Yeah, I've a feeling he would say, 'Ghosn was right!'.

J: I guess so.

Kami: I mean, even if the story in the media is a joke , if someone said 'I'll give you a billion yen if you do it', you would do it right?

J: Well yes..a billion.

Kami: The real god, wouldn't be like that of course...but I'll do it for small change. *everyone laughs*

J: How much would you help Ghosn escape for?

Kami: About 10,000yen.

J: So cheap!

Kami: Its because I know my capability.

T: Isn't god supposed to be all powerful, and all knowing?!

Kami: No, I can't do anything.

J: A god who, can't do anything, strange isnt it?

Kami: Its because no-one worships me.

J: Ah, I see.

K: Aren't you just a regular old guy then? *lots of laughing*

J: And here's me thinking we were getting somewhere deep!

Kami: I only know one deep thing about this. Straight after he was interviewed by the Juicial minister, the minister said that Ghosn will have to prove his innocence, right?

J: Yes, that was mistaken, wasnt it. Completely wrong.

Kami: The rest of the world media heard this, and thought Japan was in the wrong. It is in the wrong, right?

J: Well, that person was orignally a lawyer, um, I dont know if the youtube viewers are aware of this, a defendant doesn't actually have to prove anything. Its the prosecution side which has to prove the guilt. A defendant doesnt prove his innocence at all. So if a harsh sentence is given, that means the prosecutors did thier job, and if guilt isnt proved, that means the prosecutors couldnt prove it. There is no legal situation where a defendant has to prove thier innocence. So, the justice minister saying Ghosn must prove his innocence was probably seen as ridiculous by the rest of the world.

Kami: Well, it is if its said by the justice minister.

J: Well having that kind of person in such a high position, can the rest of the world trust this country? Its a wierd story, the world's mass media have been laughing, can that kind of guy really become justice minister? But as you said, maybe he's just expressing Japan's inner feelings about this. Oh, Kami is gone! * laughing*

Kami:*laughs*  No, I was listening attentively. I was listening, and thinking, he had to run away from Japan.

J: Oh, right.

T: I see.

Kami: Yes, get away from Japan..consumption tax has risen too of course * everyone laughs*

J: Well, yes.

Kami: The Olympis will cost money too..

T: And theres that iternet tax.

K: You know a lot, dont you kami?

Kami: Ive been saving money *everyone laughs* I never have enough.

J: Are you a poverty stricken god?! *lots of laughing*

Kami *stifled laugh* Don't say that.

K: Ok, well lets wrap it up here, the second episode. Please tune in next time.

J,K, T: Thank you very much.

1* I don't know who they said here.

[comicteaparty]

February 25th-March 3rd, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from February 25th, 2019 to March 3rd, 2019.  The chat focused on AntiBunny: The Gritty City Stories by Vincent Davis aka Vinnie D.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on AntiBunny: The Gritty City Stories by Vincent Davis aka Vinnie D.~! (http://AntiBunny.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PST), so keep checking back for more! You have until March 3rd to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite scene in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 3. Who or what do you think “Dark Pooky” is? Why does “Dark Pooky” refer to Pooky as Ptolemy and what does the supposed missing gap of 50 years have to do with it? What do you think “Dark Pooky” has intended for Pooky?

QUESTION 4. What is the mysterious glow that surrounds Penny that only Agent Wesson and Agent Smith/Ed can see? Unrelatedly, do you think Penny will fix the robot she found? How will either of these scenarios affect her and the other characters’ futures?

AntiBunny

Hi everyone. I'm the author of AntiBunny. I'll just be quietly reading here and gathering feedback. I really appreciate this opportunity to hear some in depth thoughts on my work, and as always I invite you to draw your own conclusions.

Delphina

Are there navigation arrows somewhere I'm not seeing?

RebelVampire

theyre on the right side bar

Delphina

Ahhh, thank you

RebelVampire

QUESTION 5. What do you think happened in Pandora’s past that made her so well-known but ultimately got her killed by Agent Wesson? Do you believe Mulligan will get his revenge at the end of the day?

RebelVampire

1) im picking two scenes cause i can and nobody can stop me. the first scene i really liked was the warehouse confrontation with the bomb. i liked pooky both got some answers but also basically went "nope im out yo." the combination worked for me and made it both humorous and narratively satisfying. the other scene i liked was the scene where hannibal is waiting in the hospital and just casually talking to mulligan without realizing who he is. then mulligan reveals himself in the most crass way possible. again, i just like the combination. its funny, but narratively satisfying since i kept wondering when wed get to see penelope's dad ever since he was mentioned. 2) penelope. Idk. theres just something i really like about penelope. She's go this good sense of optimism and faith, but shes not overbearing or crazy. And even if she's not some rebellious sleuth or fighter or anything, the comic shows that her words have the power to change things just as much the fighting and other elements. 3) Well given a scene that was part of nailbat's story, Pooky is pretty obviously involved with enchanted forest. I imagine some boss type figure. And Pooky might be some prized experiment somehow? like the next step in bunny evolution or something like that. but maybe pooky had like the longest incubation period known to all sapient kind. As for what dark pooky intends, more evil science. I mean you don't get to be called dark pooky if you do the good science.

4) I'm not sure I have good theories about the glow. Like, maybe again, another part of dark pooky science somehow. Like a desire mutation that is a signal for the next stage of evolution. As for the robot, yes, i think penny will. and I'm really looking forward to it considering who that robot is. I think it's really going to be an emotional rollercoaster for everyone. 5) well given superheroing is a thing in this world, probably that or something. maybe not superheros but like a step down. like neighborhood watch on steroids. or maybe a group of detectives. i think pandora discovered something she shouldnt have though, which put her at odds with agent wesson. as for mulligan's revenge, nah i highly doubt it. more just because i think someone is going to get to agent wesson long before he does. and narratively speaking, i think mulligan's arc will be more about putting his kids first and revenge second.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 6. Do you believe that Pooky will once again become a successful reporter? What trouble might Pooky’s pursuit of this cause? Alternatively, what good might come of it?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. Who do you think Agent Wesson works for? Also, what do you think happened to Agent Wesson after the bridge explosion, and what consequences will that have for the story?

RebelVampire

6) I don't think Pooky is gonna rekindle that journalist career. Mostly because if Pooky lives to see the end of this story I will be very surprised. However, I think Pooky's pursuit will change the world regardless and force humans and rabbits alike to confront ugly truths about themselves and the world theyve created. Cause that seems to be a heavy theme and Pooky has shown to know how to work the media to drive that message home. 7) Enchanted Forest. And Agent Wesson is probably alive and probably plotting some hardcore revenge against Pooky. Agent Wesson will also bide time and wait until we've basically forgotten the character and then blamo, everything is ruined, sad times are had, etc. etc. etc. It will not be a good time

RebelVampire

QUESTION 8. Do you think Penelope will manage to testify against Mr. Huge, or will she inevitably be silenced by the many obstacles in her way? In the meantime, what do you think Auntie Fae is up to? How will this affect Penelope?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. Do you think that the characters will be able to change Gritty City and/or human-rabbit relations for the better by the end of the comic? Of the characters, who do you think has the highest chance of doing so and why?

RebelVampire

8) I think Penelope will manage. Shes the determined sort who will probably persevere. Although I also feel that her testimony wont matter and that inevitably the bad guy will win. As for Auntie Fae, I'm not sure besides being racist. Although I actually think she has a bigger agenda then the characters realize quite yet. In the sense that theyll think she just wants to get rid of rabbits when shes up to bigger things. like helping out evil scientists or something. 9) I think they'll change relationships for the better but not by much. Change is a slow, slow process and the more you try to force it, the less it usually works. But that's okay and I think whatll maatter is just changing the hearts of even a few ppl. Like what happened with Nailbat because I found Nailbat's story was really strong because of that aspect. Even though Nailbat was just one person, he changed some people lives and also had his life changed. If I had to pick someone who would actually instigate change, then Penelope. Cause Penelope is a badass with words insofar and really seems to leave an impact on all the people she interacts with.

snuffysam

i haven't been able to get through the archive yet, but right now my favorite scene is when we first see penelope street preaching. i don't know why, but I like the idea of this stalking amy-rose-type turning out to be something completely different

my favorite character so far is juju. gets introduced as a witch, and immediately gets herself trapped in a doll. love her.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 10. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

RebelVampire

10) a lot of stuff. like im really looking forward to the robot being fixed, to pooky exploring the dark pooky stuff more, seeing penelope more, and so forth. theres a lot of really great threads that are building up and id love to see them start paying off and how cause im sure itll be epic! in general, while it took me a bit to get into it, i really enjoyed the comic once i did and the story started to show its hidden depths.

Delphina

I just want to pop in and say that I did make it partially through the archive this week, but probably won't have time to finish, and thought Penelope was a very cute character. I paged through a bit of the later pages too and loved seeing how the art/craftmanship progressed.

Delphina

((I don't know what the policy is on critique in these segments, so I will definitely strike this from the record if it's not appropriate @RebelVampire , but when the story started alternating between the Pooky storyline and the Nailbat storyline every other page is when I started to lose focus and eventually dropped off reading because it was too confusing to keep track of the story. I think these storylines would benefit from not being mixed in the archives. I definitely know the challenge of spending time fixing old stuff versus using that time to move forward, but if you decided to migrate the story to a PHP-based solution in the future instead of static HTML, archive curation would be a factor I'd strongly recommend considering.))

RebelVampire

@Delphina critiques are allowed as long as theyre constructive, respectful, and dont become the predominant topic of the conversation. so in my book this one is fine.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about AntiBunny: The Gritty City Stories this week! Please also give a special thank you to Vincent Davis aka Vinnie D. for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked AntiBunny: The Gritty City Stories, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://AntiBunny.com/

Vincent Davis’ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AntiBunny

Vincent Davis’ Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/U6U7CGJG

Vincent Davis’ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntiBunny

[dunntekraleigh]

SEO Project Management Considerations - Part 3

This blog post http://dunntek.com/seo/seo-project-management-considerations-part-3 is courtesy of DunnTek Blog This is the third and final installment in this particular series about certain special considerations with SEO project management. This isnt intended to be a guide on how to perform SEO project management, since that would be quite a lengthy document. Rather, my aim in this series is simply to shed light on certain areas that project managers used to working in other disciplines might want to consider, as well as to help business owners understand things that make SEO different from other types of Information Technology projects. Without further ado, lets begin.

SEO Project Management Model

As mentioned previously, a fairly standard set of activities will generally need to be performed at the start of any SEO project. These activities include the identification of digital assets, an assortment of various on-page tasks, competition analysis, and early off-page tasks such as link clean-up, just to name a few. Custom SEO agencies may apply their own secret sauce during this phase as well. While the general nature of these activities will tend to be consistent within an agency in how they handle client SEO, the exact details and level of effort required may vary greatly from one project to the next.

Once these baseline tasks are complete, the project will likely go through a series of progressive cycles until the desired results are achieved. A project management methodology that supports this approach of iterative work through successive cycles is recommended in order to maintain flexibility and avoid a constant stream of change orders that would likely result from trying to hold to a traditional waterfall approach.

SEO ROI

There are a lot of opinions and approaches to calculating the ROI of an SEO project. Certainly, every project requires a clear and compelling reason why the business would invest money in it. The bottom line is that SEO is not simply a marketing cost due to the fact that it potentially creates residual value in a way that other forms of marketing do not. SEO is a strategic investment that a business owners makes to help ensure a regular flow of inbound customers that don't depend on paid advertisements. While beginning to realize the ROI may take anywhere from two months to a year or longer depending on your particular industry and location, this varies widely depending on the level of competition and the skill of your SEO.

Perhaps most importantly, SEO creates an exit-strategy for the business owner. It has an incredible ability to transform a business thats just getting by into a valuable target for corporate acquisition by a larger company. Simply put, if you're sitting at the top of the search results for things that generate revenue, someone's likely to be interested if your business is for sale. From such a perspective, the potential ROI is possibly much higher than when simply compared to alternative marketing strategies.

Project Communication

A communication plan is an important part of a project that details how communication is going to occur. This is important in order to prevent a free-for-all of instant messaging, email, phone calls, and cellular text messages that may result not only in complete chaos and missed deadlines but also the potential loss of important project data. A communication plan brings structure to how different types of communication will occur, both internally within the project team and with stakeholders, with the goal of ensuring that the project is successful. In this instance, my particular focus is on certain things that can come into play during communication between the client and the SEO provider which must be considered.

Having managed projects of so many different types, one thing Im certain of is that SEO is different. One thing you may encounter in an SEO project is that semi-technical people are very likely to try and understand things which are simply never going to make sense to them. While that could be said for IT in general, what makes SEO a bit unique is that we deal with a lot of things that people are used to looking at constantly, and, being smart people, they will be quick to think they understand them but theyve never looked at any of those things from an SEO perspective.

This can potentially lead to a lot of conversation because it arouses peoples curiosity when they suddenly discover that the online world thats been right in front of them has immense depths of subtlety they never previously imagined. Analytical people will be naturally inclined to want to get their heads around it, so to speak. Creative people may suddenly find themselves having no end of ideas they want to contribute. For all of these reasons, business owners should decide up front whether they want to pay for their staff to have kind of this extra dialogue or simply let the SEO firm do their thing.

As an example, consider a scenario in which the project is moving into content marketing. Suppose an appropriate piece of content can be sourced by the SEO for $50. Creative staff employed by the client, however, want to hold additional meetings to discuss the content to be used, possibly create their own content, and then invariably have to conduct additional meetings to discuss changes required to make the content suitable for SEO purposes. That type of dynamic creative process takes much longer, and the additional hours required are usually not going to be covered in a standard engagement. As a result, the client needs to determine in advance whether a creative engagement is worth the cost and schedule risk, or whether they prefer to simply let the SEO procure an appropriate piece of content to keep the project on-target in regard to both time and money. Neither approach is right or wrong; its a question of cost and preference, and its something that needs to be established during project inception to avoid any potential heartburn later.

Because SEO may take anywhere from three months to a year or longer, some type of regular contact is certainly needed to assure the customer that something meaningful is happening. I caution, though, against the standard inclination to produce detailed activity reports with tons of detail. If you go into too much detail, what may well happen is that when people read a report with a bunch of activities listed of things you did and digital documents or properties that you created, for example, people are going to try to look at those things online and try to understand both the individual activities as well as how they all fit together. Its human nature to do that. Unfortunately, theres a huge potential for them to end up feeling confused and frustrated for several different reasons. First, some of the things we do in SEO can be counter-intuitive or go against many common misconceptions. Second, they simply lack the years of experience to understand the strategic approach behind why these things are done the way they are. Unless youre dealing with another actual expert, consider the level of detail thats really going to be beneficial to the customer. More is not always better. Seek to provide meaningful indicators of progress while avoiding the inclusion of unnecessary data-points. There is another reason to consider keeping reports at a high level, though.

A critical consideration for any SEO firm is intellectual property and trade secrets. No one expects to walk into a major brand fast food restaurant and walk out with anything more than the vaguest understanding of their secret recipe, and SEO is no different. Within the field of SEO, there is a great amount of highly specialized tradecraft that changes on a very frequent basis. This tradecraft represents an SEO firms secret recipe in how they address the 200+ ranking factors. Accordingly, if you want anything more than a high-level report, dont be surprised if youre asked to execute a legal Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which attaches a hefty financial penalty for violating the terms of the agreement. I prefer to avoid such a situation entirely and keep trade secrets and propriety business processes strictly on a need-to-know basis. As long as you can deliver results, people will not only understand that youve got something special, but theyll also appreciate the fact that you dont take just anyone as a client.

Conclusion

SEO should be seen more as a capital investment than a marketing cost. As a Raleigh SEO provider, our goal is to create residual value for our clients that can lead to a possible exit-strategy for a small business owner looking to sell their business. An SEO project can meet the criteria to be considered a project according to industry definitions, depending on the approach taken by the SEO agency. In selecting an SEO project management methodology, an SEO company should consider modern iterative approaches that will accommodate the dynamic nature of competitive SEO. Finally, if youre a business owner and need an SEO company, drop by (http://dunntek.com/seo)

DISCLAIMER: Subject to terms and conditions as posted on the DunnTek website

[viralhottopics]

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘Can people please stop telling me feminism is hot?’

The novelist has been accused of making equality mainstream: isnt that the point? Plus an extract from her new Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was in Lagos last summer, teaching a writing workshop as part of an annual schedule that sees her time divided between Nigeria and the US. For much of the year, Adichie lives in a town 30 minutes west of Baltimore, where her Nigerian-American husband works as a medic and the 39-year-old writes in the quiet of a suburban home. When Adichie is in Nigeria, where her parents and extended family still live, she has a house in the vast city she regards with the complicated love and condescension of the part-time expat.

Its an ambivalence with which many Nigerians regard her, too; last year, the workshop ended in a question-and-answer session, during which a young man rose to ask the famous novelist a question. I used to love you, she recalls him saying. Ive read all your books. But since you started this whole feminism thing, and since you started to talk about this gay thing, Im just not sure about you any more. How do you intend to keep the love of people like me?

Adichie and I are in a coffee shop near her home in the Baltimore suburbs. We have met before, a few years ago, when her third novel Americanah was published, a book that examines what it is to be a Nigerian woman living in the US, and that went on to win a National Book Critics Circle award. A lot has happened since then. Half Of A Yellow Sun, Adichies second and most famous novel, about the Biafran war, has been made into a film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton. Her essay, We Should All Be Feminists, adapted from her 2013 TEDx talk, has remained on the bestseller lists, particularly in Sweden, where in 2015 it was distributed to every 16-year-old high-school student in the land. The talk was sampled by Beyonc in her song Flawless. Adichie has become the face of Boots No7 makeup. And she has had a baby, a daughter, now 15 months old.

Adichie is still somewhat in the blast zone, not entirely caught up on sleep, but has published a short book, Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions, an extended version of a letter to a friend who, after having her own baby girl, asked Adichies advice on how to raise her to be feminist. I have had twin girls myself since our last meeting, so I am curious about her approach, not least because one of my two-year-olds currently identifies as Bob the Builder and the other as Penelope Pitstop. I would like to equip them to be themselves, while resisting whatever projections might be foisted upon them. We show each other baby photos and smile. Welcome to the world of anxiety, Adichie says.

The success of We Should All Be Feminists has made Adichie as prominent for her feminism as for her novels, to the extent that now I get invited to every damned feminist thing in the whole world. She has always been an agony aunt of sorts, the unpaid therapist for my family and friends, but having the feminist label attached has changed things, and not just among her intimates. I was opened to a certain level of hostility that I hadnt experienced before as a writer and public figure.

This is partly why she has written the new book, to reclaim the word feminism from its abusers and misusers, a category within which she would include certain other progressives, and to lay down in plain, elegant English her beliefs about child-raising.

Dear Ijeawele is, in some ways, a very basic set of appeals; to be careful with language (never say because you are a girl), avoid gendered toys, encourage reading, dont treat marriage as an achievement, reject likability. Her job is not to make herself likable, her job is to be her full self, she writes in reference to her friends daughter, a choice Adichie has come to elevate almost above any other.

That day in Lagos last summer, her friends were furious at the cheek of the young mans question, but she rather liked his bravery and honesty in asking it. She replied in the same spirit. Keep your love, Adichie said. Because, sadly, while I love to be loved, I will not accept your love if it comes with these conditions.

Having a baby has made Adichie think differently about her own parents, particularly her mother. Grace Adichie, who had six children and worked her way up from being a university administrator to the registrar, taught her daughter to love fashion as well as books, and was a very cool mum whom she idolised as a child. Nonetheless, and in the manner of most snotty young adults, young Chimamanda went through a phase of being very superior to her mother. Now, the novelist looks at her daughter and gulps.

Adichie recently came across her own kindergarten reports. My father keeps them all. You know what the teacher wrote? She is brilliant, but she refuses to do any work when shes annoyed. I was five years old. She laughs. I couldnt believe it. My husband couldnt believe it. I must have been an annoying child.

Its not as if she comes from a family of radicals. My parents are not like that. Theyre conventional, reasonable, responsible, good, kind people. Im the crazy. But their love and support made that crazy thrive.

Unlike Adichie, who was raised exclusively in Nigeria, her daughter will be raised in two cultures and subject to slightly diverging social expectations. Already, Adichie says with a laugh, friends and relatives from home are concerned that her mothering is insufficiently stern.

A friend was just visiting and she said to me, Your parenting is not very Nigerian. In Nigeria and, I think, in many cultures you control children. And I feel like, my daughter is 15 months, she doesnt have a sense of consequences. And I enjoy watching her. So she tears a page of a book? Whatever. She throws my shoes down. So? Its fun. I love that shes quite strong-willed. The joke between Adichie and her husband whom, to her intense annoyance, their daughter looks much more like is that her character cleaves to the maternal side. He says to me, Well, at least we know where she got her personality from. Shes quite fierce.

In the new book, Adichies advice is not only to provide children with alternatives to empower boys and girls to understand there is no single way to be but also to understand that the only universal in this world is difference. In terms of the evolution of feminism, these are not new lessons, but that is rather Adichies point. She is not writing for other feminist writers, and shows some frustration at what she sees as the solipsism of much feminist debate.

That morning, on the way to see her, I had read a review of a new book by Jessa Crispin, entitled Why I Am Not A Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto, a critique of everything that is wrong with feminism today. If one can get over the eye-rolling aspect of books by feminists decrying the feminism of other feminists for degrading the word feminist by being insufficiently feminist, the book does raise questions about where one should be focusing ones efforts.

Fashion blogger Chiara Ferragni wears Adichies Dior T-shirt during Paris fashion week, January 2017. Photograph: Edward Berthelot/Getty Images

The proposition is that feminism has become so mainstream as to be an empty marketing tool, a mere slogan on a bag or a T-shirt. Without being named, Adichie is implicated in this critique, given that last year she collaborated with Christian Dior on a T-shirt bearing the line We Should All Be Feminists; depending on ones view, this is either a perfect example of pointless sloganeering or a brilliant piece of preaching to the unconverted.

Im already irritated, Adichie says. This idea of feminism as a party to which only a select few people get to come: this is why so many women, particularly women of colour, feel alienated from mainstream western academic feminism. Because, dont we want it to be mainstream? For me, feminism is a movement for which the end goal is to make itself no longer needed. I think academic feminism is interesting in that it can give a language to things, but Im not terribly interested in debating terms. I want peoples marriages to change for the better. I want women to walk into job interviews and be treated the same way as somebody who has a penis.

Still, one can see a theoretical obscenity about the Dior collaboration: the words of a movement that should be concerned with helping low-income women, used to promote and make money for a wealthy company. On the other hand: what is the damage?

Yes: whats the damage? Adichie says. I would even argue about the theoretically obscene. Theres a kind of self-righteousness to the ultra-left that is hard for me to stomach. Its approach to poverty can sometimes border on condescension. I often think that people who write a lot about poverty need to go and spend more time with poor people. I think about Nigerian women who can hardly afford anything but who love fashion. They have no money, but they work it.

Adichie mentions a TV soap opera that used to run in Nigeria called The Rich Also Cry, a terrible drama series, she says, that was very popular. But sometimes I think about that title. So, the creative director of Christian Dior is obviously a woman of some privilege. But does it then mean that she doesnt have gender-based problems in her life? Because she does. Does it mean she doesnt have this magnificent rage about gender injustice? Because she does. Wanting to use that slogan was it going to make the world a better place? No. But I think theres a level of consciousness-raising and a level of subversion that I like.

She doesnt believe it was a cynical marketing ploy? No. Sorry. Feminism is not that hot. I can tell you I would sell more books in Nigeria if I stopped and said Im no longer a feminist. I would have a stronger following, I would make more money. So when people say, Oh, feminisms a marketing ploy, it makes me laugh.

The bigger issue here is one of range. Adichies irritation with aspects of what she thinks of as professional feminism is that it runs counter to her ideas as a writer: that people contain multitudes. She is a brilliant novelist and a serious thinker, and she is also someone who makes no apology for her own trivial interests. Life doesnt always follow ideology, she says. You might believe in certain things and life gets in and things just become messy. You know? I think thats the space that fiction, and having a bit more of an imaginative approach, makes. And that the feminist speaking circuit doesnt really make room for.

There is much in the new book about double standards, including those governing the images of motherhood and fatherhood. I think we need to stop giving men cookies for doing what they should do, she says, and goes on to explain that her husband, who needs less sleep than her, tends to get up in the night to tend to the baby. On the one hand, I realise that my husband is unusual; on the other, I feel resentful when hes overpraised by my family and friends. Hes like Jesus.

He probably senses shes about to go off the deep end, I suggest, and Adichie smiles to acknowledge how impossible she is. I did all the physical work to produce her! Theres something fundamentally wrong with the way weve constructed what it means to be female in the world.

Photograph: Stephen Voss for the Guardian

This is something she writes about in a lovely passage of the new book about hair. As a child, Adichie and her sisters and every other girl she knew were routinely tortured with a metal comb to subdue their hair, something her brothers were spared. Im glad I wrote that, Adichie says. We had just come back from Lagos and my sister, God bless her, had already had a talk with me about my daughters hair. She said, You need to do something about it. With my family, theres an eye-roll and a here-we-go-again with her, and she said to me, Do you want me to send you a set of combs? And I was like, No, thank you. And I know its going to keep happening. But, no, Im not going to conform in that way. Im not going to have my child go through pain because society expects a certain neatness. It happened to me, its not going to happen to her. And Im ready to have all the battles I need to have.

The original letter on which Dear Ijeawele is based has been shared on Facebook, and while Adichie was in Lagos, a woman whod read it approached her in a shop and said, Heres my daughter, look at her hair. She had very loose cornrows that were not neat according to Nigerians. And she said, You inspired that. My daughter is happier, Im happier. And do you know, it was the highlight of my month.

This is not just a question of image. It is also about time. Women have less time than men, in almost every arena, because their responsibilities to look or act a certain way are more onerous.

It is one of Adichies bugbears that as someone who loves fashion, she is by default not taken seriously. When Boots approached her to be the face of its No7 makeup range, she said yes, because she thought it might be fun; in the end, she says, it became vaguely alarming. I have no regrets, but you wake up one day and think, what the hell have I done? There were too many of these pictures everywhere. Her point, however, is that its not that Im a feminist and made a strategic choice to speak about makeup and fashion. Its that I was raised by Grace Adichie in a culture in which you care about how you look. Its a part of me I once hid, because I felt that I had to to be serious. Now, Im just being who I am.

Recently, Adichies identity has been tested in new ways. I wonder if she is less affected by President Trump than an American, on the basis that she is less invested in the American story. Quite the opposite, she says. Because theres a part of me that needs a country I can think of as being one that largely works. Which is not a luxury that Nigeria can have. She laughs.

Someone said to me, Now that this is happening in the US, do you think of moving back to Nigeria? And I thought, no, because its not any better there. I admire America. I dont think of myself as American Im not. So its not mine. But I admire it, and so theres a sense that this thing I built in my head, its been destroyed.

There is also, she says, something familiar about it all. American democracy has never been tested. You might have disagreed ideologically with George W Bush, but he still kind of followed the rules. Here, it feels like Nigeria. It really does. Its that feeling of political uncertainty that Im very familiar with, but not a feeling I like. Its ugly. But even worse, because America is so powerful, and so much at the centre of the world, these things have consequences for everyone. Nigeria doesnt have that kind of reach, so our problems remain our problems.

In January, Adichie and her husband joined the Womens March in DC. It was fleeting, and symbolic, she says, but it gave me the smallest slice of hope. There are all of these people who seem to realise that America has changed by electing an unhinged person. On the other hand, theres a part of me thats very sceptical of too much sentimentality. I hope it translates into people organising and going out to vote.

Long before talk about piercing the filter bubble, Adichie instinctively subscribed to rightwing blogs and newsletters. She was an early watcher of Fox News, until it became too unhinged and ridiculous. But she has carried on, because Im interested in ideological concerns and how people differ, and how we should build a society. Whats a welfare state? People who have less, are we responsible for them? I think we are. And I think I can make a selfish case, which is apparently what appeals to people on the right. People on the left say we should do it because we should be kind. And people on the right think, Excuse me? But if you say to them, If these people dont get healthcare, they will go to the ER and your tax dollars will pay for it, suddenly they sit up.

Adichie with her husband, Ivara Esege. Photograph: DDAA/ZOB/Daniel Deme/WENN

As a result of her reading, rightwing ideology is not something I think is evil, she says. Some. A bit. But, in general, I dont. I have friends who are good, kind people who are on the right. But Donald Trump is an exception. Its not an objection to a conservative, because I dont even think hes a conservative. My objection is an objection to chaos. Each time I turn on the news, Im holding my breath.

Trumps erosion of language is one of the most frightening things about him, but even progressives, Adichie says, can be sloppy on this front. In response to her new book, a reporter emailed her the question: Why not humanism? (instead of feminism). To which, she says, I thought, what part of the fucking book did this person not read?

Its like the people who go around saying All Lives Matter, I say, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Right, which I find deeply offensive and very dishonest. Because we have to name something in order to fix it, which is why I insist on the word feminist or feminism.

This, she says, in spite of the fact that many of her friends, particularly black women, resist that word, because the history of feminism has been very white and has assumed women meant white women. Political discussion in this country still does that. Theyll say, Women voted for… and then, Black people voted for… And I think: Im black and a woman, so where do I fit in here?

As a result, Many of my friends who are not white will say, Im an intersectional feminist, or Im a womanist. And I have trouble with that word, because it has undertones of femininity as this mystical goddess-mother thing, which makes me uncomfortable. So we need a word. And my hope is we use feminism often enough that it starts to lose all the stigma and becomes this inclusive, diverse thing.

This is her goal and her defence, although she still doesnt see why she needs one. Her understanding of feminism is intertwined with her understanding that we all want to be more than one thing. And anyway, she repeats, Can people please stop telling me that feminism is hot? Because its not. Adichie looks magnificently annoyed. Honestly.

Beware feminism lite: an extract from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichies letter-turned-book, Dear Ijeawele

Be a full person. Motherhood is a glorious gift, but do not define yourself solely by it. You dont even have to love your job; you can merely love the confidence and self-fulfilment that come with doing and earning. Please reject the idea that motherhood and work are mutually exclusive. Our mothers worked full-time while we were growing up, and we turned out well at least you did; the jury is still out on me.

In these coming weeks of early motherhood, be kind to yourself. Ask for help. Expect to be helped. There is no such thing as a Superwoman. Parenting is about practice and love.

Give yourself room to fail. A new mother does not necessarily know how to calm a crying baby. Read books, look things up on the internet, ask older parents, or just use trial and error. But, above all, take time for yourself. Nurture your own needs.

I have no interest in the debate about women doing it all, because it is a debate that assumes that caregiving and domestic work are singularly female domains, an idea that I strongly reject. Domestic work and caregiving should be gender-neutral, and we should be asking not whether a woman can do it all, but how best to support parents in their dual duties at work and at home.

Photograph: Stephen Voss for the Guardian

Beware the danger of what I call Feminism Lite; the idea of conditional female equality. Being a feminist is like being pregnant. You either are or you are not. You either believe in the full equality of men and women, or you do not.

Teach your daughter to question language. A friend of mine says she will never call her daughter princess. The word is loaded with assumptions, of a girls delicacy, of the prince who will come to save her. This friend prefers angel and star. So decide the things you will not say to your child. You know that Igbo joke, used to tease girls who are being childish What are you doing? Dont you know you are old enough to find a husband? I used to say that often. But now I choose not to. I say, You are old enough to find a job. Because I do not believe that marriage is something we should teach young girls to aspire to.

Try not to use words like misogyny and patriarchy. We feminists can sometimes be too jargony. Teach her that if you criticise X in women but do not criticise X in men, you do not have a problem with X, you have a problem with women. For X please insert words like anger, ambition, loudness, stubbornness, coldness, ruthlessness.

Do you remember how we laughed and laughed at an atrociously written piece about me some years ago? The writer had accused me of being angry, as though being angry were something to be ashamed of. Of course I am angry. I am angry about racism. I am angry about sexism. But I recently came to the realisation that I am angrier about sexism than I am about racism. Because in my anger about sexism, I often feel lonely. Because I love, and live among, many people who easily acknowledge race injustice but not gender injustice.

Teach your daughter to question men who can have empathy for women only if they see them as relational rather than as individual equal humans. Men who, when discussing rape, will say something like, If it were my daughter or wife or sister. Yet such men do not need to imagine a male victim of crime as a brother or son in order to feel empathy.

Teach her, too, to question the idea of women as a special species. I once heard an American politician, in his bid to show his support for women, speak of how women should be revered and championed a sentiment that is all too common. Tell her that women dont need to be championed and revered; they just need to be treated as equal human beings.

This is a condensed and edited extract from Dear Ijeawele, Or A Feminist Manifesto In Fifteen Suggestions, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, published on Tuesday by Fourth Estate at 10. To order a copy for 8.50, go to bookshop.theguardian.com

This article was amended on 4 March 2017. It originally referred to Lagos as Nigerias capital. This has now been corrected.

Read more: http://bit.ly/2lsdiJb

from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: ‘Can people please stop telling me feminism is hot?’

[comicteaparty]

February 4th-February 10th, 2019 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party week long chat that occurred from February 4th, 2019 to February 10th, 2019.  The chat focused on Offshore Comic by Stefan Gasic.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB START!

Hello and welcome everyone to Comic Tea Party’s Week Long Book Club~! This week we’ll be focusing on Offshore Comic by Stefan Gasic~! (http://www.offshorecomic.com/)

You are free to read and comment about the comic all week at your own pace, so stop on by whenever it suits your schedule! Remember, though, that while we allow constructive criticism, our focus is to have fun and appreciate the comic. Below you will find four questions to get you started on the discussion. However, a new question will be posted and pinned everyday (between 12:01AM and 6AM PST), so keep checking back for more! You have until February 10th to tell us all your wonderful thoughts! With that established, let’s get going on the reading and the chatting!

QUESTION 1. What has been your favorite strip in the comic so far? What specifically did you like about it?

QUESTION 2. At the moment, who is your favorite character? What about that character earns them this favor?

QUESTION 3. Given the comic’s focus on financial markets and all that composes them, what is something this comic has taught you about the subject? Alternatively, what is something you wished you understood better to understand the comic’s comedy?

QUESTION 4. How do you think the comic’s illustrative style and choices help the comedy of the comic? What is one moment where a particular design or image really stood out to you and helped the point the strip was trying to convey?

QUESTION 5. The comic features several recurring subjects like the legitimacy of IQ scores, LLCs, and more. Which of these recurring topics did you like the most? What about it caught your interest?

Stefan G

Hello everyone, 1) Just updated www.offshorecomic.com with a new strip. Check it out. 2) RebelVampire, are your questions intended for me or any new reader? Ciao, Stefan the creator of #Offshorecomic

snuffysam

They're intended for both (still working through the archive)!

keii4ii

Is there a way to get permalinks for individual strips, so I can come back to specific ones at a later time?

Stefan G

Thanks & okay, snuffysam keii4ii, unfortunately there’s no way to get permalinks for individual strips ... I coded the website myself as a side project and am not that good a coder

keii4ii

Oh man, I can relate to that... If I ever get rich, comic website coding and maintenance stuff is the first thing I'll hire someone to do for me

I do like how it loads and makes it easy to read through the archive, for what it's worth.

Stefan G

Thanks for the feedback ... and I totally, totally agree. One could spend a fortune for a coder to take care of all the fixings and stuff ... now I’m learning on the side whenever there’s time left over from work & family.

Stefan G

Answer to Q1 => readers have found the “happiness” strip the best. It’s also one of my favourite ones [succinct & clever & relatable] ...I truly don’t have a favourite strip, but the attached Reto & Urs -strips make me chuckle whenever I read them [I appreciate below-the-waist-humour and/or humour where people are really, really selfish].

lomcia (princess_lom)

1. The newest one is so funny

2. Trader

3. i dont work in office but i cant find nothing to improve that comic, i think the design of characters and humor is on really high lvl 12/10 for me

4. Style is perfect ffor that comic, i wouldnt change it

Stefan G

Answer to Q2 => at the moment my favourite character is the Economist. He’s a genuine IYI [intellectual-yet-idiot] ... which the world is full of and the finance industry in particular. The Economist is easy to write for because I’ve discovered a never ending source of humorous material called the daily financial newspaper ... please find attached also one of my favourite strips

Thank you, lomcia (princess_lom) for your feedback.

lomcia (princess_lom)

your welcome I hope i didnt misunderstood question 3 xD

Stefan G

I think you got everything just right

lomcia (princess_lom)

cool

Stefan G

Answer/comment to Q3 => I’ve spend my professional life in finance, hence, I know every nuance of the industry. However, for the layperson the finance industry [money, banking, insurance, etcetc...] is a big black box of unnecessary complication. My humble attempt with #Offshorecomic is to untangle this complexity and make money related topics more accessible/understandable to anyone ... using humour as my main tool. Finance is more stupid than you think; trust me

I’ll answer the rest tomorrow. Gotta go to now. is like in a totally different time zone and all that Thx again y’all !

RebelVampire

QUESTION 6. Which joke not related to finance did you enjoy the most? What about it made it stand out to you among all the others?

RebelVampire

1) i really enjoyed the life coaching strip about facing reality and lying to yourself. i just really enjoy the bluntness and simplicity by which the self-deception line is delivered. A+ comedy right. 2) i like p-bird because i consider him a much needed counter balance to many of the other characters. he at least has more feet planted in reality. 3) hedge funds. not that i understand them perfectly from the comic, but now theyre more than just a financial word i see tossed around. and despite the very negative absurdist humor regarding them, was still interesting to get some insight into what they actually involved. 4) i think the style overall really balances well with the comedy. a lot of the comedy is reliant on the dialogue, so keeping the illustrations clean, bold, and somewhat simple really helps direct attention to the words. i also really just enjoy the character designs cause every single one really hits that idiot or absurdist mark that needs to be hit. 5) actually i really liked the address of IQ scores. because literally these characters seem like the type whod wind up on r/iamverysmart and use their IQs to talk about how cool they are. so it was kind of nice to see some evidence for that with the subject. that and i always like seeing the concept of IQ being torn apart. 6) i actually liked a lot of the jokes that pertained to the academic sphere in regards to things like publishing and teaching. selfishly it most just stood out to me because academia is something im more familiar with in regards to its simultaneous setup of worthless class structures and cutthroat profs trying to further their careers.

Stefan G

Thank you, RebelVampire, for your thoughtful analysis & feedback I believe that the writing is the most important part in comics ... and the best humorous writing is often blunt & simple [you hit the nail on the head with that comment]. Furthermore, I intentionally designed the strip in a simplistic style in order to A) highlight the writing/gag, B) to save time and C) cuz simple drawings are funny I love to make fun of pompous, self righteous folks ... academics are thus some of my main targets [due to the same reasons I make fun of financial professionals].

Stefan G

Answer to Q4 => My childhood inspiration and spark for cartoons/drawing came from F.Ibanez [Clever & Smart] ... very funny yet simple style. Nowadays I enjoy Dilbert by Scott Adams or the political cartoons from cartoonist Jari Elsilä; also both of them are hilarious without wasting unnecessary lines. I believe a straightforward style highlights the writing and that’s what I’m trying to achieve. Moreover, I love to have backgrounds in my comics [to steer the reader to a particular thought or mood] but hate to draw them and/or dislike it when they clutter the cartoon ... I’m rather happy with a style that I’ve developed over time where I draw the background but reduce the opacity to 25 %. I think that works pretty nice

Stefan G

Answer to Q5 => My favourite themes are 1) anyone predicting the future, 2) mistaking luck for awesome skill and 3) incompetent yet pompous professionals ... there is so much hilarious material right there

Answer to Q6 => I often use the characters Reto und Urs for jokes/strips that are not necessarily financial because they are so endearingly stupid [well, mostly Urs is]. This one makes me chuckle

RebelVampire

QUESTION 7. In what ways have any of the strips changed the way you think about life, finances, or any other topic covered in them? Alternatively, what have the strips portrayed that you wish more people knew?

RebelVampire

(the archive for the chat on Poco Adventures is now available https://comicteaparty.com/post/182650076295/january-28th-february-3rd-2019-ctp-archive)

RebelVampire

QUESTION 8. Of all the parodies and jabs at financial markets and life, which do you consider the most on the nose as far as its representation in the comic goes?

RebelVampire

7) the strips have made me realize in a way that this is another industry where basically theres lots of ridiculous junk going on in the background cause you can never remove human faults completely. cause when it comes to finance theres lots of advanced vocabulary and concepts being thrown around usually, so for someone untrained it can sound intimidating and hard to follow. i think these strips do a great job of humanizing things tho and showing that the concepts arent all that alien cause at the end they were created by humans and reflect the desires of humans in a way. 8) one of my faves that i think is totally on the nose is this one where the economist is telling p-bird about ppl on twitter debating him being ignorant. and that his facts and stuff will prevail but p-bird points out that wouldnt even work on the economist. and the economist goes home confused. i think this is way too true for what its like to argue on the internet and how facts and logic get infinitely buried for the sake of narrative.

Stefan G

Excellent analysis/comments, RebelVampire really constructive. The human element is everywhere and money is such an emotionally laden topic that it’s easy to get confused even without the unnecessary complicated vocabulary ...which is often misused even by so-called “professionals”. If my strip has helped you understand all of that and un-demonised the beast, you’ve made me a very happy man Yeah, the Twitter-Fact-Confusion strip is one of my more relatable strips ... I’ve given up on trying to change people’s minds with facts; if changing minds is possible, it can only be achieved through via emotions. It sounds more logical the other way around but that’s not how we work. Here’s a special academically oriented strip just for you, RebelVampire Enjoy

snuffysam

haven't been able to get all the way through the archive yet, but my answer to both #2 and #8 is the Regional Manager. I love all the characters, but there's something to be said for the simplicity of having a guy literally run around headless.

Stefan G

Thanks , snuffysam. I almost forgot about the regional manager. I have to bring him back to life; I also like him ... by the way, there are 308 strips in total.

Answer to Q7 => I can’t claim that any one strip has changed the way I think about life and/or other things ... however, I do believe that writing & drawing Offshore strips has reinforced in me some of the main ideas from my favourite author, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who’s books have influenced me deeply [e.g. Black Swan, Antifragile, etc etc] ... luck versus skill, thinking about risk and stuff like that. I regularly come back to his books for inspiration and recommend his books & Twitter -feed. Here are two strips that highlight my point ...sort of

Answer to Q8 => wow tough question ... with 99 % of my strips I genuinely try to convey some message about basic human quirks and/or outright stupidities that actually take place on a regular basis when handling money + and then I add my own personal humours twist to it. Here are a few strips with the message never to buy something you don’t understand [a hint: they always have complicated names]...

RebelVampire

QUESTION 9. What other finance related topics are you hoping to see the comic explore? Which characters are you hoping to see involved with the topic?

Stefan G

Answer to Q9 => As the creator of the strip I’m obviously biased to answer this question, but I’d love to hear what the new readers have to say. I don’t have a particular preference for any topic [except make fun of pompous forecasters ] ... but I feel myself wanting to write & draw more strips for the Markets-Weasel and Reto und Urs. And that’s surprisingly hard to do; forcing it doesn’t work [at least not for me] ... Offshore’s main characters were supposed to be Reto und Urs and somehow P-Bird and the Economist and the trader stole the show. I guess that happens when you get to know your characters better. Funny how that happens ... here’s one nostalgic strip from my early work that I really enjoy

Stefan G

Addition to Q9 => ... I’ve steadily build up an audience on Twitter [@NonMeek] which consist mainly of likeminded financial and/or other professionals ...hence, hearing the viewpoints from anyone outside that sphere would be awesome

RebelVampire

QUESTION 10. What are you most looking forward to in the comic? Also, do you have any final thoughts to share overall?

RebelVampire

9) idk about specific topics, but id like to see the CEO who i think appeared in like one strip. I'm really interested to see the CEO dynamic with the other characters in terms of finance. learn how they view what theyre doing, how they view what the others are doing, etc. but im all for bringing the regional manager back too cause i enjoyed that character as well. a lot of great humor picking fun at how some managerial positions are kind of ridiculous to even exist to a degree. 10) learning more, mostly. overall its nice to see a harder to cover topic in comics. ive enjoyed how approachable and humanized the strips make finances, and how they remind you that professionals can be like this and actually have no clue what theyre doing. @Stefan G that academic oriented strip you shared was actually one of my faves. not necessarily in college, but i see this a lot in the blogosphere where ppl do a thing once and try to pass themselves as qualified experts to deliver advice. XD

Stefan G

@RebelVampire Thanks again for your opinions. Those really help with the development of the strip ... finance is a hard topic indeed and there are no really finance oriented strips out there [that I know of anyway], which is funny cuz the industry is filled with emotions and mind blowing mental errors. I guess people still believe finance & investing is some sort of scientific discipline which it’s really not ... there are hardly any black & white answers to anything even though there’s lots and lots of historical data ... it’s time to fix that myth with Offshore I’m glad you enjoyed that academic strip. It resonated rather well on Twitter too

@RebelVampire [adding to my previous answer] ... I agree that the managers need to be reanimated and given another chance. I’ll try to do that and see how they resonate. I never know beforehand which characters will work and which will fizzle out; e.g. der Compliance Offizier is one of my favourite characters, yet, resonates weakly outside the banking circles ‍♂️ [I love the strip below ].

keii4ii

I would like to see more strips that cracks jokes about this very specific context of finances! Things like that strip about funds blowing up on day 252. I think that gives this comic its own flavor. Readers get to laugh about not just any kind of incompetent people, but incompetent people in this specific field. Readers with no background in finances don't know the context, so more strips that shed light on the context of the jokes would be great.

Stefan G

@keii4ii All valid and excellent points ... I genuinely try to write & design my cartoons in such a way that the joke is understandable even though you don’t know the context. It’s a hard thing to do ... my wife is my toughest critic and she tells me the same as you ... but keep following Offshore and I promise to come up with more stuff like that 252 strip

Answer to Q10 => My ambition with Offshore is to 1) amuse myself first and see if anyone shares my sense of humour [if a cartoon doesn’t amuse me, I don’t publish it]. It’s a splendid way of letting out some frustration from work ... and 2) to make investing & finance more approachable to the layperson by infusing some humour into it in the form of cartoons ... which by the way nobody thought of doing on a serious basis. Weird. However, to produce material on a semi-regular basis I figured that writing only gags/jokes is too much work and/or too shallow of an approach, hence, the characters in the strip need to be interesting/relatable enough in order to create humorous material by mere interaction with each other. That’s easier said than done. I’m quite satisfied with my characters so far but am continuously looking for new interesting characters to add to the strip [either permanently or impermanently]. Like Scott Adams once told me: “The trick with comics is to reflect the reader's own experience. To allow people to say, "That's me!" I’ll conclude with this sneak peek strip [only for you guys] that should relate to the experience of anybody working in a big corporation.

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- WEEK LONG BOOK CLUB END!

Thank you everyone so much for reading and chatting about Offshore Comic this week! Please also give a special thank you to Stefan Gasic for volunteering the comic and creating it! If you liked Offshore Comic, make sure to continue to support it via some of the links below!

Read and Comment: http://www.offshorecomic.com/

Stefan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonMeek