Hi pals…I’m a little under the weather (not COVID, don’t worry) so I’m going to try to keep this reasonably short today.
Just to touch upon a topic I’ve noted before, the social media hoohar is still going on, as everyone is casting about trying to figure out what the new Twitter is going to be. Frankly, I think the new Twitter will be “the old Twitter, only worse” but in the meantime I’m trying out Mastodon, I’m there on Cohost, and I’m also on The Hive (user name: “mikester” natch), which is phone-app only but looks promising. I even revived my Tumblr, for Pete‘s sake.
I don’t know where we’re all going, but we’re certainly going somewhere. I do expect Twitter to survive, even despite current ownership, and as someone said they’re going to discover themselves engineering back to the solutions that already existed when their thoughtless whims all come crashing down. The trick is whether or not the advertisers and the power users will stick it out ’til everything settles down.
But whatever happens, you can always find me here, and you can see what else I’m up to (or had been up to) at mikesterling.com. And that reminds me…I’ve long lamented the fact that “mikester.com” was registered only a few short months before I thought about doing so, and after years of being what appeared to be a mostly-inert webpage it is now in the hands of some domain sales site at the low, low cost of nearly $4000. So, for about 4% of the price I registered “mikester.net” instead. It just forwards to mikesterling.com. Hey, that’s a whole four characters less! A real timesaver!
Okay, so this isn’t just me blabbing about social media and domain names, here’s some actual comic book content. It’s the Wizard-a-like Hero Illustrated‘s video magazine #2 from 1994! Warning: may be hard to take all 25 minutes in one sitting. Features a Rob Liefeld interview and commercials for a video game I don’t remember.
Gee, it only took me eleven years to do another one.
Anyway, the other day I was showing the niece and nephew the “Dancing Groots” video (WARNING: OBNOXIOUS) on my phone, and after it was over my niece immediately swiped or touched or whatevered the app to see what other videos I had. And, lo and behold, there were the first two Half-Minute Mikester vids.
After watching those (and kind of cringing at the reference to the long-ago crotch-roversy over this Alex Ross cover that maybe my niece and nephew shouldn’t have heard), I thought “well, you know, maybe it’ll be fun to try doing that again, only maybe in my store and not in the laundry room at my house.” And, thus, there you go, “Half-Minute Mikester #2,” the third installment in the series because I thought I’d be cute and start with #0, just like the big funnybook publishers.
Nowadays the process seems a lot less involved in actually getting the videos out into the world…before I had to download the video from the digital camera, upload it to YouTube, wait for it to be processed, blah blah. Now on my phone, with just a little clicky-clicky, you get my dynamic action and mellifluous voice coming right at you directly out of your devices in your very own home and/or office. Yes, Old Man Mike is excited about this newfangled technology all you kids are into.
Another plus side to using the phone: the reason they were “Half-Minute” was because that the was limit of the digital camera I was using. I think maybe 40 seconds tops. Now I guess I’m just limited to however many gigabytes are this phone…and seems weird just calling it “a phone,” but I suppose “tricorder” is taken. I don’t know if that means you’ll be seeing two-hour widescreen comics-reviewing epics from me at some point in the future, since about 30 to 40 seconds is about as long as I can talk in one burst without tripping over my tongue (and it’s not like it didn’t take me a dozen tries just to get through the thing).
But at the very least I do plan on doing more videos, not just for blogging purposes but as a promotional thing for my store (that store being Sterling Silver Comics in beautiful Camarillo, CA). Maybe I’ll even show my face in one or two of them, so consider that your fair warning.
I’ve had a long day, so I’m keepin’ it short and sweet for this post right here, including some stuff you may have already seen on one of my other social media platforms (like the Twitterers). Sorry about that, but I should have a new End of Civilization next week to make up for it!
First, reader Sir A1! dropped this into the comments of Wednesday’s post, and I gotta share it on the main page here: a bit of a Badger fanfilm he worked on some time ago. Some NSFW language in there, so be warned:
Second, just look at this tiny book…or conversely, look at this giant hand:
Third:
You don’t say.
e-mail me at
mikester @ this domain name
• • •
THIS IS A LINK TO THE WEBSITE
FOR THE COMIC SHOP THAT I OWN
