Kevin Smith rides a Plane

This cartoon was inspired by recent events where actor/director Kevin Smith was unceremoniously booted off a Southwest Airlines Flight because they claimed he was too big to put the armrest down.  He claimed otherwise but was still booted.

Now of course I exaggerated Kevin’s weight above but this brings up the bigger question.  Should overweight people be forced to purchase two seats on planes where the seats are way smaller than they should be?  I am sure that if you go back 50 years people were skinnier and airline seats were bigger.

But on the other hand, what about the rights of the person who paid full price for their ticket as well and had to suffer from someone invading their already small space.  As someone who is over 6′ tall and broad-shouldered, I realize that my frame could impede a seatmate on a plane.  That is why I have moved to window seats so I can scruntch that extra 2 inches towards the window.

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Maximizing Twitter and StumbleUpon

Last month I wrote an article for Webcomic Planet, so to ease back in from my much deserved and needed break, I thought I would repost it here.

Raise your hand if you use Twitter to announce when you have posted a new comic/cartoon.  Raise you hand if you also like to submit your new post to sites such as Reddit, Digg, or StumbleUpon.
 
If you are a user of Twitter and a registered user of StumbleUpon there is a great but little known tool at your disposal that you can submit a link to both sites at the same time.  When posting your comic’s URL to twitter you either have to use a URL shortener like bit.ly or allow Twitter to shorten it for you.  Instead, I recommend using http://su.pr to shorten your URLs. 
 
Make sure you are signed into both Twitter and StumbleUpon.  Once you have posted your latest cartoon, go to su.pr and type in your tweet along with the full URL of the post.   Then hit submit.  Your post will be submitted to both sites. 
 
Here is what really makes it impactful.  Now when someone clicks on your link in twitter they will go to your post on StumbleUpon where they can not only view your cartoon but also give it a “Thumbs Up”.  The more “Thumbs Up” you get, drives potentially more visitors. 
 
Even better is that Su.pr has analytics of who retweeted your post.  If you are like me it can be difficult to determine if someone retweeted your post especially if they don’t use your twitter name.  With Su.pr, anytime they use the shortened URL in a tweet, it will show up on su.pr analytics who sent out the message.
 
Hopefully this is a tool that is useful to you and please if you see the SU header in a post and you like it, take the second and give it a thumbs up.  Your fellow cartoonists will appreciate it.  And as always you can find me on twitter at @bearmancartoons.

Love is…

…taking time out for real life.

Our friend YNB, Beano, The Bean, Just Jill over at the Elemental My Dear Blog has a challenge out to her readers to define what “Love Is’  Head over to her site and see who has answered the call but be prepared to bring a hankie as none are provided and several are needed.

She encouraged us to think of it in terms of our own style.  My style has always been not to follow the rules so I decided to talk about what Love ISN’T.

Love is not…relationships on the internet.  Sure there are those who meet, fall in love via the web and live happily ever after.  But if you have been working that route for 2+ years, I have to tell you, you need to do something else.  I spent my single days internet dating.  It was when I realized that route wasn’t working that I started spending those hours volunteering.  Meet new people, who introduce you to new people, who introduce you to the love of your life.  I repeat this constantly to single friends.  “If you always do what you have always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”

Love is not…another visitor, another hit, another follower, another comment.  I am the worst about dashing home from work or dinner or wherever to see if I had a comment to respond to or got closer to a daily visit record.  That isn’t love, that is ego.  And I am all for ego stroking but there are times where it can get addictive.  I didn’t start this site to make money, I did it to share my work and hopefully make someone laugh once in a while.

So because that isn’t love, I have decided to take a break to refresh my real relationships.  I also have been slacking in doing volunteer work the last year so I want to explore opportunities to keep giving back.  So I am going to take a break for the next week and not get on my blog, not visit your blog.  No twitter, facebook, stumbleupon, reddit, etc etc etc.  It’s a time for me to refresh and renew the real relationships that I have in life with loved ones.

I had things lined up to post over the next week automatically but I pulled them all.  I can’t offer advice and then feed your habit of coming here 20x a day. haha  So nothing from me.  Some people might cry that that is the wrong thing to do to keep people coming back to your site and building your audience.  Screw that.  The people that care will be back.  And don’t worry, I will be all ready for some new ego stroking when I get back. 

Hope everyone has a safe Valentines Day (for those countries that celebrate) and take the time to go hug a real person.  Remember your computer doesn’t hug back.

Abe Vigoda is ALIVE Cartoon

The rumors of his demise are FALSE.  This is one of thos trivia questions that has gone on for at least 15 years.  Is Barney Miller and Fish actor Abe Vigoda alive or dead.  ALIVE, ALIVE, ALIVE I tell people over the years.  Finally thanks to Snicker’s Superbowl Ad, I finally have proof.

In case you missed it..

Abe is ageless.  Maybe because he looked 80 when he was 30.  Here’s to long life!!!

Sarah Palin’s Hand

I questioned myself as I thought of and drew this editorial cartoon.  Even now I understand the impact of the word “retard” or “retarded” but I don’t know if I am offended by every usage of it as others.  First some background.

Former Vice Presidential candidate and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin continues to make news this month.  This week she was a keynote speaker at the Tea Party Convention.   During a Q&A discussion she could be seen checking out notes written on her hand.

And last week she called out President Obama to fire Chief of Stafe Rahm Emanuel for saying that some liberal activists are “fucking retards”  Yet when Chris Wallace confronted her about Rush Limbaugh’s similar use, she blew it off as satire.  So when someone uses the word “retard” or “retarded” in jest it is OK.  HUH??

As someone with a close relative who has Downs Syndrome, I would have to be restrained if someone called her a retard.  But I don’t have the same visceral response if someone called me it or my ideas retarded.  So as I say, I struggle with whether or not “retarded” should be avoided in all speech. 

For those who have an issue with using “retarded”, do you have similar issues with words like “idiot”, “moron” or “imbecile”??  If not, why not??  All of those words were used as IQ categories before the term “mentally retardation”  We now use terms such as “special” and “developmentally disabled”.  In 25 years, will those too be considered bad?

What is your opinion??

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