Althouse: Context? We don't need context!

July 28, 2022

Context? We don't need context!

pic.twitter.com/HWjjhFUuBO
— Comics Outta Context 🏳️‍🌈 (@ComicContext) July 27, 2022

16 comments:

gilbar said...: is there going to be ice cream? Jill said that there'd be ice cream; 7/28/22, 7:20 AM
RideSpaceMountain said...: You again?
Who are you?
Where am I?
I don't have to listen to you!
Hunter's coming to visit me today!
I want ice cream!
Jill? Who's Jill!?
Where's my granddaughter?
Come here sweetie!
What day is it?; 7/28/22, 7:21 AM
gilbar said...: it's a COOKBOOK!!
https://twitter.com/ComicContext/status/1550994402419539969/photo/1; 7/28/22, 7:37 AM
Lurker21 said...: Comics were a genuine mass art form. Outsider art for kids. Something got lost when comics went big time. Also, I really miss the ads. Sea monkeys, ant farm, 100 toy soldiers, X-Ray Specs, Grit (America's Family Magazine), frontier cabin, working submarine (made of cardboard). They were also a kind of authentic lowbrow art.; 7/28/22, 7:48 AM
gilbar said...: U.S. GDP Fell at 0.9% Annual Rate in Second Quarter
Gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced across the economy, fell at an inflation and seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.9% in the second quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
The report indicated the economy met a commonly used definition of recession—two straight quarters of declining economic output.

BUT! AS LONG AS we keep our eyes Closed.. There isn't really any recession..
Just keep on walking, maybe whistle a little tune. It's ONLY there if we see it; keep 'em closed!; 7/28/22, 7:55 AM
Freder Frederson said...: And here I was thinking it was a reference to Trump and his crazy schemes to overturn the election.

How could lawyers put in emails that they knew what they were doing was not legal?; 7/28/22, 8:01 AM
madAsHell said...: Is the guy hiding behind the coffee cup Joe Biden??; 7/28/22, 8:38 AM
Rusty said...: Freder Frederson said...
"And here I was thinking it was a reference to Trump and his crazy schemes to overturn the election."
If the Jan. 6 committee has taught me anything is that you'll believe anything you are told and repeat it on command.
It's come down to this. I no longer have to prove you cheated to Biden elected. You have to prove that there are 81 million adults who voted for this mediocrity. You're an embarrassment.; 7/28/22, 9:17 AM
Josephbleau said...: Context? We have no context.
We don’t have to give context.
We ain’t got no stinking context!; 7/28/22, 9:22 AM
Mark said...: The context is Biden's bent for dictatorial rule by executive order and agency rules fiat.

"If Congress does not act, then I will." "We don't have the legal authority, but let's issue the regulation anyway."; 7/28/22, 9:36 AM
J Melcher said...: Comics were a gateway to full literacy. A reason to pick up the paper, sit in a parent's lap, learn to focus the eyes on a section of page, and find the little area of interest. Certain things were pictures and pretty clear, but the text in the 'balloons' started out mysterious and interesting. It's cool when the comic STRIP mirrors known characters from TV cartoons: Mickey or Superman or Popeye. Run a finger between the balloon and discover a comic character saying something. Touch the letters and your adult helps you 'sound out' the words. A very loving adult "does the voices" of the characters. Popeye sounds different from Olive Oyl from Wimpy. You mimic the voices and the words. The literal "sound effects" in the pointy-edged bursts have BIG letters and are very easy to read. *POW!* *SLAM!* *ZAP!* Maybe you and your adult shout these together.

You learn that a story, pictures and text alike, progresses from the left to the right. Sundays, nine-panel comics, go left to right, down one row, then left to right again. You learn with barely any instruction at all how a page works. The daily paper has all the little comics on one page, usually, but the big colorful Sunday funnies section teaches about turning the page. This all without the kid-sections with mazes and dot-to-dot things that teach you how to work a pencil, maybe a bit of counting, or again just the eye-exercise of focusing on a tiny area of a big page for a specific purpose.

Imagine spending a few minutes a day, for hundreds of days, in a lap with an adult laughing at the comics together. Before first grade starts, before McGuffey or Dick and Jane or the SRA color-coded story box. Just sitting comfortably, helping hold the paper, running a finger across the pace and "reading" the comics.

Riches.; 7/28/22, 9:45 AM
J Melcher said...: Comic BOOKS, a bit later, were the vocabulary builders. A seven-year-old who owned a stack of comic books would have no trouble with a text like:

"Hastily securing his silken cord, the cowled crusader began a stealthy descent into the renegades' cavernous lair."

The distant planet, some exotic realm, a fortress of solitude, an obscure volume from the archives of a mystic sect ...

It's especially difficult to teach reading to boys in our era because we have largely abandoned the technologies that, invisibly, introduced the mechanics of the skill.; 7/28/22, 10:04 AM
Tom T. said...: That's a fun Twitter account to follow.; 7/28/22, 11:09 AM
Václav Patrik Šulik said...: I learned a lot from comic books. Green Lantern Vol 2 #61, June 1968 issue taught me about theodicy and the evil in our own hearts. It was my Dostoevsky and Augustine.

I was 8 years old.

See the key page here or follow the link and read the whole comic book.

It was 1968, so it was trying to be "with it," which bugged me at the time, even though I didn't have the words for it ("Don't patronize me, man.") But still, yeah, I learned from my comic books.; 7/28/22, 11:29 AM
Narr said...: Was it McKinney who used to write about the Context of No Context in the NatLamp?

Comic books are big academic bidness nowadays--they're called Graphic Novels, donchano, and are a totes legit form of lit. YMMV.; 7/28/22, 12:07 PM
Narayanan said...: U.S. GDP Fell at 0.9% Annual Rate in Second Quarter
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FJB needs to eat more ice-cream and allow 2nd scoops for everyone to bring up GDP; 7/28/22, 3:35 PM