The Free-Range Comic Book Project XIV
This is an installment of Media Diet's Free-Range Comic Book Project.

Saturday: Birds of Prey #15 (DC, March 2000). Writer: Chuck Dixon. Artist: Butch Guice. Location: On the Red Line between Central and Harvard squares.

Notable quote: "what an idiot i am. Meeting an e-mail acquaintance. And he's late."

For more information on this project, please refer to this Media Diet entry.

Digesting the Daily X
Recent editions of the Daily Northwestern, the student newspaper of my
alma mater, featured several media-, technology-, and activism-related
items that might be of interest to Media Dieticians.

Man taken off death row with NU's help dies at 46
Professors who worked on case reflect in Williams' life after his
exoneration
(April 1, 2003)

Spring book-buying frenzy at Norris praised as hassle-free
Some students still skeptical about campus monopoly after SBX closing
(April 2, 2003)

CAESAR alternative shut down without explanation
NUtopia helped McCormick students track progress on degrees -- for 4
days
(April 3, 2003)

Extra credit to Bottom of the Food Chain cartoonist Alex Thomas for putting his comic strip archives online. Someone should publish this guy.

[transmitted via sidekick hiptop.]

Anchormen, Aweigh! XIX
It's official, the Anchormen CD release party for "Nation of Interns" has been scheduled for May 16 at the Milky Way in Jamaica Plain. This is also the third anniversary of the Handstand Command arts collective and the birthday party for a friend! Plenty to celebrate.

The show will feature Asian Babe Alert, the Operators, the Anks, and the Reaganauts, an '80s hardcore tribute band featuring members of Tizzy. In that order.

Come one, come all. It'll be a real happening.

Weather Report XI
World, it's not so much that I mind the cold. Or the rain. Or the snow. But your indecision and vacillating nature is starting to get to me. Wednesday was cold and overcast. Yesterday was absolutely brilliant, crisp, clear, and clean. The kind of weather that makes me just want to run. And today? Overcast, cold, and now drizzling or something. Make up your mind, please.

Comics and Commerce III
Guess who just won a Xeric grant? Somervillain Jef Czekaj. Congratulations, Jef!

Corollary: Comics and Community X
I've been informed that there's another widely used open-source comic book character, the Russian cult comic strip character Octobriana. Stuart Taylor seems to be the character's biggest proponent, but Octobriana has also been used by Bryan Talbot and the Luther Arkwright GURPS role-playing game. While her storied past is equal parts myth and history, Octobriana's impact on pop culture, while largely unseen, is relatively widespread, including implementations in Finland as well as the UK. Michael Kennally has even organized the Octobriana Society to further research about, understanding and use of this character. Interesting stuff!

Corollary: Off-Site Insight III
I just sold my first ever Amazon Marketplace or Ebay item, an unopened "Caddyshack" DVD to a woman in Tennessee. Thus begins my spring cleaning and stuff-selling stint! I'm quite surprised how excited and happy I felt when I got the email saying my item had sold. I felt complete. Liked. Successful. What if no one had wanted my item? What if it lingered long, unwanted, unclaimed, unbought? Worries, all for naught. I sold my stuff. What a weird rush.

Comics and Community X
Jenny Everywhere, AKA "The Shifter," is an open-source comic book character created by Steven, who uses the same Blogger template I use. The character has been used by David LoTempio, MC Lentil, and Nelson Evergreen.

What a fascinating concept. Are there other open-source comic book characters or shared world comics projects?

From the In Box: Dog and Pony (No) Show
One of the better hoaxes. Funny as hell, and damn near impossible to figure it out. -- Kevin O'Donovan

It makes me sad that this place doesn't exist. I still love Dog Island.

Dog and Pony (No) Show
I can't believe that this is true. I just got four copies of the same spam email, which describes Dog Island. Dog Island? More than 2,500 dogs are running free on a series of small islands, seemingly off the coast of Florida. They released 10,000 rabbits on the island two years ago to provide prey, and the Web site is just a kick! You can listen to .wav files of dogs barking. There's a cheekily written FAQ that includes such gems as

There is one island reserved for the miniatures like Chihuahas and tiny poodles.

But what do the rabbits eat? A crew of 15 vegetation restoration engineers are constantly planting large patches of wild carrot.

My dog is very very fat. Will it make it on the island?

If I visit the Island, how can I be sure to see my dog? You can't be sure.

And the island is only open to visitors three days a year. I'm busting a gut! There are typos in the organizers' phone number online, and the writing is all slightly askew, so who knows if this real. Regardless, it's a charming idea, and I quite like the concept of an island almost entirely populated by dogs, continual carrot plantings, and dogs forming subsocieties and packs. But questions abound.

Where does their funding come from? Do the dogs go feral? Why do they want so many dogs in one place at one time? Will the dogs rise up in revolt? Why segregate the dogs by size?

Wow. I love Dog Island.

Read But Dead IX
According to Media Life, Bob Guccione, Jr., has pulled the plug on Maxim wannabe lad mag Gear, causing media spotters to speculate that the great lad mag explosion of the 2K's is about to implode. Fellow copycats Ramp and Razor hustle to differentiate -- and distance -- themselves from the grand old lad mags Maxim, FHM, and Stuff. In the end, they come off as silly apologists.

"I think that the laddie category is oversaturated," says Richard Amann, president and publisher of Ramp Media, which publishes Ramp. "You've got the big three and a bunch of 'me too' laddie products."

Dude, you publish one of those me too's. You've helped oversaturate the category.

"When Razor came out, it was hard because all these other Maxim clones came out at the same time," says Craig Vasiloff, editor in chief of Razor. "To compete on newsstands with all those publications, we almost had to do those covers."

Dude, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Fess up to editing a Maxim clone.

Now these magazines are repositioning themselves somewhere in between the lad mags and the Esquire/GQ set. Which makes me wonder where Details and Men's Journal fit into this categorization. Good luck to all involved. If POV couldn't make a go of it -- and if Griff Wigley can't find funding for his Real Joe magazine, what the heck are the Razors and the Ramps of the world going to do?

It's an Ad, Ad, Ad, Ad World XXV
The Boston.com logo is adorned with jewelry today. Clicking on it gets you a pop up advertising a "diamond happening" at Long's today through Saturday. The Poynter Institute's Steve Outing expresses concern about the media ethics of selling your masthead and logo.

To tell the truth, I probably wouldn't have even noticed if it hadn't been brought to my attention. (Not that I read Boston.com regularly.) And I probably wouldn't have clicked on it even if I had. But the ethics questions are valid. Would McDonald's adorn its golden arches with someone else's logo? Would the Boston Globe change its masthead in the print edition to advertise a business partner? Seems like a bad branding move to me.

Also, given that I wouldn't have noticed or sought to learn more anyway, it seems like a silly move on behalf of the advertiser. Maybe it's true that bad PR is good PR and the fact that folks are talking about this means it worked. But an ad on the home page may have made more of an impression -- and probably would've cost a heck of a lot less.

Thanks to Lost Remote.