Glog

Glenn Fleishman Interrogates the Past

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Cover of "The Magazine: The Complete Archives." A close-up photo of an orange-and-black ladybird beetle lifting off from a green grass seed-head

A New Aperiodical Ecommerce Site!

After some months of on-and-off poking at it, I finally buckled down and migrated from a paid ecommerce host to one I host on my own server: it’s the Aperiodical Publishing Company store! Previously, I’ve had to host different bits in different places, and couldn’t bundle items together. Creating a custom site means you can purchase a book, a poster, an ebook, an audiobook, and a subscription to my premium mailing list all in one place! All card processing happens via Stripe, so I don’t store any payment data.

Screenshot of front page of Aperiodical ecommerce store showing Flong Time, No See and How Comics Are Made covers and information
A unified Aperiodical Publishing Co. site for all my books, including upcoming ones

apple

A Bad Apple (Account)

Usually, when I have a bad experience with something technological, I use it as an excuse to write a column (“Help Me, Glenn!” at Six Colors) or an article for a publication. However, I un-regret to report that something maddening was resolved before it reached that point.

Last week, I tried to log in to my Apple Account that I use for media and app purchases, one that I registered with iTunes long, long ago, and that is supported as a secondary account on all my devices. (Apple initially spun out its first cloud service with a requirement for setting up an email within it, so we couldn’t use our “regular” emails with it, but had to register @mac.com addresses.)

I also use this Apple Account with App Store Connect and other developer and publisher services. I tried to log in to App Store Connect last week

Several ducks, drakes and hens, standing on gravel

Migration

I’ve just migrated my blog for the Rth time, “R” being a number larger than three and lower than I can’t remember. Please report any trouble!

Not a Double Space, Full Stop

I was reminded today of a particular writer who is known for his precision, and wrote a book that was rather about that. I bounced off the book when I reached page 22, and found the following (including the abomination of indented footnotes).

An inaccurate description of several hundred years of typesetting and over 150 years of typewriting

I know of many fights over putting two spaces after a full stop, but the explanation above does a disservice to observation and history. It escaped the interest of the writer, but also apparently the editor, copy editor, and, perhaps, even the proofreader, as those must have existed for this particular book, and should have all known it was false.

First, remember what Ted Lasso said about bullies (see end of post) when you read the lead-in to the footnote above: “All them fellas that used to belittle me, not a

Glenn Fleishman standing between framed newspaper flongs (molds) and plates and an original and a video screen showing his video playing with captions on

Glenn’s Voice, Eternally, on Flong (and Comics)

My seeming home-away-from-home, the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (at the OSU), re-opens its galleries on May 23 with great one-two punch: a remarkable, first of its kind exhibition of Chris Ware’s work, that he was deeply involved in creating; a new permanent exhibition on the Story of Comics. That second one might sound up my alley—and, in fact, a short video I made about how comic strips were syndicated in the era of metal type appears on a continuous loop in the exhibition. Which means you can hear me talking about flong forever!

You can also watch it here.

The exhibition also includes at least one of the artifacts I donated as part of my research collection to the Billy Ireland—the large semi-cylindrical stereotype printing plate of a page of comics! It’s massive and interesting. The Ware show

Eisner Award Nomination for How Comics Are Made

In 2022, after having created a printed-related video for an exhibition at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at the Ohio State University, I flew out to Columbus to visit, and see their collection of original artwork and comics-related artifacts. I wasn’t sure what I’d find, and didn’t know then that I’d make three more trips over the next two years! What I discovered was a treasure trove of material that didn’t fall into most people’s areas of interest and expertise, including cartoons in plate forms, cartoon-sized and full-page newspaper printing molds (flongs), color guides made by cartoonists or assistants for the syndicate or engraver to follow for Sunday color strips, and a whole lot more. It hadn’t been overlooked or ignored, so much as biding its time, waiting for someone to have the obsession I did.

Glenn standing in corner of museum near pritnin artifacts and a video screen
During

We Should Improve Society with a Book

Today I launched a new book project called That One Matt Bors Comic with cartoonist Matt Bors! Matt’s “Mister Gotcha” cartoon in September 2016 became a meme through no fault of Matt’s, primarily for its final panel, in which one character says, “We should improve society somewhat,” while the other mocks him for trying to make any improvement while remaining in society.

Cartoon panel. Peasant in gray outfit at left carrying bundle of sticks in a strap over his shoulder says “We should improve society somewhat.” Man at right, perched in a well, says, “Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very intelligent.”
The panel that launched 1,000 conversation stoppers. Or did it start 1,000?

The book will feature over a dozen essays and cartoons by people who think about the terminally online, memes, culture wars, neoliberalism, effectuating change in a fallen world, and more.

We think there’s a lot to say, and have signed up an initial great cast of contributors, with more who will be announced over time. The full initial list is on the Kickstarter campaign, and includes K.C. Green, Anna Merlan,

Say Ahoy, Ahoy to Mister Plimsoll

Say Ahoy, Ahoy to Mister Plimsoll

Writing a column for Six Colors this week (appears Monday) in answer to a reader question, I realized the utility I wanted to recommend that they use didn’t exist. So I wrote it. Please welcome a new, free Mac app called Mister Plimsoll. It has a single-minded purpose: you set a threshold as a percentage of storage full for any volume you want to monitor. If that threshold is exceeded, Mister Plimsoll can pop-up a Mac alert, send you an email, and post an iMessage. You can choose one, two, or three of those options.

The app is in beta. It will remain free after beta, too! Mister Plimsoll is now in a production release! It remains free, and is available through direct download from its website and via the Mac App Store.

Photo of man in small glosses with mid-length hair and heavy beard, wearing a dotted vest, collarless shirt, and bowtie, in a formal jacket, with his hands holding each other

Why Mister Plimsoll? I considered Mister Creosote, a reference to a famous Monty Python

History

Considering Apple at 50

Many friends and colleagues have written recent reminscences of their first experiences with the Mac as Apple celebrates its 50th anniversary. See:

Apparently, I wrote my reminiscence in 2011, when Steve Jobs died. Below is

Not Wikipedia Entry

Glenning

Not Wikipedia Entry

I had an entry at Wikipedia for years, then it was removed in what I think was a 1–1 vote. Big ups for the person opposed to my notability.

People have tried in the years since to add an article about me back, but they continue to be challenged on that issue. You’re supposed to be covered by media, particularly interviewed or reviewed, in order to be notable.

Despite many entries being about people who just do things, and who have rarely had published interviews! I’m sure the Wikipedians are flooded with garbage, so to make it easier, I’ve written a Not Wikipedia entry, which, in no way, is an entry on Wikipedia. But it scratches an itch for me. If you know me, you know I’m proud of the work I do, but not incommensurately proud of it.

Cartooning

Snot-Nosed Kid Tries To Teach Cartoonist about Internet in 1994

Back in 1994, the internet had existed in some form for years under different names, but commercial use had just been allowed in 1993, and I started a web hosting company in mid-1994. Because I was snot-nosed kid, however, I liked to write famous people, like Dan Perkins, a.k.a. Tom Tomorrow, who penned one of my favorite alt-weekly strips. He replied politely in February 1994, and wrote back:

> Something you may be interested in on the Internet is this new 
> distribution system for information called World-Wide Web (WWW). It 
> allows the integration of different media: sound (live and stored), video 
> (live and stored), text, graphics, etc. all through one interface. People 
> are using this progam called "Mosaic" (developed by the NCSA: National 
> Center for Supercomputing Applications...why they're doing PC 
> applications? For scientists to use to
Round-Up

Round-Up

First up! I launched a new website, FindYourTag, that lists all devices that support Apple’s Find My Network, the crowdsourced location-tracking system accessible via the Find My app on iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch. This includes Apple’s own AirTags—now available in a 2nd-generation model—and audio hardware, as well as a few dozen trackers, eyeglass cases, and esoteric form factors from third parties that go through Apple’s Find My certification program. This serves as a complement to my book Take Control of Find My and AirTags, which is impossible to keep up to date with Find My Network items! (I receive affiliate fees from purchases made via Amazon and some other site links.)

FindYourTag lets you discover all the kinds of supported items, and filter by type.
FindYourTag lets you discover all the kinds of supported items, and filter by type.

The campaign for Flong Time, No See, my new collection of expanded and updated reported essays