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The
Quigblog: 2008
Warning:
This is not a real blog so don't expect to add your two
cents. To be honest, allowing visitors to have their interactive
say would be pretty cool but I'm not interested in spending
the time setting it up or running it. So, for now, just content
yourselves with the following chonologically-ordered bits
of Quigmans-flavored ejectamenta.
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12-22-08:
Before I begin, go read this fabulous
cartoon at xkcd.com. (I used to be that guy, tilting at
any and every phosphor-powered windmill, but now I save all
my accumulated umbrage for Bucky-boy.)
Now back to our
story, which is already in progress.
A couple of days ago I began seriously kicking around the idea
of deleting all of the data on this web site and turning it
into
a porn
emporium beginning on New Year's Day 2009. Yes, Quigmans.com
would be your new one-stop-shop for strap-on's and anal lube.
But something happened.
I chanced upon a vast treasure trove of ignorance ala Quigmans
at gocomics.com. (For details, please read the 12-22-08 entry
in the Catharsis section.) As a result of my encounter I shall
be continuing in the fine old tradition of spleen-venting without
pause, only
now I'll be taking
it one
step
further.
In the past I courteously reserved my comments about the most
current
Quigmans
cartoon for 24 hours in order to allow the commercial comic
sites to exact their pound
of
internet
flesh. But no more. From here on I'll be posting my vexatious
critiques as soon as I'm physically able. Most of you won't
notice the difference but that's okay. I'm the one who has
to sleep at night, and with a belly empty of bile I'll sleep
jusssst fine. |
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| 12-9-08:
As I write this 24 of the last 26 Quigmans cartoons have
been recycled,
mostly from 2004. Even if all of the rest of December's comics
were new Buddy would still set a record this year for most
re-used material ever. For Buddy, that's saying a lot. |
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12-8-08:
The Aspen Times recently polled its readers on which comics
to keep and
which to axe. They voted for Zits, Shoe, Peanuts, Girls & Sports,
B.C. and Mother Goose & Grimm. They deleted Garfield, Sherman’s
Lagoon, Mr. Boffo, Mutts, Zippy and (wait for it) The Quigmans. Good
going, gang!
In modest defense of the Quigs I have to say that the readers
of the Aspen Times must be some species of neanderthal. Apart
from Zits and Mutts, both of which are excellent, the rest of
the
line-up
is
strictly for the Ensure-and-Depends set. |
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10-29-08:
I've been habituating gocomics.com lately as they allow registered
visitors to comment on the daily comics, including the
Quigs. This would
be like a dream come true if not for the fact that so few
people
visit the
Quig page,
at least judging by the comparative paucity of comments.
It's hardly worth the time to chop that tree down since
so few are there to hear me yell "TIMMMMM-BERRRR!",
but I do the best that I can.
One of the more frequent posters is a user named "tomsaaristo",
who unfailingly has something marginally positive to say
about the Quigs, rousing corkers like "That's fun-knee!".
(Later "That's funny!". Way to let it all hang out,
Tom.)
Today I Googled his
name and discovered that he was an account
executive at Tribune Media Services, the Quigmans syndicate
up until December 2007. Mr. Saaristo now sucks the blood
of the living at his new job at Getty Images. (I.E. Microsoft,
which is buying
up the rights to classic images, like the Mona Lisa, by
the boatload. There's money to be made charging ridiculous
sums for public
images
and likewise in suing web owners for unknowingly posting
these "copyrighted" images... to the tune of $1200 each. Good old MS.)
So the majority of the posters for the Quigs at gocomics are ex-collaborators
and ex-employers. Now that's comedy.
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10-14-08:
Something's amiss.
The Quigmans aren't updating on three of the major comic
sites. They're all two days behind. I'll keep you posted.
(Update 10-28-08: After being AWOL for a week the Quigs
are back at Yahoo and Gocomics.)
While researching the problem I stumbled across comicalert.com,
which allows people to sign up for RSS feeds to hundreds,
possibly thousands, of various comics. The best part is
they show the popularity of each
comic as a percentage of total subscribers, the results
of which have left me positively rhapsodic with glee. Here
they
are:
| Name |
# Subscribers |
Percentage |
| Calvin & Hobbes |
5,400 |
21.62% |
| Zits |
3,243 |
12.98% |
| Pearls
Before Swine |
1,327 |
5.31% |
| Bizarro |
979 |
3.92% |
| Sinfest |
952 |
3.81% |
| Hi & Lois |
469 |
1.88% |
| Herb & Jamaal |
35 |
0.14% |
| Quigmans |
27 |
0.11% |
The Quigs were one of the lowest of the syndicated strips available,
the closest in popularity being Herb & Jamaal.
If you've read that
comic then you know why. I chose Hi & Lois because they're
sort of middle-of-the- road. By comparison, they made the Quigmans
look like roadkill.
I also added the result to a popular web-comic, Sinfest.
The results speak for themselves. |
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10-1-08:
Ohhhhhh, baby!
I have stumbled upon the Motherload, a full ten years of
old Quigmans all the way back to 1998. I'm systematically
updating all the pages and learning my memory really sucks.
On some of the pages the listing of re-used comics is literally
tripling or more. Stay tuned. |
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7-25-08:
It's been quite the week for Buddy as he's created seven
Quigmans cartoons
in a row that denigrate women. In case you missed them here
they are in a nutshell:
Friday 7-18: Depressed barfly in relationship with preschooler
bemoans resultant debilitating physical ailments.
Saturday 7-19: Bitter shrew insensitively wipes feet on harmless
male acquaintance.
Monday 7-21: Woman succumbs to self-delusion rather than face
the truth about her trainwreck of a spouse.
Tuesday 7-22: TV program designed specifically for a female
demographic is lampooned.
Wednesday 7-23: Relationships with women are compared to life
in prison.
Thursday 7-24: Woman meets a man who wants to split her skull
open and root around in her brain.
Friday 7-25: Cute girl senselessly portrayed in stupid cartoon...
I mean, needlessly threatened by man wielding rabid dog. |
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7-16-08:
A week ago the Quigmans punchline alluded to people who suck
semen out of one another's ass. (see entry below). Today,
the Quigmans punchline included the word “friggin'”. It
replaced the word “frickin'” from the joke's 2004 appearance.
I'm no prude but how close to “fuckin'” do you have to
get before the editors get a clue? |
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7-10-08:
Today the Quigmans used the word "felcher" in its punchline.
Though the word was used as someone's name you might find
it interesting to know what the Urban Dictionary has to
say about the word:
"Felch: A sexual practice in which semen or other
fluids are sucked out of the vagina or anus of a partner."
It's clear Buddy actually made a conscious decision to use that
exact word, especially considering the original appearance of
the comic back in 2002 identified the character as
"Fletcher". I'm actually surprised he didn't depict the character
playing
a rusty
trombone
while
enjoying
some donkey
punch with
his good
friend Dirty Sanchez. |
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7-9-08:
Late in 2007 Buddy phoned me and said the Quigmans were
finished. It was, however, just a cheesey ploy to somehow
gain my sympathy, but to what end I shall never know. Or
care.
Anyhoo, not only did the Quigmans not end, as promised, they've actually gone
on to suck in ways unimaginable by reasonable men. Buddy is currently using record
numbers of old cartoons, sometimes creating no more than four or five new Quigmans
per month. It's clear Creators Syndicate doesn't care if one of its products
is basically staggering around the park with its pants around it knees, puking
up bits of moldy hot dogs and groping any little boys that unwisely stray too
near. Mine is not to question why, mine is but to conjure inappropriately disgusting
visual metaphor to describe the situation. |
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6-19-08:
I don't know if you're aware of this but when you visit a web
site as a result of using a search engine, like Google, the
web logs keep a record of your search terms. With that little
preamble out of the way I thought I'd share with you some
of the search phrases people have used that led them to quigmans.com
during the month of June. I am NOT making these up:
Tommy Lees dick
Toni Daytona fucking
funny rodent pictures
anal demolition
hey sailor new in town?
adorable santa cartoon
lousiest website (I'm so proud!)
male goatee and glasses
sucking boys scrotum
man having anal sex with horse
pictures of coronary thrombosis
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crappy dollar
clip-art
tinkerbell baby nurse reborn
I think that you stink
gnome garden hose
pointing kidney head movie joke
previously (Yes, just "previously")
cute cartoon girls that are playing sports
grecian formula for women
sexually satisfied dog
woman pooping in pants
man with the yellow hat eating a banana |
All told, they look more like a Fellini film than
search engine results.
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5-31-08:
I just did a quick count and of the 27 possible Quigmans cartoons
submitted for the month of May fifteen are
old ones from years past and two of the new ones were
written by other people. That's leaves a total of ten new
Quigmans comics this month.
Ten.
Don't you wish your job was that easy?
This basically means that when Buddy said he was giving up
doing the Quigmans, back at the end of 2007, he actually
meant
it. He's just doing less of them REEEEEEEAL slow. |
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| 4-30-08:
Just in case you're wondering, of the twenty-six Quigman
cartoons published in April eleven were re-runs. That's 42%
of regurgitated goodness. |
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4-5-08:
Here's an imaginary conversation:
"Thank you for coming in. I see by my
records that you had one brief, creative period running
one vapid, literary
idea into
the ground
as long
as humanly possible. You're now looking for a company that
will allow you to endlessly recycle your old material, even
offer works written by other people, in a cynical attempt
to exploit your fan-base for every penny it's got while you
sit on your
fat
ass watching
Celebrity
Rehab and American Idol. To that I say 'Welcome to Creators
Syndicate',
Ms. Rowling."
To those of you who are asking themselves "What the heck
is THAT all about?" allow me to point out that since Buddy
signed with Creators Syndicate about every third Quigmans
comic this year heralds from an earlier Quigman epoch. Twenty-eight
in all from a total of eighty-two. Add to that another ten
panels written by his sycophants and ex-girlfriends and you
have a nice tidy picture of sloth at its finest. |
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3-6-08:
Someone out there in Internet Land recently found this web site
after performing a Google search using the phrase
"mike stanfill sucks".
I couldn't be more proud. <sniff>
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2-22-08:
Almost exactly one year ago I Googled various comic strip names
just to gauge their relative popularity. Out of curiosity
I searched for the same names again and got some curious
results.
Red means the strip has lost search results, green means
they've gained and blue means less than a 10% shift either
way.
March
10,2007
Doonesbury - 1,999,000
Calvin and Hobbes - 1,800,000
The Far Side - 1,460,000
For Better Or For Worse - 1,330,000
Marmaduke - 1,030,000
Get Fuzzy - 642,000
Mallard Fillmore - 550,000
Family Circus - 424,000
Diesel Sweeties - 413,000
Andy Capp - 314,000
Beetle Bailey - 259,000
Sally Forth - 255,000
Rose Is Rose - 157,000
Hagar the Horrible - 155,000
Prickly City - 150,000
Zippy the Pinhead - 138,000
Funky Winkerbean - 115,000
Rhymes With Orange - 113,000
Quigmans 94,000
Snuffy Smith - 77,700
Spot the Frog - 60,300
Hi & Lois - 57,000
Lockhorns - 46,100
Six Chix - 36,900
Pardon My Planet - 12,000
Willy & Ethyl - 3 |
February
22, 2008
Doonesbury - 1,470,000
Calvin and Hobbes - 3,7400,000
The Far Side - 2,950,000
For Better Or For Worse - 1,060,000
Marmaduke - 1,120,000
Get Fuzzy - 2,070,000
Mallard Fillmore - 58,000
Family Circus - 503,000
Diesel Sweeties - 678,000
Andy Capp - 455,000
Beetle Bailey - 670,000
Sally Forth - 193,000
Rose Is Rose - 67,000
Hagar the Horrible - 69,500
Prickly City - 39,000
Zippy the Pinhead - 77,500
Funky Winkerbean - 49,400
Rhymes With Orange - 104,000
Quigmans 21,800
Snuffy Smith - 48,000
Spot the Frog - 16,400
Hi & Lois - 6,400
Lockhorns - 28,700
Six Chix -17,100
Pardon My Planet - 9,960
Willy & Ethyl - 5 |
It's no suprise that the Far Side and Calvin & Hobbes
remain in the hearts of web geeks everywhere, but to have increased
200% in the case of C&H is
astonishing. Kudos also to Beetle Bailey and Willy & Ethyl,
which almost doubled their results to 5 whole search responses. But
the Beeg Weener is Get Fuzzy, with more than a 300% jump. Wow!
While the Quigs lost a personally satisfying 75% chunk of their
internet presence, as did Prickly City, the Really Big Losers
were Hi & Lois and Mallard Fucking Fillmore, both down almost
90%.
See you next year, kids. |
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2-21-08:
So far, only 42+ Quigs into the 2008 edition, Buddy has already
re-used fifteen old Quigmans cartoons. I know it's painful
for you, but do the math anyway.
While my knowledge on such things is based solely on supposition
I'm pretty sure that Buddy's position at his former syndicate,
Tribune Media, was cut short due to just this very type of
over-reliance on old material. And when I say "over-reliance"
I really mean "full-metal-ass-lazy".
I bring this up because SURELY his new syndicate, Creators,
was aware of his long-standing slothful tendencies and SURELY
they're aware of the fact that the trend continues unabated.
That Buddy is plainly showing his contempt for both his readers
and his new employers in such a short span leaves me
with the uneasy feeling that his new bosses could
care
less
if
Buddy
creates
original
material
or not. In fact, their general apathy towards his production
may have been part of the deal.
What was that old saying about laying down with dogs? Oh,
yeah... you wake up with Quigmans.
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2-15-08:
I made this video a couple of weeks ago but didn't know quite
where to put it on the site. So, for now, it's on this here
'blog'. Enjoy
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1-22-08:
Portalofevil.com
said the nicest thing about this web site last week:
"Former co-writer for "The Quigmans" outlines
the author's recycling of jokes in insanely obsessive detail.
Also worth a look is the completely serious deconstruction of
each day's "joke" in the "Catharsis" section."
"Insanely obsessive". <sniff> I'm so proud. |
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1-16-08:
About two months ago Buddy suddenly started using all-new gags,
which had me concerned about this web site's fate as it is predicated
precisely upon such sloth. But since the beginning of the new
year exactly half of the Quigmans gags have re-used old material,
restoring my faith in one man's lack of humanity. All is right
in my little world.
Typically, today's old gag was so lame I'd completely forgotten
it. Thank goodness I keep good records. |
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1-7-08:
The reports of the Quigmans' death have proved to be greatly
exaggerated.... by Buddy.
Although Buddy had earlier hinted that the end of the Quigmans
might soon be at hand they have instead merely played a rousing
game of Musical Syndicates, moving from Tribune Media Services
to the Creators Syndicate. I have no detailed information about
the switch but it's pretty evident that it wasn't purely Buddy's
decision. However, after perusing Creators' stellar line-up
of comic strips I think he's finally found a suitable home.
By that I mean, I used to think the comics assortment profferred
by Tribune Media was solely reserved for old people and their
parents until I beheld Creators' uniformly insipid line-up.
Wizard of Id? Andy Capp? Heathcliffe?
Air! I need air! And a best of Calvin & Hobbes book!
I have a personal list of comics I never miss and I'm both sad
and proud to report that not one of them is syndicated by Creators,
although there was a time when they syndicated the vaunted Far
Side. They also syndicate Liberty Meadows, a strip I happen
to appreciate purely for artistic reasons since its storyline
has all the subtle literary refinement of a blow to the head
with a large salami. Needless to say, my future association
with Creators wil be based on need, not desire.
See you in the funny papers, kids. |
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1-4-08:
Information has surfaced revealing the Quigmans have been dropped
from the San Jose Mercury News comics pages as of January 1st.
Now that's a happy new year!
Also, three of the four Quigmans this year have been recycled
old ones. Methinks something untoward is afoot. |
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| 1-2-08:
The Grande Experiment of how long Buddy could go before re-using
an old cartoon lasted exactly one day into 2008 as today's gag
was a moldy-oldie from 2002. I wasn't exactly holding my breath
but, as it turns out, I almost could have. |
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1-1-08:
Buddywatch is now officially entering its thirteenth year of
notating Buddy's sloth as it regards the Quigmans. I'm not sure
what the year will bring but here's to you for coming along
for the ride.
By some minor coincidence I met Buddy almost exactly 30 years
ago as an art student at East Texas University. My, how time
do fly. |
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