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Some thought the racist quotes from Reagan & Nixon were revelations. Really? Did you not set their racist actions? War on drugs was an attack on minorities & specifically blacks. Ehrlichman just confirmed what we knew. Trump's racism isn't new to Rs.

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I remember a poll in '84 showing most Americans favored policies that Mondale proposed (w/o his name attached). But that's not how people voted.

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At our team meeting this morning, we had a question about the stupid "super intelligence" exec order. We have govt contracts, & who knows what will be required. I work in documentation so sadly we have to consider this crap. Oh and SI is trademarked by Sports Illustrated.

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A new page is up! As you've likely noticed if you've read these, Grace uses a different color palette for each scene, both to help with transitions & to fit the theme or mood. She sneaks in a little foreshadowing on this page. ;) #webcomics #comic #fantasy

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Bought! Looks really good. I've been aware of Iron Circus, but ever since I saw they were a coming publisher on Sweet Shop, I've been looking more at their titles.

Was it Pinkerton's or Truth? I like those. You can find various BBQ in Houston. You can find some older ETx BBQ. But they have all sorts. Even tho I was born there & my family's from that SE part of TX, I rarely went down there bc that humidity is brutal.

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TX has different BBQ styles. But Central TX BBQ has become synonymous w "Texas BBQ." I grew up in East TX, and I'm still partial to that style (which is pre-Civil War & older than Central TX BBQ.) South TX BBQ is damn good, too.

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gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The funniest part of Brothers . . . when McConaughey just walks up to Franklin's BBQ, and there's no line. I've had it only one time bc of lines. But lots of great BBQ in Austin. la barbeque, Interstellar. Leroy & Lewis is damn good & was the last TX BBQ we had before we moved to MD.

Matthew McConaughey walks up the food truck for Franklin's BBQ

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As bad as I thought Dukakis was in an "anyone but Jackson" primary, no, he wasn't comparable. (The whole slate seemed like bad choices.)

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gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yeah the truncated axis fallacy is very common. And often from people who should know better.

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

To Bunch's point about the media, they clearly see Biden's slow speech & confusion as worse than Trump's madness and hallucinations. Like yelling & monologuing are signs of good mental health. (This was clear in the 2024 coverage.) They've normalized incredibly bad behavior.

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

After the Baltimore Comic Con, Grace & I went to Angeli’s for some excellent pizza. It's a family-owned neighborhood place on St Charles in the Federal Hill neighborhood. We've yet to find a good NY style pizza in Frederick.

Medium Della Carne with pepperoni, Italian sausage, capricola, and pancetta.

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It’s funny how they complain about politics in their comics yet create their own which are driven entirely by politics & not the quality of stories. I assumed you didn’t want the specific mention in your threads.

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gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I assume this is the YouTuber out of Dallas. I’d hate to think there’s another.

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

We’re there on Sunday & will drop by. Last year’s was affected by the marathon, No King’s Protest, & the Trump/DOGE layoffs. Hopefully it’s good this year. My daughter would like to table there again.

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

As we walked to a bbq place for lunch, someone had their Halloween decorations out. No, I did not order ribs.

Two adult skeletons in blue metal chairs at a blue round metal table playing scrabble. A small skeleton sits in the lap of one adult skeleton.

A closeup of the words the skeletons have made in scrabble: GHOST, GHOULS, DRACULA, WIG, BLOODYMARY, GOBLIN

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Reposted by gary beason

To customize the Rarebit template, I work w liquid files, Github, css, image files, etc. I tracked the work in a spreadsheet. I categorized the work, as some items were initial setup while others are after the site's live. Spreadsheet template: tinyurl.com/5ys28avn #webcomic #selfhost

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I wholly support this, to the point of being a social stigma. Anti AI culture can be powerful if it permeates into habits.

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I've worked at 5 companies that were acquired. Except for 1 case (barely), those companies as business entities were gone within 5 years or less. People gone & products in sunset support. Watson Health gobbled up so many and then disappeared.

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Yep, yep, yep. And "massive change" means have ambitious ideas to make life better. Something else . . . never assume the successes can't be undone. As we saw with Roe, VRA, etc., it seemed those successes were safe & secure. Even taken for granted in places.

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Vegan liberals aren't taking beef from Texans. Republicans are.

Jonathan Edwards @jontofski.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Reposted by gary beason

John Coltrane. Born 100 years ago today. Acrylic, ink and pencil.

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Here's a diagram of how all the Rarebit, Eleventy, Github, & host pieces work together. Eleventy automates & simplifies customizing the Rarebit template and automates many updates, like the nav buttons & the archive links. #webcomic #selfhost

A diagram that shows the tools used to create a webcomic site. Rarebit is the comic template that has the basic elements common to webcomics. This template is adapted to work with Eleventy which automates and then generates the web output files. The source files are saved to Github, so that we have a version history in case something goes wrong. A Github workflow then builds the files and pushes them to the host for the webcomic -- Nekoweb. We registered our domain with Spaceship, which points the name to the host URL.

Webcomic Test & Publish Walkthrough

A short walkthru of testing & publishing a webcomic w the Rarebit comic template + Eleventy + Github. It's a fast process: The site updates ~5 min after I push to Github, which auto pushes files to Nekoweb (site host). With the Tapas news, this might be useful. #webcomic youtu.be/1h2qfnftiKQ

youtu.be

YouTube video by Gary Beason

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With Tapas shutting down, many must look for a host. Many good options. Here’s the one @gracekb-art.bsky.social & I used. Later, I’ll post a quick demo of the publishing steps & a task list for customizing Rarebit template I made. #webcomic

It seemed a good or at least decent discovery site for webcomics. 3 months in, that’s been tough w self hosted. A couple of webcomic directories seem broken. And social media isn’t what it was.

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So glad I helped my daughter build her webcomic site instead of using Tapas. She was going to use it as a mirror. no point now. My heart goes out to those who must move from Tapas.

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So, if Democrats win the House and Senate, what will Trump try to hold hostage to get his demands? How much blackmail will we see?

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And you have to smell pretty good for someone to say something. Working from home for a few years, I got lazy. Around March, I started wearing cologne again no matter if I were in public or not.

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Good to hear. And wasn't it that northern band that flipped in particular? Would the northeast with Colleyville & Southlake remain solid R? I'm curious how much of those wealthy areas turn on Trump.

Gene Colan's Dracula & Jack Palance. As a kid in the 70s, I loved the similarity. And that was before Palance played Dracula. Anecdote: I looked forward to the movie on Friday night tv, only for it to be bumped at the last minute so Tricky Dick could announce Ford as replacing Agnew as VP.

Cover of Tomb of Dracula #55 with Dracula pointing out to the reader, the moon sits behind him with a skull design

From the 1974 tv movie Dracula, Jack Palance bearing his teeth

Wham is based on a Novick panel, but Roy also changed the attack & target planes. The target plan uses one that Heath drew (panel 3 pg 3 of the same All American Men of War #89), hence the focus on that in Heath’s 2nd panel. Paul Gravett pointed this out in 2013.

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Bingo. I've said for a few years now that AI (esp gen AI) is technological kudzu: We've introduced something without fully understanding the ramifications.

I did have some misgivings & uncertainty about the point at which memory & processing cycles became cheap and less focus was on conserving those resources. But I didn't connect Wirth's Law with this shift from human problems until now.

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So, tech is no longer about solving people's problems. At least much effort is spent to automate & compute more things faster, moving from human-centered to machine-centered. We've grown up with this. Like you, I'm questioning it...hard. It's nearly a 180 for me from the late 80s. Even late 90s.

I don't think that's always been the premise of technology, which has over the course of human history been to solve a problem. The computer age changed that, where Moore's Law became teleological & the goal. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. This unmoored tech from human experience & needs.

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Calling Trump a populist was such a lazy move and contributed to the illiteracy. He's the opposite of populism where it matters most. Then again, what passes for populism among conservatives--Wallace, Coughlin, McCarthy.

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Nice melody and tasty playing. I love the sound of the guitar, which should be excellent since it's ~$4500. 😉 He was in a band in college w John Gorka. Retired, he plays gigs in eastern PA, so I might catch him. I love discovering musicians like this on Youtube. www.youtube.com/shorts/1B_gm...

youtube.com

Lowden O-25 “cedar in the moonlight.” if you like, please subscribe🙏🙏🙏☺️#lowdenguitars

YouTube video by russ rentler

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Something in particular providing accounts?

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gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

And there’s an actual Catherine Richard’s at Saint Martins. What’s the goal? To eventually ask for money? Or to get your work in progress? Or something else?

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gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

VERY nice. I've long thought that 80s run of albums has to be among the best. Stevie Wonder's run is great. But the Pat Metheny Group had 6 amazing albums. And that doesn't include As Falls Wichita....

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gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Very nice followup from Nate (to an earlier video about Nonplayer). I bought #1 very early: It instantly grabbed me. The art & story stuck with me over the years. I like he's still working on it & his approach and mindset. Compassion & good health are important. www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3oS...

youtube.com

Only Partially Destroyed By Comics: Nonplayer From the Inside

YouTube video by Nate Simpson

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Yep. Plus, in 2022, Beto didn't sniff this kind of polls numbers against Abbott. While TX has had highly regressive taxes for decades, the "TX economic boom" claim is finally wearing thin. The K-shaped economy is alive & well there.

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gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

It would be interesting to check the parking lot of Prestonwood Baptist Church. Any Talarico stickers would be impressive.

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gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

SPX was fun. Grace sold 2x as many comics as a normal show, though fewer original character prints. And she had picked some good books. (I did, too, which I'll post later.) I enjoyed talking with Jon Allen, who was our booth neighbor. #indiecomics #comics

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Van Dorn thinks "being mad" only as the emotional response, hence "the big show." The emotional response is only a part of it. Even a small part. It's the anger expressed as action with urgency, with clear, blunt condemnation, with principle. All these things are needed but missing.

gary beason @gbeason.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I see Giants & Cowboys are playing with a Michigan clock. Several snaps have been after the play clock reads 00.