How Facebook is Killing Comedy

Funny or Die Hit With Layoffs

An important article on comedy website Splitsider.com, analyses how Facebook is destroying comedy sites.  The article charges Facebook with running a “payola scam” and that they have re-invented the web by designing a “centrally designed internet” that serves to make profit for FB but there is actually no money for developers of content and the creative folks who are actually making funny content.  Below is a clip from this article, the link to read the entire article on Splitsider follows the clip:

Last month, in its second round of layoffs in as many years, comedy hub Funny or Die reportedly eliminated its entire editorial team following a trend of comedy websites scaling back, shutting down, or restructuring their business model away from original online content. 

Hours after CEO Mike Farah delivered the news via an internal memo, Matt Klinman took to Twitter, writing, “Mark Zuckerberg just walked into Funny or Die and laid off all my friends.” It was a strong sentiment for the longtime comedy creator, who started out at UCB and The Onion before launching Pitch, the Funny or Die-incubated joke-writing app, in 2017.

But Klinman explained in a thread: “There is simply no money in making comedy online anymore. Facebook has completely destroyed independent digital comedy and we need to fucking talk about it.”

We’re not sure about you, but that certainly piqued our interest. We sat down with Klinman to fucking talk about it (and just a note–these opinions are his, and he’s speaking for himself and not on behalf of Funny or Die).

So: What happened at Funny or Die?

Click Here to read the rest of this important story on Splitsider.com

Charlie Hebdo Run By Radical Leftists Who Have No Humor, Just Agit-Prop

Latest Issue Is Actually Anti-Humor For Shock Value Only

The latest issue of the famed so-called humor magazine from France shows that in the final analysis, the editors actually have no sense of humor at all, they are political extremists  dishing out leftist agit-prop in the manner of the old dead Stalinist communist international.  If you look at their covers, for years you will not find a lot to laugh at.  It is just sick depictions of Muslims and Christians, among others.  Compare it to American humor magazines, like MAD Magazine.  Even in its wildest issues, Mad never crossed the line of actual depraved political propaganda.  Charlie, you ain’t funny now and you haven’t ever been funny.  A pity some stupid Muslims attacked your office.  You were on the way to propaganda bankruptcy, and suddenly wrapped yourself in victim-hood, and shoveled in millions of dollars from average folks who don’t really understand your game.  If the attack had never happened, you’d be in the unemployment line with the rest of your neo-Stalinist pals.

Hey Charlie Boys – Who You Callin’ “Nazis”?

The latest issue shows God drowning all the Texans because they are Nazis and racists.  Really?  You sick jerks in Paris really believe that?  And you think the whole Hurricane Harvey is funny?

Here’s something that would really be funny:  Watch the fun if a couple of Charlie Hebdo execs show up in Houston to pass out their rag to those in an evacuation center. Ha!  Lights out for the agit-prop boys.  And watch out for them gators as you’re trying to swim away from all those angry “Nazis”!

Here’s what the folks in the evacuation centers really look like:  Americans. I don’t see any Nazis here.  The Charlie boys in Paris must be smokin’ some powerful fear-weed to come up with this one.

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Genevieve Castree at Skylight Book Shop 2013

Canadian Artist, Cartoonist, Writer and Musician Presented Her Book “Susceptible”

SuseptibleGenevieve Castree 1981-2016

Her tragic early death at age 35 in 2016 was shocking to her fans.  She waged a heroic battle against pancreatic cancer.  It seems so unfair that such a talented young woman would be taken away.  The Comics Journal ran a nice article about her life and work, click here to read it.  The video from Skylight shows a shy, young lady, who had a fascinating story of  her growing up in Canada, which she managed to illustrate in a charming cartoon book format.  Click on the box below to watch this wonderful talk by Genevieve.

 

Gilbert Hernandez – “How I Got Started In Comics”

Gilbert Hernandez Discusses the Comics and Artists Who Influenced Him

Love and Rockets Brothers At Skylight Book Shop in Hollywood!

 

DSC_1035 Gil and Marble bookBeloved cartoonist Gilbert Hernandez (LOVE & ROCKETS) launched his new D+Q graphic novel MARBLE SEASON, at Skylight Bookshop in Hollywood to a packed room of his fans and comic readers. Hernandez presented a fascinating slide show “From Funnybooks to Graphic Novels” featuring the comics of his childhood.  In addition, there was a question and answer session with fans and a book signing. (Some signed copies may still be available at Skylight).  The silver age comics he read as a child not only influenced MARBLE SEASON, but also set the course for Gilbert, as well as his brothers Jaime and Mario, to become the legendary comics creators they are today.

Marble Season is his first graphic novel for Drawn & Quarterly

MARBLE SEASON is the first ever semi-autobiographical novel by acclaimed cartoonist 200px-LoveAndRockets31Gilbert Hernandez of Love & Rockets, and is also his first graphic novel for Drawn & Quarterly. Meet Huey. He’s the middle child of a big family, growing up in a California suburb in the 1960s. He stages Captain America plays in the backyard and treasures his older brother’s comic-book collection almost as much as his approval. Set against the golden age of the American dream and the silver age of comics, MARBLE SEASON is a subtle and deft rumination on the redemptive and timeless power of storytelling and world-building in childhood.

“Perhaps no other current creators of comics recognize (or vividly remember) the ways actual kids think, talk, or even stand and walk as accurately as the Hernandez brothers, and no other comics artists so delicately intertwine moments of childhood trauma with the goofy logic that otherwise sustains kids when they begin to sense that they live in an irrational world.”—from the afterword by Corey Creekmur

“Gilbert Hernandez is one of the great craftsmen of modern comics.”—New York Times

Praise for Palomar: “These deeply influential tales, a sort of Archie-comics-meets-Marquez melange of complicated pan-American inter-relationships, are a comix epic.”—Time

Praise for Gilbert Hernandez: “He…[should]…be considered one of the greatest American storytellers. It’s so hard to do funny, tragic, local and epic, and he does all simultaneously, and with great aplomb.”—Junot Diaz, Los Angeles TIMES

Click here to see video on youtube.

Click here to go to Skylight Books to get a signed copy.

Or watch the embedded video below:

 

T-Rex Barges Into Skylight Books in Hollywood

T-Rex is Big, He’s Cute, and He’s Trying to Cope With Modern Society

Hugh Murphy and his brother started drawing T-Rex cartoons while doodling on the placemat at a restaurant.  Little did Hugh know what a success Rex would become! When Hugh’s wife started putting the cartoons up on the Tumblr web site, they developed a large following.  This led to the first book of these cartoons, called “T-Rex Trying”, which debuted at Skylight Books Friday February 8, 2013.  If you missed the party, sit back and watch the complete video.  At the end of the presentation is a further slide show of the cartoons, so you are in for plenty of laughs.

Copies of “T-Rex Trying” are available at Skylight Books

Click here to watch the event on youtube:  T-Rex at Skylight

Click on the window below for the embedded version

Contact Skylight for a signed copy of the book “T-Rex Trying”.

 

 

http://trextrying.tumblr.com/