Comments on: Al Jaffee's Tall Tales: skinny comics with snappy humor

By: Simon Greenwood

Simon Greenwood — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

That cartoon isn’t about the tile-layers running out. Look again at the tiles that they’ve got left…

By: David

David — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

If that’s an indication of the type of comics in his book, I’m definitely gonna get it.

By: reglobb

reglobb — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

hey! cool tie!!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Optimized for the iPhone!

By: WeightedCompanionCube

WeightedCompanionCube — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Doesn’t matter what tiles they have left, there’s no way to keep the checkerboard pattern.

By: burningfencepost

burningfencepost — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Picture story genius a la McCay or Feininger.
I’m in.

By: Kabur Naj

Kabur Naj — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love BoingBoing, but I’ve got to don my pedant hat for a second:

It’s “foreword”, not “foreward”. I’m starting to think that it wasn’t just a simple accident that you let JPB spell it that way in his introduction to “Content”… a spelling reform conspiracy, perhaps?

Oh, and while I’m picking nits, “their checkers is not” grammatically correct, but “their checkers are”.

(I wonder where rabid blog-commenters fall into the mix for new authorship/editorship models. :D http://www.archive.org/download/CoryDoctorow-Content_268/20-Wikipedia-AGenuineHG2G-MinusTheEditors_64kb.mp3 )

By: soupisgoodfood

soupisgoodfood — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I got the joke straight away, but then again, I am a web and graphic designer and have actually come across this a couple of times when doing work. There are some patterns and designs that just don’t work well with CSS layouts.

By: Kabur Naj

Kabur Naj — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

BTW, this looks like a lovely little book. I thought at first that it was a collection of Sergio Aragones’ best margin doodles from Mad magazine, then I looked a little closer at the style (and, um, the cover). If they ever reissue this book, I hope they add a few of Aragones’ little margin strips for every one of Jaffee’s and make a cool fractal statement in the process. I’d buy that for a dollar.

By: PaulR

PaulR — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The two tilers should talk to Escher. He could help them…

Or Zeno.

By: Paul Dreyer

Paul Dreyer — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

#10: You’re not saying they’ll be… saved… by… Zeno? Saved by Zeno!

Fricking Toyota.

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Solutions:

* A line of solid white or solid black tiles
* Split tiles in half and connect the pattern that way.

Sorry, I had to get that out of the way.

Jaffe does great stuff. I loved his MAD magazine articles about recycling and dog-waste disposal.

By: skrpune

skrpune — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

@13 – dang nabbit, you beat me to it! I’d personally go for the split tiles, it was my first instinct.

Having worked in construction for 9 years, gaffes like this don’t make me laugh, they just remind me of snafus that had to be cleaned up!

By: kip w

kip w — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Thanks for the reminder! I hadn’t kicked myself recently for once having had the 60s paperback collection of this strip and letting it go when I was in a series of moves. I’ll get on that right away.

Split tiles? I’d put in a row of black and white, shifted a half tile width over. Face it, whatever you do, it’ll still stick out.

By: Takuan

Takuan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

wooo! cool scroll action!!

By: slida

slida — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

That took me a minute… it’s almost… philosophical in nature.

By: Takuan

Takuan — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Simple. The tiles are correct. Or your career is over. What do you see?