You Never Listen

August 30, 2011 6:40 AM

If the News Media was a Person You Were Dating, a comic by Winston Rowntree of VirusComix. Also recently author of the Rock Timeline.
posted by Potomac Avenue (35 comments total)

I initially read the link text as 'new media' and I was trying to figure out what this had to do with bloggers. It makes a lot more sense the other way.
posted by shakespeherian at 6:46 AM on August 30, 2011

Yeah, when I first read this I completely ignored the headline, but I picked up almost immediately what was going on.
posted by Segundus at 6:48 AM on August 30, 2011

Every time I read Sub Normality, I find a new things that pisses me off. For instance, holy shit is this some ambiguous narrative arrangement in the first six panels and the visual content and text dumps don't really help. I mean, yeah, I can eventually sort out which direction it is, but for someone who clearly knows what the fuck they're doing, it is practically inexcusable.
posted by griphus at 6:55 AM on August 30, 2011 [11 favorites]

I liked the cat throwing a baby in the river.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:06 AM on August 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm inordinately fond of Rowntree's stuff for a couple reasons - some of his comics are just super brilliant, yeah, but I've also found that there's this consistent pattern with his stuff where I'll see this wall of text and think, okay I'll come back to that later, or skim it or whatever, and then when I finally actually read it, it always turns out to be worth the effort.

And also I first found his site pretty much out of nowhere, someone just linked to it offhandedly someplace or other and suddenly there was this site that I'd never once seen an ad for, or had anything from it forwarded around, and it was just this guy quietly plugging away in his corner of the web and amassing a body of work. I love finding things like that.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 7:06 AM on August 30, 2011 [6 favorites]

If the news media were a person I was dating, I would have a talk with them about the subjunctive mood.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:10 AM on August 30, 2011 [19 favorites]

The previous one with charts about what women are allowed to wear and what names you can use for men and women at different ages is pretty awesome too.
posted by straight at 7:20 AM on August 30, 2011 [6 favorites]

"It's not that I think you're stupid, I just talk to you the way I would if you were stupid."
posted by Nomyte at 7:28 AM on August 30, 2011 [5 favorites]

there's this consistent pattern with his stuff where I'll see this wall of text and think, okay I'll come back to that later, or skim it or whatever, and then when I finally actually read it, it always turns out to be worth the effort.

I am totally paralyzed by the blocks of text: I MUST read them before my brain can even begin to process the visual info of the next panels. I love it.
posted by Theta States at 7:44 AM on August 30, 2011

This one is a really clever use of the medium to illustrate an internal experience.
posted by straight at 7:45 AM on August 30, 2011 [18 favorites]

I LOL'd. I can't heavily imply that strongly enough.
posted by blue_beetle at 7:45 AM on August 30, 2011

I liked the cat throwing a baby in the river.

I think it's Garfield throwing his owner Jon into the river.
posted by cyberscythe at 8:02 AM on August 30, 2011

Comic easter egg! In the panel with the lunch specials, one of the offerings is the Avogadro Sandwich (has same # of molecules as other sandwiches). It's right below the Avocado sandwich.
posted by pwally at 8:41 AM on August 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

This is pretty great: I was under the impression that modern society is a fundamentally communal achievement wherein systematic interdependence of individuals ensures the survival of the whole - the directness of a groups contribution being unrelated to its relative importance, and thus the artificial apotheosis of any one group is a debasement of both it and everybody else.
posted by pwally at 8:55 AM on August 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

I laughed out loud. The only bad boyfriend/media trait missing is the pseudo-panicked nearly-yelling abrupt interactions.
posted by _paegan_ at 9:00 AM on August 30, 2011

MetaFilter: It's not that I think you're stupid, I just talk to you the way I would if you were stupid.
posted by jocelmeow at 9:04 AM on August 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

It needs a panel where he makes the suggestion of an interesting conversation and then refuses to talk about the subject again for half an hour until after he's talked about a bunch of boring stuff for a while.
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 9:04 AM on August 30, 2011 [6 favorites]

For instance, holy shit is this some ambiguous narrative arrangement in the first six panels and the visual content and text dumps don't really help. I mean, yeah, I can eventually sort out which direction it is...

I wasn't able to. That, combined with the comic being 1.1x the width of my completely standard computer monitor, eventually made me close the tab.
posted by DU at 9:19 AM on August 30, 2011 [3 favorites]

Good art, interesting topic, but TERRIBLE layout.
posted by dazed_one at 9:37 AM on August 30, 2011

If the news media were a person I was dating it would be an abusive relationship. Certainly from my direction.
posted by Decani at 9:43 AM on August 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

If the news media were a person I was dating it would be an abusive relationship.

Yeah, I'm not usually into letting a puppy take a crap on my girlfriend.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:57 AM on August 30, 2011

Could be worse. You could date a writer for Gizmodo.
posted by Clandestine Outlawry at 9:57 AM on August 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

I liked the layout; it reinforced for me that this isn't a narrative, but a series of disconnected and discrete incidents that present the "relationship". What sequence the ’conversation’ with the news media takes isn’t relevant, only that the conversation is happening and is incredibly dysfunctional.
posted by Shepherd at 10:05 AM on August 30, 2011 [4 favorites]

Did I tell you about that breakup with The Onion?
posted by infini at 10:23 AM on August 30, 2011

Could be worse. You could date a writer for Gizmodo.

Apparently I couldn't, given my nerdy hobbies.
posted by namespan at 10:39 AM on August 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am extremely thankful that dating my SO is not like dating the website she works for. Cause most of you lot? nuh-uhhh! [I kid, but still: nuh-uhhh!]
posted by not_on_display at 11:27 AM on August 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

I found ctrl - to be helpful as well.
posted by eviemath at 11:29 AM on August 30, 2011

I stole the news media's girlfriend. It was all whirlwind, heat and flash. Within a week we killed the alternative weekly's advertising sales staff and hit the road.
posted by xod at 11:36 AM on August 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

Dating Metafilter would be fine--it's kinky and thoughtful and politely funny. Just don't bring up music or have children with it.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:37 AM on August 30, 2011

Just don't bring up music or have children with it.

And god forbid you should try and get your cat circumcised!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:53 AM on August 30, 2011

Some of this was uncomfortably close to home for me. My SO is a member of the traditional media.
posted by Nadie_AZ at 1:40 PM on August 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

For you I've been in an arranged marriage to the Viacom Corporation for nearly a decade now.
posted by griphus at 1:47 PM on August 30, 2011

I just came in to say that I admire Winston Rowntree greatly both as an artist and storyteller. Especially for A Christmas Eve in the Future and Things They Don't Tell You (But Should). Again.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:19 PM on August 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Excellent comic. Filed under "reasons not to watch tv news".
posted by doctornemo at 7:20 PM on August 30, 2011

I would never sit on the couch, look at the person I'm dating, and start yelling "You fucking liar! You're fucking lying, you liars. Fuck you godammit, that's bullshit. No, no, no, that's not the point! Just tell me the name of the bastard. That's right, you just said 'a member of Congress was accused...', so who was it? Tell me the name. Tell me the name. Tell me the name. Tell me the name. You're not going to say the name, are you? Are you? Nope, see, you didn't, you fuck.".

'Cause the relationship would have to get to a pretty strange place for that to happen.
posted by benito.strauss at 7:28 PM on August 30, 2011