So Now That It's Curtains For SatireWire, What's Left To Humour Us?

August 29, 2002 7:10 AM

So Now That It's Curtains For SatireWire, What's Left To Humour Us? Should we panic yet? Is the Web as funny ha-ha as it used to be? Thanks to this serendipitous find I was tickled to discover Kurt Luchs has some funny pages of his own. David Jaggard's list is quite conventional and brief (lots of glaring omissions), but it cheered me up. [As did this wonderful H.L. Mencken page, with these refreshingly un-pc aphorisms, if I may just shoe-horn it in here...]
posted by MiguelCardoso (34 comments total)

There's this page called The Onion...

...but I kid Metafilter! Try the veal!
posted by byort at 7:16 AM on August 29, 2002

Oops, sorry. folks...I'm sure you know how to find it, though.
posted by byort at 7:17 AM on August 29, 2002

Heading the glaring omissions among living American humorists I'd say Michael O'Donoghue, Paul Krassner, P.J. O' Rourke, Hunter S.Thompson, Fran Lebowitz, Peter De Vries, Woody Allen and Dave Barry were obligatory in any list. Among the dead, it's shocking he doesn't mention S.J.Perelman, Stephen Leacock, Robert Benchley, Terry Southern, Mordecai Richler....

It's just a crying shame how grossly under-represented American humorists are on the Web. Never mind the British and Canadians, who each deserve a thread of their own.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:17 AM on August 29, 2002

The Brunching Shuttlecocks Hardly a secret, but still funny.
posted by putzface_dickman at 7:18 AM on August 29, 2002

Michael O'Donoghue's dead Miguel. Aneurism or some such thing that made him sit straight up, and then drop dead.

Some sick part of me thinks he would have wanted it that way.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:21 AM on August 29, 2002

It's down now for rehab, but when it comes back up, Old Man Murray is the place to be for gut-busting funny commentary on the PC gaming world. Funnier than The Onion.
posted by e.e. coli at 7:22 AM on August 29, 2002

And I enjoy ridiculopathy on occasion.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:22 AM on August 29, 2002

...the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked... For me, nobody hits the mark like Twain.
posted by putzface_dickman at 7:24 AM on August 29, 2002

I happen to love dorrk.com. The Alternative War Works article is worth the visit alone.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:25 AM on August 29, 2002

Not that I would ever deign to call-out the great Cardoso, but we just discussed the end of SatireWire. Didja miss it, Migs? (Granted, this post goes a long way beyond just being a SatireWire R.I.P. post).
posted by yhbc at 7:25 AM on August 29, 2002

There's always webcomics -- lots of good ones. WiGU, Scary-Go-Round, Diesel Sweeties, Achewood, and (at the risk of being a shameless self-promoter) Goats will all continue to amuse and delight for ages to come. There are plenty more, but these are my favorites.
posted by toothgnip at 7:29 AM on August 29, 2002

Oops. sorry, blueshammer and all those who commented in that thread. Yes, I definitely did miss it, yhbc. I wish I could have linked to it in the post - that would have been dandy. Shame. :(
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:39 AM on August 29, 2002

There's always the writings of David Sedaris at Esquire.
posted by panopticon at 7:56 AM on August 29, 2002

Let's not forget Modern Humorist...
posted by O9scar at 7:59 AM on August 29, 2002

Wait! Wait! Don't forget the hybrid humorblog by NPR Humorist (is that an oxymoron?) Adam Felber, Fanatical Apathy (now THAT's an oxymoron). And if you've been there before but not recently, note the new address: he's apparently now popular enough to lose his Earthlunk free site for excessive traffic.
posted by wendell at 8:23 AM on August 29, 2002

Never mind the ... Canadians

Like Stephen Leacock, Miguel? Dead American, indeed. [Waits for barrage of Nanaimo bars and dark-chocolate Turtles to rain down on Lisbon.]
posted by rory at 8:27 AM on August 29, 2002

I've been reading Clark Hornbell. Great stuff, reminiscent of EOD.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 8:30 AM on August 29, 2002

I'm quite disappointed with the Net when it comes to humour. The only thing I've found which is professional enough and consistent enough to read regularly is The Onion. This Web-only sitcom made me laugh, but it's been up a while and I don't think any more have been made.
posted by Summer at 8:33 AM on August 29, 2002

Rory: Mordecai Richler is Canadian too. But so many Canadians are great humorists and comedians and enjoy such success in the U.S. I sometimes forget. Though Stephen Leacock is indeed very Canadian, in the best way.

Wendell: how could I have forgotten Adam Felber? In fact, I wish I could just rewrite the whole post, it's so full of holes and mistakes...
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:35 AM on August 29, 2002

I forgot James Lileks too, specially The Institute of Daily Cheer section of his website.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:39 AM on August 29, 2002

Terry Southern's son Nile has been maintaining an "official" site for a few years now. Lots of interesting, unpublished odds and ends from the ultra-fab guy.
posted by ghastlyfop at 9:00 AM on August 29, 2002

The Every Three Weekly is a fantastic humor newspaper put out by the students of the University of Michigan, my new favorite humor site, although its only updated, er, every three weeks or so.

(Yes, I mentioned this in the last Satirewire thread and no, I have nothing to do with the publication or the university).
posted by gsteff at 9:02 AM on August 29, 2002

D'oh, here.
posted by gsteff at 9:03 AM on August 29, 2002

Top Five and the Daily Probe have been making me laugh since 1994.

Well, the Daily Probe is a bit newer than 1994, but Top Five has been around for ages (in Internet time).
posted by aaaaa at 9:04 AM on August 29, 2002

What, no Gagpipe?
posted by gimonca at 9:17 AM on August 29, 2002

The problem with the onion is that, like, it sucks.
posted by delmoi at 9:33 AM on August 29, 2002

Modern Humorist seriously cut back its publishing, from almost-daily to every two weeks. Unfortunate.
posted by panopticon at 9:41 AM on August 29, 2002

I've always loved Seanbaby. It isn't updated very regularly, but there's so much in the archives that it would take days at work to go through it all.
posted by Kellydamnit at 10:51 AM on August 29, 2002

Leisure Town is an evil and sharp kind of funny. The man has gotten an amazing amount of mileage out of those cheapo bendy toys.
posted by picea at 12:09 PM on August 29, 2002

Of course, the Framley Examiner is always good for a chuckle: "1st SOCKFORD BROWNIES. - This year's sponsored swear raised over two hundred pounds and eyebrows as the Sockford Brownie pack swore their way into the history book. The event, which coined three hundred new swear words and two inaudible to the human ear, was interrupted by an impromptu display of the effects of gravity on brick church towers."
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:35 PM on August 29, 2002

Ever since Forum 3000 shut down, all I've had left (aside from the aforementioned DieselSweeties and Scary-Go-Round) is the hilarious True Meaning of Life and the Conversatron
posted by davros42 at 2:11 PM on August 29, 2002

Oh and Bobbins, 'nuff said
posted by davros42 at 2:11 PM on August 29, 2002

What's Left To Humour Us?

*cringe*

Main Entry: 2humor
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1588
1 : to soothe or content by indulgence
2 : to adapt oneself to
synonym see INDULGE
posted by sennoma at 6:31 PM on August 29, 2002

How about Weebl & Bob (as mentionned on MeFi of course :)
posted by TNLNYC at 12:06 PM on August 30, 2002