I’m sure most of you have heard of the death of Doug Marlette, the cartoonist and comic-strip artist. He was currently a cartoonist at The Tulsa World, but he cut his teeth at The Charlotte Observer, where he made a high art of skewering the troubles of Jim and Tammy Bakker. He was also the author of the strip “Kudzu,” which appears in lots of papers, including the Journal.
I go back and forth on Kudzu, mainly because I thought it was very inconsistent (Although it is the birthplace of one of the most important phrases in my life “The whitest whiteboy at Bypass High"). But as an editorial cartoonist, Marlette was superb. He had a great understanding of issues and how to distill them down to an image. His humor was subtle when it needed to be subtle and his sarcasm was biting when it needed to be biting. And like all good cartoonists, he could flat out draw and draw quickly. He’ll be missed.
I’m not sure what will happen to Kudzu. Somebody else may try to pick it up and continue drawing it. Or the syndicator may stop distributing it. But my guess is that we will be having a newsroom discussion about what might go in Kudzu’s spot on our comics pages. If you have suggestions, please let me know.
Your host is Ken Otterbourg, the managing editor at the Winston-Salem Journal. It's a forum to discuss the media, from
he Dead Mule School of Southern Literature published an interview with Marlett (conducted by editor/publisher Valerie MacEwan. We’re in mourning. See http://helenl.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/doug-marlette-has-died/
The man’s not even in the ground, and you’re ready to replace his work. Talk about cold.
Ken,What’s up with the link above from Vera. When I clicked on it today at work I got a “Surf Scout-Access Denied” message and another message followed that said “I would be audited by Company IT Security”.
Can this type of stuff be monitored or avoided.
In a word: spam. We put in place some security measures a few months back, such as the word ID, to push the Spam out. Not sure how this one got through the filters. But I am checking.
Thnx
Update: Spam removed. Here’s the word from one of our IT superstars in Richmond.
1. I’ve removed the comment from your blog.
2. Not all spam is automated. It’s very possible that a person entered that as a comment, easily slipping past our filter.
It’s one thing to put filters in place (like our CAPTCHA word system) to prevent bots from spamming comments. It’s an entirely different game when human beings are on the other end.
I ran a quick trace on their IP address (91.124.163.160) and it’s comming from Kiev.
91.124.0.0 - 91.124.255.255
Ukrtelecom
18, Shevchenko Blvd
01030 Kyiv
Not surprising...most of the spam I deal with comes from the Ukraine and Hong Kong these days. The money must be good.
I’ve added their entire IP address block to our blacklist, which will prevent them from accessing the site again—but that doesn’t stop a dedicated group of spammers from using another IP block to get to us.
I understand the difficulty and appreciate the efforts to limit this stuff. Your’re right if someone wants to get through they will. It is also wise for everyone to be careful when clicking on links. I’ve learned my lesson. Keep up the good work.
So far, to the best of my knowledge, I have not been decended upon from up high.
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