Funniest. Blog War. Ever.
Many readers and bloggers have become huge fans of Joe Mathlete Explains Today’s Marmaduke (In 500 Words or Less) the past few months.
Maybe it’s his writing style, which takes a mocking yet sweet tone with the ridiculously trite and outdated comic strip. Maybe it’s his overly analytical synopses of the obviously simple subject matter. Or maybe it’s the originality of his blog’s conceit.
In any case, and looking back it seems inevitable, Joe Mathlete has been ripped off. By a cranky, less-funny blogger named Brian Liston who has taken Joe Mathlete’s idea and applied it to The Family Circus, an equally mawkish car crash of a strip.
And the blog war has started.
Liston e-mailed Mathlete praising his blog, alerting him to his own blog, and asking for mutual linkage. Mathlete yesterday posted the e-mail under the headline, “I Quit.” He also didn’t provide his daily dose of witticism of the Great Dane’s escapades.
Though it is unclear whether Mathlete is being serious – and I’d like to think he’s not – the shit has hit the fan at Liston’s site, with commenters reviling him for the death of Marmaduke Explained. One commenter called it “a complete and utter ripoff,” to which Liston responded with a clever “Fuck you” and said he won’t stop doing his blog because of “some asshole commenter.”
Other commenters thanked Liston sarcastically for “killing” Mathlete’s blog, to which he said:
“Well, this is an unfortunate turn of events. I never meant to kill Marmaduke Explained.
I can guess why he quit. He was probably tired of feeling like he HAD to update Marmaduke explained, tired of feeling like he owed the internet something. In shot, the joke got old for him. I understand, I’ve been through periods like that with this blog.
RIP Marmaduke Explained.”
I have enjoyed reading Marmaduke Explained for months now and look forward to Mathlete’s daily dose of tongue-in-cheek humor. Some of his blurbs have made me laugh out loud and envy his observations. I wondered if the same type of blog could be done with Family Circus but hoped it wouldn’t happen since it would just be stealing. That would be like some fat white kid stealing Virgle Kent’s persona for his own MySpace page so he could nail random chicks.
This is not to say that Family Circus doesn’t need lampooning. Along with Cathy or Garfield, which are just awful, awful comic strips. Actually, I wouldn’t mind someone explaining Zippy the Pinhead to me. Anyone who claims to get that strip is just trying to show off.
Hopefully, Mathlete will be back and he was just kidding when he claimed to quit. Because I will NOT have Family Circus mess with my life more than it already has.
Maybe it’s his writing style, which takes a mocking yet sweet tone with the ridiculously trite and outdated comic strip. Maybe it’s his overly analytical synopses of the obviously simple subject matter. Or maybe it’s the originality of his blog’s conceit.
In any case, and looking back it seems inevitable, Joe Mathlete has been ripped off. By a cranky, less-funny blogger named Brian Liston who has taken Joe Mathlete’s idea and applied it to The Family Circus, an equally mawkish car crash of a strip.
And the blog war has started.
Liston e-mailed Mathlete praising his blog, alerting him to his own blog, and asking for mutual linkage. Mathlete yesterday posted the e-mail under the headline, “I Quit.” He also didn’t provide his daily dose of witticism of the Great Dane’s escapades.
Though it is unclear whether Mathlete is being serious – and I’d like to think he’s not – the shit has hit the fan at Liston’s site, with commenters reviling him for the death of Marmaduke Explained. One commenter called it “a complete and utter ripoff,” to which Liston responded with a clever “Fuck you” and said he won’t stop doing his blog because of “some asshole commenter.”
Other commenters thanked Liston sarcastically for “killing” Mathlete’s blog, to which he said:
“Well, this is an unfortunate turn of events. I never meant to kill Marmaduke Explained.
I can guess why he quit. He was probably tired of feeling like he HAD to update Marmaduke explained, tired of feeling like he owed the internet something. In shot, the joke got old for him. I understand, I’ve been through periods like that with this blog.
RIP Marmaduke Explained.”
I have enjoyed reading Marmaduke Explained for months now and look forward to Mathlete’s daily dose of tongue-in-cheek humor. Some of his blurbs have made me laugh out loud and envy his observations. I wondered if the same type of blog could be done with Family Circus but hoped it wouldn’t happen since it would just be stealing. That would be like some fat white kid stealing Virgle Kent’s persona for his own MySpace page so he could nail random chicks.
This is not to say that Family Circus doesn’t need lampooning. Along with Cathy or Garfield, which are just awful, awful comic strips. Actually, I wouldn’t mind someone explaining Zippy the Pinhead to me. Anyone who claims to get that strip is just trying to show off.
Hopefully, Mathlete will be back and he was just kidding when he claimed to quit. Because I will NOT have Family Circus mess with my life more than it already has.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, November 30, 2006 at 5:02 PM.
