Comments on: A Tumbleweed Connection? (or: Tats of Thunder)

By: bAT L.

bAT L. — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:02:26 +0000

Strange, he’s had that website after his signature for quite some time. Maybe it’s part of his legal signature like the face in the middle of mine?

I also noticed, in this comic, a bit of assonance (the sounding alike definition, not the one about vowel sounds) between “Twombly” and the word “tumbleweed”. Maybe it’s a comment on how the name and word sound alike, and a situation where they both would show up, which the first and second comments have already come up with.

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:13:15 +0000

That’s interesting, Cindi… so basically he’s advertising a site that doesn’t exist, when he actually DOES have another site? Why doesn’t he put that one in his strips? Like his comics, his motives are imperceptible..

By: Cindi

Cindi — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:53:15 +0000

I found him here:

http://rl.joshuadarden.com/

his bio is here:
http://rl.joshuadarden.com/documentation.php

This page hold lots of his art work with links to Days of Thunder and his New Yorker cartoons.

also listed was www.roblovely.com ( also a dead-zone)

By: Ollabelle

Ollabelle — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:02:56 +0000

I tried the obvious, and went to robertlovely.com as noted on the comic. To my dismay, it’s not a functional website and is “available.” Anyone have a different result?

By: JohnRoy

JohnRoy — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:13:51 +0000

How can a publication pay for material like this ???

Did anyone write to Robert Lovely and asked him what the heck he meant by this.

Not only I don’t understand it but it makes me mad LOL

By: Cindi

Cindi — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:51:53 +0000

oopps!

My Bad!

after cleaning my glasses and computer screen - I can now see that the letter is indeed “B” !

So sorry for adding to the ????? of this strip.

By: Cidu Bill

Cidu Bill — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:35:37 +0000

Good point, Pinny, though I don’t think Lovely means he intends his comics to be entirely arbitrary — because almost all of them HAVE been explained here. I’ll consider this before putting more Days of Thunder strips online, though.

The comment you recall refers to strips like Zippy that strive to be “cool” rather than funny: I’m not going to try finding a joke when I know the artist didn’t even try to put one there.

By: Pinny

Pinny — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:29:55 +0000

This is really for CIDU Bill…

I seem to recall reading somewhere on this site (I can’t seem to find it right now) that certain comics will not appear here as they purposely made to be obtuse and defy explanation — i.e., we were not meant to understand them. It is only the ones that would seem to have meaning that will show up here.

With that in mind, I would like to suggest that “Days of Thunder” be moved to that class because they ALL seem to be purposely drawn to defy explanation.

This is consistent with the blurb “About the Comic” page at comics.com:
http://www.comics.com/comics/thunder/html/about_comic.html
“Brain-twisting and often totally absurd, the real joy comes from the drawings. Says Lovely, ‘I’ve always thought there was room on the comics page for something that was just really fun to look at.’”

[Preparing to duck and run for cover…]

By: Kevin Andresen

Kevin Andresen — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:11:27 +0000

Once explained by #1, people here are still questioning the tumbleweeds. There seems to be a shift in cultural literacy in the new century.

Tumbleweeds were the universal symbol (in America) for areas no longer visited (be they in Manhattan or Antarctica). It’s similar to hearing crickets in Carnegie Hall when a performance falls flat.

Lovely has imagined an entire ghost town (the origin of the tumbleweed usage) as a sort of meta-image for the effect of such an absolute absence of market interest in Twombly-type tattoos.

And yet, BF’s last question made me laugh so loud it was practically a scream. So maybe I underestimate the appeal to urban youth.

By: BF

BF — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:42:45 +0000

Definitely TwomBly (sorry Cindi). I’m guessing #1&2 have it. If the artist was known for ’scribble scrabble’, as my kids put it, he wouldn’t last long as a tattoo artist. As for the tumbleweed? Who knows. Maybe compounding the problem is it’s a ‘western’ town, and everyone knows cowboys don’t appreciate real art?