Tag: Webcomics

The Oatmeal Is Being Sued by a Greeting Card Company

Apparently, people refuse to leave Matthew Inman alone and just let him continue to be one of the funniest people on the internet. The creator of The Oatmeal webcomic finds himself the target of yet another lawsuit, reports Ars Technica.

This time, Inman is in the sights of a Massachusetts-based greeting card company who claims that The Oatmeal’s foray into greeting card sales violates their trademark.

Recently, The Oatmeal went into business with Recycled Greetings, the card company responsible for the Papyrus gifts and cards chain. Together, they produced a set of Oatmeal greeting cards, which are available for purchase on The Oatmeal site. The Massachusetts greeting card company, Oatmeal Studios, says that Inman’s use of The Oatmeal is too similar to their brand, as to cause confusion. Oatmeal Studios claims to have been in the greeting card-marking business for the last 35 years.

According to Ars, trademark infringement is the only claim that Oatmeal Studios has made, and they’ve yet to ask for any specific amount of damages.

Like I mentioned above, this isn’t the first legal battle that Inman has found himself in recently. The last one all started when Inman published a blog post showing how the site FunnyJunk was republishing The Oatmeal comics and monetizing them without attribution. Later, FunnyJunk hired famous sex.com domain litigator Charles Carreon to demand damages from Inman on the grounds of defamation.

Inman responded, but probably not in the manner that Carreon expected.

Instead of obliging, Inman drew a picture of Carreon’s “mom” having sex with a bear. He also asked the internet community to raise money for charity (which they did, to the tune of $200,000+). He never paid Carreon or FunnyJunk any of the money, and now that ridiculous suit has been closed.

But from the ashes of one, rises another. This story is developing and we’ll let you know when Inman responds (which we’re sure he will).

November 21, 2012
Getting Fat In Skyrim Is Easier Than You Think

As the upcoming comic strip points out, there are times during Skyrim when you absolutely, positively have to heal–normally, this occurs when you get surrounded by enemies. Unfortunately, it’s these harrowing times when you realize you forgot to stock up on potions, leaving you very few options, save for eating like you were Kobayashi.

But what happens after you eat all that food? In-game, your health bar increases, but let’s see how such gluttony would work in real life:

That’s pretty accurate, especially when you consider the kinds of food the realm of Skyrim offers. Lots of meats and veggies, which can be combined to make delicious stews, are staples on Skyrim’s menu.

In other Skyrim news, if you haven’t seen it yet, over at Bethesda’s blog, they’re teasing the upcoming Skyrim DLC, Dawnguard. Aside from the cool image, there’s not much else to discuss, except the post indicates more information is coming at E3 and that the expansion will be coming to the Xbox 360 this summer. Based on that, one wonders how long it will take to propagate to other platforms.

[Via Dorkly and Anna-Maria Jung]

May 2, 2012
Flowchart: The Cycle of an Internet Argument

Arguing and the Internet go together like cheese and crackers. Whether it’s a back-and-forth over favorite movies, songs, drummers, teams, players, women, men, politics–you name it–it’s a phenomenon like none other when you combine passionate subjects and Internet anonymity.

In fact, Penny Arcade covered these events quite well with this little gem:

Click for uncensored version
xkcd did, too.

Now, much like the social media flowcharts from last week, there’s a handy guide on Internet arguments, and the best ways to avoid them (take the high road). The chart was created by the Not Quite Wrong webcomic, which is overseen by Rosscott, Inc, the same guys who did the “So You Found Something Cool on the Internet…” flowchart that taught us how to correctly cite the content you’re sharing.

Their latest creation (via Laughing Squid) teaches us what to do when the something makes you mad on the Internet. While taking the high road is the obvious, most logical suggestion, sometimes pride takes over and people just have to let their opinions be known, no matter how petty or, well, sad it makes them look.

The chart in question:

Click for the full-sized version
Look familiar? If you ever taken part in any kind of flame war or Internet argument, it should. Rationale thought, at least in terms of engaging in these “discussions,” leaves pretty quickly, especially when someone says your favorite (insert movie, athlete, vehicle, person here) is not as awesome as you know them to be.

From there, unless the high road is taken, it descends into a “YOUR GAY FACE DOESN’T EVEN MAKE GAY SENSE” morass. The goal is, quite clearly, to avoid getting to that point, something the creators indicate in the post that accompanies the flowchart:

I think we’ve all seen it before, the argument online that gets out of hand. Our message is simple, the minute you engage you probably should have walked away. So don’t get angry, just chill the fuck out and eat a sandwich. I mean look at Professor Internet. He seems like a smart cat. Better listen to him.

Smart words from smart people. Or, is letting the other person just how horribly incorrect they truly are really that important?

If so, perhaps the “You need help!” suggestion isn’t that far from being accurate.

August 3, 2011