T Campbell's Blog
Writer of Penny and Aggie, Fans (also called Faans), Rip & Teri, Search Engine Funnies and A History of Webcomics. Experienced webcomics editor, currently seeking full-time work and working on strange and interesting new things...Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Talk Like A Pirate Day.
TOP SECRET...
Sent to several folks for review.
I've actually mentioned this project by name once before. I wonder if anyone remembers.
It's interesting to visit Stanford again, even only in my mind...
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Reflections, Part 5a: The Search For The Right Searching Gaze Upon Search.
With Fans, I sometimes felt I was cheating. After all, its message was the ultimate in geek-validation: don’t hate, don’t stereotype, don’t dismiss that stuttering science-fiction buff, there’s more to him than meets the eye. Perhaps it’s a desire to fly without that sort of net that has driven me to tackle the far more difficult topic of search, many times now from several directions. Or perhaps it’s penance. Or masochism. Or the railroad industry. Who knows?
No, I know.
It’s because it’s important.
Important enough for me to keep after it.
It’s not like the last five years have been too encouraging on this front. There was Search Engine History, a book I proposed to literary agents when I was just starting out (in 2001. Oh, you thought Web history was in flux now?). Search, an adaptation of that history in comics format (well done for six installments, a casualty of overwork after that). And then there was Search Engine Funnies. Though I work better with a long-term plan than responding to immediate events, that series pleased me more often than not, especially thanks to the artists. I think I'd learned from the failure of the previous but it fell victim to what might be described as a perfect storm.
At the end of that storm, I announced the possibility of an SEF sequel, and I had an animated discussion in Brighton about it with an accomplished search engine satirist... but at this point, I just can't see my way past certain production difficulties.
So... geez. Shoot. Quux. I might be forgiven for leaving search to the programmers from here on out.
But this is important. This is about what words mean. This is about what thoughts come to people’s minds, because technology puts those thoughts there. This is about what knowledge we access—what technology helps us access. And this is about the people who control that technology. Currently those people are mostly well-meaning idealists who don’t spend much time away from their screens, a few power brokers who have helped make the world what it is today, and the invisible hand of the market. What does that really mean for the rest of us?
I’ve been thinking about how to distill my ideas about that into this essay, and I’ve concluded that it’s not gonna happen. They're too big, too wild and too free-associative to be constrained to nonfiction and to words. I’ll be taking a week or so off from this “Reflections” series—because first, I have to finish their real repository.
This is important.
Important enough to keep after it until I get it right.
Keep watching this space, though. A few miscellaneous announcements coming up.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Reflections, Part 4d: Parting Words
In the last few sections, I suggested the pro webcomics collective was in serious trouble, being nibbled by rivals above and below, by (relatively) major corporate interests and (relatively) savvy “companies of one.” I haven’t changed my mind on this. The only questions that remain are “should it be saved?,” “can it be saved?,” “will it be saved?,” and “when you say ‘saved’ do you mean, like, in the religious sense, or do you actually have apocalyptic visions of a gigantic Modern Tales logo statue toppling and crashing into the burning South Dakota Keenspot Komplex?”
I do think there’s a soul dimension to the problem—- it’s essentially one of identity. Ferinstance, after six years of association, I think I should have a clearer sense of what a Keenspot comic is supposed to be. Keenspot’s esprit de corps does welcome a certain type of strip: its management has a sense of humor, cheer and joie de vivre distinct from the wry and dry stylings of other collectives. But when Keenspot absorbs strips that don’t really seem to fit this spirit, they stick out like sore middle fingers. It does this a lot, which is a natural outgrowth of its checked-and-balanced-among-the-four-founders admissions process.
SPOILER WARNING: THE NEXT GRAF CONTAINS MONDO-BIG SURPRISINGS
My ideal for a pro webcomics collective is pretty close to what I tried to do with Graphic Smash during my time there (SHOCK!!!). A collective is more than just a group of comics that happen to share a few links—- it has its own identity, an identity created by those who steer it. Graphic Smash had an editor with broad but definite tastes who wasn’t afraid to enforce them, and a diverse, high-quality lineup that nonetheless had an identity (Action! Adventure! Fun!).
Modern Tales’ new “fall lineups” show the particular worldviews of Demeter, Garrity, Jonte and, soon enough, Ellis. They’re off to a good start, on the whole—- certainly the Modern Tales empire has improved more dramatically in the last two months than in the previous two years. (Boy, I leave and the whole line re-invigorates. One would almost think I was a human pair of cement overshoes! ...Euh... ...It’s probably just a coincidence. Correlation does not imply causation!)
Whether it can sustain that improvement is another thing altogether. Modern Tales’ traditional issues have been production issues: when all the site’s development resources (i.e., Joey Manley’s spare time) were caught up in the rollout of Webcomics Nation, and later in the recoding of the main sites, the editors could do little to improve their lines. That’s meant considerable spans of time (more than a year in the former case, more than six months in the latter) where editors have been unable to remove or induct strips, and I know the long waits hurt morale and contributed to at least two resignations. If MT can avoid this problem in the future, then the responsibility goes back to the individual editors, who are off to a good start but who are just getting started.
I hope D-G-J-E do better than I did on the ethnocentrism front. I spent too much of my tenure looking for the magic formula, the Anti-Life Equation, the Love Potion Number Nine that would coax my favorite action-adventure strips into Graphic Smash’s waiting embrace. I didn’t just want to represent—- I really wouldn't rest until all of the best action-adventure comics on the Web on Graphic Smash. (“Best” in my own view, of course: see “editor with tastes,” above). You shouldn't make sweeping promises to yourself or anyone else if your goal is truly unattainable.
But, on the other hand, you've got to keep pushing to get better. Sometimes an unattainable goal can still be constantly approximated.
Webcomics have come as far as they’ve come partly because of a refusal to distinguish between “amateur” and “professional” efforts. Many popular webcartoonists who don’t make a living from their work take it as seriously as those who do, freshening their archives every week, dedicating themselves to improvements, and looking ahead to the day when they will be able to rise on their merits—- or at least look back on years of a life well-lived and a job well done.
There is no one making a living from editing webcomics collectives, but for the pro collective to endure it needs the same professional attitude.
To the Keenspot/MT/Clickwheel/Wirepop editors of today and tomorrow: congratulations. The Tokyopops, Seven Seas and Platinums of the world are impressed enough to imitate you, and the DCs, Marvels and Universals probably aren’t far behind. To them, the smell of mindshare is like pheremone-laced chocolate-covered coke, and they're going to stake a claim.
But they’re not you. They don’t have the individual perspective you can bring to the process. Their contract policies will not please everyone, ensuring that you’ll continue to have a talent pool. You have the ability to compete with them on a surprisingly level playing field, an opportunity that, if squandered, may not come again. Forget net neutrality issues for now-- more important is whether you can maintain the quality of your brand. Quality and the reputation of same are usually the most valuable assets for a smaller player, when larger players get into the game and bring their marketing budgets to bear. And building quality has the added advantage of being the right thing to do.
Kierkegaard was right. People define themselves. People define their works.
Define yours.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Where Were You?
"Where Were You...?"
| I was sleeping. My husband always gets up before I do and turns the radio on. In my dreams I heard a commentator saying that two planes just have had crashed on the WTC towers. I thought it was a dream. It was too ridiculous to be an accident... the thought of such a thing being done on PURPOSE never crossed my mind. Of course I woke up and found it was true. Then I turned on CNN and watched in horror all that followed through :( Spent the rest of the day and the next day in shock. Maritza Campos (Illiad of User Friendly has granted permission to reproduce this post on his site:) I woke up this morning to my phone ringing. It was around 7:00am, and I thought Who would be phoning me now? I missed the call but opened my eyes, since I usually wake up by 7:30am anyway. I turned on my radio and the first thing I hear is the urbane voice of a news announcer I've listened to and come to trust for the past six years. "The United States has been subjected to an attack of monumental proportions this morning. Hijacked planes have been crashed into the World Trade Centre, collapsing both towers, and into the Pentagon." I opened my eyes completely then and thought, What the hell? I rushed out to the living room and turned on the TV whilst I was getting my voice mail. A very dear friend who lives on the Eastern Seaboard had left me a message telling me that the US was under attack. I watched with mounting horror as the CBC played footage of the second airline crash and the complete obliteration of the two towers. I dropped the phone and didn't even know it. I felt ice in the pit of my stomach and my blood went cold. All of those people, dead. How could this happen? Then I started thinking of all of the friends I have who lived in New York, in Washington, in Boston, and generally the east coast; the possible secondary effects such as looting and rioting; people I had come to know and care about and enjoy spending time with. Of course, all of the circuits out in the east were overloaded. I did eventually hear from one of my friends from the east, and it was a relief to hear that she was all right. But I was still stunned, trembling in fact. Despite being in a different country and on the opposite coast, this was so very close to home. I think over the next few weeks it's going to be a struggle to make sense of something that is at its core utterly senseless; lives have been shattered, anguish and suffering is mounting. All in the name of zealotry and politics. September 11, 2001 is going to be one of those days when the entire world changed. I hope those who have suffered a loss today will find peace soon.
|
My little sister sent me a message while I was still asleep, saying that a plane had hit the WTC; my first class was at 11 that morning, so I was sleeping in a bit. At first I didn't believe her, but after someone else messaged me, I turned on the news and saw what was happening. My roommate Kris had also heard, but thought it was just a tasteless joke circulating online until she saw the news reports.
Kara Dennison I was at home in my kitchen with my four year old son, getting through breakfast and readying for another day, when the phone rang. It was my wife. She whispered, "Turn on the radio, the World Trade Center's been bombed." A horrible event with unimaginable losses. As an ex-journalist, my gut still tells me when everything has changed forever. This is one of those days not just for myself, but for all people. Michael Jantze 8:06 a.m., September 11, 2001 I awoke in my studio apartment here in Los Angeles to what I thought was a report on National Public Radio of a full-scale war -- possibly off in some other part of the world like the Middle East, Europe, or Southeast Asia. As sirens and screams raged on in the background, they said the United Nations building was being evacuated and that's when I realized it was on U.S. soil. As the report unfolded, I found out that an airplane had hit one of the World Trade Center towers. At first I thought it was a terrible accident after I heard the first tower was hit, but when I heard both towers had been hit, that's when I realized it was no accident. I rushed to turn on the TV and found a Spanish station with a clear reception that had video footage of one tower on fire, smoke engulfing the top floors, followed by a plane hitting the second tower. It was the first time I was actually thankful TV stations replay disaster footage over and over throughout the day. There was a replay of the first tower collapse that sent me into shock -- I never thought I would ever see anything like that in my lifetime and it just looked unreal, followed by video of the second tower collapse. There had to be THOUSANDS of people in those towers, I thought. THOUSANDS. God rest their souls. Leonard M. Cachola Mine is pretty simple: Early in the morning, my cell phone beeps with a text message (limited to 120 characters, hense the brevity) from my girlfriend, who lives in Finland: Subject: terrorist attacks ...and then a few minutes later (her english isn't 100% perfect): I hope these horror happenings stops. I'm not sure can I call you tomorrow, but I'll try. Calling to states is not possible now. I tell you, that's quite a disturbing way to get woken up in the morning. Darren "Gav" Bleuel I slept in Tuesday morning (as I am apt to do when a comic gets done really frikkin' late), and went straight to work, knowing I'd have to stay late to make up for it. While on the bus to work, the driver stopped along the curb to talk with another driver who was on the sidewalk. He stepped on, and all I could make of their conversation was, "Have you heard?" At this point, I thought there was something to do with bus drivers and the recent public service strike (because that's what makes news in Ottawa). I work at a high tech company in Canada, so keep in mind that no one there has any comfort in job security. I hopped off the elevator on my floor, just as a co-worker was getting on. "Don't bother staying here," he said. "You can go home." I had this crazy suspicion that I had been fired, and he was just putting it in the least-shocking way possible. I asked him why, and he said "We're closed today." So now I started thinking that our department had been eliminated or something. I kept pressing him, and he asked if I had heard about New York. I said no. So he explained to me that the World Trade Centre in New York had collapsed, and about 30 000 people were dead. He also said that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. I didn't believe this for a second, but he insisted it was true, and that because of it, we had the rest of the day off. So I went straight to my desk and fired up cnn.com. As soon as I saw that the usual site was gone and replaced with a very low-bandwidth "special report," I knew that something very bad had happened. I read the various news articles for about half an hour, then went home with absolutely no desire to work. Josh Phillips |
| The first announcement reached Dawson College just before my ten o'clock class. There was a radio set up in one of the student lounges when I came in, but since I have trouble hearing, I didn't understand what the announcer was saying. The people around me seemed really tense and worried, but they were almost as confused as I was. Based on what my friends told me, I got the mistaken impression that a time bomb had gone off in the White House and that no one was hurt. I forgot about it right away. At 11:30 AM, just as my class was about to end, a teacher came rushing into the room and told us how our world had changed in just a few short hours. Even though I didn't know why everyone was staring at one another in horror, I knew the news had to be bad. After the first terrible shock, someone finally pulled herself together and remembered I was still in the dark. She managed to inform me that terrorists had hijacked four planes, crashed two of them into the World Trade Center, and killed an estimated 30 000 people. Then it was my turn to go numb. I was untouched by the attack for just a few seconds longer than the others. At the time, I was impatient to know what was happening, but it makes no difference now. No matter when or where any of us found out, we will never forget. Shira Was in my living room, talking to my dad, who had just been on the phone with my aunt. My cousin works (worked) in the WTC. We still haven't heard :/ Georgia I was at my office, editing the Parenthood.com parenting website, when my co-worker Sterling (who are far more attuned to the real world than I am) started announcing the World Trade Center had been hit with a plane. I had about five seconds to consider pilot error before she added, "No, two!" I was still patting myself on the back for realizing that that wasn't a coincidence when the enormity of it hit me. Somehow, I had never thought of those massive skyscrapers as actually having people on every floor. A few hours later, our most popular freelancer offered us a piece to help parents explain the tragedy to her kids. We got it up before the day was out, and followed it up with another piece by the same author about what KIDS had to say to their PARENTS about it (here). We had a job to do, however small, and that kept us together. I lit candles, I will give blood, and I've worked on a memorial page and sketched an inspirational comics script. I'm not a firefighter, or a soldier, or a doctor, and sometimes I sorely wish I was... ...but we must all do what we can. T Campbell I was on my school bus, here in Victoria, B.C., Canada. Everyone on the bus with the exception of some kids at the back who always talk stopped what they were doing and started listening to the radio. I really don't like those kids at the back... I was asleep when my fiance ran into the room to wake me up. "Someone flew a plane into the World Trade Center." WTF? I turned on the TV and sure enough, there were the twin towers smoldering. She left to go to class and I stared at the television wondering when this horribly realistic action movie would turn off. It didn't turn off. A few minutes later they reported that the Pentagon got hit. I screamed at the tv, "WHAT?!!" And sure enough, there was the Pentagon smoldering. My cel phone rang. It was my fiance. She just heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. She was crying and had to come home. Her father works in the Naval Yard in Washington DC so she was worried about his safety. She got back and we stared at the television, hoping that this realistic action movie would end with us fighting and winning for freedom. We wanted the hero to get the girl as the credits rolled. It didn't end, there was no girl, and the credits never came. This was horribly real. I felt helpless. I felt like I needed to do something. I heard the Red Cross needed donors and volunteers so I put up a link to the Red Cross and a big red cross instead of my comic. Then on Tuesday and until Sunday I took down my comic entirely and posted a link to the Red Cross. I hope it helped at least in a show of support. I made a tribute with my characters flying the American flag. Words are hard to come by these days, but I guess Lincoln said it best, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." God bless America. God bless us all. Jamie Noguchi |
I saw the whole tragedy unfold right before me from the very first report. I had just returned home from dropping off the kids at school. I turned on "Breakfast Television" (a morning news program here in the Toronto area) and the first report came in that a plane had flown into the Trade Tower. I then started to flip through the channels to see what other stations were saying. I believe I was watching CBS when the second plane hit. It was the most surreal things I have ever seen. As the plane hit and exploded the commentators were still talking about some trivial thing. It was a second or two after that they reacted. I was glued to the TV for the rest of the day. Needless to say I didn't draw my strip that day, but I did put up this strip the next day. Michael McKay-Fleming I was in English class, we were reading Rosencratz and Guildrenstern...then our English teacher like rushes in and tells us. ^_^; We then watched TV for the whole entire day... Shannon Weary I was in school, just gotten out of a class when they accounced on the intercom that the WTC 1 had been hit with a plane. I got into my finite class and heard nothing more about it. Got out and was walking to my theatre class; my friend ran up to me and told me that another had hit the WTC 2, they both had fallen, and that the Pentagon was hit by something as well, and was burning. I was like, "What the fuck!". I got to the auditorium and the TV was on; I saw the video of the second plane hit. The class is an hour and a half. No one moved from in front of that TV. I saw the buildings falling to replay. When I got home I couldn't take my eyes off that TV. The PA plane crashed 30 miles from my Aunt's house, she heard it hit. My cousin was in Ohio when it happened, on a school trip. He didn't get home until 10 that night opposed to the 4 pm he was to suppose to arrive back home. Trajedi I had just woken up and turned on the TV in the bedroom, which is right next to my bed. I saw smoke coming from the World Trade Center and to be honest I didn't think much of it. Admittedly I was still half asleep and I wake up slowly, so I figured it was a fire or something. Then all hell broke loose as another plane smashed into the second tower. From that moment on I was glued to the television. It was so surreal in that I was still waking up and the events unfolding were unbelievable. From my own personal perspective it really was like a nightmare. Jamie Robertson I woke up late that morning, maybe 9:30am. I rolled out of bed and for the first time, turned on a radio I plugged in in my bathroom the night before, and was miffed because though I searched every station, not a single one was playing music, nor did I leave a station on long enough to find out why. At about 10:00 I sat to my computer, turned on the monitor, where I was already logged onto IRC, where the first thing I saw in the channels I was in was talk about terrorist acts and planes flying into buildings; it took me all of 2 seconds to turn on CNN and get the rest of the story. My mom called at 10:30am to ask if I had the news on... A. S. Campling I had been up really late Monday morning drawing comic strips for Wednesday and Thursday, as I didn't have class until 3pm the next day, so I was dead asleep through early Tuesday morning. I remember my roommate Steve and our friend Scott coming back to the apartment seemingly early, and Steve picked up the phone and started talking. Me, as usual, tried to ignore everything and sleep on. Steve doesn't talk very quietly ever. He's very loud, so of course I overhear him. At this point in my wake-itude, I understand what he says, but there isn't much attached to it. I get bits and pieces of his conversation... plane crash, World Trade Towers... I tell him to quiet down, I'm trying to sleep. He comes in and explains it to me while he's still on the phone. "Oh," I say. It still isn't really making sense to me. Brain wants sleep. Yet it nags. Suddenly, I think, "...there's probably people in those towers." I always think of buildings as, well, buildings. I live in Chicago, and even the thought of people having offices and other businesses inside the Sears Tower seems weird to me. It's a landmark, not an office building. I get out of bed slowly, wandering towards the television that's already on. And the building collapses before me. I sort of stared blankly like a dope for some time, soaking in information and not really being able to understand how horribly freaky and terribly wrong this all is. It's just too big. Steve's still on the phone, talking to his mother, talking to his sister, who's just got out of training for National Guard. We need to keep the phone lines open, so no Internet. I'm not about to complain. I can wait to see how my New York friends are, because Steve is worried that his sister will be carted off to war and he'll never speak to her again. I slowly begin to sort through all the people I know in New York, trying to remember where they live, and whether they might be under all this. By the time Steve leaves for class at 3pm, I'm a nervous wreck and get online. Everyone's accounted for except for a few people. They all turned out okay, thank God. ...however, some of their friends are still missing. I keep praying (and it's been a while...) that the missing friends are okay, that they're just missing everyone like some deranged version of Sleepless in Seattle. But the realist in me knows what lies ahead. Like I wrote Joyce saying in comics drafted after Tuesday, I have family down there. Not blood family, but people I surround myself with, people I depend on, and people those people depend on. I feel so helpless sitting here in Illinois far away from people who need the biggest hug a little guy like me has to offer. It's so sad that it takes something like this to realize what we had and, God willing, still have. David Willis Well, I was here at my computer at home, having just finished my morning bus run. My Mom called me and asked me if I'd heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. I told her that I hadn't. We spoke of other things and I continued what I was doing on the computer. No, I didn't go turn on the TV to check it out. My initial impression was that a small plane had accidentally collided with one of the towers, much as the one that hit the Empire State Building back in the 1930's, and that was that. About a half an hour later, I was talking to her again on the phone, and she said that a *second* plane had hit the Trade Center and one hit the Pentagon, too. *That* got my attention, and I immediately turned on the TV, while still on the phone with my mother. When I saw it on TV, I couldn't believe it. I've been to the World Trade Center more times than I can count, and it's always been my favorite place to go when visiting NYC (which I last did in August of last year). While I was still talking with my Mom on the phone, the first tower collapsed on TV, then the second. I'd like to go out and help, but unfortunately I have no skills that could be utilized in the rescue effort (mediocre drawing and snide political satire aren't the most useful skills for assisting in the recovery of trapped persons). Now, aside from a few dozen photographs, four souvenirs, and a ton of memories of a place which I know as well as anywhere on earth, the Towers are gone forever. I think of the people who I had casual encounters with while there the multitude of times I'd been there, and I wonder if any or all of them were there, and are safe. The security guard in the mall who told me how to find the bathroom (I've an excellent sense of direction and never -- well, "rarely" get lost -- but, that mall is so darned big, I got disoriented, and I just *had* to go). The other security guard who told me how to find the Express Elevator. The girl who worked in the shop in the mall who sold me a souvenir last August. The guy who took my ticket for the express elevator. All of the people at "Windows On the World" (on the top floor), where I spent the majority of my time when I was there. I don't actually *know* any of them -- but even just having briefly met them, I wonder if those lives I momentarily crossed paths with were part of this horrendous madness... Jim Alexander |
| Tuesday September 11-- I arrived early at my 9am (CST) art class. The teacher and a student were listening to the radio news. They asked if I'd heard about the plane crashes, and they said 2 planes had hit the WTC. I wasn't sure what to make of it, and they weren't really sure what was going on either. I remember saying "TWO planes?!" and thinking what a weird accident and that there must have been a mid-air collision and both planes went down or something. Gradually the other students came in and sat down. Some knew, and others didn't. We all listened to the reports. We began to get a clearer idea of what was going on, and heard about the Pentagon being hit as well. I remember feeling rather numb as the full story began to emerge, like it was too big to really comprehend at once. Someone suggested turning on the television (the advantages of being in an art classroom I guess -- this was the same television on which I'd watched Robert Beverly Hale life drawing videos a few weeks before) and we immediately saw the footage of the planes hitting the towers and exploding, and that certainly jolted us all. I was amazed when the news said 50000 people worked in the WTC; I thought, "That's larger than a lot of entire towns!" I have since learned that I was not as surprised as most people that something like this happened. I certainly felt it was terrible, but I didn't feel suddenly afraid. I did not feel suddenly less safe like many people, because I've always felt like this sort of thing was possible, and I remember thinking at the time that it had only been a matter of time before something big like this happened. But like everyone else, I felt deeply sad for the people involved. Fellow students made various comments about the sadness and the horror and how shocking it all was. Nobody said anything vengeful about retaliation, which I remember feeling grateful for. I remember feeling afraid this would immediately escalate into an awful war. (Only later in the week did I begin hearing the inevitable sickening calls to nuke Afghanistan and so forth.) It was a strange thing being there at the start of a class with this terrible awesome event happening... what do you do? We watched the newscasts for a while, and talked, and it seemed clear that none of us had close ties to anyone who might have been hurt in the attack. So our teacher said something like, "Well, art doesn't stop for any political controversy"... it was simultaneously a sort of silly joke to break the tension and also a deeply true and inspiring statement, I felt, and I'm glad he said it, and we proceeded to have our class, but with a surreal undercurrent as we kept the news on... a roomful of people simultaneously engaged in creativity and learning about dreadful destruction. In hindsight I'm grateful to have had a creative release to focus on at the time. Russ Williams Thanks for your email; we hope this finds you and your loved ones well. We were in Boston staying with friends, and preparing to drive down for SPX, when we got up on the Tuesday morning to find out what had happened. Like most people we were (and are) pretty much in shock. Our hosts would have taken almost the same flight on the Thursday, and in fact on speaking to others, it seems that most people know someone who was directly affected or almost affected in some way by the terrible events. It would be good if the world was a better place, it would be excellent if war or agression could be avoided. I live in Brooklyn, in Prospect Heights, and I had just voted in our city-wide primary election. I wanted an egg-and-cheese breakfast sandwich and I was walking down the street next to my apartment building to a local diner when a limousine driver ran past me on the street and shouted, "I just saw it! I saw it with my own eyes! A plane crashed into the World Trade Center!" I was confused, but, figuring it was an accident, and probably a small plane, I continued on my way. The diner was crowded with people, so I walked back up the street to another place, passing a dry-cleaner. Remembering I had some clothes there to pick up, I stopped by. While I was waiting for my clothes, an older African-American guy ran in with his laundry and dropped it on the scale. He yelled to the owner that he had to go because all auxiliary firefighters were being called in. It seemed odd to me, that a small plane hitting a skyscraper, in another borough, no less, would wreak such mayhem, but again I shrugged and went on my way. Finally, when I got to the bodega were I ordered my breakfast sandwich, I saw that the second plane had hit and that obviously this was more than an accident. But the smoking towers didn't seem to show that much damage, and even at that point the whole thing seemed manageable, conceivable, within the realm of understanding. In fact, some of the other customers in the bodega even joked with the Arab owners about terrorism and the like. Clutching my sandwich, I went back to my apartment to eat, thinking I'd watch coverage of the event on TV. I thought it was odd that the only channel still broadcasting was Channel 2, CBS. Once I started watching, the news came fast and furious: hijacked jetliners, the crash in the Pentagon, bombs going off at the State Department, Capital Hill, a fire on the Washington Mall, and so on, and so on. Much of it rumors, but it became quite clear that we were in for something big. Then it occurred to me that my wife Sari had left for work (traveling by subway near or under the World Trade Center) right around the time of the attack. I tried calling her office and couldn't get through. Just when I was starting to be quite concerned, she called me. Sari had gotten to work with no problem, only to find all hell had broken loose downtown. Just as were getting each other up to date, as I was watching TV, the first tower crumbled to the ground, cutting us off. I couldn't process what was happening, the incredible tragedy, the horrible loss of life. I tried calling Sari again and couldn't get through. I ran up to my apartment building's roof, where a few others were also standing, just to verify with my own eyes that the tower was gone. We have a fine view of the Manhattan skyline, and there it was, a single tower and a huge cloud of smoke and dust. Awful. I ran back down again and fielded a few phone calls, one of them from my fellow cartoonist Dean Haspiel. We were on the phone together when the second tower fell. Again, uncomprehending, I had to run up to my roof to see for myself that this had actually happened. It had. The rest of the day was spent responding to emails from everywhere else, from people wondering if myself and my loved ones were okay (they are), fielding more calls, trying to find a way to get Sari back home (she ended up being shuttled across the Manhattan Bridge by a commandeered bus), and biking around Brooklyn trying to give blood. What an incredible feeling of helplessness. I'm doing at least one story about the event, maybe two. It'll be published in Alternative Comics' 9-11: Emergency Relief book. Responses from:
I had just spent the night wondering if I was going to lose my job with Xerox because they'd called an emergency meeting on Monday afternoon with only a few hours notice. :P I went into the meeting and while waiting for it to stop, someone said: A plane flew into the world trade center and I was like, wow.... someone made a mistake. Then a few minutes later, someone else came in and said: TWO planes flew into the WTC. And I was like, whoa, what a coincidence, then we sat to a boring two hours of being told that our Facility is being bought by GE *Essentially. Keep my job, get nice discounts on GE appliances.:P* At the end of that, our speaker stated: As you may have heard, two planes flew into the WTC ... and the Pentagon is on fire. Worded like that... ugh. I was thankful I was in Dallas although was wondering if at any moment the ground would start shaking, but wasn't that afraid, just disturbed. My first thought was: It isn't as bad as it sounds, because there was no mention of nuclear bombs. Weird. And then, I posted this to my forum: I heard about what was going on just a few minutes ago in a meeting today at work. *Just some small changes at Xerox that are actually kinda good for me, of course, knowing I have a job is a good thing.* Granted, that pales in comparison to the news that was delivered at the end of the meeting. I really hope that my readers in the areas that have been plane-bombed are ok. Even though I don't know them or even whom is, I will be praying for them and I would hope those of you in other countries are as well. Despite how horrible it sounds, we should be thankful that it's ONLY planes. Only planes... and not something far more disasterous. Not like having planes crashing into the WTC and having it fall will do any worse for the economy. As long as we can all go to work tomorrow, have they really done a lot other than strike a blow to the already pretty much diminished American Pride? Hopefully it'll make SOME people wake up to just how lax our security was. Why bother attacking outright, just board an international flight, hop on a few jets with minimum security and take them over... then suicide. I'm in rather mixed emotions right now. I live in Dallas, just north of it so I don't really think I'd be in any danger, but I'm only 25, not like I or most of you have actually SEEN the beginnings of a war up close. Yet, it probably won't do much to disturb my day other than sorrow at lives lost through such senselessness. I'll go home, watch about 10 minutes of the news. I hate watching the news anyway, then fix dinner, get online, read my email, work on the strips, prep things for tomorrow, go to bed with a bit more awareness of what's going on, pray about it and hope I am able to get up in the morning to a recovering world. Americans don't go down in one blow, we stand back up again. That's what we're about... isn't it? Tiffany Ross Huh. Tuesday and Thursday are my days for home-schooling the kids. So I did a quick scan of email before leaving the house on our field trip to the greenhouse and art museum (here on campus), and noted something on e-cartoonists that said "World Trade Center exposition". Huh. So I left. Nothing to do with me. And I forgot it until later. So at the greenhouse, the radio was on to what sounded like a news station. But my daughter was talking so I didn't listen. We saw the mimosas and she was pretty impressed that they close their leaves like that. Then we walked around the big part of the greenhouse (with tropical trees and stuff) and then we stood around timing the mimosa's leaf response (they open back up in roughly two minutes by our testing.) And during that time, I started parsing what was on the radio. A fire. A big fire in Manhattan. In the World Trade Center of all places. When the announcer got to the point of saying "and now both towers have collapsed" I thought, "Wow. A War of the Worlds kind of fiction." Right? People jumping out of the WTC while it was burning? Too weird. My daughter asked why in the world they didn't include parachutes on all floors. (Seven-year-olds are very practical.) We talked about it while walking to the art museum. I was still about 50% believing it was a work of fiction -- remember Godzilla, after all. Radio drama can be pretty amazing and we do have an arts station here, so... So then we met my wife for lunch and she confirmed it -- adding the rather incredible fact that it had been done by crashing jetliners into the towers, and that the Pentagon had also been hit... Wow. And then I spent the rest of the day watching the TV and redownloading footage from CNN.com. Michael Roberts When I first heard what was happening, I had just come in to work. I don't watch the news in the morning or anything, so when I came in the door and a manager came up and said "Do you know what's going on?", my first thought was that the server was down again or something. Then she proceeded to tell me that someone had crashed two planes into the World Trade Center, and it all sort of went downhill from there. The rest of the day was spent trying to keep up with the news in-between the scarce tech calls. Watching the whole thing unfold from an hour after the initial crash onward was surreal... like I was hoping it was all just a movie, and it'd end soon. But it kept going. Kunou I was at home with my oldest daughter. She was ill and couldn't go to school. Now when I'm at home alone with either of my daughters, we normally watch the Cartoon Network all day. For some reason, at about 9:15 a.m. something told me to check out network TV. I turned to CBS and there is was. The first tower was smoking. I watched the second plane crash live. I watched both towers fall live. It was like watching a movie. It was unreal. Gerald Haynes I was in bed w/ my girlfriend, and my suitemate Q brought me my cell phone saying my mom was calling... I saw 15 missed calls and I said "huh, something must be wrong," and he told me and I quickly turned on the tv. Andy Floyd |
I was in my office at work when my boss (who's British) walks in and says, "A plane crashed into the WTC." I thought he was joking. Then I turned on the radio. Lisa |
| I had just gotten home from work (graveyard shift), walked in the door, and saw some disaster being talked about on the TV which was on. Nobody was home at the time, so I didn't know what had happened for a good couple minutes, when my sister called from work. Trevortni I was asleep at the time it happened, having been up all night working on stuff. I was dreaming about a tsunami that was rushing toward Manhattan, and I could see this huge wave building in the distance. After it hit, there were people scattered all over the place. It was a horrible dream, and it was true; I sensed a tsunami of hatred. I was having the dream at about the same time as the attack took place, then got up to see all this on tv. All I could do was just stand there and shake in disbelief. I shook all day long, and I still feel sick at my stomach over it. Kaichi Satake Shadowfall I had just finished class, and was coming home on the bus. There was this irritating kid sitting behind me-- flashy jewelry, Fubu clothing, you know the type-- and he was talking on his cell phone. Given the volume of his voice, I couldn't help but overhear. Suddenly, he said "Hey, man, did you hear what happened?" He then went on to describe how planes had been hijacked and crashed with the Pentagon, WTC, etc... and I could scarcely believe it. After that, I found myself tuning in on other people's conversations -- and, of course, everyone was talking about it. Phrases like "World War Three" and "nuclear weapon" were being bounced around. I went home and downloaded every version I could find of the song "It's the End of the World as We Know It". I've always been something of a pessimist, but you can't fault me on musical taste. Tailsteak For my part I dodged the bullet big time. I was on the subway inside the Cortland street subwy station, INSIDE the WTC, when the first plane hit. The entire subway shook and we heard a loud boom. Being typical NY'ers we shrugged it off; until 100's of people flooded into the subway fleeing falling debris shouting that a plane flew into the building. Upon reaching 23rd street (my intended destination), I tried calling my roommate trying to warn her about subway delays due too the "accident". I was looking right at the towers when the second plane attacked. Needless to say the mood where I freelance was grim. I don't know anyone working in the buildings, but my roommate does. A girl I work with there has a sister who works across the street from the WTC whom she had talked to and arranged to meet to go home. Moments after they spoke the south tower collapsed, leaving my friend in a panic, since she could no longer raise her sister. I had to walk home from midtown via Queens; it took about 3 1/2 hours. Brooklyn is covered in soot and ash, and I found battered office letterhead in my backyard. I'm still trying to process it all. But it is at times like these that one sees the best of New Yorkers, as shopkeepers and bodega owners were on the sidewalk giving away bottled water to the overheated and weary pedestrians walking to the outer boughroughs from Manhattan across the Williamsburg and 59th street bridges. This entire incident is indescribable. The only way I've been able to communicate with my family out of state is via email. I had no long distance service for three days, and my cell phone no longer works. If you are unfamiliar with NY, there is no way the TV images can show the entire area that has been devastaded. A radius of 5 city blocks is simply gone, and a total radius of ten city blocks is totally uninhabitable. Many of those buildings will need extensive reconstruction or be torn down. The Wall Street Journal will not be returning to its building for a year or more, and is currently operating out of New Jersey. Business in Brooklyn is proceeding, but far from normal. There are still the normal number of people on the street as any normal day, but it is eeriely quiet none the less. If you closed your eyes you would swear it was night. If there is one sobering fact that I can possibly get across in this little submission, is that my story is neither unique nor unusually. It is in fact quite common as literally tens of thousands of New Yorkers have similar, if not identical stories, to my own. be safe Kevin Tinsley I live in Sarasota, Florida where President Bush was preparing to speak on education. He was reading to the children beginning at 9:00, and speaking at 9:30. The meeting was open press, so I decided to go. It's not every day the president comes to speak in one's town. As I approached the school around 8:54, there were a lot of cars parked on the opposite side of the two lane road. The school sits behind a grove of trees and I wasn't sure quite where it was, or where was the best place to park. There were hippies picketing and news trucks on the opposite side of the street, and a police cruiser with two officers standing at the driveway entrance. I passed the school looking for a better place to park, passed the motorcade of police motorcycles arrayed along the street, and another cruiser waiting two blocks down. I went a little ways and pulled a three point turn. As I headed back, however, the cruiser turned his lights on and moved into the road. At first I was offended. Surely I wasn't speeding? Then, as it became clear he wasn't after me, but blocking off the street, I was annoyed. What was going on? The officer got out of the car and walked over to me, motioning for me to roll down my window. "I have to block off this area," he said. He gestured with his hand, "Two planes have hit the world trade center. They're thinking it's a terrorist attack, and the President is making an early departure." HE pointed to my radio. "907am." As he spoke, the police motorcade rolled out, lights flashing. A motorist behind me asked where we should go. "You can try down there," the officer said, pointing down the side street where he'd been stationed. "I can't let anyone through here." I drove around for the next hour listening to the scattered reports mixed with static on my car radio, which gets poor reception. I don't have TV at home, nor could I find any public place where I could see one. It was a far cry from the Chicago neighborhood where I lived last year, where every public place, from laundromats to pet stores have a TV. I finally went home and plugged the cable from my cable modem into the TV, and was able to get a very static but viewable NBC. The picture cleared just as the first tower was collapsing. Then I began getting a barrage of phone calls. I spent the next 5 hours glued to the TV, and speaking with family and friends. I got an e-mail from my cousin, who had been working in the WTC only last week, telling us she was ok. Around 3:00 I went down to give blood, and didn't leave until 6:30 due to the number of volunteers that had swamped the local clinic. Among the people I spoke with there were a German man in Sarasota on vacation, a 2nd year photography major from Ringling, the local art school, a Manatee County Sheriff, and a woman there with her 10 year old son, who was told he was too young to give blood. Some of them had been waiting all afternoon. The young lady coordinating us all was in her first week on the job, but was well organized in spite of the confusion. When I got home I learned that the EXPO, for which I had spent the past three months planning, had been cancelled, as I'd expected it would be. It did seem trivial, but it was an additional burden. I had to pull the cartoons I had planned to run for the next few days, which were no longer appropriate, and stayed up till 1:30 trying to think of something that was. I suddenly had sympathy for the newscasters. It is difficult to find perspective, and something worth saying, in the midst of a crisis. The small bit I found was as I prepared to give up on the cartoon and try again in the morning. My overwhelming feeling was that I didn't want to have to wake up tomorrow into a world in which this had happened. And I realized I was going to have that feeling for some time. Austin McKinley I woke up around 10:30 pdt, then went to turn on the shower. While the shower warmed up, I signed online to check if Sporky updated, among other things. I was greeted by the first e-mail in the WTC thread on this list. I almost thought it was a joke, it just seemed so unbelievable. So I shook it off, checked Sporky, then idly glanced at Yahoo! out of curiosity. Then I sat and stared at the monitor blankly for ten minutes while the water in my shower kept running. John Troutman |
Friday, September 08, 2006
Help Lea.
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