Rockwood: The Rockwood Mailbag.

The Rockwood Mailbag

Express yourself!

Have you always wanted to let Team Rockwood know just what you were thinking? Do you wonder why the panels of the strip are laid out horizontally instead of vertically? Or do you have sensitive documents that will bring down the government? In any case, we want to know! Just fill out your name and e-mail address, then let 'er rip! No question or comment is too bizarre for Team Rockwood to take a stab at, and if we can get enough mail coming in, this page will be updated weekly! (Unlike the old mailbag page, which got updated about four times in two years.)

So consider this an experiment in web interactivity. Or, consider it a way to artificially inflate our hit count. Either way, just write in!

Updated on February 14, 2006
		February 8, 2006, Hey Brian, I just wanted to say how much I love your commmmmmmwaahhhhh.... would like to subscribe for the newsletter on Investor relations. thanks --TheShked (joined by Agent Smith)
		Thanks, Shke--uh...Agent. We'll get you our newsletter just as soon as we get some investors to relate to.
		February 8, 2006, Well, looks like Jack is done with AtAT. Appleturns.com is not on Network Solutions' tables today. Perhaps a memorial? I do see a Jack D. Miller offering up a bunch of commentary, and a few articles on Mac360.com -- not sure if the same guy. Oh well, scratch that off my bookmarked sites. Sigh. --Steve D.
		February 9, 2006, OK, nevermind. Curiosity overcame me once more (sigh), and today As the Apple Turns was up & NS remembered where they were, albeit the site is STILL nearly four months old... --Steve D.
		The disappearance of Jack Miller is a big mystery Steve. The Mac360 Miller is a different person, so AtAT's Miller is still missing. We'd think he could at least put up a post as to why he hasn't had time to update his site, but maybe he really IS locked up in a Microsoft dungeon somewhere.
		February 8, 2006, Hi Brian, Since I have felt guilty about not contributing, yet with nothing to write about. And you have been left to reprint spam, perhaps this is OK. Monday's strip kinda opened the bag anyway. So here I go: The Danish Newspaper/Mohammed Image kerfuffle is getting out of control and the 'bad guys' are winning. So much is being written in mainstream media about it that you'd think they were published in hate under the protection of Danish freedom of speech laws that were (in this case being abused). The truth is that they were part of an article that was about how fear of Muslim intimidation/retaliation has infringed upon the normal state of free speech. The most extreme case being the Theo van Gogh story. The Danish newspaper theorized that European media (arts and news) had been influenced because if one was critical of Islam in any way, death threats and worse would soon follow. The editor/author had heard of a Danish author who wanted to write a book for kids that would give a better understanding of Islam for non-muslim Danish children. This author was frustated that he couldn't find any illustrators for his book. The paper then, as they could reach more artists than the author, sent out requests to 40 illustrators for drawings of Muhammed. Of those 40, twelve returned 'something'. One of those was the "bomb in the turban" sketch. One was a respectful water-painting of the Prophet. Others were in-between and yet others didn't really picture him at all. The article, as I already mentioned, was about freedom of expression and how violence had begun to interfere with that freedom in the form of self-censorship. However, the protests (while another form of legitimate free expression) curiously began long after the publication, which was back in September. It has been documented that Imams from Denmark in January began to travel and meet with influential religious leaders across the Muslim world. They told of outrageuous pictures and included three seriously offensive pictures that were never published in Denmark. After that, some unseen network has provided the organization for the protests. People are bussed into capitals to attack European embassies, etc. (see the news for the targets). And since when did the ordinary Afghani worry about Danish newspapers? Even back in October an Egyptian paper reprinted the images without hardly any fanfare. I guess I am upset because the impression that people in the US seems to get is that there was some racist/Islamo-phobic newspaper in Denmark that published some hateful pictures and that Islamic people are justified in their reaction which has begun to include the firebombing of embassies (of Denmark and other countries). --DH Crap - that ran way longer than I meant to. Probably not suitable for Rockmail.
		Too long? Nah. As a rule, we don't support cartoons that are written specifically to offend anyone's religion, DH. However, we've seen the cartoons in question and hardly think they're offensive. Furthermore, we think most Muslims would find most of them unoffensive. So we agree with you that it's not the cartoons that are the problem, rather it's the people protesting them. The fact is that there are groups out there who want to control what you say, and the western media is by and large letting them get away with it. By threatening violence, these groups have intimidated the free media into not reporting the news, that is they've voluntarily abandoned their right to free speech for fear of what might happen if they reprinted some cartoons. We consider this a bad sign.
		February 9, 2006, Have you read or seen The Boondocks? Did you hear Al Sharpton wants Cartoon Network to apologize for the show's MLK Day episode? Would you like it if your comic was so controversial? I'm sure It would mean more viewer mail. If no, how's the weather where you are? --Rookee Alding
		The weather's fine here, Rookee. And we've been controversial before. It provides a short jolt of adrenaline, but ultimately, being controversial isn't enough by itself. We think The Boondocks is far more controversial than it is funny, and as such we think it's mediocre at best. It would be nice to have its popularity, but we think we can do it our own way instead of doing it that way.
		February 10, 2006, i adore the humor.... I revel in each char hecter's (sic) feined existance......."jetsons w/ a dash of Bev Hill(billys).... humor done well. --Sterling
		Hmm... we see where the Jetsons reference might come in, but we're a little confused by the Beverly Hillbillies. We don't even have a concrete pond.
		February 10, 2006, Loved Friday's comic. Great way to bring it back around and reference an older comic. I never realized the danger of being a cartoonist. Have you heard that the nortorious Danish cartoons were first published more than six months ago? Something fishy is going on. --Tony J. Moyer
		We agree, Tony. It's pretty obvious at this point that certain groups are just using these cartoons as an excuse to be violent. Note we didn't say the cartoons caused the violence. Those extremist groups were going to burn things anyway; now they just claim they're justified. We don't buy it. There are plenty of other people who get offended at the media every day, but they don't storm downtown offices and burn things.
		February 10, 2006, Ack! This (page 2) reveals that you've been whacked from the wiki (search for Rockwood). Sorry, man. I thought it was cool that you were listed up at the top there! But now they only really include links to listing sites. We readers really need to start promoting you more! --Brian #3
		While we agree that readers promoting us more would be a good thing, Brian #3, we're not too concerned with losing Wikipedia as a link. The fact is, we checked our logs and received not even one hit from that Wiki link for all of 2006. No one who's reading web comics is looking to Wikipedia for new suggestions. Rockwood is doing just fine without a Wikipedia reference. Over the past two years, we've had over a million hits. And in what we consider the biggest measure of our success, if you Google the word Rockwood, out of 4,760,000 potential results, we come up as number five. We think that says more than any Wiki entry could.
		February 11, 2006, I'll probably jinx this by saying it, but today's coverage has been good so far. Thirty minutes in, and just some ads and a lot of ski jumping. I love ski jumping. It's mostly watching intently just in case someone screws up and wipes out on landing, but it's also cool to watch just to see people flinging themselves into the air. --Greg
		It really is hard to beat that, isn't it?
		Previous week's mail

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