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September 4, 2004

Eric Burns-White: Don't you fucking tell me there are no magic words. I know better.

(Found on Narbonic.com in support of Modern Tales's comic Narbonic. Click on the thumbnail for full sized prenarbonic action!)

So, having consumed Narbonic's archives over the past couple of days, I'm now ravenous for more. And that, by the way, is what a truly great webcomic does. It infects your brain with its premise, with its attitude, with its expectations and whips you up into a froth, so that you want more, damn it, now!

This does not, by the way, explain why some people are total assholes when it comes to updates, especially from hobbyist cartoonists. No, that's not because those people are so desperate for the next strip they lose all rhyme or reason. That's because those people are total assholes. Entirely different reaction, really.

So I went looking for more stuff. And saw on Garrity's web site that she had some old strips from her college days and the like. All very nice and neat, and I looked through them -- including the above strip, which was called "North of Space."

And there I saw it. The magic word.

Cushlamocree.

Doesn't mean anything to you? Then your world is a much sadder place than mine.

Back in the forties, a man named Crockett Johnson wrote and drew a comic strip called Barnaby. This was a strip about a young boy named, appropriately enough, Barnaby -- who wished one day to have a Fairy Godmother. Well, the fates gave him a Fairy Godfather instead -- Mr. O'Malley, a small, portly pixie with a pork-pie hat and a "fine Havana wand" that looked a whole lot like a cigar. And so began a series of absolutely whimsical, absolutely magical, savagely sophisticated and satirical comic strips.

They were absolutely wonderful. When satirizing the campaign of Thomas Dewey for President, they revealed three ghosts coordinating his campaign strategy -- all of whom were working to turn back time, because they didn't like the modern world. One of them -- Colonel Wurst (a conflation of the names of the owner of the Chicago Tribune and William Randolph Hearst -- two rabid anti-Roosevelt voices) -- published news in the papers that was old, each day pushing the news back another day in time. In the end, they gave up the campaign after Wurst published news from the day before Black Monday. Since they had decided they had moved back before the Great Depression, they were all rich again, so they didn't care about politics any more. The relationship of the Pixies, the kids who saw and believed in them and the parents who didn't (and who called them Pixeys -- a slight difference that made all the difference) is echoed in everything from Calvin and Hobbes to Mr. Snuffleupagus.

Duke Ellington once wrote to the newspaper that published Barnaby to state, for the record, that he believed in Mr. O'Mallery, no matter what Barnaby's parents thought. And Dorothy Parker wrote a review that she described as a valentine and a mash note to Johnson. This is the depth of impact Barnaby had on popular culture.

Johnson also wrote the seminal children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon -- a book entirely about unleashing one's imagination through art. It was beautiful and wonderful. But I first came to know Johnson through Barnaby. One of the greatest runs of the strip -- the Hot Coffee Ring -- was in that Smithsonian Cartoon Art collection I mentioned a while back.

Mr. O'Malley had an all purpose expression -- somewhere between an exclamation and a swear -- that he used all the time. "Cushlamocree."

When Garrity used Cushlamocree in her strip, she instantly brought all of the above back to me... back to my own childhood. Back to a lot of people's childhoods.

Magic.

I owe her a beer if I ever meet her.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:10 PM | Comments (0)

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September 3, 2004

Eric Burns-White: The question is, does the iconography come from the Sims or did the Sims just use the iconography?

(From College Roomies From Hell! Click on the thumbnail for full sized tartan goodness.)

You've seen me rant before on the subject. You've seen me waste time and electrons on it before. And deep in your heart, you've heard the sobbing in yourself as well.

"Jesus Christ -- these situations are contrived! These characters are dumb as posts! How do I suspend disbelief that large? Are we supposed to actually believe Miranda would have left all this to A.J.'s idiocy for so long? Damn you, User Frie--"

Right. College Roomies from Hell. I can focus.

Well, here it is, kids. In all its pristine glory. Resolution. We had setup for conflict, and we had conflict resolved. And we actually get a feeling that Blue likes Dave for who he is, not who she wants him to be.

I think the heart iconography (which I like. I like the language of cartoons that allows us to just know that "yes, it's official now." I liked it when Mike forlornly fell for Peejee in Something Positive, and I like it here) is the perfect endnote. Blue knows what she's got in Dave, and when he explains -- not excuses, because... well, there is no excuse... but explains, she accepts, wholly. And she covered for him with Mike, who would have Dave killed, horribly.

But that heart... that heart just jumps out at me. Because we've always known that Dave loves Margaret, but he's never really had any good reason to. And now, he loves Blue. Who he does have a reason to. And Margaret did everything in her power to set them up, because she loves Dave too, but she knows her life is going straight to Hell.

So. My immediate assumption is if Dave doesn't stand by Margaret in her hour of need, the whole world dies in flame, and the forces of darkness win. And damned if I'm not rooting for Dave/Blue now.

Maritza Campos? Biscuit. Tasty, tasty biscuit.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:21 PM | Comments (1)

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Eric Burns-White: It's like they can see inside my mind. Of course, they *do* have six years worth of my archived e-mail....

It's another killer day of systems administration. Between that and reading the Narbonic archives and giggling like a madman every second I can spare away from the machines handling everyday life, there's going to be another day of late updates from me. But, like yesterday, I do promise there will be snarks, as soon as there can be. I don't promise they'll be any better than yesterday's snarks, but then you're used to that, right?

In the meantime, I have to point out something Google (excuse me, Goooooooooooogle. I mean, what the Hell?) Ads have managed to do.

After days of pet food, cat comics, and "make your own blog," they've started advertising Krazy Kat shirts.

God help me. At the rate I'm 'making' money off of Google ads, which after all are meant to defray operating costs for Websnark, it'd be months before I could afford to buy a Krazy Kat shirt. And yet, it's classic Herriman. On a shirt. Damn it, Google ads have figured me out! It's insanity! Insanity!

(How has Narbonic managed to avoid my radar before now? This is brilliance! BRILLIANCE! Garrity's opinions of my patter aside, of course.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:44 AM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: Unsnarked out of fatigue...

This was a brutal day's work at the day job. And tomorrow's likely to be the same, though I'll try my level best to have higher levels of snark for you all.

For the record, I have strips in my upload directory, but I don't have the brainspace, the energy or the concentration to do them justice. So, Greystone Inn, Irregular Webcomic, Achewood and American Elf? I'm sorry. I'll try to get you guys in tomorrow.

As for now? Bon soir.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: It's okay, man. You're keeping us informed. Don't worry, already

This is about Something*Positive. Read this strip or suffer your friends calling you stupid.

I love Something Positive. Chances are likely you do, too.

Randy Milholland has had the worst possible thing happen to him, though. See, he vented. It was a good vent. A proper vent. A vent the size of his native Texas. When some cretin was bitching about a spelling mistake, he lost it, and said, in effect, "ALL RIGHT YOU SONS OF BITCHES! YOU WANNA BITCH ABOUT SOMETHING YOU'RE GETTING FOR FREE? PAY MY SALARY FOR A YEAR!"

And they did.

I mean, holy shit.

I know, this is old news by now. But the problem is, Randy's discovering the down side to having rabid fans. Having paid him his money, they now think they own his ass, and so the same assholes who were hounding him before are hounding him all the more virulently now. If he misses a day, they smack him down. If he's not funny in their opinion, they smack him down. If he offends them (which by now they should just expect), they smack him down. When he went on vacation (which he's entitled to do by Federal Law, you know -- even if you did donate five bucks to his fund) and had a couple of filler strips -- still there, interesting, funny, with art, the works -- they still bitched him out.

Now he's back, exhausted from traveling. And he got out a strip and promised a second strip "tonight," to bring himself up to date.

As of this typing, he has six minutes on the East Coast, and I for one couldn't care less if he makes it or not.

"But wait, Eric," you're saying. "You're Mister 'It's your Fucking Job!' Mister 'PvP Update Pool!' Mister 'You Had Me and You Lost Me, Megatokyo!'" Why aren't you raking Milholland over the coals now, in an entertaining fashion?"

Because he was on vacation, God Damn It!

Look, I do put him in the 'it's your job' category. And I publicly snarked (long before I had this website) when he got self-righteous during the early days of "S*P is my job," when he was finding his rhythm. And further, I'm of the opinion he should simply set his daily update time to midnight, get up whenever he wishes (God knows I would), do the strip whenever he likes during the day, dump it into the auto updater and move on with life, so that his readers' expectations would be met while not screwing with his own schedule.

But Jesus, people. If he tells us his situation in advance, don't bitch. Accept, and enjoy the Funny as it comes. And Mr. Milholland? You told us well in advance there would be a gap. Don't kill yourself to fill it. Take your time, get rested from the trip, refresh yourself, and don't sweat the bastards.

Including me.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:02 AM | Comments (1)

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September 2, 2004

Eric Burns-White: The single greatest filler comic of all time.

(From Karn. Click on the thumbnail to embrace the fullness of its glory. I'm serious. A thumbnail can't do this justice. Just embrace the trueness of Karn #7.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: The bitch of it is, he probably really did miss her.

(From Diesel Sweeties. Click on the thumbnail for full sized ulterior motives.)

There is a certain purity to Diesel Sweeties. While he sometimes goes too often to the well with some jokes (dude, seriously, we don't need to see Maura e-mailing on the toilet any more), Stevens builds our expectations and then lives up to them. Indy Rock Pete and Pale Suzie were a good couple, because she was understanding and he was an asshole. Understanding people are necessary to perpetuate assholes in the species. And assholes are necessary for the good of the breed as a hole because without them, we are forced into introspective self-examination of the kind that eventually leads to the kind of extended Disney Theme Park existence that Jean-Luc Picard talks about so longingly in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Admit it, after you got finished having sex with supermodels on holodecks, you'd get bored out of your skull in the Federation.

Here, we see Indy Rock Pete slinking back to the ex because he has to. But you also get the feeling he'd really like it if she took him back, because, y'know, he likes her. And Pale Suzie can sense that and is touched. And will probably also brain him with a tombstone. It's been a while since someone got crushed in this strip.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:29 PM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: Contrariwise, being lonely doesn't necessarily mean you are alone.

(From No Stereotypes. Click on the thumbnail for full sized loneliness (note: requires registration. Click on the link for the most current strip free.)

Let us stop and consider Amber Greenlee. I first saw her art when she guest stripped for Melonpool, lo those many moons ago. I was stunned at how well her artwork suited Melonpool -- but how distinctive it was, too. There wasn't anything quite like it. I wasn't sure how much range her wide eyed (though not truly Mangaesque) characters would have, but I liked the playfulness they conveyed.

Well, I can certainly see the same style at play in "No Stereotypes," but it's a whole different experience.

The blending of the visuals with the text is evocative, here. Jody's descriptions blend with Atom's reactions. Tension builds. And we feel something building between them. It's a nice moment -- a calm between the storms.

Nice.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:36 PM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: It's a busy day....

...and me with eight strips set aside for snarking, too. Sorry gang, but for the moment the day job has me in thrall. You'll get stuff at some point today, though, and that's a promise.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

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September 1, 2004

Eric Burns-White: Really fast, so I can go home and eat.

I'm new to it, but I'm kind of grooving on Vigilante, Ho!, over on Graphic Smash. I always liked Basil Flint, though it's not currently on the Daily Trawl, and it looks like Troutman's stretching his storytelling a bit. It's a bit freshman yet, but it's going somewhere nice.

Of course, I have absolutely no idea when the last one was posted, as the Modern Tales/WebComicsNation database engine doesn't date entries. So it might be orphaned or current, and I wouldn't ever know. I'll see if it updates tomorrow, though.

Now -- food!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:49 PM | Comments (1)

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Eric Burns-White: Does one pronounce it like "Ae-REE" or "rhymes with 'hair.'" I'm never sure.

(From Queen of Wands. Click on the thumbnail for full sized hospitalization!)

Mmmm... now there's the Aeire-created goodness I've been wanting. A sweet moment, some Funny, some implied asskicking, and the potential for sweet sweet resolution. You have no idea how sick I get of webcomics where there is no resolution, especially in areas like this one. Yes, yes. I know. A.J. and Miranda have the hots for each other. It says so right here. But no, we're not going to resolve it. We're User Friendly! We don't have to resolve things! It just hangs there, like an open HTML tag, and we beat our heads into the fucking wall...

Oh. Queen of Wands. Right. Heh.

I mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again. This strip takes four panels and makes elaborate conversations readable and uncrowded. The art works well. It's just plain good. And there will soon be resolution. Aeire gets a biscuit.

That's right. A tasty, tasty biscuit.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:44 PM | Comments (4)

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Eric Burns-White: In Nomine fans: Balseraph alert. Everyone else: I'm a geek.

(From Sore Thumbs. Click on the thumbnail for full sized capitalism!)

This strip shows a good trend for Sore Thumbs, which is still a freshman and is still having some issues with finding its voice. One simple route to go would have Fairbanks as hopelessly incompetent at everything, but that would get real dull, real fast. I like the Fairbanks and Harmony dynamic in general, and having Fairbanks begin to apply conversational judo (or Zen and the Art of Gouging) effectively and begin to build a success is a good thing.

I'm also glad (knock on formica) that they're not touching on the Republican National Convention. I'm firmly convinced that Sore Thumbs isn't a political or gaming strip, and the times they try to become one or the other tend to fall flat. There's nothing wrong with going political, and I don't mind the hammering both neoconservatives and ultraliberals get in this strip, but I still sigh in relief when they let the anvils go undropped.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:04 PM | Comments (1)

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Eric Burns-White: FAQ: Lexicon

Some note has been made of the number of posts I've managed to bang out. It's amazing what kind of output you can get when you combine enthusiasm with living in New Hampshire and therefore having little to do with your time. Also, it's been very hot recently.

However, a kind of technical language has developed in this strip, and because there are so many posts, it's being kind of spread out. As readers have pointed out to me. And pointed out that a cast page is less important to this kind of project than a simple glossary would be.

So, this is the first of our FAQ pages, and it features a lexicon of terms.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: LEXICON

Biscuit, Tasty Tasty

When I think a particular individual strip really nails something -- be it a joke, an artistic device, a storyline point, a cliffhanger, or whatever -- I extol it. It's more than just saying "this is cool." It's saying "this is how it's done." It's a chance for others to learn. And I want to reward that webcartoonist who did this great thing. And it reminds me of something David Letterman once did on Late Night, back before the CBS Move. You see, he was doing Viewer Mail, and someone said "hey, Letterman -- you do this late night show, and it's funny! So what do you want -- a biscuit?" And Letterman said "yeah. I kind of do want a biscuit." So, the monumental NBC machine went into motion to fly the very finest of British Digestive Biscuits from London to New York, then run it up by courier to Letterman's desk. Since then, my mother and I always used "biscuit" as a reward for a job well done -- much like you would do with a dog. As for the tasty, tasty bit... well, the first time I used the biscuit thing, I followed it up by qualifying that it was tasty. And I happened to do it the second time as well, quite unconsciously. And when I realized that, I went with it. Besides, wouldn't you like to have a biscuit right now? A tasty, tasty biscuit?

Bringing the [whatever]

As an aficionado of Aaron Sorkin's writing, I have adopted some of his mannerisms. Yes, it annoys my friends and family too. One of those adopted phrases is 'bringing the' whatever we're talking about. On Websnark, this refers to the Webcartoonist bringing one of the core elements of a strip. For example, a webcartoonist can bring the Funny, meaning that there is a quality of humor that resonates with the reader. (Well, with me, anyway.) He can bring the Story, meaning that continuity and characterization are handled deftly and the reader wants to see what happens next. He can bring the Toolset, meaning he is bringing expertise in his craft. And so on.

Cast Page

One of the most important elements of a webcomic is its cast list. This can be a succinct list of characters and a short description, or it can be elaborate, updated in near-real time. However, it is absolutely necessary, because it provides the new reader with a fast roadmap so he can jump right in, and provides the long time reader with a quick reference to refresh his memory if need be.
That so many webcomics don't have a cast page mystifies we at Websnark. That some webcomics have a link or other site design for a cast page but don't actually have one can drive Websnark into a froth the likes of which few have seen and fewer survived. Few things like a nonfunctional Cast Page link can pull the word "dumbass" out of Websnark.

Cerebus Syndrome

The effort to create character development by adding layer upon layer of depth to their characters, taking a character of limited dimension (or meant to be a joke character) and making them fuller and richer. The idea is to take what was fun on one level and showing the reality beneath it. 'Cerebus Syndrome' refers to Dave Sim's epic, sometimes tragically flawed magnum opus, Cerebus the Aardvark. Cerebus started life as a parody of Conan the Barbarian starring an Earth-Pig born. Over time, it grew extremely complex, philosophical, and in many ways much much funnier. Then, Dave Sim went batshit crazy and Cerebus went straight to Hell, but that's for another day. People saw how Cerebus's humble roots could lead to glorious heights, and as cartoonists get bored with what they're doing, they decided to pull a Cerebus of their own.

Boredom is generally the key to a Cerebus Syndrome attempt. After a while, even a successful webcartoonist gets tired of fart jokes and sight gags and wants to make these characters more than they've been.

It is extremely hard to take a light, joke a day strip and push it through a successful Cerebus Syndrome. Dave Sim did it in stages, and at least in the early days of the transformation brought massive amounts of Funny to cover it over. Done perfectly, one only realizes in hindsight that the strip has turned out to be quite different than it used to be. Done sloppily, the Cerebus Syndrome fails, and the webcomic enters First and Ten Syndrome. Unfortunately, a failed Cerebus Syndrome is an excruciating process for the webcomic's fans to endure.

Please note that one can continue to bring the Funny while going for Cerebus Syndrome -- and in fact, probably should. It is far more common to drop the Funny, which increases geometrically the chance to fall into First and Ten. Note also that not all strips that bring heavy Story, mix humorous and serious elements, and have bad things happen to their characters are undergoing Cerebus Syndrome (or First and Ten Syndrome, for that matter). It's only those strips that began on a very light, even limited dimension level and then transform into something different that really shoot for the Cerebus Syndrome. So, Sluggy Freelance, which started out mostly humorous and now has a healthy dose of the Funny and the Story (with occasional forays into sequences like "Fire and Rain") is that rarity of rarities -- a successful Cerebus Syndrome. Digger and For Better or for Worse, on the other hand, had complex characterization from day one, and cannot be said to be in Cerebus or First and Ten. Got it? Good. There will be a quiz.

Daily Webcomics Trawl

Those comic strips I read every day, or at least every time they come out. Usually a combination of my personal enjoyment and a moderately regular update schedule combines to put a strip on the Daily Webcomics Trawl. The strips on the Daily Webcomics Trawl are the ones most likely to be snarked at any given time.

Execution

Contasted with Pacing. Execution is the way an individual strip does everything -- brings the Funny, brings the Story, sets up the joke, delivers the punchline, impacts us with seriousness, or whatever. Execution is local -- each strip is a separate execution.

First and Ten Syndrome

First and Ten was one of the earliest "made for HBO" television series, and bears about as much resemblance to The Sopranos as American Pie bears to American Beauty. It was a tits-n-ass fest with football player stereotypes and the always 'fun' plot of having a woman own the team. Because women? And football? Gosh, that could never happen. It was light, frothy and fun, in an exploitive way for a couple of seasons. And then, they decided to make it serious. The stereotypical coach became a browbeater who emotionally abused his assistant coach because he suspected the coach would leave. There were teen runaways and drug abuse and sexual abuse and darkness at all turns. It tried to become dramatic -- in part because it's felt drama is easier to pull off than humor.

Well, I admit it's hard to find the Funny if you don't know what you're doing, but losing the Funny in exchange for 'character development' leaves pure schlock, untouched by new viewers who weren't interested in the comedy series, but alienating the existing fanbase. When the E True Hollywood Story is produced 20 years later, inevitably the "change of direction" is touted as the reason for the inevitable decline and failure.

A strip falls into First and Ten Syndrome when they take a shot at Cerebus Syndrome and miss. Rather than be a mix of the Funny and the Story with much better developed characters and more of a sense of reality, the strips fall into a suckfest of angst and misery, with bad things happening to characters we like and all sense of fun beaten out with a stick. While webcomics that fall into First and Ten can continue to have good -- even great -- moments, it's an exercise in masochism to find them. The seminal First and Ten Syndrome comic was the original Roomies, which veered away from silliness into angst so deep that ultimately, Willis had to end the strip and start It's Walky. Note that Willis may have very different views on this transition.

The Funny

Born of Aaron Sorkin and Sports Night, the Funny is one of the core elements ascribed to webcomics by Websnark. The Funny is not so much humor than attitude. A strip can be said to bring the Funny when its overall tone is meant to appeal to a reader's sense of humor, sense of the weird or both. The Funny does not have to mean jokes, and jokes do not necessarily bring the Funny. Whether or not a given strip brings the Funny is a subjective decision -- for some, Superosity brings the Funny every day. For others, it doesn't bring it at all. When I snark about a strip bringing the Funny, it's always in my opinion. Of course, so's everything else on this site. It's an opinion site. You see how that works? Of course you do.

Please note, a strip can bring the funny, lowercase, without bringing the Funny. In other words, putting out a bunch of lame jokes does not the Funny create.

The nature of the Funny is that lapses in other elements of the webcomic -- the Story, the Action, the Execution, the Pacing, and so forth can be forgiven in the presence of the Funny. The Funny is the only attribute of a webcomic that can keep people coming back day after day if everything else fails. Which is not to say that strips with no interest in the Funny are doomed to fail -- they can be the best strips on the planet. But they have their work cut out for them.

The Funny, I should reiterate, does not mean rolling on the floor howling with laughter until bladder control is lost. To be honest, I rarely laugh vocally at any comic strip. I might smile a bit or, for a particularly humorous bit, snort, but the Funny doesn't require that. It requires a sense of humor to be present in the strip that appeals to my sense of what the Funny is. And mine and yours, like I said before, may differ. So don't bitch at me about it.

For the record? Foxtrot brings the Funny. Garfield does not. All clear?

Pacing

The development of a webcomic over several strips -- contrasted with execution, which is individual. Generally, Story strips need pacing more than Gag-a-day strips, though gag-a-day still sets a tone which can be considered pacing. Pacing is generally a reflection of the tradition that a given webcartoonist is operating in. A strip heavily influenced by manga is often slower-paced, letting the situation develop slowly. A strip heavily influenced by traditional four panel newspaper comic strips is generally much faster paced. Story-heavy strips, like adventure strips, can have slow or fast pacing depending on the nature of the story. Too fast a pacing can make a strip seem frenetic and unfun. Too slow a pacing can cause your readers to blow their own heads off in frustration. Combining slow pacing and irregular updating is a good way to get death threats, which seems like an overreaction. I mean, it's not like we're curing cancer or making pound cake, here. Mmm. Sweet sweet pound cake.

Premise

The conceit of the webcomic. A comic's premise is the short description of what the comic is about -- and what differentiates it from all the other comics about a couple of mismatched college roommates out there. Note that the more complex a strip's premise (ie -- the more that needs to be said about it to describe it concisely), the more labored the strip will seem. The more of the strip's trappings that can be cut away without inexorably changing the strip, the better. Superosity's premise, for example, is "an innocent man-child, the supergenius sentient board he lives with and the man-child's horrible little brother muddle through life, love and abusive friends and family." If time travel, nanotech suits, overly commercial movies and cat poop were all cut out of the strip, it would still be Superosity. If, on the other hand, Chris grows up (as he did once, though it didn't last) or Boardy goes away it stops being Superosity. Contrast this with College Roomies from Hell, which is "Three college roommates -- a cynical manipulator, a decent fellow, and a flake -- deal with romance, anger and the fight against evil with their counterparts -- a hard edged warrior, a beautiful woman who can't cook or deal with reality and a manipulative blond who has killed off her inner, better self -- while Satan plans to use them in different, terrible ways." CRFH needs all of the above elements to continue to be CRFH, which makes it harder (though hardly impossible) to support the premise. Story strips tend to have more elaborate premises than Funny strips, though this is hardly a law.

Safari Tabs

The way I trawl through my daily webcomics, on a daily basis, is to open a block of webcomics all at once in Safari (I am indeed a Mac user) and bookmark all of them at once as a series of tabs. So, when I click on "Day Comics" in my button bar first thing in the morning, something like twenty three tabs open up, all at once. While I read the first several strips, the rest download. As a result, it takes me very little time to read a whole bunch of strips each day. Which is how I can do this and not lose my job.

Snark

Snark, according to Dictionary.com, refers to Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and to unexpected computer disasters. And that's a nice pedigree, honestly. However, common usage in recent years has made "snark" into a verb, usually meaning "complaining about something in a sarcastic manner."

I'll be honest. When I was first putting this site together, I had a laundry list of things to call it, because I expected all the simple names to be gone. The leader, I'm sorry to say, was "stripping-the-web," off of Bloom County's term for cartoonist: stripper. I knew I'd get traffic I didn't want, but I assumed it would be available. When I finally sat down to register the site, on a whim I plugged 'websnark' in first, thinking that it would perfectly describe what I did -- a computer disaster on the web, often with sarcasm -- but that there was no chance in Hell it would be available. Which shows what I know, and here we are.

I don't review here. I don't do number ratings or critiques or recommendations. I pretty much just blather on about whatever's caught my attention, express my opinions, and move on. So when I use 'snarking,' I mean 'posting about stuff that interests me.' An individual snark is therefore an individual post on something that interests me.

Why not just use "post" then? Because "snark" gives people some preconception of what I'm doing -- and if they read the site, they know that they're not going to agree with everything. But that it's possible it'll entertain them.

Besides, I like the word. Snark-snarkity-snark snark snark.

Sporadically Checked

There are some webcomics -- including some I truly enjoy, like Men in Hats and FLEM Comics, that either because of incredibly sporadic updating or just personal preference I prefer to go and check every once in a while, reading all the strips I need to read to catch up. Certain Story strips, like General Protection Fault can end up on here when a story has bogged down a bit and would be better served read from beginning of the plotline to end. However, it's hard to ever get back onto the Daily Webcomics Trawl after this happens, and it's a short step from there to "You Had Me But You Lost Me."

The Story

Derived from 'the Funny,' the Story is another of the core elements ascribed to webcomics by Websnark. Encompassing continuity, plot and character development, the Story describes any strip where what happens now develops inexorably from what has come before. This can be comedic or dark, soap opera or adventure strip. Strips like Sluggy Freelance heavily rely on the Story, where strips like Men in Hats don't use it at all.

Strips that don't bring the Funny typically bring the Story, if they're going to truly be a webcomic as opposed to an online art sketchbook. Not that there's any problem with online art sketchbooks, but they usually have a problem keeping repeat readers. Unless, of course, the sketches are of naked ladies, but that's not important to this lexicon.

Toolset

The tools a webcartoonist brings to his trade. These can be artistic or textual, plot or humor oriented. Each creator brings different tools to his trade. Recognizing what toolset a webcartoonist possesses and works with is an essential step to properly bitching about assessing his work in a fair and honest way.

Webcomic

Some form of sequential art that is available via the web. Period.

Honestly, that's it.

No, I don't care if a comic strip also appears in newspapers. It's still a webcomic. I don't care if you have to pay to read it. It's still a webcomic. I don't care if it's full pages of a graphic novel being developed. It's still a webcomic. If it's sequential art, and it's on the web, it's a webcomic. Honestly, why is this so hard a concept?

[Webcomic] For Dummies

This refers to those strips (often with overly elaborate premises or extremely slow pacing) that desperately need third party sites to fill the gap for confused new (and even existing) readers. As the plotlines for these comics descend into a self-referential pit requiring deep commitment on the part of readers to keep straight, a webcomic can either document things simply (generally on a cast page or some kind of synopsis) themselves, or rely on their fanbase to produce some of their own. Megatokyo is one of the worst offenders in this regard, and several fan Megatokyo for Dummies sites have appeared in answer to the need.

Why Do I Read This Webcomic, Again?

A list of webcomics that, whether because of changes to the strip or a lack of changes to a strip (no one said this stuff was easy) has become more of a chore than a pleasure. It remains on the Daily Webcomics Trawl, but it's far more likely to get a cynical snark out of me than a happy one, and it can fall off the list and onto "You Had Me But You Lost Me" all too easily. User Friendly is a strip on "Why Do I Read This Webcomic, Again." It's Walky recently dropped off it onto the "You Had Me But You Lost Me" list, and General Protection Fault and Real Life Comics are rallying to emerge back into the good graces of the Daily Webcomics Trawl.

You Had Me But You Lost Me

Sometimes a strip that I liked or even loved just... drifts apart from me. We start doing more and more things alone. I don't call as often. Look, baby. You know you deserve better, but... it's not you. It's me. Okay? I think I need to read other webcomics, and you need to spend time with a different audience. Let's still be friends, okay? Oh, I'm gonna need my records back.

Still to come

Penny Arcade Defense

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:53 PM | Comments (13)

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Eric Burns-White: You Had Me, And You Lost Me: It's Walky

(From It's Walky.)

I remember when I first started reading the strip that would one day be "It's Walky." It was back in the Roomies days, and it was pretty fun. The art was more cartoony then, less polished, but it was still dynamic and fun. One of the more standard premises fueled Roomies -- two very different but also very similar young men were rooming at college. One was a prig, the other a horndog. Their supporting cast included the dream girl who had dumped the prig unexpectedly, a sheltered fundie who loved the prig wholeheartedly -- for no real reason -- and a number of secondary characters. The catchphrase for the series was 'Perverse Sexual Lust.' It was frenetic and funny.

And then, towards the end, it grew morbid. Terrible things started happening to characters. People died. People became alcoholics. People lost faith. People lost hope. Hypocrites reigned and then got abortions. I've described this process before, when a light strip goes dark. I call it Cerebus Syndrome -- the effort to force one's project through a sea change from light satire and parody to a darker complexity. It is seductive, and when it fails -- it almost always fails -- it falls into First and Ten Syndrome, emulating the raunchy light HBO's comedy's inexplicable and bad shift to raunchy drama. Well, Roomies did about a season and a half of First and Ten, towards the end.

But it seemed like David Willis, the author, knew that. And, as he embraced the increasing science fiction elements in his strip, he completely changed focus, changed the name (to "It's Walky,") and went with lighthearted science fiction adventuring. And "It's Walky" was, once again, a ton of fun.

But there were dark clouds on the horizon, even if we squinted and declared them to be alien ships or flying giant robot monkeys.

For one thing, "It's Walky" detailed the adventures of a secret organization that David Willis had been thinking about for years and years. At least once he put up a series of strips that he drew back in high school for his friends, featuring SEMME fighting aliens under the command of a Doritos-obsessed leader who was a clear model for Walkerton. (Though when he moved to the web, Willis changed the snack food's name to Nachitos, to avoid any lawsuit trouble. Which, given the more gross-out nature of some his jokes, was probably a good idea. Not that it was bad gross out humor.) Willis had clearly been working out this plot arc in his head for years, and was also clearly excited to be using it in a story now.

Only... well, let's put it like this.

As all of you know, there's a huge computer section in bookstores, now. And a large percentage of the computer shelves are made up of Various Computer Programs for Dummies and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Various Computer Programs. These were so popular with users that Dummies books began coming out on any number of subjects. I own some Dummies books. Odds are you do too. But the question comes up -- why did these things have to come out in the first place? The answer, if you asked most people, is because the manual that comes with the program (well, came. These days if you're lucky enough to get a manual, it's a PDF one sitting on the program CD) sucks.

It's not the fault of the technical writers. They're trying. But when you understand a program's ins and outs, it's very hard to tell people who don't understand them how to use it. You lack a common frame of reference, and 'downsampling' your knowledge to match a new user's is extremely difficult. The For Dummies books have an advantage -- generally the person contracted to write them didn't make the programs, which means they had to learn how to use the programs at some point. That experience becomes a frame of reference they can use to establish the proper use of the program.

David Willis knew his SEMME organization. He knew their opposition. He knew their backstory. He knew the reasons they fought. He knew the reasons the aliens fought back. He knew what the Martians were and how they fit in. He knew what the Cheese was and how it fit in.

And he was not particularly good at letting us know it, in turn. This wasn't so much "mystery surrounding the organization" as a general feeling as a reader that I'd missed something, somewhere along the line. That there was some twenty-strip plotline that fit all the pieces together. Or that two or three setup strips had gotten skipped, somehow. There was always this general sense that you didn't know quite what was going on, and you should.

But it was mostly okay, because the strip was fun. And if there were gaps in how he brought the Story, Willis brought the Funny, and the Funny makes it excusable.

Well, until Willis turned back to the dark.

To his credit, I think he planned the darker elements of It's Walky right from the beginning. He knew exactly what style of story he intended to tell. So I don't think we call this a Cerebus Syndrome attempt. But the results were entirely First and Ten -- intense, often painful drama more for the point of shocking than anything else. It chased away the Funny. Walky had to grow up. Joyce had to confront her demons. Sal ran away and then tried to destroy the world. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And it stopped being fun. It became something of a chore to try and keep up -- always not sure if you were missing something, all the while. Once again, there was death and recrimination and anger (and the specter of alcoholism).

There were triumphant moments through it all. The resolution of Joyce's multiple personalities -- and the multiple sides of her personality -- was handled deftly. Her moment standing in the rain with Walky was transcendent, and I loved every second of it. The eventual consummation of her relationship with Walky was handled with precisely the right tone. (The color strip of the two of them lying on the floor, Walky unable to sleep and Joyce providing the reason for Walky's insomnia, was a perfect denouement to the long standing subplot -- and was ideally designed for the web, requiring most people's monitors to scroll down to reach the joke.) And David Willis's art, while always suitable for his subject, continued to develop and grow. He made something of a production of switching to a slightly more realistic style, he expanded his use of color and the color palette. In his latest plotline, he's experimented with 3D modeling.

And I stuck with It's Walky through it all, because it also did so much right. You folks know my pet peeves by now, and Walky stepped carefully around them. It updated on a rock-solid schedule. It had a cast page. It tried to catch new readers up (though once again, a For Dummies book -- or Cliff's Notes -- would have helped very much.) Willis remained enthusiastic about his strip, and even as he developed other projects he didn't forget who he came to the dance with.

So I stuck with it. And stuck with it. And stuck with it. Increasingly confused with what was going on, and increasingly not caring about what happened next, I continued to keep it in the safari tabs. And complained about it. Finally, the only reason I stuck with it was because the story was winding towards an ending, and I'm a sucker for endings. I think more projects should have a definite, solid, "this is the end of the strip" to them.

Until today's strip. Today, we saw one of the different characters involved with SEMME, who I vaguely remember was the one who dumped the AntiHead Alien off a few strips back, and who was on the ship (the Destiny? Sounds right) that crashed looking for him, and had zombie issues of some kind way back when. I mean, way back. And I don't know her name, or the names of any of her squad, or how she expects to be able to accomplish the mission she declared for herself, or....

...and I realized I didn't care any more. And that there's no reason to spend time on It's Walky now. When it finishes up, I can always go back and read the ending, and even snark about it. But right now WIllis is deep in First and Ten territory, with the added impediment that I'm not at all sure what's going on from strip to strip.

Fans of "It's Walky" have tried to explain it to me. And they've shown how deep their loyalty goes. And I think David Willis deserves it. He is rock solid with a ton of strengths. He deserves to have a massive blowoff. And he deserves every reader he gets.

But it won't include me any more. He had me, and he lost me.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:39 AM | Comments (4)

Eric Burns-White: Meh.

I just wrote a long, in depth snark, which I then lost because I made a stupid mistake. I'm a computer professional. I really ought to be able to use the damn things, ought'n I?

Meh,

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)

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August 31, 2004

Eric Burns-White: It's a corpse. In a copse. Get it? Hah? Haaah?

(From Dick Tracy. Click on the thumbnail for full sized MUR-DAR!)

There is a popular perception in the broader cartoonist community that continuing strips after the original creators have passed on is a bad thing. I'm honestly not of that opinion, so long as the successors do right by the original vision. I think it's better to keep the legacy of Chester Gould, Lee Falk and Segar alive by keeping the characters they created in the public consciousness. I think it works by far best with the adventure strips, because those are, after all, continuing adventures. With something like Nancy or Blondie, it doesn't work as well -- all apologies to the Gilchrists, but despite their love of Ernie Bushmiller and their efforts to duplicate his style, it just hasn't happened. It'd be better to simply reprint the originals, to my mind. It's not like anyone reading the newspaper today has read them before.

But adventure lives in the hearts and minds of those who read, and so with Annie, Dick Tracy, the Phantom and their ilk, it's better by far to expose them to a new generation in all their two fisted glory. Dick Tracy does a particularly good job -- the strip continues its tradition of grotesque villains with punnish names, gunplay still exists, and the stakes remain high. In today's strip, inaugurating a series where Dick and Tess's daughter is heading to college, we see what appears to be the leg of the corpse of a girl we saw being shadowed by a dark figure yesterday, heading to the dorm. This is harsh, and cold, and dark. And Chester Gould would smile if he saw it.

Looking through my beloved Smithsonian collection, I read through some of the Gould strips archived therein. These were bloody and violent and dark affairs. If Dick Tracy were sanitized "to protect the children," I'd lead the charge to eliminate the poseurs. As it is, I think it helps maintain Gould's legacy.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:20 PM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: Does anyone think it's weird Isolde has hair?

(From Ozy and Millie. Click on the thumbnails for full-sized FABULOUS!)

As part of an extended plot, Ozy's cousin Isolde needed to soak her dragon scales in mercury to turn them silver, so she'd look better in her new on-camera role on television (dragons, you see, control the media. It's a conspiracy. Dragons are all about conspiracies). So, they hijacked a shipment of thermometers and emptied them into a bathtub, so she could soak.

(It's worth noting that most thermometers don't use mercury any more, but I digress.)

Naturally, since the strip is in black and white, we don't see Isolde's color change (though he did post a color picture of her in a filler strip). However, that's not the point. This gave Simpson the opportunity to do a more general makeover of Isolde, and in so doing age her. Look at her in the first strip -- the pony tails, the untucked shirt with tie -- this is traditional Isolde, gawky in a post-adolescent way. In the second strip, she's not only on television, she's got her hair down (cue Eighties movie Journey music), an updated wardrobe, and seem fully ensconced in young womanhood. For a dragon, but still. While Ozy and Millie seem to be in the same ageless condition that comic strip kids have enjoyed since at least the Katzenjammer Kids, Simpson has found a way to shift one of his regular cast to an older incarnation, opening up a new raft of possibilities for the character. That's some subtle mojo, kids.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: Mmm... crispy and latte soaked....

(From the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Click on the thumbnail for full sized cinnamon goodness!)

Look, I can understand that occasionally NASA runs out of pictures. That's why we need to get the Hubble maintained -- we need an ever increasing number of high resolution pictures of the majesty of the universe. But still... taking a picture of cinnamon dusted pastries designed to be dunked in coffee, making it black and white, and writing a puff piece about the black dots on the dunes of Mars? I mean, come on.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: Is it disingenuous to call this a personal shout-out?

(From Gaming Guardians. Click on the thumbnail for full sized recap moment!)

Morning, everyone. Back to work, so I'm also back to taking five minutes here and five minutes there to serve you up some snark. Hope you're all sitting comfortably in your seats and paying attention. If you brought gum, I hope you brought enough for everyone.

Graveyard Greg and WebTroll (what do I call someone called "Graveyard Greg" in a snark? Normally, I use the last name of the webcartoonist when discussing his work. For Webtroll, he's just got the one name, so he's like Madonna. But do I call Graveyard Greg just 'Greg?' Do I use the full name? Do I call him "Mr. Greg?" And if I do call him Mr. Greg, does that make me sound like a Jamaican Houseboy from a 50's sitcom? Haven't we come farther than that as a society?) have a nice little strip over at Gaming Guardians. I like the premise, because it gives them an excuse to satire... well, everything in the RPG community. (Sure, they've never parodied Sidewinder, but I think that's because they've typically chosen RPGs most people have actually heard of. And would it kill all of you to buy the stupid game? Reloaded's in PDF format. You could get it twelve seconds after reading this.) However, after four years of comics, plus the Powergamers spinoff and other such sundries, it's become... how shall we say... 'difficult' for a new person to jump in.

Yeah yeah. Another snark about cast pages. Look, it's important, okay?

Anyhow, because we're clearly doing a Recap Moment™, this would seem an ideal time to start checking Gaming Guardians out. And with luck, they'll either link to the moment off the front page afterward or use it as an excuse to put up a cast page. Either way, this is a good step. A fine step. A TEXAS step.

Yes, I'm from Maine. What of it?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:46 AM | Comments (0)

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August 30, 2004

Eric Burns-White: It's raining in Maine...

...and I have far to drive before I get home. I'm back to work tomorrow (which means probably more Snarks through the day than you saw over the weekend from me).

My folks say hi. My Mom has no idea what you people see in me.

While here, I was officially given our copy of The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, by Bill Blackbeard and Martin Williams. This 11x17 coffee table book (clocking in at 336 pages) fueled my love of comic strips from a very young age. Not only does it cover the evolution of the form, it has context and deep archives -- including an entire adventure of Thimble Theater -- the comic strip Segar wrote and drew, that brought Popeye and Olive Oyl to the world (and didn't have much of a spinach fixation -- other than the fact that Popeye ascribed his toughness to eating right). The adventure is "Plunder Island," and features the Sea Hag.

That's right. Back in 1977, lying on the floor of our living room, I was going through the archives of Story strips from the 30's. Story strips that brought the Funny.

It marked me. And now I get to revisit this tremendous book.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:41 PM | Comments (0)

Eric Burns-White: FAQ: Cast Page

So, I've received more than one note from folks that while it's all well and good for me to campaign for webcomic cast pages, I don't have one of my own here on Websnark.com.

"But..." I said in reply. "This isn't a webcomic."

"Put up or shut up," they replied.

So. Here's the cast page. Enjoy.

Eric Alfred Burns is one of the heroes of our story. Like all good English majors, he makes his living as a systems administrator. He also has a bad habit of writing. Born in a very small town in the very far north of Maine, Eric has lived in different places in Maine, in New Hampshire, in Ithaca and Syracuse, New York, and in Seattle, Washington. He currently lives in New Hampshire, but is wondering if his roots are beginning to get a touch long and therefore need uprooting.

While systems administration puts food on his table, Eric lists his occupation as writer. In addition to Websnark.com, Eric has written and published short fiction and poetry. He has also written for and designed Role Playing Games, including work for Decipher and Steve Jackson Games. He was one of the primary authors on the ENnie nominated Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures, and the subsequent Sidewinder: Recoiled won the Gold ENnie for best Electronic Game (non-free). He's listed as a contributing author on Recoiled, and would be much prouder if the sum total of his 'contributions' wasn't stuff from the first edition of the game which they rewrote parts of to make it sound less like the somewhat urbane Bat Masterson and more like Festus from Gunsmoke. But Hell, they got the gold with it, so why should he complain?

In the webcomics world, Eric writes a monthly column called "Feeding Snarky" and occasional features and reviews for Comixpedia, where they have learned to curse his procastinating name.

In addition, Eric has the unfortunate distinction of being an amateur novelist, but is deep into work on a novel that will hopefully change his professional standings. He has tried his hand at webcartooning himself, and epitomizes the old saw "those who can't draw, snark." He has learned from this mistake and is now hard at work at writing webcomics instead. He is hard at work on Gossamer Commons, as drawn by Greg Holkan and Peter Venables.

Eric has a cat named Sarah, which is short for Seraphim Kyriotate. He has yet to notice angelic behavior from her.

Wednesday White is, at most, a cameo in all things. An uneducated boor, she used to sneak onto university newspapers' staff because the high school papers wouldn't let her in. Every few years, it occurs to her to write something. This time, it landed her in webcomics. "If I write about it for a little while, I'll learn how to do my own sensibly." You see where that gets you.

This way lay contributing to Comixpedia then throwing stuff at The Webcomics Examiner. She's worked as a free-floating associate editor for Comixpedia, and handles site maintenance and script editing tasks for Gossamer Commons.

She loves trashy religious pop culture (all religions; she's not fussy), Canadian public radio, and sorting through artistic trainwrecks.

The pair can be reached at "websnark" "at" "gmail" "dot" "com." It's like a reverse rebus, isn't it?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:19 PM | Comments (14)

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Eric Burns-White: Trodding the caves: Ursula Vernon's Digger.

(Images all taken from Digger.)

I chatted a few snarks back about Graphic Smash. And I mentioned a few GS/Modern Tales webcartoonists by name. There's several on Graphic Smash worth mentioning. Graveyard Greg and Webtroll. T. Campbell and Jason Waltrip. Stephen Notley. Amber Greenlee. Yadda yadda yadda. We could be here all day.

I'm not here to talk about them. I'm here to talk about Ursula Vernon. I'm here to talk about Digger.

Complete disclosure time: I know Ursula Vernon, somewhat, via the internet. We have friends in common, which have led to some chatting. I wouldn't say she'd let me sleep on her couch for a month, but if she were to meet me face to face at a party, she'd have a look of recognition at my name and then feign interest in me with the best of them. She also knows I like her artwork.

And when you look at Digger, so will you.

Vernon brings a perspective fewer and fewer Webcartoonists bring to their work: an artist's perspective. She didn't come from comic book fandom or comic strip fandom. She came from a fine art background. She's produced paintings and illustrations alike for RPG companies galore, and she's built up a fanbase purely for her beautiful (and admittedly) quirky art. Hit her website to see some of that. Heck, looking at that art's wholly free. And if you buy the "Tea with a Griffin" painting before I get a chance to, I will hunt you down and kill you like a dog. Just, y'know, so you know.

Digger is a female wombat, technically in the anthropomorphic animals category, though no one can call her a furry. For one thing, she... well... she looks like a wombat. No breasts. No hands, really. She looks far more like an illustration out of the Wind and the Willows than a funny animal cartoon. She's trying to get home, and has discovered that's not as easy as it seems. She has fallen into adventure, and is really quite ready to leave it now, thank you. And unlike most 'unlikely heroines,' you honestly get the sense that when Digger makes it home, she's going to go to bed, get up the next morning, apply for an Engineer's job and get on with a proper sort of life, thank you anyway. I have faith, however, that Vernon won't let that happen for some time to come.

This is a strip that brings the Story. The Funny is here, too, but it's subtle and mild -- liver jokes and rabid vampire squashes aside. Vernon is drawing what she wants to draw and making it as funny as it needs to be, but the point isn't humor. The pacing is slow -- far more bookish 'page at a time' than daily strip comic art. Now, if you've been paying attention, you know this is one of the things I knock Megatokyo for. The difference here isn't that the pacing works better (though the simpler cast and backstory help make it work better, in my opinion). It's still very slow. But Vernon is absolutely rock-steady on updating. She's under contract to Graphic Smash and she treats this like a job, making her deadlines and having new pages out every Tuesday and Thursday, on the dot. And so a slow pacing is excusable, because twice a week there's new stuff to see. We get a sense of momentum from Digger, and the Story she brings is well served by it. If you plunk down the money for Graphic Smash and get access to the archives, it's a good read, and because new stuff comes out regularly you don't lose the narrative thread.

Let me diverge for a second and say how refreshing it is to see a strip that updates Tuesday and Thursday. In a world of Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates (to the point that Comixpedia has done articles extolling Wednesday as "webcomic day," since the daily, thrice-weekly, and a good percentage of the weekly strips all update on that day), it's nice to have something to look forward to the other days.

And as for the art....

Oh dear God, the art....

This strip is astoundingly beautiful. Its linework is sublime, with a sense of woodcuts and of children's book illustrations and of japanese calligraphy all wrapped up into one. I've asked permission of the artist to reproduce one of her strips here -- clicking on the thumbnail to the right of this paragraph will pop up a full sized version. Just look at her use of positive and negative space, her line work. Just drink it in and relish in it. It might not be what you expect a webcomic to look like, but by God you can't look at it and not groove on it. It's stunning, and it feels like it's more than we deserve, almost.

There's a few bits that would improve Digger. Like I said, the pace is slow, though I doubt that will change. (An eventual graphic novel will be a welcome thing, though.) And it needs a cast page, badly -- it doesn't promise us one and the retract it, but especially given the nature of Graphic Smash, where you can read the latest strip for free but must pay for the archives, actually getting a page letting us know who the principles are and what they're doing is absolutely necessary. Still, these don't mean I don't look forward to the next strip.

And so should you. Damn it, read this thing. Indulge yourself.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:58 PM | Comments (4)

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Eric Burns-White: Shouldn't that be Night Goggle?

(from Planet Earth (and Other Tourist Traps). Click on the thumbnail for full sized missiles!0

We get back to the regular strip (as opposed to the Cartoonist strips) in PE(aott) today, which is a goodness. And this one highlights a good way to launch a new plotline -- it's one step away from In Media Res. "Hey guys, let's do X!" "But that would be stupid." "I'm in!" Short, formulaic, to the point, and effective. Since this screams "we're starting a new plotline," this also gives notice to new readers that this is probably a good place to start reading from. Nice bonus, I think.

Also, the obligatory "Alien" arrow still cracks me up.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: Great moments in comic strip history. Maybe

(From Bloom County, naturally. Note that clicking on the thumbnail to get the full sized image involves going to a subscription only site. LCBLT.)

Bill the Cat was always something of a bellweather for Bloom County. I still remember where I was the day that Bill the Cat returned to life in the strip. Mostly because I was at a gifted and talented high school students camp at Bowdoin College when it happened happened, and we sat around and goobed about it. The trial of Bill the Cat over Communist Treason was just one of those bellweather moments.

The reason I bring the strip up, however, is the fourth panel. If I Recall Correctly, this was the only time we ever heard Bill actually speak. I don't count the time when Donald Trump's brain was implanted in Bill's Body (which marks The Donald's only good hairstyle in history). It didn't feel right then. It doesn't feel right now. But, it came up in turn in the archive, and so we note it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:00 PM | Comments (1)

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Eric Burns-White: I hope no one tells Chris about "Oh Heavenly Dog." Because that movie sucked.

(From Superosity. Click the thumbnail for full sized dead dogs.)

The Vacation continues to be enjoyable. Later today, a quick drive over to Maine to see the mother and father and their dogs, neither of whom look anything like the traditional Benji mold.

I always thought it was kind of creepy that the famous dogs -- Lassie and Rin Tin Tin and Benji and the like -- were more brand names than actual animals. We're supposed to just accept that any dog who looks more or less like a Collie is Lassie, for the purposes of making the movie. I know it's not unlike the many different actors who play James Bond, but at least those actors get their names in the credits. We're supposed to just say "oh, there's Benji" and not think about those Benjis past.

I dunno. Maybe I overthink dogs in movies.

Anyway, this Superosity kind of nails what I enjoy in Superosity. (More than yesterday's did, I'll admit -- if you're going to go scatological, you either need to imply it or go so over the top that it becomes absurd. Crosby shoots for the over the top and usually hits it -- as with Vomitland -- but yesterday just didn't do it for me.) Chris makes some kind of statement that Boardy can't agree with, but Boardy isn't willing to contradict Chris casually. Then, wackiness ensues. Or in this case, the nagging feeling that maybe Chris doesn't deserve to have his feelings spared. Setup, execution. The Funny.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:30 AM | Comments (2)

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August 29, 2004

Eric Burns-White: On Style versus Skill

(From College Roomies From Hell. Click on the thumbnail for fullsized... um... action. Yeah. That's it.)

I don't usually comment on other people's reviews. This isn't really a review site, for example -- this is a snark-site, where I point out things I like and things I don't like, often somewhat sarcastically. However, while the overall review is positive, I feel like I have to bring up this guy's review.

Dude. It's a comic strip. One which, in the parlance of Websnark, brings the Story first, and sometimes brings the Funny. And as you yourself say, the Story is prime. Almost too prime -- it makes it hard to keep track of what's going on, sometimes. But you go on to grade the art harshly.

If you want photorealistic art, read comic books. Mocking a comic strip's art for being stylized is like mocking baseball players for wearing caps. Looking at the strip I referenced here, and the several before it, show that Maritza Campos is an expert at dynamic action, motion, color and effect. She brings the toolset. So, if their noses are big and their eyes are big, it's because she wants them that way.

In the last plotline, whenever Dave passed out from lack of blood or whatever, he dreamed about scenes we've already seen -- and all of those scenes had much more 'realistic' figures. Campos was telling us something then. She was saying "yes, I can bring the comic book style illustration. It's right here, in my tool chest. I don't want to. I want to draw the characters the way I draw them. That's the price of admission."

Comic strip characters don't have to look like Mary Worth. They can look like Charlie Brown or Pogo instead. And webcomics can show Anime influences (all too often), or Latin American art influences, or traditional comic strip influences. Or even Mary Worth.

You hear me extol the virtues of art I like. You almost will never hear me insult a webcomic's art. For one thing -- say it with me -- "we're not paying for this." For another, it's damn hard to tell the difference between a limited toolset and a stylistic choice. For yet another, if you're reading it for the pretty pictures and you don't like the pretty pictures, go read Megatokyo. Or Alice. Or any strip you like the art for.

If, on the other hand, you like the story, which you say you do... accept that the art's style is a part of that story. Read into it what the webcartoonist is trying to say to us. Drink deep of it. Breathe it in. And reflect on the glorious nature of a world where one comic strip doesn't have to look exactly like another.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:41 PM | Comments (3)

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Eric Burns-White: We've seen it done right. Now here it's done wrong. It's like a textbook.

(From the Boondocks. Click on the thumbnail for full sized Billboards.)

Yesterday, I praised Non Sequitur for setting up a situation where we had a sight gag and someone commenting on it. It was well executed. "Any fool could misspell illiteracy," I mentioned.

Now, we have today's Boondocks. And we see the dark 'other side.'

The joke itself works, but Huey and Caesar's commentary is wholly unnecessary. It weakens the impact. Had that panel been left out, and we just see the billboard with the pair looking at it, the Funny would have been better and the Point not so belabored.

You see? You see? Good example... bad example. It's like Sesame Street, only you need to operate a web browser.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:26 PM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: Joe Sunday better watch out! There's a (very) new colorist in town!

(From Sluggy Freelance. Click on the excerpt to see the whole thing!)

Joe Sunday, the guy who usually colors the Sunday Sluggies, wasn't able to do today's -- in large part because Pete Abrams had major computer trouble this week. Rather than do a black and white Sunday, however, Pete had his four year old daughter Leah color it with crayon.

The crayon coloring actually adds quite a bit (I wonder if he told her she was coloring Leo's maiming scene) and makes the denouement extra-sweet. But the idea that Leah Abrams -- who I still remember most clearly from the period of time right after her birth, when the webcomics community came together to produce Sluggy guest strips (the legendary Sluggy Freelance, Where Are You sequence) -- is now old enough to color with crayons and insist how the art should be scanned and produced is mind boggling.

So, in summary, I'm old, damn it. Screw you, Pete Abrams.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:39 PM | Comments (0)

Eric Burns-White: Dropping a bit of cash in the till -- how much is it worth to you?

We all have expenses, out here in the wide digital world. My own are modest right now -- just paying for bandwidth, and even if my costs have gone up in that regard, Google ads look like they'll take care of the increased costs. But, clickthrough advertising isn't the way for everyone to recoup their costs -- especially those who actually want to make a living off their art. Right now, that means tip jars, more extensive advertising, merchandising... and subscriptions.

Which is really what we want to talk about now. See, I'm not feeling very well, and I can't sleep, so I'm thinking. Largely about subscription webcomics.

I was asked, a couple of days back, what I thought about them -- asked by someone pretty high up the food chain in webcomics, who shall remain nameless because the question is more important than me namedropping. He mentioned things like Modern Tales and Graphic Smash and Girltastic, and left the question of things like Keenspot or My Comics Page as an exercise for the reader.

Me? I love subscription web sites. Like I said in my last post, Joey Manley gets a good abount of money from me each month -- as of this typing I sub to three of his main websites (Modern Tales, Serializer and Graphic Smash) and one individual website he hosts (American Elf, to no one's surprise). While I'm not made of discretionary money, the value is pretty damn high -- for my eleven bucks or so a month I have access to somewhere over two hundred strips, including stuff by T. Campbell (and the returned Gisele Lagacé), Amber "Glytch" Greenlee (who deserves about six snarks all on her own), Sunday comics of Achewood, and many, many more. Manley has a love of sequential art that can't be beat, and so all the sites I frequent have an Alternative Comics feel to them -- pushing the boundaries forward, seeing where and what the medium has to offer... good stuff.

This isn't an ad for Modern Tales and its affiliates, though. The point is -- this is a means by which I can contribute back to the artists and to the art form directly, and that in turn encourages others to give it a try. There's tons of free webcomics on the web, of course. More than any twelve people could read. But quality? Quality is hard to find.

And that raises an interesting point about the newspaper syndicates. One that is painful for people to admit. There is a positive aspect to having a barrier to entry -- you have to push beyond a certain limit before you can get in. Like I've said before, having an editor is not a bad thing. And having to prove you don't suck before you get to be read by the masses isn't bad, either.

There's plenty that is bad in the syndicates, of course. For one thing, they're not looking for quality, they're looking for a specific formula -- the right kind of look, the right kind of humor. Something they can sell. It's not nearly as innocuous as so many people say -- The Boondocks is hardly inoffensive, For Better and For Worse hardly ducks controversy, and no one can claim Mallard Fillmore is apolitical -- but it is entirely motivated by commercial concerns. With the rise of the web and comparatively inexpensive publication ability, the barriers to entry for subscription websites aren't commercial, but aesthetic. If you can show you're reliable and pushing the boundaries a hair, Manley will give you a shot. If you can build a readership and show you're reliable, Chris Crosby will give you a shot at Keenspot (which counts for this -- Keenspot Premium is certainly a subscription service). Anyone can publish on the web (Hell, that's proven by the fact that I'm out here), but not anyone can get a taste of the Modern Tales action.

That's what makes Modern Tales, Serializer, Girltastic, Keenspot and all the others so important. They give you and me, the webcomics reader, some recourse -- some place where we can go for very little money and get strips that meet a certain level of quality. We can be drawn in from some random factor (Modern Tales got me because Glych Greenlee guested a Melonpool strip a while back, and blew my tiny little mind with her expressive artwork. Serializer gets me because Achewood deserves a couple of bucks from me all by itself. Graphic Smash gets me because of Graveyard Greg and T. Campbell. And so on and so forth), only to find ourselves surrounded by a buffet -- not all of it to our taste, but guaranteed to have been cooked with talent.

As we break down the idea of what webcomics -- and sequential art in general -- are and can be, it's the paid sites that are going to make it possible for it it continue to grow. Strips like GPF gets an immeasurable boost purely from not having to pay crippling bandwidth fees, for example. By codifying the relationship (beyond the 'tip jar' concept), we both place a value on the art and give artists and publishers alike a certain commitment. And that is a very good thing.

On the other hand, if you think I ride people who have made their strips their job's asses hard over update issues, you have no idea how much of a tool I can be when I'm paying by the month....

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:53 AM | Comments (5)

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Eric Burns-White: Serving the casual reader by not reviewing anything he's looking for

So, Joey Manley, the guy behind Modern Tales and the hoster of American Elf -- and a guy who gets money from me every month, I'm glad to say -- is publishing a new literary journal entitled The Graphic Novel Review. His stated goal is to create a book review that is for the casual graphic novel fan what the New York Times Book Review is for the casual book lover.

I can get behind this idea. I think something that brings graphic novels closer to the mainstream and develops critical scrutiny for them is a good, good thing.

It's a pity they've elected to be dumbasses about it.

We hope to review books featuring corporate-owned properties (e.g. non-creator-owned books) almost as rarely as the NYT Book Review covers Harlequin Romances, or any other prose book put together on an assembly line by creative workers with no long-term stake in the economic life of the work they have done. Which is to say: hardly ever. Our assumption is that such economic conditions will almost always lead to sub par work, even when the creative workers themselves are capable of great things. Since the vast majority of superhero GNs coming out are corporate properties, the genre may get fairly scant coverage on GNR. This is not a slight against the genre, so much as against the method of production. Creator-owned superhero books will have a much better shot at garnering a review.

Okay. So.

Under this system, Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing wouldn't have a home here. Or a collection of Superman stories that includes the single finest Superhero story I've ever read: Moore and Gibbons's "For The Man Who Has Everything." Or The Dark Knight Returns. Matt Wagner is only good when he's doing Grendel or Mage. Drop him into Sandman Mystery Theater and he's got no reason to bring his A game, obviously.

And anyone who's working on Batman or Green Lantern or Spider Man? Sub-par work. They have no economic stake, so they're just phoning it in, clearly. Always. Almost no exceptions. Because... because. They have no reason to really try, do they? (Setting aside the paycheck they're receiving.)

Guys? The New York Times Review of Books doesn't review romance novels. You're right. But they do review potboilers. And Stephen King novels. And Harry Potter books. Look, I'd love it if this meant the next Dan Cowles book got to sell ten times what the last one did. But it won't do that if the 'casual graphic novel reader' doesn't buy Graphic Novel Review in the first place. If they're walking through Barnes and Noble, they see a graphic novel section, they pick up your magazine, and see that 95% of the display isn't being covered... they're not going to pay any attention to the other 5%.

If you disdain the masses, you don't get to educate them. If you want them to learn about the gemstones, you have to address the semiprecious stones they already collect. And, most importantly, you have to accept that quality and art can be born from many sources and many directions. You have to accept that sometimes, the wage slave is going to blow away everyone around him because the art is more important to him than anything else. Sometimes, a writer wants to write, to make something glorious, even if he's doing it for hire. Charles Dickens wrote a ton of his stuff on an serialized assembly line as work for hire, but we still think Pickwick Papers is pretty damn spiffy, you know. And a good number of the best -- or at least most celebrated -- writers and artists of graphic novels are on the wage train. Hell, no one's more celebrated right now than Alex Ross, and he does most of his work for the big two.

Superman. Batman. Spider-Man. These are cultural icons, whether we like it or not. To simply dismiss graphic novels that feature them means dismissing the absolute core of American sequential art. That won't elevate the fringe, that will make your magazine part of it. And besides, we have no need to recover Gary Groth's territory. He's already staked it out pretty thoroughly, guys. Have faith he can hold that fort down, and choose your articles on the basis of their merits, even if the subject has been heard of by more than forty people.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:10 AM | Comments (4)