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-->September 25, 2004
Eric Burns-White: On weekend posting
So... here's the thing. I don't seem to be good at updating on the weekends, except for those days that I am. Today wasn't a banner day for Websnark, though there was an actual entry.
Should I just declare weekends optional, or set a schedule, or should I just not sweat it as much as I seem to? I mean, I've posted a Hell of a lot of posts in the last seven weeks. Sooner or later I have to accept I'm just not going to post in a given day, don't I?
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:35 PM | Comments (7)
-->Eric Burns-White: Maybe next we can have Gerald Fordmire walk through and trip. That's always a laugh-riot.
(From Sluggy Freelance. Click on the thumbnail for full sized... puppies. You have to be kidding me...)
There are very few political figures who retain their comedic value over time. David Letterman and Jay Leno have done their level best to keep the Clinton Joke at the forefront of American Consciousness, but it's more a measure of how dominant a public figure Clinton was that it remains even somewhat effective. I can't imagine we'll still be telling George W. Bush jokes four years after he leaves office, any more than we told George H.W. Bush jokes after he left office. (Dana Carvey's an exception, based wholly on the fact that he had nothing else going for him. Sort of like Richard Belzer telling Reagan jokes until deep into the Clinton Presidency).
Still, seeing this particular Clinton trope dragged out again just seems kind of sad. Maybe it's because we yearn for the days when Clinton's sex life was the biggest national tragedy we had to deal with. Or maybe it's because on the whole, the Clinton years were generally happier ones for pretty much everyone. But it just seems like time to retire Clinton's number and move on.
I mean, to get into serious long-term Presidential sex-jokes, you should really go back to Kennedy. Go retro, man.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:32 PM | Comments (3)
-->September 24, 2004
Eric Burns-White: Cancer in the Collective Detective
First and foremost, I'm going to talk about Alternate Reality Gaming in this post. If you don't know what that is, go to The Haunted Apiary and the late, lamented Beast/A.I. Game (which I'd point to Cloudmakers.org to show you, but Cloudmakers seems to be gone. So here's a like to an archived version at The Internet Wayback Machine).
These are immersive games, using the nature of the web to build communities to solve their puzzles over the web. They are a unique art form on the web, using search engines (the Beast was reached by people who noticed "Jeanine Salla" being credited as a "Sentient Machine Therapist" in the trailers for A.I.) and internal links to build a consistent game world (thus, Alternate Reality Gaming). A couple of sites -- Cloudmakers.org and Spherewatch -- formed around the Beast to solve its core murder mystery. Along the way, the masterful writing seduced us.
I was a Cloudmaker, and proud of it. I checked the sites daily. I obsessed over clues. I shared what I had to share. I even did a fan site of the thing. It was exciting and wonderful. I still miss it.
Well, all indications are the same team who did the beast are doing "The Haunted Apiary," starting at I Love Bees and going from there. The theory is it's connected to the Halo video game, and from all accounts it's pretty cool.
One of the tasks the Beekeepers have been working on in the game is restoring the functionality to a crashed/insane ship's AI named Melissa. Melissa has been slowly designating some players as 'crewmembers.' And today, Melissa and one of those players collaborated to capture (or destroy) another AI, named the Sleeping Princess. It was a pretty cool move, unexpected....
...and, in a way, signals a death knell for ARGs as we've known them.
You see, the community that formed around the Beast -- the Cloudmakers -- was intensely remarkable. It was the best part of the game. Better than the puzzles. Better than Sean Stewart's astounding writing. Better than the visuals. Better by far than the actual movie A.I. We came together as a group -- a collective detective, as the term came to be -- and brought monumental results. We were part of something huge, if just for a little while. And it all worked because the moment one of us found something out, they told everyone else. We made our decisions collectively. We posted our mistakes collectively. We played our game in collaboration. When an AI named Loki had become a threat, we learned that he was attracted to nightmares. So Cloudmakers started posting their nightmares online, baiting a trap for the monster. And we destroyed him, and were rewarded with a remarkable Flash animation involving all of our efforts.
The Beekeepers were working in that same way. Triumphs were collective. Mistakes were spread about. But now, some of the players are keeping secrets from others. Some are making decisions unilaterally, not collectively, and having tremendous impact on the game. Suddenly, a small portion of the players have incredible power in the game... and suddenly, there is real factionalism to be had within the 'collective detective.'
I know at least one player who won't post his speculations on the Unfiction forum board, because he's afraid someone will use his speculations in ways he won't like. We've also seen that by keeping secrets and making decisions on their own, players get to have disproportionate control over what happens next. And casual players suddenly aren't players. They're advisors to the people who can have an impact on the game. Or they're groupies. But someone solving puzzles and posting speculations doesn't have the same impact that the people talking on the phone to Melissa do.
Some players are already aligning behind the Sleeping Princess, to free her. They've admitted this is now a goal. Others are "crewmen of the Apocolypso," and are going to further Melissa's ends. Others are probably going to help the Pious Flea. It will probably be lots of fun....
...but it's not collective. It's not collaborative. People now know secrets can be more powerful than sharing. People now know that the other players might do things they absolutely disagree with and there's nothing they can do about it, so they'd better do it first. And people now know that their contributions by their very nature are less than the contributions others put in.
The game goes on, but the Collective Detective has cancer of the massmind. And I don't think there's a cure for it. When the next big ARG goes live, people will go into it with these lessons burnt into them.
Like I said, Cloudmakers.org was missing when I went to go looking for it, this morning.
Maybe that's just as well.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:59 PM | Comments (3)
-->Eric Burns-White: A brief note
Still not feeling good, and I ran out of Digger to reread, so I read Rip & Teri instead.
T. Campbell is more than the hardest working writer in Webcomics. He's an absolute expert at pacing. And Waltrip is phenomenal at superspy action.
That's all. I'm going to close my eyes for a bit.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:11 PM | Comments (3)
-->Eric Burns-White: Some people will assume this is my normal state of being.
I've come over all dizzy and overly hot, which might be dumping syndrome (if those two words mean nothing to you, then you'd druther I not explain further. If they do mean something to you, then it's going smashingly so far, thanks.) or might be the flu, so with the blessings of my boss I've taken to my bed. I am now drinking fluids and rereading Digger front to back.
God, I love Digger.
In other news, I got my copy of the Narbonic collection in the mail today. Once more, there were gerbils drawn on the packaging. That is so freaking cool.
In other, other news my cat is sleeping on my leg. She likes it when I'm ill.
More later, when the world isn't spinning and Wombats aren't talking to me.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:34 PM | Comments (1)
-->Eric Burns-White: How does one say 'payback's a bitch' in properly nuanced British Stockbroker's dialect?
(From Alex. Click on the thumbnail for full sized performance anxiety!)
It might seem unfair to the casual Alex reader that Clive is making Alex's life such Hell. But not to me. I'm enjoying every teeth gnashing moment of it. I've always liked Clive, who can best be described as 'hapless,' and who tries his best to be as underhanded and nasty as Alex is but just fails. He always fails. He is failure given form. There will come a day when Clive loses his position as Head of Department and ends up back at the bottom of the totem pole. I am as confident of this as I am of anything in this cold, hard world of ours.
At the same time, Alex has this coming to him. After Megabank fired both Clive and Alex in the post-dotcom bust purging of their stockbrokers, they both ended up at loose ends. Alex recovered first, taking a job with Mr. Hardcastle -- one of the core clients Alex had at Megabank, putting Alex in a position to make Rupert and the rest of Megabank's executives miserable. And because Alex is a decent chap, he found a place for Clive....
...that place was as Alex's chauffeur. And Alex treated him miserably. Far far worse than Clive is treating Alex now. After all, making the workers dance for their bonuses is an ancient perk of the Head of Department in the City. This is just some well deserved grilling that Clive is indulging in.
Of course, Clive will fail. Be certain of this fact. And Alex will rise to the top of the materialistic heap. He always does. For a while, anyway.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)
-->Eric Burns-White: And he's swung, Tom... he's connected... it's going... going... yes! It's a CLICHE!
(From Kevin and Kell. Click on the thumbnail for full sized 'shocker!')
Every so often, even the very best of webcomics can fall into the Mister Belvedere trap. You know the Mister Belvedere trap, don't you? No? Then let me explain! The 'hapless father' on Mister Belvedere was played by Bob Ucker, who made his career out of his inability to play professional baseball. Which to me implies I have a career in show business just waiting for me, but I digress. And said father would get himself into wildly implausible situations, and have wildly implausible things happen during those situations, and then Mister Belvedere would save the day with dry British wit and something even more implausible.
Any time a webcomic falls into a contrived circumstance that would make for an episode of Mister Belvedere, minus the dry British wit, you've got Mister Belvedere syndrome. You could as easily call this "Night Court" syndrome or "Hello Larry" syndrome or "Ozzy and Harriet" syndrome or "Happy Days" syndrome.
So, Bob Eucker, to make some extra money, has returned to his roots as a professional wrestler. And he's in trouble in the ring, but he's making a comeback... but under the mask, his opponent... oh my God, it's Mister Belvedere! Oh wait, I mean it's Dan Fielding! No no! It's Lenny and/or Squiggy! No wait, it's....
You get my point. This plotline was kind of weak to begin with. Surprisingly so, given Holbrook's usual finesse and skill in setting situations up. Not too long ago, Rudy found a tape that implied Kevin was once a masked wrestler. Kevin denied it. Then, gosh, Kell lost her job for no reason at all (despite being one of the few people who knows R.L. -- and at this point, most of the upper levels of Herdthinners -- is domesticated, which makes firing her a particularly bad idea since she could tell the world and ruin R.L. But she's decent and kind so she doesn't do this. Kevin returns to his roots as a wrestler, despite being years out of shape (and described as middle aged, though the cast page lists him as in his thirties, which as a person in his thirties himself I take exception to, greying hair be damned!). And now it turns out that his opponent in the ring is R.L., because God only knows that business tycoons moonlight as pro wrestlers in spandex in the real world....
This is just plain silly. And it's beneath the standard we expect from Holbrook, who generally lays the groundwork for "sudden surprise twists" years in advance and touches on them enough so we never feel lost in backstory. It's implausible at best, contrived at worst, and takes the reader completely out of the story.
Also, wouldn't Herdthinners's investors want to devour R.L. now, for embarrassing the company and moonlighting. And losing a televised wrestling match to a Rabbit, I would add?
Meh.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)
-->September 23, 2004
Eric Burns-White: Leaping faith with a ten speed bike...
So I've been thinking about PV Comics. I like subscription models, as you know, because I like paying my way in the world of webcomics. And I've had an interest in PV Comics. If Modern Tales and the other Manley sites are the collective "Alternative Press" of our medium, and Keenspot is the "Mainstream Syndicate" of our medium... then PV Comics is lining up to be the Image Comics -- the upstarts coming in, with more of a rockstar feel than the Manley or Crosby approaches.
And yet, there's a feeling of youth to the strips, too. A Freshman feel, with the potential to grow into massively cool things, but a sense they aren't completely there yet. And unlike the Manleys, it's an up-front committment of $15 for unrestricted access to 18 strips. Nothing at all compared to comic books, but significant compared to, say, My Comics Page, which offers close to 140 strips for twelve bucks a year. Of course, most of MCP's strips are also available (with 30-day archive limits) for free, but that may be a perk instead of a bug.
I dunno. It's hard for me to just pay the cash on faith. Some of the strips -- Amy's Suitcase, for example -- absolutely kick my ass right out the gate. Others, like Yirmumah (which has its archives available right now) are strong Freshman strips, but still very much Freshman -- heavily influenced by the Kevin Smiths of the world, Yirmumah could turn into a hysterical daily read, but it's a hair clunky right now, and that makes it hard to jump into it. Yet another strip -- KU-2 -- really really intrigues me, with distinctive art and a real alternative-art feel to it, but the lead character hasn't grabbed me yet.
Still other strips that I've been able to sample don't interest me at all, though exposure might change that.
And then there's Nephilum.
Guys, I write for In Nomine, by Steve Jackson Games. I love myself the Antedivulian horror. I love myself the angels among us. I own two different translations of the Book of Enoch. I have written about 25,000 words of a home grown RPG based on the Grigori and the Watchers. I should be leaping into any comic called Nephilum with both feet.
Only... well, there's nothing but a prologue available without paying, and I'm not generally hooked by exposition. Especially when it's a variation of exposition I've already written myself, for a very different medium.
There's so much else to see and talk about. Atland could grow into a lot of fun, though it's not yet distinctive. Dewclaw's look and feel is gorgeous, but the flash comics interface leaves me cold (for one thing, it takes me way too long to click click click through things, when I could just scan a page quickly....)
I dunno. I get such a vibe of dynamic flow, of action, of excitement. I get the feeling like if I jump into PVComics now, I'll be at ground zero for something huge....
But it hasn't pulled me in yet. I've got some of its stuff on the "sporadically check" list, but nothing's moved into the daily trawl, and without regularly updating content on some of those strips, they're never going to end up on that list.
One of these paychecks I'll take the plunge, and then we'll see. But until then, I'm on the fence. And I have to wonder about people who aren't nearly as nuts about this stuff as I am -- what would it take for them to take the plunge?
I'm still left with the nagging feeling there's something we're all missing. That there's some magic bullet that will be shot into the hearts of financial difficulty and make it possible for art to flourish in this ultimate medium of distribution.
There has to be a better way.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:33 PM | Comments (5)
-->Eric Burns-White: And today's award for most out of nowhere pun goes to....
(From Home Run. Click on the thumbnail for pun action!)
No whey?
No whey?
This strip is so going into the daily trawl.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
-->Eric Burns-White: Saved by the Bell of Evil: The New Generation
(From Sluggy Freelance. Click on the thumbnail for full sized tasty tasty cats!)
It might be because of the "Meanwhile in the Dimension of Pain" strips, but the classic demons from the DoP have... well, grown up. Reakk, Mosp, Isp and Osp, and the rest are a bit more seasoned, a bit more sane than they used to be. I personally enjoy the thought of them ruling over a world of Sheep, and the thought that Canada's the country that's defying them just warms my Northern Maine heart.
But the Dimension of Pain has always been fun. Madcap fun, full of innocence blended with horror in a way that just makes me giggle. That's right. Giggle! And Abrahms has pulled off a very difficult trick in keeping that element alive: he's introduced new characters with all the qualities of the old ones, and he's managed to keep them from sucking.
Tryka and Sweral are great, "old school" Dimension of Pain characters. I like them, I care about them, and they don't feel like interlopers just because they've been added in. They honestly feel like the fuckups among a culture of screwups, but they're still chipper, damn it!
I don't know if they'll end up on McDonald's plate at the end of this plotline (actually, I kind of suspect McDonald's going to be sticking with the Dimension of Grief after this -- I think we're seeing the end of the Dimension of Pain in these strips), but I honestly wouldn't mind seeing Tryka and Sweral accidentally end up on Earth with Torg and become secondary cast members. Of course, if I saw a lot more of the pair, I might think differently.
Also, Tryka's recurring excuse for killing and devouring the other demons' pets makes me laugh. Laugh real laughter. Out of my head.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:42 AM | Comments (2)
-->Eric Burns-White: On the revision of past success, or how to ride the pony a little longer
(From PvP, Casey and Andy, and Penny Arcade, respectively. You can click on the thumbnails and see the full sized strips in their natural, unLucased habitats.)
Okay, this is about the Star Wars DVD collection "controversy." Which isn't. You know. Controversial. I mean, if he'd called these things "Director's Cuts" everyone would be fine with it. Except, you know, the totally insane people. But that's not the point here. Because I couldn't care less. I'm not going to buy the DVD sets, because I don't buy DVD sets of that nature. I buy Complete Television Seasons On DVD™, because I love archives. Everything else, I let the Tivo slurp up when they become available on my extended tier Dish Network thing. I have a DVD burner built into it, so if I really want to keep them, I can. The only "Special Edition" movie exceptions have been the Lord of the Rings movies, which a friend has given me for Christmas the last couple of years, and which I really love. But I wouldn't have bought them for myself. Because Hell, Fellowship was on Encore already.
But you don't care about that. You want to know about the webcomics I'm referencing.
This is a big deal in the geek community, and so we've had a lot of Webcomics reference it. There've been a lot more references than just these three. The community's in upheaval, so people are making note of it. It's what they do. And these three strips between them surround the whole issue, to my mind.
Scott Kurtz has the sanest take -- the take that most needs to be said, in my opinion. Yes, he's putting it in Brent's mouth. Brent is his designated "guy who can say crap we all wish we could say but most of us never dare" character. Still. It's a clear bucket of cold water being thrown on people, and I'm glad to see it. Yes, it's a remix. Yes, the changes weaken the movies they're allegedly celebrating. Yes, Jesus, Han shot first and Hayden Christensen's damn face is in Jedi. Who the Hell cares? If you like the movies, you're still going to like the movies on DVD. If you can't for the life of you let this crap go, then you're going to buy the movies and enjoy being outraged, because clearly that's the kind of thing you like to do. There's nothing wrong with that, either. Also, Kurtz gets bonus points for shading the light on Cole's Vader helmet so it looks like one of /usr/bin/w00t's asshats. Subtle, but there it is. Tell me I'm wrong. (And for the record, I really wish Chaobell wasn't on break, because her take on this 'controversy' would rock.)
Penny Arcade takes the opposite tack. Their strip tells the opposite side, as well as anything I've seen does. Lucas is doing this for cash, and he's clearly lost any vision he once had for the movies. And, more to the point, they include a phrase I think should be locked into the lexicon of all fans everywhere.
That phrase? "Accidential Masterpiece."
George Lucas just isn't a top flight director. He's no worse -- and no better -- than Leonard Nimoy was, to be honest. If there had been no Star Wars, he'd still be known for American Graffiti, which was good but doesn't exactly make top ten lists. (AFI listed it as #77. They listed Star Wars as #15.) As a Producer, his only truly great work has been attached to other people -- Steven Spielberg had a lot more to do with the success of Indiana Jones as a franchise than George Lucas did. (Spielberg is a top flight director, of course.) Lucas happened to hit 00 on the roulette wheel with Star Wars. It was great. Truly great. Utterly wonderful. A triumph of casting, of timing, of story. No wonder he keeps trying to go back to that well -- nothing he's ever done has ever come close to it. The Prequel Trilogy -- which I actually enjoy, I would add -- are good popcorn entertainment, but they're nothing compared to Lord of the Rings. Same with Return of the Jedi. Empire Strikes Back is actually my favorite of the movies, but it's not as good as Star Wars was, and besides, he didn't direct it.
Lucas has to remind himself that he's great, so he keeps going back to the movie that was great. It's pathetic, but there it is.
Finally, we have Casey and Andy, which is by far the best satire of the 3. In fact, it's fall down hilarious. It hits all the high points of the controversy, and makes its point perfectly.
And more to the point, it highlights how utterly useless Lucas's efforts to 'improve' the movies are. No matter what he does to tinker with them, the simple fact is with flat effects and a true bastard owning the Millennium Falcon, Lucas accidentally created a pop culture phenomenon that literally exceeded Star Trek. Nothing he does now can possibly recapture that lightning in a bottle. It can't actually hurt the original movie (and the day he dies his estate will sell the original versions of the trilogy on whatever they're using for DVD that week, and will reap another ton of cash). It's just silliness.
I don't suppose there's any chance that these strips will cover the Cat Stevens denial of entry tomorrow, is there?
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:59 AM | Comments (3)
-->September 22, 2004
Eric Burns-White: Now this is In Media God Damn Res!
(From The Suburban Jungle. Click on the thumbnail for full sized tension!)
So. Comfort and Dover have been building for this Wedding for a long while. They met all the way back on April 5th of 2000. They got engaged in November of 2001. (Setting the date, I would add, for 2004. Say what you like about Robey -- the man sticks to a plan.) Comfort's mother joked about whether or not Dover would be able to say "I do" by then.
Here we are. And we went from language lessons into the heart of the wedding in one freaking day. Most cartoon strips would do days and days of buildup, of wedding planner jokes, of last minute jitters, of assassins staking out the rooftop of the building opposite the cathedral (okay, that last was unique to Greystone Inn, but still....)
Robey? Robey has exactly one point of tension -- will Dover be able to force his lips to say "I do" without saying it in script form. And so we went from him failing his training straight to the moment. Dive into conflict! Damn the torpedos!
That being said, I kind of hope he fails. Dover is Dover. Comfort knows what she's marrying. If she doesn't want a groom that says 'set Dover.married="yes"' in answer to the question, she should have dated Woody Wolf. And then devoured him. Just like Leona should have. There should be more big cats devouring the people who piss them off, damn it! They're big cats! That's what they do! Meat is meat, damn it! It doesn't have to be antelope if it pisses you--
I lost the point again, didn't I. You really need to speak to me about that.
Anyway -- I really, really like how we jumped straight into this. Set robey.biscuit=2*'tasty'
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)
-->Eric Burns-White: Misery loves company, and continuity can be Hell.
(From Diesel Sweeties. Click on the thumbnail for full sized shriveled metal.)
R. Stevens does misery well. Clango is miserable because his ex-porn star girlfriend (who truth be told hasn't ever been that concerned about Clango -- when he lost his head and 'died' she moved on pretty fast) kissed someone while drunk. Li'l Sis has been sleeping like crap since she dreamed that she was married to Metal Steve, working at a bowling alley, and had Indy Rock Pete as a son--
Fuck that, now I'm scared.
--anyway, both look like crap now. And are both miserable. I am anticipating the ensuing of hijinks, especially when Maura thinks that everything's fine, and besides she's probably drunk again.
I do love strips that have no need for characters with redeeming qualities.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:20 PM | Comments (0)
-->Eric Burns-White: Man, when Kestral thinks you're nuts, you're officially far gone.
(From Queen of Wands. Click on the thumbnail for full sized askance looks!)
People who've been following my ravings for a while know that I'm a fan of Queen of Wands, but prefer it when it goes for the Funny. These days, I've been perfectly content with the balance, I should add, and today is a prime reason of why I like it.
It's a pretty standard three panel talking heads today, though it highlights the power of Aeire's "lightning bolt path" approach. The path itself is a little more noticeable today (in autumnal colors, no less), and like always it gives her room to grow. She can develop her idea smoothly, taking 85 words to set the joke up and let it fly, where a traditional newspaper comic would have to compress it (and more than likely weaken it).
Anyway, it made me chuckle.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:10 PM | Comments (0)
-->Eric Burns-White: Internet Explorer 6.0 hates Websnark. DAMN YOU MAX POWERS!!!!
Deprecated.
Well! Here's the latest directly from Six Apart, the cheerful people who make Movable Type and who are working on helping us all with our Typekey problems:
Okay, it looks like you've encountered yet another IE quirk that has to do with what Microsoft calls "leashed cookies". This will affect those whose MT installation is on one domain but their blog site is on a different domain.
"Leashed" cookies are new to Internet Explorer 6. They're cookies that Internet Explorer prevents from being used later, by a third-party site. So when the TypeKey commenter cookie is set (for the domain where your mt.cgi script is installed), IE won't allow that cookie to be used on your blog site, because it thinks it is a third-party cookie.
You can add both sites to your Privacy settings in IE so that it will permit cookies from both domains to be used (but your visitors would need to do this also). You might also be able to set up your MT cgi script where it is accessible from both of your domains (your host can advise you on if this is possible and if so, how to do it), so you can use the same domain name in your templates for the CGI path as your blog site.
There may be some other workarounds available on the support forums; these are the two which I have heard about as potential solutions.
Regards,
Shelley
So! If you absolutely have to use Internet Explorer, make sure to add www237.pair.com and www.websnark.com to your privacy settings and it should work. But I personally recommending setting IE on fire and using Firefox instead, and it should be okay.
Thanks to Shelley. I'll keep working on my end and see if we can resolve the greater issues.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:52 AM | Comments (3)
-->September 21, 2004
Eric Burns-White: Internet Explorer's puttin' a hatin' on me...
For whatever reason, it seems to be that (some) people using Internet Explorer can't get Typekey to work right now. Six Apart is working with me to try to fix it. Firefox is working fine, so that's what I recommend folks use. Plus, you know, it has less of a stench of evil.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:39 PM | Comments (6)
-->Eric Burns-White: Meaningless Acknowledgements
For the record, as of yesterday Websnark.com was one month old.
In that month, while we had a couple of extremely light/crap days, we never had a day where no posts at all showed up. This is the 161st post.
On the one hand, I can't believe so little time has passed. It feels like I've been doing this for a year.
On the other hand, I can't believe I've managed to keep this up for so long.
On the gripping hand, I can't believe you people are coming and reading it. Thanks for that, by the way.
Onward....
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:59 PM | Comments (1)
-->Eric Burns-White: This brings the Cute, damn it!
And here we are, my two favorite tchotchkes from webcomics: my plush Skull, from PvP, and my Gerbil, from Narbonic. I have no idea if Shaenon Garrity and Scott Kurtz like each other, hate each other, are indifferent to each other or "other," but on my desk these two get along in perfect peace and harmony.
The gerbil is handmade, in the best sense of the word. It's clearly excellently put together, with a scosh of craftswork in it. It's soft and adorable and sits very nicely, and is the best packaged thingy I've ever received. Oh, it showed up in a Priority Mail box full of packing foam, but what a box. See, I'm addicted to commissioned/original artwork. If I could, I'd wallpaper my apartment in bristol board dirtied with Sharpies. And the box the Gerbil came in had three Garrity original drawn gerbils on it (one on each of three sides) and a drawn picture of Shaenon Garrity herself on the front, a bold finger (not that finger) thrust upward as she declares "I BRING THE GERBIL!" This to me epitomizes going the extra mile.
Skull, in contrast, is machine made, in the best sense of those words. Well stitched, bean stuffed and amazingly soft, I'd gladly get Skull for any stuffed animal lover -- especially children. Skull was meant to be adored by a child. As for packaging... well, it got dumped into a secure mailer envelope and sent on its way. I was a bit torqued about that -- what if it got crushed? -- until it hit me that Skull is essentially stuffed with the same stuff you'd use to pack Skull in anyhow, so the chances that harm would come to him were negligible. (The gerbil, on the other hand, has a rigid spine, and so could be harmed in transit if care were not taken -- but of course, care was taken.)
So, I'm grooving on them both. This was a good day.
(Oh, the picture in front? More proof I'm not an artist.)
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:16 PM | Comments (1)
-->Eric Burns-White: Moonlighting Syndrome and the modern webcomic.
(From General Protection Fault. Click on the thumbnail for full sized annoying little brothers.)
I honestly don't know what it is. I enjoyed the whole redux of the Fooker vs. the Brotherhood. I enjoyed Yoshi and Trudy's meeting. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with this plotline. It's lined up to bring the Story while bringing the Funny. It's got hijinks built into it. It has classic situations (though I get so tired of "immigrant parents who get offended when the American doesn't conform to every detail of their culture upon entering" as a riff -- I know it has some reality to it, but to be perfectly blunt my inner ugly American crops up and says in its most snarky voice "you moved here, boychick. We didn't move there. Burden's not on us to learn your ways"), is well drawn, updates on time and is really trying.
And it's a total burden to read. I just don't care about Nick and Ki any more.
I used to. I cared a lot, before they got together. I cared a lot when Trudy was in the mix. I cared a lot when the relationship was just beginning to form. I cared a lot when they finally looked like they were about to seal the deal. I cared a lot when the whole Mr. Pookel thing threatened to sink the deal.
Maybe this is yet another casualty of Surreptitious Machinations for me, but I couldn't possibly care less about either of these people. Give me a Sharon plotline, or another Fooker plotline. Or go check in with Trudy again. Or Dexter. Dexter deserves some long running plots. Any of those would at least keep me interested.
I think it has to be Moonlighting Syndrome. America loved Moonlighting when the sexual tension was thick and the romantic tension was thicker. And then one day it exploded, and David and Maddie humped like rabbits in heat. America rejoiced!
And stopped watching the show. They got to the sex, rolled over and went to sleep, then didn't call the next day. And Moonlighting died.
Nick and Ki haven't had sex, but honestly, so what? The point is they got together. They're involved. Even if Ki's father absolutely refuses to accept Nick, we know that Nick and Ki are going to get married at some point. It's boring.
I rolled over and went to sleep on these two sometime back in 2002. Get them married and get them offscreen, and let the unresolved characters back out to shine.
Oh, and let Trent, Dwayne and those fucking slime molds go with them. They can set up a little office somewhere while Fooker, Sharon and Dexter foil Trudy's new schemes, or something. Every so often, Sharon can phone up Nick and ask him a question or two, whenever Darlington has a yen to draw Nick again.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:29 PM | Comments (12)
-->Eric Burns-White: If you have had trouble with Typekey...
...please try again, commenting on this very post. The good people at Six Apart have given me a suggestion I've used to hopefully resolve the issue, but as I can't reproduce the problem myself, I count on you, the reading public to tell me if it's still causing trouble.
Thanks, all!
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:19 PM | Comments (4)
-->Eric Burns-White: Snrk.
(From Doonesbury. Click on the thumbnail for full sized sadism!)
I don't have much to say here. Oh, I could bring up how important it is to reinforce the sacrifices our troops have gone through, or the continuing weirdness of seeing B.D. without his helmet, or how weird the rerun this weekend was showing him in the helmet... but that's really not why I'm here.
I just found myself giggling for ten minutes when I read this. That's all.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:59 PM | Comments (1)
-->Eric Burns-White: If we built a time machine and went back in time, would the time machine turn black and white or would we reenact Pleasantville?
(From Calvin and Hobbes. Click on the thumbnail for full sized explanations.)
There are many things Bill Watterson gets credit for, when people talk about Calvin and Hobbes. The sense of imagination. The sense of freedom. The Funny -- oh yeah, Watterson brings the Funny.
But there's one thing that leaps out at me that I really wish more strips would do. It's the deeper lesson than Watterson's (or Breathed's) surreal humor. It's what makes the whole strip hold together. And that's Watterson's willingness to let Calvin be a little kid.
Yeah, he sometimes uses words a kid his age probably wouldn't, but for the most part Calvin has a child's understanding of the world. He believes what he's told, if it fits his childlike world view. And that's very, very cool.
Alice is the strip that's come the closest to echoing this, in my opinion. (Though Alice has sadly dropped onto my "You had me and you lost me" list -- though I haven't looked in on it for a while so maybe I can be pulled back in.)
Also, Watterson was unafraid to make Calvin's father a complete bastard. Seriously. We see redeeming qualities in Calvin's mom from time to time, but Calvin's dad clearly takes what amusement he can from the kid and couldn't care less the rest of the time.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:29 PM | Comments (6)
-->Eric Burns-White: You, madam, are tattooed. In fact, you are extremely tattooed. And tomorrow, I shall be sober.
(From Scary Go Round. Click on the thumbnail for full sized flirty ensemble!)
I love the banter between Tim and Amy. In fact, I love the banter of Scary Go Round in general. It's a strip of gigantic heaving potent banter, throbbing with barely restrained wit and aplomb.
That might be the most suspect sentence I've ever written. You don't get that kind of double-entendre from Comixpedia, kids. Okay, sometimes you get cover art of women having sex with iMacs, but there's nothing double about that entendre. That's some decidedly singular entendre action. But that's off today's point, isn't it?
The thing about Scary Go Round's banter is it's unashamed. Most banter comes across as self-conscious. There's an assumption that somehow it has to have some kind of point, or connect to the strip, somehow. I think this is because so many Americans grew up watching the "banter" on sitcoms. Aside from Seinfeld, which elevated American banter considerably, American sitcoms don't banter so much as they trade clumsy insults and wait for the laugh track. Cleverness isn't encouraged. Sex references are. Do you have any idea how boring sex references become after you hear the fourteenth reference within a single hour?
Er, let's just ignore the double-entendre I opened this entry with, shall we? Thanks.
Allison comes from the British tradition, where banter has a deliciousness all its own. If P.G. Wodehouse were writing webcomics today, he'd toss in banter like this. We used to have a Banter tradition, but I fear it remained in the past with the Algonquin Round Table. I'm reminded of Steve Martin in Roxanne:
"We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was getting tired of being stared at."
Questionable Content goes for the heavy banter points, but for the most part we're stuck with repartee that claims its banter. You know, like pretty much any exchange between Slick and Monique in Sinfest. It's funny, but it ain't banter.
Shiny on, you crazy Brit. Shine on.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:29 AM | Comments (2)
-->Eric Burns-White: Is it me, or is Artie just in the wrong line of work?
(From Narbonic. Click on the thumbnail for full sized partings if you're a subscriber, or click on the link to see today's strip if you're not. And then subscribe.)
And so we come to the end of the road trip. Well, not really. In fact, this isn't an ending at all, because Artie and Dave still need to get back to Narbonic Labs and Dave needs to explain to the rental agency how the truck got trashed and we don't know who the programmer is who's going to "remove" the order-taking compulsion from the Madblood Androids, or what the programmer will actually do to them. (This is assuming the programmer doesn't turn out to be Madblood himself, of course.) The revelation of Zeta's past is left hanging as she moves on, and Dave's jealousy over his brother persists.
And yet, this feels like the plot's end, so we're declaring it the plot's end. All else is denouement.
Denouement.
It means "the events following the climax of a drama or novel in which such a resolution or clarification takes place." According to Dictionary.com.
Look, I've used the word before. Just try to keep up, okay?
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
-->Eric Burns-White: And Jesus, do we really need to see "Apprentice" promos before a movie? Don't they know Trump is totally last season?
(From Too Much Coffee Man. Click on the thumbnail for full sized constructive feedback.)
Dear God does this strip speak the truth. It's worse now than it ever was, and it makes me progressively more frightened for the future. See, way back when you would go to the movies and the following things would happen. First, the curtain would open up on the screen. Then, two or three previews of coming attractions would be shown. Then, there might be an advertisement for the refreshment stand or an injunction to use the exits at the far side of the room if the building caught fire. And then you would see the movie.
Then, the number of previews increased.
Then, the commercial for the refreshment stand grew more elaborate.
Then, commercials began to run, before the previews. Commercials for Coke, for Hollywood.com, for jeans. At first, they were distinctive commercials made for the movie screen. Then, they were the same crap we watch on television.
Then, they started showing a short film about the Jimmy Fund. I have no argument with this one.
Then, they began running slides before even showing the commercials, for when you first arrived at the theater. They had rebuses any developmentally disabled four year old could guess (when they actually have four or more letters on the screen, it's not a rebus any more, it's the work of a confused calligrapher who thinks a picture of a light socket is part of the English Language.) They had "trivia" that proved conclusively that the word derives from "trivial." And they had local commercials. The Portsmouth movie house we go to typically had slides advertising the York County hospital, just over the border. Generally, it advertised it with a giant picture of a baby, which makes me think I can drive to York County and pick up a small child for all my small child needs.
And now? Now?
The Twenty.
That's right, the slideshow encouraged people to ignore the ads and engage in conversation before the damn movie. We can't have that. So now we have twenty minutes of faux "behind the scenes" coverage of your 'favorite' shows from NBC and TNT, plus full out commericals. It's horrible, and it's offensive.
That's right, offensive. If I pay someone eight bucks to see a movie, I don't want to see commercials for FUCKING TNT. I have TNT and I never, ever watch it! And now they've driven me to block it from my Tivo list, so that I never even see it! Tivo can't even record shows off of TNT as suggestions any more! THIS IS WHAT THEY HAVE WROUGHT!
We have gotten some fun out of it, though. Part of my ritual for buying a ticket now includes my desperately asking the ticket taker if we get to see The Twenty before the movie. It's become clear the staff of the movie theater hates it as much as we do.
Probably more, actually. Most theaters have taken to playing it in the lobby. I'd think that would be grounds for an unsafe work environment lawsuit.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:51 AM | Comments (10)
-->September 20, 2004
Eric Burns-White: I'm home. Isn't that enough? Well? Isn't it? Punk?
It was an excellent trip back, beautiful and sunny. And I came across a 200 foot tall obelisk commemorating a Revolutionary war battle.
Well, of course I went to look at it. When you're driving along, round a corner and see a massive granite phallic symbol arching into the Vermont sky, you don't just ignore it. I took pictures, too.
Anyway, I'm tired. Back on the regular 'schedule' tomorrow.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:39 PM | Comments (1)
-->Eric Burns-White: One last light day
Hey all! I'm about to climb in my car and drive for New Hampshire. I'll try to get stuff done tonight, but I should be back on a normal life-schedule regardless tomorrow.
Also? Talk Like A Pirate Day failed to have significant Webcomics impact this year, as far as I saw. That's sad. Sad and wrong.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)
-->September 19, 2004
Eric Burns-White: So it was a light day. Give me a break. I got drunk and saw many pretty girls. Now, look at the cats.
(From Two Lumps. Click on the thumbnail for full sized shinies.)
So the wedding was nice. It was a beautiful day, the food was fantastic, the bride was radiant and the groom had a sense of humor. Also, there were large bladed weapons and many girls in bodices. I had a small amount of alcohol... but I've also lost over a hundred pounds of mass, so it didn't take much to get me to the point where I was singing "Hit Somebody" by Zevon to my tablemates, all of whom were good friends.
I'm not loving this strip, today. I like Two Lumps very well. You know that. But while the drug strip last time rocked, today's is just kind of 'eh.'
Still, I like the unexpected splash of color at the end. So, some positives after all.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:32 PM | Comments (0)
-->Eric Burns-White: Still dancing for his amusement, after all these years.
(From Men in Hats. Click on the thumbnail for full sized cool breezes!)
A full-on Men in Hats strip needs to have two things: a dramatic assertion of dubious fact, and schadenfreude, This one has both. It's not that Gamal is in tremendous pain, it's that Aram takes such pleasure in the circumstances. Cartoon strips of all stripes are way ahead of the curve when it comes to total heartless bastards.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)
-->Eric Burns-White: Darrrr! I want the white pony!
So, we spent the night with friends. And then we talked like pirates while riding a carousel. I met a kickass 8 year old girl who, the second time she spoke to me, said "THAR SHE BLOWS!"
My life is a webcomic.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:13 AM | Comments (2)
