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October 23, 2004

Eric Burns-White: ....

(From Narbonic. Click on the thumbnail for full sized... full sized... just click, already. Subscription Required.)

Hear that sound? Hear it?

That's the sound of Shaenon Garrity collecting my expectations and kicking them to the fucking curb. That's the sound of my brain being shattered into a million tiny spinning crystal shards. That's the sound of sheer brilliance.

The last several days of buildup have been done extremely well. The payoff still managed to come out of left field, and yet falls back on the core Mad Science principle.

Shaenon Garrity gets a biscuit. That's right. A tasty, tasty biscuit.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:59 AM | Comments (5)

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October 22, 2004

Eric Burns-White: The Backlog, as of today.

Well, having built up a healthy number of e-mails I needed to go through, I've taken the time to do so. And, because I'm now getting a good, healthy number of recommendations for things to look at and/or snark, I've now got a healthy list of stuff ahead of me, just covering what people thing I'd enjoy. Because the list could get unwieldy (and I own a copy of Filemaker Pro anyhow), I thought I'd whip up a happy to-do list, and export it for you all to see what's on my agenda.

Note that not all of these will get snarked. It's always what catches my eye on the day of the snark that ends up being snarked. Note also that a few of these are things I've read before, but gotten behind on. (Things like Fans or Chopping Block fall under that heading.) Others I've never heard of before, but someone out there liked and thought I would like too. Still others, like The Jaded and Killroy and Tina, I haven't yet read but I've meant to.

Of all of these, the one I've had the most recommendations to read? Schlock Mercenary. So that should probably be first.

If you suggested something more than three weeks ago and you don't see it here, chances are I had a look and didn't end up being inspired. Alternately, I might have missed it as the database is new. So what the heck, send it again to websnark AT gmail DOT com and I'll either have a look or let you know why not. If you'd like to suggest something, feel free to send it along as well!

And now... the backlog:

13Seconds.info, A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreperable, A Softer World, Alex and Ilia, AmyÌs Suitcase, Anime Arcadia, Arthur, King of Time and Space, As If!, Athena Voltaire, Atland, Authentic Productions, Bob and George, Bored and Evil, Buttercup Festival, Chopping Block, Count Your Sheep, Crooked Halo, El Goonish Shive, Errant Story, Ezra and Ash, Fans, Fetus-X, Fever Dream, Five Bucks to Friday, Freak U., Game Under, Gamers Gone Bad, Gin and the Devil, Guardians, Gun Street Girl, Homestar Runner, Will EisnerÌs John Law, Joe Cartoon, Killroy and Tina, KU-2, Lancaster the Ghost Detective, Like an Episode of, Miracle of Science, Nephilum, New Adventures of Death, Night Shift, No Need For Bushido, Oriyan, Picture Story Theater, Piled Higher and Deeper, Pork Factor 9, Rhymes with Orange, Rolling with the Punches, Sam and Fuzzy, Schlock Mercenary, Shaw Island, Skirting Danger, Sorcerer of Fortune, Square and Circle, Strange Daze, Striptease, Super Real, Terinu, The Jaded, Triangle and Robert, Uberclocked, Venus Envy, Wapsi Square, You Damn Kid!, Zebra Girl, and Zortic.

Clearly, I have my work cut out for me.

(Oh, and one thing I don't need are reasons why I shouldn't read one or more of the above. But you knew that, didn't you?)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:30 PM | Comments (23)

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Eric Burns-White: Meanwhile, back in commerce territory....

(From Goats. Well, from its store. Which is much the same thing. Click on the thumbnail for a chance to spend money on fabulous automated simian corsairness!)

Remember my ruminations on cliches in webcomics? Well, seriously cool musician E. A. Rowe commented that Goats -- the very webcomic that I was referring to, because of their artistic use of ninjas, themselves made fun of the phenomenon earlier, with the announcement of the Robot Monkey Pirate tee shirt. It was used in a strip as an example of the ridiculous crap that webcomics could get their fans to buy. Needless to say, they then started selling the shirts. And God help me, I want one.

Naturally, a Zombie Ninja with Cleavage tee shirt has to follow, now....

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:59 AM | Comments (6)

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Eric Burns-White: On the other hand, both strips are willing to make pants a plot point.

(From Questionable Content and Scary Go Round. Click on the thumbnails for full sized banter!)

We've remarked before on the similarities between Questionable Content and John Allison's Scary Go Round. Well, today's strip seems to highlight the differences far more than the similarities. There is, of course, a similarity of style of banter, though Questionable Content seems more focused on Story elements and a certain realism than Scary Go Round, which seems more and more idiosyncratic and stylized (which is not a knock on Scary Go Round -- it's simply an understanding of what Scary Go Round seems to be trying to do). However, the art highlights a serious difference between the two. Scary Go Round, even as it stylizes more and more artistically (there's an element almost of construction paper cutouts and paper dolls in the current style -- iconic figures instead of realistic ones) also buries itself into lush set designs. Shelley, Amy, Tim, The Boy and all the rest (remember when this strip was explicitly about Rachel, Tessa and their work for Len? And the Bobbins cast was explicitly in the background? Boy, that sure didn't last, did it?) exist inside of panoramas of color and darkness -- blood red Victorian clubs and crowded Tackleford flats abound, and when pretty girls wearing very little wander through kitchens, they have to walk around all of the stuff that's in the way.

Contrast that with Questionable Content. First off, the art is far cleaner -- the figures tend to the realistic (in fact, Faye, while a cute young lass, has a bit of a belly and is 'hippy,' particularly when compared to Dora. And let me just say how bloody refreshing it is to have a female lead who is supposed to be considered attractive who isn't a supermodel, a superheroine or nude all of the time in an online comic. Faye is pretty, and cute, without being drop dead gorgeous. Dora is the same way, in a completely different way. And I for one appreciate it), and the backgrounds, while certainly detailed, have more of an austerity. It's almost like the Questionable Content strips take place on stage (a comedy of manners, as it were) while the Scary Go Round strips take place in an Indy Film (chock full of set design).

When looking closely at the strips, you can see real divergance and a very different sense of the aesthetic. Yes, Jeph Jacques was clearly influenced by John Allison, and also acknowledges it, but Questionable Content is very much its own strip. And I think every so often we need to highlight that, lest we fall into the trap of considering it only by what it's like, not by what it is.

Reread that last sentence. I swear it makes sense. Honestly. You may just need more coffee.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:17 AM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: Jesus. If it's going to be this small a thumbnail, why bother putting it up at all? I could have just linked to his site and been done with it.

(From FLEM Comics. Click on the thumbnail for full sized -- and I mean FULL sized -- CHIN!)

I've been waiting for the perfect FLEM Comics strip to snark, and I've finally decided it's not going to appear. Something audacious, like slicing your hand bit by bit into stew. Or something involving a dog and fucking. Or something that underscores the banality of political figures. Or something that echoes the sheer anarchic brilliance of the Jay Storyline. I dunno. The point of FLEM these days is more "whatever Grant feels like drawing," and maybe that's what a FLEM snark should celebrate. It doesn't have to be Angry Patriot Boy. It just has to be FLEM.

Anyway. I delayed for a long time, because of that, and was content to snark Two Lumps instead. But then this strip came out, and I knew it was time. Because it was about... the Kerry Chin.

There is something glorious about a powerful chin. And Kerry's Chin is, as Grant implies, Epic. This strip reminds me, in a way, of Douglas Michael's The Elvis Mandible, which taught us that there is something cosmic in a truly powerful jawbone.

Elsewhere, Grant challenged FLEM readers to write a poem about Kerry's Chin. My entry was a haiku:

In autumnal night,
I need something to follow.
Kerry Mandible

This represents my first successful use of the word 'mandible' in a poem. And that's worth something, isn't it?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:29 AM | Comments (2)

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Eric Burns-White: On the other hand, this could be an excuse for the strip to move to London....

(From Todd and Penguin. Click on the thumbnail for full sized heartbreak!)

I'm grooving on Todd and Penguin's return from guest stripitis, but today's not one of the strips that makes me groove, I'm afraid. There's a couple of reasons for that. One's the twist, which would have affected me a lot more powerfully if... well, Something Positive hadn't done something on this same riff very recently. As it is, even if it doesn't go the same way, it still feels a little familiar right now. Which is sad, because it's such a different strip in tone.

But that wouldn't be worth a snark, per se. That's just sort of there, and I'm in for the long haul. No, the snark's coming from panel four. I just... um... don't get it. I mean, we know the ring's in his pocket. Is this meaning the ring is suddenly heavy? Painful? Or did it explode into a million spinning pieces?

I dunno. I can tell it's meant to be iconography, but it didn't pull it off.

On the other hand, I'm intensely interested in the next strip now, so....

(I don't think Wright is making a move for a Cerebus Syndrome, though the vision sequence at the end of the accident storyline makes me wonder, a touch. We'll see what happens next. Todd's had the worst day ever, but on the other hand, that could just be comeuppance for spending money on Doctor Bill's books.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:59 AM | Comments (2)

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October 21, 2004

Eric Burns-White: Maybe we'll just chalk this week up to exhaustion and burnout.

Yesterday was a day of recovery from food poisoning, followed by four hours on the road -- and a great evening with my sister. And listening to the Red Sox win on the radio.

Today was a day of unmitigated exhaustion. It wasn't that I couldn't wake up -- I did. I went to work and everything.

But I couldn't think. I stared at computer screens that didn't resolve into words. I sat in meetings and barely could focus. I came home, ate something basic, and went to sleep for six hours. I'm about to go back to sleep.

I have notes for two snarks sitting in a folder on my computer's desktop. One involves the word "Mandible," and the other has a picture of a monkey. I have about twenty-seven unread Websnark e-mails sitting in the Websnark account.

I am typing this, instead, and then I'm going to bed. Tomorrow's Parents Weekend at the school, which means that barring a catastrophic failure of the database the faculty use to grade our kids, I'm not going to have to do a damn thing. You'll get them then, right after I put an overdue paid assignment to bed.

Chicken Salad is a deadly killer. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:26 PM | Comments (1)

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Eric Burns-White: There are so many situations in life where swearing helps, you know it?

(From Eat the Roses. Click on the thumbnail for full sized pause for recovery!)

Let's talk for a minute about art.

I know, I know, I don't talk a huge amount about it here. You already know I won't trash a site's art, and I won't reject a strip because I don't like its art if its execution makes up for it. So already, you know I like Meaghan Quinn's art, because I'm bringing it up.

What I want to talk about, just for a moment, is ink washes. Or simulated ink washes made on Photoshop. Or watercolor shading that ends up looking like ink washes. Whatever. You know what I mean.

The gradients in today's strip are subtle, the grayscale evocative. There are strips out there that just aren't in color, and there are strips out there that are meant to be duotone in gray. Today's Eat the Roses is the latter. Color would be a mistake. The grey on pencil becomes an effect -- if the negative space were black instead of white, this would fall into Noir. As it is, there's a dreamlike quality, but an oddly realistic one.

And -- and I say this a lot, it seems -- this would totally not work on a newspaper page. The LPI newspapers use wouldn't begin to resolve this kind of subtle grey at all. Even a graphic novel would have to print at a tighter screen than they're used to. This isn't a knock. I love strips that take advantage of the medium. This is a strip that creates an effect on the web, that couldn't be created anywhere else. Quinn knows what she's doing, and the result is lovely.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

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October 20, 2004

Eric Burns-White: It's the pose in the last panel that makes the whole thing.

(From Casey and Andy. Click on the thumbnail for full sized dramatic poses!)

Two things.

First off, as a big fan of Irregular Webcomic, I enjoyed seeing this take on them (though it would have been better as a Lego comic with Andy's scowling head appearing in one of the frames).

Second off, Casey looks totally wrong without his hair tapering to a point.

Third off (of two), next time, I expect to see Mary and Jenn. I can accept not seeing Satan. But Mary and Jenn should be a part of the wackiness.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:42 PM | Comments (5)

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Eric Burns-White: A rather focused correction

I've had a few people wish me well, offer me prayers, and be just darn good folks today, after my accident. Which means I wasn't nearly clear enough in last night's post. But then, I was fevered. So let me make something abundantly clear.

I did not have a car accident yesterday. I had food poisoning, the onset of which happened while I was driving. Had I not been driving on a deserted New Hampshire road at dusk, I would have plowed into oncoming traffic. However, there was no oncoming traffic to plow into. Other than a continuing desire to cut what's left of my already truncated digestive system out with a spoon rather than continue to enjoy this feeling, I am perfectly fine.

At the same time? You people rock. You really do. So I appreciate it, very much. But please don't consider me the boy who cried car accident.

(I was in a car accident a few years ago, if the thought of me being in a car hit by the hammer of Thor makes you smile. My old journal has the details if you're interested, and honestly, why would you be?)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)

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Eric Burns-White: And yet, there has been no Pirate/Robot fighting. Go fig.

(From Goats! Click on the thumbnail for full sized ninjas!)

There are certain cliches in webcomics. They extend to the newspaper sometimes, but in the webcomics, they absolutely flourish. Among these cliches are:

• Monkeys
• Ninjas
• Pirates
• Robots
• Cleavage

Granted, these cliches are actually geek cliches -- to the point that Atomic Sock Monkey Press has a Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot Game, a deluxe version of the game, and a Role Playing Game on the natural war between monkeys, ninjas, pirates and robots. (Now, if Chad produces a version of the game called Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot, Cleavage he'd have himself a top seller...)

Several websites and webcomics have been playing on a subsection of this war -- namely, the war between pirates and ninjas. I assume PvP was the first, though I could be wrong. At the same time, James Kochalka has been focusing on the other half of the war, in his book Monkey vs. Robot and the sequels. And many, many people have touched on the power of cleavage in these wars:Diesel Sweeties and Gaming Guardians conflate Cleavage and Robots; many folks, PvP's cosplay among them, touch on Cleavage and Pirates; at the very least, Planet Earth (and other tourist traps) touches on Cleavage and Ninjas... okay, I have no ready examples of Cleavage and monkeys right now -- but having said that, I give folks until the end of the week, at which time I will have to scour the image from my mi--

FRANK CHO! Frank Cho identifies himself as a monkey and is obsessed with cleavage! You don't have to do it now! Don't do it now! I beg you!

Anyway -- the point is, everyone does these things. Everyone. We've seen it a million times. It's. Been. Done.

And yet, I look at today's Goats and giggle. I giggle as much as I did back in the day when The Tick walked by Ninjas pretending to be a Hedge, back when I was in college and half of you weren't yet born. Christ, I'm getting old.;

Sometimes, cliches are cliches because they remain funny. Robots? Funny. Pirates? Funny. Monkeys? Funny. Ninjas? Clearly funny.

Cleavage? Always funny.

A nod of the head to M. Rosenberg. Because Ninjas are funny.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:52 AM | Comments (6)

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October 19, 2004

Eric Burns-White: On top of it all, my eyes hurt. From behind. I don't know what that means.

So I was pretty ill this evening. Food poisoning's the most likely culprit, though flu can't be ruled out. But it hit me like a ton of bricks out of nowhere, and that's more a food poisoning kind of thing. Sadly, I was driving at dusk when the ton of bricks hit. Let's just say we're all fortunate there was no oncoming traffic right that moment. Well, I'm more fortunate than you are, though I think it'd be hard for me to write this with all my bones broken and my chest one big subdural hematoma from hitting the airbag. As it was, there was just some cleanup and a limp back to my apartment, putting off a trip to my sister's until tomorrow, health willing.

I slept most of the evening, with unpleasant bits. And yet, unlike other times I've had this light a day, I didn't stress about Websnark. I figure you guys will cut me some slack, especially when chicken salad is trying to kill me. It was also a day when not a lot leapt out and said "snark me," which happens sometimes. Once again, you guys seem pretty cool about such things.

It's weird. When I first started this, it was entirely because I wanted to, and I had no rules for how often I posted. As it turned out, I posted a lot, but hey -- this thing was new and shiny. These days, if I don't write four snarks, I generally feel like I've let you guys down.

That's nuts, by the way. It's totally insane. And I'll never force out a snark I don't feel just to give you something to read. If I write about it, it's because I honestly have an opinion I want to talk about it.

No, if I have to force out a snark to assuage my work ethic, it'll be a meaningless ramble about my health.

Cheers.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:25 PM | Comments (6)

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Eric Burns-White: Making a couple of changes to the old FAQs

Hey all! Just letting you know we've made a couple of changes to the FAQ. First, we've added an entry on "Biscuit, Tasty Tasty" to the Lexicon. It seems like I use it enough that I should say something about it.

Also, by popular demand (believe it or not), I've added an e-mail address to the About Websnark FAQ. That address, for those of you wondering, is websnark AT gmail DOT com.

Salut!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:55 PM | Comments (2)

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Eric Burns-White: I have a stuffed "Yuppie Opus" from this time period at home. He has sneakers and a power tie. I bet its worth a lot on eBay at this point. You can't have him.

(From Bloom County. Click on the thumbnail for full sized offscreen hair! (Subscription very required))

There were watershed moments in Bloom County, and every so often they come up as My Comics Page slowly fills out their archives of the strip. Today, we've seen one of the big ones -- the (offscreen) introduction of Lola Granola, a woman who ended up a major supporting character and Opus's love interest for a very long time.

The best part of the Lola years is Breathed set up a certain expectation in the beginning -- the first thing we hear about is Lola's hairy legs. And we don't see her for quite some time. If you haven't read the sequence, you now have a mental image of Lola. If you have read the sequence, you know how well that image does or doesn't match up with Lola herself. This all goes back to 1986, and Breathed was at his absolute storytelling peak, here. Perhaps it lacked the edge of the first few years (much less the Academia Waltz), but it also didn't fall into the esoteric banality that marked the late Bloom County and Outland years. (As for Opus... no clue. I've seen it once. Looked like Outland to me, only with less effort put into it. But I haven't seen it enough to have a real opinion.) Right now, Breathed was hitting on all cylinders, the strips were funny and the story made sense and remained compelling.

We're very close to the Bassalope years, too, and that's a fine, fine thing.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:21 PM | Comments (2)

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October 18, 2004

Eric Burns-White: It's always nice to fill the vita out a little....

I seem to have an article in Pyramid Magazine this week. It's on In Nomine, covering one way to perhaps make Impudites work a bit better. This makes the first time my professional writings cross the path of Dead Inside writer Chad Underkoffler, whose regular column Campaign in a Box also happens to appear. And his column covers one of my favorite subjects -- second string super heroes -- so it's a double pleasure..

Anyhow, while I was taken slightly by surprise by the article appearing (I submitted it a couple of years back, and a couple of queries went unanswered), it's always nice to discover you're scheduled to get paid for writing. And I've always liked Pyramid. So, if you get a chance and happen to be a subscriber, have a look.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:11 PM | Comments (1)

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Eric Burns-White: Call me, beep me, if you want to reach me indeed.

From Dork Tower. Click on the thumbnail for full sized deference and honor!)

Dork Tower is ubiquitous in the RPG world. It's our comic, whether in print, on Pyramid, on Gamespy, over at Wizkids, or in whatever form John Kovalic is selling it this week. And while it trods similar ground as PvP, it's really a very different experience. PvP is all about the characters, most of whom like to play games, RPGs, LARP, watch geek culture movies and whatnot. Dork Tower is about games, RPGs, LARP, geek culture and the like, with a common set of characters reacting to it. It's not a better or worse approach to the material, but it is different.

This particular strip falls in the "geek culture" category, and it highlights one of the creepiest of phenomena within the fanfic subculture. I'd rant about it, if I weren't busy laughing myself absolutely sick. Needless to say, Kovalic absolutely nails fanfic -- both its justification and ideals (and bear in mind, those ideals do exist and a good amount of the fanfic written is absolutely for those reasons) and for the bits that make fanficcers clear their throat and change the subject.

Of course, this is why parents have to run web searches for their kids when their kids want to find online resources for their favorite cartoons...

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:18 PM | Comments (6)

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Eric Burns-White: Don't you forswear material goods as part of the monastic oath? I'm just sayin'.

(From Sinfest. Click on the thumbnail for full sized hat envy!)

Sinfest does a lot of stylin' and profilin', not that I think Ishida would use that phrase. It works for Sinfest, and sets an Indy rock tone to the proceedings. (He'd probably prefer to set a Hip Hop tone, but I call the tone like I see the tone.)

And yet, a strip like today's really appeals to me. No representing going on. A guy has a hat, and he's proud of it, and Slick, who's probably never wanted to wear a hat in his life, suddenly yearns for one. That's human nature, right there. That's every time you've been perfectly content, then seen somebody walk by in his new pair of shoes, and suddenly you want those shoes more than you want your mother to have life giving oxygen. And you like your mother. But damn it, new shoes.

The fact that Slick is still wearing his Elvis inspired superhero cape just makes it all more surreal.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:05 AM | Comments (9)

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Eric Burns-White: Well, with the number of penis jokes we had last week, this was sort of inevitable.

(From Planet Earth (and other tourist traps). Click on the thumbnail for full sized groping!)

A couple of things. First off, I meant to write this last week. Which thematically would have made sense, what with the various jokes involving the groping of men in tender ways that showed up here. I can't help that, by the way. I grew up in Northern Maine. We had to watch whatever managed to appear on our televisions until Cable came along. Which meant when Hee Haw was on, Hee Haw was on. We didn't like it. It was just that or stare out at the frozen tundra and wonder when the oxygen would melt off the ground again, and that gets old after a while.

Second off, Planet Earth has added a "permanent URL" section to its main page. A couple of other sites have too. This is a positive movement forward in the science of webcomic criticism. I look forward to a day when people like me barely have to lift a finger to get source links on our blogs. And we'll bitch about having to barely lift our fingers, too. Annoyance and effort is subjective.

Third off, I'm enjoying this sequence, and not just for the boob jokes. There's something very refreshing about the reminder that the event that destroyed your life -- the event you have dedicated your life to avenging -- might have been so minor on the part of the other person that they barely remember you exist. It's like Lex Luthor showing up with a Kryptonite Bomb and a tentacle robot with ray beams, and Superman squinting and saying "what is this all about?" And Lex says "Don't you remember? We were kids! My lab caught fire! You flew in to save me, but you caused an accident and all my hair fell out! My hair! My beautiful red hair! Remember?" "Well... um... you know, I saved a lot of people from fires when I was a kid... and you're not the only bald supervillain you know...."

Finally, I respect the sound effect "boof." I think we should all agree that the comic strip sound effect for squeezing a breast, from this point forward, should be "boof." When Francis reminisces about squeezing Jade's breast in PvP, he say "and then I was all like "there are no consequences, because it's the future, and she was all like yeah, so I reached out and it was all like 'boof' when I squeezed her boob."

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:40 AM | Comments (4)

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October 17, 2004

Eric Burns-White: GLORIOUS DAY IN THE EVENING!

(From General Protection Fault. Click on the thumbnail for full sized every fourteen year old het boy's dream!)

So we endured the end of the whole Nick thing. We watched the sitcom end exactly the way the sitcoms always end -- in minute 27 (counting commercials), there's a speech given by one of the leads, and then the lifelong racist sees the error of his ways. We just need the humorous tagline. It almost killed me. Killed me.

But now... now... it's Yoshi. And he's got a mystery... and he went into his room, and there's Trudy! Trudy! Trudy has come and she's bringing plot and character development! And we'll focus on them for a while! We will! We will we will we will!

(God, if this plotline sucks, we're in trouble.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:45 PM | Comments (3)

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Eric Burns-White: What makes a good video game.

So you haven't seen me yet tonight, which is really okay. I've done something almost every day since mid-August. It's good to not sweat it for a day. Today was devoted to City of Heroes, and was astoundingly fun.

A series of adventures for our team (I'm playing Transit, a teleportation specialist -- which will seem odd to CoH players, but works pretty damn well) led us to a fight against one of the Archvillains. These are always extremely cool adventures, and this more than most. You see, he had ice powers, which meant there were rooms with iced over floors that were frictionless, to make things harder on us....

Only... in one of the rooms... there was a giant ice slide down one stairwell, going up into a jump.

Seriously.

So we cleared that room of the evil Outcasts... and then blew twenty minutes sliding. If you did it just right, you could jump to a second floor catwalk. And if you jumped off the catwalk just right, you could make it all the way back up the iced over stairwell. And if you balanced sliding just right, you could half-pipe for a while.

It made sense from a role playing standpoint -- our Supergroup is officially a school for superheroes. So we were mostly supposed to be kids or teenagers. With a graduate who was embarrassed, and a teacher who was trying to balance decorum and wooting sounds. Which means this was a damn good RP scene for an online MassMOG where the goal is punching things.

This is an incidental bit in the middle of one room of one mission.

This... is why this game is so astoundingly cool.

Oh, and we took him down, hard. Ah, sweet simulated over the top superheroic violence, how I adore thee...

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:28 PM | Comments (4)