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-->April 30, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Weirdly, I still greatly look forward to the saturday strips.
(From Sluggy Freelance. Click on the thumbnail for full sized Puppet Phobia!)
I'm getting kind of worried here.
See, the whole Bun Bun/Pirate/Hot Science Chick storyline was at best dead in the water. Honestly, if the scene of Hot Science Chick shouting piratey talk in the last panel was the last we ever saw of that plot -- including the last we ever saw of Bun Bun -- I'd be perfectly cool with that. "Bun Bun is spending nonexistence bullying the crap out of people." That's a good enough ending for a character who really hasn't been missed since the end of the Holiday Wars, which itself was the end of any humor left to be eked out of him.
The problem is... "Living Conditions" isn't exactly setting my world on fire either, and that surprises me.
Here's the thing. I really, really liked "That Which Redeems." And I really liked "Dirty Deeds." It was setting up a very very nice blend of bittersweetness and comedy -- exactly the sort of stuff that causes me to hold Sluggy Freelance up as the most successful Cerebus Syndrome attempt I know of.
Then. Bun Bun. And it sucked. But now it's over (okay, I know it's a break -- give me my dreams!)
And we pick up exactly where we left off, theoretically....
...only it's got no momentum. No energy. It's just kind of limp. And Torg's bittersweetness is just totally gone, and Zo‘'s coming across less like someone asserting herself and more like a jerk. Min is always fun, but....
I don't know. I caught myself thinking maybe it's time to put Sluggy on the sporadically checked list. Give it a few months. Give Pete a chance to unburnout. Give it a rest.
The problem with that is, that's often a slippery slope to "You had me, and you lost me."
To be blunt, I have a lot of people wondering why I'm sticking with Sluggy as it is. A lot of people hated the Bun Bun arc, and aren't too happy with this one. Well, I have a strict rule of not giving up on a strip after a single bad plotline. Heck, look at the number of chances I gave GPF before finally realizing it had parted ways with me.
Getting back to the cast and continuing to feel like it's treading water really is a bad sign. I'm not putting it on Sporadically Checked yet, but I wonder if it's just a matter of time.
Slippery or not, we're at the top of that slope. It's time to see if the footing gets a little more sure.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:18 PM | Comments (32)
-->April 29, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Checking in from the road!
I'm typing this at an Apple Store in Salem, New Hampshire (not so much Witches as Goths with perky attitudes), picking up a copy of Tiger for the school I work at. From here, I'm heading to a hot spot to get some coffee and get my brain on, before heading home.
The lineup was an hour long to get in. An hour long.
For an operating system.
Seriously.
Oh, and they don't have a USB microphone in this store. On the other hand, the employees are cheerful and highly knowledgable. I asked one of them where the nearest hotspot was (other than here, of course). He grinned, ran me over to a nearby computer, and downloaded a Dashboard widget that ID'd the nearest hotspots.
I have to admit, it'd be fun to be a geek on demand at a place like this.
Right. Heading out. Until later, all.
(P.S. I have Milholland and Garrity art you do not. You may envy me at any time. I'll burble excitedly about both later today.)
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:22 PM | Comments (15)
-->April 28, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Culmination and Digestion: the end of Fans.
This entry cheats a bit. I had an exhausting day (literally. I hit the ground running at work, was there past seven, and was called back in. When I made it home, I slept all evening. I'm just awake briefly now) and no time to even consider writing, but we're still going to call this a Thursday post.
I'm digesting Fans. It's going to take some time.
In a way, it ended the only way a story about a science fiction club that saves the world multiple times possibly can; happily ever after, with one of the leads getting two wives, lots of good old fashioned lesbian sex, one of the character getting to be on Star Tr-- er, Tec (and play Mara Jade in a movie, it sounds like), another revolutionizing the world of business, another the world of technology, another a worldwide bestselling author, with the entire world absolutely adoring them to the point that Orlando Bloom wants their autographs.
It's thematic, after all. In a story about SF Fans who really do save the world, you need to go way way way beyond Mary Sue.
I have trouble digesting Fans because I've always had trouble reading Fans. There is a kind of brilliance in it, but sometimes the angst seemed self perpetuating without reason, and sometimes I feel like I'm missing half of what I'm supposed to know. You can't use words like Cerebus or First and Ten with Fans because the story's always been what it's been. There's always been a feeling like you're missing something, here and there, but that too felt like it was intentional. It's the same kind of thing that gave me trouble with the end of It's Walky, really. But it worked out over time.
Of course, so did It's Walky.
There are bits I don't care for. Alisin/Alison/Ally's evolution has always been handled well, but somehow the idea that her identity and persona for the run is something she can sell off piecemeal seems wrong, somehow. But that's minor, and I suppose we all outgrow who we think we are, as we get better. And I never -- ever -- cared for the overly cute renaming of Science Fiction shows and tropes to make them deniable. Star Tec and all the rest sometimes made the exercise feel disingenuous.
In a way, Fans feels like the story that forged both T Campbell and Jason Waltrip. I prefer some of Campbell's other stories to Fans, really -- both Rip and Teri and Penny and Aggie. But I think the reason for that is Campbell explored so many different styles of writing and storytelling in Fans, pushing his limits, that he gained tremendous flexibility.
Jason Waltrip, on the other hand, refined his style over the years but -- despite many, many excellent guest artists -- absolutely defined the iconic style of Fans. David Willis did the last chapter with fantastic skill and flexibility, but I deeply missed Waltrip in the last act. He blended the cartoonish and the exaggerated and made them look like the only choices that could be made.
I'm still digesting Fans because it's been around for years and years and years, and had a backstory that could choke a team of horses and have enough left over to choke a goat and the farmer. So much of the final act echoed back to elements of the series that are years and years back that jumping into it and finishing it is like slamming back a shot of Laiphroig. Sure, you could drink it down so fast you barely taste it, but my God man, why? Savor it. The peatiness assaults your senses at first but over the course of sipping the glorious complexity of flavor comes out. So it is with the end of Fans, and that's going to take time.
So is this my commemoration of one of the first, definitional adventure soap opera web comics?
I dunno. I haven't finished digesting it yet. All I do know is the series culminated well. T Campbell had a story in mind, and in the end he made it happen. That is remarkable, and so very rare. Contrast Fans with another grand soap opera, Avalon. Avalon reached a point of overburden, and Josh Phillips ultimately needed to 'end' it through synopsis. Fans was as grand and vastly broader in scope, and Campbell and Waltrip made it through to the end.
Astounding. Remarkable. Not one in ten writers or artists who conceive of a grand arc see it through to its end. (That includes me). Fans did it. Fans pulled it off.
And its end leaves a void. There's lots else on Graphic Smash and PV Comics (among many many other places) that have vision and scope, but Fans has been around... well, forever, in Internet terms.
And... it's another ending. And there's a sadness that comes with that.
I'm digesting the end of Fans, and it's going to take a while. But that's okay. I'm not really ready to let it go.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:45 AM | Comments (19)
-->April 27, 2005
Wednesday Burns-White: [w] And It's Off
We broke down and said, "Okay. It's better this way. Embrace the multideliveration; don't fear it."
Then we ordered the APG (and the IPG) from Warehouse 23.
We shall have face faith in UPS's ability to put something into a mailbox. We shall. No courier fashioned against us shall stand; the battle belongs to the Lord. We sing glory, and honour, power and strength to...
Um. Well, we sing, anyways. Unfortunately, we are, in fact, singing Petra at the moment, but I swear it's for research.
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 12:21 PM | Comments (16)
-->Eric Burns-White: A kind of obsolescence,
Apple has announced a new line of Power Macintosh G5s. Dual 2.7 GHz 64 bit G5 processors, advanced graphics and bus, up to 800 GB of internal storage. Up to eight gigs of DDR RAM. 16X write speed on DVDs. 30" cinema display. This thing's a rocket and gorgeous to boot.
And I've discovered I couldn't possibly care less.
This has to be a sign of growing up. Or at least of growing older. I find myself, more and more, looking at what computers do for me rather than what they are. My Powerbook is pretty and fast, yes. But more to the point, it runs every piece of software I need in day to day life. At home I have a Windows box, and it runs the Windows software I need. I'll be getting a Work WinLaptop for various functions, and I'll probably grab a Tablet PC because I can think of some useful things for it....
...and that's pretty much it. I don't need Apple's new rocket. I don't even want it, really.
And that kind of makes me sad.
I used to salivate over more advanced computers. I'd buy some incredible piece of hardware and I'd obsess about it for weeks -- always keeping my eyes out for that new bit that made it obsolete. Before I switched to powerbooks, I had a Power Mac 8600/300. G3 processor, large amount of RAM for the time.
Within a month, there was better stuff available. And bit by bit I upgraded it. I put in a better G3 processor. Later, I put in a G4 processor. I put in a more advanced video card and went to two monitors. I upped RAM again and again. I put in a USB/Firewire combo PCI card. I fought to keep it as current as possible.
And it worked, for all intents and purposes. I had that machine for close to five years, all told, and it served admirably during that time. It was only after it was clear it couldn't do OS X that it finally went to a new home. (My parents' home, that is -- where it serves as a backup machine and word processor for them.)
But during that time, I envied. I wanted the new shiny machines -- the blue tower, the grey tower, the gleaming metal tower. I used them at work and lusted for their shiny shiny goodness.
Well, these days at work we get XServes, and I have no lust for one of those at home. Except, of course, as a coffee table. And I have a powerbook that's zippy and does photoshop without lag and runs all the software I need open at once without trouble. It's not even maxed out in RAM.
It's a tool. Nothing more.
When you grow up, Christmas becomes more exciting for what you're getting for others than for what you're getting. Your birthday becomes vaguely embarrassing. You walk through toy stores and see more and more things you want to buy because they're ironic, and fewer and fewer things you want to buy because they're cool.
And eventually, your computers become boxes that run your software. When they can't run your software any more, you get a new one. Until then, who needs it?
That's so sad, in a way.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:42 AM | Comments (21)
-->April 26, 2005
Wednesday Burns-White: [w] Karmic Dilemmas
[This is going to be one of those entries where I am more conversational than analytical. So you're warned.]
Right. See, I have this problem.
I have this problem I don't know how to resolve, and it pertains to the ordering of books. Games books. Books of games. From America.
One component of this "writing partner" gig is that you kind of have to grasp the things the other person is writing about in order to afford any sort of sensible critiqueage. This is a bit easier in the other direction; I don't typically indulge in fanfic, both of us are religions nerds, both of us enjoy a bit of webcomickry, and I try not to inflict anime or manga on poor Eric unless it's absolutely necessary. However, he has this In Nomine thing going which you may or may not be aware of.
And, see, people had not, you know, been firm enough about that. "You have to read the core rules for In Nomine," they would say to me. "You would dig this thing. It has angels in it." And I would go, "uh huh," because... well, you have to understand that I've been a fairly active anime/manga fan for nigh on ten years now. And I've done my time with the omg-omg-bishiebishiewai types, although that's really not my thing at the end of the day (I figure I shouldn't crush on anything I could break). So, when someone tells me that something has angels in it? I've lately come to assume a couple of things about it:
1) It's probably fucking Angel Sanctuary;
2) Dude, I totally hated Angel Sanctuary;
2.5) See.
And that was totally lame. But expected. It's not like anyone was telling me, "this is about pretty, pretty angels the same way that Preacher is about loving, caring God."
But I have come to take Eric at his word. So, he tells me, I have to read In Nomine, because then I will understand things that he writes, and I will be able to critique them from an informed standpoint. And I say to myself, okay, I can get behind that. He will probably not steer me wrong, and I don't think he's all about the bishies. And people do keep telling me to read this thing, but not in the obnoxious way that they used to tell me to read sodding Iain [M.] Banks. (There are things which I will suggest to such people that they do to Phlebas, and they tend to involve the ear.)
So, one day, the doorbell rang. Royal Mail. With a parcel from Amazon UK. My cohabitative partner, David, answered the door, and accepted the parcel, and handed it to me at arms' length. With a pained expression.
A deeply pained expression.
It was from Eric. And it was In Nomine (and Superiors 4).
I think I need to make it clear, right here, right now, that I utterly fell in love with In Nomine, hard, and everyone who did not tie me to a post and make me read the core rules however many years ago? You need smacked. I'm not even sure I made it clear to Eric how hard the falling was. I think I went down a cup size, broke my nose, and looked better in jeans for a few days. Put it that way.
Haibane Renmei hard. Sailor Moon hard. Utena hard; xxxHolic hard.
Star Trek hard. The local newspaper knew how hard I wanted Spock when I was 12; put it that way, OK? (Two years on, it was Deanna Troi. Never let it be said I wasn't flexible.)
The other thing you have to understand is that I do not game. I don't. It's not in me. To get me into your RP, you have to explain to me very patiently that this is acting, or writing, or something which has absolutely nothing to do with the act of the game at all. I will panic on numbers, hide from stats, and otherwise weep my way through chargen; it's a fatal combination of insufficiently addressed, math-related learning disability and absent self-esteem. Did you care? Didn't think so. I can arguably write; I might, theoretically, be able to perform. But call it a roleplaying game and you're invoking the Penny Arcade Defense: it's not for me. (Eric? Please put this in the lexicon.) So, when someone hands me one of these, it takes a lot to get me to read it. And, if it makes me fall in love? Something must be right.
Hell of right.
Anyhow.
Amazon is an interesting thing to talk about in our house. At one point in the past -- some years ago -- Amazon were more proactive about sending marketing-related mail to account holders than they are now, and they will still market via email to people whose preferences allow for that. David and I disagree on whether that means it's acceptable to patronize them; I'm okay with it (I've never had a problem with them, and my threshold of what constitutes acceptable personal marketing is fairly high), but he's not because he counts this sort of thing as spam. Which is fair. We typically buy books from brick and mortar shops (to the extent that we will make side trips on US visits just to stock up on things we can't reliably obtain in London), and other things wherever it's appropriate to do so.
While I'm not adverse to buying things from Amazon, I have only ordered one thing from them in my life. That was because I had left the Christmas shopping until the last minute. I needed a particular R1 Dr. Who set to get to my parents' house in the US before Christmas Eve, because doing standards conversion on an R2 set at the last minute seemed ridiculous, and Amazon could guarantee delivery. It literally doesn't occur to me to buy anything from there.
Or it didn't until today.
I live in a very tedious little suburban area of Thames Valley, not far from Reading. London Waterloo (or, via Reading, Paddington) is near enough to make a pleasant day trip or a lengthy errand, but expensive enough by rail (I own no car, and who would drive in Central London?) that one should not make the expedition frequently. Reading has a games shop, but, as of a couple of days ago, it carried very little but Munchkin, BESM d20, D&D 3rd, and World of Pointy Things[1]. The local nerd Blackwell's isn't much better off. There is an Ottakar's in town, and they are somewhat gamer-friendly, but, by gamer-friendly, they tend to mean "all the GURPS ever. Except GURPS In Nomine." And World of Pointy Things. And, um, Warhammer/Games Workshop. (Hey, they also sell Silver Ravenwolf books, NIV bibles, and Chobits manga; everyone needs their gateways. We do better than many.)
And I'm impatient as hell. I want the Angelic Player's Guide, and I want it right now. Since I can't have it right now, I'd like it within some reasonable compromise between "now" and "reasonably inexpensive" (because, I'm afraid, my selfishness wars with my fiscal practicality). This means I need to order it online. My preferred London games shop does not have an online presence, and the god of London bookshops -- Foyles -- does not stock it. So, today, I found myself making some arbitrary eliminations in my options, and came up with two possibilities:
Warehouse 23 and Amazon. (I thought about Powell's, but I'm not convinced by the lowest-cost shipping option being surface. I've lost things that way, more than once, and, also, NOW. Ish.)
Most of my friends are American. So, when I explain the vagueries of Customs, the nuttiness of the postal system, it doesn't always register. Customs and I are old foes. My family and I, having been split across countries about as far back as I can remember, have long done war with the postal services. Canada to the US and back; US to Britain and back; Canada to Britain and back. I drop a parcel into the box, and I pray. Or, more likely, you ask me to mail you something, and I'll save it until I come to America -- it all makes sense when it's internal.
Amazon seem pretty good at dealing with the postal system. They do what they need to do as and when they need to do it, and they have a flat rate for it. (Just shy of $5/book. If you were curious.) Warehouse 23, on the other hand, does this weird thing (at the "you're cheap, but practical" level, anyhow, which is where I'm at -- look, I take care of the place while the Master is away, you know?) where they ship the parcel UPS as far as your country, and then UPS drops it in the local postal system. And, then, it gets to you via, you know, mail.
The latter? It panics me, not because it involves Royal Mail (Royal Mail is not too bad, as postal systems go, suffer as it may and might and does), but because it involves two separate mechanisms of courier. Anything could go wrong in those negotiations. Not that it couldn't go wrong in the negotiations between governmental postal services, but at least those are covered by treaty.
Panic insensibly? Yes. That is me. That is what I do.
On the one hand, Warehouse 23 is as close to the source as one gets. And I can break down and order other things, although I'd have to ask what they should be.
On the other? Amazon has the Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology on hell of discount. I covet the Westminster Handbook series. The Westminster Handbooks are my neighbour's ass. Look. I told you. Religions. Other people fangirl on Tolkien or Lewis or whatever? I fangirl on Mark Noll.
But. Yes. I need to place an order. This isn't something I'm good at.
I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to pick.
I know I'm gonna cave.
So tell me what to do.
1 - aka World of Cheese, aka World of Darkness. Pointy Teeth, Pointy Hat, Pointy Claws, Pointy Ears, Pointy Stakes... Look, I love Mage as much as the next person pretending not to love Mage, and I'd quite like to see what happens with it in the new setting, but... yeah. This is the sort of thing one might fetch near as dammit everywhere, so I was most saddened. Meanwhile, I can't find a core book for Orpheus for love nor money. Never have been able to. I could cry. Yes. I am utterly, totally pathetic. You may have me shot.
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 10:28 PM | Comments (20)
-->April 25, 2005
Eric Burns-White: The Impact of Patronage.
It's "get stuff from Comixpedia" day here on Websnark! Whoo hoo! This particular snark is in response to their news item on Gutterflycomix.com webhosting. The deal is pretty sweet for small webcomics -- up to 20 mb storage, up to 2 GB a month bandwidth, an SQL database for automation purposes... and no cost for it. Not even required advertising.
Of course, once you start to get some readership under your belt, you can break 2 GB a month and then it's five bucks for each additional GB, but like I said, smaller comics (or comics that are really good at file size management) can go quite a ways before it becomes an issue. And it's no strings attached. So what's the catch.
Interestingly, the catch is content related: your strip has to be PG. No nudity, no nasty language, nothing that would typically embarrass a parent who discovered his teenaged child was reading.
Note that Gossamer Commons wouldn't fit those strictures -- there's some swearing in it -- but I could probably change stuff so there wasn't. (I've considered doing that, in fact).
This intrigues me. This is a new collective -- a Keenspace alternative, for all intents and purposes -- designed to tailor a kind of content instead of a business model. The Gutterfly people want family friendly cartoons, and they're willing to extend free hosting to arrange it. I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately developed a turnkey system not unlike Keenspace's autokeen or the proposed functionality of Webcomics Nation.
I also wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing more projects like this appearing. As bandwidth and storage becomes less expensive, it becomes possible to extend very attractive hosting terms for reasons other than economic ones. Somewhere down the line, it's possible that Friends of the Family might start offering unlimited bandwidth and hosting and the chance for cross-promotion and the like to strips that produce a positive Christian point of view. And who's to say someone would be wrong to take that deal? Or what about a gay positive collective, offering convenient space and hosting for gay positive strips? You wouldn't even need to put ads for the collective on your site -- in fact, it might be stronger if you didn't, because then you've just got your comic out there, supporting a point of view they in turn support.
This moves us into a new direction -- we've put so much energy and emphasis on business models for webcomics, we now find that sociological models for webcomics are beginning to appear. This could be fueled out of a desire to see art flourish, or a point of view, or a philosophy. So long as the content fits a specific guideline or extols a specific thesis, it's worth the relatively inexpensive cost to keep it in business.
Does this sound familiar? It should. We're describing patronage. For hundreds of years, the great works of art were created under the auspices of wealthy men who supported some higher principle. That principle might have been God (or one of the Gods, depending on the era of history), their own place in history, the commemoration of a battle, a King or government, or what have you. Artists were fed by virtue of being able to produce great works of art that matched up to a specific point of view.
And the culture as a whole was enriched by it.
So. Why not? Why shouldn't the Scientologists underwrite the site expenses of a webcomic that is Scientology-friendly? Or MoveOn.org underwrite a wholly liberal, wholly anti-Bush webcomic? Or bunches of them?
And should we care?
So long as the editorial guidelines remain guidelines, and artists be free to write whatever they want within those guidelines, I don't think we should care, actually. I have no problem with someone signing on to Gutterfly for the free bandwidth and hosting without ads -- chances are likely I won't notice the lack of breasts or swear words on their strips, either. I have no problem with someone who decides to draw a Christian webcomic on his own lookout deciding to accept hosting from a Christian organization, so long as the comic strip remains good and fun to read. If someone manages to write a Scientology-based webcomic that's interesting and funny and well written, why should I care if they're paying for their own hosting or if Bridge Publications is paying for it?
However. People who are actually trying to make money with their webcomics should care.
Some of these patronage systems will permit said moneymaking. Gutterfly's one of them. If you want to run advertising (family friendly, of course), they're down with that. The same might be true of a hypothetical Christian, or Gay, or Liberal, or Scientological organization -- do as you want, so long as you stay within the guidelines we've set forth. But either way, you have a whole new ballgame opening up -- people who are going up against the for-profit collectives head to head, without any profit motive in mind.
Think of the response the Syndicates had when Keensyndicate and Scott Kurtz began offering their strips for free to newspapers. Now, turn it this way -- what does it mean when someone who doesn't care if they lose money every month begins underwriting a competing webcomic's expenses? What does patronage mean to independent creators who are trying to feed their families? What does it mean to Joey Manley or Chris Crosby?
What does it mean to Webcomics?
We honestly don't know, just yet. But mark my words -- the next stage in the evolution of Webcomics is being set even as we speak. And we don't yet know how that performance will go.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:47 PM | Comments (25)
-->Eric Burns-White: Man, now that is sculpture for you!
(From the Astronomy Picture of the Day. Click on the thumbnail for 'full sized' picture of a nebula that's actually ten light years tall, so how 'full sized' can we really claim it to be?)
I love the nebula pictures the Hubble gives us. I've loved them since we got the Hubble picture of the chunk of the Carina Nebula that looks like God is flipping off the universe. Never underestimate the power of juvenile humor in inspiring scientific research.
Today's interests me because of the comparisons to fairykind. I can kind of see it, too -- a standing female fairy crowned in light. It reminds me a touch of the actual Hubble photograph they used as a background in a seminal battle between the Vorlons and Shadows on Babylon 5. They managed to put the Vorlons' entry into the battle right into a whirl of the nebula that looked like a gigantic face of God, never come right out and stating it -- it was a profound statement that took maybe a second to resolve and then they moved on.
Maybe it comes down to the human need to believe, or to find patterns where there are none. Maybe it's a reminder that the majesty of the universe is greater than anything we could possibly expect. Maybe it's just our way of making a cloud of dust and radiation more interesting. But I believe in the fairy of the Eagle Nebula.
Of course, I also hold forth that seeing a fairy means you're marked for death. But there's no ruling yet on whether or not photographs produce the effect. Check the mirror later just to be sure.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:49 PM | Comments (7)
-->Eric Burns-White: You'll notice I refrained from the term 'catfight.' You can thank me later.
(From Suburban Jungle. Click on the thumbnail for full sized disturbingly cheerful!)
I've mentioned the Mary Richard Principle before -- most notably in the Shortbreads -- but it bears repeating and possibly an addition to the Lexicon. Succinctly put, the Mary Richards Principle harkens back to the old Mary Tyler Moore show. You had a passel of nutcases on that show -- the arrogant and stupid Ted, the gruff Lou, the neurotic and sarcastic Murray, the machiavellian Sue Ann, and so on and so forth. But in the midst of all the insanity and the way these absurd people played off each other, you had Mary Richards -- Mary Tyler Moore's own character -- who was essentially sane. She had some issues, sure, and her tears were a hallmark of overacting when she cried, but nineteen times out of twenty, Mary Richards was the wholly sane person who just stared at the others, as if to say "are you crazy? Is that your problem?"
Which, not coincidentally, is the catchphrase for Suburban Jungle.
Tiffany Tiger is SJ's Mary Richards Principal, generally. She sometimes has problems, but they're 'real world' problems -- self doubt, heartache and the like. The people around her, on the other hand, are batshit insane. Leona froths. The mice are crackers. Yin -- oh my sweet Lord, Yin. Even Leonard develops obsessions.
And, of course, Dover only speaks in code. Sometimes these aren't subtle.
Now, much has been made of the fact that Suburban Jungle Starring Tiffany Tiger has had less and less actual screen time for Tiffany. This really isn't that surprising, though. A whole lot of screen time went to Ted Baxter doing something inane and dyspeptic, or Lou ranting and pouring a hot fudge sundae on an old flame's head, or the like. It's funny, after all. But the nucleus of all this is Tiffany. Drezzler is involved because he's Tiffany's manager and photographer. Leona is obsessed with exceeding Tiffany. Conrad is still besotted with her. Dover is married to Tiffany's sister, Comfort. And so on and so forth."
We're into a full on Mary Richards sequence, now -- Leona, having deflected her own problems onto Tiffany (have you noticed she does that a lot) is now obsessed with getting Conrad and Tiffany back together, regardless of what that means for... well, anyone. Leona's not the most empathic apple on the tree, after all. And yeah, there's comedic potential -- that's the point, after all. Conflict breeds comedy. But students of the form should appreciate how the sane Tiffany deals with the insane Leona through all of this.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:19 PM | Comments (4)
-->Eric Burns-White: For one thing, I think Lea Hernandez could kick my ass to Sunday -- you think I want that? No thank you, Mister Man.
So I was reading through the Comixpedia goodness this morning, and I came across a link to an interview with Tom Spurgeon -- the go-too man when it comes to critiquing sequential art, and the man behind the seminal critical website The Comics Reporter. The interview has the unforunate title of "Tom Spurgeon on How to Critique Comics." I say unfortunate because that's not really what Spurgeon is doing -- there's no formula or magic pixie dust he's giving out. Instead, there's some pretty damn good philosophy of criticism.
With the increasing rise of critical blogs devoted to webcomics -- a wholly healthy rise, in my estimation -- it behooves folks to have a look at this interview. It's full of gold not only in terms of how to approach criticizing comics (or, well, criticizing anything in a productive way), but in how to approach critiques and reviews other people have written.
In particular, the following jumped out at me:
How do the creator's feelings play into this?
I'm afraid they don't. If you get off subject or just plain nasty, you deserve to reap the whirlwind when it comes to hurt feelings. For an honest critique, though, you have to try your hardest not to think about those things and hope that you'll be afforded the same generosity of spirit from the artist. If something is put out in public it can be commented upon, and creators just have to deal that someone might do so.
--and--
In the Internet age, it's a lot easier for people to be combative in light of a bad review. How would you sidestep such an issue, or is it an issue at all?
You should consider it a great thing if people are combative in response to something you're written; it's a really high compliment, similar to the compliment you paid to the art in question by choosing to write about it. I would say that you want to get to the point where your reviews speak for themselves, and not get mired in a back-and-forth argument. That's sort of how I feel about the Internet generally, now. There's an assumption online that if someone says something you have to counter it or that other person wins! But they're not filing a brief in court that demands a response; they're just trying to get you into an argument. In most cases, life's too short.
These two things tie directly into one another. A critique shouldn't be a hatchet job -- a review can be, but it's a weapon best used sparingly -- but it also has to have an internal sense of integrity. I remember when I said something critical about a webcomic I actually liked, with writers who had been tremendously supportive about Websnark, for the first time. It was daunting, because I felt like I was shafting my friends.
Only there really isn't room for that. You can have a critical essay, or a fandom essay, but it's hard to do both even if you're a fan. So I did it, and the creators in question took it in absolute stride.
The second is thornier. We all know from Internet Drama. I've been involved in some -- and the only times it's ever been a problem is when I don't simply accept it as part of the critical dialogue. The moment you take a bad reaction to a critical essay personally -- and publicly respond to it -- you endanger the chance that anyone will take your commentary personally.
The temptation is when you see people miss the point -- or seize upon something you didn't say and didn't mean and hold it up to the light and say "there! See! He's wrong! And bad! Wrong and bad!" The temptation is to correct them -- usually using language best suited to dockside bars. "You idiot!" you want to shout. "Can't you fucking read English! I didn't say that and you're stupid!"
The moment you do that, you've lost. Trust me. I've succumbed to the vice before, and it always -- always -- ends badly. Because the people who aren't emotionally involved see that, and the entirety of the discussion then becomes "Teodor vs. Snarky," with the original essay becoming irrelevant.
That way lies Internet Drama, and it can be lots of fun to watch, if you like that sort of thing. But Internet Drama serves absolutely no critical or artistic purpose whatsoever. It cannot be won if you're a critic, because it distracts from the criticism.
Something Meredith Gran said in her Comixpedia interview highlights this point, even though (I think) Gran had her tongue firmly in cheek as she said it:
I'd like to see more webcartoonists fighting with each other. Seriously. I feel like we're catching the same re-runs of PvP vs. Penny Arcade, Kurtz vs. Keenspot, Squidi vs. The Internet, and Crosby vs. Crosby. These classics are old stand-bys, but some fresh and original controversy is in order. I love watching internet drama unfold, and I feel that it really keeps the webcomics community active and thinking outside of the "panel". It's also good publicity for all involved. So I ask that everyone reading this please go out and pick a fight with other webcomics. For the community!
Do I think she's really pushing for fights? No, not really -- though if she is, c'est bien. The point I'm making is, in all of those "dramas," it's been boiled down to the sides, not to what they stand for. Kurtz v. Keenspot. Squidi v. the Internet. Crosby v. Crosby. (PvP v. Penny Arcade seems more like professional wrestling than Internet Drama to me.) We're at the point where the actual points that Kurtz, Squidi and the Crosbys have been trying to make are completely subsumed. "Oh, there goes Scott Kurtz again," the casual reader says. "Oh, there goes Chris Crosby again." "Oh, there goes... what the Hell is Bobby Crosby even saying?"
And so forth.
Can those be entertaining? Sure. But I promise you, several of the people involved honestly want to convince people of something deeply important to them -- but it becomes a brawl instead. It becomes Drama. It stops being argumentative and starts being combative.
It's happened to me. The best contrast I can give is the difference between what happened when I posted about the Friendly Hostility newsbox thing, versus the Comixpedia column I wrote about Girlamatic.
Both engendered a lot of commentary. The former, however, wasn't criticism -- it was a rant, pure and simple. I posted out of emotion. I gave into the dark side, and I fought back with bitterness.
And three things resulted. First, I made some pretty crucial mistakes -- I didn't fact check enough, and I said some inflammatory things that just weren't true. So I had to retract. Secondly, I lost some of the respect I'd built up among a lot of people. And thirdly, any actual point the essay might have had -- any value it could have possessed -- was wholly lost. It was in pretty much every way a failure, from the point of view of someone who wants to write things that make people think.
The column on Girlamatic was also controversial, as it worked out -- more so than I expected it to be. And once (thankfully, only once) I succumbed to the vice of responding to a deliberate misreading of the column. For the most part, I've tried to reiterate my core points, but not debate people who disagree. I've let it be a discussion -- I've let people think I'm full of shit.
In short, like Spurgeon said, I let people be combative, without combating them. I've appreciated the fact that there has been discussion on the subject. I think good discussion.
And as a result, it's not "Websnark vs. Girlamatic" or "Eric Burns vs. Lea Hernandez." I'm not against Girlamatic in any way, shape or form, and I don't think the creators over on that site are against me. Some people agree with my thesis, some people disagree, and a lot of people put some thought into it.
That's a win. An unqualified win. It doesn't matter if I'm "right" or "wrong." What matters is the discussion, no matter where that discussion turns.
I'm not perfect. I lose sight of this more often than I'd like. Sometimes, people saying nasty things gets under your skin. It shouldn't, perhaps, but it does. But for the most part, I try to remember what Spurgeon said, even before I read it: if they care enough to be shouting about you, you've managed to inspire thought. That's a good thing.
And it's something every critic who wants to make points more than enemies should bear in mind.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:14 AM | Comments (15)
-->April 24, 2005
Eric Burns-White: It's LAPORTE POWER!
In an earlier snark, I talked about my disappointment with what G4's X-Play has become, and pined for the days of TechTV, based out of San Francisco, and really quite remarkable in what it did.
Well, Leo Laporte, along with several other alumni of TechTV's Screen Savers (including one who's actually still on Attack of the Show, which is the vapid replacement for TSS), has begun The Revenge of the Screen Savers Bleep, a podcast that does the kind of banter they used to do on the Screen Savers (and isn't exactly afraid to discuss what they think has happened to the home they once had). If you had any love for TechTV -- especially the old Screen Savers or Call for Help, you'd do well to go and have a listen.
(Cat Schwartz, who was a SS and Call for Help alumna as well, podcasts off her own website as well, but that podcast isn't as good. I'd like to hear Schwartz on ROTSS one of these weeks, though. I doubt they can tempt Morgan Webb into coming on, though if they did it'd be interesting to find out if she's supportive of the direction her career's gone in or not.)
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:18 PM | Comments (1)
