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May 28, 2005

Wednesday Burns-White: [w] Personally, I'd like to install a pair on my knees so as to cushion the regular blows from the doorjamb.

From the 28/05/05 NLExD by Lea Hernandez. Click for nutbra.

24 Hour Comic Day begat Near-Life Experience: Mr. Pluto, which begat the resumption of regular NLE comics. This time around, they're going into Lea Hernandez's weblog, with a little Paypal button at the bottom, instead of behind the subscription wall.

I loved Pluto (must. order. paper copy. soon). I'm loving NLExD so far. I'm a sucker for the borderline-swirly, spontaneous, textually dense, downright organic style in play here. Hernandez's anecdotes aren't ponderous, desperately self-conscious screeds (a trap way too damn many autobiographical comics fall into; are there actually people out there whose lives consist of a lot of people staring at each other, thinking profundities as loudly as possible while picking up gum wrappers or consuming hot dogs? Can they be shot?). They read like the way you tell yourself your memories. They're not a little playful, as and when circumstances permit.

But that's not why I'm gushing right now. I'm gushing because I wish I'd been a fly on the wall for the conversation about Neuticles.

What I'm thinking, of course, is: "Wait. I was flipping channels earlier, and it was after the watershed, and so all the porn "documentaries" were on. And the girl versions stay up by themselves. Wouldn't neuticles be self-supporting, too? Are these unusually perky-looking pets? Is there an unnatural amount of separation?"

Also, I'm saying "nutbra" to myself a lot.

Nutbra.

Go on. It'll make you happy. And, then, when you realize you're overdue for bra shopping, it'll help you through the process. Trust me. I know this to be true.

Nutbra.

Well, you'll feel better about it.

Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 10:58 PM | Comments (3)

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May 27, 2005

Eric Burns-White: Bringing the Story: The Epic Shortbread

It's been an eventful couple of days here in the sunny Bay Area. The trip out was marred by a lad of fourteen or so running into me at a full run in the Chicago airport, knocking me backwards and over onto my backpack. It was something of an uncomfortable fall. My computer was fine -- which makes some sense, as that's what the backpack is designed to protect. However, in the front portions of the backpack were both my ipod and my Treo 600 cell phone, and those have simply ceased to be.

Yesterday, I spent hours of the day in the company of the astounding and fun Shaenon Garrity, of Narbonic. I'll document that visit in Gonzo Journalism style at some point, but will mention I had a huge amount of fun with her and all the walking has left me sore today. Today Baycon proper has begun, which is always a fun and exciting thing.

But enough of that. You want the next Shortbread category. All right then. Without further ado...

Bringing the Story: Epic

Storytelling has many dimensions to it. There's plot and characterization, theme and setting and genre and all the stuff every "how to write" book has ever come out with. Well, I submit that another dimension of story is scope Some stories are very much grounded in the everyday. Some stories have broader implications -- affecting a ship, or a town, or a nation, or even a world.

And then, you have strips of scope, where the stage is the galaxy, or the universe, or multiple dimensions -- where saving the entire world feels like just the first piece of the puzzle, where characters affect the fundamental nature of reality. Some stories, in a nutshell, are epic.

The Webcomics that Brought the Epic Story are:

• Fans: T Campbell and Jason Waltrip's magnum opus has, for years and years now, covered vast numbers of science fiction tropes and science fiction fandom tropes. In fact, they managed to pull off an amazing feat -- they managed to draw in the worst elements of fan fiction -- a sense of self-identification, mary sue, marty stu, multiple source comingling and so on -- as meta elements of their series and make them all work. Chief among those was the epic scope of the series. They didn't just save the world, they remade it. They wielding the power of dreams and song, and if one character might get sidetracked into a future where he becomes the Allfather of humanity as the last living male, surrounded by zaftig females (and hand in hand with that turning the ultimate Guy Fanfic Pr0n Fantasy into a poignant story of loss and societal evolution), the backdrop remains monumental instead of tiny.
  
• Gaming Guardians: Gaming Guardians sets the epic tone from the very nature of the premise and doesn't back down from it. Postulating that every Role Playing Game creates its own universe and Our Heroes are devoted to protecting the integrity of those universes from corruption and destruction clearly puts them into an epic scale of adventure. This is compounded by the ever present threat of the d'Twenty. Graveyard Greg and Web Troll clearly have a sense of the grand to what they're doing, and they pace it well (though one day I hope against hope for a synopsis page and a cast page -- there's a lot of characters running around in this thing.)
  
• It's Walky!:Okay. I know. It's Walky made the infamous "You Had Me, and You Lost Me" list. I admit that freely. However, that doesn't change my capacity to recognize both the scale that David Willis was operating on or his facility with it. The endgame of It's Walky was set in nothing less than galactic war, with universal figures and epochal cheeses striving from beyond the very grave to save all of humanity. Where love and gigantic guns combined for butt kicking. And where sacrifices can and would be made for a universal better good. Transuniversal invaders, afterlifes being contained by robot bodies, and girls named Lith alike prove that even if It's Walky lost me, it never lost its sense of scope.
• Sluggy Freelance: Sluggy Freelance is something of a chimara, with many different heads and faces it can present, in many different combinations. 19942004 was a year of Epic for the venerable strip, however, as Torg found himself far from being the nominally hapless comic relief, but instead the most effective and competent hero for an entire universe, which itself was dealing with the occupation by and threat of horrific demons. The personal -- Torg's oath to Lameverse Zoe, Horribus's absolute fixation on Torg -- to the global. Psyk, most of all, sought to extend the rule and power of the demons, and as a result ascended to the power and glory of Demon Lord Psykosis. A goddess was returned from the fridge, prophecies were made and fulfilled, and Torg was seemingly inexorably changed forever. (Though the next year would possibly put paid to this thesis, but that's outside of the scope of this particular award.)
• Superosity: Superosity has never shied away from epic backdrops and scenery. We know, for example, that Bobby ends up tyrannically ruling the world, and then Snap the Turtle becomes a rival monarch. We know Boardy apparently goes mad and then evil, and then goes on to save humanity multiple times. We travel to the moon to see the creator of Alf go insane and we travel to the ends of time to accidentally change the course of comic strip history, leading to the brother of the creator of the Yellow Kid becoming the absolute dictator of all things. (As part of a desire to visit the very first Labor Day, no less). Say what you like -- Superosity brings banality to greater scale than ever seen before.
  
  

Biscuits aplenty! Biscuits for my Lord Arioch and all the nominees! But Sluggy Freelance gets the Epic Shortbread -- the Tasty, Tasty Epic Shortbread.

19942004 was a year when Sluggy's storytelling was hitting on all cylinders, and the epic scope of "That Which Redeems" set a truly grand backdrop for telling what was, in the end, a truly personal story. The interweaving of humor and pathos (I still want Pete Abrams to market a Dimension of Lame Tarot deck) coupled with the truly epic stakes -- and the sense of tragic sacrifice leading to planetary redemption -- set a bar which few strips could easily reach.

We've settled into the convention now, and that means that there should be more chances to write Shortbread essays over the next few days. Next up is the Bringing the Comedic Story Shortbread. This ought to be interesting!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:35 PM | Comments (18)

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May 26, 2005

Eric Burns-White: Well, it's midnight where I am....

It has been an exceptionally good day, largely spent with the coolest person in the Western Hemisphere, Shaenon Garrity of Narbonic. I'll write up our historic meeting later this weekend, as well as getting the next several Shortbread categories out, but for today I'm tired and enjoying memories of fun times, conversation, slacking-off sea lions and kickass a capella music.

Also? The Bay Area's light rail system seriously rocks.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:59 PM | Comments (13)

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Wednesday Burns-White: [w] A null thar nan eileanan, gu dhà Ameireaga gun teid sinn...

(...A null rathad Shasuinn agus dhachaidh rathad Eirinn.)

Here are a couple of things. Since time moves differently in this apartment (yes, I will have you know that my apartment is a teeny tiny little Domain, and, the moment I exit, I will transform into some sort of haggard sack), you need never know that I've just realized what time it is in the outside world. From my perspective, there have only been a couple of hours.

Ever.

But I digress. Here are some things.

Oh, man; today's QC just reminds me, once again, that I'm boring and, well, old^*. See, I know from genre explosion -- used to collect it -- but I couldn't give you any contemporary examples of what on earth that's supposed to mean. I'll think Big Daddy, or Sacred Cows by the Swirling Eddies (or Argyle Park's Steve Taylor and Stryper covers, if we're in that space), or... you know, stuff.

No, wait, I have one. It's like copping to enjoying boy band super sentai teams in its way, because "real" fiddle fans aren't supposed to enjoy this sort of thing and real anything else fans didn't dig anything but "Sleepy Maggie." But I want to know, if we're dealing with things with bows and strings, why Apocalyptica's Metallica project got pulled out, while Ashley MacIssac didn't. (A friend once described Ashley as "a goddess," and I agreed that he was.) hi™ how are you today? and Helter's Celtic (and parts of the albeit overproduced eponymous album, particularly "To America We Go") are, at their best, bloody masterful reworkings of traditional material into rock and dance arrangements. Or perhaps I'm overextending the meaning of "cover songs." It's been known. (Also, "I Don't Need This" really should have been a breakaway hit for the overstressed. I digress.)

And what of Rachel Barton Pine? Maaaan. Apocalyptica's disappointing, but the concept has been executed well. By her. Oh, yes.

Yes.

The other thing:

Peanuts?!

Look. You have to understand, I'm travel karma person. Travel karma girl. Ever since I turned eighteen, it has been my karma to go places. Life conspires -- regardless of my circumstances at any given time -- to put me on planes and trains, into cars, onto busses. (Rarely onto boats. I fear crossing the ocean, and aviation obviates the need for direct contact with it.) I rarely know well in advance where I'll go, or for how long, but I have to go places. And, since I'm stuck in Britain these days, lately, that tends to involve the use of the airplane.

And peanuts?

I think peanuts are a lie from the devil.

See, we could use the protein provided by this pungent salt-delivery mechanism, especially when placed in situations where the layover is just not going to happen, or the money simply isn't there for a burger or a steak or a lump of your preferred vegetarian protein source at or near the airport, or you're on a long-haul flight and the meal in coach is completely inedible, or whatever.

But some people are allergic to nuts. Very allergic to nuts. Therefore, you really don't want to have that sort of thing circulating through the filtration system -- you can't go to the hospital while you're on a plane. It's just bad.

I'm sympathetic to this. I am. I have a rare food allergy going on myself (rare enough that it makes people giggle to hear about it, but to something avoidable enough that it doesn't much impact dining choices), and I know I wouldn't unexpectedly want to be hit with that in the air while I'm trying to get to America from Heathrow.

But.

I have also subsisted for hours and hours on the alternative snacks which have sprung into being on American-operated air carriers in recent years. Pretzels? Yep. Weird-ass cheese-like Chex-mix thing? Oh, yeah. And have I gotten that spacy sort of headache thing you get when all you eat for hours is small doses of refined wheat flour, and all you drink is water or diet soda?

You bet.

I want to know who these peanut-carrying airlines are. I want to know if they operate international flights. While I am greatly fond of American Airlines (having, you know, legs longer than a popsicle), I am telling you: you could seduce me with real peanuts. And a commitment to real peanuts. Especially in this age, where actual food is becoming more of a premium than a guarantee for even the long-haul flights, where they offer me pizza (no, no, never offer me pizza) as a sort of lunch, or bags with withered bagels in them, at best? I would love peanuts.

I would love them.

Yes, I could bring them. You are missing the point, because I have already stuffed my carryon full of strawberries and vitamins and water and (on return, anyhow) Luna bars. And I don't think they'd be happy.

Are these regional carriers, with the peanuts? I'm going to cry.

I bet Eric got peanuts on his flight.

* Yes, I know. Not that old. Yet.

Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 8:18 PM | Comments (34)

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May 25, 2005

Eric Burns-White: Bringing the Story: The Character Driven Shortbread

Assuming there are no hiccups at the airport, at the precise moment this delayed post goes up on Websnark I should be lifting off from beautiful, rainy Manchester Airport in New Hampshire, with an ultimate destination of beautiful, hopefully not rainy San Jose, California. Naturally, over the next several days my focus on Websnark will be... well, 'lesser.' I'm going on vacation, and I'll be spending large amounts of time nowhere near my computer throughout.

Wednesday will be providing some coverage, of course... but this also seems like a good time to get some stuff off my to-do list. Namely... the second part of the 2004 Shortbreads -- the Bringing the Story Shortbread Recipients.

Yes. I know they're six months late. Let's pretend that was by design, all right?

These are focused on 2004, and on the decisions I made back in 2004, mind. So, no matter how much I have grown to love Girls with Slingshots or how disappointed I was in Sluggy Freelance's "Oceans Unmoving" storyline, I'm going with the same judgment I had back then.

And. You also have noticed there's only one Shortbread here. That's because I'm going to type away at these throughout my vacation, setting them up to update through the course of the week. That way, it's not waiting on my putting together a monumental post, but instead can proceed apace. So -- my vacation week equals SHORTBREAD WEEK FOR ALL OF YOU!

As you know, the Shortbreads are given by me to those comic strips I feel exemplified the form in some way or other. These are less true awards as they are a critic's "best of 2004" list. Nominees and the recipient alike are among the best practitioners of the art form being commemorated, and everyone should be happy -- UNDER PENALTY OF TORTURE.

The "Bringing the Story" Shortbread recipients reflect those strips and webcartoonists who best tell stories in our medium -- this is less about the execution of daily strips or jokes and more about the pacing, the pathos, the characterization... the storytelling

So. Let's get our first category underway, shall we?

Bringing the Story: Character Driven

The most basic unit of any story -- the atoms that form the story molecule -- are the characters in the story. The most kick-ass plots can feel flat and uninspired when confronted with lifeless, boring characters who don't seem to evolve realistically, Padm». Well drawn characters who drive the story seem to write themselves -- but they don't. And their writers deserve every ounce of the biscuits they earn.

The Webcomics that Brought the Character Driven Story are:

• Achewood: If Achewood is jazz in webcomics form, the characters are the solos, and Chris Onstead plays them beautifully. From the monotone crippling depression of Roast Beef to the traumatized innocence of Phillipe straight through to the erudition of Cornelius Bear's evocative and hauntingly beautiful closed captions for porn movies, the personalities that make up Achewood are the signposts for what's happening -- and very often become more important than either plot or humor.
  
• Narbonic: Like there was any chance in Hell I wasn't going to bring up Narbonic in these things. Shaenon Garrity is an absolute master at creating solid comic strip characters -- they have unique voices, they have carefully balanced motivation, and they clearly drive the plot. After all, when Helen Narbon specifically shows up to a symposium she'll be humiliated at so she can gloat, while her henchman Dave falls desperately in love with an Artificial Intelligence and Artie the Gerbil foments rebellion only to be thrown out of his cabal for misrepresenting himself on Livejournal, there's rife story potential coming out of these insane, insane people.
  
• Penny and Aggie: The evolution that high school forces on both the popular girls and the outcasts are rife fodder for storytelling, and T Campbell and GisÀle Lagac» jump in with both feet. Penny and Aggie are well painted studies in neurosis and arrogance, and the ways those two polarities clash.
• Queen of Wands: Aeire's love of the word balloon is clear -- but it's born out of a clear understanding of who her characters are and what they're going to say. Kestrel, Shannon, Angela, Seamus and the rest had every word and phrase born of a solid foundation of characterization, and Kestrel's evolution as a character -- and a person -- drove the strip's evolution at the same time.
• Something Positive: Any comic strip has characters. It takes a very special comic strip to have characters who terrify the Hell out of me while making me care what happens. The day Monette grew a soul, I was hooked. The day I realized I sympathized with Mike instead of just hating him, I knew Randy Milholland was a master.
  
  

All of these deserve biscuits... but Queen of Wands gets the Character Driven Shortbread -- the Tasty, Tasty Character Driven Shortbread.

Queen of Wands was funny, but more than that it showed growth. Kestrel's journey down her lightning path (yeah, as always I mention the lightning path) was more than just a sequence of jokes -- it was the heart and soul of the story Aeire was telling. The woman who left at the end of the series had found her sense of balance, her sense of self. How Kestrel reacted from one minute to the next drove the overall evolution of the series. As she faltered, the comic grew dark. As she achieved, the strip soared. And when her story ended, so did the comic.

There were plenty of other great characters, of course. Angela, Shannon, Seamus -- even Zot -- all had clear personalities, differences and opinions that inspired confederacy and conflict alike.

Check in later (when? I have no way of answering that -- I'm in a plane) for the Bringing the Epic Story Shortbread!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:34 AM | Comments (20)

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May 24, 2005

Eric Burns-White: Snarks what hae!

So, this coming weekend I'm going to be at Baycon. I'm not going as an official guest, mind -- I go to Baycon to hang out with a good friend, eat sushi, have a random mixed drink at some point, eat excellent sandwiches, get some beautiful art drawn for me, meet people, and look at the weirdass trees.

However, the fact remains -- I will actually be at Baycon, and if folks who might be there or be in the area or whatever might want to get together and sit and talk comics or RPGs or 'stuff,' I'd be amenable.

Also, there are usually many attractive women dressed to distraction on hand. And the same with attractive men, although I don't tend to notice them as much. And the actual con is good. Oh, and they project movies on the outside wall.

I fly out tomorrow. Thursday I'm making a pilgrimage to the Cartoon Art Museum and then meeting a friend. Friday through Monday is the con. I fly back Tuesday. Wednesday, I do a lot of sleeping.

That's the plan. If folks might want to get together at Baycon, reply hither in this thread or shoot me e-mail. Yay!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:58 PM | Comments (11)

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Eric Burns-White: Bridges and Fire -- the Spot in Mind's Eye

Yeah, I'm fixating on Blank Label. I suspect this'll be the last snark I make about them for a while (well, maybe for individual strips, but I don't much care what collectives (or lack thereof) a strip has when I snark them -- it's about the daily strip, in those cases).

I'm feeling really positively about Blank Label. I think they have their shit together. And I am in awe of their website and java rollovers. I really am. I think this is going swimmingly.

Except... I don't like the tagline.

Spotless.

It's clever advertising on one level. After all, it was big news in the Webcomics Community -- the Ex-Keenspot Six, now banding together. This capitalizes on it. And it might involve catharsis. Or some good old fashioned humor-sense-thereof.

Maybe.

The problem, however, is twofold. On the one hand... it's ungracious. The Six may well have had a laundry list of complaints with Keenspot. I've heard rumors and a few other things. That may be true. But their announcements were gracious. They acknowledged the things Keenspot did for them -- the history they had with them. They expressed hope that Keenspot would do well in the future. That's the kind of thing you write when you leave some place you're associated with. If things aren't literally on fire as you left, cinders in your hair, you smile and put the best possible face on your departure as you can. And they in turn do the same.

"Spotless" isn't gracious. It's a thumbing their teeth at Keenspot. A saying of "nyah nyah." (Or -- not to put too fine a point on it -- 'you had me, and you lost me.') It's waving the broad flag of webcomics and shouting "Libert»! Fraternit»! Egalit»!"

And I dunno, maybe Keenspot deserves it. But from the outside, it seems... well, ungracious. How many years did Keenspot pay the hosting and bandwidth costs for them? Yeah, they had to crosspromote and advertise what Keen wanted them to, and there was (possibly a lot of) trouble behind the scenes, sometimes... but no one forced them to sign up.

Interestingly, this puts Keenspot in the sympathetic position. Which is really kind of funny. I mean, Keenspot is still 60+ cartoonists, plus Keenspace, plus the flash movie thing, plus Keenswag, et cetera et al ad nauseam. This hasn't been fun for them but they're in no danger. And yet, there's a part of me going "Jeez, guys -- lay off. You won. Don't do victory laps."

That's the first point. The second, simply put, is not enough people will get the joke.

Oh, Websnark readers will get it. Comixpedia readers will get it. The folks who hang out on talkaboutcomics or the like will get it. But the mass of readers who might see the banner ads won't. It'll just seem like a non sequitur. I'm not sure about a joke that's targeted to such a small percentage of their audience, particularly when a significant percentage of that percentage might react negatively to it.

This is incredibly minor, but it still makes me feel a little sad to see. As odd as it is to type, "spotless" puts a small blemish on Blank Label Comics.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:12 PM | Comments (82)

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Eric Burns-White: Of course, the girls would need to be careful -- they don't want to get infected by midichlorians.

(From Shortpacked! Click on the thumbnail for full sized shifts in philosophy!)

I should mention, first and foremost, that this particular Shortpacked is technically a spoiler. At the same time, it's not exactly egregious and... well, I suppose there are people in other countries who A) care about Star Wars and B) haven't had a chance to see it yet who might not want to read this strip. Somewhat. Barely.

Or, you know, not.

For the rest of us... today's Shortpacked.

Well, yesterday's. Look, I'm going away for a week, tomorrow. I've been busy.

I'd like to go into depth on the Jedi philosophy, on the core of Hubris that led to the Fall of the Jedi Order, on the nature of denial and of ossification, and on the ways that Qui Gon Jinn represented, thematically, a break from all that in his methodology which led step by step to the next three movies and the redemption of the Jedi in the Expanded Universe. I would. And I'd like to show how David Willis has highlighted this succinctly. I even accept that if I did so, I'd never, ever get laid again. Somehow, this thesis would cling to me like lack of hygiene and even geek grrls would pause upon seeing me, say "well, no. Not him," and move on.

But that's not why I'm not writing that thesis. And that thesis is not why I'm snarking this particular strip.

I'm not writing that thesis because it's not relevant to what makes this Shortpacked good.

And I'm snarking this strip because it is bar none the funniest fucking comic strip on Star Wars I think I've ever seen.

David Willis gets a biscuit. A tasty, tasty biscuit.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:42 AM | Comments (18)

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Eric Burns-White: On Things Keen

As promised yesterday, there is a certain need to discuss things Keen. Keen is heavily in the Webcomics Community News for the past couple of weeks. Most dramatic has been the departure of the Blank Label Six, though there's also new additions like The Devil's Panties, Mad About U, and Penny and Aggie to factor in. (The last is one of the most interesting, as it went from Modern Tales to Comics Sherpa to Keenspot, after T left Keenspot some time ago. Among other things, it means that when the Keenspot Command says they don't have hard feelings when someone leaves, and they're always welcome back, they mean it.)

But what's also been jumping out has been news on the other side of the KeenStuff Divide -- Keenspace. On the one hand, they've announced their new name will be Toonspace. Which makes a certain amount of sense, in that they showcase cartoons in... er... a space, it maintains a certain degree of continuity with the name as it stands (and they're right to preserve the suffice "space," whatever they do), and it gives the 'Spacers a chance to break away from Keenspot entirely in terms of community building, branding and cross promotion.

On the down side... every time I hear, see, read or look at "Toonspace," I follow it with "the driving cat -- the cat who can drive a car! He drives around! All over the town! Toonspace, the driving cat!" And... um... someone seems to have already used the name. There's some debate over that, actually, over on their forums, and I don't have enough facts to pile on. (I can definitively say that the driving cat reference won't get out of my head. And it's probably a bad idea to have a name that suggests the catchphrase "he can draw -- just not very well!"

Though, to be fair, that describes Unfettered by Talent perfectly, and that is a 'space strip.

It's looking like "webcomicspace" might be supplanting it, and I personally think that's a better name. But then, I'm not particularly the person they need to please. In any case, they seem to be working on it, and that's for the good.

What's not for the good is a failure to meet minds between KeenCommand and Kelly Price, aka STrRedWolf. Price has been one of the two admins for Keenspace for a while now (along with a number of "wranglers"), and those admins have been the absolute lynchpin of the rehabilitation of Keenspace's reputation over the past couple of years. See, back several years, Keenspace had two reputations. 1) because anyone could have a comic on it for free, the presumption was none of them were any good. It wasn't fair to those strips that were, but to be quite blunt, they did let me put up Unfettered by Talent, and that should tell us all something. 2) Keenspace's servers had a reputation for constant failure, a grinding slowness, and nowhere near sufficient administrative attention to keep what was after all thousands of webcartoonists up and running on a daily basis. To this day, you have cartoonists who mirror their Keenspace sites "in case of Keenspace failure," to quote the recently promoted Jennie Breeden.

Price and Kisai (whose full or real name I confess I do not know) have changed a lot of point two, and once greater speed and reliability began being the norm, they helped spearhead (along with Ping Teo, a fellow (?) named McDuffies and another hight Faub) community building that has created a sense of esprit de corps among the Keenspace faithful.

Well, from what we have been able to gather, Price and Kisai have been waiting many months to receive contracts, and during that time they haven't been paid. There's also certain administrative functions they don't have the access to perform. And Price has reached saturation and has stepped away from administrative duties.

I have no inside information on what's going on, and I honestly can't speak to the issue at hand or its resolution. From what I know of Crosby and Bleuel (and they're the only two members of KeenCommand I have contact with), I honestly believe they would want this resolved, both because it makes good business sense and because they're decent folks. As a pure outsider, however, I need to highlight the current importance of Keenspace under any name.

Keenspace is literally the place where anyone -- anyone -- can go and put up a webcomic, with automated tools and updating, for free.

This is huge. This is amazing. This is what lets people who have the drive to create a webcomic do so, cutting their fingers and maybe being downright horrid in the process. This is what lets people who are this close to understanding the cartooning process go out and do it, learn the craft of cartooning, and improve. And say what you like about Keenspace -- it still lets people like James Grant and Mel Hynes have what seems to be a very popular comic (when they put up a link to our Comixpedia interview, we had a flood of people come and read it) without the potentially crippling bandwidth costs that such a thing entails.

They've been doing this for years. They've been doing this since long before the rise of alternatives. And building an alternative isn't easy. Ask Joey Manley -- he's been refining his model for Webcomicsnation (which will be a paid service) for many, many months, now, building the best engine he can. They put Keenspace up back when the alternatives were expensive hosting accounts or Geocities, with nothing in between. In effect, it's like some folks found the Gutenberg Press's designs, built one of their own, and started shouting "hey! Wanna print? We'll give you ink and paper, if you don't mind printing on our letterhead!"

The explosion of webcomics owes a tremendous deal to Keenspace. And, if the automation software is (all respect to Bleuel) somewhat baroque, it's free, dude.

In fact, a place like Webcomicsnation can be founded now in part because they can offer a smooth, clean interface as an alternative. "Our automation will be easy to use and give you lots of toggle options," they can say. "And you can pay us a minimal price to use it. If not... well, hey, Keenspace is down the road and they don't charge. Whatever, man. Just draw something."

Just draw something.

That's what Keenspace gives us. And with Price on the outside and thousands of users now relying on Kisai (who has the same issues Price had, as near as we can tell), the smooth operation of Keenspace is in jeopardy.

I mean, this is thousands of accounts we're talking about. Kisai is by all measures really good, but that's a lot of work we're talking about.

Crosby seems to know this. He has jumped into the Keenspace Forum Thread directly. (And you know something? Say what you like about Chris Crosby. If there's trouble, he shows up. If there's a flamewar in progress about KeenInc, he shows up and takes it in the face. That's guts, right there. Also, he draws a funny comic strip that features a talking board, but I digress.) With some luck, things will get resolved.

But I can't help but think that in a block of time where long time Keenspotters leave (even if new Keenspotters come up) and everyone and his brother are talking about the significance of it, or policy, or what have you... this can't be helping things. We're very close to needing to put "beleaguered" in front of Keenspot's name, and that's rough, any way you look at it.

As interesting as the last couple of weeks have been for Keenspot, I bet the next couple of weeks will be even moreso.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:44 AM | Comments (29)

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May 23, 2005

Eric Burns-White: Beach Blanket Blank Label Baby.

We knew something like this was coming -- there was a leak about the name last week, and there had been speculation before that about the Ex-Keenspot Six all leaving at the same time. But today, there's confirmation.

For the record, Kristofer Straub, Brad Guigar, David Willis, Paul Southworth, Steve Troop and Paul Taylor have formed a comics collective called Blank Label Comics. From the look of things, they're going to share some infrastructure, some philosophy, some business elements, and some promotional activities between their strips.

A lot of people are talking about their move to become a new Keenspot or Modern Tales, in the wake of both the leak from last week and the announcement. Truly, though, their association seems to be closer in design and spirit to Dumbella or Dayfree Press. They're not forming a small syndicate in the Keen or MT molds, they're forming an independent press, keeping their own autonomy, but sharing some of the burdens. This is a wise thing.

Will they be successful? Hey, who knows. I know one thing, though -- their site has ten strips. I read six of them on a daily basis. I'm going to give the new and revived strips a try, too, but my point is -- sixty percent of their site is good enough that it's part of my daily trawl right now. That bodes really well, in my book.

I've gotten several e-mails about the Kurtz statement, by the by. Asking my opinion. I... think....

...no, I don't think I have my mind wrapped around it yet. But I like the Skull licking the blank label drawing. And the top banner ad can't help but help the guys out as they get started. And that's good, right? Right.

Mrph.

I think maybe it's best not to get sidetracked into the Keen/Kurtz thing on this one. Blank Label, at this stage, is interesting enough that the drama shouldn't enter into it. Especially because it honestly doesn't matter what sites these strips were hosted on last week. This is the internet. Five minutes ago is beyond us.

I'll talk about Keenspot stuff in the next Snark. It's been an interesting couple of weeks for them.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:59 PM | Comments (23)

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Eric Burns-White: Flashbacks to Count Floyd, anyone?

(From Midnight Macabre! Click on the thumbnail for full sized bureaucracy!)

There is a kind of courage in starting something new -- especially when the old things are so successful for you. Randy Milholland has guts.

This is a spin-off strip, done in true spin-off style, though I don't think that was Milholland's original intent. There was a one-off episode of Something Positive where Aubrey reminisced about her favorite show. Just like Star Trek's own Gary Seven or that episode of the Brady Bunch where they met their new friends the family with the adopted white, black and asian kids, we have a quick establishing reference and now we can move into the series proper, the pedigree assured.

Of course, neither of those series were actually picked up, but I digress.

Milholland is also brave because this means he's actually producing two strips a day during the week, now. He's doing Midnight Macabre five days a week, Something Positive seven days a week, and has announced plans for New Gold Dream which will soon begin updating three days a week. That's fifteen strips a week he's going to be producing. Say what you like -- that's ambitious.

It's also ambitious that the three strips are all different types. New Gold Dream looks to be fantasy/adventure (with a side order of dark humor). Something Positive is of course relationship/friendship based dark humor. And now Midnight Macabre looks to be workplace related dark humor. (Does anyone else see a trend, here?) They're different fields, and while they may cross over into each other's themes -- certainly, Something Positive indulges in Workplace humor, for example, and I expect the bitter, cynical hand of friendship to rear its head in Midnight Macabre -- these are still three different strips with three different premises and three different priorities.

And you want to know something else ambitious -- he can't cross over their continuities. Oh sure, New Gold Dream's cast may show up in a Something Positive strip, or Midnight Macabre videotapes may show up on Aubrey's mantle, or we might see the child versions of Aubrey, Davan or Scotty at a taping or the like, in Midnight Macabre, but either the gulf of universe or time separates the strips. Milholland has his options for cheap ratings ploys sharply reduced. He's operating without a net.

I like Midnight Macabre. It looks like a good venue for Milholland's humor. I suspect it'll be fun to read. I have faith in Milholland to engage me and amuse me. And to be honest, the subject matter resonates with me. I grew up watching the Big Money Movie on WLBZ, with Eddie Driscoll. I grew up watching bad movies without benefit of MST3K, but with silly sketches in between. I grew up in an era where local television stations made their own fun, no matter how cheaply they did it. Today, Midnight Macabre would never make it to air. I suspect that whenever Milholland decides to end this strip, it'll end with the show being yanked off the air to give more time for infomercials and Live with Regis. Just like every other television station.

So there's a wistfulness to a strip about a show where people actually want to entertain kids locally. And it's one that resonates with me. I'm looking forward to seeing this strip unfold. I'm looking forward to seeing a new strip from someone who's had years of daily updates under his belt. And I'm looking forward to seeing Randy Milholland's head explode from the stress of three different strips and the e-mail he'll receive about them.

Because like I said, sometimes you have to make your own fun.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:41 AM | Comments (27)

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May 22, 2005

Wednesday Burns-White: [w] A God Shot Interlude: Them Duke Boys

One of the problems with recent Chick tracts has been the artwork. As I've said before, Jack Chick's stroke and Fred Carter's prolonged absence have had a horrible knockon effect -- Chick's recovery, both as writer and artist, has been slow, while Carter's post-Light of the World output has been slapdash. Chick's experimentation with continuity bore out what Gabe and Tycho constantly joke about: some people just shouldn't play with that particular lighter. The few standalone tracts to come out of the Bob years and beyond had been pale shadows of the scintillatingly trashy past. Efforts at dense plotting fell flat. I began to worry.

I stopped worrying once I saw The Wall. This month's Chick/Carter collaboration, while still no Soul Story, finally gets back to what made the older tracts work: B-movie plotting, dialogue so painfully wrought that the prosletysing doesn't feel the least bit out of place, and an artfully understated Hell Toss that could have gone either way.

I want to believe that Chick stayed up late one night watching nothing but reruns of Speed Racer and The Dukes of Hazzard. It's not quite right somehow -- Carter can't decide whether he wants Mach GoGoGo or Hazzardish kineticism, so panels which should drip motion end up feeling a bit static. But the Nifty Cars rerun vibe is very, very strong indeed. I wish I still had my notes to hand as regards the cars themselves, though (it was pointed out to me by a Formula One fan that the cars, especially when crashing, simply don't work).

Fred Carter is clearly getting back into his element, incidentally, even if he's not doing much reference work for the actual racing elements. He's clearly been puzzling out digital shading, and it seems to be finally clicking for him. The earlier Kidnapped!, which tries desperately to hearken back to his early, lush tone style, falls over in a fit of blur and smear. Here, he's finally managing a compromise between spare line and subtle greys; he's got a ways to go before we start thinking Soul Story again, but the confidence is back. Now, if we can just get past the mouths again, we're set.

I'm not 100% certain Chick's confidence is back as regards antagonists, though. Kim Lee is a serviceably stereotypical sexpot, but she's not much of a motivation. She's very much defanged. One would be hard pressed to find evidence that Chick reacts to negative feedback, but Kim is very much the antithesis of other recent non-Christian devouts; we never find out just what it is she practices, she's not particularly vicious, and her ultimatum may well be more complex and considered than it appears at first glance. (Yes, at second glance, it's pretty hypocritical and ridiculous -- it's fair enough not to want an intolerant husband, but the Jesus/boingyboingy thing doesn't really work as phrased.) I can't decide if she's a subtle thorn or a minimally considered device. Either way, she works well as eye candy, and I do like that we're not getting OMG FOREIGN RELIGION IS EVIL in the usual forceful way.

Even so. Dude. Racecars, hot chicks and moonshine probably mean we're back on track.

They can give us Ms. Henn's Night Out now. Have I mentioned that I'd held out, expecting a new Li'l Susy this month? Rar.

Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 4:00 AM | Comments (3)