« August 21, 2005 - August 27, 2005 | Main | September 4, 2005 - September 10, 2005 »
September 3, 2005
Eric Burns-White: The question is, will a new Webcomics Wiki-based encyclopedia be considered notable enough for Wikipedia inclusion?
Xerexes, over at Comixpedia, has taken up the challenge of a Webcomics-specific wiki based encyclopedia! You see? A good idea gets proposed one day, elaborated on with some truly fantastic comments and discussion, and acted upon the next!
My understanding from Xerexes is that all the folks who expressed a desire to be involved on many levels will get an opportunity to do so. And beyond those who want to pitch in with the myriad administrative details, pretty much anyone on Earth will get a chance to contribute material and depth to the encyclopedia.
Like we said in the comments of the last snark, we're not looking to replace Wikipedia. Or compete with them. However, Wikipedia doesn't currently fit the needs of the webcomics community (and there's no reason they should -- they're a general encyclopedia). And rather than try to force them to change into what we need or could better use, it makes sense to... you know, create the resource we need or could use ourselves.
Vive l'Internet.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:58 PM | Comments (37)
September 2, 2005
Eric Burns-White: A Revised Modest Webcomics Proposal
So it's about time to discuss Wikipedia again.
Here's the thing. I like Wikipedia. A lot. It's my first stop these days when I'm looking something up. Really, it's my first stop when looking anything up. I think it's a tremendous resource, and if I don't trust it 100%, I trust it at least as much as I do the Encyclopedia Britannica at this point. It might not have editorial review, but it has immediacy and quick reaction, and its information is generally solid.
However, it also has some personality disorders.
Primary among those is a war between its populist inclinations and its elitist inclinations. On the one hand, the very structure of Wikis means it's trivial to add new topics and produce in depth material on it. So long as someone out there is a Russian history geek, Wikipedia can have good articles on the Czars. This also means that the population that most heavily uses Wikipedia is also the population best served by Wikipedia. As a result, Star Wars, Star Trek, and the major comic book companies are all heavily (one might even say obnoxiously) well represented here. The entry on Power Girl is exhaustively complete, with her various continuities and histories and varying retcons explained, alongside several pictures that highlight the... well, chestiness of the character. (And the text actually goes in depth on said chestiness, including an anecdote of how her initial artist, Wally Wood, intentionally made her chest bigger every issue to see how long it would take until an editor noticed. Only the editor didn't notice before Wood left.) It's interesting to me, because I have an interest in super heroes, in DC Comics, and in the old Earth-2 heroes from the pre-Crisis days.
And, for that matter, in the chestiness of girls in spandex. But I digress.
However, the idea that any encyclopedia editor under the old model would green light an 1,100 word entry alongside three graphics on Power Girl is absurd. A specialist encyclopedia (like the old Who's Who or Marvel Handbook works) would benefit from it. The Britannica wouldn't mention her in the first place (and indeed hasn't), and if they did for some reason it would be twenty or thirty words long.
This is the astounding strength of Wikipedia. Minor worlds that only appear in Star Wars novels can get in depth writeups. For a writer like me, having a general resource like that is amazingly useful, and I for one revel in it.
Unfortunately, there is the other hand: the elitist side.
Wikipedia very much wants to be seen as the Encyclopedia on the Web. Many Wikipedia proponents (I won't pretend anyone is of one mind about anything at Wikipedia, so don't take this as a specific dogma) want Wikipedia to be seen not only as complete but significant. Their intent is not only to supplement traditional sources like the Britannica but supplant them. They believe in the Wikipedia model, and they want to see it pushed through.
One of the key strategies in doing this involves a collaborative editorial process. Now, obviously given Wikipedia's open nature, you need a certain number of people on "damage control," repairing vandalism and correcting mistakes when they creep in. Other flags that go up are for "inappropriate tone" (there is a specific style and tone one uses when writing encyclopedia entries. Things that don't 'sound encyclopedic' detract from the quality of the piece) and calls for elaboration on the material (they have a specific flag for 'stubs,' denoting entries that are at best short summaries of the subject matter). All of these are cool -- even contentious entries where people argue -- sometimes vehemently -- about what is correct and what isn't tend to yield some exceptional writing. (I'm reminded of the entry on Lyndon LaRouche, which spawned a weeks long debate between sharply divided viewpoints and ultimately yielded one of the best pages on Wikipedia and one of the best distillations of LaRouche I've seen on the internet).
However, one other criteron is "significance." And this is where the problem comes in, because significance is not quantifiable and it is not simple, and no singular formula for what is 'significant' ends up yielding good results. The populist and the elitist sides of the Wikipedia mind collide hard here, and there is no good answer for it.
You see, part of the mission of Wikipedia is to include entries on everything that is significant. However, what is significant to one reader is insignificant to another. For a person obsessed with pogs, several articles detailing different brands of pog, different rarities of pog and the evolution of pogs from milk caps to a major industry to a fringe game would not only seem significant but necessary. To someone who barely remembers pogs from the nineties, pogs seem utterly insignificant -- about as useful to Wikipedia as putting up separate articles on the different brands of hula hoops.
Only now, the hula hoop fans are pissed off.
One advantage that traditional encyclopedias have over Wikipedia is editorial -- when you recruit experts in a given field, you have a specific person or small group of people who have the final word on what is significant enough to warrant inclusion. There might be heated debates that form out of it, but those are typically informed debates.
One advantage that Wikipedia has over traditional encyclopedias, on the other hand, is ease of publication. The only constraints Wikipedia has are storage space and bandwidth, and text-only entries don't use a tremendous amount of either. So, you can include far more things. In the end, however, there is still a question of "what is significant enough to include?"
Which brings us to webcomics.
The original system of determining Webcomics significance was based entirely on popularity. Specifically, the Alexa ratings of a given webcomic were used -- anything below a certain cutoff got in, everything above it got cut. The flaws in this should be self-evident, but just in case, let me summarize: art significance has little to do with the numbers and everything to do with influence. A webcartoonist with only 500 daily readers who counts 300 other cartoonists among them has had a dramatic impact on webcartooning as a whole, even though his strip might not be popular.
I proposed, a while back, a dual requirement to replace it -- a strip, in my estimation, should be included only after it has A) consistently updated for at least one year, and B) only after its archive contains 100 strips. To my mind, it's hard to be "significant" to the field of webcomics without having both some time under your belt and a depth of archive. Obviously, there would need to be flexibility (certainly a webcomic that began updating weekly that spread through the internet at Memish speeds shouldn't have to wait before inclusion) but almost no comic with at least a hundred strips and a history of regular updating should be left out -- in part because those are the very strips that most need a reference and resource for new readers. There has been some debate on this, feeling it's far too lax. Another person felt that three years and 500 strips would be a good balance point for 'automatic inclusion.' Still others are highly afraid that "insignificant works" will find their way into Wikipedia as a result. The debate has sometimes been acrimonious. I still occasionally receive angry e-mails from Wikipedians who think I'm trying to... um... well, do something really bad. As well as more than one person accusing me of wanting to use Wikipedia for self promotion.
That last I find particularly funny. Someone -- not me -- put up a rather nice Wikipedia entry for Gossamer Commons. There was an immediate vote for deletion that came about because of it, and I was one of the ones who voted to delete -- we've been around significantly less than a year, and we had considerably less than 100 strips in our archive. And our Alexa ratings wouldn't warrant inclusion under the old system.
That being said, I know a good number of actual comics creators who read Gossamer Commons. We get a good number of crosslinks. And we have a steady readership in the thousands. So who am even I to say it's insignificant?
Both Websnark and I are in Wikipedia, full disclosure requires me to say. And it's a source of considerable, irrational pleasure that my entry is the straight "Eric Burns" entry, while the Fox News Apologist gets "Eric Burns (Journalist)." Though I did enjoy The Spirits of America.
Anyhow. I use Wikipedia constantly (including doing lookups of webcomics in it). But at this stage of the game, I don't contribute entries to it any more. I correct things I know to be wrong, particularly in individual webcomics entries, but I don't create new ones. It's not worth the hassle of arguing about significance to people who aren't interested in the evolution of the cartooning form or the significance of individual creators versus their popularity. As point of reference, I point to Casey and Andy, which I snarked in the last snark. This is one of several snarks I've done on Casey and Andy. Certainly, I feel it's significant enough to be extolled as an example, and that the evolution of its characters is worthy of discussion.
And, when I needed the spelling of Hunkinite, I went to Wikipedia to get it. And there wasn't an entry for Casey and Andy. "That can't be right," I thought to myself. "I should add them."
And then I decided against it.
There's plenty of evidence that Casey and Andy are "significant," at least to one population or anther. Beyond my multiple snarks and the intracomics references you see (I'm especially thinking of Irregular Webcomic here, but there are others), there's a GURPS Casey and Andy for sale at e23. Steve Jackson isn't in the habit of paying writers to build sourcebooks for things he doesn't feel he can sell. Further, I know a good number of cartoonists who read Casey and Andy. And their fanbase is vocal, to boot.
But, their Alexa ratings are way below the threshold of inclusion. So Alexa readers don't tend to read it, at the every least. So if I were to put a Casey and Andy page on Wikipedia, there would be an argument, and if I were to write one, I would put a lot of work into it, and I don't bother to put a lot of work into things that might get erased. So I just don't do it.
Here's the thing, though. I don't think Wikipedia is doing anything wrong.
Seriously. I think that given their mission and mandate, they're doing a lot of things right. Yeah, I think they should be far more lax as to what goes into it -- but then, I think restricting inclusion hamstrings one of the greatest advantages Wikipedia has. I'm glad Power Girl has an in-depth entry. I'm glad I can find a writeup on Onderon, even though it has no interest to me, because for a Star Wars or video game fan, Onderon might indeed be significant. I'm glad that Wikipedia can draw off the strengths of its readers.
And just because I happen to agree or disagree with given inclusion standards doesn't mean I'm right. I think Casey and Andy would be a slam-dunk for inclusion, but that doesn't make me right. I don't think Gossamer Commons is yet significant enough for inclusion, but the person who put the page up disagrees with me. Absent a strong, recruited jury process, the process of determining significance has to be spread out among the Wikipedia readership -- and a subsection of those readers actually pays attention to the votes for deletion, and a subsection of them actually votes. This is the way the system is going to work, and despite my quibbles the breadth of good information in Wikipedia implies it works pretty well.
But it seems to me that webcomics should be looking to make their own definitive reference work. We should have a Wiki of our own, that meets our purposes.
A Webcomics Wiki Encyclopedia could become a clearinghouse for solid information on webcomics. It could be a standardized location for cast lists, creator information and synopses. It could incorporate all the potential strengths that Wikipedia offers, without having to fight either the populist or elitist sides of things.
Heck, we could duplicate the text on the entries already in Wikipedia, getting a huge head start on some of the most popular comics. (All Wikipedia's entries are open source, under the GNU Free Documentation License. So long as we also licensed ours under that same license, we can use their entries wholesale if we wish.) However, we can actually serve the greater Webcomic community by allowing for anyone who's got a comic on the web to put information about it in place. We can encourage sites to put their Webcomikipeda (okay, we need a better name) link on their comics. We can even configure things to make adding subpages simple. Imagine Howard Tayler putting up a subpage for Teraporting, making it easy to search for the term. Or Kristofer Straub doing the same for the starslip drive. Or David Willis having a subpage detailing the history and development of S.E.M.M.E. A Webcomics Wikipedia would be an ideal place for adding extra depth for readers.
Do I think webcomics should leave Wikipedia? Christ, no. I think Wikipedia should continue to be the generalist resource it is. However, rather than we the webcomics types try to argue with people who don't have any interest in us on standards of 'significance,' we ought to be making a resource we can develop at our leisure. Further, though I proposed that the specific webcartoonists shouldn't be the ones to write their Wikipedia pages (it's hard to be properly objective about one's self), a webcomics-specific one handled as an extension of cast pages and the like could be an effective resource and an effective tool for new readers of all strips.
The one question is pragmatic. Who could or would host such a thing?
The usual suspects leap to mind. If Comixpedia could afford it, they have the right domain name for it. Otherwise, you immediately think of Keenspot or Webcomicsnation. Failing them, it might be an ideal fit for BuzzComix or the Webcomics list. Or even value added for Sequential Tart. But some community who's into webcomics who also has sufficient bandwidth and storage would be necessary.
(Websnark? Only after we migrate. The bandwidth requirements means I wouldn't want to do this while I host at Pair.)
It could work. It could be an astoundingly cool tool and reference. And it would shut malcontents like me up over at Wikipedia. Everybody wins!
(The Fox News Guy is currently above me by one on a Google Search, by the by. He's first, I'm second, a reference site to him is third, and Websnark is fourth. Clearly, I have a purpose in life, and it is to exceed Eric Burns (Journalist) in all measures. Preferably including book sales, because he really is quite a good author.)
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:10 PM | Comments (74)
Eric Burns-White: It scares me that I took the time to check the spelling of the word "Hunkinite" before posting this.
(From Casey and Andy! Click on the thumbnail for full sized three week gap!)
Some time ago, in the course of snarking Casey and Andy, I mentioned that Jenn Brozek had become the strip's protagonist. My thesis was simple enough: Casey, Andy, Mary, Satan, Quantum Cop and all the rest were funny characters that funny things happened to, but Jenn was the strip's Mary Richards -- she was the (relatively) normal character who had insanity surround her. As a result, her reactions echoed the reactions of the reader. She might be Queen of the Hunkinites, but her reactions are those of a normal person. More or less.
And, as a result, the major plot arcs seem to center on her. Jenn gets kidnapped transdimensionally or temporally. Things happen. Other things result. Her air of normalcy lends itself to weird situations.
However, part of character development is growth. If Jenn remained aggressively normal, she'd become a one-note joke character, existing only to not be quite as weird as everyone else. Sooner or later, she has to take weirdness in stride.
Today's strip makes it official. Jenn getting kidnapped and going off on a several week jaunt which leads to her coming back in significantly different clothing doesn't make her bat an eye. She's ready to pick up her conversation.
Not to mention that even before she was kidnapped, she was casually burying a satchel in the yard.
Jenn may still be the protagonist of the strip, but she's not Mary Richards any more. She's gone full on Phyllis on us.
(Does anyone even remember Phyllis? I always liked her character.)
It might hearten Andy Weir that I'm using his strip as an excuse to indulge in Mad Science, as well. This is the first time I've used ecto's built in file uploading and thumbnailing abilities. We'll see how well it works. If it does? Then those fools at the Institute shall PAY! A-HAHAHAHAHA!
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:47 AM | Comments (8)
September 1, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Cartooning for a good cause
This the the first time I'm using the Blogging client "Ecto" with Websnark. We're going to see how good a job it does, and if in fact it does a good job, then we'll see about getting its contract renewed.
The following is an e-mail I received from Brad Guigar, author of the deeply cool Greystone Inn. He's got a cool idea for helping out in the wake of the Katrina disaster, and asked for my assistance in getting out the word.
Some of you might remember the Webcomics Telethon for MDA that I organized through AltBrand Comics. You can se the site here: http://mda.altbrand.com/01mda.shtml
The site updated with new comics from participants throughout three days, so there was plenty of reasons for readers to keep tuning in to the Web site. Donations were accepted through PayPal and then donated on behalf of the Webcomics Telethon.
I'm thinking it might be time to dust off the Telethon and re-purpose it for the people devestated by Hurricane Katrina.
Blank Label Comics is going to host a Webcomics Telethon for Hurricane Katrina Victims the week of Sept. 12. I have registered www.webcomictelethon.com for this purpose. I'm going to wait to see how many participants I get before I specify how many days it will go. Depending on how many participants we get, we could make it a two- or even three-day gig.
ALL of the money collected, including donations and money generated from the ads on the site, will be donated to the Red Cross.
Interested parties should:
(1) E-mail me at bguigar@yahoo.com so I can start generating a head count.
(2) Prepare a special comic strip for the Telethon. We don't have much time, so please do it now, while you're thinking about it. It does not have to be about hurricanes or donating money unless you want it to be. Look through the AltBrand Telethon site... there was some fantastic comics generated out of that. Keep it under 600 pixels wide. Any depth.
(3) E-mail me your comic. Include in the e-mail your name, the title of your comic, and your Web site's URL.
(4) Spread the word.
Thanks!
--Brad
Brad is good people, and I think this is a great idea. After consulting with Greg, we've decided that Gossamer Commons will contribute a strip to the cause, and we hope lots of other people do too. I remember the Altbrand MDA telethons fondly, and am looking forward to contributing and hopefully doing some good for people.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:43 AM | Comments (10)
Eric Burns-White: Oh, thank Christ. It's September. Here's a video game post.
It was a long month, but now it's over. Granted, I have several 12+ hour days ahead of me, but those days will work out pretty well, I think. Servers are beginning to migrate, systems are beginning to come up, and life seems to -- potentially -- be okay.
And last night, Issue 5 of the City of Heroes game came out.
(This is not Issue 5 of the comic. That's coming out this month, to my knowledge, but it's not out yet. I've promised to have an open mind with that issue and by gum, I'll keep that promise. However, we're discussing the actual... you know, game, here.)
Issue 5 adds a whole new section of content (a nearby village that's being overrun by fairies, women who are clearly supposed to be witches of some sort but they're trying to avoid pissing off the neopagan community so they're called something else that I can't remember, ghosts and other beasties. I did some of the beta test of this and it's a fantastic new zone, chock full of content.
They also have new powersets -- specifically, sonic powers, archery and trick arrows. So, the obvious gap in City of Heroes has been filled: it is finally possible to role play out your own Green Arrow/Black Canary relationship in their game.
Seriously. Did they specifically sit down, say "man, I wish we could play Ollie and Dinah," and prioritize based on that?
Whatever. The new powersets are fantastic, so I'm just good naturedly joshing. Using sonics, I actually got to indulge in some nostalgia for a different game. A came some of you have heard of. A game called Villains and Vigilantes.
Villains and Vigilantes was among the first wave of Role Playing Games (what we today call "tabletop RPGs" to differentiate them from video games. "Tabletop" RPG veterans, of course, tend to just call them "role playing games," but that's another essay. V&V's first edition came out in... mm. I want to say 1979 or 1980. I know its revised edition came out in 1982, but by the time that came out I was already a V&V veteran. Anyway, it had all the hallmarks of early RPG design -- tables, special cases, every power working with every power differently (it included a grid with to-hit numbers based on all the powers and the ways they'd interact), and a random power generation system that could sometimes lead to bizarre -- or wildly unbalanced -- results.
It was incredible. I loved that freaking game so much. And my first ever super hero in any RPG came out of that system: Vibrex the Invincible.
Hey, look. I was twelve. Maybe you came up with really cool super hero names at twelve. I didn't. Get over it!
(And try to ignore the fact that the name sounds like a chrome plated marital aid.)
Vibrex had vibrational powers, the power of flight, and the ability to teleport, if I remember correctly. A bit of a mixed bag (though better than some). He was vaguely based on me (the game encouraged making characters based on your friends), and he fought alongside Thunderbolt (who had weather control powers and other some such, the Telekinetic Kid, Flambeau (we thought we were so clever), Cyborg-9, Ace, Rainbow and others....
Twelve year olds in power fantasies punching stock supervillains. But evocative ones.
So, I made up Vibrex, silly name and all. In honor of his illustrious beginnings (and to hopefully excuse the name somewhat) I made him a teenager -- not quite twelve, but not too far off. Sonic powers are close enough, and I could get his costume almost exactly. (Not that it's the coolest costume in the world. But then, that's part of the point.)
And, having seen the City of Heroes fanbase turn itself inside out freaking out about all the horrible nerfs and power reductions the developers were inflicting on us (by far the most contentious ever), I took out the character who was most affected by such (a scrapper with a broadsword and "super reflexes," which was a defensive powerset that was most directly affected by the nerfing, if the boards were to be believed) for a little while. Said character appeared in the midst of higher level enemies (yellow and orange, which in the old days meant "possible for a combat specialist to defeat, but it'd be a fight), hauled out the sword, and started whaling. And discovered that to compensate for the defensive losses, said sword now does a lot more damage. The character seems no more or less likely to die while slaughtering supervillains than before.
So, between that and City of Villains on the horizon, everything is aces in the superheroic world.
And it's September, and that means things will get better.
God damn it. Things will get better.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:14 AM | Comments (34)
August 31, 2005
Wednesday Burns-White: I'm surprised that he hasn't already bought a set of clippers for home use.
(From Achewood. Click for criticism of Edvard Grieg.)
The thing is, even without having read Pat's weblog, this tells you pretty much everything you need to know about him.
Okay, the stuff about barbers probably sticks out a little. Pat's fur looks pretty much the same across every strip, no matter how cheap of a haircut he's gotten. And, really, it doesn't look that out of place for a cat. It's hard to understand at a passing glance what his issue with barbers might be without supplemental reading. The strip isn't actively dealing with the comedy of errors surrounding his lawsuit against Hair Have You Been?, so it might seem like a completely irrational prejudice.
Then again, perhaps it doesn't matter. His issues with barbers are, at their core, about completely irrational prejudice. Besides, Pat's a dick. We've established that.
The rest is a masterful piece of characterization. For all that Pat probably likes to see himself as a superior model of discernment and discipline, he's an arrogant, self-important mess. So's the back of his car. Other strips would spend a week on anecdotal evidence, dickish interactions, and belaboured points. Chris Onstad bundles it into a one-panel symbol. And a Nader evolution fish.
(I'm with Pat on the Grieg, though. Peer Gynt's appalling.)
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 8:43 AM | Comments (16)
August 30, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Katrina.
I'm not much for current events in Websnark. There are some that I reference, but not a lot.
The city of New Orleans, in the state of Louisiana in my native country of the United States of America, has filled with water. Over 80 percent of the city is submerged, sometimes to a depth of twenty feet. At this stage, it is inevitable that it will stabilize at least at the level of Lake Pontchartrain, and possibly as high as the Mississippi river itself. The "bowl" of New Orleans is filling. For all intents and purposes, the city is now a part of the Gulf of Mexico. And the tide, going in and out, is damaging the remaining levees further, and widening the existing damage.
The Superdome, used as a shelter, hammered and torn open by the storm... is filling with water. The thousands of refugees there are being evacuated.
The remaining people in the city are being evacuated.
New Orleans is being abandoned. We're not discussing repair. Not really. We're now essentially discussing if we want to build a new city on the site of the old one.
The French of New Orleans were Acadian, the same as in Northern Maine. That's where "Cajun" comes from. My town was Acadian. I grew up hearing French spoken as often as English.
And more to the point, they're American. We talk a lot about the North and the South, or the Midwest and the Coasts, or the Red States or the Blue States. We talk a lot about these things, but right now, all I know is they're American.
One of our cities is gone. Many others surrounding it have been devastated. There's no one to blame, except maybe God. No enemy to shake our fist at. There is just the water, steadily rising.
They are my brothers and sisters, and they are without homes. Hundreds of them are dead. Misery is everywhere. Lives have been destroyed. Schools and workplaces, jazz clubs and goth clubs, spooky ass cemeteries and tacky tourist traps. Anne Rice's house and Huey Long's.
One of our cities is gone. And there's nothing to be done for it, except mourn the dead and figure out what we do with the five hundred thousand people whose lives have to be started over.
And then we have to prepare for what comes next.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:23 PM | Comments (93)
Eric Burns-White: With my luck, Greg Holkan will get it. And I won't even be able to blame him.
Aside from the obligatory mention in the anniversary post, I haven't mentioned Narbonic's own Shaenon Garrity for a while. That if nothing else should tell you just how busy I've been, since mentioning Garrity, Narbonic and her other projects is one of those things I've become famous for.
And the thing is, Garrity is doing something astounding. And I should have mentioned it at the time, and it just hit me that I didn't, so I'm taking the precious seconds of my lunch hour to mention it now.
One of Garrity's projects is More Fun, which is a story of super heroes, the occult, and general fun and weirdness. Garrity writes More Fun alongside action artist Robert Stevenson, whose Treasure Island remains one of the great adventure novels of the 19th century. (Roger Langridge is a pinch hitter guest artist in residence as well).
Here's the thing: Stevenson -- who, when I'm not making tired jokes about his famous literary namesake, writes, draws and reviews over at one of my favorite internet stops has to hand the artistic reins over. He just doesn't have the time to maintain his day job and all his projects, so something had to give, and that something is "More Fun." Langridge will continue to pitch relief, but Shaenon Garrity needs a new starting pitcher to continue the work.
To that end -- and as part of her intention to migrate More Fun from Graphic Smash to Webcomics nation -- Garrity has opened her entire More Fun archive for free reading and posted an open call for a replacement artist.
Let me give this the appropriate level of decorum:
Shaenon Garrity has an open call for artists to work with her on an established comic series.
Guys, Garrity is teh hot shit, both because she's absolutely kickass in writing and drawing, and because the industry as a whole has begun to recognize her kickassness. The Friends of Lulu named her Lulu of the Year (in a tie with the entirety of the Flight anthology, which is rarified company indeed). She's working for DC Comics. She's quoted almost as often (and in many of the same places) as Scott McCloud himself. And one of her comic strips -- the oft-snarked Narbonic -- is simply put the best four panel comic strip in any medium currently being produced, period. I'm not exaggerating -- Garrity is single handedly honoring the story-heavy-yet-still-humorous traditions of McKay, Segar and Capp while remembering the lessons that Schulz and even Jim Davis taught us (most tellingly, that every four panel strip has to stand alone, no matter how grandly it ties into the others).
More Fun moving out of the Modern Tales/Graphic Smash arena into the wilds of Webcomicsnation all by itself is huge news -- especially if it catches a larger audience on its own than it picked up over with the other adventure strips. But the fact that Shaenon Fucking Garrity is looking for an artist should have every illustrator with any interest whatsoever in the cartoon arts chomping at the bit to get samples over to Frau Garrity. If I didn't totally suck as an artist, I'd be working on a portfolio myself.
So, either way go and steep yourself in the joys of Free Archives. Remember what a sheer joy Free Narbonic was? Here's your chance to feel that kind of joy again. And if you're an artist, you should be going to that link where Garrity explains the submissions process. And you should be following it. You should be doing it because Garrity is brilliant and working with her would be an incredible chance. You should be doing it because Garrity's work is getting noticed in a big way, and this is an excellent time to be hopping on those coattails.
And most of all, you should be doing it because More Fun is good stuff, and this is a chance to be a part of it.
So go! Go! Read! Submit! SUBMIT!!!!
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:19 PM | Comments (29)
August 29, 2005
Eric Burns-White: A Note, In Way Of Explanation
August has not been kind, to me and mine.
Humid heat and cloying days, a haze of stress and anger
And noise that only I can hear.
August has not been kind, to me and mine.
Brothers, friends, loved ones, more.
Fatigue like iron clamped around our arms.
August has not been kind, to me and mine.
But if there's one thing I know,
It's that Augusts end.
And I have a good feeling about September.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:36 PM | Comments (19)
Wednesday Burns-White: The Longest Dash of All
Eventually, as with everything else, the time signals were corrected. Only not quite.
The National Research Council's official time signal is a venerable institution at CBC Radio One. It's been there ever since Radio One was just plain old CBC Radio (as opposed to CBC Stereo). It's probably older than I am. It's the one thing which was always guaranteed to work the same way forever (one of my most comforting memories is of my dad coming back from an NRC research trip, telling me he'd seen the time signal computer). Across Canada, at the same absolute time every day (with the announcement adjusted according to region, of course), the sound of the long dash following ten seconds of silence would indicate one o'clock, Eastern time. Ten o'clock, Pacific. Two thirty, Newfoundland. Your life would go to pieces, but the time signal would remain. The world might crumble, the oceans might rise, and the bombs might fall, but the National Research Council's official time signal would always follow up ten seconds of silence at the same time every day. Archaeologists would discover it, still ticking. Alien archaeologists. From another universe.
Not now. Now, it's one. One everywhere. Except Newfoundland, where it's one thirty. The last time I wrote about this, it was one thirty in Newfoundland several times a day -- the feed, shifted across time zones, was identical for everyone in Canada save for news reports. This, among other things, was a sign that the center simply couldn't hold at Toronto's broadcast centre; it was a rough, jagged edge.
It was the work of management, doing a job it was never meant to do.
The lockout of CMG-affiliated employees at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as I write this, is about to enter its fifteenth day. Management is prepared to settle in and do the work of producers, technicians, journalists and announcers for as long as it takes (just not very well), no matter the effect it has on public relations.
And they already have ensconsed themselves for the long haul. Radio One now isn't dissimilar to a relatively well-polished student station. The nasal, whining apology has become an almost pleasant, customized continuity voice between shows. The news reports are competent enough for people who don't do this sort of thing for a living; sometimes, the tapes run in the wrong places, or the announcers stumble, or the style guide seems to be an afterthought at best, but it's not egregious. It's not overwhelming. An iPod playlist shuffles through Cancon music for over twelve hours a day. Susan Marjetti and Rob Renaud, though lacking in significant chemistry or rapport, are at least technically comfortable behind the morning show controls at this point.
Put it this way: it's good enough for a random local station just trying to get by. The problem is, we're talking about the CBC here. "Good enough" simply doesn't fly. It doesn't work. It doesn't count.
The best example of this, so far, actually comes from television. Already, a CFL match has aired on CBC Television with no commentary whatsoever, just ambient stadium noise and a score counter in the corner. This didn't really impress the football fans.
Or the CFL.
And there have been more gaffes than that.
Even as Radio One (bafflingly!) dropped the Radio Overnight programming segments, all of which are sourced from overseas public radio services, they replaced World at Six with news from the BBC World Service. A similar move took place on CBC Television and Newsworld. The BBC's unions weren't particularly thrilled by this move -- the BBC itself didn't wish to be seen as taking a side, and the unions, if anything, sympathized with the CMG's desire not to have permanent positions largely superseded by casual contracts.
Much of Radio One's programming now consists of slightly aged reruns, which is fine from the casual listener perspective, but probably not long-term workable. In the afternoons, in place of Tetsuro Shigematsu's version of the Roundup, we're hearing 2003 editions of Richardson's Roundup. This didn't impress Bill Richardson, who stated his piece eloquently and succinctly in a Studio Zero podcast. He's angry -- "pissed off," actually -- that they've retroactively made him, the other people who worked on the Roundup, and those involved in other rerun CBC shows, into scabs. (To be fair, he does concede that the CBC is well within its rights to rerun these shows, since it owns them. But even so.)
And goodness only knows what Shelagh Rogers thinks of the Sounds Like Canada reruns. Probably not much; CBC Unplugged reports that Rogers is about to start her own podcast, touring Canada much as she did in the first incarnation of SLC. Difference being, this time, she's not simply talking to regular Canadians -- she's also going to the picket lines.
The podcasts from the picket lines have been one of the most remarkable aspects of this lockout. While Rogers may arguably be releasing the first of these to truly be accessible to casual listeners (others will undoubtedly follow), CMG workers across Canada have been hard at work getting their side of the story out and available this way. The CBC Unplugged feed is the second most popular one at Canada's iTunes Music Store (right behind CBC Radio 3, amusingly enough), and this is the best way to keep up with as much as possible if you only have so many hours in a day. While much of the podcast content has been preaching a bit much to the choir, that's fine at first; the troops need to support one another, and the early adopters from the outside are inevitably going to be those of us who are firmly behind the CMG's cause. There's been some argument that CMG workers shouldn't be putting their energies towards creating programming independently of the CBC, of course. I disagree; if these people can show us, show the CBC, show Canada, and show the world how brightly they can shine without the public broadcaster's support, I think they'll do a much better job of capturing the population's hearts.
And, really, it's not the devoted among us the CMG needs to captivate; we're already reading the blogs, scrutinizing Ouimet's entries, writing essays, writing letters, co-producing podcasts, and ironing things onto shirts. It is the casual listener, the alienated listener, the disillusioned listener, that they need; the satellite radio convert, the commercial television aficionado. They need Joe out in the middle of nowhere, who might not have cared for the CBC, but that's all his region's got.
They need everyone.
'Cause the CBC, the way it is right now? This just isn't going to work.
EDIT: Above and beyond the podcasts, Toronto's Metro Morning staff is moving to a community radio station. Meanwhile, negotiations resume on Wednesday.
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 11:59 AM | Comments (11)
Wednesday Burns-White: Dots and Ribbons
The loops start this way:
"I can't breathe."
"You're just not trying hard enough."
It's the kind of thing, they said, where we'd just know. You'd constantly fall down gasping. You could never really suck down air. No, they were certain, you're like this because you just don't put any effort into it. The others try harder.
So I'm a liar?
Yes, they said. Yes, you are. Now run.
I learned to move slowly. Time was of no import, had no measure. I could walk for days, for weeks, with half my body weight on my back. Terrain was irrelevant. Hills, rock, ice; it didn't matter. But I couldn't run. Past a given speed, I fell into a vacuum, and that wouldn't do. So I walked. I swam languidly, cycled gently, but, most of all, I walked. I walked so that I'd never smash the wall.
No. Run.
And down I'd go. The atmosphere made itself manifest through cause and effect, and I didn't meet the conditions. When they pulled out the ribbons for effort and participation, they dithered and sneered. You don't deserve them. Do, or do not. Now get out of the sand.
Walking didn't matter.
"The way we diagnose this is, you blow into the peak flow meter and make a note on the chart. Then you take your inhaler. If the reading improves by twenty percent, then you've probably got it."
Out of nowhere, my chest had locked down. I couldn't focus. The last time it had been quite this bad, I'd just come home from two weeks in the same apartment as a shedding cat. I hadn't bounced back quite yet, and the flight home from North America (one of three round trips that season) hadn't helped. Tight and breathless, I went for my partner's salbuterol preventer; he took no responsibility if my heart exploded, which was right, but I remembered it working during a bout of severe flu.
It helped.
You're not supposed to do this, I thought. It could kill you. Plus, it's cheating. I'd asked doctors before what was wrong, and they'd taken one look at me -- by British standards, they saw Godzilla -- and drawn a conclusion: You're not trying hard enough. And I believed them, but this couldn't hold. This couldn't stand.
This was getting ridiculous.
So, on a routine checkup visit to the doctor last week, I mentioned the wheezing. And the inhaler.
"How do you know it's asthma?" It can't possibly be asthma. I would have known. Everything else was a cold. Or being fat. Or not trying hard enough to run. But she sent me home with the meter. And the Ventolin.
That afternoon, the chart said 180.
Five minutes later, the chart said 290.
Half an hour later, the chart said 400.
That's how you know.
So I spent a week catching my breath, connecting the dots. I spent a week growing calm, then growing angry. Angry at the ribbons, angry at the wall.
What would have been different if they'd given it a name?
Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 10:53 AM | Comments (27)
