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December 31, 2005
Eric Burns-White: "...and so I caused the Fall of Man and exiled humanity from Eden forever. Still think getting high is *cool?*"
(From Overcompensating. Click on the thumbnail for full sized dares!)
It seems to be a Websnark tradition to talk about Wigu on New Year's Eve. Last year at this time, we were discussing the poignancy of Wigu's ending -- which itself was a dramatic move. Here, Jeffrey Rowland had an amazingly popular comic strip, but since he'd played it all the way through, he was ready to end it and move on to something new.
Yeah, that didn't keep.
See, Rowland had made his comic strip his business. And he discovered that Wigu Tinkle was now a scamplike weight around his leg. Now, I was one of those people who really, really loved WIGU-TV. I loved Science Cop. I loved American Platypus. I thought it really represented Rowland's move to a new level of storytelling. And I loved the sheer Chutzpah of ending a successful comic just because Rowland had finished the story he wanted to tell.
But, as it turns out, a lot of people didn't. Rowland lost readers. And the readers (and their merchandise purchasing power) enabled Rowland to... you know, eat.
So, WIGU-TV disappeared, and a new Magical Adventures in Space comic appeared. And Rowland did that for a while, and then returned to Wigu. And, hey. It was good. I don't think Jeff Rowland is constitutionally capable of doing sucky work.
But... I dunno. A little of the spark was gone.
But, as it turns out, that spark had moved over to Rowland's journal comic, Overcompensating. A simply little daily diary about Jeff Rowland's adventures fighting the Sith, dressing up, hanging with Baby and Weedmaster P and generally being a simple billionaire cowboy poet.
And here it is, New Year's Eve... and Overcompensating is more popular than Wigu.
Rowland has now posted that he's thinking about changing the way Wigu works. He's thinking about using the time he spends making Wigu to make longer stories offline, which he can put up in blocks, sell as print comics -- whatever seems to make the most sense. In his own words:
The kind of comic I want Wigu (and American Platypus and other associated materials) to be can no longer be restricted by a "daily" format. These little stories need to be told all at once, not with just cliffhanger after cliffhanger. I'm thinking of releasing a montly "mangazine" of sorts. It will be something that's available for free both online and offline (as a small book available for purchase online and in stores who want to offer it - the paper version would have extras like short stories, etc). I'm looking for ways to make the paper version to be a nice little full-color job, around 24-36 pages a month. Basically I'd like for the 9pm-2am time slot in my current daily schedule (when I typically draw Wigu) to go toward something more creative and profitable and fun.
This is a pretty cool development, for my money. It's moving in the direction Rowland wanted to go to last year, but without the day to day grind of cliffhangers and punchlines. He gets to stretch himself artistically (which seems to always been what Rowland wants) while not starving to a horrid death in the meantime. And it helps Rowland evolve the model he uses to make his money. His Dumbrella associates will be on hand to see how successful it is, as well. By this time next year we might see quite a few creators go in this direction.
I think it's a credit to Jeff Rowland's skill that he's built his journal comic up to the point where he gets the flexibility to change Wigu and other stories. Over the course of the year, he seems to have learned what he needs to do to tell the kind of stories he wants to tell, while still maintaining his readership and his ability to eat. And I'm excited to see where this goes next.
And, I guess next year we'll meet here and talk about how he's done.
Happy New Year, all!
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:43 PM | Comments (14)
December 30, 2005
Eric Burns-White: One Websnark related side note on the last post!
One quick, necessary bit of business, regarding Modern Tales and my new job.
As I said last post, submissions for Modern Tales are not currently open. They will be, soon, but they're not, yet.
When they're opened, there will be a specific procedure to follow. That'll be the only way to submit, to keep my sanity somewhere close to the "sane" side.
Preemptively, I have to ask folks not to use Websnark to... well, try and submit things. Or "call my attention to them." Et al. I know some folks will want to, because... well, because for a year and a half, I've seen what they've done to attract a snarking. ;)
So, I'm not going to consider submissions right now. When I do, they'll have to go by the system we put in place. Please don't use my Livejournal or private mail to do end-runs around the system.
And I'm going to officially change the rules over here, slightly. (For just about the first time, I'd add.) Use of Websnark comments to lobby submissions/recruitment for Modern Tales is officially Out of Bounds.
Plus, it would annoy everyone else to no end, and how exactly would that dispose me to accept your strip, hmmmm?
Thanks, guys.
EDIT: I've had an e-mail request to post those submissions guidelines here on Websnark when they become available. That'll be an exception to the "not a Modern Tales info site" rule, but since I'm putting a specific rule against using Websnark to lobby, it seems fair that when we have a methodology we will let folks here know how to use it.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:37 PM | Comments (26)
Eric Burns-White: I'm torn between a serene "here's some news that might interest you" and "OMGWTFLOLBBQ" for a title to this post. I think I'll just go with "wow."
So, in the last twenty four hours, a really big thing has happened in my life. A monumental thing. A huge thing.
Weirdly enough, it could also be construed as a big deal in webcomics.
And, among other things, it means some things over here at Websnark are going to change. At least where my involvement is... er... involved.
Yesterday, after my various posts, I received an offer. I have now accepted that offer.
Over the next month or so, I am going to be the new editor of Modern Tales.
Joey Manley is not going to the sea, mind. And bear in mind, this is Modern Tales, we're talking about. Not "The Modern Tales Family." I'm not taking over Graphic Smash, Serializer.net, or Girlamatic. However, things have been changing in the Manley empire for some time. Webcomics Nation has launched, and done well. Manley's priorities are changing.
And at the same time, Webcomics on the internet have also changed and evolved. We're not where we were in 2002. And so sites like Modern Tales have to evolve and change. Manley has some really, really good ideas for doing that change.
And he wants me to be part of it.
As editor, I'll be doing all the fun whip cracking. I'll also have a chance to shape the forward evolution. Part of my responsibilities will be submissions, acquisition and recruitment. My tastes and my biases will help shape the site as a whole, and what you will read there. And I sincerely hope you will be there.
Plus, you know, I'm getting paid. Which means I'm getting paid to edit.
Which means I'm getting paid in my degree. Which is like hitting the lottery for a guy with an English degree.
I'm thrilled. I'm excited. I'm astounded. And I'm a little scared.
In part, because this means things over here will have to change.
Oh, I know what I'm supposed to write, over here. "Don't worry, True Believers! Websnark's not going away! We're going to keep doing what we're doing! This is just something else I'm doing with my time." And yeah, Websnark isn't going away. I'm going to keep writing. Weds is going to keep writing. Stuff. Things.
But of course things are going to change. If there's one truth that came out of the Fleen debate from earlier, it's that we need to understand what biases and influences are going to shape a critic's opinions. As of this moment, I can't write anything about a Modern Tales comic without you knowing that I'm the editor. It's unethical to do otherwise. And you have to balance my thesis with the knowledge that I have a direct stake in the success of that strip.
Further, a number of webcomics creators are going to submit strips to me, in hopes of making it to Modern Tales. And, well, I'm not going to say "yes" to all of them. Or, reasonably, to most of them. If you think for one New York Minute that's not going to influence how those creators look at me, you've never gotten a rejection slip.
And, some people are going to declare I've sold out and gone to the devil. Others are going to declare that Modern Tales has gone to Hell and I'm the gatekeeper. There will be Drama.
I have credibility right now. The only way I can maintain that credibility is if I be straight with all of you. This is literally the first post I've made since accepting this position, and I'm letting all of you know what's going on. And I'm really, really thrilled. I hope most of you are happy for me. And those who aren't, I hope will still be cheerful.
As for things moving forward, MT wise? Watch for announcements. Comixpedia's a good place for that. I really don't intend to make Websnark an organ for distributing Modern Tales stuff. This site is remaining independent of MT. Wednesday's status isn't changing. (And I had to discuss this with her first, among other reasons because it would have a direct impact on Websnark, and I needed her okay before I could move forward.)
This also means some of my online habits need to change. I mean, I'm becoming an editor. A submissions editor. Naturally, some people are going to want to take any in they can find to... well, submit things. I can't be quite as open and accepting of stuff this way.
For the record? Submissions will be open soon, but are not open yet. I just got the job. I haven't sharpened my pencils yet. More news as events warrant. Watch MT for details.
Finally, I'm excited and a bit daunted on another level. See, I've been doing the Op/Ed thing for a year and a half. I've had my theories and my theses. I've put forth my opinions.
And now? I get to put up or shut up. I've talked the talk. Now I have the walk in front of me. That's frightening. It's also thrilling. I can't wait to get started.
To sum up?
Wow.
Wow.
Thank you, and good night.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:48 PM | Comments (82)
December 29, 2005
Eric Burns-White: You just know he tore through the closets for hours, too. Damn savior.
(From Edible Dirt! Click on the thumbnail for full sized I Hope He Doesn't Have A Dust Allergy!)
One of the things I've noticed for a while is the interesting forking of influence. If you look at a lot of the current crop of webcomics -- in particular, four panel or other varieties that harken back to the Newspaper comic strip tradition -- you see a lot of strips drawing off of Calvin and Hobbes. Others show clear influence from Bloom County, or Doonesbury. You even see (as much as this scares me) strips that cite Garfield or Cathy.
But one thing we only rarely see are strips derived from The Far Side.
I don't get that.
Oh, they're out there. I don't mean to say otherwise. But the pure, random, almost anarchic single panel strip laden with weirdness is a rarity in the webcomics world.
Edible Dirt treads over that ground. And on days like today, it does it well. This had me laughing out loud, despite a long day full of reading many, many webcomics. Oh, and work. And gout. I have the gout, people!
Anyway. Made me laugh, so I give it to you.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:55 PM | Comments (40)
Eric Burns-White: Angels sang out, in an immaculate chorus. Down from the heavens descended Chuck Norris.
I don't often do this.
However, the movie of The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny might be among the six greatest things of awesomeness, ever.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:12 PM | Comments (22)
Eric Burns-White: A llama. A tree. A cornucopia.
(From Alpha Shade. Click on the thumbnail to be brought to the low res version of the site. Once there, go to page 110. Then, you shall have the full sized thingy! Of course, you're going to need to go to the high res site for the point of this...
You know what? Just keep reading. There'll be instructions as we go along.)
So. The question was raised, following the last snark, of whether or not I was properly giving Alpha Shade's Flash interface its due. I said, in that snark, that there was no reason for it to be rendered the way that it was. It was called to my attention that there were, in fact, two reasons for the flash heavy interface:
1. The comic is actually drawn in Flash, and so it's presented in its native format in the high res area.
2. There are "easter eggs" and details not visible on the low res JPG. The Flash interface allows for quick and easy zoom, and the Flash nature of the interface means everything's drawn in vector art, which means it's nice and crisp.
So, that means my last comment was at least unfair, and I apologize for that.
The question is, is it enough?
None of this, I should preface this commentary, bears on the quality of Alpha Shade itself. Let me make no bones about it -- I am a big, big fan of Alpha Shade, now. It's beautiful art, for one -- I mean, gorgeous. And it's intriguing. It's hard to do a story where the reader doesn't understand anything that's going on, and make them care about characters they don't know in the process. The Brudlos brothers deserve tons of credit for this.
So.
The comic is available through two different methods: the Flash interface, and the low-res jpeg site. The latter is driven through javascript calls to a database, which has the unfortunate side-effect of not rendering a URL-based call. This means I can't link the specific page I'm looking at in either site. (I can link to the jpeg, but by policy I don't do that.) So, if you want to follow along at home, you'll want to navigate to the pages, and then make your way to page 110. Got it? Good.
On the low res site, the page is well rendered and interesting. Certainly, there's nothing there that would necessitate any kind of overhead. However, the Flash site allows the user to Zoom. Using Safari, I clicked on the page zoom to concentrate on page 110 (the interface defaults to a comic-bookish two page display), and then control-clicked to get a menu that let me zoom in further. (Actually, using my trusty Logitech mouse, I right-clicked, but it confuses people when you tell them you right clicked with your Mac, so we'll do it the old fashioned way.) That lets you zoom in many times, with no loss of crisp vector quality.
I did this, in my case, to get a better look at the contents of that mysterious crate that seems to be the focus of some anxiety. And in so doing, I was able to find a crest of arms. In fact, I was able to zoom in closely enough that I could identify three elements to it. A llama. A tree. A cornucopia.
What does it mean? I have no idea. Cornucopias are symbols of bounty. Trees grow in Brooklyn, I'm told, and Llamas bring Drama with them, according to the Gospel According to D.J. Coffman. I'm not sure what the common connection is, but I'm willing to bet there is a common connection.
Naturally, I'm assuming this isn't the most interesting Easter Egg or clue to be found worked into very small size on the Flash art. But, I have to confess it has me interested. This is the kind of thing that has obsessive fans of the X-Files/Firefly/Babylon 5 variety (in other words... Cloudmakers like me) drooling.
But at the same time, these things are value added. They're not integral to the story. Which means the folks reading the low res version aren't missing out on anything they need to have fun.
So. Given that, am I still maintaining the Baby Jesus is crying?
Yeah. A little, anyway.
For my money (and bear in mind, this is all personal taste. Your Milage May Vary), the two interfaces don't do their jobs quite well enough. Other commenters on my last post noted how hard it was to find the comic in the flash interface. I agree. The comic should be the most intuitive button on the screen. It's why people are going, after all. Further, while I understand the value of making the html version database driven as opposed to creating static pages, I really, really, really wish there'd be an obvious permalink or URL based entry into that database. Not just because it makes the life of a critic like me easier, but because one of the key strengths of the web is the ability to send your friends a link to something cool. "Dude!" you can type. "Check out the hot commander doing tumbling in a leotard!" And you include a link. This then gets put up on your friend's Livejournal, and his LJ's readers distribute it along the way. Word of mouth builds. People start coming more often to your strip.
That can't be done elegantly when you have to tell them what page to scroll to.
Were it up to me -- and we're all glad it's not -- I'd redesign the front page into the portal to the site. Make it HTML (there's no need for Flash for a pile of links). Give people two dramatic ways into the comic, with the advantages of each made overt. Add a dynamically generated permalink to the low res version, so people can easily bookmark or link individual pages. Make it very, very clear how the zoom functions work on the flash side.
At that point? Bob's your Uncle. All advantages, no disadvantages.
I've heard a number of folks say that Alpha Shade is one of the best comics of the year, and I can see why. It's got a great balance of decompressed time and frenetic action (the war scenes from the first section are some of the best I've seen on the web), and the mystery's absolutely hooked me. And, I can at least see why they've made the interface choices they have. However, at this stage I can but hope they'll go the rest of the way with those choices. As it is, the comic's quality is what convinces a person to make it through the interface, and as several people have noted, it's no guarantee that they'll do that.
Oh, I read all of Applegeeks. Fun strip, pretty funny, Cerebus chaser. Too much cute girl imagry in brain from last two series read. Brain shutting dowwww.....
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:36 PM | Comments (29)
Eric Burns-White: In very brief:
Alpha Shade is gorgeous, and the story is gripping. I am a huge fan already, even if I'm just slightly confused.
Putting Alpha Shade through unnecessary Flash interfaces for no good reason? Makes the baby Jesus cry.
Fortunately, I was able, thanks to the low bandwidth version, to find the folder where the pages lived, and read them manually, page by page. Thus, my sanity was not crushed in an attempt to make it look like, oh hey, no -- I'm reading a comic book!
Massive time and effort, coupled with confusing and unnecessary interface engineering, all to make it look like 1938 technology.
Only significantly less convenient.
That is all.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:45 PM | Comments (33)
Eric Burns-White: Man, pretentious much?
This is the day I rectify the things I have not read. The day I update. The day I break through the barriers of habit and expose myself to the things everyone is reading.
Everyone but me.
I have consumed all of A Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible. People I trust said I would adore it, and so I have. It runs through my head now. It's too large. I can't encapsulate it. I can't make it have appropriate size or meaning.
Not yet. But I will. At least, enough meaning for me.
I have read all of Perry Bible Fellowship now. I had sworn I never would, for reasons that weren't very good. But that vow proved weak and untenable, and now I have read it. I have sampled its glory. I have laughed my fucking ass off. And now I pass it to you, to keep.
I have started Alpha Shade. I have not gotten far in it yet. But I will. Work is slow, and this is the day I rectify the things I have not read. And after that there is Dicebox, and after Dicebox there is Killroy and Tina.
I know both Applegeeks and Mac Hall have adherents who praise them to the stars. I know Little Gamers is considered by some to be sublime and brilliant. But I do not know these things for myself. I have started all three before. Now, I will read them through.
There are forty comic strips I have queued up, in all. I won't tell you all of them. Many will make you say "wait -- you don't read that?" Others will make you say "why on Earth are you giving that a chance?" Some are famous, some obscure.
I have read two. There are forty that remain. I have started the third.
Today is the day I rectify the things I have not read.
Pray for Bobo.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:08 PM | Comments (24)
December 28, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Prospecting perspective.
So, let's revisit Jon Rosenberg and Fleen, shall we? Because since the last post on the subject, there's been a development or three -- most notably a followup post on Rosenberg's site.
You remember the kerfluffle, I trust. If not, you can see my response to it, here. And from there, you can backtrack back to Rosenberg's original post. And so, the cycle of critical life is complete. I knew while I was writing that post -- and several other critics, pundits and what-have-yous were doing the same -- that Rosenberg would more than likely have something further to say.
What I didn't expect is that he would apologize. I mean, this is the Internet. What are the odds?
But, apologize he did. He explained that the post was meant to stir the shit up, get people talking, get people looking at Fleen, but direct their ire to him. This was successful, but he found that he was feeling badly about it. People were taking it rather more personally than he expected. People were taking it significantly more seriously than he expected.
And, perhaps worst of all, people were arguing his outrageous position, rather than the core thesis that had led him to found Fleen in the first place. And as a result, the discussion he actually wanted to have wasn't being had. The debate had become "can creators have a critical voice." Which, quite honestly, was tangential at best to Fleen.
So, he apologized. He said he had been, respectively: mean, hyperbolic, and incorrect. He said that he had done a disservice to his thesis. And he felt badly about it.
And after apologizing, he restated his core thesis, in hopes that would be the launching point for the next step of the dialogue. For convenience's sake, I'll reproduce it here:
Doing these things did a disservice to my thesis, which is that having a creator-only press is potentially unhealthy and damaging to webcomics in general and the webcomics press in specific. Doing these things buried the legitimate reasons for something like Fleen to exist (which by the way, is not for objective reporting -- objectivity and criticism don't mix. I never used the word objectivity once in my post). What I was trying to say was that there may be a conflict of interest in having the only souce of information come from creators. But all the bile-spewing turned the discussion from "is it healthy to have an all-creator press?" to "should people who are creators also be allowed to have a critical voice separate from their work?" These are two very different discussions, and I think that they likely have different answers.
So. The question before the house has been moved away from whether or not creators should have critical voices, and over to whether or not it's healthy when only creators have critical voices. And that, quite honestly, is a worthy discussion to have.
Though it's also a short discussion, honestly. Because for my money Jon Rosenberg is absolutely right -- not because there's any superiority to a non-creator's perspective over a creator's perspective, but because the two in fact have different perspectives. And differences of perspective are absolutely vital for a robust critical environment.
If one looks at Critical Theory, the absolute zeniths of criticism come when there are several different schools of criticism attacking similar subjects from radically different perspectives. When you have New Critics and Aesthetics and Historicists and Structuralists and Post-Structuralists and Marxists and Feminists and Platonic Scholars and Jungians and Campbellians and Christians all screaming at each other, united only by a passion for literature and a sneaking suspicion that Harold Bloom is insane, you have a critical environment that is burgeoning with growth and insight. Something new about the works being study comes out of this environment. Something new about the study of literature itself comes out of this environment.
On the other hand, when a specific school of criticism emerges and comes to dominate the discussion, what happens is less an elaboration on literature and critical thought, and more an example of naval-gazing. Deconstructionism at its height was so pervasive in critical thought that adherents to other schools of criticism were completely shut out of the dialogue. What resulted from that wasn't robust deconstructionism but a monumental contraction of the discourse. Non-deconstructionists and casual readers alike simply walked away, muttering dark things.
Well, we don't yet have codified schools of webcomics criticism (though we can see the beginnings of them growing out of the criticial tradition). However, we do have multiple perspectives and theories on the work. If you read my stuff and Joe Zabel's stuff, you'll see differences between our respective understandings of criticism. Move over to Scott Kurtz's critical essays (and he's written some, over on his site, and they're good.) and you get a different perspective than either Zabel or I have. And so on, and so on, and so on.
But, the thing is? I write webcomics. And long before I ever registered Websnark.com, I'd failed at being a Webcartoonist. Joe Zabel's been in comics for years, and he's in webcomics now. Scott Kurtz even puts together a little strip you might have heard of. Our perspectives are different, but we have that common element in all of them. We've all sat in front of the page and thought "how am I going to dirty this up with pictures and words?"
Rosenberg maintains that there's a value in having a critical organ on the web that lacks that common element. He's trying to recruit a number of writers, all of whom will have differences of opinion and background -- different perspectives, in other words -- but with the common element that while they are fans of webcomics, they are not webcartoonists. He thinks it will improve the discourse to have that voice out there.
And I agree. I honestly do. I think the more perspectives you get out there, the better we're all going to be. This is why I get annoyed when people trash the Webcomics Examiner, or Comixpedia. Or Websnark, for that matter. (All right, I might have other reasons to be annoyed when they trash Websnark.) All too often, people see a perspective that's not the same as their own and reject it outright. Often with colorful language and assertions about the critics' mothers.
Not me, though. I think the more people out there we have trying something different in the critical discourse, the stronger and healthier that discourse will become.
So, here's to Fleen. And here's to the Examiner, to Comixpedia, to McCloud and Zabel, to Tangents and I'm Just Saying, to Kurtz and Gabe and Tycho, to Blank Label and Dumbrella and Checkerboard Nightmare hitting people with shovels.
Here's to perspective.
And here's to not losing it.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:50 PM | Comments (40)
December 27, 2005
Eric Burns-White: The Long, Dark Night of Steve Troop
(From Melonpool.)
There reaches a point where the question becomes "how long is too long?" How long should a cartoonist keep writing and drawing his strip? How long should he keep plugging away? How many times does he keep grabbing for the brass ring before he kind of gives up?
As of this morning, Steve Troop is the latest big name cartoonist out of the Daily Grind. He had been doing a "phoning it in" riff where the images were static, and making a relatively snarky commentary about static image comics in the process, but the last one was last Friday, and today is Tuesday, which means we missed Monday, and that's the Grind.
More to the point, however, we're beginning to see a pattern.
Troop did an amazingly gutsy thing this year. Recognizing that his strip is choked with backstory and archives and all the rest, he decided to reboot the strip as a whole (eliminating his online archives in the process). He also went to a full page format, which means he was also increasing his workload. The whole design was meant to make it easy for people to leap right in, while maintaining the fun for long time readers.
(As both a long time reader and a follower of the new strip, I've enjoyed this greatly, though he may have been just slightly too In Media Res about how he did things. Since we lack backstory on who everyone is with the reboot, there's at least some sense of "who are these people and what are they doing?" that might be a touch difficult for folks. But I digress.)
Here's the thing. In a lot of ways, Melonpool's starting over. And Steve Troop's going for new readers, hard.
And that means that in a lot of ways, we have to treat Melonpool like a whole new strip. And that includes finding an audience.
Audiences take time, it's sad to say. Very few people get to launch with sizable numbers. In a way, Troop has an advantage -- he has rabid fans and the respect of many of his fellow creators. Both of those help. But, there's also the disadvantage that those folks who aren't reading still need to be brought in, and the situation is just odd enough that it takes time.
There's also some folks who simply don't like change -- even in a strip as anarchic as Melonpool, there are going to be some folks who don't want the multiple timelines and futurecasts and time travel and....
Yeah.
It reaches a point where a person feels pretty dark. And Troop -- who's coming off of illness -- is feeling that way now. In fact, in a recent forum post, he said that if he didn't get his readership to 5,000 daily unique IP numbers by the end of March, he would punch out entirely. (There was at least some feeling that he was pressing a gun to Mayberry's head and saying 'one wrong move and the Melotian gets it!') He then revised that statement to just be "growth by March," which seems healthier, but still....
And then we had Christmas, and several strips done in a parody of static art style a la Dinosaur Comics. Clearly, meant to keep Troop in the Grind while he took a break. Except we saw a real darkness underneath those sentiments... and a real sense of bitterness at Dinosaur Comics's success. They were put into Ralph's mouth, where bitterness is in character, but because they were breaking the fourth wall so firmly, they came across as... well, meaning every word of it. "He can't just plug in dialogue to stay in the Grind -- he has standards." "Too bad people ignore his work most of the time. When he tries, it's worth it!"
And in the accompanying newspost, he talks about how he's feeling, and what impact it's having on him:
It's starting to feel like I'm investing a lot of time into something that isn't really what I want to be doing. I've made no secret that I get no real joy from cartooning ... I haven't for years. The only real joy I get is from crafting stories and the comic always felt like the best way for me to tell the stories I wanted to tell. Maybe it still is, but I'm so jaded right now, it's hard to really think straight.
I don't know, man.
I like Melonpool. I always have. If I can help push people over to it, so much the better. But I don't know that this is the way to go about "saving it." Ryan North's comic is innovative not because the art is static, but because his writing is strong enough to transcend the art's limitation. And people talk it up because it's good.
But then, the question is -- is Troop truly angry at Dinosaur Comics? I don't think so.
I think he sees a comic strip he's been working on, in various formats, since the early nineties. I think he sees years and years and years of investment, of reinvention, of effort, of work. I think he sees tremendous risks taken this year to shake it up, to give people a route in, to reinvigorate everything. And I think seeing the slow process he now has to go through, slogging along, doing the daily strip drawing and working without "gimmicks" or "shortcuts" is exhausting.
I think Melonpool is on an ascent right now. Creatively and artistically, I think it's stronger than it's been in a long time. I think it's interesting and exciting, and I'm looking forward to where Troop takes it.
However, I also think that we need to get a solid storyline or two behind us before the new fans are going to jump on board, and I think it's going to be a slog getting there, and I think that has Troop feeling morbid. If Melonpool is ascending, Steve Troop himself is at nadir. He sees flashes in the pan and wonders what more he can do.
He seems, more than anything else, tired.
Well, I hope things pick up. I hope he gets his legs underneath him. I hope he gets some traction and some readership. From a selfish standpoint, I hope he gets whatever he needs to keep drawing Melonpool, because I enjoy it.
But most of all, I hope he swings up in mood. I hope he gets some hope back.
I hope he starts liking it again.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:42 PM | Comments (93)
December 26, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Seriously. Boxing.
It's a day of traveling, visiting family, traveling, returning home, and traveling.
On the other side of the equation, Weds is having some computer issues.
So, please take this opportunity to sound off! It's Boxing Day, the most wonderful day involving Boxes and Boxing in all the year!
If I get a chance, I'll do some of that writing I've meant to do later on this morning.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:47 AM | Comments (49)
December 25, 2005
Eric Burns-White: Tis the Reason for the Seasoning!
(From Kismetropolis! Click on the thumbnail for his noodly appendage!)
There is something extremely cool about Christmas with your nieces, at their house. My sister's family has the largest Christmas tree on Earth. (I'm relatively sure it's larger than Rockefeller Center. Not the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, mind -- Rockefeller Center), and there had to be sufficient presents to fill that tree. With several nieces and the like, we managed to pull that off. My choices for all and sundry were well received. I have socks. Life is good.
The picture is from artiste extraordinaire Indigo Skynet's Kismetropolis, and somehow it conveys the essence of the holiday to me. It's a chance to cut loose and just be happy. "Joy to the World," the song commands, and I'm entirely behind that.
Plus, that's a darn good Flying Spaghetti Monster. I think plush FSMs should be available nation wide.
One would also look good on this huge, huge tree.
Otherwise, we are being festive. I received an illustrated copy of the Elements of Style which I am enjoying going through. (I consider it the illuminated copy.) There was coffee and tea, and soon the Christmas Brunch Quiche will be made (we all have our traditions, and this one is ours). There are Carols being duly whistled, and sugar free candies duly consumed (as it turns out, sugar free peppermint patties taste just like pepperment patties. Who knew?
Life is good. Merry Christmas. Dude.
Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:08 AM | Comments (28)
