Websnark

January 5, 2010

Eric: The Curse of Webcomics.com

You would think the name alone would have made it a slam dunk.

Seriously. "Webcomics.com." If there is such a thing as webcomics, surely webcomics.com would be the immediate one-stop location of choice for them. It would by definition be one of the top sites on webcomics or one of the top sites of webcomics or both.

And yet... it's never really been successful. Not really. Not outside of a niche.

It has been, in its time, a webcomics host, a webcomics collective, a webcomics portal, a webcomics commentary site, and a 'how to make comics for the web' site. It experimented with push technology and with podcast technology when they were hot. Doctor Fun had a home there. T Campbell and Alexander Danner had a home there. Most recently, Brad Guigar and the Halfpixel fighting force four had a home there.

Through it all -- through every iteration -- even if the content was good, it just never really broke out into the mainstream. It never became self-sustaining. It never became a must-go site. And that just seems weird to me.

The latest iteration of the site has now had the latest iteration of the curse hit it. Brad Guigar, the Editor in Chief of Webcomics.com (currently a site supporting the Halfpixel model of webcomics creation as popularized in their book How to Make Webcomics) has announced that effective immediately the site is going behind a paywall.

A paywall.

In a startling move from 2004, Guigar has locked his content behind a login you have to shell out thirty bucks a year to unlock, in an effort to make the site profitable -- or at least profitable enough to justify the time and energy Guigar's putting into it.

Now, all by itself this would not be a major deal. Websites do this sort of thing all the time. Admittedly, after they do this sort of thing their readerships drop precipitously, but still. It's a common enough reaction. However, this is Halfpixel -- the home not only of Guigar but the familiar names Straub and Kurtz. (And Dave Kellett, but he's not specifically a part of this comment.) And two of the loudest voices decrying the very existence of paywalls and subscription models and pay-to-view on the web have been Straub and Kurtz.

Do I think they're hypocrites? No. They see a distinction and they're pretty firm about it. But a lot of people are reacting as though they were -- and fair or not, the whole thing puts the very model that they espouse in their book and on webcomics.com itself -- the idea that free content can pay rich dividends -- into doubt. "If these guys know what they're talking about," goes the thinking, "why do I have to pay to get on their website?"

Now, Guigar has been quick to point out an essential difference between putting a webcomic like Evil Inc. behind a paywall versus a site like webcomics.com: the former is entertainment. The latter is reference. It's the difference between a momentary distraction on the way to the grave and information. People who are serious about becoming webcartoonists will shell the money out because of all the valuable information the site has to give (or so they hope). And someone who won't spend thirty dollars -- just thirty dollars -- to get solid advice and have a place to turn as they try to build their business clearly isn't serious about being a professional.

It is a compelling argument.

It's also wrong.

To be blunt -- if a website isn't a store or providing a service, it's entertainment. People went back to webcomics.com day after day because they wanted the information that was there, yes, but mostly because they were entertained by the articles. People listen to NPR to be informed, but also because they find it entertaining. People read CNN to be informed but also because they find it entertaining. All of these things fall into the "momentary distraction" category. The exceptions, like I said, are sites like Amazon.com where you buy shit, or sites like eBay or eTrade or your bank, where you perform services. Even a site like WebMD -- which built its reputation on pure information -- has "health news and features" to bring people back and add new vectors for Google to come in. Certainly, a site like Webcomics.com -- which is, after all, a daily blog at its heart -- is running as much on its style as on its substance. Brad Guigar doesn't just provide how-tos, he does it in a well written and concise style, and people come back day after day for the community that forms as a result.

And at its core, that means Webcomics.com is not a service. Not in its current iteration, anyway. You don't go there to upload your comic and have it publish. You go there to get information from knowledgeable people whose writing is fun and engaging. Is it a much, much smaller niche audience than, say, Evil Inc. or PvP? Absolutely. But it is an audience all the same, and so the distinction between it and a webcomic isn't nearly as clear cut as they're claiming.

Further, in what seems just the tiniest bit skeevy, a good amount of the content on the site (especially recently) came from third party writers. Long time friend of Websnark Abby L. was one of them. They apparently got no warning this was happening. There is no word on whether or not they will be compensated for their work. I do know that Abby was absolutely thrilled to have been published there, was shocked that suddenly her work would be locked behind a paywall (making it significantly harder to use either for her resume or to point people to it in general), and disheartened at what felt like a a slight. She posted comments in the announcement to that effect. Guigar, to his credit, was willing to take her content off the site, and since has marked all the third party essays as hidden until the individual writers can decide if they want them to remain, but that's something that should have been dealt with well in advance of making this move.

But then, part of what's upset folks is the utter lack of notice given for this move. Now, Guigar and Kurtz have explained their thinking on this -- they made their decision, they knew people were going to react this way regardless, and in Guigar's own words:

[It's] the difference between pulling a Band-Aid off slowly or quickly. This decision was made with the respect for my readers at the front of my mind.

However, shocking people who've grown accustomed to visiting your site isn't a good way to foster goodwill for a new project that opens with a thirty dollar payout -- especially on a site like this, whose bread and butter is information. At least one person (who called himself "Guy") had this reaction:

Um. I literally just stumbled on this website yesterday. There was a tutorial on setting up Wordpress.

Came back today to check it again only there was this login... only I couldn't log in. And there was a threat saying that if I continued to try and log in, I'd be locked out forever.

I checked the front page only to find that it was a subscription site now. Ok. Well thank god Google saves the entire internet and I could get the tutorial anyway.

Remember the Google thing. It'll come up again momentarily.

Further again, the potential influence this site can have on the industry has just dropped precipitously. When major posts went up, they could be linked to easily on everything from blogs to Facebook to Twitter. Now, those links will lead to a request for $30 -- and no one who follows the link is going to think "hey, $30 for a year of webcomics.com seems fair! That's just two-fifty a month! I spend more than that on lattes!" They're going to think "oh the Hell I'm going to pay thirty bucks to read some essay on distribution" and close the site.

Or, someone who is deeply inspired by something he reads on Webcomics.com will take it and copy/paste it onto his own blog (or some anonymous blogger site he makes for the purpose) so he can point people to it there. And other folks will copy/paste articles sheerly because they find paywalls offensive and figure Guigar won't have the money to sue over it. Or they will do it because they've always thought Scott Kurtz was a blowhard and now that he's not "practicing what he preaches" he's fair game. Or they will do it because they're dicks.

Am I exaggerating? Hey, we've already had one example (quoted above) of someone who hit the Google cache to get the information he wanted rather than pay the entrance fee. This is how this stuff works sometimes. Please note, however: I am not advocating piracy here. If Guigar and the gang want to put their content behind a paywall, that is their right and I support their decision even if I do not agree with it. I just think that stuff's going to get out, either innocently or maliciously.

Since I'm making predictions, here's another one. Inside of two weeks, someone will have put up a site that breaks down all the steps one needs to take to put their webcomic online, under cheerful banners like "the best FREE resource for the aspiring webcartoonist" and "common sense doesn't have a subscription fee."

So, the question becomes -- what will webcomics.com need to be successful at this? Especially since very few content based websites that use subscription models have been successful, and this is more of a niche market than most.

In a word? Testimonials.

Webcomics.com needs to start gathering the names of people who went from 0 to supporting themselves off their webcomic largely if not entirely using the advice from webcomics.com and How to Make Webcomics. Especially if they're going to go down the dubious route of equating paying for webcomics.com as the difference between the serious professional and the amateur hobbyist -- a claim that is ridiculous when one considers that most if not all of the webcartoonists who make their living off their work right now (and there are many) have done so without their book or website. Certainly, no one's going to claim Jeph Jacques, Randy Milholland, Ryan Sohmer, Gabe and Tycho (admittedly two of the money-men behind Webcomics.com in the first place) or all the rest needed the site to be professionals. If Guigar et al are going to convince people that they're a resource indispensable enough to justify dropping thirty bucks, all in one go, they're going to have to prove that what they're selling works, and the only proof can come from webcartoonists who aren't affiliated with Halfpixel saying "seriously, dude, these guys know their stuff. Drop the change in the till right now."

And... well, let's be honest. Positioning yourselves as the acid test for how 'serious' someone is about producing their webcomic and being successful has a chilling effect. Do I think Guigar meant to offend when he said:

Why $30 per year? It's an inexpensive buy-in that almost any webcartoonist can afford. It has an added benefit of keeping out people who may not be as serious about webcomics. It naturally weeds out comments from people who may be passing through, and results in distilling comments to those from people who are committed to improving their comics.

Absolutely not. Guigar doesn't have a mean bone in his body. But Scott Story of Johnny Saturn took it differently (from the comments):

Well, it's interesting to find out I "may not be as serious about webcomics." After endless hours of producing my comic, after all the advertisement, after making it available on Wowio, Drivethru, ComicXP, iTunes, and in print from Amazon.com and Indyplanet/Comics Monkey, I'm stunned! I spent all those hours of my life working toward a goal that apparently I am not really committed to. Later this year, when my comic will also be available on numerous handheld devices besides the iPhone, I realize again that I've put all this work into something that I didn't care about.

I'm sure the above statement about the seriousness of webcartoonists based on their willingness to part with 30.00 was not intended to offend or alienate. But, this definitely bruises my feelings and makes me feel different about the whole thing.

Is this a common reaction? Well, it's worth noting that when Wednesday -- a person who really likes Straub and Kurtz and respects Guigar and Kellett, though she hasn't had as much contact with them -- read the announcement and the comments and looked at the site, her immediate response was "oh great. A site on the internet where a bunch of bearded men give themselves the authority to declare an artist professional or amateur, with no possible alternatives. Because we've never seen that."

(Full disclosure. Scott Kurtz does not have a beard. Second full disclosure, I do. In fact, it's currently past "Grizzly Adams" and is threatening a move straight into "Ted Kaczynski." But I digress.)

Also, why are they charging $30 a year instead of $2.50 a month. $2.50 a month seems like nothing. $30 a year doesn't feel like a cheap yearly payment, it feels like thirty freaking dollars to be allowed onto your damn website. In fact, I'd think they'd want to do a "$3 a month recurring subscription, or you can get a year for $30 -- a savings of 17%!" kind of deal.

Look, does Brad Guigar deserve compensation for all his hard work? Abso-freaking-lutely. Is, in fact, webcomics.com worth $30 a year? Probably. Will they get enough subscribers to give Guigar the compensation he needs to continue? Maybe. Will Webcomics.com continue to grow and develop the cross-fertilization and dedicated audience a site like this needs to remain fresh and useful?

It seems doubtful.

Right now, if I were asked by aspiring webcartoonists as to the best way to get started in making and promoting their webcomic, I would suggest they buy How to Make Webcomics. It really is a good book, full of good information. But would I suggest they subscribe to webcomics.com? Probably not. I'd think after they read the book, if they still had questions or wanted advice, that would be one potential route. But it's hardly the only potential route -- ComicSpace is loaded with helpful folks with advice, for example. And successful webcartoonists like Howard Tayler are generally not stingy with advice for aspiring new blood.

Regardless, I wish them well, and we will just have to see how well this works.

Still, given their respective histories and many, many hours of arguments behind them, I have to wonder just how long it will be before Joey Manley stops laughing about all this.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:02 AM | Comments (28)

January 4, 2010

Eric: The Fall of the House of Keen

If someone had walked up to me on January 1, 2005 and said "hey, in five years Keenspot's going to stop accepting new submissions and start to effectively leave the webcomics collective business after firing one of their artists," I would have stared at him for a long moment. "Do I know you?" I'd ask, at that point. He would not answer, but would instead say "yeah, and they'll have fired John Troutman too, a few months before." "Seriously," I'd say. "You need to leave my apartment before I call the police."

And yet, here we are, just five years later, and things have officially gone crazy at the Crosby compound. Keenspot -- a site originally founded by a small cabal of like minded folks to replace Big Panda while simultaneously reforming the 'webcomics collective' concept of its sins -- has begun the inexorable process of getting out of general webcomics.

Most of the foofarah over these developments has already been hashed out. The action news team at Fleen both had some of the biggest story-breaks involved in the process. They also had a comments-wide flamewar largely between Bobby Crosby and Scott Kurtz, which honestly I could have predicted back in 2005, but I digress.

In short, however: a Keenspot cartoonist was let go. I will not make comment on her situation, as I honestly don't know enough about it to comment. I will link to her comic because that seems like the right thing to do -- not that I expect she'll get much of a rise in traffic from me, but it still seems like the appropriate thing to do. In the wake of this, Keenspot made an official announcement that they were closed to new submissions, and did not plan to add any new members going forward. Then, an internal e-mail was leaked and published by Fleen, detailing a new contract that current Keenspotters would have to sign that would radically restructure the rules under which they operated. This was confirmed by Chris Crosby. Further, it made it clear that Crosby didn't expect many if any Keenspotters to accept the terms -- and that they really shouldn't. In his own words:

The facts are, you do not need Keenspot. For members on the "New System" contract, everything you're doing on Keenspot can be done on your own. You should go independent.

For those still on the original contract, you should strongly consider leaving Keenspot if you are not extremely happy with it. If we aren't doing something for you that you can't do on your own, there is no reason for you to stay.

What Keenspot is doing, it seems, is reworking themselves into a traditional publisher. They're trying to prune a decade's worth of old growth, deadwood and errant branches which may be healthy but don't fit, take what's left, and then heavily focus on that remaining content not only in terms of webcomics but in merchandising, branding and revenue-generating. And most of the projects they're going to be focusing on are going to be 'Crosby' projects -- comics from Chris and/or Bobby Crosby, flash animation gigs like their Doritos contest submission (itself one of the better things they've done of late -- if they don't win a Superbowl spot, I still hope it turns into some television ad work for them), and pushing stuff towards Hollywood.

On the whole, I think this is a good move for Keenspot, handled absolutely terribly. For years now, I've maintained that what Keenspot needs more than anything else is a solid business manager -- someone to be the bad guy in their operation, who makes firm decisions based on the bottom line, and who brings a financial acumen to the proceedings that the Crosbys -- and I love Chris Crosby -- simply don't have. While this isn't that step (and they should still be doing it), it is a step towards reworking what they do with an eye to generating revenue and growing, and that's all to the good. Further, the conditions that created Keenspot and made it such a seminal part of the evolution of webcomics simply don't exist any longer. Bandwidth is no longer crushingly expensive. The technology to make a site with archives and content navigation is largely standardized. Someone who wants a turnkey for webcomics can have it easily enough. Someone who wants revenue generation tools like advertisements can grab them easily. And the unifying factors of successful collectives like Dumbrella, Dayfree, Blank Label or Half-Pixel (to name just a few) doesn't exist at Keenspot -- when Keenspot was founded, the unifying factor was "we have comics on the web," and that was enough, because it was still such a new and novel concept. Today, collectives unite around shared goals, or shared aesthetics, or shared sense of humor, or shared business models, or shared whatever. Keenspot hasn't had that for a long time.

However, the problem with implementing their plan remains the same problem they've had all along: they desperately need a business manager. Desperately. In this case, they need someone willing to generate that same internal e-mail Chris Crosby did, only instead of giving the Keenspotters the opportunity to sign onto a contract that's designed to weed 95% of them out, they should have sent the following:

Friends, Keenspotters and Creators -- for over ten years we have tried to make Keenspot the most artist friendly and exciting place for webcartoonists on the internet. Sometimes we've succeeded, and sometimes we've failed, but through it all it's been a grand and exciting adventure.

However, economic realities and the changing face of internet publishing means that the company we have always been needs to change, and that means taking some radical steps. As of July 1, 2010, Keenspot will no longer be a webcomics collective. Instead of being a large conglomerate of webcomics new and old, updating and archived, we are going to be a content developer and publisher. Where in the past we have largely remained passive in regards to the creation and updating process, in the future we are going to work actively with the writers, artists and animators of Keenspot, aggressively developing and promoting properties for both the web and beyond. Many of these properties are going to be things we own outright, like Last Blood. When working with others, we will be increasing the stake -- and control -- we have over those properties, and will be negotiating with those creators directly.

What this means for you, the incredibly talented creators who make up the current version of Keenspot, is simple: between now and July 1, you will need to make other arrangements for your webcomic.

Starting immediately, Keenspot will be moving into a transitional mode, helping current Keenspot members migrate their current and archived projects elsewhere on the web. We will be setting up special Keenspot-members-only forums where we will be giving technical support and giving you the opportunity to make plans. Over the past several years, many of you have naturally formed cliques, friendships and even informal partnerships -- part of our transition will be to help you formalize those partnerships so those of you who want to can make your own collectives, so that you can begin to support each other in ways Keenspot has supported you in the past. We will also be purchasing and sending every Keenspot member a copy of How to Make Webcomics by Guigar, Kellett, Kurtz and Straub. While we haven't always had the best relationship with some of those folks (and have had excellent relationships with some others), their book is one of the best primers on running your webcomic as a business, and while much of the information in the book is something you already know -- and you may not need anything at all from it -- it will be a resource you can use as you move your comic into the next stage of its life.

Any webcomic still hosted by Keenspot on July 1 will automatically be moved onto Comic Genesis, where you can continue to enjoy many of the same tools and hassle free operations you have come to expect. At that time, you will not be considered part of Keenspot, and all formal contracts between Keenspot and you will expire.

This may seem sudden and shocking, but I invite you to see this as an opportunity. For many of you, Keenspot has been a comfortable place to make comics -- and sometimes it's easy to stay where you are comfortable instead of taking the steps that are best for you and your comic. To be blunt, you don't need Keenspot. There is no reason you cannot be as or more successful on your own or in small collectives than you were with us. You have the talent to make great, engaging comics -- you wouldn't have been on Keenspot in the first place if you didn't -- and that means you have the potential to succeed brilliantly without us.

This is a hard day for us. We have loved being "the Spot for Comics," but we have to take the steps we thing will be best for ourselves and -- ultimately -- for all of you.

Thank you for everything you have done for the past decade. It has been an honor and a pleasure.

Sincerely,

Bob KeenManager

Then, have anyone who will continue to work with Keenspot after July first sign an agreement stating that Keenspot's official designated representatives (designated as this manager, Chris Crosby and Teri Crosby, period) will be the only ones to discuss this or other Keenspot related issues publicly. This would obviously not bind the Keenspotters who themselves are being moved out of the company, but that's okay. However, any and all discussion of Keenspot's business decisions would be filtered through professionals who would have professional dealings, with Fleen, Scott Kurtz, ex- and soon-to-be-ex Keenspotters and all the rest.

Why is this better than the e-mail Chris Crosby actually sent? Because it is active, instead of passive-aggressive. In trying to be a good guy -- and trying to be as fair as possible to the Keenspotters -- Crosby's equivocated far too much. He isn't telling them that it's time they leave, he's making it as uncomfortable as possible so they will choose to leave and spare him the pain of effectively firing everyone. The move is somewhere between a landlord who's turning off the heat and water to try and drive out rent-controlled renters so he can bulldoze the place and a boyfriend who figures if he makes his girlfriend uncomfortable enough, she'll dump him so he won't have to be the bad guy who's dumping her.

And, under this system, Bobby Crosby wouldn't be allowed to comment on the situation. In fact, said manager would have to make that a component of his contract -- all creators who will be working with the new Keenspot will have to agree not to comment publicly about Keenspot while they are under contract, period, and Bobby Crosby would have to be under that contract.

Look, I actually have a lot of respect for Bobby Crosby. I think he's an excellent writer. I read more than one of the comics he writes, and they're good. He has a lot of gifts and he has a lot of potential. But he is absolutely incapable of comporting himself well in public when it comes to these things, and -- for better or worse -- his last name is the same as the owners of the company. Even if he is purely an employee, when he sets fire to the surroundings, claims people all around him are "liars," and calls for the death of one of his company's critics publicly, he is doing damage to the Keenspot brand. It doesn't matter if he's in the right or not. Companies that Keenspot will want to work with in the future will be doing research on Keenspot, and they will see Bobby Crosby's vitriol and it will prejudice them against the company. Creators that Keenspot wants to recruit will think twice. Keenspot's options will be reduced the more one of its public faces rails against his enemies in public. And that's very bad for Keenspot, as they work to remake the kind of company they are.

But, things have unfolded the way they have unfolded, and so it's no longer a question of what they should have done but what they will do.

The Keenspotters who are leaving (most if not all of them) will be fine. Crosby was right about one thing -- there's nothing Keenspot has been doing for them recently that they can't do for themselves. I'm a little surprised someone like Joey Manley, Josh Roberts or Nate Piekos hasn't offered a ComicSpace/alternate home for Keenspotters who want to have as simple a transition as possible -- it would be great goodwill PR and help redefine the ComicSpace LLC Network as the natural successor (and winner) of the ancient Wars. Certainly, I have to imagine they or other folks will be making some kind of announcement giving ex-Spotters a place to go. Further, I fully expect to hear about some new collectives springing up made up of ex-Spotters in the wake of all this. All will be fine. This is just one last mighty gasp of KeenDrama.

However, at the end of the day I'll admit I'm wistful. Keenspot has been such a part of the Webcomics landscape for so long that seeing them relinquish that role so thoroughly (and so flame-warishly) is a sad day for me. I called this essay "The Fall of the House of Keen" and really that's what this is -- the Keenspot that rose up out of the Big Panda debacle, the Keenspot that helped redefine what it meant to be a comic on the web, the Keenspot that was for many years a great and accepting (if often dysfunctional) family is falling. The Spot for Comics is closing up shop. Something new will follow, with the Keenspot name and possibly the Keenspot logo, but it won't be Keenspot the way we have always known it. The once-home of many of the most successful comics on the web -- Schlock Mercenary, It's Walky, Bobbins, Sinfest, Nukees, Real Life Comics, Greystone Inn, Basil Flint, Avalon, Exploitation Now, Queen of Wands, Life in Greytown, Count Your Sheep, College Roomies from Hell, Bruno the Bandit, Candi, The Devil's Panties, Fans, Penny and Aggie, No Need for Bushido, Two Lumps, Road Waffles, Men in Hats, Ozy and Millie, Elf Life, Elf Only In, Alice! and many more I don't mention out of a need to wrap this up but which remain a huge part of the foundation of webcomics past, current and future -- is being imploded to make room for a new building. And that should be remarked upon.

Good luck, to everyone involved on all sides of the equation.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:54 AM | Comments (8)

November 30, 2009

Eric: When confronted with these facts, the old guard almost always makes an "ADHD culture" crack. Because obviously the entire world must be disabled instead of Rupert Murdoch being wrong.

One of the most cogent folks I know, particularly in discussions of publishing and the internet, is Adam Tinworth. I've known Adam through a number of settings, but the one most germane to the discussion is as a business journalist. He's a very, very good one. He's also a fine hand with a fencing iron, I'm given to understand, and as someone who once upon a time stumbled through his share of sabre matches I can respect that, but it's not really a factor in the discussion at hand.

Well, Adam recently blogged about content and paywalls -- touching on the current issues with his usual skill and wisdom. Certainly, the topics he addresses in terms of journalism will resonate with anyone following the somewhat tragic conflict between newspaper cartoonists and web cartoonists. It's a good read.

However, it's not Adam's post, but a comment someone made to him about it that really gets to the heart of the matter. He posted a followup that included that comment, and I've never seen the core disconnect highlighted so well. With Adam's permission, I reproduce it here:

The model you have of your consumer's behaviour is wrong, they aren't using the internet as a way of reading a newspaper, they are using the internet, some of which consists of newspaper content, its a different thing. It was bad enough having to explain this in 1999, I find it a bit surprising it still needs saying in 2009.

That's it. That's the whole shooting match in a nutshell. That's why newspapers that are coming up with new paywall schemes will lose. That's why the internet will win. In the end, the process is inexorable, because the battle is not over content. It is over convenience.

Look at the Encyclopedia Britannica versus Wikipedia. I have had harsh words for Wikipedia in the past, and I stand by them, but I'll also be honest: I use Wikipedia every day. The Britannica, on the other hand, was the encyclopedia of record for much much longer than not only I've been alive but my father's been alive. When the Britannica went CD-ROM, I bought it, and bought a copy for my sister's children. It thrilled me that for a tiny amount of money I had access to this seminal resource.

I wouldn't dream of shelling that money out today, even though I (mostly) trust the Britannica's content above Wikipedia's. The Britannica isn't convenient. I can't just link to it when I'm making references to it. I can't just search it casually from any machine without having to fumble with passwords. It takes effort.

Wikipedia is just there. It is always at hand. It is always easy to reach. And it's far more comprehensive on the kinds of minutia and trivia I really need an encyclopedia for than the Britannica could ever be. Is it a trusted source? No, not really. But it's a great launching point for an investigation if I need a trusted source, and for quick "at-hand" information it's simply unparalleled.

And as a result, several orders of magnitude more people check Wikipedia every hour than check the Britannica website every day. It's not that it's better. It's that it's convenient, when all you want to do is look something up quickly and then get back to the websurfing you were already doing.

I don't know very many people who read a newspaper cover to cover, whether online or on paper. But a lot of people read articles that are germane to them right at that moment. Articles get linked on twitter or Livejournal. Google gathers these things together and points people at them when they're interested. And news sources that accept that they're a brief stopover on one's daily web journey get far more traffic than news sources that make a person jump through hoops to get the news. Bring money into the equation, and suddenly that readership drops by another order of magnitude or two. Robert Murdoch and those like him may assert the value of their goods, and equally assert that content must be paid for, but the only thing they can possibly do is make their content irrelevant to the broader world that's coming.

Let me repeat that.

The only thing paywalls or other direct monetization can do for newspapers or any other topical content is make it irrelevant to the world of the internet age.

Let us say that Murdoch succeeds at making his newspapers secure against Google aggregation and other such things. What happens in that scenario? What does basic capitalism tell us happens in a situation like that? Simply put, someone else develops a product that fills the niche no longer being filled. Some other journalistic organization will step up, develop a model around online advertising or some other thing we haven't even heard of yet, and happily reap the benefits. And let us be crystal clear: that organization might have demonstrably inferior news coverage, and it will not matter. Just like Wikipedia and the Britannica, the convenient Internet stop will trump the more prestigious but less convenient news source.

Let me repeat that.

An inferior news source that is easy to reach and consume on the internet will trump superior news sources that are even slightly harder to reach. Every time.

This is true whether we're talking about the Wall Street Journal or Hi and Lois comic strips -- people are going to gravitate to those things that fit the activities they're already doing. If two newspaper articles -- or comic strips -- are equally available to the online reading public, then the relative merits of one versus the other will determine ultimate popularity. If one article -- or comic -- is freely accessible and the other one requires cumbersome registration or, worse yet, a paid subscription, then the freely accessible one will have monumentally more readers than the other, regardless of their relative quality.

People don't go to the Internet to read The New York Times (with rare exceptions). People go to the Internet, see a reference to a breaking news story, and hit The New York Times for the straight story about it. If the Times isn't available to be read, they won't pay a subscription to read it -- they'll go to the Washington Post, or the Chicago Tribune, or the Miami Herald, or wherever is most convenient. And they will go to news.google.com to get the pointer in question. All that putting a given paper behind a paywall will accomplish is a rerouting of that traffic to the free content available.

Until the day Publishers understand this basic principle, said so well above and expanded upon so clumsily by me, we will continue to have ridiculous wars between print and Internet journalists, cartoonists and all the rest. Those institutions that can innovate, monetize and produce will do okay in the emerging era. Those who can't will become smaller, niche organizations that ultimately will disappear or be consumed by their more successful brethren. If you don't believe me, ask the folks at the Britannica, which has been sold, split apart, rebranded, and retooled any number of times in an increasingly desperate attempt to remain in profit.

Or, if that's not enough, ask the folks at Microsoft Encarta. If, that is, you can get anyone to answer the phone -- which is unlikely, since they closed down entirely in October of this year -- all except the Japanese version, which closes on the last day of December this year.

I know this, for the record, because I read it on Wikipedia.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:40 PM | Comments (18)

September 11, 2009

Eric: Things Change, after all.

(From Scary Go Round.)

Oddly, given that it is the harvest time, September has become a time for beginnings rather than endings. It is the beginning of the school year. It is the traditional start of the 'new fall season' on television. It is the start of the Halloween buildup and therefore the start of the broader Christmas and Holiday buildup. It is when the new car lineups start to emerge from their showrooms.

But beginnings and endings are inexorably tied together. The new school year is paired to the end of summer. New fall television shows also mean cancelled shows disappear once and for all (this year into the giant sucking vortex generated by Jay Leno's ego chin). Before Halloween and 2010 model cars can take over store shelves and showrooms, there must be clearance sales for beach bric-a-brac and the 2009 Honda Fit. Ends must be tied or intentionally left swinging in the breeze.

Things change.

Which brings us around to Scary Go Round, which has wrapped up its seven year run today.

Scary Go Round began as the sequel to Bobbins, a strip that itself was a sequel to various other projects (most notably a non-'web' comic called Cat Flap) meant less as a direct sequel and more as an evolution of the comic's style and substance alike. New sensibilities accompanied the strip, and while old friends showed back up (and in some cases came to dominance), they were seen through a new lens. This was ostensibly a horror strip, but one as done by John Allison, which is to say with amazingly good dialogue, a wry sense of humor, and 'pluck.' Indeed, though I am not an Anglophile by nature (I have nothing against Great Britain, mind, but I do not have a reverence for it the way some I know do), I find myself enjoying the strip like I would a cracking boy's yarn from the 50's. "We will do our best because we are British and British is best" Shelly Winters said in the penultimate chapter, and that may be as good a description of Scary Go Round's philosophy as any.

And in many ways, Scary Go Round was indeed the best. It had some of if not the best dialogue on the planet -- Allison's command of banter is not unlike an expert jazz guitarist's command of a twelve-string: you might not entirely know how he'll get to the coda, but my God you're going to enjoy the trip. His style -- both of art and of language -- has been influential. (There was a time when people accused Jeph Jacques of 'stealing' John Allison's mojo for Questionable Content, most notably, and to be certain there was a clear path of influence. However, Questionable Content's evolution went in a very different direction. Still, one can see echoes of Allison's work in QC if you look for them, and QC is itself one of the seminal webcomics of the current era.) It never became complacent -- Allison constantly reinvented his style and his toolbox, unafraid to bring even popular characters to horrible ends and to launch new ones in their stead. None of the characters (not even dear old Len Pickering) from the first few strips made even cameo appearances in the last few strips. Grade school students became high school students and now are off to University. Every so often, someone ended up condemned to Hell.

And now it is done. As with Bobbins before, Allison is ready for a fresh start free of monumental and dense backstory and intimidating if beautiful archive pages. After fifty one chapters, Scary Go Round ended today.

So long live beginnings. On Monday, September 21st, a new comic strip will begin -- starting at least at Scary Go Round's site (which itself is undergoing change) before no-doubt migrating to its own domain. The early twentiesomethings of Bobbins and the melange of children, adults, elders, fish-men and the deceased that were Scary Go Round will give way to something new -- something that perhaps reflects Allison's current state of mind better. We know that the next strip will grow out of this one, though in what way and to what degree we do not currently know (we don't even have a title as yet). "Things are going to change," we've heard for some time now, and this is when it starts.

He has stated that Shelly Winters -- she of Doctor Ladysounds and the Ginger Ninja -- will not be a part of this new strip. And indeed, the strip ends with her driving out of Tackleford once and for all. Perhaps Ryan and Amy will be the centerpiece of the next step. Or perhaps Lottie and her chums will take the whole town over. Or perhaps it will be someone entirely new, with only hints here and there of who came before. I don't know.

What I do know is this. Change isn't bad. Like conflict, change can be scary but in the end it's what makes these things worth pursuing. Scary Go Round has been a good web destination, but it's time for something new. The New Fall Season is upon us, and new beginnings are in the air.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work. I have changes of my own which must be wrought, after all, and September waits for no man.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:25 AM | Comments (4)

August 20, 2009

Eric: On Being Super

One of the epic tales of Closed Beta, over at Champions Online, was an ongoing discussion on the game's challenge level. And by ongoing discussion, I mean "impassioned argument."

Put simply -- there were certain closed beta testers who didn't like that lower level enemies were still a threat to their character... and they weren't too happy about same-level enemies being a threat either. If they got two or three levels ahead of a pack of NPC bad guys, they felt that they should essentially be invulnerable to them. If they left the keyboard for a drink, leaving their L15 character in a hazardous area, and nine L11 or L12 bad guys spawned while they were away and proceeded to beat their character into a pulp... well, they found this to be suboptimal.

And, whenever this argument raised its ugly head, the same argument came up. "I just don't feel super" they said. Each and every time.

It's a familiar complaint. I heard this dozens of times over the past five years connected with City of Heroes. "I just don't feel super" inevitably meant "I don't have the opportunity to bust out equal doses of Cool and Kickass often enough." And, there was something to be said for it -- the early opposition in the game, even though you were told they were enhancing themselves one way or another, just didn't seem like they should be that hard for a super hero -- even a young and inexperienced one -- to take down. Further, you got powers slowly, and some powers were arbitrarily spaced out (why someone needed to hit L14 to fly in a Superhero game has always been a mystery). It was showing some of its MMO roots: cool things came at higher levels. Want to ride a horse or war ram or pink elephant? You need to hit 30th level first, Toby Nightelf, and even then don't expect the horse salesman to sell you a horse if you're not in good with his race: economics be damned, horses are human technology and not just any Elf can be trusted with one!

(As a total side note, both World of Warcraft and City of Heroes have been drastically reducing the level requirements for travel options or powers -- it took quite a few years, but they finally figured out no one's that excited by jogging. But I digress.)

The problem is, and always has been, that 'Super,' the way these people mean the term, means 'Unchallenged.' For a lot of people, 'superhero' means 'unstoppable badass,' and anything that makes their character seem like less than an unstoppable badass means by definition their character is not being a superhero. From there, it's simple to see the formula reduced down to its component level:

character + defeat = nonsuper

That's what their argument really boils down to. "I lost the fight, and Wolverine never loses fights, so I'm not a superhero." "I got knocked out, and Batman never gets knocked out, so ergo I'm not being super."

Oh, in debating this point the people in question will make allowances. Sure, the archvillain at the end of the scenario can take you down -- at least every now and again -- and that's okay. Batman is sometimes knocked out by the Joker, after all. But in everyday life, there shouldn't be anything -- but anything -- that leads to you being beaten. It was perhaps made worse in early City of Heroes levels by the type of opposition you were facing, of course -- even if the Hellions use magic to beef themselves up, it's rough to be a mighty hero and have a bunch of street punks who think orange is a good color choice take you down because you bit off more than you can chew -- but the principle still applied. Superheroes didn't lose, they kicked ass.

The problem with this argument, in the end, is that it's wrong. On every level. And that's true in City of Heroes, it's true in Champions Online, and it's true in Marvel Comics. And it underscores something that every writer, developer, artist, or gamer needs to understand: Challenge is Good. There needs to be real stakes involved. Accomplishing things should take effort.

We've talked about such things before. Conflict is good, as I was wont to say in the days when I was wont to say things. When bad things happen to characters in fiction (sequential-art based or not), that set up interesting and engaging situations that became fodder for drama, comedy or both. Well, when reading about super heroes, there has to be a sense of challenge. You have to believe that Spider-Man could get shot in the head and die even if it was desperately unlikely he would. You need a sense that your heroes have to work at their goals, and that there would be consequences if they fail.

The seminal example of this, of course, was the difference between Superman and Spider-Man in the sixties. In the end, the Mort Weisinger era Superman is exactly what those guys who "just don't feel super" are gunning for -- a character who is so powerful, so indestructible that his enemies are less threats than annoyances. Sure, there was Kryptonite, and sometimes there was magic or "the rays of a red sun," but for the most part Superman was amused by the silly gangsters with their silly guns. An MMO that centered on a Lois Lane type character breaking two hundred pairs of scissors on your invulnerable hair as a requirement to level up wouldn't be fun -- it would be excruciating.

(Actually, if someone wants to create a game where you play an all powerful godlike superhero who spends all his time tricking his friends, teaching them humiliating 'lessons,' and being amused when accidents turn them into monkeys or insect people, a la Superman in the sixties... well I'd buy a copy. But the challenge of that game wouldn't be physical danger -- it'd be setting up the perfect humiliation of the pathetic love interest whose major crime is wanting to marry you. But I stray from my thesis.)

Now, Champions Online is good at giving you challenges. In particular, it doesn't reward stupidity. If you stop paying attention because everything around you is two or three levels below you, you will in fact be defeated. If you engage 30 lower level enemies and lack a decent Area of Effect attack, you will in fact lose. And sometimes, this pissed people off. "These guys are mooks! I shouldn't lose to them! Sure, I was stupid, but still -- I'm supposed to be a hero! Batman wouldn't lose to them! I just don't feel super!"

In one of these exchanges, where Batman was in fact brought up, I chimed in. For me, one of the joys of Batman -- when he was written well, at least -- was that he was constantly having to outthink his opponents. Oh sure, he was a great fighter -- but his strength came from using every advantage. He had gear in his belt designed to confuse, surprise and subdue his enemies. He used fear (and the dark) to panic them, forcing them to make mistakes. He was patient, and quiet, and took them down two or three at a time in ways that made the remaining crooks increasingly jumpy and paranoid. And yes, if he were to drop all that and charge into the middle of the room, he'd probably get beaten. Lord knows he'd been knocked out by lucky saps to the head any number of times. It's why he kept waking up in dark rooms tied to a chair with dynamite underneath it (or chained in giant hourglasses that would slowly pour sand on him until he suffocated -- Batman's enemies spend way more money on death traps then they ever take in from bank robberies. But then, Batman's enemies treat crime like performance art.)

"No way," my debate partner responded. "Batman doesn't need to do all that. He's the greatest martial artist who ever lived! He could take them all down!"

What can you do?

Amusingly, I'm reminded of The Dark Knight Returns. In one of the most famous scenes (which I'm about to entirely Spoil, so, you know. Spoiler Alert on a 1986 comic book that 97.6% of the people reading this have read dozens of times) Batman -- now old, of course -- sees the young, vicious warlord ruler of the Mutant street gang, who challenges him to one on one combat. Batman has enough pride to be pulled out of the safety of his Bat-tank and goes at him hand to hand. And the mutant leader -- younger, stronger, in better condition, and much faster -- proceeds to beat him nearly to death. He would have died right there had a fangirl not spontaneously become the new Robin and pulled him out. He had let himself be coaxed into acting stupidly, and that nearly killed him. When he had a rematch with the mutant leader, it was on his own terms, using psychological effects to prod the leader into a rage, then dropping him into a mud pit. That takes away his speed advantage, and while he's still younger, stronger and in better condition, Batman is smarter and more experienced, and utterly in command of the environment. He proceeds to take the leader apart, brutally beating him down in front of his gang, and completely breaking their morale (and leading to a number of them aping his style and eventually becoming his army).

Batman wasn't super the first time. He was stupid, and he got pounded into mush for it. Batman was super the second time, when he used strategy and tactics to accomplish his goals. And that led inexorably to Batman fighting Superman -- the last hurrah of that Pre-Crisis, all powerful, Mort Weisinger super Superman -- and beating him.

That last scene, by the way? That scene where Batman takes down Superman? That completely redefined Batman and Superman in popular culture. That took the World's Finest team of best friends and made them barely tolerate each other. And that cemented in the minds of comic fans everywhere that of course Batman would beat Superman in a fight. Duh. Before that scene, Batman was just that guy with the ropes, the car, the sidekick and the Bat Shark Repellant. We made fun of Batman in the Super Friends.

But Batman was the character who had challenge in his stories and overcame them, and in the end the indestructible man couldn't compete.

I have always liked the challenge of City of Heroes. I like that I have to pick and choose my fights and be intelligent about them. One of the key complaints about City of Heroes these days is that because the underlying A.I. is five years old and so many of us are so experienced in its nature, we've become too good at it. The challenge is less. And NCSoft is responding by allowing us to alter our difficulty with incredible granularity. If you want to solo a mission as though you had a full 8 man team on Unyielding, you can.

And I like -- I really like -- that if I run through Maniacs territory in Champions Online, even if they're a few levels below me, and I don't have my head in the game, they'll wrap chains around me, haul me off my feet, and beat me into paste. If I'm going to be a hero -- if I'm going to win -- I'm going to have to use my brain and my skills in the game to overcome the odds.

And there's nothing that makes me feel more super than that.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:04 PM | Comments (19)

May 11, 2009

Eric: On Treks into Heroism and Reclaiming Ashes: Star Trek and the Heroic Journey

Let me open with the non-Spoilery part of this here essay -- and I do indeed plan to spoil heavily in this here first post in a billion years. I really, really liked the new Star Trek movie.

Let me elaborate with an anecdote on one of the few times I've seen a movie more than once in a theater, and just about the only time I've seen a movie in a theater twice in a short amount of time.

It was early 1987, and I was a young tyro at Boston University. I was still new to post-high school life and a bit drunk with the power of a T Pass. I got a stipend from the United States Government as part of an early -- and unfortunate -- flirtation with the United States Navy. And I had a piece of plastic that let me ride the Boston T wherever and whenever I wanted.

And so in January of 1987, I took a ride on the T on an unseasonably warm day to the Government Center stop, just to tool around and see the sights. And I noticed that Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was still playing in a theater. I hadn't yet seen this movie, because... well, I have no idea why I hadn't seen it yet. My friends had, and they liked it. Still, I didn't have much to do and hey, the theater was almost empty -- it was the middle of the day and Trek had been out for weeks at that point. So I went. Why not.

Two hours later, I marched out of the theater on an absolute high. I was charged -- no, I was supercharged. The last thing I wanted to do was go back to my room. So I turned around, and walked right back in, and proceeded to watch the film for a second time.

I'd never done that before. I haven't done that specific thing since. I've seen movies more than once in the theater since then -- but that was always because I had seen it with one group of friends and then a different group of friends wanted to see it too. It was group activity, in other words, not "oh my God I need to see that movie again." And certainly in recent years I've felt no need to be a repeat film watcher. The DVD will be out soon enough, after all. And there's always way more to watch.

On Thursday at 7 pm, Wednesday, a mutual friend and I all went to see Star Trek, at the first possible showing.

On Sunday, Wednesday and I saw it again. I couldn't imagine waiting for the DVD release -- I had to see this movie again.

So, taking it for what it's worth, I liked the movie.

We're about to move into the main part of this essay, so I'm going to bring back the ancient art of the Cut For Spoilers. Don't continue unless you're okay with them

Seriously, I'm going to reveal everything and its brother about this film.

Up to and including stuff that was misleading in the trailer.

Okay, not a lot of that, but a bit.

Okay, a bit involving hot chicks and underwear.

Right. Last chance.

(RSS readers -- click the link to the main entry on the site, or just click here to continue.

Still here? Then let's spoil ho.

Looking around the blogosphereic mass, I notice that-- wait, what?

Oh, I mentioned hot chicks in their underwear and spoilers? Well, that's true enough. Right. Let me get through that really quickly before we move on. See, in the trailer, we see Uhura stripping out of her uniform, cross-cut with a fast shot of Kirk sliding atop a chick in her underwear in shadows. There is more than a little implication that Kirk was nailing Uhura. Only Weds didn't believe it, because she noticed the hot chick had curlier hair. And she was also certain she was green. So we went frame by frame, and while I was willing to accept that the jury was still out on whether or not that was Uhura (we had only seen her with her hair pulled back, so it was possible they'd go with a glamour shot when it was down), I proved conclusively to her that no, the woman was dark skinned and not green.

So, yeah. The woman was green. Kirk was nailing an Orion chick. A red haired Orion chick. In her underwear. Frankly, I'm surprised that wasn't the tagline of the movie. Star Trek: Red Haired Orion Chick in her Underwear.

But that's not why I'm telling the story. I'm telling it because Weds was happy A) to be right about the Orion chick, but B) because of a detail she thought was amazing. "That Orion chick's red hair is a dye job," she said as we left the film. "That's fantastic. I can totally accept that an Orion chick joining starfleet would dye her hair red. They did that really well."

Well, it was a dye job, but it wasn't a detail the producers threw in. It's just that actress playing the Orion chick had to get ready for her day job. Say what you want -- that actress (Ms. Rachel Nichols of my home state of Maine) has her Geek Movie Cred sewn up for the next decade or so.

But enough exploitation. (Especially since Uhura was a pretty great character this time out). I want to talk about storytelling.

See, there's a popular blog out there that's really impressed with Star Trek, in part because they were so happy to see stock scriptwriting thrown out the window. In particular, they were glad to see the myth theory of the Hero's Journey tossed, and a different story style employed instead.

For those who aren't familiar, the Hero's Journey (technically called the monomyth) was detailed by Joseph Campbell in the 1949 book The Hero With A Thousand Faces. It suggests that, as predicted by mythopoeic critical theory, that the structure of almost all heroic myths -- myths about heroes, in other words -- is generally the same and predictable. From this, we derived the concept of the heroic archetype (as well as the concept of the failed hero, or ectype). In the '80's, Bill Moyers had a surprisingly well received and popular PBS series The Power of Myth, which brought the heroic journey and Campbell to the forefront of thought. Screenweiter Christopher Vogler adapted this into the now-nigh-ubiquitous The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, highlighting many popular movies and showing how they fit the structure. As a result, Hollywood is lousy with heroic journey based screenplays.

Well, as I said, the popular Kung Fu Monkey blog had a post raving about Star Trek, and more to the point complimenting it on entirely eschewing the heroic journey and indeed the concept of the character arc. It was well thought out, supported its thesis, and had tons of comments by intelligent people debating elements of the discussion and only occasionally being marred by mouth breathing moronic trolls. On the whole, a successful essay.

And now, as a card carrying critic well trained in the theories in question and understanding perfectly that the beauty of criticism is we can all be right, I'm going to go ahead and call bullshit on Rogers and his thesis. Because Star Trek and in particular James T. Kirk perfectly follows the archetype of the Heroic Journey.

Stepping around the incredibly emotional (and stunningly well done) prologue, where heroic ectype George Kirk sacrifices himself so his son -- and wife and 800 other people -- can live, we open the journey with James T. Kirk, who we see established in the Norm as a troublemaking kid without respect for authority or other peoples' stuff. He is on a dead end path -- the path of, in Pike's words, becoming the only Genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest.

Kirk receives the Call to Adventure -- he encounters Uhura in a bar, and has a rather unfortunate encounter with a pile of Academy recruits. But, he Refuses the Call initially. Christopher Pike is the first elder figure on Kirk's path, and he provides both the motivation to answer the Call of Adventure and the initial Challenge of the Paternal. Kirk is the way he is because he didn't have his father to look up to. Pike takes the theory of his father and makes it actual -- an example of a Hero (in this case, the truest form of Hero in this world, a Starship Captain). But he doesn't challenge Kirk to live up to his father's example. He challenges Kirk to exceed it. "Your father had command of a starship for twelve minutes," he says, more or less. "In that time, he saved 800 lives. Including your mother's. Including yours. I dare you to do better."

Kirk accepts the Call, giving up his old life (as symbolized by his giving away his motorcycle) and crossing the threshold into the shuttle -- and meets the next significant elder figure on his journey. In this case, the neurotic but loyal Leonard McCoy, older and more grizzled, and ready to accept Kirk immediately. The pair move on together. McCoy's role in the myth will become apparent when we reach the Crossing of the First Threshold, in the very next paragraph.

Kirk has embraced his path, but he cannot truly step into the new world. He is held by his own ego -- he has failed the Kobayashi Maru and indeed taken it twice. That everyone fails this test is not enough for Kirk. Kirk's ego can't permit him to continue until he conquers the test. He does so on the third try, but there meets with the real Threshold Guardian he must overcome -- Commander Spock, the officer who programmed the test. Kirk is brought up on charges and grounded -- right when an emergency forces the immediate commissioning of his graduating class so they can step out into adventure. But Kirk is grounded and unable to continue.

This is where McCoy steps into his place on the Mythic Structure, providing the Supernatural Aid to allow Kirk to pass beyond the first threshold. The weapon or amulet he gives Kirk is a vaccination that will make Kirk seem sick, and give the Doctor an excuse to bring him with him to the Enterprise. Once there, Kirk realizes the true nature of their mission (and its dangers), using what he had already heard from Uhura. He goes to the bridge, confronting his threshold guardian directly -- Commander Spock continuing to act as his obstacle and indeed his antagonist -- and is triumphant, convincing all (including Pike and Spock himself) that he is correct, and allowing them to arm against the coming storm. After the ship has its first encounter with the Narada, Captain Pike is forced to leave. Spock -- the obstacle -- becomes Acting Captain. But before he goes, Pike makes Kirk Acting First Officer. He has made Kirk a real part of the crew, letting him pass the threshold and enter the Belly of the Whale -- represented here by his plunge onto Vulcan to disable the drill to restore the ship's magical powers (in this case communication and transportation). He does so, taking two leaps of faith in the process -- one to the battle, and one to save Sulu.

He emerges, but is torn apart, as one must be on the Heroic path. He is still headstrong and ego driven, and he confronts his recurring obstacle, Spock, once more. He is certain he is right, but is being blocked. He tries to argue, to yell, and ultimately to fight, but fails and is ejected. He has not yet conquered his essential ego, and not yet gained the inner mastery he needs to truly achieve his destiny.

This moves him into Initiation. In this case, he is thrown to a world of ice. The underworld, as it were, where he encounters monsters and the Road of Trials. There too, he encounters the next important guidepost. In the land of the dead, he finds Spock Prime, who saves him, and then enlightens him. Spock Prime affirms his destiny, and speaks also of Kirk's father. In Spock Prime's version of history, Kirk did know his father, and his father was proud of him. Indeed, his father lived to see Kirk achieve his destiny -- to become the Captain of the Enterprise -- that brings Kirk's need for atonement with his father into relief. Spock Prime also brings Kirk into Apotheosis, giving him the mythical expansion of his consciousness by agency of an emotional mind-meld. Kirk sees the face of the menace they face, and learns the nature of the threat. He also learns that it is not his ego but the destiny of the world that he must serve -- and to do so, he must defeat Spock and assume his heroic place as Captain, not for himself but for the sake of all.

There is now the Magical Flight that allows our proto-hero to return to the regular world from the underworld, embodied by an outside agency -- in this case, the Trickster figure of Montgomery Scott. Scotty can return Kirk to the Enterprise (with the help of Spock Prime) and complete Kirk's arsenal all at the same time. Spock Prime gives Kirk the necessary weapons to fight his enemy -- embodied in Spock -- and become the Captain he must be. They fly out, and must cross the Return Threshold, blocked once more by Spock. This time, Kirk is able to confront Spock directly and defeat him, finally removing him as an obstacle and allowing Kirk to assume command. He is now Master of Two Worlds -- the mundane world of commanding the ship, and the divine world of his destiny as a hero -- and can act to stop the threat to Earth. Though the final battle is exciting, it is also a foregone conclusion. James T. Kirk is Captain of the Enterprise, and the Narada -- which was always a MacGuffin -- is no match for that.

Spock, in this interpretation, is relegated to a story-specific role as Antagonist. And indeed, Nero and the Narada are decried as a cypher, because that is what they are. Spock is the enemy Kirk must continually overcome, until he can finally be defeated and made part of Kirk's loyal crew -- only then can Spock take his own place on board the Enterprise and in Kirk's life.

Of course, one can also build a heroic journey for Spock, and indeed the movie does so. But that doesn't deny the Heroic journey Kirk has had to make in order to become the hero he must be.

In conclusion? There was a hot red haired Orion chick in her underwear. Who gives a crap about Kirk?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:35 PM | Comments (15)

April 1, 2009

Eric: On the Cusp of the Fool

As near as I can tell, at least looking at social networking sites, absolutely no one likes April Fool's Day.

This seems odd to me, especially in the era of GenX hitting their forties, because if there's one thing my Generation and those that followed us love? It's shit for kids.

Seriously, man. We're the ones who made Spider-Man a monumentally successful movie franchise. We're the ones who moved Cartoon Network out of the business of making cartoons for children and into the business of manufacturing pop culture. We're the ones who keep Boomerang in business, especially after 7 pm. We're the ones who were rabid about collecting plastic toys that changed from robot to car and back until it hit the point that it too became a successful movie franchise. (And on the heels of it, we have ourselves a G.I. Joe movie coming out too. And it's not starring the Joes from the Baby Boom and it's not starring the poor Sigma Sixers who came after us.)

Oh, we call it "irony," or we demand that "comics aren't just for kids," or we tell people that Superman S's in sparkle-pink (I'm sorry, Supergirl S's, as if Supergirl ever wore sparkle-pink in her four-color life) is a fashion statement. But part of the reason Easter and Halloween are growing in our culture is that Gen-Xers and those who follow don't stop celebrating them when they graduate from college. We want our Christmas Stockings. We eat Count Chocula and watch Scooby Doo on Saturdays. We love shit that's for kids, and we're (officially) not ashamed of it.

But we fucking hate April Fool's Day. Which is so weird to me because it's the absolute pinnacle of "shit for kids." April Fool's Day is the last refuge of 9 year olds, because the 19-49 year olds don't want it. Because they fucking hate April Fool's Day.

We talk for days leading up to April Fool's Day about how much we fucking hate April Fool's Day. We talk about how annoyed we are that when we get up and stumble over to our computers on 1-April that "it's international don't believe anything you see on the Internet day." On April Fool's Day, Gen-X and the Internet Age put on their crotchety old man pants and declare themselves to be entirely too grown up to enjoy people making fun of themselves and of us.

Which is the cusp of it. No matter how ridiculous we get in our love of things from our youth (seriously -- the chief complaint about Watchmen wasn't that it took liberties with the source material, it's that it didn't take enough liberties with the source material and one of the most revered comic book series of the last six years was All-Star Superman, which seemed pretty pedestrian to me, particularly after Moore did it eight times better in Supreme, but because Morrison aped the more ridiculous -- and cool -- elements of the Silver Age Superman instead of declaring Superman too cool to have enemies with a square planet it's being held up as seminal and groundbreaking) we have absolutely no sense of humor about ourselves. None. No matter how good a prank is, "you got me" is never said cheerfully. It's said behind clenched teeth as we fake being a good sport and secretly plan how to kill the fucker with a car.

So, we're buzz-kills about this one, because we don't like to be made fun of. We're okay with other people looking stupid -- Jon Stewart, Matt Groening, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Steven Colbert, Seth MacFarlane, Seth Green and put near everything else we do like comes from mocking other people -- but we don't like to look stupid. We laugh at the depiction of a hopeless nerd on Robot Chicken so long as that depiction is so broad and so unrealistic that we can pretend we're not the ones being laughed at. We laugh when someone looks like a fucking moron, so long as that someone isn't us.

And the heart of April Fool's Day -- the absolute point of it -- is that it makes fun of us. It says "hah! You bought this hoax! HAH HAH!" And we have to grit our teeth and mutter "yeah, you got me." And as stated above, we then plan vehicular murder. No one likes April Fool's Day.

Except, of course, for kids. Kids love it, because they're just young enough to not give a shit about looking stupid.

And the thing that gets me, beyond everything else, is that's exactly what we're looking for. We're looking for that essence, that moment in time, that part of ourselves who didn't give a shit about looking stupid, they just wanted to have a good time. When we read a comic book on the bus, we do so ironically or we do so defiantly, or we change the entire comic book industry to be more mature all in an effort to legitimize the act of reading a comic book on the bus, because deep down we just want to read comic books but we don't want to look stupid while we're doing it. We go to things like BotCon or Anime conventions or SF Cons or one of the various ComiCons in part because they're a good time, and in part because once we walk through those doors we don't look stupid liking what we like. It's safe. And the one thing that pisses us off is the television crew that shows up and films us, because we know we're going to have Stormtroopers, chicks in slave Leia costumes and unshaven fat guys dressed as Sailor Moon on the evening news, and the one thing we can't stand is that makes us look stupid.

Fuck that noise. Fuck it in the ear. I like silver age comics. I don't like them ironically. I don't like them nostalgically. I don't like recontextualizing them for my adult sensibilities. I don't like them because "they're not just for kids." I like them for what they are, on their own merits, because I enjoy super heroes fighting supervillains. I like them. I enjoy reading about the Levitz era Legion, or the Wolfeman/Perez Teen Titans, or the Claremont/Austin X-Men. I enjoy reading about Steve Rogers dressing up as Captain America and fighting Nazis while defending the rights of minorities and challenging us to be better people. I enjoy reading about Billy Batson saying his magic word and becoming the quintessential good guy without feeling like we have to make him, his sister and his disabled best friend suffer unimaginable torments to make them 'edgy.' I like it.

When I watch Super Friends on TV, I watch it because I fucking like Super Friends. I don't need to redress it or dismiss it or make jokes about it to enjoy watching Superman get shaken by Solomon Grundy or Sinestro trick Green Lantern into moving the planet Earth closer to the sun and then forgetting to fix it. Yeah, I know it's dopy if I pretend to be an adult when I watch it. But I like it on its own merits.

Yeah, I enjoyed Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, but I also enjoy Birdman and the Galaxy Trio. I like this shit because I like this shit.

And I like April Fool's Day.

Let me say that more obnoxiously.

I like April Fool's Day!

I like it when people are clever. I like it when they take the time and effort to build something well, even if the purpose is to make me look credulous. I like when David Willis ends Shortpacked, launches 'Ultimate Roomies,' and redesigns his entire website based on the new strip. And works really hard to sell that fact. I think it's hysterical and I think it shows a great sense of self deprecation on his part and I think it shows a lot of time and effort to, in the end, celebrate a day where the world is whatever the fuck we want to make of it, and if we buy the hoax, even for a second, that's okay because god damn it, it's April Fool's Day. And it depresses me that in the Webcomics World, what was once a day of joy and anarchy (and for many years a day when artists would trade strips and try to do each others' jobs) has become a day when people solemnly declare that they're not going to be having any pranks or shenanigans, because they know that people hate that.

One of the comments to Willis's tour de force performance on his blog? "And so the worst fucking day of the year begins."

Jesus fuck, man. Get over it. It's April Fool's Day. Enjoy it for what it is. Read the epic saga of Cadie. Try to buy some Squeeze Bacon or just wince at the thought of it. Get excited for the Groundhog Day musical. Have some fun with it.

And if you can't, stop being a fucking buzzkill because you're terrified of looking stupid. If you just can't get in touch with your inner seven year old enough to just enjoy what this is, don't actively try to ruin it for everyone else. If nothing else? Because the only way to really look stupid on April Fool's Day is to preemptively try not to look stupid on April Fool's Day.

Seriously. Your declarations and your bubble-bursting? Is the ultimate victory of anyone who ever fooled you. They managed to take a thirty-second joke no one will ever remember and change your fucking life with it. You not only were 'gotten?' You never stopped being gotten, and everyone knows it because you keep telling them.

Now that's comedy.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:03 AM | Comments (34)

January 18, 2009

Eric: A truism from the grave.

Here is a thing you should know, if you intend to produce webcomics.

If I can read five of your strips and, after reading five of your strips still have no sense of what your webcomic's premise is? You have done it wrong.

Seriously. This is not decompression. This is "failing to convey a sense of your webcomic."

Thank you. I look forward to speaking to you again. Perhaps in April.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:20 AM | Comments (16)

November 11, 2008

Eric: We call it Veteran's Day in this country, but around the world it is Remembrance Day.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we will remember.

We will remember rows and rows of brave men and boys who charged into a new kind of war, over trenches, facing machine guns that spat out lead faster and with less discrimination than ever before. War was thought of as a noble pastime before they began this fight. Its nobility died on French fields with so many others.

We will remember armies that hated one another by tradition and temperament coming together and forming alliances. The French and the English. The Democratic and the Communist. Always the human.

We will remember the men and women, girls and boys who took up arms when their country called, in every country around the world. Who went and fought and died for causes they could believe in and for no reason at all except that their leaders told them to go. We will remember their courage. We will remember their loyalty.

One day a year, let us take one moment of one day and just remember them.

Whether we name it for those we remember and call it Veterans or commemorate the act itself and call it Remembrance, this is the day we stop and remember.

It is eleven o'clock on the eleventh of November.

We remember.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:00 AM | Comments (3)

November 5, 2008

Eric: A moment of reality.

In 1992, I watched the election returns at my Parents', as I almost always do. I stayed up late, long after they went to bed. I watch George Herbert Walker Bush concede. And I watched William Jefferson Clinton, after twelve years of Reagan, of Bush, of Republican rule, of jingoism and centralism and scandal and Iran-Contra and any number of things that were of vital importance to my twentysomething self that I can't really remember now, make his acceptance speech.

And it inspired me. My heart soared with his words. Clinton and Gore, the dream team, the redeemers, the bringers of light and life and rationality and whatever else. I clearly remember the two of them and their wives standing on stage afterward, ubiquitous campaign theme "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow" playing in the background. I remember Tipper and Hillary doing a little song-dance thing, the kind of thing college kids do when they hear that bit of a song they really like, and I just felt good. I knew, I knew it was all going to get better now.

And here's the thing. It did get better. But it also got worse. Good things happened. Bad things happened. There were outrages and triumphs for Clinton, for Gore and for the nation. But the overpowering sense that we had won, that Yesterday Was Gone and Tomorrow Was Here, that this was the theme music for happily ever after? That didn't last.

Because you know something? Yesterday was gone. But tomorrow is still tomorrow. It's today. It's always today.

It is 2008, and last night I went to my parents' house once again. We drank some wine and we watched the election results. I love election night. Win, lose or three month Florida recount, I love election night. I love the drama, the pagentry, the returns, the graphics, the commentary, the excuses, the smug retorts, the concessions and the acceptances. I love it. To me, this is the cultural defining moment of the United States of America, the single most significant act to our national character. In 1776, we declared that from this point forward, we were going to govern ourselves, and Election Day is the culmination and ritual act that makes that happen, and election night is the celebration of that ritual.

And last night was a good one. There was excitement and energy and a good narrative storyline. The various news agencies were on their A game. Dumbass holograms were employed. MSNBC and NBC News froze the red and blue state maps under the skating ice at Rockafeller Center.

And yeah, it ended. The eternal campaigning that took two years ended. The pain ended. And yes, for all those who hated George W. Bush with a passion -- and they are legion now -- that too has had its last trump played. The eight years of Bush are over.

And, what is more, a black man is now the President-Elect of the United States of America. Inauguration Day of next year, I swear to God, is scheduled such that on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the NAACP, a non-white man will for the first time take the oath of office and be our President.

I loved McCain's concession. The word that keeps coming up is 'gracious,' and it was. It reaffirmed what John Wayne said a long time ago about John F. Kennedy -- what we all should remember when our candidate loses and the other guy wins. Wayne said "I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job." Last night, McCain essentially said the same thing, and pledged his support, and called upon those who supported him to do the same. I hope that comes to pass.

I loved Obama's speech. It had just the right balance of humility in the face of history coupled with the exultant, soaring culmination of achievement. His daughters were aggressively adorable, and he told them they were going to get a puppy.

I loved Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan, two men I often disagree with, but whose insights and viewpoints were razor sharp last night.

And yes, at the end there was a tremendous feeling of relief. It was over. There was a temptation to feel the way I had felt when I was twenty-four years old and Bill Clinton had just given his acceptance speech. To feel like this was a victory, that we had been ushered into Happily Ever After.

But I'm not twenty-four. I'm forty. And I know the truth. We haven't won.

If you were desperately pulling for Obama, relish the victory. But we haven't won.

If you were desperately pulling for McCain, spare all the time you need for regret. But you haven't lost.

We're not at happily ever after. We're not living in Tomorrow. It's not over.

It never, ever will be.

Today, President-Elect Obama is beginning the process of assembling his administration. In the meantime, we are in financial meltdown. We are in two wars. We have social strife. We have the strangest situation where South Dakota strongly repudiated the politics of the culture war even as California embraced them. We have desperate social inequalities. We have people trapped in foreclosure. We have soldiers in harm's way. We have people who want to kill us just because we exist.

Barak Obama, whether you like him or not, is going to do some things very well. He is going to do okay on other things. He is going to make some minor mistakes elsewhere. And he is going to completely blow it at other times. The Democrats in Congress are going to push their agenda forward in some ways, fall into fracture and divisiveness in others. Sometimes they will cooperate with the Republicans, and sometimes they'll shaft them. The Republicans will sometimes come together with the Democrats to get things done and sometimes will fight tooth and nail to beat them and make them look bad at the same time. And don't kid yourselves -- no one is better than the Republicans at playing defense.

This is where the hard work starts, not ends. This is where we all have to cope with the financial, social and military world that this new Administration and Congress are going to inherit. There is no happily ever after. There is only today, and today there's a Hell of a lot of work to be done.

And Barak Obama's not going to do it. He can't. No one man could. And in two years, we will not have solved all our problems. We might not have solved most of them. And two years after that we'll still be working on it.

Both McCain and Obama made reference to this last night. There is an impossible amount of work before us all, and as Obama said, it won't be done in a year or even in a Presidential term. What he did not say is it will never be done. Even if we fix all the troubles we currently have, new troubles will arise. New challenges will need to be met.

I have hope. Pure, wonderful hope. Hope that Obama will be a good President. Hope that Congress will do a good job. Hope that the nation will indeed pull together and fix things. But hope is not faith, and it certainly isn't blind faith. This is going to be hard. This is often going to suck on toast. And a whole lot of people are going to be desperately disappointed. Hell, a whole lot of people -- an estimated fifty six million as of the current count -- are disappointed today. And the sixty three million who are thrilled and elated will be disappointed sometime in the next four years. It is inevitable. We must be prepared for that.

In the end, it all comes back to the same thing. If you are an American, whether or not you voted for him, he will be your President. Even as he is my President, and, in John McCain's words, his President.

All we can do is hope he does a good job. He and the Congress we the people of the United States of America sent along with him.

History was made yesterday. Soaring, hopeful history, changing the course of this Nation. It was made by millions upon millions of people, and that's amazing. But that was yesterday, and yesterday's gone. It's today now. It's always today. And today, there's a hell of a lot of work to be done. And if a black man was named President-Elect yesterday, it's worth remembering that today homosexuals in California have been told that their relationships and commitments don't count, and that they are second class citizens. Told by their neighbors. The people that they meet each day.

Today's here, and there's a lot of work to be done.

My hope to Obama, to the Democrats and Republicans in Congress, to the elected officials I voted for and the ones I didn't vote for. May they do a good job. May we all.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:44 PM | Comments (27)

September 4, 2008

Eric: Also on the list of real life mad scientists I know: the coworker who once rebuilt his laptop into a destructive heat ray.

We're getting ready to launch a brand new school year! So I've been, y'know, extra busy this week. Not that anyone's terribly surprised when I disappear for a little while here on the blog. At least this time it wasn't six weeks.

One thing I did take the time to do -- said time taking, oh, nine seconds -- was buy the just released Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog Soundtrack off of iTunes. I haven't felt any huge need to talk up the good Doctor -- most of you should already know about the internet sensation that swept geekdom like a giant... sweeping... thing over the course of the summer. (If you're totally clueless, be enlightened.) I really loved the videos, and it was a fait accompli that I'd get the album when it came out.

I won't promise there won't be minor spoilers below, for the record.

While listening to the studio recordings, I found my mind wandering to mad science. More to the point, I found my mind wandering to writing mad science. I have a project or two under the cone of silence that touch on the few, the proud, the psychotically curious, and like a lot of writers i sometimes use the power of music to get my brain in the right state of mind for whatever I'm working on. We are programmed by television and movies to respond to musical cues, almost subconsciously -- the right music can underscore pain or joy, make us happy or sad, get us into the mindset of who we're watching or drive us away, depending on what they're going for. And a writer can use that when they're writing in the first place.

And honestly, writing mad science takes some brain work.

You see, it's easy to assume that mad science is just cute and fluffy and geek positive. Lots of real life geeks of giant brain identify themselves as "mad scientists." Some (I'm looking at you, Van Domelan) even qualify. (Actually, Superguy alumnus Bill Paul still wins the prize for maddest scientist I've met, though it's worth noting i've never actually met Andy Weir. Apparently, when he took an undergraduate apartment near school, he discovered there was a 220 volt tap for a dryer that didn't currently exist. His immediate reaction was "Cool! Now I can make plasma!" But I digress. And yes -- we're going to be talking about Casey and Andy soon.)

The thing is? Mad scientists, as a trope? They're not cute and fluffy and geek positive. They're insane. They're arrogant and deeply broken -- their pain and insanity driving their science beyond all rational measure. It's a powerful image -- one that laymen are willing to accept almost at face value. Scientists seem like magicians to us, after all -- they make nuclear power plants and electrical grids and bridges and chemicals that do everything from regulate brain imbalances to endanger us with four hour erections. Science is huge and can be scary, and these men and women get it using math most of us don't even recognize as symbols. We can believe that one of these intensely intelligent people might go too far -- push too hard... learn too much, delve into things best left undelved, and lose their mind in an arrogant belief that they can force the world to yield its secrets and bend to his whim. As with Faust in an earlier incarnation, we're willing to accept that something supremely dangerous and horrifying lies just beyond the pale, and those who seek after knowledge with too great a fervor will be consumed by it.

And, of course, when you gain the knowledge of the gods, you become a god -- or so you believe. It is natural for the superior to rule over the inferior. World domination isn't an end, it's a byproduct.

The trick is finding the right music to push your brain into that mindset -- to drive that combination of brilliance and hubris, often with a side order of a pain that can't ever be alleviated. Sure, real life scientists might enjoy "Particle Man," but that's not going to combine the hunger for knowledge and the driving need to change/recreate/rule/destroy the world.

On all the Dr. Horrible soundtrack, the only truly mad science fueled song is the intense (and wonderful) "Brand New Day," as our... er... hero goes from a moderately nice and schlubish supervillain poseur to the real psychotic deal. You can feel the brilliance and evil burn out of Neil Patrick Harris, wiping out the "dork and failure" as he says and leaving behind a being who can (and does) terrorize. None of the other songs on the album have this sheer mad science quality. "My Freeze Ray" is cheerful and pleasant and very human, regardless of the advanced technology. "Slipping" and "Everything You Ever" yield confrontation and consequence, but not that pure expression of manic belief.

And that got me thinking. Clearly, I needed a song list. One song isn't enough, after all. I needed songs that had that quality, whether or not they actually dealt with science or mad science or anything of the sort. And I have a music collection, so why not pare through it.

So I did. I found the songs that seem to trigger the right neurochemical response in my brain -- the frantic energy, the certainty, the terrible surety of their quest or cause. There had to be an edge to these songs -- a sense that something isn't quite right in the world. And even if the songs are enthusiastic, they shouldn't be happy. And in many cases, there should be a sense of defiance. Most Doctor Demento songs get let out because they're not staring you in the eye demanding you kneel before them.

I also kind of decided to avoid the cliche and the twee with my picks. "She Blinded Me With Science" isn't on here -- Thomas Dolby might be a mad scientist but his lament is a victim's lament, not a victor's. And "Weird Science?" Please. There's an Oingo Boingo song here, but it lacks goofiness, thank you. "Weird Science" is what mad science groupies play while waiting outside the laboratory in hopes of getting an autograph or a transmutation into some kind of shark-pumpkin person. Finally, I tried to keep it to one song per artist.

Naturally, these are the songs that work for me. They may not work for you. And yes, I'd be happy to hear more suggestions in the comments. In alphabetical order by title, I give you my Mad Scientist Mix.

"American Jesus," Bad Religion: Right off the bat, you see there's no science here. What there is a hard edged beat and a song about entitlement, about superiority, about damning the consequences and damning the world and not caring because you're a special snowflake 'cause preacher told you so. From the driving core of the song:

He's the farmers' barren fields, (In God)
He's the force the army wields, (We trust)
He's the expression on the faces of the starving millions, (Because he's one of us)
The power of the man. (Break down)
He's the fuel that drives the Klan, (Cave in)
He's the motive and the conscience of the murderer (He can redeem your sin)
He's the preacher on TV, (Strong heart)
He's the false sincerity, (Clear mind)
He's the form letter that's written by the big computer, (And infinitely kind)
He's the nuclear bombs, (You lose)
He's the kids with no moms (We win)
And I'm fearful that he's inside ME (He is our champion)

This concept of the spirit -- the demiurge that wreaks its will upon the countryside while still being a part of you? That could as easily describe "madness" in Narbonic or "the spark" in Girl Genius.

"As I Sat Sadly By Her Side," Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Atypical on this list -- most of these songs emphasize the savage joy (or savage motion) of rhythm. This, on the other hand, is a beautifully orchestrated, piano heavy ballad with a sense of melancholy. It jabs my Mad Science hindbrain because of a combination of unsettling music -- it is beautiful, but there is a sense that somehow it denotes a world that's wrong -- and dark imagery. It describes the figure who has hope for the world, and the figure who sees the suffering of individuals. Either one could be a mad scientist -- the woman who sees a shining future or the man who sees the cost and finds it unacceptable. Telling, though, are two stanzas near the end:

Then she drew the curtains down
And said, "When will you ever learn
That what happens there beyond the glass
Is simply none of your concern?
God has given you but one heart
You are not a home for the hearts of your brothers

And God does not care for your benevolence
Anymore than he cares for the lack of it in others
Nor does he care for you to sit
At windows in judgement of the world He created
While sorrows pile up around you
Ugly, useless and over-inflated"

He has seen the world's flaws. She obscures them and dismisses them. He feels responsible for making the whole world well. She feels no responsibility for the world at all. Polar extremes, and both mad.

"Big O!," Tosihiko Sahasi: The theme song from the cartoon. This is the polar opposite of the last entry -- this one's entirely about the savage joy of rhythm. The lyrics not only don't denote some moral dilemma, they mostly consist of "BIG O!" shouted over and over again. The song has a similarity in feel to the old Queen "Flash Gordon" theme, though, and the hammering beat makes your heart beat faster too. Musically, you can entirely accept that madmen build a world from the musical structures within, and then a giant robot blows shit up.

"Brand New Day," Neil Patrick Harris: What started the article. It doesn't get madder than this. This is the moment of epiphany for the bad Doctor -- the moment when he bursts through the nice, shy guy he was before to become the true, future ruler of the world. This is where he stops wanting to look out for kids in the park, and starts wanting to rampage through the streets:

All the time that you beat me unconscious I forgive
All the crimes incomplete - listen, honestly I'll live
Mr. Cool, Mr. Right, Mr. Know-It-All is through
Now the future's so bright and I owe it all to you
Who showed me the light

It's a brand new me
I got no remorse
Now the water's rising
But I know the course
I'm gonna shock the world
Gonna show Bad Horse
It's a brand new day

The distinction between the driven man of scientist and the madman who uses techniques "no reputable scientist would employ" while tearing into fields of study forbidden, for man was not meant to know them... is a moment of epiphany like this.

"Chicks Dig Giant Robots," Deathwish IX: Mad science as surf rock. This was the MEGAS XLR, and as suits that work it is enthusiastic and bright, counterpointing the banality of New Jersey with the epic of saving the world from alien invasion in a giant robot car. It might not immediately seem like Mad Science so much as mecha combat, but the core of the cartoon is an automobile nut who loves video games finds a prototype giant robot that's missing its head in a junkyard, and then rebuilds it using his classic car as the head, rerigging all the controls to a melange of video game controllers. That the thing works at all -- much less that it's superior to anything the designers could have hoped, is pure mad science at its best Plus he added flaming eightball paint jobs. And, as the song claims:

You dig giant robots!
I dig giant robots!
We dig giant robots!
Chicks dig giant robots!
Nice!

As justifications go for your rampage that decimates half of Trenton, it'll do just fine.

"Eli's Coming," Three Dog Night: I'll admit, some of my Sorkin love fuels this pick. In one of the best episodes of Sports Night, Dan (the cool host) sees a convergence of bad signs and declares that Eli's coming. When it becomes clear that he's reffing the Three Dog Night song, and that said song is about an inveterate womanizer, he agrees but said when he first heard it, it sounded like it meant trouble was coming. And, as he says, those things stick with you. And in that way, this has stuck with me. What makes it mad science? Well, it fits musically -- musical and frenetic but with a sense of dread coupled with terrible inevitability:

Walk but you'll never get away
No, you'll never get away from the burnin' a-heartache
I walked to Apollo by the bay
Everywhere I go though, Eli's a-comin' (she walked but she never got away)
Eli's a-comin' (she walked but she never got away)
Eli's a-comin' and he's comin' to git ya (she walked but... she walked but...)
Get down on your knees (she walked but she never got away)

Obsession, fear, flight, conquest. The fools at the Pier 1 down on pier nineteen will pay for defying the will of ELI! Look, it works for my brain. I don't promise it will for yours.

"Genius," Warren Zevon: It was nigh inconceivable a Zevon song wouldn't make the list, but this was iffy. I considered this one, "Piano Fighter" (for it's energy) and others. But in the end, this song has a sense of simmering, respectful resentment masked in a relatively peppy beat. It's the dark face of "Brand New Day" in its own way -- the loss that forms the maniac resolve. "You'll pay," the song seems to say. "When I have taken over the world then you'll pay!"

When you dropped me and you staked your claim
On a V.I.P. who could make your name
You latched on to him and I became
A minor inconvenience
Your protege don't care about art
I'm the one who always told you you were smart
You broke my heart into smithereens
And that took genius

You and the barber make a handsome pair
Guess what--I never liked the way he cut your hair
I didn't like the way he turned your head
But there's nothing I can do or say I haven't done or said

Everybody needs a place to stand
And a method for their schemes and scams
If I could only get my record clean
I'd be a genius

"I Wanna Be a Boss," Stan Ridgway: There are dedicated, passionate, even obsessed scientists who want nothing more than to make the discovery, to find the truth. While some of them might be Mad Scientists, they don't have to be. Mad Science requires something beyond the drive to know. There also has to be ambition -- ambition that can't ever truly be satisfied. This is where the drive to rule comes from -- the certainty that you could do it better, coupled with the sense that finally your genius will be given its unmitigated due. He starts off wanting a nice office, expensive clothes, a lear jet, the respect of his peers... but as the song progresses, his dreams get progressively grander, wilder, not just unlikely but impossible. And then he goes farther:

Now if I find a product I like
I'll buy up the whole company
Shave my face, and grin and smile
And then I'll sell it on TV
And everyone will know me
I'll be more famous than Howard Hughes
I'll grow a long beard and watch
Ice Station Zebra in the nude

And grow my nails like Fu-Manchu
Keep a row of specimen jars
Get other people to work for me--well
Maybe I'll buy the planet Mars, and
Build an amusement park up there
Better than old Walt's place
You'll have to be a millionaire to go
We'll smoke cigars and lounge in lace
Talk the talk of businessmen
And bosses that we are
So here's to me--the drinks are free--
'Cause I just bought this bar!

Within the heart of the Mad Scientist beats the heart of a man who knows that when he rules the world, it will be an absolute paradise. For him, anyway, and who else could possibly matter as much?

"The Math Song," The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets: from the movie Spaceship Zero. It opens with someone shouting "Your facts! Your figures! What are they worth now? Huh? Are they worth the lives of seven billion people?!" So, you know it starts out well. And then the song starts with a good drum beat and high guitar and cheer and a singer who sounds a touch strung up singing a song that makes it clear that yes. Yes these facts and figures are worth the lives of seven billion people. Don't be ridiculous:

X
X by the tangent of N
N minus pi over 10
That equals negative 9
Negative 9 is so fine

You've got a brain
And nobody really needs another love song

This is the song that underscores the joy and beauty in math, the power of the brain... and honestly, haven't we heard all the ridiculousness about love and adoration and other people before? No one needs another love song! You've got a brain! Read a book!

"The Needle Lies," Queensryche: Another song that sets the tone with a voiceover before it begins. "I've had enough -- and I want out!" [sound of crash] "You can't walk away now," comes the answer, followed by the all-important mad scientist laugh -- a laugh that trails up at the end instead of down. Operation: Mindcrime is a concept album that plunges the horrible depths of mad science. One of its characters is actually called Doctor X for God's sake!

I looked back once
And all I saw was his face
Smiling, the needle crying
Walking out of his room
With mirrors, afraid I heard him scream
Youll never get away

Cold and shaking
I crawled down alleys to try
And scrape away the tracks that marked me
Slammed my face into walls of concrete
I stared, amazed at the words written on the wall

Dont ever trust
Dont ever trust the needle, it lies
Dont ever trust
Dont ever trust the needle when it cries...
Cries your name

In a way, this suffers from the same thing as "She Blinded Me With Science." Nikki is a victim, not a mad scientist. But where "She Blinded Me With Science" is a romp, about the seductive powers of the modern woman with her perfume and her wicked ways... this is about a man crawling away desperately from the madman who has taken over his existence and threatens to destroy it, and there is no escape.

Now that's Mad Science, baby. Dr. X could take Dolby's chick out with one jab.

"No One Lives Forever," Oingo Boingo: This pick was a tossup between it and "Insanity" -- both the version from Farewell -- Live, the last concert Boingo played as Boingo. Both have that burning energy, that intensity that separates the sane from the not-sane, and they both kick the ass of "Weird Science" in pretty much every way. I go with this one because it's less about true full on non mad-sciency psychosis and more about the inevitability of death and the need to therefore go for absolute broke in life, without concern for laws or what is possible:

No one beats him at his game
For very long but just the same
Who cares, there's no place safe to hide
Nowhere to run--no time to cry
So celebrate while you still can
'Cause any second it may end.
And when it's all been said and done . . .
Better that you had some fun
Instead of hiding in a shell-Why make your life a living hell?
So have a toast, and down the cup
And drink to bones that turn to dust ('cause) . . .
No one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one, no one
No one lives forever!! (Hey!)

The song is a party, a celebration. What it celebrates is that we're alive and someday we won't be so don't hold back! Don't let yourself have regrets! Take this life for all it's worth. Doctor Madblood would certainly agree. Not that he won't prove them wrong. Oh yes. Yes he will.

"The Sidewalk Song (v 1.1)," The Tenmen: For a while, Radio Achewood had a couple of tracks up from 'the Tenmen,' the black clad trio of rickenbacher playing cats who Roast Beef, Emeril and Spongebath all love. They're gone now, which I can understand -- how can one hope to put to music a group defined in a silent medium as the best post-wave musicians of their age. Still, this track has a beat and a funk that's infectious, and feels like distilled productivity. There are no lyrics -- it is, if anything, aureal wallpaper, but I could see it as the closest representation to the music a mad scientist hears in his mind, and that's good enough for me.

"Skullcrusher Mountain," Jonathan Coulton: Yeah yeah, I know. All these songs I've been avoiding all the geek-adored obvious picks. I don't have "They're Coming to Take Me Away." Hell, I don't have any They Might Be Giants on the list. These are songs about the crush and the pain, and here I have geek icon Jonathon Coulton with his parody of romantic light rock songs, all about the mad scientist who woos a pretty young thing. Look, the difference here is the absolute sense of rightness in the protagonist's voice, and the continued failure of his methods to have any positive effect:

I'm so into you
But I'm way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I'm crazy
I'm not surprised that you agree
If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don't like it
What's with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don't like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

It's all here -- the lack of ability to see the real world. The absolute certainty that his master plans cannot fail -- be they destroying the planet or hooking with his girlfriend. And, as he said above -- the chick likes ponies and likes monkeys, so why wouldn't a monkey-pony monster be the perfect gift! It's convenient, and no one else one! Honestly, Can't you show a little gratitude?

"Straw Hat and Old Dirty Hank," Bare Naked Ladies: This song's subversive. It's very bright and perky and cheerful and you can listen to it a dozen times before it hits you that this guy's a crazy celebrity stalker who thinks Anne Murray's talking to him in her songs. (Or Rae Don Chong. Or others. I've heard several women named.) He is a farmer, he works in the field, and he has come to see himself as the man who feeds the world -- and especially the love of his life -- with his labors. There's no science here but there is the right kind of delusion -- as well as the sullen resentment that can creep in when his letters to the celebrity stop fulfilling his worldview:

All of this corn I grow I grow it all for you
I took a hatchet to the radio I did it all for you
You could have written back,
You could have said "Thank you"
I guess you've got better things,
better things to do.

You say you love me, is that the truth?
Although they've heard the songs, my friends want living proof.
I know your address, I ring the bell
I bring you flowers and a .22 with shells.

He knows what the world is. He knows that he gets it -- he knows the truth. And his friends -- his friends -- won't believe them, and you won't write back so he could prove it. You have to understand, he's got to prove how you feel. He's got to prove it to the world. And then, when he has you and his life is so great... well, his so called friends will change their tune, won't they, but it will be too late. Too late!

Replace the psycho stalking with 'building an Oo-ray,' and Bob's your Uncle. And it's so upbeat in its psychosis.

"What We Need More Of is Science," MC Hawking: I'll admit, I'm not the biggest MC Hawking fan on Earth. It just seemed... I dunno. Cute, to me. A little twee. I didn't hate the Hawk, I just didn't buy in. But "What We Need More of is Science," the first of the Achewood songfights (the second was the fantastic "Corner of Dude and Catastrophe" by MC Frontalot with Brad Sucks) is just a wonderful rant against the people of the world who follow ridiculous cults (from crystals to fundamentalist Christianity in his view) and don't spend enough time listening to their god damn science teachers. This is the sort of rant that leads, fundamentally, to a giant steam powered robot with vortex rays mounted on the shoulders and an unbreakable glass dome on the head where the inventor sits in an easy chair, holding a martini that foams slightly, smiling and saying "where's this God then? Why doesn't He stop me? Mm? Here's my creation -- it's the one beating up His creation." And then he would laugh, and laugh and laugh.

The list is incomplete. The list can't be complete, because there could be something on it tomorrow that serves the same purpose. And the list that works for me might not work for you. If we could find the music playlist that elicited the same brain chemical responses in every listener, we could (of course) rule the world, but so far that goal is elusive. Still, we can get closer. Go ahead and chime in, down in the comments. What's music rocks your Mad Science hindbrain? What do you listen to when you're dreaming of unleashing your unstoppable Pneumatic Steel Legion upon the fools at Tompkins-Cortland Community College? And in what way am I wrong? Which of these songs denotes my clear inferiority, which shall lead to your song list crushing mine like so many grapes held in the hydraulically driven hand of your fabrication robot?

Go on. Prove me wrong, Silent Bob. For if you do not... then soon... I... will... rule... the world.

Of mad scientist mix tape creation.

Look, start small.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:18 PM | Comments (80)

August 28, 2008

Eric: The sad thing is, I generally preferred Siskel to Ebert.

Oh joy. It's another Zen and the Art of Criticism post. I'm sure you're all excited.

Like most people, I look at my various statistics. I like to know how many people come to the site, and how many of them have things to say, and how many of those things are good versus... well, not so kind. It's this thing one does. And most of us in fact do it.

Well, I saw an incoming link from Tad Williams's online forum, so I followed it to this discussion, which had been prompted by the Kurtz/Carlson thing, but (as with so many of these discussions) it had morphed into something else. The link in question described me as the "Roger Ebert" of Webcomics Criticism, which isn't the worst thing I've been called (one aspires to be the Pauline Kael of Webcomics Criticism, and fears becoming the Anthony Lane of Webcomics Criticism, but Ebert's a cool guy. I'm not nearly that good at what I do, mind, but still).

The question was raised, however -- well, let me quote "Rook," who was the guy kind enough to link me in the first place:

One of the things that kinda gets me is that works of art can be critiqued. But can critiques be critiqued? I suppose so, but that creates a weird feedback loop where there seems to be no end. Another thing is when you call a critic out on something, a typical response is, "Well, it's just a matter of opinion after all." Whereas an artwork, whether visual, written, or musical, has to stand for something.

Can critiques be critiqued? Can criticism be criticized?

Unquestionably, undoubtedly, and unreservedly yes. But we should discuss what we mean by criticism.

I've beaten this drum before, but there are really three definitions of criticism in use today, which have had the unfortunate effect of muddying the waters for everyone involved. In no particular order:

1. Criticism is the interpretation or analysis of creative work, attempting to discern both technique and meaning within one of many potential contexts. This is the one Kris Straub will make fun of me over -- criticism in this definition refers to working out what an artist has done and how he has done it. While the analysis is necessarily subjective, this definition is less about judgement and more about interpretation. There are lots of "critical theories" that critics of this stripe subscribe to, ranging from traditional analysis through political filters like Marxism or Feminism (or any other -isms you care to apply) up to modern and post-modern theories like the (quite old) "New criticism" through the esoterica of Deconstructionism. When you read literary journals, this is ostensibly the kind of criticism you'll find.
2. Criticism is the judgement rendered by (theoretically) qualified, (hopefully) impartial analyst over the effectiveness of given creative work at meeting its intentions and the suitability of the work to popular enjoyment. This is an overly highfalutin' way of saying "Critics review shit." This is the Roger Ebert side of Criticism -- it may touch on aesthetics or artistic merit or the like, but generally it says "this work is good and you should consume it" or "this work sucks and you should shun it," or some value in between the extremes. When we make references to film critics, book critics, theater critics, the old television cartoon The Critic or the like, almost always we're referring to Reviewers like this. Any time you've seen stars or thumbs as part of a criticial essay, you're reading a review.
3. Criticism means pointing out the flaws in someone or someone's work. This is unquestionably the most popular day-to-day usage. "Do you mind some constructive criticism?" "To be critical for a moment...." "If you can't take criticism maybe you shouldn't ask my opinion." And so on and so forth. Criticism is innately negative, in this definition -- it isn't about what people do right, or how well a given work (or given person) accomplishes its goals, it's about they've done it wrong. Criticism is innately negative under this definition, and the only good that can come from it is reform.

You can see the problem, I trust. Someone can work diligently under the first definition of criticism and be conflated with the third by virtue of terminology. Reviewers and analysts becomes one thing, and the people who read their essays will expect elements of both somewhere in the work. It's not enough to describe how something is done -- the majority of the audience wants to hear whether or not the work's any damn good.

The relationship that each type of critic has with the artists they're referring to is different as well. The first type -- the analyst -- needs little and probably should have no direct connection to or influence on the critic they're analyzing. Seriously. Little to none. In literary criticism, for well over a hundred years, critics have asserted that "the author is dead," meaning that authorial intent -- what the author "meant to do" in his work -- was irrelevant to the interpretation of that work. Ray Bradbury can insist -- as he recently has -- that he never meant for Fahrenheit 451 to be about censorship. He meant for it to warn how television was and would destroy interest in reading. However, all the thousands of people who interpreted Fahrenheit 451 to be about censorship still saw it that way, whether Bradbury intended it or not, and the essays written supporting that contention aren't made wrong by authorial fiat.

But at the same time, if Bradbury decided to write a sequel tomorrow, he is under absolutely no obligation to write that sequel with the popular interpretation in mind, no matter how popular it may be. He may and should proceed from his own contentions and create the work he wants to read. And no one -- absolutely no one -- can tell him he's wrong when it comes out. No matter how brilliant and well supported the analysis and interpretation of a given critic, the author does not and never will answer to that critic. And that's entirely as it should be.

The second type of critic -- the reviewer -- is certainly important to artists, especially if they have some traction among the audience the artist is trying to attract. Certainly, every artist hopes for "good reviews," even if the artist has no intention of reading them. Good reviews mean more audience. Good reviews mean more money to buy food to keep the artist alive while he writes the next work that goes down the line. And whether or not artists should be influenced by their reviews, for the most part they are influenced by their reviews. It's coldly cynical, but it's true. If ten people review a book written by an author, and eight of them pan it and say he spends too much time on strawman arguments between characters and not enough on plot, the author's way more likely to make the next book plot heavy. He wants to sell copies, and reviewers are a means to that end. This can lead down bad directions, as an author who just writes to the reviewers' expectations can become artistically bankrupt -- possibly getting good notices and making some good sales, but producing forgettable works that have no long term staying power. And never forget -- some very popular works have been trashed by reviewers (which is how Rob Schneider still has a career) and creative works that were critically panned upon their release have sometimes absolutely stood the test of time and been acclaimed as masterpieces.

The third type of critic -- the so-called constructive (or destructive) critic is a very weird case. There are times their observations are spot on, and an artist would be well advised to consider them as they move forward. At other times, they lead to the destruction of the creative process -- the artist becomes paralyzed, unable to proceed because of the harsh words of a few, and all too often destructive critics aren't representative of popular opinion. An artist's best course of action is to find those readers whose opinions they trust and filter negative criticism through them.

I mention the artists above essentially to dispose of them. The question at the top of the essay remains. Can criticism be criticized?

I was unequivocal in saying 'yes.' Of course criticism can be criticized. More to the point, all criticism is subject to all three definitions of criticism given above, just like any other produced work, regardless if the criticism itself falls under the first, second or third definition.

Let's take them in order, shall we? We'll take an example of each definition of criticism at work, and we'll describe how each interacts with the three types of criticism being levied towards them:

Case 1: A scholarly essay analyzing a webcomic for both technique and interpretation.

A first definition (Scholarly) Critic would analyze the essay's techniques, interpreting language and showing appropriate context either within the essay or surrounding the essay to describe how the essayist analyzed the webcomic and intuit the philosophy behind the essay. The essentially philosophical field of Critical Theory is entirely devoted to the analysis of analysis. This is one reason Critical Theory gets mocked -- it seems self-referential and masturbatory. However, what the field is doing is less about literature (or other forms of artistic expression) and more about how we see literature or art as a whole. What is being analyzed is our eye, not what it sees. It is specialist work, often only of interest to specialists. Some truly great work has come out of these impulses (Coleridge's Biographia Literaria springs to mind), as well as many many thousands of pages of sheer, unmitigated bullshit. As always, the truth lies in the eye of the beholder.

A second definition (Reviewer) Critic would look at the essay's effectiveness. Consider the professor of literature, receiving a paper that compares Clive Cussler to Geoffrey Chaucer. That professor isn't looking at the paper's startling insights, typically -- the professor is trying to figure out if the student effectively stated his thesis and then supported it in the body of the work. If he did, even if the professor disagrees with the student's thesis, he should grade it well. The student has done his work effectively. If he didn't, even if the professor agrees with the student's thesis, he should grade it poorly. The student has failed to write a good essay. Applying this logic to a critic writing about the Case 1 essay -- a critic will review the essay based on the usual criteria. Was the essay well written? Did it make its point? Was its point well supported? And -- and I can't emphasize this enough -- was it entertaining to read? Essays of all stripes written for the public arena are themselves meant to be entertaining as well as educational. If your essay is boring (I know, you're thinking I might be calling the kettle black with this one) then even if you're right you've failed, because no one will stick around. He might not grade the paper (though, y'know, star reviews and other silly devices come into play), but his subjective impression will still inform others. And the essayist's credibility as a critic may well come into play.

A third definition (Negative) Critic would go into what the essayist did wrong. This is less about the technique of the essay or the effectiveness of the essay, and more about the flaws of the essay. This is the first area where the actual subject matter of the essay comes into play -- if a negative critic disagrees with the essay's point, he is going to judge it harshly. Even if he does agree with the essay, he's the fellow who'll gladly poke holes in the essay's points or evidence -- all the better to force the essayist to write a tighter piece next time, or so he thinks.

Case 2: A generally positive review of a webcomic's latest story arc.

The Scholarly critic would analyze the criteria a reviewer brought to his review -- examining the elements the reviewer found to be important and assessing the technique the reviewer used to develop his overall opinion. The scholar would likely take a scholarly interpretation of the webcomic itself -- as well as other reviews written about that webcomic -- and use it to illustrate the reviewer's philosophy.

A Reviewer might review the review (man, this is getting funky to type) both as entertainment -- was the review worth reading on its own merits? -- and as a statement about the webcomic. If the (second) reviewer disagreed with the first review's contentions, he may well review the webcomic himself as a means of highlighting the areas where the first review was weak, and use that as evidence to demonstrate the review's effectiveness (or lack thereof). These kinds of things can get heated.

A Negative critic will attack the review's weak points, obviously. Much of the time, this will be fueled by a disagreement with the review's result. Perhaps the negative critic hates the comic the review spoke positively of, and therefore the negative criticism will lash into those points the review makes to support its positive impression. Or, perhaps the negative critic thinks the areas that the review found to be weak were in fact not weak, and so the negative critic punches holes in those arguments. Or perhaps the negative critic will just think the reviewer had his head up his ass and make fun of perceived sexual preferences. It's been known to happen.

Case 3: A snark filled rending of a webcomic's failings.

The Scholarly critic might well analyze the snarker's underlying intentions -- perhaps looking at more than one rant to find commonality. Or the critic might examine the use of humor as a means of blunting (or sharpening) the hostile intent of the negative criticisms.

The Reviewer, as always, will look at the effectiveness of the rant. Many of the most vitriolic negative essays on the internet are meant primarily as entertainment. Television Without Pity doesn't lay into its subjects because they really hope the producers of America's Got Talent will reform their ways. They're trying to entertain their readers. A reviewer will look to see if they manage it -- and will try to tell the difference between a hate filled genius with words and a subliterate monkey hurling feces against the wall.

The negative critic, naturally enough, is there to tear into the snark filled rending with choice criticism of their own. All too often, negative criticism fails to be convincing -- in part because often a negative critic thinks his criticisms are self-evident (The E. Burns-White Principle of Discourse: any time you think something is self-evident? It isn't.) and therefore are unsupported. Or sometimes the snarker's points are (to the negative critic) just plain wrong. And of course, sometimes the techniques they're using detract from their point instead of make it, and the negative critic helpfully points those problems out.

For the record? I have written criticisms of all three varieties for Websnark. No one is superior to any other. I'll admit I usually strive to be a first definition (scholarly) critic, in part because that's what I enjoy. I certainly do indulge in review now and again (the "State of the Webcartoonist series" is nothing but review, really). And every so often, my essay is just there to point out something I think is wrong. Also for the record? Everything I write is meant to at least entertain. Maybe some essays are meant to entertain smaller audiences (I doubt the audience for this particular essay is as broad as, say, my essay on Garfield without speech balloons), but they're meant to entertain someone. And when I put something up, I'm opening it to the scholarly discourse, presenting it for others to judge, and inviting folks to tell me just how wrong I am. Just like every other website on the world wide web. It's the nature of the beast -- when you produce, even if what you're producing is criticism, you become grist for all kinds of critical mills.

2,700 words on critical theory. Jesus, we really are back in 2005 on here.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:40 PM | Comments (26)

August 20, 2008

Eric: Man. Internet drama. It really *does* feel like 2004 again.

So, despite my near total collapse of posting, I do still get e-mail every now and again. And some of it asks about current webcomics doings or controversies or the like. In a lot of ways, it's like people poking at an old wasp's nest with a stick. Maybe the nest is empty and long abandoned, but maybe, just maybe a big ass swarm will sweep out and start stinging everything in sight! And that'll be fun to watch, right?

Anyway.

The hootenannie I'm currently being poked about involves Scott Kurtz. Which, to be honest, is not an unusual situation. See, ultra cool fun person Johanna Draper Carlson reviewed How To Make Webcomics, the book Kurtz and his fellow Halfpixelites (Halfpixies?) put out. It was a mostly positive review, definitely recommending the work, but it did point out some things Carlson thought were weaknesses, including the section on dealing with online critics.

Kurtz -- ironically, given that it goes against most of what the section writes on the subject -- responded to those criticisms on his site.

More stuff happened after that. Apparently the Webcomics Weekly podcast this week got into it too, though I haven't listened to it.

Why do I get pinged about this? I'm a critic. Obviously, I must have an opinion on this issue. And it's true, I do. I have several, as it works out. But I'm not going to write about them, save how they potentially illustrate a point about Scott Kurtz.

A quick aside. Kurtz gave me an early shout-out that absolutely made the site, as far readership goes. I have always been and continue to be grateful. As a second aside, Kurtz and I have gone through periods of high contact -- and periods of no contact at all -- and I consider him a friend. He's good people. That's the kind of thing you need to stick in as a disclaimer when you write something like this.

Whenever -- whenever -- I see Kurtz go off on someone, regardless of the situation and regardless of the justification, my heart just sinks into my stomach. Not because I think he's necessarily wrong, but because there's almost never a need for him to get involved in the first place. And every time I see it, I think the same thing:

God, I wish Scott Kurtz could just let his work speak for itself.

PvP is a good god damned strip. Ding is funny. How to Make Webcomics has become a must-read for budding cartoonists. PvP: The Animated Series was really well done. Essentially everything Kurtz has done in the last several years has been successful on an artistic and generally on a commercial level. If he's had issues, they've been more update related than anything else, and he's been seriously knuckling down on that.

But when someone posts a negative comment about his work, justified or not, it's like Kurtz is drawn to it. It's moth to the flame action, kids. He wants to defend his work. He wants to defend his opinions. He wants to defend himself. He wants to wade in with two fists of justice and make people see, God Damn it.

The problem is, that's almost always a mistake.

When we produce something -- be that a comic strip, a story, an essay, a painting, a building or whatever -- we are putting it out to the world. We make it as strong as we can. And when people see it, they're going to have opinions about it. Sometimes, those opinions will be harsh. Sometimes, they'll be glowing. Sometimes, as with the review I linked above, it will be a glowing recommendation that points out what the reviewer saw as minor weaknesses that don't diminish the overall recommendation. Sometimes, those opinions will be wrong-headed, full of obvious mistakes not only about the artist's intent, but the artist's execution. And sometimes, those opinions come from someone who doesn't like you and lets their dislike or disdain color their opinion of the work.

If the work we have created doesn't in fact suck, those opinions don't ultimately matter. The work is still there. The work endures opinion. The work can and does speak for itself. And if the creator has to respond to the opinions of others, his strongest response is always going to be "obviously, we can't please everyone. However, I'm proud of what I've done and I stand by it." Most of the time, he shouldn't even do that. By responding to criticism -- especially by responding with force or vehemence -- all you end up doing is A) making yourself look thin-skinned, B) drawing way more attention to the critic/jerk/whatever than they deserve and C) making yourself look insecure about your work.

C is often the key. There's a voice in the back of every creator's head that says "wow, this sucks. I don't know why you're inflicting it on the public." When someone criticizes the work, that voice gets incredibly loud. "See?" it shouts. "You suck! They know you suck! You're not fooling anyone! The jig is up! You can't fight city hall!" The voice likes a good cliche, you see. And if you listen to it, it paralyzes you. You lose your ability to produce. I've seen it happen.

And for some people, it's amazingly hard to just shrug and say "welp, that's life," and move on with their business. The voice just screams at them, and plays on all their insecurities, and makes it seem like any mitigation or negative comment is monumentally huge.

So you shout the voice down sometimes. You go to war to defend yourself and your work, because the voice is wrong and you know it's wrong, and you want to shut down the people who are feeding it. Only it doesn't shut them down. It makes the problem worse, and increases the number of people critical about your work.

Ironically, the advice that How To Make Webcomics gives here -- the very section that Carlson tripped on and Kurtz defended in the above mess -- essentially deals with that very voice. The approach the book takes, simply put, is to deflect these criticisms before they incapacitate you and prevent you from working on your strip.

Now, I'm one of those selfsame critics, though I (mostly) use the term's original meaning -- I'm less interested in what an artist does wrong and more interested in what the artist does. While I do indulge in review and opinion, I generally feel like I should wash my hands afterwards. Obviously, like most people who put their opinions online for the world to see, I'd like to pretend my wisdom rains down upon the world and changes all it touches. But, to be blunt, it doesn't and I shouldn't expect it to. The safest thing for any blogger to do is assume the subject of his essay will never actually read what he has to say. If the subject does read it, it's sheer hubris to think your words would make him change his ways. And as Kurtz himself said in his response, it probably shouldn't change his ways. It felt really, really good to have Kurtz say nice things about one of my short essays, but Kurtz didn't owe me that response. And Kurtz doesn't owe this essay any response, either. The only thing a critic has a right to do is publish his criticism. He has no right to expect readers, change or impact from his words. If he does have impact, that's very cool, but it should be the exception and not the rule.

And watching these various controversies over the years, I keep just yearning, over and over again, for Kurtz to just stop taking the bait. It doesn't matter what other people say about his work -- his work is successful. When someone has the wrong impression about his work, he should trust that the right impression will come with time and that his readers can tell the difference. When someone is sniping him or taking personal grudges out on him, he shouldn't lower himself to engage with them -- that just gives the other side credence. And eventually, he gets so used to going nuclear that he does it at any provocation -- like with this review. This was a good fucking review of his book. The only thing he should have said was "wow, Johanna Draper Carlson wrote a nice review of our book at" and been done with it. If he couldn't do that, he should have just ignored the god damned review. His book is selling like hotcakes, and it has their thesis right in the chapter Kellert wrote. Let the book speak for itself. It'll do that. It's a good book. Trust that it's a good book.

By going to war over this, Kurtz has given some potential readers a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to the book. That doesn't do How to Make Webcomics any favors. It doesn't matter if Kurtz was right if people walk away conflating the book and an overreaction to a criticism, especially when the criticism was buried near the bottom of a good review.

More to the point, by getting out his loudspeaker and shouting about this, Kurtz managed to take a good review of his book that only a chunk of his potential audience would have read and turn it alchemically into a negative review of his work by virtue of his reaction which a much larger audience has now been exposed to. Blogs have talked about the issue, word of mouth has spread, it's good Internet Drama. Lots of people are freaking out over Kurtz's attitude towards critics. Others are going and yelling at Carlson for... well, for writing a review that recommended the book to her readers. The sheer feeling of stupidity surrounding this non-issue is palpable, and it was entirely Kurtz's doing. And it was entirely unnecessary.

Like I said above, I just wish he'd let his work speak for itself. It can do that. It's good work.

He just has to trust it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:27 AM | Comments (27)

Eric: Also, as far as I know I get to have sugar free lemon pound cake today. It's better than it sounds

On August 20, 2004, in the midst of a contentious political season, I got it in the back of my head that I should take another run at online journaling, which was now called blogging, which is a word that seems very strange given how entirely normal it sounds now.

The idea was simple. I would continue to use my Livejournal to stay in contact with the twenty or thirty people who had an interest, but I'd cut out the quarter-ton of dross I found on the internet. Instead, I'd do up a silly little Movable Type blog where I'd throw quizzes and funny pictures of dogs and webcomics that I found funny and other silly water cooler type shit.

My thought had been to call it stripping-the-web.com, because all the good comics names were taken, and I used to like Bloom County. (I've been rereading it for quite some time now, in various places, and to be honest it doesn't age as well as I'd expect. Not that there aren't still gems in amongst the not... so... gems. Um... I lost my metaphor. Sue me.) As a pure lark, however, I thought to check if 'Websnark.com' had been taken. It had struck me while I was in the process of filling out the registration form, and seemed like a good idea.

I was a little stunned to learn it hadn't been taken. It seemed purely obvious to me, after all. So, with a bit of a mental shrug (and recognizing 'Stripping-the-Web' would have been a terrible name) I went with that instead.

Now it's four years later. There is another contentious political season going on. There have been literally millions of words written on this blog, by myself, Wednesday and well over a thousand discrete commenters. I have had a moderate amount of Internet fame. For a while, we had sixty thousand readers a day. At least one of the posts on this blog incurred one point two million pageviews, all by itself. I have made friends, had arguments, caused and fueled drama, hopefully helped settle some, been called a dick, been called a genius, started a couple of webcomics of my own, worked with talented people, had people I deeply respect say they liked my shit, received the occasional death threat, and gotten myself the best damn wife on the planet.

And, you know, I also managed to lose most of that reader base thanks to a combination of my own burnout and the natural life cycle of internet attraction, but that I have no qualms about. That's how these things work, most of the time.

I can't tell you what the future will hold. I go through waves. Someone (Morgan Wick, really) made mention in my last post that the structure of it "took him back to 2004 or 2005," and that's about right, really. Somewhere along the way I stopped doing six minute "Jesus, look at the cool Achewood strip" posts, and right now I can't say why. Probably I lost sight of who I came to the dance with in the first place and decided that everything I wrote had to be meaningful. It's a damnable trap, it is.

On the other side of the equation, I think I've written some damn good things on this site... but part of the problem is repetition. How many times can I say Shaenon Garrity is fucking brilliant and not sound like a broken record? How many times can I throw out terms like Cerebus Syndrome or Bringing the Funny and not just sound like self-satire. You reach a point where you're writing what you think people want you to write and you're aping yourself. And honestly, who the fuck wants that? Not me, and I'm sure not any of you.

So things slowed down, but they never really stopped. And God, I hope they never do.

There's still something like a thousand plus pageviews a day, even at the end of the six and a half weeks I didn't write on here. And yeah, that's not sixty thousand, but it's also not six. I've said before that it didn't matter if you had three readers, thirty readers or thirty thousand readers -- you have readers, and for a writer there's no better thing in the world.

I'm four years older now. I'm a married man. I am, to be blunt, middle aged now. And while there are ways I feel like I've just started Websnark and I'm exactly the same person now as I was then, the truth is I'm not. In so many ways I'm not. The big ways, like the beautiful woman who's in the kitchen as I type this (I'm writing it well ahead of its post time) making bread from scratch. The small ways, like the strands of grey in my beard. My attitudes on a lot of things have changed along with all of that. And the attitudes of the world have shifted a bit too -- there's damn little "gorsh, there's comics on the web now! Bang zap boom!" going on these days. Fewer and fewer of the people just starting out in comics even intend to try to get in the newspaper -- there's just so little reason. More and more webcartoonists make their living off their cartoons, and there's reproducible models for success now. You don't have to be Scott Kurtz or the Penny Arcade folks to quit your day job.

And Jesus. Look at what some folks have done in the past four years. Penny Arcade's got a multi-million dollar charity that gets yearly national television coverage. They also have two yearly gaming conventions, and more and more game companies are treating their Expo as the must-attend con of the year. E3-Shmee3. Phil and Kaja Foglio dropped out of pamphlet style comics, focusing instead on graphic novels and the web, and from all appearances are prospering. Rich Stevens inked a sweetheart deal where he got to do Diesel Sweeties on the web and have it appear in newspapers, while retaining his merchandising rights and his ownership of the strip... and decided after a while that it was too much work, so he dropped the newspaper strip in lieu of devoting more time to the real moneymaker. The Revolution is over, kids. We won. Everything else is sour grapes (on either side and sometimes both).

When I started Websnark, I was lucky as shit. I got some high profile links early on, and while I wasn't the first person online talking about webcomics, it was still a novel concept. That helped me get traction and establish a voice at a time where you didn't need a megaphone to be heard over the din. Today, there are... [does some quick calculations] ...a fuck-ton of blogs about webcomics. Blogs that make fun of them. Blogs that tear into them. Blogs that kiss webcartoonist ass. Blogs that report webcomics news as straight as they can. Dude, there are at least two blogs entirely devoted to Superosity right now.

Oh, which reminds me. Not only has the Keenspot Gang of Four become a full on family run business, with Gav Bleuel completely separated from the online syndicate... but Chris and Bobby Crosby have done hit the jackpot, with one of their joint webcomics projects being adapted for a full length live action movie -- from all accounts, really being adapted instead. Across the border into Canada, where the winters are could and french fries are covered in gravy and cheese curds, Ryan Sohmer's apparently got a full Teletoon-sponsored version of his comic heading to Canadian television. Webcomics are rapidly becoming just another breeding ground for the ravenous beast that is the Entertainment Industry.

So what does that mean?

Well, for one thing, it means we can all stop taking things so fucking seriously all the time. I gave up drama a while back, and I've mostly stuck to that, and I've found I enjoy things a lot more than I used to. It means that the chances that Websnark -- or any largely webcomics related blog -- can claw up to almost six figures of readership again are pretty damn low. There's too much out there, which means there's too little need to congregate at one writer's doorstep. It means that there's no need to do this kind of thing... except of course if you enjoy doing this kind of thing.

Which amusingly enough means that Websnark's best case for moving forward... is exactly the same as when it was started. There's always a place for a writer to write about shit he finds interesting or amusing on the web. No pressure, no expectations, just "look at the funny picture of a dog! It's funny." At the time, I was hopeful thirty people would read it. Right now, on a good day there's still a few thousand who do. Either way, it's heartening, and I hope people still have fun.

How long will this phase go? I dunno. Maybe two days, maybe another full year. And then what will the next look like? I still don't know.

I just know this -- I still like to write, and I still like to find amusing things, and I still have a lot of opinions about shit, and I'm still not shy about combining all of those things into a delicious paste.

Here's to four years. Here's hoping there's four more.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:00 AM | Comments (19)

August 19, 2008

Eric: Visit #3, Drilling #2

It was, in the end, a cheerful appointment.

"This is looking great," the dentist had said. "Your teeth are in great shape. There's a little bit of softness in a couple places, but you should feel good. You're going to have these teeth all your life, and not in your hand, either."

"Well, that's good," I had said. "Right?"

"That's very good," he had answered. "Very, very good. Okay -- wait here, and the office manager will pick you up in a couple and do followup planning with you."

"Good enough."

And she did indeed come and get me. And she did indeed do followup planning.

"Wait... I need five followup appointments?"

"Yup! Three sets of fillings and a two-stage cleaning."

"But... the dentist had said my teeth were in great shape."

"I'm sure they are," she said. "That doesn't mean we don't get to drill them."

That was two weeks ago. Last week I'd had the first set of drilling done, and stage one of the cleaning was yesterday.

Today was the second set of filling stuff. It's all 'soft spots.' Places between teeth, especially out back where flossing ain't so easy. I sat in the chair that put me upside down, they put vacuums in my mouth, gave me a cherry based swabbing that started numbing me and filled my face with Novocain.

In the end, it's the sound that's unpleasant. The sound, and your tongue dries out because you're holding your mouth open for so long. Every one of the dental chairs also has Dish Network, and while they worked, they discussed the episode of Oprah that was on.

I am sitting at the nearby Starbucks, where Weds was waiting while they worked on me. My face is mostly numb. I have seen Oprah. There is a bad taste in the part of my mouth I can actually feel. And there is crap on my teeth waiting for me to get home so ironically I can brush it off. It seems like it must be part of their plan.

We endure. We endure drilling and cleaning and Oprah, and get things dealt with before they hurt and before they're a problem or an emergency. We endure, because we are grown up, and grown up people get their oil changed, buy food for its fiber content, know our insurance agent on a first name basis, and get their teeth taken care of before it's a problem.

And yet, when we get home, we're going to watch Power Rangers: Jungle Fury on the TiVo. We may be grown up, but we're also Generation X. And adulthood is best done in small doses. Besides, R.J. rocks.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:26 PM | Comments (3)

August 18, 2008

Eric: A brief note, referring to a New Englander of note.

Many people, too numerous to count, have quoted "The Road Not Taken," written in 1916 by Robert Frost. When they do so, almost inevitably they quote from sections of the final stanza, which I shall reprint here:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I?
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

When people make reference to this poem, it generally reflects upon a choice they or someone else has made -- often though not exclusively the decision to be a writer or artist instead of some kind of... I don't know. Non-writer or artist. They see this as romantic -- the celebration of the non-conformist and non-traditional. They even refer to the poem as "The Road Less Traveled." Seriously. It's remembered as "The Road Less Traveled" way more often than it's remembered as "The Road Not Taken," and with good reason. The incorrect title celebrates the choice that is made. "The Road Not Taken" harkens back to the choice that didn't get taken.

And that would imply... doubt... as to the glories of the choice that has been made.

Let us go then, you and I (when the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table, but I digress), and examine the poem as Frost himself wrote it, not as we remember it. Let us start at the very beginning, and consider what is said:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

If we go with the allegory of choice, the voice has come to a point of decision, and takes the time to consider where he would go, because he can only choose one path. Become a stockbroker? Or a poet? What to do? Which will take me where in life? What will bring me happiness?

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

He elects to do the unusual -- to go a direction most don't. In the allegory, his choice is not the easy one, but one perhaps less simple, less expected. He goes the way most don't. Though as he goes, he notices that his choice seems more mundane than expected. Perhaps this wasn't quite so bold and individualist as it seems....

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

He lies to himself, and says he can always go back and be a stockbroker later. He's young. There's time! He can do what he wants! At the same time, as the autumn has come and spread leaves upon the trails, both routes are somehow made new. No one has seen either path the way they currently lie. If we indulge in metaphor... in the end, it doesn't matter which choice you take: the expected choice will still have unexpected twists, and the nonconformist path in the end isn't all that unusual. There is no innate moral, ethical or artistic superiority in making the less common choice. The stockbroker can be just as happy and just as creative as the artist, in the end.

And that brings us to that same last stanza we quoted above. I repeat it here, to be seen with the perspective of the rest of the fucking poem it's part of added to it:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I?
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The voice doesn't sound triumphant or resolute now; it sounds resigned, and cynical. He will be retelling the story of his life one day -- and as you'll note, he's retelling it right now, making the future the present. The immediate. But he is not cheering, and not shouting. He is sighing. He had a choice to make, and he took the so-called rare and non-conformist route. He has learned it's just about the same path, through the wood and through life, as the normal path would have been. His bold move was an illusion -- his final clause ("I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference") ironic instead of literal. There was no real difference. None at all.

It is an ironic poem, and a cynical one, and one that puts the lie to all those who assert themselves all Walt-Whitmanesquely. Get over yourself, this poem says. Everyone is a special snowflake. And as we have learned from that modern tale of artistic merit, The Incredibles, when everyone is special, then no one is special.

Which means that Robert Frost's cynical observation on a life "less traveled" and his wistful thoughts of what life could have been have been transformed, alchemically, into a rallying cry for the very self-aggrandizing self-editing that Frost was mocking. The transformation is so complete that the very title of the poem is misremembered, no longer calling back what might have been, but instead asserting the superiority of the choice made.

Right here? This is poetry in the modern world for you.

Also, that bit about "Good fences make good neighbors" from Frost's poem "Mending Wall?" Yeah, he was decrying the use of isolation and division and the glib use of homily to excuse away the stultifying artificiality of the barriers we put between us, even in the face of the world trying to tear those barriers down. When you quote it without irony you're getting the fucking thing wrong. Just so you know. Kisses.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:58 PM | Comments (35)

August 15, 2008

Eric: As a matter of fact, I *am* colicky today and I *would* like a pacifier, thank you.

One of the various things Wednesday and I intended to do this summer was go to the San Diego Comic Convention.

We had all the stars lining up to make that a go. We were newlyweds, whose marriage was bound up with comics in ways few can claim or hope. We had industry friends in the CGI and compositing industry offer to make us their guests, which meant we could get in through the front door without having to pay a cent. One of my coolest friends from my salad days in Upstate New York lives in the San Diego area and likely could have been hit up for couch space for us to crash. Essentially, we could have done San Diego, seen lots of folks and things we had always wanted to, and in general enjoy the convention for the cost of plane tickets and food.

And we just couldn't do it.

Which is not a complaint or a cry for help. We're doing just fine. But between a number of expenses ranging from immigration (including another $1,010 going to the federal government for the right to let them consider letting us stay married now that they've let us become married), medical (I have recurrent medical expenses and needed some high end testing done), dental (stupid teeth), automotive (apparently, brakes are important) and mundane (oddly, marriage doesn't change the fact that you have to eat on a regular basis, and we're short-sighted enough to still want Satellite Television), we just couldn't justify spending the money to fly to the West Coast just a few weeks after going to Las Vegas and actually having... you know, a wedding. We would have to see about next year.

As it works out, we missed... well, from all the various accounts I read, the absolute Apex of San Diego Comic Cons -- the Ur-Con, which forever shall be held up as an exemplar of the type. People had monumentally good times, across the spectrum. Just about everyone was there, and there is video evidence in various places that Jonathan Frakes and Avery Brooks serenaded and sang songs with some of the very cool people all over the freakin' place. Regrets? Oh yeah, I've got a few.

And, it meant I missed out on the Con Exclusive Giveaway for City of Heroes.

I've missed out on CoH swag before. I live on the East Coast, which means that I don't have opportunities to swing by the conventions they typically show at. And that's never bothered me -- whether or not I got one of the capes they were giving out one year had zero impact on... well, anything in my life. I don't begrudge swag.

But, well... this year's swag was different. This year, the swag was an add-on for your account. This year, the exclusive was a chance to actually alter your gameplay experience. This year the swag was a code that let you add a Freakshow Tank "temporary costume" to your characters, similar to the temporary costumes that we were given at Halloween. Only this time, it wasn't temporary. It was permanent.

This has led, as so many of these things do, to people losing their shit. The two positions are, essentially, "there should be a way for people who didn't get to go to San Diego to get this ability" and "this was an exclusive perk for SDCC attendees and there's no reason anyone else should get access to it."

The latter crowd has a darn good point. The Freakshow Tank Costume ability doesn't grant any benefits in gameplay terms. Freakshow don't mistake you for an ally when you're wearing it. You don't get a massive superstrength attack or the ability to hurl balls of electricity when you're wearing it. This doesn't even look like your character with Freakshow Components added to him or her. This is just the ability to look like a stock Freak Tank on command. This isn't even custom costume parts -- you can't add the giant sledgehammer hand Freak Tanks sport to your character's hand, for example. This is a purely cosmetic, extremely minor ability. Getting upset because you can't look like a Freak Tank is just silly.

The problem is, there is more to this than a question of gameplay benefit. There is also gameplay experience -- and that is a more complicated issue.

Gameplay Experience refers to exactly what it sounds like -- the experience someone who sits down to play City of Heroes has. It covers everything -- it covers the tactical game and attendant gameplay. It covers dancing in Pocket D. It covers the invention system and the auction houses and the storylines. It covers the interactions players have with each other in the game. It covers Supergroups and chat channels. And yes, it covers Role Playing.

This giveaway power in fact changes the gameplay experience for the person who gets it, in potentially the most significant way for any RPG -- the person with the power has more options than the person without it.

Not sure how? Well, consider the various character concepts:

• A Renegade Freakshow Tank who becomes a hero (or a freelancer)
• A person changed by a hostile Meat Doctor into a reluctant Freakshow Tank, looking for the chance to become human again.
• A knockoff/stolen Tank design being used by a freelancer.
• A member of a splinter faction of Freakshow who, as with lots of the factions, mostly beat up other Freaks when they see them.
• A person temporarily or permanently mind-switched into a Tank's body.

And many others, of course.

For those who play City of Heroes in part to work on character concept or character design, for those who actually role-play instead of just treating the game tactically, for those who like the chance to practice subversion, the ability to put on a Freak's skin opens up a lot of opportunities and options that don't otherwise exist in the game. Sure, you might be able to put together a reasonable knockoff for at least generic Freakshow, but that isn't the same thing.

That's the real crux of the debate, if you get right down to it. For most people who didn't (or couldn't) attend San Diego Comic Con, this was simply something they couldn't choose to have, either out of money or timing. For every other perk available for City of Heroes, you could either get the perk regardless of location through something like preordering (jn the case of the prestige sprints or the Arachnos helmets), being patient (both the sprints and the helmets become available through Veterans' Rewards, as do other custom powers), or money (people who bought the Good v. Evil edition, for example, get some bonus powers. Other players had the option of paying a nominal fee and getting those same powers. Similarly, the Wedding Costume Pack is available for cash). In the case of the Tank costume power, players could either attend San Diego Comic Con, know someone who attended and ask them to get them one of the cards, or do without.

Is there really a demand, you may ask? Well, if one looks at the central resource for checking on Geek demand -- eBay, naturally -- one sees that all of the SDCC code cards that have shown up there have sold or are selling for more than two hundred dollars apiece. Compare that with the swag from other years -- like the exclusive SDCC posters from earlier years going for a whopping nine bucks -- you can see the distinction. Whether for roleplay reasons, the sense of completion, the coolness factor or pure geek I MUST HAVE IT, people out there are willing to pay big bucks for the chance to make their characters look just like a Freakshow Tank.

On my side, I admit it. I would really really really like to have one of these cards. And I'm kicking myself -- not just because we could have gone to San Diego and then I would have one, and not just because Weds could have gotten one too and turned that into a $200 reduction in our trip expenses, but because I conservatively knew twenty non-CoH players going to SDCC and I think any one of them would have gladly hit up the NCSoft booth on my behalf, but I didn't pay close enough attention to the City of Heroes site to learn about all of this until after it was too late. So in every way I blew it. I do not deserve Freakshow.

At the same time, it seems weird to me. If people are willing to drop $200 on one of these codes, it seems very strange that NCSoft isn't letting those people buy one for $10 or $15 in their store, a la the Wedding Pack. If they charged ten bucks a hit, that becomes free money for them. If 500 people are nuts enough to pay that, then they have a sudden $5,000 surge in revenue. Not too shabby. If 5,000 did it, that's, like, a coworker's yearly salary paid for. And giving out swag in San Diego that other players would have to spend $10 to get still seems pretty old cool to me.

But, it's unlikely they'll do that. At this point, putting Freakshow Tank powers up for sale would be interpreted by the folks who *got* the SDCC codes as reducing the exclusivity of their swag. And they'd be right. too. It wouldn't be exclusive any more, by definition.

So. I entered the sweepstakes to get one of 10 codes from Massively.com along with thirteen hundred other folks. And while they haven't announced the names of the winners as yet, the fact that I don't have e-mail sitting in my mailbox declaring me a winner makes me suspect I haven't, in fact, won. Simply put, there ain't no Tank for me and, barring the Tanks appearing as a Vet Reward down the line there's not going to be one. Like listening to a live rendition of "Ain't Misbehavin'" sung by Jonathan Frakes and the chance to buy Avery Brooks a drink, the Freakshow Tank code is just another thing that happened at this year's SDCC that I missed out on.

I am hopeful, though, that this will turn into the ability to pay for some 'costume power' packs for various CoH NPC factions down the line. That could be really cool.

And then... there's this announcement on the homepage. There's another exclusive costume power up for grabs. This time, it's a Paragon Police Department hardsuit power, and it'll be available to attendees of both the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany and the Penny Arcade Expo. Exclusively.

Now, I used to live in Seattle. I have friends there. I could crash on someone's floor there. I'd love to show Weds the city.

But A) there's still that silly thing about plane tickets (and having seen $200 SDCC codes on eBay, the chances are very very low that the PAX codes will bring that kind of cash in. People know that trick), B) that's the weekend right before the start of school, and so we're killer busy down here and I don't have any chance of going away then, and C) going to a con that costs $30 a day on top of travel and food entirely to get a costume code is at best nuts. I'm not nearly enough of a gamer to make that trek.

And unlike San Diego, I don't have a pile of friends going to PAX. I don't know (as far as I know) anyone who's going to PAX. (Well, okay, I've had some brief contact with Gabe and Tycho in the past, and I understand they're probably going to go for a day or two, but I don't exactly know them and besides, I suspect they'd have other folks interested in their PAX codes) so I can't get a friend to score a code for me. My chance to get the Hardsuit costume power is essentially nil.

And that's frustrating, because it would be cool, it would open up options, it would improve my gameplay experience, and I would totally drop ten or twenty bucks to get one if I could.

But, wanting something doesn't mean getting it, now or ever. I just wish NCSoft were thinking a little more broadly than "how can we generate buzz at our booth this year."

(It's also frustrating that I did have friends going to Gencon this year, but unlike their competitors NCSoft didn't decide to hit that con this year. DAMN YOU MAX POWERS!)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:23 PM | Comments (14)

July 1, 2008

Eric: Sing a Song of Boing Boing: A Cautionary Tale

In March of 2006, I wrote an essay for this very site called Channel Markers. We were seeing an uptick in webcomics related blogging around then, and I wanted to give what benefit of experience I could to new folks leaping into the fray. I'm actually pretty happy with that essay even today -- I think it has some basic truths that can be the difference between having a moderately stressful blogging experience and having your head explode. I do not have any hints that lead to a stress-free blogging experience, at least if you're actually going to expound on things instead of simply discuss the disposition of your pets.

Not that there's anything wrong with discussing the disposition of your pets, mind. My cat Sarah is currently standing on the stove, eating some of her food, which she took carefully out of her bowl, moved to the stove, set down on the stove and started eating. This can't possibly end well, and I'm relatively certain she's insane. But I digress.

Anyway, "Channel Markers" was well received, and even today I hear from folks who say they liked it or got some value out of it. That's very cool. And they often cite the points they felt were most valuable to them -- points about etiquette, or not arguing on other peoples' fora, or being prepared for no one to comment.

There's one point, however, that almost never gets mentioned when people contact me, and that's sad because I think it's one of the most important ones. I reprint it here for purposes of convenience, bit by bit.

And while we're at it, we're going to talk about Boing Boing.

Don't try to rewrite history. Look, we make mistakes. We all do. Sometimes we post an essay and we get stuff wrong in it. Sometimes that stuff makes the whole essay wrong. Sometimes, we put up an essay innocently and it turns into a firestorm of controversy we never meant. Sometimes, we find ourselves in a crucible on all sides.

The temptation is to go back. Revise. Reword what we said. Take the essay down entirely.

It is never a good idea. Ever.

Boing Boing is one of the largest of blogs on the Internet. It is startlingly good at what it does -- which is point out things that they find "wonderful" (or as often terrible). Some very bright people write about some very cool things, from copyright and intellectual property issues to comic books to sex. It has iconoclasts like Cory Doctorow and Xeni Jardin. One of the best editors in Science Fiction (and best bloggers out there in her own right), Teresa Nielsen Hayden, is their moderator. The likelihood that you're reading this pissant thing and don't know about Boing Boing is trivial.

Well, Boing Boing wrote a few posts about a specific subject. What the subject is doesn't really matter to my post, so let's call it Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner. Which is not what it was about, but that's sitting on the sink next to the stove where the cat has moved some of her food so she can eat it, so it'll do for these purposes. These posts on Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner were done over time, and reflected interesting or controversial things that Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner were involved with, and Boing Boing wanted to write about it at the time.

Well. Over time, the good people at Boing Boing started to see Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner differently. They didn't like it as much, and they felt that some of its media tie-ins and statements made in its name weren't things they wanted a tangential connection to. They were afraid, among other things, that their posts about Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner in the past would be seen as tacit endorsement of Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner now, and that was something they didn't want to happen.

So, about a year ago, they quietly decided to "unpublish" their Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner related posts.

In other words, they took them down.

For better or for worse, we live in an ephemeral medium. It's dirt simple to pull down posts, delete comments, go through and re-edit after the fact. One of the truisms of creative writing is "writing is rewriting," and it's so simple to go ahead and edit edit edit.

The problem is, people have responded to what you wrote. If you go and change what they responded to, they're going to remember that fact. Even if you have the best of intentions, any editing or rewriting you do is going to come across as self-serving -- an unwillingness to admit to your mistakes. An attempt to make the record show you made no mistakes, so your critics must be wrong.

Have you ever seen the glee someone takes in posting a Google Cache copy of an original post you've since changed? It's particularly savage glee. And boom -- you have no credibility left. At all. In anything. Congratulations. You have just been demoted to punkass bitch.

Let's make one thing clear right now. Boing Boing did not commit censorship. Not in any way, shape or form. And those folks who claim they did are wrong, and look a little stupid. If the government (federal, state, county, local, shire or other) didn't force Boing Boing to delete all references to Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner, it's not censorship. Those posts were made by Boing Boing writers and published on Boing Boing servers using Boing Boing content management systems that distributed them via Boing Boing HTML, RSS and ATOM feeds. Boing Boing owns the hardware and the software that's on their machines. Boing Boing has the right to publish or not publish anything they darn well feel like on their servers. They released their content long ago, using a Creative Commons license (link is to Boing Boing's CC license and should not be construed as the CC license Websnark itself releases its content under -- my own CC license information can be found on the main page in the sidebar) so they can't stop others from republishing it on their own blogs so long as the license terms are followed, but that license doesn't force Boing Boing to leave that content where it can be seen. They have the right to take down any essay they like. Period.

Everyone got that?

Good. Let's move on.

The problem is not that Boing Boing did something wrong. It's not that Boing Boing has tacitly or explicitly rebuked Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner. It's not that Boing Boing has done anything actionable.

The problem is one of credibility.

Credibility is coin of the realm in blog terms. There is nothing more important to a blog. Blogs can have or lose popularity and they'll weather it, whether 30 people read it or 3 million people read it. But that blog is only as good as people think it is, and when you take down posts -- regardless of the reasons why -- you end up losing credibility when you get caught at it.

When a significant portion of your blog is devoted to questions of intellectual property, actual censorship on the web, ways to circumvent filters or other blocks on the material and in general being a passionate warrior in the fight for online rights and free access to information, the loss of credibility you suffer for deleting posts (especially without warning) is significant, because you can be seen as blocking access to information -- of trying to change history and the record. It doesn't matter if that's not what you meant. It doesn't matter if (as Nielson Hayden indicated in her post on this fracas) the information is buried somewhere in the Internet Wayback Machine on archive.org. You now come across as one of the people blocking the free flow of information.

In other words, you come across as a hypocrite.

And that's not ever a good thing.

And then, there's the deleted post. Or comment. Or whatever. You know the one. You made a mistake. You took a ton of heat for it. A controversy has brewed. It's not what you meant, at all. So you pull the post down. Maybe you post an apology as well, but you get the mistake out of the record.

Well. The people who hated your post don't forget it because you deleted it. They remember it. Only now, they remember their version of it. And their version of it is vastly worse than what you actually wrote. And they're more than happy to tell the world about this horrible version of what you wrote, and here you are completely unable to refute them, because you took down the evidence. Even if you put it back up, it's trivial for your critics to say "hey, they rewrote that while it was down!" You have absolutely no way to win if you do this. And all too often, you seem like a coward when you do it.

It's not right. It's not fair. But that's how it is.

There is a deeper level issue, of course. The ephemeral nature of the internet is liberating and free and wonderful in so many, many ways. However, that freedom comes with a price. The record can be changed, now. The dialogue can be edited by any participant, on the fly. It's easy to change the record.

And that is a very, very bad thing for scholarship.

I believe in the scholastic method. I believe in the dialogue. I believe that when we put our opinions and our theses and, yes, our mistakes out for the world to see, those words matter. I believe that even if I wish I could unsay something, I have said it, and people have heard it. People have read it. It has mattered to them. And people will remember it.

And I feel I have a moral responsibility to leave that record intact, because even if my opinions change -- even if I'm wrong in the first place -- the record forms part of the foundation for the discussion, and when you knock pieces out of the record, you weaken the foundation. You make it harder to do legitimate research. You obfuscate and confuse things.

And I believe, firmly, that I don't have the right to do that.

When people hit the web and research Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner, the things Boing Boing have said about Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner are going to be relevant to that discussion. And, what is more, people are going to remember that Boing Boing wrote about Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner. When they're reminded of citrusy ginger cleanser in other contexts, they're going to remember they saw something about it on Boing Boing, and they're going to go back to Boing Boing to see what they had to say about it. And they're going to do a search, and when they can't find Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner they're going to be confused. They're sure it was on Boing Boing. Where else could it have been? What else were they reading? They're going to hit search engines and try to find that tidbit.

They're not going to think "I'd better hit the Wayback Machine," because it wouldn't occur to them that Boing Boing would delete stuff. Not Boing Boing. They trust Boing Boing. They're just going to ultimately decide they're wrong, that they didn't see it on Boing Boing. And maybe they never saw it in the first place.

Yeah, when they learn they were right but Boing Boing changed their archive when they weren't looking? They're going to be pissed, because they felt stupid for a while there. Stupid because they were sure they were right but the evidence said they were wrong... and stupid because they trusted Boing Boing.

Like I said. Credibility.

The best thing -- the only thing -- you can do is post a correction. "I said this in my last essay. I was wrong. I didn't mean for it to go where it went. I'm sorry." If you want to absolutely make certain you acknowledge the areas you were wrong, add html strikethroughs to highlight the areas you were mistaken in. If you need to add a correction to the essay itself, put it at the bottom next to a clearly marked edit marker.

There's nothing wrong with Boing Boing's opinions changing. Hey, sometimes Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner becomes the devil. The lemony, lemony devil. And it's natural that Boing Boing would want to eschew the devil when discussing floor cleansers. The problem for Boing Boing comes when they change the record without acknowledgement. There are ways they could have made their changes without damaging their credibility. Changing the posts on Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner to a boilerplate post saying "this was a post on the subject of Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner. Our opinions on this cleaning product have changed over time, and we are no longer comfortable having this post on our site. If you want to see it, check the Wayback Machine." In a better world, they'd link to the Wayback Machine article in question.

In the best of worlds, they'd just append their changed opinion to the bottom of the original post, mind. But hey -- my idealism isn't everyone's idealism, and this post isn't about taking Boing Boing to task. It's about avoiding the nastiness. And there's a lot of blogs out there right now that are going nuclear over this, and a lot of folks on Boing Boing itself are. There are accusations (I don't know the truth of them, I admit freely) that comments about the Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner issue are being deleted off Boing Boing. There's anger and resentment.

And, most of all, there's that overriding sense of lost credibility. There are two excellent comments on Making Light (Patrick and Theresa Nielson Hayden's own personal blog) that summarize the consternation people are feeling. The first comment comes from user tim and I quote here:

I don't have a horse in this race (aside from being a visitor of ML, Boing Boing, and Metafilter)but from an outsider's perspective, all I see is that this discussion is getting bogged down in semantics when the following facts appear to be true:

1. Boing Boing has often commented negatively on obfuscation and "spin" against government, and corporations large and small.

2. Boing Boing is not a "personal website," by any definition I can think of, to wit: each of the 4 main editors have their own personal websites which are largely if not totally unencumbered by advertisements, where Boing Boing has a large number, and from a brief perusal, none of their personal websites claim to be copyright "Happy Mutants, LLC" -- which by definition is a corporation.

3. Retroactive deleting of (nearly) all entries and comments which even make reference to [Method® brand Lemon Ginger All-Floor Cleaner], and going on 48 hours without so much as a "our lawyers tell us to shut up" smacks strongly of the very types of evasion and obfuscation that Boing Boing has clearly, and regularly, taken a stand against.

4. This behavior by Happy Mutants, LLC is plainly counter to Boing Boing's long-standing opposition, and people have taken notice of this.

Now, whatever argument you may want to make of it, I think these 4 points of fact are accurate.

Obviously, the substitution of cleanser for the topic was mine, not tim's. The second comment comes from Andrew Wheeler and has some crunchy supporting links:

In the interest of determining what may be considered a fair view of Boing Boing's opinion on similar matters, here's one possible parallel:

Cory Doctorow, at Boing Boing, posts, approvingly but without commenting himself, a message from "JFarber" complaining about The New York Times, a privately owned media company, changing their web archives without notice or explanation.

Boing Boing is a privately owned media company which has just changed its web archives without notice or explanation.

To quote "JFarber" from that post: "Is it common journalistic practice to change old articles like that?"

The way I'd frame this is to say: if Boing Boing wants to operate as a media watchdog, they need to be careful about not doing the same things that they complain about when other media outlets do it. They are a company that puts out a regular media product: yes, it is free (but so is The Village Voice), and yes, it is on the web (but so is Slate). A lot of people, Boing Boing's principals among them, have been arguing for a decade that "blogs" can be just as serious and just as professional as any other media outlet, so hiding under the skirts of "it's just a blog" at this point is, at best, disingenuous.

Credibility. Perceived hypocrisy. And, just maybe, a sense of disappointment. And these weren't very vitriolic comments. You can find some unbelievably nasty ones out there if you go looking.

If it can happen to Boing Boing, it can happen to you. And it's why this particular channel marker is so important to a blogger -- the rocks it warns you off of are jagged indeed, and bigger boats then yours have taken damage from them.

When I wrote "Channel Markers," I finished this point up like this:

We all make mistakes. Sometimes, you have to own your mistakes, in order to keep your credibility.

Two years later, I have nothing I can add to that.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:41 PM | Comments (44)

June 17, 2008

Eric: I roll to disbelieve.

If there is a book I have bought more often than the Player's Handbook, I'm not sure what it is.

Understand, it's not that I've bought the same book multiple times. Mostly. The original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook I did, of course. I wore two of them out, and later I got a PDF of the thing. And I think I bought a couple of Second Edition over time. But stepping away from that, I've gotten pretty much every new edition that they've thrown in my direction.

Which has sometimes been a joy, mind, but as often -- especially recently -- it's been an obligation. I'll admit it. I never really cottoned to either Third Edition or "3.5." And it's made me wonder sometimes if somewhere along the way I actually grew old.

And that's something of a digression.

Dungeons and Dragons has been a part of my life for essentially all of my life. Some of the things I bought when I first got into the game -- in the seventies, mind, with the Dragon Box Dungeons and Dragons that was simultaneously a precursor to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and Basic Dungeons and Dragons -- were for the original three book set that Gygax and Arneson put out long, long ago. I've read that original set (I own facsimiles of that too) along the way, and locked well away I have myself Gods, Demigods and Heroes -- one of the cool Original D&D supplements, bought back when that kind of thing could be found on hobby store shelves, over by the Judges' Guild supplements, near the Traveller, two shelves down from the Avalon Hill wargames and across the aisle from Boy Scout supplies, model rocketry kits and balsa wood. My earliest dice wore down into marbles. I have dozens of RPGs I've never come close to playing. I own some of the least useful AD&D products ever developed -- I own both the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide. New books for the ol' D&D -- especially when they were hardcover instead of perfect bound -- were a happy find for literally decades of my life. Softcover could be cool, but a D&D hardcover book was an event.

Third Edition wasn't like that for me.

It had been some years since my last Second Edition campaign had ended as all campaigns do -- by people gradually finding other ways to spend their weekends. Oh, I still had an interest -- but GURPS and Hero and White Wolf products had long since filled the casual "devour the book and distill the concepts into my understanding of the roleplay omniverse" gap that once had puzzled out Nonweapon Proficiences and Weapon speed factors. When I moved out to Seattle, I moved in with a hardcore GURPS fiend. And Seattle in the 90's wasn't exactly a mecca for the old school. The cool kids didn't make graph paper maps and wield +4 halberds. The cool kids made Ventrue and Malkavians and dressed in vintage clothes and tried to score with Goth chicks, and while I liked White Wolf that wasn't really my scene, and over time I fell out of some of the old habits.

And then I came back to this side of the country, and the cool kids stopped being so cool and there was a resurgence of the old school aesthetic and then there was third edition -- one for the new millennium. And like everyone else who once rolled twenty sided dice for twenty six hours in a row, I snapped it up.

And... my brain just didn't glean it. It seemed like a mass of numbers to me. Part of the problem was the graphic design -- some moron at Wizards of the Coast thought it would be a good idea to print black text on brown backgrounds, reducing contrast to the point where reading these things invited headaches. And there were feats and prestige classes and THAC0 was gone only there was something else and....

...well, I got used to it. I had to. By now, I was actually writing stuff, and d20 was the order of the day in a lot of ways. And that was monumental too -- Wizards had opened (most of) their rules up, so anyone could develop for them, and a lot of people did. And I got the hang of d20, and d20 Modern, and d20 Future, and Superlink, and True20, and lots of other variations that sprouted from the giant oak of Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition. When the v3.5 Players Handbook came out, I was a little disgruntled -- hadn't I just bought one of these? -- but I sucked it up and bought the thing. And when I read through the rules -- even the ones that were hard to pick through or that broke my brain -- I could still see the game that had formed part of the foundation of my life, all those years before. I could still figure out exactly how I'd adapt my game world (ah Arthe. How I miss you) for this new setting. And when the good folks hammering out OSRIC and other open source versions of first edition AD&D started doing things, I felt old stirrings in the back of my brain. Sure, I was old now and I couldn't get excited for these things any more and there seemed like way more bookkeeping now and man, really, 3.5 but at the very least, I could be nostalgic.

And like a lot of people, I looked at the prospects of a fourth edition warily at best. The developers proudly talked (in at least one case) of how much they hated the old 1st and 2nd edition rules, and it wasn't until 3rd edition that they really began to like this thing. We heard the rumors -- this was going to be a backport of World of Warcraft. They were going to abandon the foundations that have made the game! Magic users would be remade from scratch! Gnomes were being consigned to the Abyss! All was chaos! All was chaos!

Hell, look at the masthead. I changed it to "Protected Gnomish Habitat since 2008" some months ago, after I heard about the Gnomish exile. That's the kind of thing an old man does, when he finds out what those damn kids were up to.

And that... well, that's sort of what it all felt like, to me. Punk kids -- most of whom weren't alive when I was running extensive campaigns -- had taken the reins of Dungeons and Dragons, and clearly didn't care about folks like me. And why should they? Galavanting around the Flanaess is a game for the young, Doctor. Leaving us relics behind was just part of the cost of doing business.

Most galling of all, however, was this sense that this was going to be a new game -- not an update or a new edition, but something entirely new, seeking to tap into those millions of people playing World of Warcraft. They talked about how the new game would follow MMORPG conventions, all the better to make the tabletop experience a seamless transition from their computers. And no one seemed to care about what was being lost, not when there were new markets to tap.

But, I kept mostly quiet about these fears. I wanted to see what would come of Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition. Would it be D&D in name only?

And now I've seen it. I have read the books. I know the new edition. I now know who was right -- the fans rabidly anticipating the new books, and the fans dreading and castigating it as a false pretender to the throne.

And interestingly enough... they're both right.

I am reminded, in a way, of White Wolf in 2003 and 2004. Having gotten themselves so choked with continuity cruft that one couldn't throw a stone on a street without hitting three or four supernatural monsters with dark intent and angst-ridden hearts, they decided to take their various Worlds of Darkness and end them once and for all, publishing both sourcebooks for individual storytellers to run Ragnarok and novels detailing the "official" end of the world for each of their game lines. And, once this was done, they released a new World of Darkness, with entirely new rules and a new setting and new basic tenets and emphases. White Wolf hoped their players would come along for the ride, but they had little intention of bringing the characters into this new world.

So it is, in the end, with the new Dungeons and Dragons.

The core of the game is simplicity. The rules are at the least familiar, but character progression is now standardized -- almost cookie cutter. Classes all progress in abilities at exactly the same rate. Level one character from 1 to 20, and you can level any character from 1 to 20. Powers are broken down by the rate you can use them. At Will powers can be used every time it's your character's turn. Encounter powers can be used once an 'encounter.' (Essentially, once in any given battle against a specific set of foes.) Daily powers can be used -- you guessed it -- once per game day, like spells used to be. So, while a fighter's at will powers involve specific maneuvers where they hit people with metal things, a ranger's at will powers involve shooting arrows into their enemies and a wizard's at-will powers involve things like magic missiles. As promised (or warned), the roles of the different classes are far better defined -- and do indeed follow MMORPG standards. Fighters and paladins are defenders, who draw the attention of their foes and have the fortitude to withstand the most deadly of blows. In other words, they're tanks/tankers, and their job is aggro management while other people kill things. Clerics and Warlords are leaders, who "inspire, heal, and aid the other characters in an adventuring group." In other words, they're the buffers. Rangers, Rogues and Warlocks are the strikers. They do the damage to single targets, hitting them with massive blows. (Warlocks at range, Rogues up close, and Rangers one or the other depending on what they specialize in.) By any other name? They're DPS. And Wizards are controllers, locking down enemies and laying down damage over groups instead of individuals -- so, area effect damage plus debuffs plus holds. The press materials promised that all party members would have something to do every time play comes to them, and that much is true -- the balance of at-will, daily and encounter powers inside the above roles means there's always something to do. And it feels like nothing so much as click powers in a tray in an interface.

A lot of the names are the same, but that doesn't mean the characters are. For example, Paladins can be any alignment now, and any race now. In a game where once it was insisted (by Gary Gygax himself) that there was never a reason to champion chaotic evil and so there would never be an official anti-paladin NPC, we now have chaotic evil paladins. Rangers are, as mentioned, strikers. They can lay down immense damage and all their abilities center around that fact. Which is good, because there's no real wilderness powers at all. They don't even need to take wilderness skills if they don't want to. (Amusingly, Belkar from Order of the Stick is now a perfect ranger -- he can be evil, he doesn't really have any of those tracking or wilderness skills, and man can he lay down hit points of damage.) Warlocks and wizards, far from having to manage their daily spells and utilize them when they'd best be appropriate, can fire off eldrich bolts and rays of enfeeblement every time their turn comes around if they want. Heck, it's going to take some folks some time to adjust to the idea that the fighter doesn't do the most damage in melee combat.

And let's not kid ourselves. This is a game of combat -- as much as the original D&D was, if not more so. This is not a game of out-of-combat nuanced roleplay and complicated social mores. This is a game where your character is an optimized killing machine. Yeah, you can take intimidate or bluff if you really want to, but honestly, you have a charisma score, do you really need more than that? Especially when most of the time, your intimidate skill will take a back seat to your Riposte Strike at-will power or a well timed Shadow Wasp Strike. Your characters will feel most at home in a darkened corridor, decimating all around them.

And honestly? That part right there seems like perfectly good Dungeons and Dragons to me. Yeah, not every DM did the dungeon crawl thing, but the dungeon crawl is the essence of the original game. Purple worms and beholders and kobolds alike existed to be slaughtered for their treasure and their bellies full of sweet experience points.

At the same time, one fear raised up is unquestionably true. This is not an update to Dungeons and Dragons. This is an entirely new game that happens to be called Dungeons and Dragons, and the sooner you get your head wrapped around that idea, the happier you will be. You may have played the same character since 1979, moving from Basic to Advanced D&D, then doing 2nd, 3rd and version 3.5 with him, painstakingly converting him each time. Shake his hand and put him in a drawer and wait for the next time someone wants to play one of those earlier games, because if you try to 'upgrade' him to the new game, you're going to find yourself with an entirely different character with entirely new powers and abilities that don't work the same way, and it can only frustrate you.

And, of course, if you play one of the classes that's absent from this version of the game, you're out of luck. Thieves are now rogues and are way better at killing than thieving (there's nothing that even says you need to take thief skills). Bards? Gone, with no real sense of whether or not they're going to return. There are 'power sources' in this game -- Martial for 'natural' heroes, Divine for Paladins and Clerics, and Arcane for Wizards and Warlocks -- with more coming, but none of them's going to be music. In fact, the ones we know about are psionic, elemental, ki, primal, nature and shadow. There will come a day that monks will be kicking ass again, barbarians and druids will return to the game and do that voodoo they do so well, and we'll even get fire types if we want them.

But... it makes sense, now, that the gnomes are absent from the game right now. In the older game, their best trick was being illusionists... and there is no illusionist, and unless 'shadow' will be an illusionist power source, there's not going to be. Illusions don't really fit the structure of the new game -- they're not used much as it is, and they don't fall into the same role structure as the others.

That's one of the hardest things to work out in this new game with the old name, really. It's not the changes to the rules -- it's the necessity of letting go of the past, as completely as possible, if you're going to embrace this game. Really, the two sides of this little dichotomy are best shown in something Scott Kurtz said over in the blog attached to PVP:

Guess what? Your 3.5 edition stuff did not disintegrate into a pile of black dust today. Get over yourselves. Nobody gives a shit that you committed all the old books to memory and figured out the math of the rules to totally max out your character. Nobody wants you at the table. We only invited you because you got all the books and so many goddamn miniatures.

As happens with Scott Kurtz, I was amazed at how many sides he managed to evoke all at once. On the one side, I completely understood why he said that -- he was taking a lot of crap from people because he was enjoying the game he had been playing, and he wanted to throw some cold reality on them. He's right. There's no reason anyone who wants to play an earlier edition can't go ahead and play an earlier edition. Hell, thanks to the Open Gaming License, development on the old edition proceeds apace in a number of places -- perhaps most successfully at Paizo, where the Pathfinder Role Playing Game is cheerfully revising the 3.5 rules into the next edition of the older game concept. And there's no excuse for trashing someone because he happened to like a game in practice that you despise in theory. None of our opinions are natural laws, after all.

On the other side... honestly, not everyone's ready to be philosophical about this stuff. Telling someone that his ten, or twenty, or thirty year old campaign world can't be effectively upgraded to the new edition of a game he's been playing for most of his post-pubescent life and he should "get over himself" is... well, cold. Callous. And only adds more misery. And misery begets misery.

As for me... I'm on both sides of it. Arthe as it has always been simply doesn't fit this new game. I couldn't revise it into the new rules if I wanted to. My old books haven't disappeared -- I could run an Arthe campaign tomorrow, but I can't do it in Dungeons and Dragons. I can only do it in Pathfinder, or Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (first or second edition). Dungeons and Dragons has left that world behind.

But on the other side... 3rd edition (and 3.5) did nothing for me. They were masses of badly contrasted text that I had to force my brain to follow. The things I really loved (Savage Species is a downright great book, for example) were rare. The game didn't excite me. I was old.

But this new Dungeons and Dragons is cool. I loved reading the books. I wanted to dive in and make characters and generate dungeons and get a group together. I want to play this game.

Reading these rules, I want to dream. I want to imagine. I want to build. And I want to fucking massacre me some kobolds.

Reading these rules, I am young.

And that makes me think that maybe... just maybe... it was D&D that was old. And like the phoenix, it could only rebirth itself in fire.

I don't know, man. All I know is, I can't wait for the next hardcover to get published. These three books just aren't enough.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:06 AM | Comments (31)

May 22, 2008

Eric: Life can be wonderful sometimes.

So, a week ago tomorrow I went to Canada for the last time in a long while, and while I was there I had surprisingly good mall Korean barbeque and saw the always astounding Frank "Damonk" Cormier and Meaghan "No Nickname" Quinn. It also seemed like we found a number of cool things to do in Ottawa for the first time, including finding a great restaurant that was actually open at midnight on a Friday, which would have been useful to know eighteen months ago and for the remainder of my visits.

At one in the morning Sunday Night to Monday Morning, I pulled back into my apartment parking lot with a vehicle crammed full of stuff and a woman. And finally, after years, she can just stay. She can. Just. Stay.

We are now aiming for the June elopement, and we are working on setting up the household. To that end, we're going to be starting some monumental eBaying in the next day or two to A) defray expenses both for this stuff and for the next month's... thing... and B) make some much needed room in the now-joint apartment.

When I wake up in the morning, she is there. And for the first time, I don't have to have that momentary bittersweet knowledge that within the next day, or week, or month she's going away again. She isn't. She's never going away again.

Life is good.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:17 AM | Comments (6)

April 21, 2008

Eric: I know, the thought I may have written more than is required will *shock* you all....

On Friday of last week, Wednesday and I had our interview at the United States Consulate in Montreal -- the last step in the long, long, ever so long process of getting our K-1 Visa approved so Wednesday can move to this country and the two of us can be married.

A friend of mine asked me if they asked us weird questions at the interview. You know, "what color is her kitchen" or "what side of the bed do you sleep on," with a view to proving whether or not we're a real couple or if this was a year long, expensive fraud we were perpetuating on the government.

To answer: no, they did not. This may be because when they asked us the first question, "how did you two meet," we talked and giggled for about ten minutes as we went through the long process, explaining Websnark along the way, with a diversion here or there -- I think it was safe to say we were able to establish ourselves early on as 'actually a couple.'

However, the interviewer seemed to know that when we walked in, as he grinned and said "I'm feeling jaunty today. What say we go from the end and work our way back?" In my time, I have never known a civil servant to feel jaunty whilst rejecting someone, so we had some hope at that point.

On reflection, it may have been my statement of intent to marry.

You see, I had to provide a letter, stating definitively that I intended to marry Wednesday. This is a very specific requirement.

So... I did.

But you have to remember... this is me.

I reproduce the letter here.

To Whom it May Concern:

On January 13, 2007, at approximately 3:00 in the afternoon, I proposed to Wednesday White at the 2007 Arisia convention in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States of America. At the same time as I presented my formal proposal to Ms. White, it was also automatically posted to Websnark, a popular commentary blog I created and which we both have written for. The online version, and the movie of the cartoon I had friends put together for me to formally propose to Ms. White, can be found at http://www.websnark.com/archives/2007/01/submitted_witho_1.html, and a copy of the post and the (literally) hundreds of comments wishing us well are included.

After the post, we retained legal counsel and began the process of bringing Ms. White to America so that we can be married. A process which is finally (hopefully) close to complete, which has both of us excited and happy.

Please let me be clear. Assuming that our Visa is approved, it is both my intent and my honor to marry Wednesday White. Our tentative plan, assuming all goes well, is to be married in June of 2008, well within the 90 day window required by the K-1 Visa. I am gainfully employed (the day I wrote this letter was my tenth anniversary at this workplace, in fact) at [my workplace], with full benefits including paid room and board to live on campus. Ms. White will be provided for while we find her work in America, and then we plan to spend the next several decades providing for each other jointly.

I am marrying Ms. White because I love her, because I want to spend my life with her, and because I want her to live with me, in the United States of America, the land of my birth. I look forward to your assistance in facilitating this process to the best of your ability.

Thank you for your consideration. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to contact me at the above address, e-mail address or telephone number.

Sincerely,

Eric Alfred Burns
Wolfeboro, New Hampshire

The first person we saw -- the one who collected our paperwork and took Weds's fingerprints -- looked at me and said "I still intend to marry Ms. White" would have been sufficient.

Oh.

They also said "yes."

Within the month, Wednesday will live with me, and then we elope.

We won.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:55 PM | Comments (47)

April 9, 2008

Eric: Moments in Time: two two-day blocks. So, four days, more or less.

February 8, 2008

I was out of place.

Work had sent me to a week long training course, so for eight hours a day, I was in a small room typing on computers, learning ways of tweaking server configurations and remote setup. My trainers were good, the lessons were useful, the work was challenging enough to get my brain pumping.

Which left sixteen hours of the day when I wasn't in training. This included sleeping, mind, but even that was suspect, because the training was in Las Vegas, Nevada.

This, by the way, makes eminent sense for my employer. So long as I had the diligence to actually... you know, do my job when I was supposed to, Las Vegas is the least expensive city that the school could send me to be trained, outside of something I could drive to. And a week work of gasoline reimbursement might not be any cheaper, to be honest. I did a package deal of hotel, flight and rental car, and it was by far the least expensive package deal I'd ever gotten to go anywhere. Food, which was covered under expenses (or chargeable to my room -- which is backdoor expenses) was way less expensive for good quality food in Las Vegas than anywhere else. I was at the Excalibur, for example, and they had a strip steak meal available from seven o'clock at night until seven o'clock in the morning for seven dollars. And it was a good strip steak, I would add, with the appropriate good strip steak sides. The Excalibur buffet, which was well stocked (and actually featured on the Food Network as one of the best deals in town) wasn't materially more, and that was All You Can Eat. All told, I was saving my employers significant coin by flying to Sin City.

The Excalibur was... well, quaint. Opened in 1990 as a show and theme casino, it was a curious mixture of old school aesthetic and slick new Vegas theme fun. Its casino floor is expansive, and relatively bright and quiet. The mazes of slot machines chirped happily, of course. There were a couple of bars with live music every night, of course. But for the most part the Excalibur wasn't chaos and it wasn't decadent. It was almost homey. The Excalibur was more or less my speed.

This night, I wasn't at the Excalibur. A series of sky bridges connects the casinos at this end of the strip together -- the Excalibur, New York New York, the MGM Grand, the Tropicana, the Mandalay Bay, the Luxor and the like. And to be blunt, almost none of these casinos feel like the Las Vegas you see in the movies. They're grand, they're expansive, they're triumphs of Civil Engineering. New York New York is meant to be loud, like plunging into the streets of the Bronx during a party. The MGM Grand is, as the name implies, grand and expansive, and eerily quiet. (Not a bonus, to my mind, to a casino floor). It also has lions. It's interesting to look up as you're walking into a gift shop and realize that three feet above your head, through what at the time looks like a thin piece of lucite there's a black maned lion looking back down at you.

Lions are very large, by the by.

(Old school Vegas, by the by, did exist on our block, at the Tropicana. The Tropicana casino floor is mirrored and glitzy and cramped and looks like every movie you've ever seen about Las Vegas. It is exactly what one expects a Las Vegas casino to be. It was worth the trip, at least for one day.)

This night, I was at the Luxor. The Luxor is the famous black glass pyramid -- the theme is Ancient Egypt (technically ancient Thebes, but there were no pyramids in Thebes. On the other hand, it's frigging Vegas. Don't overthink it). The place is huge, and if the Excalibur is homey and almost friendly, the Luxor is sheer bacchanalia. Scantily clad dancers writhed on the top of gambling tables. Noise and lights and music were everywhere. The main bar was in the center of the room, and water cascaded down all around it. The casino floor was as loud as the MGM Grand was silent.

I was, to be blunt, overwhelmed. It was huge fun, but it was also out of my league and I knew it. But I was determined to enjoy myself.

April 7, 2008

"So, what's the matter?"

I shrugged to Chris, one of my coworkers. "I have a chest ache."

He arched an eyebrow. "You going to the doctor?"

"Yeah. It's really, really mild but with my heart problems even a really mild ache--"

"Absolutely. You don't take chances. Not with your heart. When do you go?"

"1:30."

"You sure you shouldn't go sooner?"

I shrugged. "It's really mild, and that's when they could fit me in. I'm staying next to a phone and I'll stay near people. If there's a problem--"

Chris half-smiled. "Sure. But you know. Don't take stupid chances, okay?"

"Since when do I take stupid chances, Chris?"

February 8, 2008

Now, I have a good gambling system. I go to a gambling floor with a crisp twenty dollar bill. I put it in my left pocket. This is my bank. At some point, I get it changed for ones, because ones are useful. When I go and gamble at the Casino de Lac Leamy in Quebec, it's way more satisfying because they give you the money as quarters and you can feed the coins into the machines. Las Vegas left quarters behind a long time ago, and even the penny, nickel, dime and quarter slots only take dollar bills. They figured out this meant they got more money.

I then put that twenty into different slot machines, one dollar at a time. I take my time. It's more fun with Wednesday because then it's about the banter, not about the gambling. The gambling is secondary. Gambling all on my own is, to be honest, a little bit dull.

Now, whenever you win in a current slot machine, you don't get cascades of coins (though the machines have the digitally sampled sounds of coins falling into their coin trays). Instead, you get that many credits added to your total. So, if you're playing quarter slots (which I prefer, on the whole), you have four credits for your original dollar, and however many credits after you play four times is what you have won off that machine. You then hit "Cash Out," and it prints a barcoded ticket with your winnings encoded onto it, which you can redeem at the bankers or at an number of machines spread throughout the floor. Or, of course, you can feed the ticket into a slot machine and keep playing.

That, by the way, is what they want you to do. They want you to "see how long you can go." If you do that, they're guaranteed to get your full twenty dollars from you, no matter how much you 'win' along the way. You're renting entertainment, and the longer you can go the better off they'll be -- especially if you're having so much fun that you decide to get another twenty dollars out, and then another twenty, and then maybe a hundred.....

I am their worst case scenario customer. I expect, going into the gambling, that said twenty bucks is going to go away. I expect not to win a thin dime. Whatever the machines return to me goes into my right pocket. Remember that my bankroll is in my left.

When I'm out of money in my left pocket, I go and redeem the tickets in my right pocket. Whatever comes out of the redemption machine is mine to keep, and I'm done gambling for the night. I never have to worry about selling my car to pay off my gambling debts. I enjoy lots of spinning wheels and noises. I can play everyone's favorite casino game "do you think that girl in the minidress is a prostitute," so popular in Vegas, where the answer is very often 'yes.' And then I hit the bar and have a couple, using my 'winnings' to fund that.

Because slot machines are designed to hook you in, you're going to get some return on investment from them if you hold yourself to a specific amount. At the Casino de Lac Leamy, up in Canada (run, I would add, by the Quebec provincial government. Now that's a lottery system), the slots are 'loose.' They pay out relatively often. In fact, when Weds and I have played twenty dollars worth of slots together, we've never failed to leave the casino floor with more money than we had entering the floor. That twenty dollars has been anything from thirty to sixty-five dollars, the three or four times we've done this.

I assume the Casino de Lac Leamy hates us.

Vegas slots ain't that loose. I was averaging $4-6 dollar losses each night, with one night I left with $26. Not a big deal. It was decent enough entertainment, though lonely without Wednesday. There's something vaguely pathetic about being forty years old and wandering casino floors by yourself in Las Vegas, feeding dollar bills into slot machines. And "is she a prostitute" becomes downright creepy as a game. Especially if they catch you looking, because if they are a prostitute, then that means they come over and solicit you. And honestly, that's an uncomfortable moment.

This night, I was in the Luxor, and "is she a prostitute" was unplayable, because essentially everyone was young and -- if women -- largely naked. The men were mostly in sportcoats and open collars. It was enjoyable, but a little over the top. If Weds had been with me, it would have been a blast. As it was, I felt displaced.

But, I was determined to have a good time.

Now, one of the things I had done was reserve little bits of my twenty dollar bankroll, each night, to "do the Vegas thing." That meant that one night (at New York New York) I played some Blackjack, to say I'd played Blackjack in Vegas. (I pissed off one of the other players for not betting smart enough. "We don't hit on fifteen when they show a five," he said, stabbing at the table. "We do not do that." I accepted his word for it. As it was, I broke even after five one dollar bets and moved on.) And I decided, while at the Luxor, that this would be my night to play a round of Roulette.

Now Roulette is a sucker's game. The odds are astronomically in favor of the house. You play Roulette because you don't mind losing. I found an electronic version -- people put X amount of money in the bank, they entered their bets on a touchscreen, and then a real, physical roulette wheel was spun by real, physical girls who paid winners in real, physical chips when they cashed out. It was 21st century, and old school, all at once. So I figured play five bucks spread out over various bets for a few minutes, take my losses and spend the other fifteen bucks at the slots, then retreat back across the bridge to Excalibur for some liquor and sleep. I was in over my head.

I did this for about three spins before I realized (there were no posted minimums) that I was at a five dollar minimum table. The system had essentially rejected all my bets, which were 'intelligently' done on things like 'even' and 'red.'

"Fine," I muttered, annoyed, and I slapped a bet. And it was the stupidest bet you could make in Roulette. I just wanted to lose my five bucks and get on with my evening, tired of this thing. So I bet a number. 23, to be exact.

Betting a number in Roulette is moronic, by the by. It's essentially the worst bet you can make in Vegas outside of betting on the Washington Generals to beat the Harlem Globetrotters. Idiots bet numbers in Roulette. If you look at the hardcore Roulette players, they play the safer bets I mentioned above, and they play corners or sides of numbers, in effect putting their bet on 2-4 numbers at once. If they bet numbers, it's out of superstition and never, ever the only bet they play on a given turn of the wheel. Only the kind of hayseed yokel who hits on fifteen in blackjack when the dealer's showing a five would play a number in Roulette as his only bet. Please, please, please. If you learn anything from my tale, learn this -- do not play numbers in Roulette. It's stupid.

So I finished, and I hit 'cash out.' A mere formality in my case, since I bet five and my bank was five, but this would close me out of the system and stop my Player's Club card from recording my activity there. (Yes, I have a Player's Club card. Telly Savalas would be proud of me, right up until he learned I played a number in Roulette. Then he'd be pissed and leave.)

There was a flurry of activity, and the attractive woman carried over a small tray of chips of various colors.

I blinked, and looked more closely at the screen.

I had cleared $295.

I looked at the number of the last bet.

23.

I had just hit on Roulette.

I was a winner.

April 7, 2008

My usual doctor was booked, and his partner had recently left the practice, so I was seeing a temp. Which was fine -- it was Doctor Fleet's handpicked temp, and I have a lot of faith in Doctor Fleet.

"It's a very, very mild pain," I said. "If it weren't in my chest--"

"We're going to run an EKG," he said. "We want to make sure everything is all right."

I nodded. "Makes sense. We don't take chances, right?"

"Absolutely."

So they taped electrodes all over my body, and I lay back, and then ran an EKG. And then they left the room for a while (after taking the electrodes off me) and I waited.

About fifteen minutes later, they came back in. "We'd like you to go over to the ER," the doctor said.

I blinked. "Is there a problem?"

"Probably not," he said. "But... well, we want to run a blood test for Troponin levels. That's an enzyme your body releases when there's damage to the heart. It's probably nothing, but we want to see -- we want to just make sure everything's okay -- and if you go to the ER you'll get the test results back more quickly."

"Oh. But it's probably nothing?"

"Probably. But we want to make sure."

So I took a copy of the EKG over, after they called ahead. I went into the outpatient ER queue.

And I was moved to the front of the queue. Which surprised me a touch. I told each new tech or nurse the symptoms ("On a scale of 1 to 10? The pain's probably just a 1 or a 2. Really, if it had been anywhere else on my body--")

They put me on a telemetry monitor. They took blood, and started an IV. They took another EKG. Everyone was very nice and pleasant, and no one seemed to be annoyed that this dumb hypochondriac was taking up time and resources.

I began to get concerned.

February 9, 2008

I was a little bit delicate, going to class the next day. Hitting in Roulette meant having more of a good time than I normally had been, including introducing myself to a couple of scotches with names I couldn't pronounce. This was the closest I was ever going to come to being a high roller, and I had fun with it.

I called Weds a number of times. She was amused, and excited over the win. I was missing her a lot but trying hard not to let that affect the good vibe. I'd god damned hit in Roulette.

That morning, though as I said delicate, I'd done some recalculation of budget. I'd paid off all my gambling for the week. I'd paid off some other personal expenses (the kind of thing that work wouldn't cover, like the Star Trek teddy bears I'd picked up for Weds. Don't judge me for my sappiness, damn it, they were cute bears). And at the end of everything, I had a hundred dollar bill in my pocket that was entirely outside of my budget. It was, in effect, free money.

I had not expected free money. And somehow, it seemed wrong to not do something with it. Something wild, and nuts. I was in Vegas and I was way ahead. And it was on a dumbass bet. Being an agnostic who enjoys superstition now and again, I tend to ascribe good luck in gambling to Fand, Celtic sea goddess, wife of Manannán mac Lir, Queen of the Faeries, and she who teaches ninjas to disguise themselves as pigeons. A decent amount of the Scotch the night before had been dedicated to her, which must have amused my bartender. Who, a couple of days later, I learned made an outstanding hot toddy, using Benedictine of all things, but I digress.

Weds, being smarter than I am, counseled keeping the hundred bucks. Or at most adding some of it to nightly revels. Bump my last few nights' gambling to thirty bucks instead of twenty. Or go see a show, maybe. Or hold onto the money and be glad for it in the weeks to come.

But that didn't seem right to me. For dumb reasons, but validly dumb. I had a hundred bucks above and beyond my budget... and I was in Las Vegas. No, I had an idea. A thing on the big list of things one wanted to do in Vegas but wasn't dumb enough to do, most of the time.

I wanted to play a hundred dollar slot machine.

Every casino had them, mind. One section cordoned off for "High Stakes Players." And I had budgeted for one moonshot slot pull -- a twenty dollar moonshot played in a high stakes slot machine, probably on my last night. If Fand or blind luck or what had you wanted to give me a big ass payout, I reasoned, I might as well give them one chance to do so. (The major jackpot on a quarter slot, generally speaking, is not materially more than I make in two weeks at work. I had not been playing with the Lottery dream of being rich in mind.)

Well, I had a hundred bucks in my pocket. Why not take the moonshot with that? I mean, when would I ever have a chance to put a hundred bucks on one pull of the machine again? I don't play in those leagues, and I wasn't going to.

So why not? Why not take this money I never expected to have and take one grand shot at the moon?

Slots, for the record, are about as safe as any Vegas bet you can play, which means most of the time they don't return very much. Obviously, most spins of the tumblers you lose. Welcome to gambling. But reasonably often, you do win. The machines work in "credits," which count as one of whatever amount is printed on the machine. On a quarter slot machine, each credit is twenty five cents. On a dollar slot, it's a dollar. On a nickel slot, it's a five cents. Most of the machines let you play more than one credit at a time, it's worth mentioning. Vegas likes money, and this was a way for people to spend it faster. I'm a one credit per play kind of guy.

So, it's not hard to hit a one credit payout on the slots, so that you get back what you put in. It doesn't cost the house anything for that, after all, and most slots players will just play again. It's not uncommon to hit 2, 3, 5 or 10 credits for one. I've hit 35 credits for a spin lots of times, which when you're playing quarter slots means an $8.75 payout. Nothing to write home about, but exciting at that one moment. I've even hit 100 credit payouts or more. Weds and I hit a forty dollar payout on a quarter slot once, which meant we hit 160 credits on the spin.

On the hundred dollar slots, one credit was a hundred bucks. Hitting a 5 to 1 would turn my $100 into $500. Hitting 35 to 1 would be $3,500. Hitting 160 to 1 would be $160,000 -- and no doubt a comped room and many opportunities to be a VIP. The casino would want that money back.

It was astronomically unlikely I would go home with hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it was nigh impossible I would go home with more. (Many machines topped out with a 3000 to 1 payout on a 1 credit play. That's a cool $750 on quarter slots. On a hundred dollar slot shot, that's three million dollars. Seductive sounding, but it wouldn't happen.) But the chances weren't bad that I would get my hundred dollars back, or even turn it into two or three or five hundred dollars.

And it wasn't money I had expected.

And I would never have this chance again.

By the end of the work day, it was clear to me I was going to do this. In the land of suckers, the hayseed sucker who hit on fifteen when the dealer was showing five and was stupid enough to bet on a single number in Roulette was going to take a hundred dollar bill -- five hundred meals, if one bought Ramen noodles -- drop it into a slot machine, and take a shot at the moon.

April 7, 2008

"Here's the thing," Doctor Boucher said. He was the ER doctor on duty. He'd consulted with Dr. Fleet directly, mind. "If you look at this EKG from your doctor's office -- see this peak that recurs every little bit? Well, right here..." he pointed to the line in question "it doesn't. It stays smooth. Now, that might have been the placement of the electrodes. That might also just be normal for you. But it might -- might -- speak to something that's wrong."

"Okay," I said, lying in an ER bed. There were electrode pads all over me, now, and I was in a hospital gown, and there were tubes in my nose feeding me oxygen. Probably with absolutely nothing wrong with me, mind. But you don't take chances. Not with your heart. Not when I have so much to live for. The final visa appointment for Wednesday and I to cross the border and get married has finally been set, for the 18th of this month. We're that close to being done with this process (assuming they approve the paperwork, of course). Then we have her move in May, and then we get married, at least on paper, in June. (We have to be married within 90 days of the border crossing or they make her go back. And as it turns out, I have a conference I and my supervisor are going to be flying to in Las Vegas within that period. Since we're going to elope no matter what happens, and since paying for Weds's ticket to fly out as well is dirt cheap, why wouldn't we do the elopement in the elopement capital of the world?) So I have to be healthy. I need to be healthy. I need to live, God Damn it.

For the record? The good package deal in June was for the Luxor. I can show Weds the roulette table. I expect the casino floor to be more fun when I have Weds with me.

"Now, we got your Troponin test back," he continued. "And a normal Troponin level should be 0.01 to 0.05. More than that is an indicator for cardiac damage."

"And?"

"You're at 0.05. Which is in the normal range and may be normal for you. But it's borderline."

"Which means I've now had two tests showing anomalies?"

"And a history of Cardiomyopathy." The Doctor nodded. "We want to keep you overnight for observation. We'll take several more blood tests, keep you on telemetry and monitoring -- we want to see if your Troponin levels rise or fall. If you have actual heart damage, they should rise, and we can track that."

"Sure, of course," I said. "Whatever you think is best." I don't take stupid chances, I reminded myself. I have too much to live for.

They brought to the observation room in a wheelchair. I told them I really felt okay to walk, but they laughed and said "hey, it's a free ride, right?" It wasn't until later that I realized they had to bring me in a wheelchair. If I walked and that pushed me into a catastrophic heart attack, they'd have been liable because I was in with chest pain -- no matter how mild -- and they were having me walk. As with Casinos, hospitals want to keep as much money as possible -- they sure don't want to lose it in malpractice suits.

I was not, I was told, admitted to the hospital. I was in an observation room, because I was under observation. The major difference is the beds aren't nearly as comfortable as when you're admitted. They're essentially gurneys with a Craftmatic adjustable bed welded to them, narrower than a twin bed. If I had a heart attack, they'd easily be able to get people and defibrillators around it. If I had to be wheeled into emergency surgery or otherwise, it was just a matter of taking the brakes off and hauling my ass where it needed to go. It made sense in every way.

But it wasn't comfortable. Essentially every tech or nurse who came in mentioned that. I told them not to worry about it -- I was simply glad they were there. And I was glad.

I made sure Weds and my parents knew. I gave a friend my emergency contact list -- representatives of everyone I knew would need to get the word if something happened. (Something, you know, meaning 'massive heart attack and dying.' Weds, of course, who would also get the word out here on Websnark and on my Livejournal, if need be. My parents, of course. My big friend Frank, who would let the Ithaca/Syracuse contingent know.

I kept a copy of the contact list with me, just in case. It had been some years since I had made plans for these contingencies. I hadn't missed them. And I got both Dad and Wednesday on the "give information to these people if they call with questions" list.

And I settled in. They got my meds list, to make sure I got my pills. And I waited, under observation.

Feburary 9, 2008

I got back to the Excalibur. This was not a night to go scoping out other casinos, I'd decided. The Excalibur, for no real reason, was home for me. It was comfortable. The bartender knew me. The prostitutes knew I wasn't in the market.

I hit my wallet and got out twenty dollars. The hundred dollar bill sat looking at me, Ben Franklin's eyes looked amused. I left it where it was for now. First, we hit the night. Same as always. Exactly as expected. A twenty dollar bill became twenty one dollar bills. I got out my Player's Club card, and I began to walk the floor, finding games to play.

Always, I thought about the end of the night. The moon shot. The single pull. Should I wait? Should that be my last bet in Vegas before I headed out to the airplane and my normal life? Should I do it at all?

I played a game based on Wheel of Fortune. I played one based on The Munsters. I played Double Diamond. A dollar in. Four credits. Four pulls. Cash out. Pick up the ticket, and move on. Taking my time. Getting some decaf coffee -- complimentary, from a trolley circling the floor. Lots of things were complimentary when you were playing the games. Hell, if you play video poker at the Jesters' Club, and put at least ten dollars in, they'll comp you single malt scotch. They want your brain mushy, your judgement relaxed. That's why I was sticking to decaf right then. My judgement was questionable enough without liquor being involved, thank you.

A dollar into a machine. Hit the "one credit" button. Ignore all the things extolling the virtues of playing two or three or five credits. Watch the tumblers spin. Feel good when they line up in a way that makes your credits go up. Not worry when the credits just go down. Cash out. Ticket in the right hand pocket.

Look over the shoulder. High Stakes, the neon sign gleams. The home of the five dollar slots, the ten dollar slots, the twenty dollar slots and the hundred dollar slots.

And then I was done. My left pocket was empty. I went and redeemed the money in my right hand pocket.

Twenty dollars when into the machines. Seventeen dollars and twenty five cents came out. An hour and a half's wanderings and occasional playing, and it had cost me two dollars and seventy-five cents.

My wallet felt heavy. I took it out. Took out Ben Franklin. I put him in my left hand pocket, the return on the night to date going into my right.

I went for another walk, downstairs, to the arcade -- where kids were allowed. There were a lot of kids in town tonight -- some sort of cheerleading competition here in the city -- and it was disconcerting to see fourteen year old cheerleaders in the center of sin. But they weren't allowed on the casino floor. Smoking was allowed on the floor, and gambling and drinking. This is one of the rarities of rarities in today's world -- a place unreservedly for adults, where you went in knowing that if you saw something offensive, it was your own damn fault for going there in the first place. The presumption was you were making your own decisions, and no one but no one was to blame if you gawked at showgirls or prostitutes, lost your Mortgage payment playing craps or betting on the Knicks, and drank yourself half-blind on single malt scotch you were comped because you spent a hundred dollars losing at video poker.

The arcade was literally a carnival arcade. No video games here. Just token drop games, guess your weight games, throw the ball and knock over the pins games. It was, I realized, entirely devoted to teaching kids to spend their money on taking a chance -- shooting for the moon. Heck, you might get a prize if you were good enough or lucky enough! Gambling, legal almost everywhere for children of all ages. Preparing cheerleaders for that day, five or six years later, when they could come to town as adults and spend their time at tables with green felt on them.

I went upstairs, and got one more bit of coffee. I felt conflicted for a moment, and then I walked to where I saw the High Stakes sign.

April 8, 2008

It was early in the morning. My back hurt, and so did my leg. Sciatica wasn't happy with the accomodations, it seemed. Doctor Fleet was there.

"Your blood pressure and pulse are excellent," he said, grinning. "And it looks like your Troponin levels have gone down to 0.01."

"So I'm okay?"

"We think so. Do you still have the ache?"

"Well, yeah."

He nodded. "We should try Mylanta. And I want you to have a stress test, just to be sure. Schedule it with my office on your way out. We'll do a nuclear resonance test at the same time -- see your ejection fraction, make sure everything is good."

"Good. Yeah, we don't want to take chances."

"Exactly. I'm going to write this up, and we'll check your last set of test results.. Give us a few hours, and you can get out of here. Sound good?"

"You bet." I grinned.

"Thought it might." He went out the door.

And he's right. Things seem to be okay -- the ache wasn't likely my lungs or heart. It might be muscular, or my back (nerve endings do funny things in the body) or any of a number of things. We test. We rule them out. We don't take chances.

After a couple of hours, they did indeed spring me. I called Weds, and called my folks, and called work. I discussed the need for second opinions and other tests that should be done and the like. "You need to be careful," my boss said, worried about me. "You don't want to take any chances."

And I went home -- my boss insisted -- and I relaxed and let the stress out a bit, playing with the cat a little. She was right. I didn't want to take any chances.

But then, I never took stupid chances, right?

February 9, 2008

I walked into the area. It was oddly quiet -- very few people play the high stakes slots. I looked at the machines that were there. The five dollar machines, the twenty dollar machines... they all looked essentially the same as the quarter or dollar slots.

And, for that matter, like the small bank of hundred dollar machines.

This is nuts, I thought. Play the twenty dollar slots. You'll get five spins on that one, not just one. Play the quarter slots all night. Keep the damn money and consider yourself lucky.

I closed my eyes, and thought about the following week. Back home, in the middle of one of the more miserable New Hampshire winters we'd had in the past ten years. What would I feel if I played this and lost? What would I feel if I didn't play it? Was it better to have your stupidity confirmed or to wonder for the rest of your life what might have been.

I thought of that paean to gambler's enabling, "If–". I have to believe this poem has been responsible for more bad decisions than almost any other poem in literature -- not counting The Bible, anyhow. For those who don't recall, the passage in question goes like this:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings–nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds–worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And–which is more–you'll be a Man, my son!

It's a hideous thing, that poem. A Man done throw all his money into the pot and shrug when he loses. A man does everything right and nothing wrong. A man keeps going. A man does it well or doesn't do it at all.

And that poem or not, I realized that the recrimination I would feel for not taking this dumbass chance would be way worse than the shrug when this money -- that I had never counted on in the first place -- was gone.

I walked to the machine. It promised up to 10,000 to 1 payouts, which wouldn't happen, though in that moment you do stop and consider what ten million dollars would give to you. It had lots of payout options of at least 1 to 1. I'd already decided that if it returned 1 to 1 it would be a sign from Fand to keep the damn hundred, and I would, gladly.

I fed in the hundred dollar bill. But for Franklin, it was just like feeding in one dollar, except instead of four credits, it gave me 1. One credit.

I closed my eyes, feeling silly for feeling nervous.

I opened them. I hit the right button to put one credit on the line. I made sure my Player's Club card was in place, and I pulled the lever, watching the tumblers spin and the electronic sounds and lights as they played their cheerful tune for me, one last time that night.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:53 PM | Comments (36)

March 5, 2008

Eric: Lower the flags and ring the bells, across the Flanaess from the Sea of Dust to the old Great Kingdom: The Free City of Greyhawk knows mourning tonight

There's freezing rain outside, covering the landscape with little hard pellets. The weekend was spent in Ottawa, where the weather wasn't so hot most of the time but the company was good. Our valentine's day, to make up for a day of gifts exchanged and well wishes and expressions of love made four hundred or so miles away from each other with a national border between us. She is well, thank you for asking, and I'm fine as well, though I'm tired today.

Yesterday, I sat down to write my next State of, which should appear later today and was scheduled to appear yesterday, having been back (though I had scheduled that day off as well -- I'm old now, and an Ottawa trip usually takes me a day or so in recovery before I'm back in the saddle), but before I could do that I followed up on some e-mail, and that's how I learned that Ernest Gary Gygax had passed away at the age of sixty nine. On Gamemaster's Day, no less.

Well, all apologies to Brad Guigar and Evil Inc,, but at that moment I didn't really feel like writing about his webcomic. I didn't feel like writing anything. I was stunned. Honestly stunned. I couldn't get my brain around the idea. Gary Gygax was dead?

Gary Gygax was dead?

For those who came in late, Gary Gygax was one of the seminal figures in adventure gaming and fantasy role playing games. He was arguably the seminal figure. The patriarch. The single most important man to a hobby which has led to literally billions of dollars of revenue in international business over the course of decades. He was one of the core bridge figures carrying old style wargaming rules into new style tabletop roleplaying. He was the founder of Gencon, the man who took The Strategic Review, a magazine devoted to wargaming with some minor RPG roots, and made it Dragon, which for years was the single unifying connector between roleplayers. He created Gencon out of a yearly gathering of wargamers ("Gencon 0," in the history, was a 1966 gathering of about 12 to 20 (reports vary) wargamers that Gygax put together in Lake Geneva in Gygax's own home. (For reference, Gen Con Indy 2007, the fortieth anniversary of the Con, had twenty seven thousand attendees last year. They're now in the midst of a huge scandal and just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but I digress.) Gygax was the most visible public figure, the prominent personality, the ambassador and advocate for an entire hobby which became an industry in many forms.

Oh, yeah. He also cocreated Dungeons and Dragons. You might have heard of it.

Dungeons and Dragons grew out of homebrew rules that both Gygax and Dave Arneson put together in the early seventies. Gygax's homebrew system centered on his City of Greyhawk. Arneson's system centered on his legendary Blackmoor setting. The original Dungeons and Dragons three book set was, for all intents and purposes, a synthesis of these two systems refined for ease of play, and Greyhawk and Blackmoor were the first two supplements. They put together a small company (Tactical Studies Rules) to support some cottage industry support for their role playing game and their various wargames, and printed a thousand copies of the original Dungeons and Dragons (named, they later claimed, from an offhanded quip from Gygax's wife).

Those thousand copies sold out in less than nine months. In the early 1970s. With no budget for things like advertising.

Over the next several years, Gygax took center stage. Arneson's role diminished (and later there would be legal wrangling followed by at least an official reconciliation), but if the creation of Dungeons and Dragons had been a joint affair, the explosion of Dungeons and Dragons and role playing games in general was a product of Gygax's industry, vision, and sometimes pigheaded stubbornness. Revisions to the rules came out. New supplements emerged (including one of my most prized possessions -- a copy of Gods, Demigods and Heroes, meant for the original game and found in a hobby shop for cover price during my initial 'buy in' to the game, alongside a book on traps, a 'solo adventure,' and The City State of the Invincible Overlord produced by Judges Guild). And a new plan emerged -- a major revision, known as Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which would codify and evolve the rules into a true open ended campaign experience.

Leading up to the release of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons hardbacks, Gygax and company released the original ("blue dragon booklet") Basic Dungeons and Dragons set boxed set in 1977.

Which is where I entered the story.

I had first heard about Dungeons and Dragons through the best advertising medium the hobby had in 1977 -- the evening news. My first exposure to the game was listening to shrill, mostly ignorant parents and psychologists who'd never read the game talking about its dangers. Stories of people crawling into steam tunnels and losing all sense of reality when they went there were in their infancy back then, but they were still present before they could be codified and given a voice in the sad 1979 story of James Dallas Egbert III (a story which later turned out to have no connection to his roleplaying hobby). The danger, they told us, was real.

And I? Was enthralled. The very idea of that game thrilled me. A game where you could be a wizard or warrior, so real and evocative some people went nuts? Sign me up!

To this day, when I hear alarmist talk about gaming of any sort, I consider it advertising and figure the game in question is worth a look. Jack Thompson has probably sold as many or more copies of Grand Theft Auto as anything Rockstar's paid for, but I digress.

I got my blue dragon booklet, inside a lovely full color box. My edition had chits inside that you cut out and put into a bag to represent "1-20" or the like, though I also bought a set of the original dice that sometimes came in the box itself. Those dice were prized possessions until 1985, when my dice bag was lost at school. In part, they were so prized because they were such terrible dice. The plastic was cheap and they were uninked, You actually took a black crayon and rubbed it on the numbers to 'fill them in,' and because the plastic was so bad within a few years they were worn absolutely smooth. My twenty sided was a slightly irregular marble at the end. But by then I had lots of dice from the good people at Gamescience or Zocchi. Gemstone dice. Purple plastic dice. Tons and tons and tons of six siders. Dice of all kinds.

And I also had the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons books.

Those came out over time. First we got the Monster Manual, a compendium of beasts and creatures that included such horrors as the Mind Flayer, the Rust Monster, and the Beholder -- a monster so core to fantasy today that people forget it was created by and is owned by the good people at Dungeons and Dragons.

It also had the pictures of the Succubus, the Dryad, the Erinyes and the Type V Demon. For a huge number of D&D players, the "D" chapter of that book was the most popular by far. But give us a break, lots of us were just entering puberty and we didn't have Suicidegirls.com at the time.

This was followed by the Player's Handbook, a glorious compendium of character classes and reams and reams of spells. Fighters and Magic Users and Clerics Thieves abounded, alongside Paladins and Druids and Illusionists and Assassins. Half-orcs stood angrily alongside half-elves, halflings shrilly demanded that you pretend they weren't in any way repackaged (and legally trademarked) hobbits, and "Armor Class" and "Speed Factor" were determined for things like Ranseurs and the deadly but slow Bec de Corbin (+2 against Plate Mail and Shield, Plate Mail, splint or Banded Mail and Shield, Splint and Banded Mail, or Chainmail and Shield -- Chainmail, at AC 5, was not included in the bonus, 1d8 damage vs. small to man sized, 1d6 against large size, six feet required to wield, speed factor 9, 6 gold pieces in cost, approximately 100 gold pieces in weight. It would be years before anyone involved in the game would bother to include a description of just what a bec de corbin was, other than six feet long and as heavy as a bag of gold, and we didn't have Wikipedia in those days. For the record, it's a hammer and spike mounted on a pole, designed to tear armor off and rip shields out of your hand. It's related to the lucerne hammer and sometimes identified as a 'warhammer,' though that can be anything from a kind of pole arm to a hammer shaped mace. Popularly, we think of a warhammer as the sort of thing Thor carried, which doesn't describe a bec de corbin at all. And if this seems out of place in the Gygax remembrance, you're wrong. He ate this stuff up with a spoon.)

After that we got, in relatively short order, the Dungeon Master's Guide, the end of the trifecta, later joined by Deities and Demigods (the update to my beloved Gods, Demigods and Heroes and still a great supplement years later -- especially if you're cool like me and have a copy from before the folks at Chaosium realized there were unlicensed sections on the Cthulhu and Elric mythos which necessitated a rerelease without those chapters. And by cool, I mean "a dork in his 40's.") This was the foundation. Later, there would be tons more books -- Unearthed Arcana, the Wilderness Survival Guide, the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, the Manual of the Planes, and so many more, along with adventures adventures adventures. My group ran through B1 and B2. They did the Giants and the Drow. They knew the Village of Hommlet and later learned the pain that was The Temple of Elemental Evil. I had the World of Greyhawk Gazetteer, back in the days where world maps were naturally Hex Maps, even as dungeon maps were out of necessity on graph paper.

God, so many memories.

We're not discussing an idle thing here. Not for me. This is a huge part of my early life. These books -- First Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons were a foundational part of my social network. And if that sounds dorky to you, and I sound like a loser to you, then fuck you. I had better times with these people than you've had with anyone you know, God damn it.

Gods, what people.... it started at once with my friends at school. George Carpenter, Tim Freeman, Richard Grindle, Chad King.... then I started to get involved with a group over at the college. Don Cody, Cody Stober, Rick Littlefield. Anyway, Herbie Oxten and his girlfriend/later wife Lucy. And then it merged with my high school group -- Rich Grindle, still (and I still miss him), Andrew Paradis, J.P. Marin from the high school, Gary 'Chip' Hanson, Kevin Pelletier, Eric Clements, Michelle Kane and others from the college. I was usually the Dungeon Master, running them through Arthe, my home campaign. Arthe came with me to college (as did Andrew), and there added Andy Alexander, Robin Whelton, Ernestine Lillya (later Gardner), Matt DeForrest, the late Charlie Barlow, Abbe Dalton, this guy named Mike I can't remember the last name of right now... all blending into real life, with my big friend Frank Orzechowicz, Karen Godfrey, Kevin back from before, John Bankert, Rebecca Tants, Lee "Auntie Nin" Radigan, Christie Russell (now Bell)....

So many names. I've no doubt forgotten some. Time will do that to you.

And you don't quite understand what this has to do with Gary Gygax.

The short answer is "everything." Because Gary Gygax created the framework that led to all of that. And understand, those are all folks I specifically played first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons with. Those thirty names, including some of my oldest friends, my dearest friends, a former girlfriend, people I shared apartments with, people I shared experiences with, people I shared my life with found format and purchase specifically from the words that Gary Gygax had written and popularized with his books. And that doesn't even get into all the other Role Playing Games, which derived from and grew out of the seed of Dungeons and Dragons and flourished throughout the world. At the very beginning there was Tunnels and Trolls (George Carpenter's favorite) and Traveller. Later came Villains and Vigilantes which led inexorably to Champions in my life. Trips to the hobby store in Presque Isle for more D&D swag also gave us Car Wars, which in turn gave us GURPS. And then there were all the others -- Aftermath, GhostBusters (surprisingly good), Paranoia, Marvel Super Heroes, D.C. Heroes, Star Frontiers, Timemaster, Star Ace, Gamma World -- motherfucking Gamma World -- Top Secret, Espionage, the James Bond game (I remember a great run of James Bond with Andrew Paradis and his brothers....)

And none of it -- none of it -- would have existed if Gary Gygax hadn't cocreated Dungeons and Dragons and then pushed, republished, spearheaded, cheerleaded, advocated and otherwise turned a niche product into an industry. None of it.

You know what else wouldn't exist now? World of Warcraft. In fact, the entire computer RPG, MMORPG, Action RPG and a Hell of a lot of Platforming games wouldn't have existed without Gary Gygax -- certainly not in the form they do now. Any time you level a character, it's because of Gary Gygax. Hell, Knights of the Old Republic used actual mechanics derived from his writing.

So, take out Gygax, and take out Final Fantasy at the same time. Take out Dragon Warrior. Take out Adventure and Zork and that Atari game with the bats. Take out WarHammer and City of Heroes and absolutely core and seminal elements of essentially all modern video gaming. Without Gary Gygax, that whole industry would look radically different today, if it existed at all.

You want to know what else disappears? All three Lord of the Rings movies from the 90's and the turn of the century.

Oh, you don't believe me? Look, right when Dungeons and Dragons was coming out -- and before it became well known or popular -- there were adaptations of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit was a Ruby/Spears Rankin/Bass cartoon for children most known now for the cloying song "The Greatest Adventure" (which is a bad rap -- The Hobbit wasn't bad for what it was -- a 70's childrens cartoon special meant for the family hour). The Lord of the Rings was a Ralph Bakshi trip and a half that was a commercial failure at the box office, leading to the story being finished by Ruby/Spears Rankin/Bass once more. The Lord of the Rings was a failure in the mainstream.

And Fantasy? Fantasy was a subsection of Science Fiction. A small subsection of Science Fiction. Most of the great fantasists were also Science Fiction writers, or were so crossover that it made no never mind (Michael Moorcock was at heart a true Fantasist, but somehow you could buy his work as New Wave SF too, for example.) Even The Dragonriders of Pern was a science fiction novel at heart (seriously. They're colonists on an alien world who lost their culture thanks to DEATH SPORES FROM ANOTHER WORLD).

But going into the late 70's and early 80's, even as Star Wars was redefining Science Fiction and making it truly mainstream, the old guard of Science Fiction fans, none too happy with the new people coming into the lodge, were reconnecting over tables and rolling dice, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. And seeking out source material and exciting fantasy all at the same time, I would add. Sales started going up. Fritz Leiber's books began selling better. By the middle of the decade, fantasy was booming. By the 90's, it was outselling Science Fiction significantly. And a whole generation of fantasy fans were being born.

Flash forward to the turn of the century. Most "Science Fiction" sections in bookstores are primarily Fantasy, along with a whole rack of licensed tie in books that sometimes is as big as the entire section. And alongside the (fantasy/horror) Buffy books, Star Trek and Star Wars books and the like are the books based on Role Playing Games.

The biggest chunk of that section? Dungeons and Dragons.

And those huge fantasy fans remade the marketplace. Fantasy movies started doing better. Ultimately, The Lord of the Rings was done again, this time (mostly) live action and epic, and it made more money than Ecuador.

I submit that without both Dungeons and Dragons and Gary Gygax's push into the mainstream, Tolkien would have diehard adherents, and maybe -- maybe -- the Mind's Eye Theater and BBC radio productions, but that any adaptation for the screen would have been a minor affair, possibly running in the U.S. on PBS, watched by few. And the one or two racks of Science Fiction/Fantasy books in the bookstores would have been mostly Science Fiction, hard to soft depending on the author.

And Gygax did push things into the mainstream. In 1982, just about the biggest movie out there (in fact, one of the biggest movies of all time) was E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. And in the first scene where we meet Elliot, his older brother -- his older cool brother -- was playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. (Later, when being taunted by a fellow schoolkid, Elliot's shouted return insult was "zero charisma!" High dudgeon indeed. The year before that, the Golden Globe nominated Taps, starring Timothy Hutton, Tom Cruise, Sean Penn and George C. Scott told the story of the siege of a military academy that the students had seized. In an earlier scene, one kid shouted up the stairwell to another, asking if they were playing Dungeons and Dragons that night. This wasn't product placement -- this was verisimilitude. Dungeons and Dragons and roleplaying were simply a part of life at most high schools at that point.

If you're wondering why Gary Gygax, ahead of so many other people, was known to the populace and so well known by gamers, you have to remember what bound us together. In those days, only a few people had the internet or any means of rapid community building or communication. On the other hand, the burgeoning RPG community had a lifeline -- one that connected them, gave them insight into the hobby, announcements and reviews of new games and products, and in short created an actual community of gamers.

That lifeline was named Dragon Magazine, and its most prominent resident was E. Gary Gygax.

Yes, Dragon was published by TSR, which had been Tactical Studies Rules and which published Dungeons and Dragons. But at the time, while there were other publications out there, none had the scope of Dragon and Dragon worked hard (in the early days at least) to give other role playing games and related hobby games their due. It had grown out of The Strategic Review, which had been a system agnostic wargaming magazine, and that practice continued for some time. Traveller articles appeared in Dragon, as did Runequest articles and many, many other game articles. In a world where gamers were separated by distance and only got glimpses of the world of games in between the Avalon Hill wargame sets and the balsa wood at hobby stores, Dragon Magazine put roleplaying front and center.

And, where most articles about games, regardless of the game, focused on mechanics or setting or characters or what have you? Gary Gygax was a personality. His column -- From the Sorcerer's Scroll -- was somewhere between Stan's Soapbox, a house organ advertising tool, a philosophy of gaming column, a chance to goob about things Gygax was doing or excited about, and a gossip column about the gaming industry. Gygax's personality drove the impressions people got about gaming, about TSR, about Dungeons and Dragons -- in short, about the hobby as a whole. There were tons of dynamic and stubborn voices in RPGs back then, as there are now, but Rick Loomis, Steve Jackson, Kevin Siembieda and all the rest, as opinionated and passionate as they were, lacked the sheer market exposure that Gary Gygax got.

This was Gygax's blessing. This was also Gygax's curse. Gary Gygax, both in print and (according to second and third hand accounts) in person was creative, passionate, generous, friendly, engaging and charismatic. However, he was also egotistical, opinionated, arrogant, clearly had way more regard for his ability as a writer and developer than he should, and oft times he was an asshole.

We're not supposed to talk about these things right now. The man just died, and people are feeling horrible. I know. I'm one of them. But pretending Gary Gygax was a saint doesn't do Gary Gygax's memory any good, and Gary Gygax was sometimes his own worst enemy.

One of the early manifestations of this arrogance was his attitude towards "optional" or "unofficial" rules for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Gygax loathed them. This was not how the game was supposed to be played. Understand, this is what Dragon Magazine specialized in -- it was its bread and butter. For every installation of Bazaar of the Bizarre including new magic items, there was also an article on variant ways to play the game, and that just wasn't right. In fact, throughout the First Edition years, Dragon was enjoined from publishing character classes. The character classes were expertly balanced and perfectly developed to mesh together, and any new classes would just be a monkey wrench in the works. So for over a decade, whenever a new profession was described in Dragon, it was listed as a new Non-Player Character Class. Anti-Paladins, Dualists, and all the rest? NPCs.

And Gygax meant it. Hell, have a look at this, from the preface to the first edition Player's Handbook:

This latter part of the ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS project I approached with no small amount of trepidation. After all, the game's major appeal is to those persons with unusually active imagination and superior, active intellect - a very demanding audience indeed. Furthermore, a great majority of readers master their own dungeons and are necessarily creative - the most critical audience of all! Authoring these works means that, in a way, I have set myself up as final arbiter of fantasy role playing in the minds of the majority of D&D adventurers. Well, so be it, I rationalized. Who better than the individual responsible for it all as creator of the "Fantasy Supplement" in CHAINMAIL, the progenitor of D&D; and as the first proponent of fantasy gaming and a principal in TSR, the company one thinks of when fantasy games are mentioned, the credit and blame rests ultimately here. Some last authority must be established for a very good reason.

This became a letter column fight back in the early days of Dragon, and led to at least one of Gygax's confidents (I can't list who, as I don't have the issue in front of me, and my at last purchased copy of the Dragon Archive won't arrive until later in the week, so my apologies for lack of attribution and paraphrasing) demanding that players stop bastardizing their games and play them the way Gary set down. And sure, when Gygax himself played, he used house rules, but he's unimaginably creative and no system -- not even his own -- could constrain him. And if you were so arrogant to believe yourself in his league, ask yourself how many RPGs, novels, cartoons and movie treatments you had written? Huh?

It got to the point that actual official rules additions and optional rules were so labeled -- and they meant, at their core, that Gary Gygax had signed off on them. Which actually reminds me of an anecdote.

There was a guy who we knew, over at the local college where I played (and generally ran) Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. His name, as I recall, was Louis. (Not the Louis, for those few from my past reading this, who I went to grade school with. He was never much into Dungeons and Dragons.) Louis was a blowhard and a munchkin of the worst order, and he had his notebook full of his favorite characters, full of the most game breaking statistics and magical items you can imagine.

And, I swear to God, he insisted he could play them in my campaign, and everything in them had to be exactly as they were written, because Gary Gygax had given them to him. He claimed to have played with Gygax in campaigns and at cons, and that Gygax had given him these sweet, unique items, and as a result his character had a stamp of authenticity that no human being could contravene. The Lich King had spoken. He also used to tell stories of how when a character died in Gygax's game, he'd take their character sheet and light it on fire before the traumatized person's eyes, so it was a big deal that he still had this character, because everyone died in Gary's games.

Needless to say, we didn't believe a word of it. But it's interesting. If anyone claimed that Ken St. Andre had given him perks in a Tunnels and Trolls character, or Steve Jackson had given him a really sweet Car Wars car build, illegal in the rules set, people would have stared at him like he was clinically insane.

But Gygax? Yeah, clearly Louis was lying (and a terrible gamer, to boot), but you paused and listened, first.) Because dude -- who knew? Maybe there was something to it. And Gygax certainly seemed to believe he had editorial control and supervisory capacity over our campaigns, even though in those days the people who bought settings were the exceptions. If you got a module, you fit it into your own world.

This culminated, if that's the word, in a series of "open letters" that Gygax published in Dragon, castigating his enemies, attacking others -- very, very unprofessional things and conduct. And absolutely the sort of thing that would be familiar today, in these days of personal and developer blogs. We expect to see some dirt fly on official internet sites, and we have unprecedented access to the movers and shakers in game development (video or tabletop). These are not mysterious figures to us, these are people we can have arguments with on forums and who we sort of expect to answer our e-mail when we send it. Steve Jackson to Joss Whedon to Kevin Smith, there is an egalitarian presumption that borders on the ridiculous in our electronic world.

But back then, only a very few got to have a conversation with Gary Gygax. A rant seemed wildly inappropriate.

In the mid 80's, Sixty Minutes did a story on Dungeons and Dragons. This was at the height of the wildly inaccurate (and later wholly debunked) claims of Satanic influence and rampant suicide associated with role playing games. The RPG fans of the United States had a certain fear when that report came out -- this could be trouble. Sixty Minutes was serious. It all depended on who they got to represent the other side of the story.

And then we saw who they got. They got Gary Gygax. And we collectively groaned, as we watched, because this wasn't the kind, visionary, creative, genius Gary Gygax. They got the arrogant one. On tape.

I remember Andrew Paradis and I having a serious discussing with his father after the report aired, addressing the concerns he had about the game, and making certain he understood that Andrew and I weren't about to kill ourselves, go run around steam tunnels, or swear fealty to Satan. And no, Gary Gygax didn't speak for all gamers.

Ultimately, Gygax and his partners had friction. Gygax had friction with a lot of people. There were behind the scenes issues, and then he very publicly left TSR and started writing his own games. Only the state of the art of RPGs had passed Gygax by, and Danjerous Journeys never caught on.

And when TSR released Second Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Gygax's name was relegated to a legal notice acknowledging this was a derivative work published by the rightsholders and a note in the "Special Thanks To." And in the second edition Dungeon Masters Guide, Dave "Zeb" Cook wrote in the foreward:

Let's assume that since you're reading this, you are, or plan to be, a DUNGEON MASTERâ„¢, By now, you should be familiar with the rules in the Player's Handbook. You've probably already noticed things you like or things you would have done differently. If you have, congratulations. You've got the spirit every Dungeon Master needs. Curiosity and the desire to make changes, to do things differently because your idea is better than the other guy's-these are the most important things a Dungeon Master needs. As you go through this rule book, I encourage you to continue to make these choices.

Quite a bit different than Gygax's claim to be the final authority, isn't it? At the same time, notice that trademark next to Dungeon Master. The advent of the Post-Gygax Dungeons and Dragons heralded many changes, and a far more corporate environment and understanding of the legal marketplace was just one of them.

One thing we noticed, in fact, was that... there was a whole lot less variety, in ways. The game had been reoriented to really push the Lawful Good side of things. Demons and devils were gone (which seemed weird to me -- they weren't held up as objects of worship in the original -- they were sacks of Experience Points you wanted to kill and rob), only to be returned (after outcry) with new, innocuous names. The demonesses got clothes. Heck, the females got clothes. This was a game no one would blink twice about handing to their fourteen year old kid.

And then Vampire: The Masquerade came out and proceeded to eat Second Edition's lunch for a good long while -- at least among the hardcore. They had cool and chic and LARPing and darkness and better music and way more hot goth chicks into it.

And in the background, there was Gary Gygax. He still surfaced now and again. He returned, after a while, as a columnist for Dragon Magazine. He continued to release products. When Wizards of the Coast bought TSR and announced Third Edition, they very carefully got the old guard, including Dave Arneson, out to be a part of the announcement. But the rock star in the room was Gary Gygax, endorsing Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition and once more at the top of the heap, in residence at Gen Con -- the convention he had started in his own house -- and shaking the hands.

And Third Edition was good to Gygax. With the advent of the Open Gaming License and d20, Gygax could start releasing products for the system he had cocreated and shepherded once more. The old Castle Greyhawk became Castle Zagyg, and products were released for it. Gygax was the elder statesman of role playing at this point -- still passionate, but calmer. The friendly, generous Gary Gygax took center stage during this time -- a voice of reason, if of firm opinion. And always, the one that everyone knew was mainstream in a way Mark Rein•Hagen never would be.

This was the Gary Gygax I actually had contact with.

Oh yeah. When I was in the flush and joy of actually being a published game author, I spent a lot of time on different mailing lists. Mailing lists for the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Sciences, Freelancer mailing lists -- all kinds of stuff. And like everyone else who is first let in the door, I was feeling my oats and trying to make my mark. I'd been doing this since the 70's, after all, and these people couldn't intimidate me!

And then I got a response, with "Greetings!" at the very top. And "Gary" at the bottom.

I will admit to blowing my system shock roll.

I had a very informal correspondence with the man, mind. We did trade some private mail, though I suspect I was one of hundreds of informal correspondents that Gygax had over electronic mail. And the substance of those e-mails are not of interest here. What is of interest is this: Gary Gygax was unfailingly polite and supportive. His kindness was clear and apparent. And he had a way of making a punkass kid (regardless of his age) in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire feel like a peer whose opinions were worthy of respect even if they were ill informed and wrong.

And here we are, years later, and Gary Gygax is dead. The arrogant, egotistical Gary Gygax is dead. The kind, supportive Gary Gygax is dead. The passionate, creative Gary Gygax is dead. Gary Gygax is dead.

And some folks I've seen don't get why so many people seem so torn up over it. A fellow whose opinion I usually respect even said, in effect, that he hadn't done anything of significance for 30 years, so what's the big deal?

I swear, I could have punched him.

For all his contradictions, for all his faults, for all his strengths and for all his weaknesses, this complicated, opinionated, genius man has had an impact on society as a whole that is literally immeasurable. I'm not misusing the word 'literally' there, either -- there is no way to measure how much influence Gary Gygax has had on the world. Certainly, the world of literature, of movies, of video games, of television (children's and adult) have all been profoundly affected by the things Gary Gygax did. Billions of dollars have changed hands based directly or indirectly on Gary Gygax's work. Take Gary Gygax out of the equation, and our entire culture becomes radically different. And Christ only knows what the internet culture would look like.

But beyond that, a man who was a monumental part of my childhood, my past, and a huge number of my friendships is gone. I listed out that long list of friends above -- but understand that's a tiny fraction of my friends from roleplaying. And a large number of my other friends are ones I haven't gamed with but who are themselves gamers. Gary Gygax gave me a social group. He gave me peers.

And he regarded me as a peer, all too briefly.

And I'm going to miss him. Terribly.

But he'll continue to be a part of my life, of course. His influence doesn't vanish. Hell, he's still a huge part of Dungeons and Dragons -- beyond the mechanics and the structure, when you cast Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, you're casting a spell that one of Gygax's characters came up with. Bigby, Tenser, Otiluke -- the names attached to the spells in the Player's Handbook are names of characters people (in particular, Gygax himself and his two sons, Ernie and Luke) played.

And when I'm watching reruns of Futurama, there's every chance I'll see the episode where Gygax announced to Fry that he was [diceroll] pleased to meet him, on an episode where Fry met the nerds responsible for protecting the Space/Time continuum -- the Vice President of the United States (as voiced by Al Gore himself), Professor Stephen Hawking ('voiced' by Hawking himself), Nichelle "Uhura" Nichols (voiced by herself)... and Gary Gygax. And no one ever questioned Gygax's inclusion in a list with a Star Trek icon, the most prominent theoretical physicist of our age, and the former Vice President of the United States.

I love Champions and GURPS alike, but Steve Perrin or Steve Jackson wouldn't have worked there. But Gary Gygax did.

Rest well, sir.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:21 PM | Comments (35)

February 27, 2008

Eric: Requiescat In Pace: William F. Buckley

As I have often mentioned, sometimes defiantly, sometimes less so, I am a Liberal.

I didn't used to be a Liberal -- not a capital-L one, anyway. I was proud of my being a moderate. I was proud of my addressing the issues and examining all sides of political thought. I was proud of my open-mindedness and my capacity to embrace all sides.

That's changed over the past seven years, which to me is the great tragedy of the Bush administration. Or one of them, anyhow. Bush made it difficult for people to remain open to discussions and debate. He was the great polarizer. The great "you're with us or with them" of our generation. In the months after September 11, I felt I had to make it clear and unequivocal. At a time when Liberals were being accused (even by the Vice President) of treason, I chose to align myself squarely on their side, and I had no interest in being open to a side willing to cast the Left as a scourge. I'm still there today, and I don't see any chance of it changing in the future.

And that's tragic. For me as a person, for our nation as a whole. Because the only way it works -- the only way it works -- is for Liberal and Conservative ideas to come into conflict and ultimate compromise. We need both principles in good measure to make a nation great. We need to help and protect those in need with the spirit of largess, and we need to stand firm against corruption and evil. When the principles are in balance, the nation flourishes.

Which is why I feel so badly today. William F. Buckley is dead.

William F. Buckley has, for well over fifty years, been the seminal definition of literate conservatism. A man of conviction but also of thought and reason, Buckley has championed the conservative cause and ideal through times of great support for his positions and times of great disgust over them. In the 60's he was for Goldwater. In the 80's he was for Reagan. Through both, he was for conservative ideology and educated discussion. In the aftermath of the television program The Day After, in the famous discussion and debate where Carl Sagan is so remembered (and revered) for saying that the United States and the Soviet Union were both standing in gasoline, with one side holding three lit matches and the other five, it was William F. Buckley who sat on the other side and discussed the needs for Nuclear deterrence. It didn't matter if he was the only person in the building who believed it -- he did believe it, and he could rationally and intelligently lay out the reasons for it.

William F. Buckley was a conservative thinker, with the emphasis on thought. He examined positions and cast them in his own philosophical views. Take, for example, marijuana. Obviously, the hard Republican line (and let's be honest -- the hard Democratic line) is to pursue the War on Drugs, to stop this dangerous gateway drug, to pursue, restrict, arrest and incarcerate those involved with it.

But Buckley was a Conservative. A true Conservative. And to him, the fight against marijuana failed on conservative grounds. It failed to account for essential individual rights, and the necessary individual taking responsibility for his own actions. It failed to restrain the growth of government and government's intrusion into our lives. And it failed the fiscal test -- true conservatism rigorously examined its resources and its expenses, and eliminated those expenses made for specious reasons or specious results. As he wrote in the National Review in 2004:

Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. The laws aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating. General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or ? exulting in life in the paradigm ? committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo?

Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening, in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these ? 87 percent ? involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.

Buckley's record isn't spotless, as he himself would say. He and the National Review he founded opposed the Civil Rights Act in the 50's and 60's, for example. But unlike many in public life, on either side of the aisle, he didn't simply recant this position later on -- he said that they had been out and out wrong, and that the Civil Rights Act had been a watershed moment not just in American life, but conservative life as well.

And that is one of the things that made Buckley so remarkable. He could hold an opinion, have new information come in, and acknowledge that his opinion was wrong and revise it. He supported the Iraq War in the beginning. However, when it became clear that the intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction was wrong, he acknowledged that it had been wrong and he has described Iraq as failed essentially on every level. He did not defer responsibility from himself -- he flat out said he had been wrong.

Though, of course, he said it more eloquently than I could write. William F. Buckley was a master of language -- brilliant in writing, entertaining and engaging in dialogue. And it is worth remembering in this modern era where "intellectualism' is considered innately Liberal, education is distrusted as 'elitist' and discourse is best rendered shouted, that Buckley came to his greatest national fame on PBS. He was a PBS star through the 70's into the 80's, on his program Firing Line. This was a show of discussion and debate, which would bring on prominent figures and thinkers and Buckley and that group would dissect and deliberate over the issues of the day. It was often lively but always erudite, and anyone who appeared had best have brought their A game, because Buckley was intelligent, logical, reasonable and most of all focused, and any fallacies brought to the table would be skewered. Some of Buckley's best debates were with intelligent, reasonable men of the Left. Sagan, as mentioned above. Noam Chomsky. And most (in)famously Gore Vidal.

Vidal and Buckley had a series of debates during the 1968 Democratic Party convention -- the convention infamous for protestors, the Chicago 7, and out and out riots. The contentiousness of the conventions extended to the two debaters, with the final debate featuring Vidal calling Buckley a 'crypto-Nazi,' and Buckley calling Vidal a 'queer' (on national television, I would add), and threatening Vidal to "stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I will sock you in your goddamn face, and you will stay plastered." This then extended into a battle of words in Esquire, followed by various lawsuits.

Which honestly is about as vehement as Buckley ever got. It might have been the most eloquent blood feud, gay-slurs and nazism claims aside, ever committed in American letters. Certainly, the educated and above all civil debates Buckley was known for was as antithetical to today's punditry as can be imagined.

There's lots more to say -- Buckley's denouncing of the John Birch Society, his lack of patience with certain branches of Objectivism (he would amusingly recount the grand and dramatic exit Ayn Rand would make from any room he entered), and many others -- but the point is this: Buckley was good for America.

Not good for American conservatism (which he was often called the Father of), not good for the Republican party. Not good for snobby white intellectual Skull and Bonesmen from Yale. William F. Buckley was good for America. And I am certain that he would argue that the reasoned and intellectually rigorous Liberal thinkers were equally so -- because Buckley did not enter into debate without also entering into discourse, and Buckley undertstood that the resultant compromise of what was, after all, two very American positions made for a better nation than any singular could. Buckley also understood that opinions within one of those positions could vary (drugs were not the only area Buckley stood in reasoned opposition to the conventional wisdom of his side). Buckley, as a very educated man, bemoaned the casting of public education by many conservatives as statist -- and bemoaned the same for health care, as two examples. To Buckley, it was always a question of resources and management, and a healthy and educated populace was a more productive one which would lead to greater prosperity.

Buckley was good for America, even in all the areas I disagreed with him, because he forced Liberals like me to defend their positions -- not with our hearts and our compassion but with our brains and rationality. He argued that a position that could not be defended rationally simply could not be defended, and in this I think he was correct.

I long for a world where Buckley and those like him sally forth in rhetorical but intellectual confict with their Liberal opposite numbers, and where a moderate center could result from the alloy, taking on the strengths of both sides. In this world of jingoism, where more people listen to Rush Limbaugh or read Ann Coulter than were reading Bill Buckley or George Will, where Michael Moore supercedes Noam Chomsky and debate is something between shouting pundits on MSNBC, CNN or Fox, I yearn for a world where intelligent men and women, respectful of the other side but considered in their moral, philosophical and intellectual stances can debate and try to find common course together.

But one might as well yearn for Narnia or the United Federation of Planets. Educated discourse isn't fun to watch, and 'news' is something that happens on channels that aren't showing CSI: Newark.

And William F. Buckley is dead.

Sleep well, sir. Well fought. Well played. Well done.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:21 PM | Comments (7)

January 10, 2008

Eric: In My World: Superheroes

Here's an audience participation opportunity for you all. I don't do enough of these, really. Pass this around to your friends.

Down in the comments or where have you, complete the following phrase however you like:

"In my world, superheroes...."

with no ellipses afterward.

There are no wrong answers. You don't have to agree with other people. If you argue with someone about their entries, you're missing the point. See, superheroes aren't real, except in our imaginations. So in your world, this is how they are.

You can have as many entries as you like.

Here's some for me, just to get the ball rolling.

• In my world, superheroes put the emphasis on 'heroes' instead of 'super.'
• In my world, superheroes try to do the right thing just because it's the right thing.
• In my world, superheroes don't kill unless there's no other choice, and if there is no other choice they're bothered about it for a while afterward.
• In my world, superheroes are as often women as men.
• In my world, superheroes are considered good things.
• In my world, superheroes sweat the small stuff.
• In my world, superheroes belong to both liberals and conservatives, and a liberal superhero and a conservative superhero might disagree about who they'd vote for in an election but they agree on fighting evil.
• In my world, superheroes feel badly if they accidentally fight another superhero.
• In my world, superheroes are often flawed, but they work to correct their flaws.
• In my world, superheroes respect the law and authority, even if they have to work outside them.
• In my world, superheroes consider corruption abhorrent.
• In my world, superheroes keep their word.
• In my world, superheroes spend as much time helping people as they do fighting crime.
• In my world, superheroes get their powers from silly little accidents and no one worries too much about how ridiculous it sounds.
• In my world, superheroes might annoy the occasional (often jealous or corrupt) cop or city councilman, but on the whole the police and government are glad to have their help.
• In my world, superheroes worry about innocents.
• In my world, superheroes sometimes die, and that's never a small or insignificant thing.
• In my world, superheroes are people, too.

That's my world. What's yours?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:05 AM | Comments (58)

January 9, 2008

Eric: I swear to God, I'll stop talking about this. I mean, I don't even *buy* these comics any more. Ah well, here's one more.

In certain kinds of entertainment, there is an implicit covenant between the entertainer and the entertained. A certain set of expectations that the consumer of the entertainment can reasonably expect will be followed. Breaking that implicit covenant can sometimes lead to powerful stories and powerful subversions of expectation, but it's a very, very risky endeavor, because breaking that covenant can also piss your audience off, and the latter is way more likely than the former.

Which means yeah, we're talking about comic books again. Specifically Marvel, though DC and others aren't immune.

Let's be clear at the outset, however: this is discussing the Super Hero. The guys and girls in spandex, fighting for what's good and right. Yadda yadda yadda. You know the drill. We're not discussing Vertigo here, or EC, or even deconstructions like Watchman. We're discussing what has been described as mainstream superheroes. The 'real' continuities. Not the dreams, not the imaginary stories (for whatever value of "imaginary" Mort Weisinger actually meant compared to the 'unimaginary' stories of men in blue suits who could lift the Chrysler Building), not What If, not Elseworlds. We're talking "the DC universe" and "the Marvel Universe," and we can hammer the latter down to "Marvel-616" if we want.

But let's go back to that implicit covenant.

If I go to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets, I have a reasonable expectation of what kind of entertainment I'm going to be given. There's going to be some allegedly clever puzzles. There's going to be some quasi-Mission Impossible action. (The National Treasure movies do Mission Impossible style team missions vastly better than the Mission Impossible movies, possibly because Nicholas Cage is willing to portray a hero that needs a team supporting him). There's going to be a cute girl in clothing that might not be revealing, per se, but it's likely to be tight and she's going to be an intellectual peer to the hero. There's going to be baggage about family and fetishizing about what America's ideals mean. There's going to be conspiracies and at least one car chase. And at the end of the movie, there's going to be a significant success -- our heroes will be vindicated, their crackpot theories will be proven correct, and they will be given rewards that are significantly disproportionate to what they actually did in the movie.

Which is not a spoiler, by the by, because like I said -- this is the expectation you walk through the door with. If you go to see a Rocky movie, there is no spoiler in saying there's going to be some boxing.

And, in the process of the above, I will be entertained. You may or may not be -- depends on if you like that kind of thing. But as for me, that's just good popcorn fun in a way The Da Vinci Code entirely failed to me.

If I go to see the next National Treasure movie and in the process of doing all of the above it all goes pear shaped, the cute blond gets crushed by giant rocks in a lurid and graphic way, Nicholas Cage turns out to be entirely wrong and an idiot to boot and the movie ends with all hope destroyed and complete failure? I'm going to be pissed off when I leave the theater even if it was a good movie, because I don't go to National Treasure for that. My expectations being subverted won't mean I'm happy and enlightened and transformed, it'll mean I'm going to feel ripped off.

Jerry Bruckheimer understands this. There is no chance in Hell National Treasure is going to break with its formula, because there is no chance in Hell Jerry Bruckheimer is going to risk losing his millions of dollars per picture featuring Nicholas Cage muttering about Masons and implausibly complicated mysteries by apparently omniscient historical figures. He understands that while some movies enlighten and others enthrall and still others expand our understanding of the universe, the National Treasure movies entertain by a given formula, and that's why people go to see them.

These covenants extend through all of culture. When Shakespeare was writing his tragedies, there was an implicit covenant with his audience -- the lead will be sympathetic but deeply flawed, there must be several opportunities for the lead to escape his fate, and the lead must inevitably and inexorably march to his doom, his own flaws blinding him to the chance for redemption and even joy. It doesn't hurt if someone gets stabbed along the way. Especially inappropriately. And a chick or two should go batshit insane after horrific trauma for good measure. Shakespeare wrote some of the most powerful and significant work to ever be published and performed, but he wrote it with his audience in mind, and even when he pushed the boundaries he avoided breaking that covenant he had established with his audience.

And somewhere between Bruckheimer and the Bard of Strattford Upon Avon, we find Marvel Comics.

The expectations for mainstream comics really aren't that hard. We expect there to be attractive people with exaggerated physiques. We expect them to generally have bad fashion choices. We expect there to be a significant conflict, and we hope that will highlight an inner conflict. Some punching generally goes on. Our hero is put on the ropes. Terrible things happen to him. And then at the last possible moment he rallies, he finds a way, he pushes through and he wins. Good takes the gold. evil gets the silver at the most.

Seem overly simplistic? It is. But it's also implicit. Read any DC or Marvel Comic from the thirties through to the nineties, and you'll see those mechanisms in play. Even into the nineties, these were the guiding principles of the form. Horrible things happened, but ultimately, the hero wins and the villain loses. Luthor might become the President of the United States, but at the very end of the day he's wearing a Kryptonian Battlesuit and trading punches with the Man of Steel, with Superman taking him down and breaking all his evil plots. At the end of the day, we expect the X-Men to leave the field with their heads held high. We expect the Green Goblin to go to prison (or worse). We expect the Red Skull to fail.

And when it doesn't happen... when our heroes do their level best and fail... we feel cheated. We feel hollow, if we cared about them. It can be a powerful story, but it's one that breaks our expectations and we cast around, thinking that's it? Evil wins? Jesus, I can read a fucking newspaper to read about evil winning! Eventually, you think well shit. I guess I'll put my money elsewhere, and you find some other fix for what you used to turn to comic books for.

As a complete side note, when I was in Ottawa over the holidays, we were in a Chapters, which is their Barnes and Noble equivalent. And we went by the teen section. And I saw a group of about six boys, all in the twelve year old range -- the range that Isaac Asimov used to describe as "the Golden Age of Science Fiction" and which continued to be the Golden Age of Superhero Comics. And they were piled around a bookshelf, sprawled and reading.

Manga.

Not ten feet away, Marvel and DC compilations sat, holding no interest for them.

But, as I so often do, I digress.

Marvel has always been the company of Heroes With Bad Lives. Ever since Spider-Man first made his living by providing photographs for his worst critic, Marvel's heroes have had to endure a hostile public and -- as David Willis so adroitly put it -- flying butts pooping on them most of the time.

But they hung with the covenant. The good guys in the end would win. Sometimes that victory would come at a terrible cost, but it would happen. Evil would go down. Through the most horrific of X-Men crossovers or the most vicious of John Byrne retcons, the heroes would eventually come out on top.

And now, that's not true any more.

Let's look at Spider-Man's arc. He outed himself in Civil War. He had terrible things happen to him as a result. He went on the run, he got sued by the Bugle, he had his illusions about heroism broken down into tiny little pieces, and then his beloved Aunt ate a bullet.

This is the kind of thing that happens to Spider-Man. It always has been. He has a horrible life and bad guys do terrible things.

But he comes out of them. He pushes through. He has some kind of victory. And we have that moment of visceral relief. That sense that yes, he was a hero, that in the end, he does win. And if tomorrow's going to be crap, today's still... well, okay.

Only this time, they pushed the reset button. The Devil came, forced him to sacrifice his happiness and life, left his (now never-was) wife to suffer for it, restored his secret identity and wiped clean all the stuff that happened, and then oh hey, it's a Brand New Day!

The covenant was broken. Terrible things happened, over and over and over, and finally the ultimate villain showed up, and he won. And because this was all out of editorial edict to erase something... well, something wildly popular. (Okay, I admit it, I don't get that at all), Spider-Man loses. He loses everything. And all the crap that had become his life got washed away in the least satisfying way possible.

And, if you look at Marvel in general, this is becoming the trend. Captain America loses the Civil War and dies, and... well, that's that. Super Heroes become draftees and militias and... well, that's what it is. Iron Man--

Oh, let's not even go there.

Not too many years ago, Marvel dropped their use of the Comics Code Authority and the seal, and went to their own rating system. I understood that at the time -- rather than restrain themselves by an outside arbitrary force, why shouldn't they let loose the last shackles of the fifties and, with appropriate use of Mature Readers warnings, tell the stories they want to tell?

Only something happened. Something tipped. And I have to wonder if one of the things they didn't want to be hamstrung by any more was the implicit requirement that Crime ultimately Not Pay. The Good Guys have to eventually win, in the CCA's universe.

But not in the Marvel universe.

And, when the whole point is to hold onto their aging fanbase, do they honestly think breaking that most core assumption -- that most core covenant to mainstream superhero comics -- is going to be a good long term strategy for them?

Sooner or later, after the popped-ratings fade, and people figure out that these heroes do a whole lot of losing, doesn't that inexorably lead to losing them? I mean, if I want to see things get steadily worse? I have an internet and Google News. I sure as Hell don't need to spend money for it.

In a fantasy medium, who's fantasy are we reading about now? And when people give up, who's going to replace them?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:27 PM | Comments (38)

January 3, 2008

Eric: Retconning: Just Another Day Like All The Others

This is talking around a subject, rather than directly about it. I apologize for that. Let me spend a few moments discussing the nub of the matter before diving into the meat of the essay, which lives out on the periphery where a man and a dog might have a gun and a shack, but there's not much likelihood of there being a WalMart nearby.

I am given to understand that Marvel Comics -- in an eighteen month block of time which could charitably be described as "the stupidest thing ever," has managed to actually do the stupidest thing ever.

How stupid was it? Beloved internet icon and Babylon 5 Great Maker J. Michael Straczynski, the current writer of Spider-Man, was told to do this thing by Marvel Editorial. He was so against the idea that he decided to leave his name off the story. There was a long discussion with various folks at Marvel Editorial, culminating in the Editor in Chief's having a long discussion with him and convincing him not to remove his name from the stories.

Of course, Mr. Straczynski then proceeded to post about this event on usenet. Seriously, I'm not kidding. He decided not to take his name off the story, then loudly posted about the conflict and decision, thus magnifying the story beyond what leaving his name off in the first place would have done. Which is worse for Marvel, because it really screams out just how unhappy folks were about this, and is a little bad for Straczynski, since it makes him look like he didn't have the courage for doing the hard thing but wanted the credit for doing the hard thing. If you're going to be a part of a travesty, don't even bother trying to half-distance yourself from it.

The event, which I suppose needs a spoiler warning except anyone reading these words probably already knows it, is essentially Spider-Man and Mary Jane making a deal with the devil, in his Mephisto guise, to save the life of dying Aunt May, retconning their marriage out of existence so that it never happened. Oh, and Harry didn't die. And I guess they wanted Gwen never to die but the writers demanded otherwise.

As I said, the stupidest thing ever.

That's only tangentially what we're here to talk about.

We're here to talk about retconning;

Retconning comes from "retroactive continuity," meaning "taking the continuity of your storyline and retroactively changing part of it so things didn't happen the way they happened," and there are many ways to do it. Let's talk about them together, shall we?

First off, let's talk about what all these things have in common. All of these changes underscore some Alteration Of What The Fans Know. And the fans are the only relevant part of retconning -- casual or first time readers don't care. You could just start your series over completely wiping out everything that happened (see below) in issue one of your new series, and a completely new reader won't give a damn about it when he reads issue two. The only people who give a damn about the history of your story are the people who have already emotionally invested in your story. They're the ones who bring baggage with them. They're the ones who have followed the story for some time -- maybe even years or decades -- and they're the ones you have to convince when you go ahead and make changes to "what they thought they knew."

That phrase, by the by, which is a lie. Retconning doesn't change 'what they thought they knew.' Retconning intentionally takes what they knew and made it wrong. It is a contradiction of your fans' expectations and a complete alteration of the context your stories are told in.

It is a tool, in other words, but it is one that should be used very, very, very rarely, because it deliberately breaks the emotional investment your fans have in your core product: your story. You take a significant risk that your fans will not then reinvest every time you do it. Which means you'll lose some of your fans every time you do it.

It's also a tool to be used sparingly because the retcon will always feel like fiat, whereas the continuity it replaced was organic. It grew and built over the course of months or years or decades. The resulting patches will be weaker, and won't take the strain the original would.

And it is a tool to be used sparingly because once you start to retcon, you start wanting to do more. It's a rare writer or editor who does what he feels is a necessary retcon who won't then throw in a bunch of flourishes just because they thought it would be cool. And even if the retcon could have worked all right, the flourishes inevitably cause destruction and lay waste to all they touch.

The major problem is, the major comic book publishers don't treat retcons like rare tools to be used sparingly. Since the mid to late eighties, they use them like chainsaws, and they're reaping that which they've sown ever since.

So let's look at the different ways to retcon. Let's look at the advantages of them. And let's look at the potential pitfalls of each type:

Category One: Now Revealed! A Lost Tale of the Hero!

The most basic form of the retcon is also the least problematic. History isn't rewritten -- it just turns out there was more to the story than we saw the first time around. Back in the late sixties and early seventies (and even into the eighties) the Legion of Super-Heroes did this sort of thing a lot. We saw stories set during earlier Legion eras, often with a "now it can be told!!!" caveat, meant to add a certain richness to the Legion's history without really changing anything.

In fact, the most pervasive version of the "secret history of X" form of retconning would have to be the existence of Superboy himself. Superboy -- the original, once tagged as 'the adventures of Superman when he was a boy -- had a whole mess of adventures, up to and including a ton of adventures with the far-future Legion of Super-Heroes long before he ever went to Metropolis! And every time a new one was published, we had a tiny bit of retconning of Superman's history -- after all, in the 'present' day, Superman would have had all of those adventures. When we learned that Superman's 'first' meeting with some of his foes (including bafflement at their powers until he worked out the kinks of fighting them) wasn't really his first meeting, what since he fought the teenaged version of Lex Luthor back in the day, it made that original story a little weaker (man, did Superman forget the bit about the imp saying his name backwards? I thought he had super-memory!) but it could be ignored, for the most part.

The advantages of the lost tale are many: financially it makes sense because it means mining earlier versions of your intellectual property. There were folks who tired of the Legion who'd still buy something with the old Adventure era costumes, for example. Superboy's adventures meant using Pete Ross and Lana Lang -- something that always seemed troubling when they showed up in the modern day and interacted with Superman. The old X-Men are still darn lucrative no matter how many weirdass variations of the new X-Men we get. And so on and so forth.

The disadvantages, on the other hand, are minor but present. One was touched on up above -- if you take elements introduced in your series and reintroduce them in a lost tale of your hero's past, you weaken the original story. Further, a new writer on a given series might be tempted to write "lost" tales from before he took over so his own beloved and precious characters can be made a part of the history of the popular character. (A plethora of Batman supporting cast and villains turn up in Bruce Wayne's years of training, for example, which makes us think that they're all essentially stupid for forgetting that billionaire they met back in Tibet, but I digress.) Perhaps most subtle but definitely there is that sense that with all those pastward adventures, Our Hero never had time to actually grow up. This is most true of Superboy, who Kryptonian or not didn't have nearly enough time to do everything he did in the past, and he must have spent a good eight years in the future with the Legion (making him in his twenties before he graduated high school, and why didn't Lana ever notice that, hmmmm?) Granted, comic book time is always weird, but there are ways to push it.

Finally, the greatest danger comes from your biggest fans. They're the ones who will notice all the inconsistencies your "lost tale" introduces to the history they've been tracking, and they're the ones who'll happily tell everyone about them. Marvel used to hand out nonexistent "no-prizes" to folks like that, and back then there were only letter columns and APAs for the fans to make trouble in. In today's forum/website/LJ community/wikipedia world, inconsistencies introduced into history become way bigger than the stories they appear in.

Category Two: The Story You Thought You Knew!

The next level up of retconning is the first true retconning -- taking familiar stories and adding new twists to them. Where lost tales get shoehorned into the quiet moments between comic books from a few years ago, these revisions get added into the actual stories. Generally, these take relatively simple stories (even origin stories) and give them more depth, or set up some future plotline. The evolution of Superboy meeting Lex Luthor is an example. Their meeting as young teens was itself a retcon, of course -- of the lost tale variety. Superboy recognized the signs of genius in young Lex, and built him a state of the art laboratory to let the genius flourish. Lex helped him out here and there, and ultimately worked on developing... well, they called it a Kryptonite cure but it was clearly a vaccine. Whatever. It blew up, Superboy flew in and blew out the fire, Lex breathed fumes or some such and lost all his hair, and then blamed Superboy for it, and his hatred for the Boy/Man of Steel rained down from his bald pate forevermore.

All fine and dandy.

Well, then a retcon came in -- Lex didn't just develop a cure for Kryptonite, as it turned out. He actually created life itself in the laboratory, as part of the process of curing Kryptonite. And when Superboy flew in and blew out the fire and saved Lex, he of course didn't know that there was an artificially created living organism in there -- so he either didn't save it or actually killed it depending on the version of the story you're reading.

And suddenly, that makes way more sense. Lex Luthor isn't pissed off that he lost his beautiful shit-brown locks. He's had a life he created, Godlike, destroyed. His baldness just reinforces what he lost -- what Superboy took from him.

See, you thought you knew the story, but now you really know the story.

The advantages are clear -- simple stories that are at most sufficient to their need become more complex stories that really flesh out the situation. The classic stories take on a fresher, more relevant vibe. An anonymous gunman becomes Joe Chill (or a proto-Joker). Uncle Ben's killer turns out to be a penitent Sandman. Iron Man's origin is taken out of war-torn Vietnam/Cambodia and put someplace a little more timeless so that Tony Stark isn't pushing sixty. R. J. Brande turns out to be a thousand year old frozen in shape Durlan who hopes to reconcile with his son by creating a team of superheroes in the thirtieth century that somehow he just knows his son will hear about in the backward and xenophobic society he lives in and join up--

Okay, sometimes 'relevant vibe' is pushing it.

The disadvantage and potential pitfall is twofold. First off, there's the old canard -- if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sometimes in taking a story and recasting it to make it more relevant to the current audience, you take something timeless and make it either significantly weaker or... well, make it easily dated. A lot of the 'relevant elements' you can add to a story are in fact flavors of the week, and adding them will look at best ridiculous five years down the line.

The second potential pitfall is that you'll take a good story and make it a bad one. Honestly, if something seems timeless, even if it seems hokey, then the chances you'll write it better than the original writer did isn't all that great. And if you can, for example, explain someone's origin story in ten words or less, this is a good thing. It means you don't need a lot of backstory to get someone up to speed. Making that three or four paragraphs just weakens the whole thing, because that's time it takes a reader to get familiar with the story before they can jump in.

Category Three: The Real Story You Thought You Knew!

Hot on the heels of the last retconning, we have this little gem. It's not that there's more to the story you read that other time -- that story was wrong! Oh sure, everyone knows that Dirk Morgna was a young genius engineer locked in a reactor by the jealous Doctor Regulus, but that's all wrong! What really happened was Dirk Morgna was the plant manager's son and he got promoted and then he screwed up and Doctor Regulus who was innocent and the real genius got blamed and fired and he snapped and locked Dirk in that reactor, but no one really knows it except Regulus and Dirk! Honest! That's how it really happened.

This is where we get into the heavy minefield territory, as you can see from my somewhat biased accounting of one of Sun Boy's retcons, because this is where we're getting into actual story surgery. We're outside of value-adding into stories and into actual full on changing of stories, and like any plastic surgery it can leave some nasty looking scars and ultimately prevent Joan Rivers from ever changing her facial expression again. Some of the worst examples of this retcon style were found in the Keith Giffen/Tom and Mary Bierbaum version of the Legion (they're the ones who decided that Sun Boy needed to have an angst-filled origin, in the same issue his lover shot him in the head, I would add, so it's not like it did anything for him), and a good number of these retcons were designed to fit pet theories the Bierbaums had in their APA-participating days. For example, they'd believed Element Lad was gay, only Paul Levitz had him get involved with a hot redhead female science police officer named Shvaughn Erin. So Shvaughn Erin, was made a male-to-female transsexual specifically because Sean Erin had loved Element Lad from afar and wanted to appeal to him so that Element Lad could really have been involved with a man who later reverted to being male but they stayed together... sort of. Similarly, looking back at one of the seminal Legion moments -- where Proty sacrificed his life and life-force to allow a resurrection of Lightning Lad -- the Bierbaums became enamored of the notion that Lightning Lad really was Proty in Lightning Lad's body, with all Proty's memories and personality, and that his best friends and lover who was telepathic never noticed it.

These, as you can guess, didn't go over very well, because they came across exactly as they sound -- as ham-handed attempts to shoehorn in pet theories and fanfiction into 'real' continuity. We get away from trying to add depth to or invigorate the story with this style of retcon, and get more into the areas of 'putting one's mark on the series mythology,' which rarely goes well.

As a side note, Frank Miller did this about as well as anyone ever has, when he reworked a lot of Daredevil's origin (not to mention all kinds of stuff with Elektra). He combined the "lost tale," "thought you knew" and "what you know is wrong" retcons into a story that took a fairly average superhero and made him downright epic. So it's not that it can't work.

It's just that it almost never does work.

The major pitfall goes back to the core pitfalls of retconning in general. This is the territory where you're seriously fucking with established history -- which is to say you're fucking with the specific affections of your fanbase. Frank Miller got away with it in Daredevil for two reasons: almost no one gave a shit about Daredevil before the reworking, and he rolled a natural twenty in the execution of it. In the case of the Bierbaums, Legion history was revered by a gigantic pack of fans, and they alienated way more than they pleased with the changes -- leading to a full on reset button later on (though there were other problems with that, which we'll get to in a few minutes). People don't want to find out that they're wrong about the continuity they've been following.

It gets worse, of course, because they have all these issues of the comic that show a very natural and organic growth of the story they love, often handled by a plethora of creators. The retcon, on the other hand, is very artificially grafted over the top of it, and as a result there's a lot of scar tissue around it. It is nigh impossible to bring the same level of nuance that the originals had, and so even retcons that do make sense and improve the story end up sounding way weaker as a result.

And it's possible to go so far with a retcon of this kind that you out and out alienate people -- you can do serious damage to your fanbase if you're not careful, especially when you're trying to recast your comic (originally written for kids and teenagers) for an adult fanbase. Identity Crisis is the most egregious recent example of this -- the retcons put into place weren't simply to make Doctor Light more malevolent than he'd been for a while, it was to take the silver age Justice League -- a group of true heroes in the heroic mold of the time -- and make them "edgy." This largely had the effect of pissing people off, because no one wants the JLA of their childhoods screwed with. Having some punk tell us that the heroes we grew up revering weren't all that heroic just makes us set our jaw.

Like I said before -- messing with the affections of the reader base. Sometimes you can get away with it. A lot of the time you can't.

Category Four: The Story You Thought You Knew Was Right, But Now There's Been A Change!

While the last category was indeed a full on surgical retcon, there was generally no in-continuity reason for the retcon. Now we're into story-changing with a degree of awareness on the part of (at least some of) our heroes, and the trouble is really starting now.

In this case, the retcon is a full on in-story change, retroactively applied, for better or (generally) for worse. Often mandated editorially, this is the point where large chunks of your history get torn out and new bits get grafted in in their place, and you have to 'edit on the fly' to make it all work.

I've been pulling from Legion history for a lot of this, because... well, because they're kind of the perfect example. Moving from the Levitz version of the classic Legion to the Giffen/Bierbaum version of the retconned Legion and then the Post-Zero Hour Rebooted Legion gave us a chance to see almost all of these retcons in practice, and in the long run they were almost all disastrous.

Anyway, the In-Story Change happened because, ta-da, of editorial mandate. You see, Superman's history had had a Restart and Reboot (see below), which meant that there was no period of time where Superman was Superboy. At least at that point. Levitz had done a simple Category Three retcon to fix the issue -- Superboy, it turned out, came from a pocket universe that the Time Trapper had created, and this was the place the Legion had been traveling to all these years. That universe went pear-shaped and Superboy sacrificed his life to save his fellow Legionnaires.

Well, it was decided by editorial that this was insufficient. Superboy (and Supergirl) were too prominent and confusion could result. (Remember, kids. The reason for everything that followed was to avoid confusion. I swear I'm not making this up.) The decision was made to introduce a major retcon -- Superboy, the inspiration for the Legion itself, would be replaced by Mon-El -- now rechristened Valor -- in the history of the Legion. A major in-story event then took place where the revised history was written in and made 'real,' and everything we the readers knew had changed.

Only... remember way up above, when I said the urge to retcon more than is needed becomes overpowering in these situations? Yeah. Giffen and the Bierbaums went to town. Superboy became Valor, as we said. Then Supergirl became Laurel Gand, a Daxamite cousin/descendent/something of Valor. Then they replaced major villain the Time Trapper retroactively with Glorioth, a flunky and functionary of a single story -- and a very different character than the Time Trapper. Then they changed who the first Legionnaire to die was, and why he died. (This was Kid Quantum, who they wanted to do other things with). They added "Kent Shakespeare," the first 'Impulse,' to the Legion's history.

Then, things got worse, because see the Superman editorial team? They had used the pocket universe in Superman's history, including a point where he killed the pocket universe Phantom Zone criminals, an act that led to years of somewhat bad stories that culminated in Superman taking his solemn oath against killing. (I guess because the era where a hero would take an oath against killing as a matter of course was seen as hokey. See above RE timelessness vs. Flavor of the Week).

So, Editorial mandated that there had to be a pocket universe, which meant there had to be a Superboy who came from it. Supergirl (the Matrix version) also came from it, though she had nothing to do with the Legion. So, the Legion did travel back and Superboy joined 'briefly' to set up... um... yeah.

Then Dev-Em had his history retconned twice and then he blew up the moon. Because time had to... Superman could have stopped it but he couldn't be allowed to because... look, at this stage they were clearly huffing paint, okay?

Anyway. As it turns out, this amazing new take on the Legion didn't make people happy. Sales suffered. There were complaints. The Bierbaums insisted a lot of the fan mail was positive, which is interesting given how... sporadic letter columns became. And then they decided to try something to bring back the fans -- they actually created "Batch SW6" which was a whole recreation of the Adventure Era Legion. The idea was to give the fans back a recognizable Legion, while having the heroes we'd been following all these years continue to have their grown up adventures.

(The first thing they did after reestablishing the Adventure Era Legion, meant to fire our imaginations and return us to the days of heroism we pined for? They changed all their codenames and costumes. Interestingly, this was not a successful move.)

Category Four retcons seem to go this way. People just get annoyed at them, and it's nigh impossible -- no matter how good your storytelling might be -- to convince people they like the taste of your sandwich.

The Spider-Man retcon we mentioned at the start is a Category Four. History has been changed. And, like all these situations, they claim the changes are minimal, and that he had all the same adventures as he had before. Why, he's just not married! And he lives with Aunt May! And Harry Osborne is still alive. And he lost his organic webshooters. Oh, and he never revealed his identity to the world, which means the entire Spider-Man arc in Civil War was just dicking with us! And apparently this means Mary Jane conceived a child out of wedlock with Peter. And there are new characters!

But... it's back to the good old days where Peter has girl trouble and is single, and that'll be better, right?

Right?

Moving On.

Category Five: Meet the New Hero, Not The Same As The Old Hero Because That Never Happened

Finally, we have the major event. The big one. The big block of cheese in the White House lobby. The retcon that completely starts everything over. This retcon is often called a "reboot," because that's what it does. It starts from the very beginning, wiping clean all continuity so new readers can jump right in. Everything's up in the air because nothing's happened yet.

John Byrne loves these things. And the most famous Category Five was Superman, post-Crisis on Infinite Earths. They let Alan Moore write an "imaginary" story that tied up the Silver Age Superman, and then they started over, completely from scratch. Gone was the Legion of Super-Heroes, Superboy, Lex Luthor in Smallville and most of Superman's power. When he met the Toyman, it was for the first time. Lois's hair color changed. Jimmy became even stupider. And Lex Luthor stopped being a scientist and started being Donald Trump without hair.

It could have worked... had they had the balls to do the same thing to every other comic book in their stable. Unfortunately, they didn't. And that meant stress fractures began forming around the Man of Steel from the beginning. The Legion debacle above was just one of them -- also sacrificed was Superman's history in the Justice League. Which meant the whole "Superman was the first superhero" concept had to be junked too -- now there had been tons of heroes, stretching back to World War II. Add a complete reboot/Category Five of Wonder Woman into the mix, and... well, among other things, it became difficult to reconcile Batman's history (which was largely unchanged at first) with anyone else's.

The clusterfuck that was the Giffen/Bierbaum Category Four retcon led them to wipe the slate clean on that with a Category Five retcon. That in turn caused other problems so we've had another complete reboot of the series. Of course, we've had another Crisis come and go screwing with timelines and dimensions and Christ knows what else anyway. Honestly, the idea that there is any continuity between the current version of DC comics and previous ones is silly. If you're a current fan, let the past go and enjoy the ride. Here and there, there's some good stuff.

The major problem with reboots besides the above is it's a complete break with the past. Which means it's the ultimate break with the fan's investment. Take me -- I was a big-ass Legion fan. I held on through all the monumental pain that was the Giffen/Bierbaum era because... well, I loved the Legion. Even all the retcons wasn't enough to break me the rest of the way.

Tossing out the continuity and starting over? Was enough. I never got into the 'new' Legion. I can't cotton to the new new Legion. I was drawn into the current flirtation with variations of the original Legion that ran through JLA and JSA and now Superman, but they're clearly not really the Legion I knew.

Does that make them bad? No, not really. But I have no reason to reinvest in them. And every time we have retcons of any category some readers will be lost along the way -- and the Category Five shakes loose the largest numbers, because it's a full on starting over.

Interestingly, there is an entirely successful Category Five retcon on record. I'm serious. It absolutely worked, even though it was essentially unplanned and uncontrolled. That retcon is today called the Silver Age of Comics. They started over all the comics and continuities -- largely just ignoring the old stories and later giving them their own universe. And the essential proof of concept happened again in the nineties, when Batman: The Animated Series gave birth to the DC Animated Universe -- which held to a completely separate tight continuity over the course of a decade. In many ways, the DCAU has been the most successful superhero continuity artistically since it first appeared, and financially there's almost no contest. Certainly the DCAU brought in more direct cash to Warner Brothers than the DC Comics line has for quite some time.

One thing that highlights the problems that indiscriminate retconning breeds is complexity. A simple retcon turns into a series of more elaborate retcons to patch over broken pieces. Superman's reboot was at core simple -- it was an entirely new thing. But then all the other DC comics began showing problems and so they had to apply fixes and patches and retcon other things that bred new fissures and patches and retcons, until... well, until they had to take four odd years of "monumental events" to lead up to what sounds like one more complete reboot. And maybe this time it'll take.

Marvel's no better off -- Lost Tales and stories, especially around cash-cow X-Men have made it increasingly hard to know what's going on. And now they've introduced a monumental Category Four retcon into their flagship title, leading to problems the likes of which we won't know for five or six years, long after they've reverted back to the marriage because they're sick of this shit.

And they will. Just like Captain America will come back. Just like Supergirl came back all those times, and Earth-2 came back, and Power Girl's history came back, and a version of the original Legion came back. Because when you fuck with your fanbase's affections, you fuck with your livelihood, and eventually you pay a price for it. Check out the Retcon-fest that has been Green Lantern since Crisis on Infinite Earths, and notice that as of this point, pretty much all the dead Lanterns have come back to life, Hal Jordan never really went crackerdog and even Sinestro's doing just fine these days. Hey look -- Hal and Ollie and Kyle and Guy and John and Ice and everyone? They're all fine! Really! And they're having epic adventures! Please! Come back!

Please come back!

Please?

When Jesus makes Mary Jane and Peter married again (seriously. They're teasing Jesus as their cosmic parachute for this storyline), there will be great hopes that everything will be made all better. Only what will happen is people who invested in the post-infernal annulment will be pissed off by the restoration, and no one will be very happy, and eventually everyone will agree to stop talking about it. Sort of like the Clone War. And within a few years, Civil War. Which was all the fault of invading Skrulls anyway. No really. You thought you knew the real Civil War Story, but you were wrong.

The question is, what will the numbers be for a top selling book at that point?

And on DC's side... just what kind of Legion will be the new one then?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:54 PM | Comments (49)

December 6, 2007

Eric: A moment of history, a remembrance of heroism

Ninety years ago today, a man with a wife and children, a life and a future had a realization. A moment of clarity.

Ninety years ago today, the world was at war -- this was 1917, and the Central Powers were marching across Europe and the Allies were fighting them. U-Boats were trawling the shipping lanes sinking freighters to keep ammunition and munitions and arms out of the hands of the men they were fighting. The ships therefore took to running incognito, lacking the ensigns and markings that warned other ships that their cargos were volatile.

Ninety years ago today, the French civilian cargo ship S.S. Mont-Blanc was steaming from New York City to form up with a convey carrying munitions to the front. They were unmarked to avoid the U-Boats. The ship carried two hundred and fifty tons of TNT, two hundred and forty six tons of benzol, sixty two tons of guncotton, one thousand, seven hundred and sixty six tons of wet picric acid, six hundred tons of dry picric acid, forty-one sailors and one captain. They had been forced to spend the night before outside of Halifax Harbor, where they were going to form up with the rest of their convy, because the antisubmarine nets had already been raised. So they were late as they steamed into the harbor.

Ninety years ago today, the Norwegian supply ship the S.S. Ivo was steaming out of Halifax Harbor. It was going to be loading up with livestock as a part of a relief effort for Belgium, which was suffering the privations of War. At this time, it was running empty, and it was running behind as well. It had a crew of forty, including their own Captain.

A combination of events and other ships put the Imo and the Mont-Blanc on a collision course, both running at speed.

Both stayed their course, and both sent signals by whistle that they intended to stay the course. It was, perhaps, a grand game of Chicken, only with some sixty four hundred tons displacement worth of ships, one of which was carrying almost three thousand tons of explosives.

The problem with Chicken is it's only won when one side blinks. Someone has to decide that their lives are worth more than their right of way, even when they're convinced that they're right. It's reasonable to assume that the Captains of both ships knew they were right in this. It's also reasonable to assume neither captain wanted a collision.

The problem was, both the Imo and the Mont-Blanc blinked at the same time. They both simultaneously evaded, and they both evaded in the same direction. Which led, inexorably, to a collision.

A collision which set the Mont-Blanc on fire.

The French crew abandoned ship -- there was little else to be done. There wasn't enough time to try and put out the fire, and the Frenchmen knew the explosives would go up. They shouted to all that would hear that the ship was laden heavy with destructive power and was on fire, but being French they shouted in French, and as it turns out very few understood them.

The harbor responded as they normally would -- they sent assistance in, to rescue people and put the fire out.

The people of Halifax, having heard the collision, turned out in force on what was an unusually warm, almost Indian Summer like day, going out onto the docks to watch the show. Crowding down. Not understanding the crew that was fleeing for their lives. Not having any of the proper flags or warnings to tell everyone the ship was a munitions ship.

Ninety years ago today, the Mont Blanc exploded in Halifax Harbor.

The force was unimaginable at the time. No manmade explosion had ever come close to the magnitude of this blast. Indeed, until Hiroshima no explosion would come close. The blockbuster bombs and shelling of European targets throughout World War II didn't come close to the monumental explosion of the Mont-Blanc decades before. The shock wave devestated Halifax, slaughtering the crowds on the docks, shattering and damaging structures throughout, blowing in windows for miles around. The fireball from the Mont Blanc rose over a mile in the air, creating a full on mushroom cloud that could be seen for miles. They heard the explosion and felt tremors from it as far away as Cape Breton, over two hundred miles to the east.

All those people, crowded down by the docks. Caught in a wave of pure decimation. The power was so great it blew the harbor dry, creating a tsunami that washed through Halifax. As stated, it was a warm day -- but this was still December, which meant there were lamps and stoves going, fueled by fuel that burnt, with reserves stocked high against the winter. Which meant that in the aftermath of the blast and the tsunami, Halifax burned. On the other side of the harbor, the Mi'kmaq settlement in Tuft's Cove was completed, instantly destroyed. The settlement would be entirely abandoned after the disaster.

The devastation hampered rescue and relief efforts, and those efforts were made all the harder the next day, when a blizzard hit the still decimated city. Sixteen inches of snow came down, wind swept through, and people trapped in the wreckage couldn't be reached or died from exposure. Houses all over halifax had to be sealed with tar paper since the glass of so many windows was destroyed.

As many as sixteen hundred people died instantly in the explosion. Some four hundred or more died in the aftermath. Over nine thousand people were injured -- and more Nova Scotians died in the blast than died in all the rest of World War I combined. Many survivors were permanently disabled. In today's money, after adjusting for inflation, more than half a billion dollars worth of damage came from this blast

But we opened this gruesome remembrance by speaking not of the thousands killed or injured, but by speaking of one man. One man who had a moment of clarity. A realization.

The man's name was P. Vincent "Vince" Coleman, and he worked for the Railroad. He was a dispatcher, and his station was down in the trainyard, which itself was down by the docks. And as it turns out, he understood the danger. He heard what the sailors said. He knew -- he knew that the Mont Blanc was carrying munitions, and that it was on fire. And like any rational man he started to flee.

And then he stopped, because he was the train dispatcher, and he knew that the passenger train from Saint John, New Brunswick, was due any moment.

There were three hundred people on that train.

Vince Coleman had a family, and a life, and could almost certainly have escaped death, if not harm. But in that moment of clarity, he turned around, ran back into his office, and started tapping out morse code. A fast message. A desperate message, rendered into dots and dashes and sent down the line.

Stop trains. Munition ship on fire. Making for Pier 6. Goodbye.

Vince Coleman did not make it out of his office. The Mont Blanc exploded. He was killed.

But the inbound from Saint John stopped, less than four miles from the station. Had the message not gone out, it almost certainly would have either entered the blast radius and been blown apart, the cars tossed like toys, or hit the twisted and destroyed track and derailed. Either way, many if not all of her crew and passengers would have been instantly killed.

There were other repercussions of this message. Because of it, news of the disaster spread like lightning down the wire, allowing for relief and rescue efforts to be immediately mobilized. Further, the train that Coleman had saved was immediately pressed into service, bringing survivors to safety where they could receive care and shelter. Almost certainly, Vince Coleman saved a lot more lives than the three hundred people on that train.

But that three hundred would be more than enough. Much more than enough.

It's always hard to say "what would I do," in situations like this. Our natural impulse is to say we'd have acted the way Vince Coleman did. Of course we would. Save three hundred people, including children? It seems like a no-brainer. But it's easy to say that when you're sitting at a desk typing. It seems far more likely that I'd have thought of my fiancee -- thought of my friends and family. Thought of people I knew that I could try to save. Thought of myself. And no one would think the less of me. We don't castigate those people who fled to save their own lives in Halifax that day. It was a natural reaction. A human reaction. It was no more cowardly an act than jumping out of the way of oncoming traffic. We are wired to survive -- to fight for survival.

It takes will and courage and dedication to overcome that impulse. It takes honest to God heroism. It takes something that we all hope we have, but we never know we have until the moment arrives.

Vince Coleman had it.

Ninety years ago today, a man named Vince Coleman made the stark, specific choice to die so that at least three hundred people could live. In the wake of one of the worst disasters to ever hit the North American continent, Vince Coleman chose the lives of three hundred strangers over his own life. He sacrificed himself. He sacrificed his continued presence with his family. He sacrificed his future.

But he became, in that moment, an icon. He became a hero.

On this, the ninetieth anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, I choose to remember Vince Coleman. For those who have not heard the story, I pass it to you. For those who have, I help remind you. Sometimes, heroism comes from choosing your duty over yourself.

And if you're out driving, and you see someone in your lane coming towards you, for Christ's sake stop well away from him and let him past. I don't care who has the right of way. It's not worth your life, much less everyone else's.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:46 PM | Comments (14)

December 3, 2007

Eric: Winter Storms, AntiNanowrimo and Christmas on the Satellite of Love: a stirring from the grave

There's a winter storm outside -- the first solid evidence of Winter in the first week of December for several years. The New Hampshire tourist industry -- by which I mean the ski industry, the snowmobile industry, the ski industry, the ATV industry, the ski industry and did I mention the ski industry -- is breathing a sigh of relief, as it looks like we might actually, y'know, have a ski season before February this year.

(Not that they were taking any chances, mind. I've driven by a bunch of phallic "look at our new snowmaking equipment" billboards since early September. By God they were going to be skiing this year whether we liked it or not! And, of course, I like it fine though I myself haven't gone skiing for at least fifteen years. Probably more like twenty, now that I think about it. Christ, I'm old.)

It is the Christmas season, though very few people seem to care this year. Including me, though I'm well ahead on my Christmas shopping for the first time... well, ever. (I am entirely in favor of fiancees who have well developed Amazon wishlists. I have a well developed Amazon wishlist too, but that's less for my fiancee and more for my family, who love me dearly and haven't a clue what sort of gizmos to buy me. I'd post a link for the curious but it would seem crass, and I like to wait at least four or five posts into a revival after a multiple week hiatus before I appear crass.)

For the most part, all is well. We wait patiently for the government to let Wednesday and I get married. (We could get word any day, or it could easily go into February with no word a'tall. We keep the lines of communication open to the single greatest immigration attorney in the world, and we check the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website, and we wait and we hope and I get up there whenever I can (she can't come down here until she comes down here to get married. That's just the way the law works.) and we talk every day, and that's what that is right now.

There's a winter storm outside, but the home fires are burning well. Having weathered financial issues aplenty over the Summer (as I'm sure you all remember), everything is fine now. I actually have some money in a savings account. Not a lot, but some, and that builds with every paycheck. There's always more unexpected events on the horizon, but barring the same kind of sudden, rapid smackdown of them that started the summer travails, things should just be okay.

I have it on good authority that the Month of November was, for me, essentially an anti-Nanowrimo. Which isn't to say I've gone negative on Nanowrimo. I've enjoyed it when I did it, and I enjoy seeing it when others do it. But for me, it was a month where I generated... well, essentially nothing, both here and on Banter Latte. Almost certainly I needed that. If you use your brain for writing too many days in a row without a break, it gets hot and eventually the RAM fails.

But it's December now, and it's the Christmas season, and we're heading to close the year out. There's things happening, in the world and on the web. The Russians own LiveJournal, the Primary is a month away in the state I live in, and Chuck Norris has embraced the meme in more ways than one. Halfpixel has become a full on online guild a la Dumbrella, bringing the Blank Label collective down to a tight six In Mystery Science Theater 3000 news. Rifftrax has started doing heavy advertising in targeted media, the Rifftrax crew has also formed "the Film Crew" which is doing the MST shuffle, which means the Mike Nelson/Kevin Murphy/Bill Corbett version of MST3K is fully back in production only minus the muppets and the SciFi network. At the same time, the original MST3K team of Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Josh Weinstein, and special bonus not-quite-original-but-still-seminal Frank Conniff have launched Cinematic Titanic, which somehow doesn't make any reference whatsoever to Rifftrax or the Film Crew (and vice versa) even though Mary Jo Pehl has done work now for both groups. And if that wasn't interesting enough, Best Brains, Inc., in the person of Jim Mallon (the original executive producer and the voice of Gypsy) has spun up some truly crap web cartoons 'continuing' the story of the Satellite of Love, alongside some old school folks like Paul Chapman, who we all remember as Pitch. Right?

Okay, the crappy webtoons are clearly just designed to get you buying DVDs, but still! It's... something....

That's right. Three entirely distinct entities of former MST3K folks, all cheerfully suckling at the teat of a show that went off the air in 1999. Three collectives of entertainers, writers, gadabouts town who all have legitimate claim to some of the MST3K legacy. Three separate performing troupes that are not acknowledging the other two's efforts in any way, shape or form, absent a brief mention on the Cinematic Titanic website that Josh Weinstein was the guy who actually hired Mike Nelson in the first place.

Yeah, there's no behind the scenes 'fun' going on there. None at all.

The interesting thing is, for all three of these groups... we're actually seeing models that the webcomics world pioneered in play. The MST3K site, with its free crappy Flash animations (seriously, guys, I know that the art is supposed to be 'stylized' but it looks... um... bad) is drawing eyeballs to sell videos. Rifftrax works off of -- I swear to Christ -- Micropayments, and from all accounts it's been monster successful. That's right. Someone made micropayments work. With, I would add, podcast technology and absolutely no DRM. It looks as though Cinematic Titanic may do the same, though we don't yet know. The Film Crew is straight online distribution -- they don't advertise in traditional places, their production facilities are essentially a minimal set possibly made in someone's garage, and they're clearly selling DVDs briskly.

Everyone still reading these words will recognize the models at play. And clearly everyone involved with MST3K has the advantage of a massive cult phenomenon from the 90's (probably the defining cult phenomenon among geek culture of the 90's, all apologies to Babylon 5 -- Buffy was transitional into the 21st century so nyah) to give them a continuing fanbase. But the simple truth is, it's not costing them much money to make Rifftrax. You or I could do it with scriptwriting time (and talent we might not possess, of course) and our personal computers. Admittedly, Nelson partnered with Legend Films who's shouldering the website costs, but come on.

Put yet another way? Other media besides comics have begun to figure out the whole web thing. Between that and the rise of direct-to-DVD stuff... and the fact that both Amazon.com and fucking Wal-Mart have come out as anti-DRM...

...well, it's an interesting time to be on the web.

But then, winter storms are always fun to watch from the inside.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:07 AM | Comments (16)

November 14, 2007

Eric: Service Disruption

It's nothing technical, you understand.

Seriously. As near as I can tell, everything's aces. The internet is working, the websites are up, and while I did migrate to Leopard, that was about as seamless an OS upgrade as I've done for a while. And Time Machine just plain works, for the record, which is staggeringly cool.

Well, all right. Upgrading led to some issues with my windows partition and I had to reinstall it, but honestly. It's the first time I've ever had to reinstall Windows in the era of Boot Camp, so how upset could I be?

So it's nothing technical. And yet, there has been an interruption of service.

It may have been my last trip to Ottawa. You can tell when it was -- it was the day my first Superguy post in years went up. And that was really cool, as it was on the heels of Gary posting, and there's been a flood after us so Gary started something. Apparently the collective Superguy writers have been waiting for someone to break the ice. And now they have.

But the day it went up, I drove to Ottawa, and spent a week up there. Up with Wednesday, kept by the government out of the United States until they get through processing the fiancee visa that will let her come down and let the two of us get married and on with our lives. This is the longest visit we've done for a long time, and it also featured a move to brighter surroundings for her. And time spent together. And time spent listening to a radio station with ten minute synopses of Ottawa in general. And time spent being on the weaker side of the dollar divide while in Canada for the first time in my life.

For the record? When they make the same jokes to you you made about them for your entire life? You don't get to be anything but gracious about it. Even when gasoline ends up costing five bucks a gallon after conversion. God damn it.

It may have been the change of time. I love love love love love the day we Fall Back. I am no fan of Daylight Savings Time. I think the system should have been abolished years ago. I am no farmer, and I like the day being an hour later in the morning, thank you kindly. But I am also of an age where the time change screws with me something fierce. It took a few days this year, as the trip back corresponded to it so I was exhausted enough to make it easy, but I'm in the throes of crappy sleep cycles right now.

It may have been work, which has been busier than November normally is, not the least of which was a day we had a power outage and the central core's backup generator didn't kick in. We managed to shut everything down before UPSes failed, but it's like doing work on someone's heart -- when you stop it from beating for a few minutes, it's gonna be a few days before they're feeling up to jogging and you have to do a lot of post-op stuff.

I've had people e-mail me. Just to make sure I wasn't dead. I appreciate that. I'm not dead.

I'm just not writing.

Which is weird.

I have ideas, mind. Tons of them. Banterable ideas. Websnarkish ideas. It's not that. It's not that at all.

But it's not actually going onto paper.

Maybe this notice of service disruption is the jolt I need. Maybe that'll get the big writing stone rolling down the hill.

I sort of plan on writing more Superguy today. I enjoyed that, and it too might spark things.

If it does, it'll go up sometime this week, and then a Myth will follow it, and Justice Wing will follow that.

And maybe somewhere in there I'll talk about the sale of City of Heroes and Issue 11 and dual blades and flashback and stuff. And talk about Zuda and how their interface (and their decision to downsample God damned cursive into it) makes the Baby Jesus cry and no one gives a shit about Zuda as a result.

And, you know. Stuff. Things.

I dunno.

But for now? I'm okay. I am.

We're just having a minor service disruption. Please stand by.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:31 AM | Comments (6)

September 18, 2007

Eric: Now, if *religious* people were upset, I could understand that. Of course, I'd have no sympathy, but I'd *understand* it.

(From Something Positive. Click on the thumbnail for full sized 'snap!')

There are a few strips out there that really nail geek culture. They understand geek culture, and when they satirize it, it is often spot on. Home on the Strange is one of the most prominent right now, and it's good -- it really is. But it's not brutal. It doesn't go for geek culture's fucking throat. It's sympathetic to geek culture. "Look how silly we can be," it says. "We don't talk about season five of Babylon 5! Hee hee!"

On the other side of the equation, you sometimes see... well, newspaper strips try to make fun of geek culture. Curtis goes there sometimes. But the problem with a lot of those strips are they come from non-geeks, so it's not that it's mean spirited -- it's that it's clueless. Like trying to buddy up to a pack of rabid Browncoats by saying how you really liked Captain Kirk and Han Solo, the best response you can hope for is pity.

No, to really savage geek culture you must be inside geek culture, but be willing to tear all pretension away from it.

Ladies and gentlemen, Randy Milholland.

Now, this is not a remembrance of Robert Jordan. I'm not really qualified to do a remembrance of Robert Jordan. I have a copy of The Eye of the World sitting on the bookshelf behind me in the office where I'm typing this, given to me by an associate going on ten years ago, but I haven't read it. I've never really done the whole Wheel of Time thing. In my defense, I've also only read one Harry Potter book.

That isn't the only Robert Jordan book I own, by the by. But that's getting ahead of the essay.

Regardless, Jordan has clearly done something remarkable. I mean, really really remarkable. And it may be the greatest testament to a writer I can conceive of. And I mean that exactly as it sounds -- there is no higher praise for a writer than I can think of than the one I'm about to give Robert Jordan.

Robert Jordan's work has so enthralled his fans, both hardcore and jaded, that with the announcement of his death, everyone -- in or out of the fandom -- thought "oh my god he's not going to finish Wheel of Time!" instead of "oh my God Robert Jordan is dead."

In part, this stems from the knowledge we've had of Jordan's illness. We've known he was sick, and we've known he was not likely to survive. I wrote an essay about that in 2006, entitled "There is life, and there is living. But they're best done together. In volume." I talked about his cardiomyopathy in that essay, and my own cardiomyopathy as well. And I mentioned I would buy his latest book the next day (as it turns out, I bought Crossroads of Twilight. I have no idea if that was his latest or not, but it was there. I haven't read it, but it's made me think of finally reading The Eye of the World.)

Well, here we are, a year later and he has succumbed. Whether it was to congestive heart failure or to complications in the chemotherapy or something else I don't know. Someone reading this probably does. And I am saddened by this. But even though I've never read any of his books, my immediate thought on hearing the news was "Oh Christ -- he didn't finish The Wheel of Time." When I told someone else, afterward -- someone else who to my knowledge has never read Robert Jordan either -- the response was, immediately, "did he publish that last book first?" We are both sympathetic people, with absolutely no investment in the series to date, and before sympathy or reflection or even the "oh, what a damn shame" response, we both immediately jumped to "aw, shit. He didn't make it. Now the series won't be finished."

I can think of exactly one other writer who would have provoked this reaction. If J.K. Rowling had been hit by a bus before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out, the outpouring of grief would have been monumental, but it would have been eclipsed by the shrieks of "OH MY GOD SHE DIDN'T FINISH THE SERIES!"

Robert Jordan inspired that. He did it by creating a series that hooked enough people that it became a holy quest for them. As God was their witness, they were going to make it to the end of The Wheel of Time. When others gave up on Jordan, they hung in there. They kept the faith. And now....

And now.

Of course, they will in fact see the end of the story. Even as J.K. Rowling went on record that the end of Harry Potter had been fully outlined in case she did get hit by a bus, so Jordan went on the record that he had kept his family fully appraised of what needed to happen in this final book, so that it would be completed in case he died. This was a necessary precaution, given his health.

But, the argument will go, it won't be the same. And that's true. And a number of fans will vehemently boycott the book that "the family clearly put out to profit on his legacy," even though it's clear Jordan intended for this story to be finished.

In other words, Geek Culture is in full swing. And that brings us back to Something Positive.

Now, we know that God, in Something Positive, is a full on bastard. We've seen it before. He does horrific things to Davan just to see the look on his face. This is a foundation of the strip.

Therefore, it is entirely in keeping with the spirit of Something Positive that God would cause Jordan's death purely to finally break Mike. Who, you will recall, is the face of Ugly Fandom, all the way to the present. He is Geek Culture at its least palatable, and even as he continues to walk the path of redemption he can backslide.

I know that there are Jordan fans who are pissed over this episode of Something Positive. For "belittling his death," apparently. To me, this validates the strip. Because this isn't about Robert Jordan, even as this essay isn't a remembrance of the man. This strip is about the fandom. About geek culture. About us. From Mike's innately selfish point of view, God did kill Robert Jordan just to make him snap. Freaking out at Milholland for this is A) missing the point of the strip, which is not about Robert Jordan but is about geeks, and B) making it clear you're exactly who he had in mind when he wrote it.

Does that deny the real pain people are feeling? No. But it is observing it, and it is not being gentle about it. That's the business Milholland is in, and business as always is good.

Robert Jordan was clearly a remarkable writer. He inspired passions and dedication and a general sense of his magnum opus that rivals Harry Potter. And we, as geeks, think first of that work -- and how it impacts us -- before even feeling grief for his death. Milholland nailed this one, and nailed us with it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:26 AM | Comments (26)

August 27, 2007

Eric: Ack-phhlpt.

(From Opus.)

Remember when Opus was going to save the Newspaper Comics Page. And through it newspapers themselves?

Oh yeah. There were announcements. Berkeley Breathed was coming back, and circulation was coming five steps behind him. And it was going to be a whole new era, both artistically for Breathed and commercially for the papers. Breathed was going Sundays only, a la Outland, and was going to get a half-newspaper page. And Breathed, having moved into the twenty first century (well, artistically, anyhow) was featuring a lush, painted palette on these new pieces.

And most of all, Opus was going to be a newspaper comic. No web presence, no sirree bob. If you wanted to see what had happened to Opus and Steve (and occasionally Bill) after all these years, you were going to have to buy yourself a paper! Because that's how it was supposed to be. The web was sucking the life out of comic strips, and it was time to take a stand. Here -- here's a bit from a 2003 Salon article about it:

But business is no place for nostalgia. When Breathed retired "Outland" in 1995, David Shearer of the Washington Post Writers Group -- Breathed's syndicate -- expressed some remorse over the fate of the strips' sizes. "I'd like to see comics displayed bigger. We all would. But that's not the reality of it," he said, pointing toward electronic media as a place for artists to experiment. Ironically, with Breathed's return, the WPWG is using that missed experimentation as a selling point. "The one and the only place to see 'Opus' will be in newspapers," Shearer says. "This is a tremendous opportunity to increase circulation."

And this was going to be a true sequel. This wasn't just "the return of Bloom County." This was "over a decade has passed, and these people are older and flabbier." In fact, several beloved characters -- like Binkley or Milo Bloom or Oliver Wendell Holmes -- were no-shows, because Breathed didn't want to depict them as teenagers (or older). He went on the record about this.

And it premiered to much ballyhoo. And it went into papers.

And then... nothing. No one cared.

Oh, I don't mean to say Opus didn't and doesn't have fans. It does. Heck, it makes me smile more weeks than it doesn't, and that's not always true of comics I read. But Opus's impact was essentially negligible, both on the comics world and on the world of newspaper circulation.

Do you need proof? Opus launched in 2003. It's a four year old comic now. Did you realize that? Had you realized that he had been around for four years? He's a full year older than Websnark is, and Websnark definitely lost its new blog smell a long time ago. (Note to self -- make mention of the anniversary sometime within a month of said anniversary. Jesus, Eric. Try a little, would you?)

In part, the problem was that glorious painted style. Ironically, it would have looked pretty sweet on the web, where the much deeper palette would show the gradations to good effect. Put onto the comics page it came across as dark and muddied, and subtleties were lost by bad LPI counts. It went away soon enough, replaced with essentially the same colors we saw in the Sunday Bloom County.

This was made worse as newspapers began to shrink the comic. The half-page thing didn't last long at all, really. When it was clear that Opus wasn't spiking numbers, there was no real impetus for editors to bow to the Washington Post Writer's Group's demands and strictures. Given the choice between letting them shrink Opus so they could fit more comic strips in or having them drop Opus entirely, they let them shrink it. Ultimately, that meant the painted style had to go, and a coloring style very very reminiscent of the 80's run went in.

Naturally, the "newspapers only" stance died next. The Washington Post -- the flagship paper for Opus -- began to run it on their virtual comics page, and gradually it moved into other online venues as well. It really didn't have much of a choice -- if it was going to start appealing to the comic strip fans out there, it had to go to where they were and do their best to draw them in,.

(Not that that strategy has been successful either. I mean, in several years of posting, Opus hasn't been covered by The Comics Curmudgeon even once. Now, while there's a case to be made that that means Opus is actually pretty good, so Josh Fruhlinger has little to say about it... not appearing at all suggests he just doesn't read it.)

How far have we come from launch? Well, recently Opus went to Salon, which will arguably be the best place to read it moving forward since they're going to maintain an archive. Sadly, the older strips aren't going up there, so we'll have to wait for the inevitable collection.

And also recently... Lola Granola showed up, and so did Binkley and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Binkley and Oliver... were the same age as when we last saw them, so everyone knows. This despite the presence of Steve's own son, who is now Binkley's age.

So what, one is tempted to think. These are the comic strips. Not every strip is Gasoline Alley (thank God), and real time aging is overdone. Which is true enough... if they hadn't made such a big deal about it, and about how if the kid characters came back, then they'd have to be teenagers and Breathed didn't want to draw them like that.

Hackwork? Not really. I mean, it's still funny and Christ, they're Breathed's characters. He can do whatever he likes. But it's been really, really interesting for me to track this experiment in revivals -- revivals of Berke Breathed, revivals of the newspaper comics, revivals of fortune. And to see the early stands taken -- admittedly, stands that were largely based in hubris, but also stands that meant something to Breathed and (it seemed) his editors -- give way to the painful economic necessities of publishing in the modern world.

And we have come full circle now, and it seems the last great threshold has been reached. From that same 2003 article/interview in Salon we see Breathed write:

As an end, controversy is a dead end. It's why TV shows tried to throw in nudity some years ago. I notice now that the ripples de jour are lesbian kisses. It's a sign of desperation, not good writing. Not to say that if I could figure out a way to throw in some hot lesbian action into "Opus," I wouldn't.

True enough. And in its own way, sad enough. Because hey -- guess what? We have controversy in Opus. And sadly, it's not lesbians making out.

You may have heard the story. Opus is running a series of strips where spiritually mercurial and flaky Lola Granola has been trying out different philosophies, theologies and spiritualisms in an effort to find herself. In the most recent strip, she has latched onto a new one -- terming herself a Radical Islamist. In her words, it's the hot new fad on the planet.

It's a pretty funny strip, truth be told. And it says something rather tame about radical Islam and something a bit more brutal about people who leap into new religious fads without thought or real, honest spiritual consideration.

That's not why I'm discussing it. I'm discussing it because newspapers have pulled the strip, because they're worried people will be offended.

That happens a lot in the newspaper world. It's kind of a boring story these days. Though in this case, it's clearly patently ridiculous. Lola is fully garbed (albeit more brightly than one might expect) and is certainly not tearing Islam down with her statements about it. Really, aside from one note about "a man's rightful place," it would probably be completely acceptable to any Muslim reading it, and almost certainly any American Muslim -- the ones most likely to read it -- would be sophisticated enough to take it in good faith. It sure as Hell doesn't come close to the Johnny Hart Islam Outhouse controversy of a few years back (or any number of controversies from B.C. before his death). But still -- comic strips get pulled. It's what happens.

Except... one of the papers pulling the strip is the Washington Post. In fact, that's almost certainly why it's getting airplay.

And it is getting airplay. Hell, Boing Boing took a stand on it, using the cheerful phrase "chickenshit" in it. Which is perfectly apropos. The move really is chickenshit, and dumb to boot. And lots of pundits are noting that in this time of declining readerships, pulling strips that might actually inspire some controversy is a stupid move at best.

I understand these feelings. And I agree with them, but not completely. Not because I think the strip should have been pulled -- it's patently absurd to have pulled this strip. No, I have reservations because I smell a Washington Post sized rat.

Remember, Opus is syndicated by the Washington Post Writer's Group. The same organization that owns and publishes the Post syndicates and distributes Opus. They're different divisions, and it's certainly possible that the Post editors decided they would pull potentially offensive (only not really) strips from the paper without consultation or connection to the editors of the syndicate... but it seems just as likely that if the Post's editors had a problem with the strips, so would the syndicate's editors -- and so would their mutual owners.

On the other hand... the Washington Post pulling a potentially offensive comic strip from their paper (but posting that strip to the web page) -- and that strip being Opus, by Berke Breathed, still considered by some outlets one of the great rock stars of the cartooning world?

Now that's a story.

And a story means people talking about it.

Publicity. Energy. Zazz.

Do I think this was all a master plan on the part of Breathed and his editors? Probably not. It seems more likely that these strips were sent out to papers, one or two pulled them, and someone at the syndicate thought "waaaaaait a minute..." But I do think that Breathed shifts with the wind. We saw it with Outland, which started off as the whimsical flights of fancy of a poor little girl named Roland Ann whose real life was miserable, so she needed a fantasy life she could escape to. By the end of it... it was Bloom County. Bill Watterson hit the nail on the head with a satirical cartoon he sent to Breathed, which Breathed published in one of the Outland collections or a treasury or something. It featured Breathed pouring money into the gas tank of a boat, kicking Roland Ann to the curb due to her innate unmerchandisabilty. Which may not actually be a word, but I digress.

I'm forced back to that Salon article/interview from 2003, where they were talking to Breathed about his intentions for Opus. Sadly, it's a burka instead of girl on girl action. (Man, consider the... er... artistic merits of a Bobbi Harlow/Lola Granola marriage.) But either way, we've got desperation sign in spades these days. And I wouldn't put it past the syndicate to even hang the newspapers out to dry if it meant getting Opus into the young demographic elite. They don't do those great Dakin Opus plush penguins any more, but they'll start churning them out in a heartbeat if there's a demand. And if the tee shirts are subversive this time and sold through Hot Topic instead of through Wal-Mart, I'm sure the money would still spend real nice like.

Really, if this wasn't some kind of publicity stunt, it should have been. It's the only thing that makes this ridiculous strip-pull seem even remotely sane. And if it was, it's been effective. The web's buzzing. People are talking. I wrote 2,200 words that should have gone into "Interviewing Leather" on it.

And lots more people saw this strip this week than saw last week's slice of theological cheesecake. And even more will see next week's banned strip. And a good number of those people will stick around for the week after that.

Maybe they'll be in time to see Cutter John and Portnoy's inevitable return. And maybe Dakin should start sourcing fabric and polyfill, just in case.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:53 PM | Comments (26)

August 26, 2007

Eric: Yay! Disgruntled election posting!

The United States Presidential primary elections and caucuses -- the system that the major parties use to determine their Presidential Candidates -- was created in large part to ensure that all states got a chance to nominate major candidates. Remember, for a very long time communication in this nation was at the same rate as speed of transport. This is why Paul Revere had to do a midnight ride instead of posting "D00ds, teh British ar cuming" to his MySpace page. Without some system to distribute the contest among the different states, many states would never get to see the candidates or have any opportunity to have some influence on that aspect of the election process.

However. We now live in an era of instantaneous communication. The Presidential primary elections and caucuses system is now officially just an extended, mind numbingly expensive parade, giving disproportionate power to a small number of states early on in the process. I am privileged to live at Ground Zero of this process, New Hampshire. As a result, I've had vastly better access to Presidential candidates in the last couple of elections than I ever had living in Maine, Upstate New York, or Washington State. They wanted me to like them, so they could leave New Hampshire with "momentum."

It's pretty cool, but that's hardly the point. And now, with various states in a January primary bidding war and a showdown with Florida where they're being threatened with having their Democratic delegates stripped because -- I swear I'm not making this up -- their Republican controlled state legislature violated the DNC's guidelines (because, see, they want to make it seem like the DNC is shafting Florida so the Republican candidate takes Florida in the general election), the current system is revealed as the creaking, cruft laden mess that it's been for a long time. All, of course, culminating in a Convention which has neither drama nor point other than being a week long commercial, which the networks no longer even provide major coverage to since, well, C.S.I. Miami gets better ratings.

So. How do you fix it? How do you make it possible for everyone to have impact on nominations, make conventions relevant again, and get everyone to shut the Hell up about all this?

Simple. Two primaries. Just two.

The first would be on Super Tuesday, and it would be held in all states that award 35 delegates or less to the convention. This would include states like Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Delaware and the District of Columbia, and would be both a bellweather and give the smaller, less populous states a chance to shine to begin with.

The second would be on the first night of the Convention, and would include all the states with more than 35 delegates. So before the Convention, no one would have the nomination sewn up, while the also rans would be washed out in the initial run.

The Convention would become far more interesting, because there would be actual voting going on. Before ten p.m. at night, the smaller states would cast their votes and preparations would be made, and then past ten p.m. states would be reporting their results to their delegations, who would then cast their votes. It would be good television, full of poignancy, and it would pull eyeballs to the set. Then on Tuesday any needful wrangling would take place (entirely possible, since this system would make it once again possible for more than one candidate to be in position to be nominated). The results would be certified on Wednesday. On Thursday, the candidate accepts the nomination and a Vice Presidental candidate is announced.

We get drama back, all states have a voice in process, and no state is set before any other. Which would piss off my fellow New Hampshire residents, but hey -- they'd still be the in the first primary and would still have enough delegates that no candidate could ignore them.

And we could maybe, just maybe, shut the fuck up about the process and get onto the business of deciding who the best candidate is based on his opinions and record.

Ah, but now I'm just writing fairy tales again.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:52 PM | Comments (17)

August 16, 2007

Eric: It would, however, be acceptable for April to end up Roadside.

So. We all know (well, everyone who cares even slightly knows) that For Better Or For Worse is going to be "ending" sometimes soon. We put "ending" in quotes because we also know it's not actually going to end. Instead, it's going to freeze time. The New Pattersons will become the focus, time will freeze, character development will stop, April will be forever trapped in the first trimester of pregnancy, the horror of marrying Anthony will forever be kept an inch away from Liz's brain....

...and so forth.

Fine. I can accept that. And I can accept and even honor the fact that Lynn Johnston -- until two years ago or so considered one of the most consistently awesome newspaper cartoonists and now reviled beyond rationality, all thanks to newly unmustachioed Anthony -- won't be handing off the comic to other creators, as syndicated artists have been doing since the beginning of time immemorial.

But. That doesn't mean we have to listen to her.

I swear to God. The day "For Better Or For Worse" goes into freeze-limbo? A new webcomic should start, continuing the story.

Oh, there would need to be mild changes. The Petersons instead of the Pattersons. Avril instead of April. Shit like that. And the character designs would have to change at least slightly.

But why couldn't a webcartoonist -- or a cabal of webcartoonists -- not continue the strip on... freed from Johnston's railroading and editorial concerns... bringing it back to its true roots, grounded in fallibility and a sense of reality.

Consider the chance to write about Liz's growing sense of ennui and even a trapped feeling stemming from this spineless passive-aggressive creature she's rebounded into bed with. Consider a chance to take teen star Rebecca and take her down a frightened Lindsey Lohan path. Consider just how elaborate a train layout you could give John. And consider the opportunity to actually have people slowly call Elly on her tureens of bullshit.

It wouldn't be hard. Assign an editor. Gather a number of talents. (Hell, David Willis and Aerie might get into bare fisted combat at the opportunity.) Go plotline by plotline, shaking up the creative team as you go so everyone gets a chance to play.

The rules would be simple: no radical changing of the fundamental underpinnings of the strip. FOOB is realistic. The only magic or fantasy is when one is considering the heartwarming sacrifice of a beloved and noble pet for a meanass ungrateful child. No satire -- this isn't "magnify the faults of FOOB for all to see," this is "pick up the story and actually get it back on track." And absolutely no animated gifs of the characters blinking, because that shit's creepy.

It would, of course, be necessary to continue to come up with patently ridiculous catchphrases and euphemisms for April and her peers.

Ideally, the people involved would be people who love -- really love -- For Better Or For Worse, but who can't stand seeing what's become of it in the name of wrapping it up in a nice big bow (and insuring that Liz Patterson is no career minded whore who marries someone she didn't go to elementary school with).

Who's in?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:46 PM | Comments (89)

August 6, 2007

Eric: For those playing along at home, I think the subject on this post broke the RSS feed.

Several weeks ago, suddenly and without warning, a swath of Livejournal accounts were suspended without notice, their materials taken down, over reports of depictions of child pornography and other violations of their Terms of Service. The methodology used by Six Apart to determine what constituted a violation of the terms of service was extremely suspect (in many cases, they apparently used the list of interests on someone's profile page, so for example a survivor of incest or pedophilia who was an activist in the abuse recovery scene might find their journal banned as promoting the activities they were most opposed to), and many, many people got really, really pissed off. It was a monumental public relations nightmare for Six Apart, which desperately tried to deal with the monumental fallout for several days. Many long time users of Livejournal got very upset, whether they were directly impacted or not. Several got accounts on other journaling communities that used similar code (sometimes the same codebase, as LJ's engine is open source). Places like Greatestjournal. Deadjournal, or Journalfen got a sudden boost in users.

But, Livejournal managed to come out from under it. "We're sorry," they said. "We did this all wrong. We have undeleted most of the deleted journals, so we can begin to do this properly. But please understand, this is a policy that we're going to implement, and many of the journals we've restored are going to be deleted again."

It's several weeks later. And now, a whole new block of journals have been deleted again. And people are very upset. They're upset because it's apparently the LJ Abuse team who decide what constitutes artistic merit in the case of depictions. They're upset because there's apparently no appeal, and protests that a given picture actually depicts eighteen year olds or otherwise consenting adults have no effect.

And I?

I find myself oddly apathetic. Because this is exactly what I expected would happen. And people should have known that after the last incident.

Six Apart is not the Federal Government. There is no right to Free Speech, or right to Freedom of Expression on Livejournal. There are terms of service -- particularly for those who have paid Six Apart money -- but those terms of service are subject to change, and those changes only need to be posted to the Paid Accounts community to represent appropriate notification. (And to my knowledge, most Paid account holders don't subscribe to that community. Christ knows I don't.) This is a private company, who owns private servers, and they have every right in the world to say "here's business we're not going to accept," or "here's content we're not going to host," or "here's a person who we don't want having a journal on our system."

Every. Right. In the world. Period. It's their ball, their bat, and their baseball diamond. And they made it absolutely crystal clear several weeks back that they really, really don't want to be in the slashfic or slashpic business.

Now, I have a certain amount of sympathy for the position of the folks on the other side of this equation. These are people who have used the community building tools that are Livejournal's stock in trade, sometimes for many, many years. They've paid money to Livejournal. They've built up significant online identity with Livejournal. Livejournal, they feel, is theirs. At least in part. They were there back when Brad Fitzpatrick owned the thing. They feel they've done nothing wrong and they've acted in good faith, and that this is total bull.

I sympathize. But they don't have a leg to stand on, here. It's Six Apart's playground, and they can tell anyone they like not to play any game they like. They can charge for access to the slide. They can tell any group they wish that the teeter totters are off limits. They can, in short, push my dumbass metaphor to the limit in any way they wish.

Now, the justification that Six Apart is using is, of course, protecting the children. Or restricting child pornography. Or whatever other buzzword is being used this week to make people react emotionally instead of rationally. Whatever. But what they really mean, to be frighteningly blunt, is we don't want slashfic here. This week, it's alleged depictions of pedophilia. Next week or next month, it'll be copyright infringement. Or any number of other legal grey areas that will let them quietly (well, let's be honest, loudly and hamhandedly) excise materials they don't like and don't want to be associated with.

This is entirely their right. And fanficcers, slashficcers, writers of sexually charged fiction and potentially even straight fiction writers should be taking strong notice -- because they could in fact be next. Because the one thing Six Apart can't do is promise something in their terms of service and then not deliver it -- which means that if person A has his work taken down as a violation, and he reports person B -- even if person B isn't violating it in the same way (or if there's question if person B is violating it at all), Six Apart, to try and avoid legal trouble, is going to ultimately take down Person B's work too.

What does this all mean? Am I happy that Livejournal's going down this path?

Not really. I'm not a slashficcer and I'm at best an occasional fanficcer, but I am a writer and I use Livejournal a lot. I use it as my RSS aggregator. I use it to keep in touch with friends. I use its social networking controls, at least in part because almost everyone I know is on it. And I don't want to see a massive exodus of the people in my life away from it because it can't be trusted.

But I have no control over that. SixApart gets to make that call. And Livejournal can't be trusted at this point.

So, I'm apathetic about the new round of deletions, because I saw it coming and I think everyone else should have, too. Which is a little mean of me, but that's the way it goes. People should have been moving to Journalfen or Greatestjournal to begin with. Or, someone with tech savvy who loves all of this stuff should be taking the open source code base, getting hosting or a server or whatever (and grabbing appropriate sponsorships), and making this into an LJ style system counterpart to fanfiction.net. Because this is the course Livejournal's on, and at this point there's no going back. You can't trust them with your slashfic or your NC-17 art. Period. And that's going to creep into fanfic in general, or erotica in general, or porn in general. And then from there, it may creep into regular fiction and writing. You don't know it won't, and it's clear they're not going to be on your side as this goes forward. That's what a loss of trust means. They're going to do what they feel is appropriate to make their business into the kind of business they think it should be.

I'm sad because it means the glory days of Livejournal as a place where people met and wrote and journaled and connected with one another are over, and Livejournal has passed zenith and is moving towards nadir. Which frankly, we knew. Other social networking sites passed it long ago. Which is the tragic side of this decision on Six Apart's part -- they're not in a position to be alienating large chunks of the user base they have left.They need those chunks of user base, because it's not just the pornographers who are going to leave. It's any number of people who think Six Apart's wrong in this. Or just folks who think this means Six Apart can't be trusted any more, and their journal is way, way too important to them to be in the hands of someone they can't trust.

Am I going to continue using Livejournal? Yes I am. Because I don't use it for those purposes. I use it to keep up with friends' journals. I use it to read RSS feeds. I use it because I like the mechanism of the Friends' List and there's no real way to replicate that Friends' List elsewhere yet. But if enough of my friends go somewhere else, I'll end up going there too in an effort to keep what I want in a site like this live.

At the same time? There was a time when I'd use a Livejournal community to put together fiction writing projects of certain kinds. I don't use it that way any more. Any of my creative work I'm going to have on a site where I'm paying for the hosting and can set up whatever I like -- and even then I'll keep robust backups in the unlikely event that Dreamhost catches a severe case of Dick.

And sadly, it's very unlikely this same community of users will come together anywhere else in a singular sense. Which means I'll need to follow several different communities to keep up with everyone, and I'll have to pick and choose where I'll post my own Livejournalish style posts. And ultimately, I'll end up only following one other journal service because dude, I have a life, and that means I'll lose some connection to folks. I'll fill in some of the gaps with RSS feeds and the like, but what was once a really cool thing will fade out of my life -- as Usenet, Listservs and the like did before it. And several years from now, when I'm reminiscing with several geeks of my generation, the talk will turn to Livejournal, and we will talk about what had been cool about it, and what ghastly mistakes will have been made on it. And someone will say "is it even still out there?" And someone else will say "yeah, I look at it every now and again. There's a few thousand die hards on it who refuse to go anywhere else. They're convinced everyone will come back." And there will be a few derisive snorts at these dinosaurs who won't let go of the past, and the kid geeks at the next table will have no idea what we're talking about.

Which, if you get right down to it, was an odd path for Six Apart to decide to walk down, but hey -- they walked down it.

And the folks who continue to walk down it with them shouldn't be surprised when it leads places they don't like.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:23 AM | Comments (20)

July 24, 2007

Eric: Requiescat in Pace: Tammy Faye Messner

Let us speak then of the dead. It's something we seem to do more and more of. The last time I spoke of the dead, I was speaking of Chris Benoit, and of the conflicted feelings I had as a man I respected and enjoyed as an entertainer had turned out or turned into a monster. This time, I speak of someone we all knew, once upon a time, was a shallow, bad and hypocritical person, and who I speak well of now as a kind and decent woman who, in the end, meant what she said.

A person I, and most of the people who know anything about the last twenty years of her life, mourn now the way we mourn any person who is essentially decent, kind and open, and who did her best to spread a message that on balance was a good and decent one -- far more so than many of the others of her kind and era did.

I speak, of course, of Tamara Faye LaValley, who was known professionally as Tammy Faye or Tammy Faye Messner at the end of her life, and who millions remembered (and mocked) as Tammy Faye Bakker, wife of disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker.

I was a child in the 70's and 80's, living in rural Maine along the Northern Canadian border. I have never needed a Saturday Night Live sketch to tell me who Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were. I had the PTL Club. And if it seems weird that I had watched it, you don't understand what television used to be like, especially in Northern Maine. Until the cable came, our television universe was CHSJ (the New Brunswick Television System) on Channel 6, WAGM on Channel 8, three French channels (two of which barely came in) after that, and MPBN (the PBS affiliate) on Channel 11. Period.

WAGM, in particular, was our gateway into the world. It was primarily a CBS affiliate, but officially it was an affiliate of all three networks. They would (usually) show CBS shows when they were supposed to air, and shows on ABC or NBC would show up at odd times -- the 7 o'clock hour, for example. Or on weekends. But despite this plethora of programming, there was never enough programming to fill the dial. Old, bad movies would play here and there, after Captain Kangaroo and the game shows and the soap operas. And weekends? Saturday morning was the CBS cartoon lineup, and then there was a long void all day. Sunday mornings there were various religious shows, then various crap, then they would pull in ABC's Wide World of Sports.

Why did I watch it? I was a kid living in the middle of nowhere. I had Canadian television, French television I couldn't understand, Public Television, and whatever cheap crap WAGM threw at me. You're damn right I watched it. All of it. I watched Jim McKay excitedly present ice barrel jumping. I must have seen every episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I watched Hee Haw. I watched It's The Law, Front Page Challenge and The Beachcombers on CHSJ. I watched To Tell The Truth and What's My Line, in the days when Soupy Sales was the high point of those shows. The high point.

And I watched The P-T-L Club.

My parents didn't. They had better things to do, and who could blame them? I don't know if my sister watched it or not, but I don't know how she could have avoided it -- she was even more of a child of the 70's than I was. But I did. I was young, and let's be blunt. This show was amazing. It had music (not like Lawrence Welk, another show I watched out of the 'there's nothing else to do' theory, but more exciting music), it had shouting and gesticulation and sobbing -- let's be blunt. It was a freak show. A spectacle. And kids love spectacle.

And it had Tammy Faye Bakker.

Tammy Faye Bakker seemed too over the top to be real. So heavily made up she seemed greasepainted, always laughing or sobbing at what seemed like near hysteria (for many years, mascara pouring down her face from tears was practically her trademark and calling card), she seemed like a clown. A literal clown. Especially when a kid like me was watching -- I knew from clowns, and I knew television wasn't real. And there was no way that freak was real.

But it wasn't just kids like me watching the show. There had been religious programming for a long, long time, but it was P-T-L (for PRAISE THE LORD! shouted enthusiastically) that inaugurated the television crusade. Billy Graham had been the closest we'd had to a public crusader and evangelist, as once a year WAGM would give over the To Tell The Truth/What's My Line block to him for a week of shouting and praying, but this was something else. This was up close and personal and in your face. Witnessing. Testifying. Exhorting!

And, as you all know, begging. Begging for money. Money to show your faith. Money to continue the faith. Every Church in America "passed the plate" and churchgoers understood that's what kept the church going and enabled them to help the poor and needy (this was a given in these somewhat simpler days -- churches helped the needy. It was most of what they did with their time in between sermons. At least, that's what people assumed back in the day). Well, they were passing the plate to America, and they expected to see it fill fast, brothers and sisters!

And they were a monumental success. They were the vanguard of a boom, informing and being informed by ministries and ministers like Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts (Expect a Miracle!), and later on Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and others of their ilk. They were so successful they launched a theme park. A theme park for Jesus. Heritage U.S.A. was another huge success, bringing in crowds of people to ride rides and have good family fun and obey Jesus.

Meanwhile, a few years later, cable done come to my town, bringing with it NBC and ABC on a regular feed, plus what was then called Superstation WTBS, and -- for a glorious twelve hours a day -- a mysterious and exciting new pay cable service called Home Box Office. And with these new, dramatic options, The P-T-L Club followed Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk into the department of "never watched, because damn, man. I have a life." WLBZ -- the NBC affiliate -- in particular held my attention. They still produced most of their own post-soap opera television. Sure, it was crappy movies just like WAGM had been, but they were slightly better crappy movies and they were introduced and presented by Eddie Driscoll, who rocked so hard you could measure him seismically. So I hadn't seen The P-T-L Club for quite some time when scandal rocked it. Jim Bakker had allegedly drugged and raped a church secretary, the ministry had paid her hush money and covered it up, and donations were going to support a lavish, decadent lifestyle for the Bakkers. (As a side-note, Jimmy Swaggart was the man who "broke" the story of Jim Bakker's transgressions, as well as another minster name of Marvin Gorman. This led Gorman to hire a private investigator to investigate this man who was purging "cancers in the body of Christ." That led to Swaggart's own habit of prostitutes coming out and his own fall from grace. I digress, but it's always fun to remember that taking joy in and promoting the fall of your rivals is a good way to fall yourself.)

Bakker's actions were reprehensible, and Tammy Faye was pulled in for the ride. It was just too easy to include her. She seemed at best incredibly naive -- and at this point, no one was ready to believe she could be anything but as venal as the rest of the defrocked. The P-T-L Club had preached prosperity theology and the Bakkers had lived a good life. Too good a life, as it turned out, as financial improprieties came to light and the IRS came a-calling. Jim Bakker went to prison. The pair got divorced. And Tammy Faye Bakker became a footnote and a joke. Just another scandal. Just another flim flam artist.

The thing is? She meant it.

She really did. Oh, she wasn't pure and innocent of all the goings on. There were rumors of prescription medicine and addiction. There was a clear opulent lifestyle she embraced. This is not to exonerate Tammy Faye Messner of the choices she made.

But when she said that God loved you? And loved me? And loved everyone? She meant that. She meant it with all her heart. And she felt that included everyone. The rich and the poor. Criminals and the innocent. The healthy and the sick. Heterosexuals, homosexuals, people of all creeds and races. Everyone. During the heyday of The P-T-L Club in the eighties, when AIDS was mysterious and homosexuality denounced by most evangelists as dirty and sinful -- with the implication that HIV was a divine judgement against them -- Tammy Faye Bakker had gay men and women on her show. She had AIDS victims appear. She exhorted her audience to pray for these people -- not to abandon their sinful lives, but to be healed of their illness, like any Christian should pray for any sick person.

After her divorce and remarriage, Tammy Faye slowly began to emerge. Her message was the same, even as she embraced her (admittedly freakish) public image. She launched a (secular) talk show with openly gay (and HIV positive) actor Jim J. Bullock. She appeared on programs and documentaries. (One notable documentary brought her back to Heritage U.S.A., long abandoned and falling apart. She broke into tears at the sight of it, wishing she could just spend some time painting things and making it look a little nicer).

And then she got sick. She got cancer. Colon cancer. She left the talk show, and worked on fighting it -- and seemed to win. It went into remission, and she stuck to the edges of popular culture. She traded on her image -- in a move almost stunning in its self-understanding, she appeared as a recurring guest star on The Drew Carey Show as the mother of an overweight, heavily made up caricature of a character named Mimi Bobek. And most famously (or infamously), she appeared on a season of VH-1's freakshow of the has-beens The Surreal Life, appearing alongside porn star Ron Jeremy and Vanilla Ice, among others.

And a whole new generation of people -- and an old generation of skeptics -- discovered they really liked this woman. She was honestly, truly kind to everyone. She was unafraid to espouse unpopular opinions but those opinions weren't ever exclusionary or mean spirited. She declined to accompany her castmates to see a psychic or attend a nudist resort, but she didn't condemn them for their choices. Co-star and Baywatch babe Traci Bingham described the experience of knowing her and hearing her speak on the show as life altering.

And then she got sick again.

She was seen undergoing treatments on her son's documentary series, One Punk Under God. She needed oxygen and had to stop making appearances for the most part. In telephone interviews, she described her hospice care and told people to never live their lives in fear but only feel hope. On July 19, she and her husband Ron Messner appeared on Larry King Live, and she was almost shockingly thin -- the woman parodied and known for being heavyset having dipped below seventy pounds, the skin loose on her skeletal body. It was known she was dying, but her appearance was hopeful and full of faith. From the transcript:

KING: Now you've always been so upbeat, the feeling of god being with you. Does that remain?

T.F. MESSNER: That remains consistent. I talk to God every single day. And I say, God, my life is in your hands and I trust you with me.

KING: We have an e-mail from Renee in Strongsville, Ohio: "I admire you for your unshakeable faith. Do you believe when you leave this Earth, you're going to go to a better place?"

T.F. MESSNER: I believe when I leave this earth -- because I love the Lord -- I am going straight to Heaven.

That was the tone. That, and excitement over having gained five pounds, and really looking forward to biting into a burger, which she had been craving. And expressing love and thanks to everyone who had spoken for her. She mentioned the gay community, who had "opened their arms to her" when the bad times had come and who she would always be thankful to. And she said she was mostly unafraid, thanks to her faith, but that she was afraid for her children and the sadness they would feel if she died. But that she continued to have hope.

That was July 19. On July 20, she was dead.

And with her dies a little bit of my childhood. And with her dies what might be the shining bright spot in the midst of a darkness that had spread over Christianity in the 80's, with cynicism and hypocrisy and avarice and scandal. In the decades since all that happened, Swaggart's been found with another prostitute (and unlike his first time, he flatly told his congregation that God told him it was none of their business) and said that if any gay man looked at him with lust, he'd kill him. And Jerry Falwell, who presided over the fall and the end of the P-T-L Club, though having brought a certain humor to his ministry, also brought intolerance and hatred and ignorance. Pat Robertson recently apparently called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez in God's name.

Tammy Faye? Just wanted everyone to love each other and accept each other and live without fear and in faith.

I'm not a Christian, but I suspect Tammy Faye -- though she would certainly have witnessed to me -- would have accepted me and been charitable and kind to me and assumed only the best and only had hope for me.

If there is a Heaven, I am confident Tamara Faye LaValley is in it. Very likely singing. And Earth is a slightly brighter place for her having lived, and a slightly sadder place for her having passed.

And that, in the end, is exactly what I think she would have hoped for.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:10 AM | Comments (17)

July 10, 2007

Eric: So, having written Saturday's essay, here's a long philosophical essay about the 600 pound webcomics gorilla who's just been sighted coming into town.

(From "Zudacomics.com." I swear, that's what it's called.)

It was inevitable.

In one sense, we can blame the Foglios. If blame is the right term. Other folks had crossed the digital divide both ways. Hell, Scott Kurtz had done okay for himself with his Image comic and his print collections, and DC themselves did the Megatokyo shuffle. But in those cases, it was an example of successful people on the web moving on into the print arena. The big companies understood that. That made sense to them.

And certainly other print creators had gone to the web before the Foglios. Others had decided that they could make a better run of it online, or that it would be a good supplement, or that it would grow their overall readership.All that made sense too.

But then the Foglios gave up comic books for the web. They said "look, printing a regular comic just isn't making us money. If we want to do this, we need a new system." And they put it into place. And it worked.

The Foglios were a known quantity. Phil Foglio had done work for DC in the past. If they could do well by moving to the web, there was something to this.

Seeing that, various folks at DC clearly started (or continued) to research webcomics and webcomics collectives. They researched what was working and what wasn't and they researched ways to monetize successfully. I promise you they've looked long and hard at the full on collectives like Keen or Modern Tales and at the guild-style associations like Dumbrella, Dayfree or Blank Label.

And it's finally happened. The shoe is dropping. DC Comics is launching a webcomics collective.

Not a portal. Not a gateway. A collective. There is a distinction, and it is an important one.

According to their press releases, intellectual property is going to be "shared." What that means, in the end, depends on their contracts. But that's the first thing to bear in mind. This is a professional site. If you become a cartoonist for Zuda (seriously -- Zuda?) you're going to be signing a contract with them. One that will say what rights you have and what rights they have. One that will, among other things, limit you to the "page" they've decided on. (Infinite canvas, scminfinite canvas. You're working on a 4:3 ratio and you'll bet your editor won't want something so large and detailed that it's not print friendly.) Which brings up something else: you will have editors. And those editors will be editing for content and quality. You will be expected to be on time and have a buffer ahead. If you decide to pitch Zuda and strike out on your own, you'd better make sure there's an escape clause in that contract first, and you'd better make certain you understand what your sharing of intellectual property means before you begin.

Does this sound doom and gloomish? Does this sound like I'm warning you off of Zuda or DC?

Well, I'm not.

Seriously.

I don't know what their terms are going to be, and I don't know how well they're going to pay, and I don't know whether or not "shared IP" is code for "work-for-hire but if we keep producing your hit webcomic after we leave we'll pay you a small percentage of ad revenues and put your name on the site under a 'created by' credit" or anything else. But it's entirely possible, from the standpoint of a comic reader, that Zuda could rock. Because it's doing a few things that no one else is right now. Things that should be red flags for creators, but could be boons for readers and fans: standardization and editorial control.

Back when Weds, Howard Tayler, Shaenon Garrity, Rich Burlew and I (with special guest Phil Khan) were at Swarthmore College, Shaenon and I gave a lecture on the importance of editors -- how the lack of an editor gave webcartoonists an almost unparalleled sense of freedom, but that carried with it the dangers of a lack of discipline. Editors are good things. They make you produce, on time and to spec. They tell you when you suck and they make you do bad work over again. They remind you that you're being paid to do this -- if indeed this is how you make your money -- and you god damned better not forget that or they'll stop paying you to do this. Editors provide a lot of good things for any creative endeavor, and a creative endeavor without one can suffer if it's not careful.

Well, Zudacomics.com will have all the disadvantages that strong editors entail. You're not going to be free to do whatever the Hell you want with your comic. You're going to have to produce. It will have to be of a given quality. It will have to conform to their standards. You are not going to radically shift directions in your comic without having a pretty significant discussion with the Zuda team first. And yes, you're going to have all of your comics fit in a 4:3 box. They've already come out and said that.

I'm not sure if animation's going to be acceptable or not. I seriously doubt they'll be Flash friendly. Unless the whole damn site is run in Flash to prevent bandwidth theft.

But. All the good sides of editors are going to come with this too. The stuff that comes out will in fact be of a certain level of quality. Possibly very good quality, especially if they pay well. They might in fact get some really good artists who know the form and can produce seriously good comics, because they're a steady paycheck instead of a hand-to-mouth operation. It's going to be far less likely that unexpected hiatuses will happen, because they're probably going to be working way ahead. (And yes, that means that "strips going up the same day that something happens" effect will be limited, which does have its down side.)

In short, Zudacomics might very well come out with a pack of really good webcomics. Webcomics with a lot more potential for print deals. Webcomics that are far more likely to show up at Barnes and Noble than going it alone will do. Webcomics that will have the attention of one of the large companies, which makes the chance to draw a story for Marvel or DC at least slightly less unlikely.

And, if Zudacomics is successful, then the other collectives and guilds are going to be in a weird position: they're going to become the Independent Webcomics Collectives, instead of the Webcomics Collectives. Especially if Zuda makes DC money, because you know Marvel will turn around and do their own, and probably so will some of the others. And they have money for major advertising in other media, designed to bring eyeballs to their web sites.

There's every chance, of course, that they'll do this wrong. Never underestimate the potential of a given company to make bad choices when moving into a new venture. But if they do do this right, they're going to become a major player on the web, and very possibly move into broader territory than any of the existing collectives.

So one thing that existing collectives, guilds and independent comics creators need to start doing is figuring out what it will mean, bottom line, if Zudacomics does well. Some will be fine. Blank Label and Dumbrella are largely made up of webcartoonists who produce day in and day out, building quality, and holding their audience through consistency, quality, and that same discipline I alluded to above. Scott Kurtz is likely going to be fine, for all the same reasons. Achewood is likely to be fine because of its idiosyncratic nature and its quality.

But Zuda can be bad news for Modern Tales, for Graphic Smash, for Girlamatic, and for Keenspot -- all of which have some rock solid comics but also have some random or fly by night ones -- and for the various guilds that don't have a solid core of artists producing with that same regularity. Not to mention various complete independents who go on long term hiatuses with no end in sight, because how hard is it to write and send a god damned script to your cowriter or update your damn static art comic anyway, Eric! We all know that the major collectives have some strips that produce like clockwork and some that just don't. That's going to have to change. Keenspot in particular is going to have to have a lot of internal discussions about this. If Zuda starts growing fast, producing a good number of strips that are considered high quality and a good sense of discipline, Keenspot's traditionally hands-off approach to the Spotted is going to come across as unprofessional, and the sense of 'arrival' that comes with being asked to join Keenspot is going to evaporate. And, of course, if Zuda ends up paying better than Keenspot (or Modern Tales) do, there's going to be a certain number of artists who will take the concept of paychecks and security and run with it, even if it means sharing their intellectual property, locking their stuff into a single publisher, and going back to a model that any number of artists went to the web to get away from.

Back in my acting days, we called that "working for Disney." A lot of what we were doing on the Renaissance Festival circuit was in high demand down at Disney World. Actors who could hold a sense of character, work the street and interact with the public all at the same time fit the Magic Kingdom (and more to the point, Disney/MGM) like a white glove. And a good number of folks took that deal, because it meant becoming an employee instead of an independent contractor. It meant health insurance, and a 401k, and the chance to get a real apartment and develop a normal life.

However, it also meant that you weren't doing the actor's life any more. You weren't moving from one show to the next, one town to the next, shifting gears and shifting lifestyles at the drop of a hat. You were going to work for Disney instead, performing the same role day in and day out, holding to a specific line and quality, following the Disney Handbook in all ways (including -- in the case of a guy hired to be a pirate -- having his beautiful pirate's beard shaven off, because Disney Employees at least at that time had to be clean shaven, only to have a fake one applied to his face every day so he could play his part. Honest to Christ.)

So, even though we were all derisive and dismissive of the Disney option (most of the time Disney World was referred to as "Mauschwicz" on the circuit) everyone was tempted by it and a lot of good actors took it, because a steady paycheck and the chance to build a life without scrabbling for money and that next role every minute was really, really attractive.

And those folks who really, really want to make their webcomic their day job but who aren't good at the merchandising or the rest of the things that make it hard to survive as a professional independent artist may well sign on Zuda's dotted line and go to work for DC. If they pay enough to make it feasible, it will really appeal to some people. Including some really, really talented people.

So, yeah. There's lots to be wary of. And yeah, the whole "contest for a slot" thing has strong echoes of Platinum. (Though I'll tell you, I'd die laughing if D.J. Coffman came up with a strip for this and got it through. And don't pretend he couldn't -- Coffman's got the chops.) And there's going to be lots of "hah hah -- DC's pretending it invented the webcomics collective" and busting on the man.

But if DC does this right, there's going to be some seriously good webcomics out there as a result.

And if that happens, things are going to change.

As a reader and aficionado of comic strips, I'm looking forward to Zuda. I'm looking forward to what might be some really cool comics. As an observer of the industry, I'm interested to see what they're going to bring to the table, pro and anti. But as someone who spent some time (brief, but existent) helming a webcomics collective and who knows a lot of folks for whom webcomics are their bread and butter, I think this is a time to be paying close attention to what's happening, and what it could mean for everyone else.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:31 AM | Comments (46)

July 7, 2007

Eric: Apropos of nothing, it's Heinleinmas. To celebrate, I didn't eat a free lunch.

So what happened?

This is what's being asked. People have noticed that while I don't eschew webcomics these days (I've done three webcomics related posts since spinning back up), I'm not anywhere near as focused on them as I used to be. And I do almost no posts about the bigger issues, the trends, the controversies, or whoever's pissed off at whoever else any more.

This is true.

So what happened?

Honestly?

I still love comic strips. I still love reading them on the web. I read dozens a day (though I've cut back from the hundreds I used to read). And sometimes I'll see something I think is really cool and want to talk about it, or see some point I want to make in another, or see some trend or technique or what have you and I'll want to write about it.

But the rest of that stuff? Somewhere along the line I stopped giving a shit.

The question is, of course, why. And there's a lot of reasons for it, but I think the primary one around them all is this: we're talking about a distribution method, here.

That's all.

The difference between webcomics and newspaper comics is distribution.

Now, there's a lot of baggage which goes with that. Newspapers tend to get their comics from syndicates, for example, and there's lots of stuff to be said about editorial mandate and syndication rights and merchandising and all the rest, and the ultimate freedom of the web and the ability to sink or swim on your own yadda yadda yadda. There's tons to be written about that. I know. I've written tons about it.

And I really don't have much more to say on the subject.

Seriously.

I think the situation's improved over the three years I've been writing for Websnark. I also think that improvement had absolutely nothing to do with my writing, so please don't take that as me taking credit. When Diesel Sweeties got the syndication deal they did, and when Girl Genius went out of the pamphlet business over to web distribution (but always with an eye to selling collections), we really saw how the world had changed since, say, 2002. Even back in 2004, those folks who had quit their day job to make comics were vanishingly rare. These days, there's quite a few of them, and there are at least a few methods of doing it (merchandising a la Dumbrella or Questionable Content being probably the most prominent) that have been reproducible.

Once you have a good number of people who base their living around their comic strip in a series of business models that are reproducible, the method of distribution becomes less a revolution and more a factor in how you see that business model through. These days, the web is a dirt cheap way to get your comic in front of the eyes of people who might give you money, and it's being used to that effect.

Which brings up the question of innovation on the web. The evolution of illustration, using the tools set before us to new and exciting effect.

Yeah, there's some of that.

Seriously, I like some of what the Tarquin Engine and similar things have done. I really do. And I've seen stuff with protoanimation (or actual animation) that's really cool. Though a good amount of 'animation in webcomics' is really 'Flash based cartoons,' and I don't see the need to lump them together. I'm still digging PvP's online cartoons -- I think they've matured well as the months have passed and I'm glad I subscribed, but I don't see those as 'comic strips that are moving,' I see them as cartoons and judge them accordingly. That they're based on a comic strip doesn't change that, beyond (once again) the comic strip's popularity has made it possible for Kurtz, Straub and the folks at Blind Ferret to make some money. And that's all to the good.

On the other side of the question, the real, lasting and powerful innovations that have happened out there -- the ones we see the most use of right now -- are content management systems. Ways of presenting and distributing and archiving the comic strips. Not innovations in the comic strips themselves. Look at the most popular webcomics, and you tend to see very straightforward illustrations in sequence, without multimedia, movement or the like. You also tend to see good reference materials (like a cast page) and archives (by date and storyline, generally, although not always). Sometimes you see search engines (Ryan North, take a bow out there) or the like. That's something books, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets -- all the other ways of distributing comics to the public -- can't compete with. And people have done some amazing things with it. And we've talked a lot about it. But again, it comes to distribution.

Some of you are decrying the definition of success with either popularity or financial gain. And I'm with you. A comic strip is successful if it meets its goals, and often those goals can be artistic. A strip with eight readers might be beautiful and poignant and wonderful and absolutely successful. And it might use techniques and skills and tricks that you couldn't reproduce on paper. All true. Just like someone could do the same thing with a photocopied minicomic that did things on paper that to date we just can't replicate on the screen. C'est bien. Mea culpa. I'm not arguing that.

But that's not how most of the comics I've encountered on the web have proceeded. Most of them have been sticking with the same toolset and visual language as comics in the paper, in books or graphic novels, or in magazines or pamphlets. And that's okay with me, because I tend to like that sort of thing.

Which, by the by, is why I read comics on the web. They're delivered to me automatically, by my selecting a single tabset in Firefox. (Well, one of five tabsets, but I digress.) It's useful and convenient for me to read them this way, whereas I don't have any interest in buying a newspaper to read them, and I only rarely get comics or graphic novels. (I do get them, sometimes. But it's rare. And I don't get them from Marvel these days, but I digress again.)

All well, all true, and all good. And I've talked a lot about all of it in the past.

And I'm not sure how to say much more on a lot of it without just repeating myself, again. Filling up space without saying anything new. And I'm not sure why I would want to do that.

Which brings us to the meat of the subject. I'm not talking about the Webcomics community much these days. I'm not talking about who hates John Solomon or Joey Manley or Scott Kurtz or Penny Arcade or Robert A. Howard and who's defending any of that list to others or who's doing anything like that. I'm not diving into the fray giving my two cents on it or talking about who's being mean or who's being thin skinned or who's right or who's wrong or any of that stuff. And the core reason why is, as stated above, I just don't give a shit any more.

Seriously.

For one thing, there is no webcomics community.

None.

It doesn't exist.

If you think you're in it, you're wrong.

There are comics on the web, and they have fans. And those fans are sometimes fans of more than one comic on the web. But are they a community? No, not really.

I have met and talked to passionate fans of Questionable Content who have never heard of Penny Arcade.

Seriously. They know Questionable Content. But they don't know Penny Arcade.

And there are no doubt tons of Penny Arcade fans who've never heard of Questionable Content.

Almost everyone I've asked tells me they don't currently read Megatokyo. But thousands upon thousands of people do read Megatokyo, and power to them. I read a bunch of shit you don't. I promise you that. I'm a huge fan of some pretty obscure webcomics. But you read a bunch of shit I don't read. I promise you that. And I keep running into comic strips that are celebrating their five hundredth strip with a fanbase in the tens of thousands that I've never seen the slightest reference to before.

And that makes perfect sense, in the end, because the only thing many webcomics have in common is their distribution method. And distribution methods are a piss-poor means of tying a community together.

Now, webcartoonists can and I think are a community. They have common interests, common ties, common problems and common challenges, and to a degree they form a community both to help with them and because mankind is a social beast. But "webcomics fans" are almost always fans of certain webcomics who have then defined themselves as "webcomics fans." But webcomics ain't a genre. Not like science fiction or fantasy or anthropomorphic or detective stories or any of the rest. Hell, "comics" ain't a genre either.

Comics -- comic strips, comic books, sequential art, illustration, call it what you will -- is a medium. A means by which stories are told. Some of the more outre comics out there on the web might constitute a different medium than all the rest of the comics, but for the most part they don't. For the most part Nukees and For Better and For Worse tell stories using similar tools and similar visual language techniques, operating in the same medium.

For Better and For Worse, by the by, is on the web. It updates every day on the web.

In other words, it's a webcomic. Just like Nukees is. And all the rest.

So. Fans of certain webcomics get upset at other fans of other webcomics (or even the same ones) sometimes. Cliques of webcartoonists gather -- naturally enough -- and sometimes get pissed off at other cliques of webcartoonists. Somewhere in all this, someone calls Scott Kurtz something mean and William G gets people mad at him.

I'm sorry. I used to care. I really did. I cared for a long time. I passionately cared.

But these days? I just. Don't. Give. A Shit. It's webcomics drama, and it'll pass soon enough.

"But wait!" you shout. Well, some of you shout. Look, give me my illusions. "What about the discourse! You said you liked the discourse!"

I do. I enjoy literary criticism. I enjoy making points about the things I read or see, and having others debate them.

That's not what any of that shit's about. It's just not. Look, John Solomon can be very funny, but he's not trying to encourage a debate over the finer points of Dominic Deegan. He's entertaining a fanbase, either by making them laugh their asses off, by giving them sharp relief by saying something they wish someone would say, or by enraging them by saying things they find hideous and hurtful. They all seem to work -- people are certainly entertained. And if you take any of the other 'controversies' running around, they're almost never about actual criticism -- about actual critique. They're either about "X sucks!/No X rocks and YOU suck!" or they're about something tangential.

When I see something in a comic on the web I like, I'll talk about it. When I see a point I want to make, or I get inspired to write a thesis on anything from a character arc to a storytelling technique I'll write it, but I've never had any interest in writing reviews and if I had interest in diving into the whole mudslinging match I've gotten over it with time. Mostly, I want to write shit I find interesting over here, or try to write something new over at Banter Latte. And with luck, the essays over here will inspire some discussion -- that discourse I like so much -- saying why I'm right or wrong. Without luck I'll still have fun writing them, which is after all the real reason I'm doing it.

(As for Banter Latte -- that's not really discourse-related. I mean, you'll like it or you won't.)

There's plenty of people out there who do like doing reviews, and power to them. And others who like doing rants or diving into controversy (or creating it). And power to them. And if that's your thing, power to you too. I do read some of those sites too, you know. There's nothing wrong with enjoying them.

But I just can't bring myself to care any more about the gigantic, titanic debates of a nonexistent community whose definition comes from a fucking means of distribution. I used to, but I don't any more. And I don't feel badly for not caring any more. That's the kind of thing that happens over time. The things you used to think were amazingly important stop seeming important. Or even interesting.

If you find them important or interesting? Cool. Power to you. I have no doubt but that there's going to be plenty of chances to weigh in on them.

As for me? There is other stuff catching my interest these days. I'll do my best to write about it. If what catches my interest also catches yours, I hope you'll read about it. If not, I thank you kindly for your attention and support.

Oh, and Feral Chicken has been spending like twelve bucks a day advertising his comic for over a week. Given that, I can't just snark him and not have it look like quid pro quo, but damn man. I felt like I should say something. That's a lot of gas money.

Peace.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:15 PM | Comments (51)

July 4, 2007

Eric: Because sometimes we need to remember harsher times in 1776 on this day....

THESE are the times that try men's souls.

The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.

Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

Whether the independence of the continent was declared too soon, or delayed too long, I will not now enter into as an argument; my own simple opinion is, that had it been eight months earlier, it would have been much better.

We did not make a proper use of last winter, neither could we, while we were in a dependent state.

However, the fault, if it were one, was all our own*; we have none to blame but ourselves.

But no great deal is lost yet.

All that Howe has been doing for this month past, is rather a ravage than a conquest, which the spirit of the Jerseys, a year ago, would have quickly repulsed, and which time and a little resolution will soon recover.

• The present winter is worth an age, if rightly employed; but, if lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the evil; and there is no punishment that man does not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent.

Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he.

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country.

All nations and ages have been subject to them. Britain has trembled like an ague at the report of a French fleet of flat-bottomed boats; and in the fourteenth century the whole English army, after ravaging the kingdom of France, was driven back like men petrified with fear; and this brave exploit was performed by a few broken forces collected and headed by a woman, Joan of Arc.

Would that heaven might inspire some Jersey maid to spirit up her countrymen, and save her fair fellow sufferers from ravage and ravishment!

Yet panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt.

Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them, and acquires a firmer habit than before.

But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors, which an imaginary apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man, and hold them up in public to the world.

Many a disguised Tory has lately shown his head, that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Howe arrived upon the Delaware.

As I was with the troops at Fort Lee, and marched with them to the edge of Pennsylvania, I am well acquainted with many circumstances, which those who live at a distance know but little or nothing of.

Our situation there was exceedingly cramped, the place being a narrow neck of land between the North River and the Hackensack. Our force was inconsiderable, being not one-fourth so great as Howe could bring against us.

We had no army at hand to have relieved the garrison, had we shut ourselves up and stood on our defence. Our ammunition, light artillery, and the best part of our stores, had been removed, on the apprehension that Howe would endeavor to penetrate the Jerseys, in which case Fort Lee could be of no use to us; for it must occur to every thinking man, whether in the army or not, that these kind of field forts are only for temporary purposes, and last in use no longer than the enemy directs his force against the particular object which such forts are raised to defend.

Such was our situation and condition at Fort Lee on the morning of the 20th of November, when an officer arrived with information that the enemy with 200 boats had landed about seven miles above; Major General Green, who commanded the garrison, immediately ordered them under arms, and sent express to General Washington at the town of Hackensack, distant by the way of the ferry = six miles.

Our first object was to secure the bridge over the Hackensack, which laid up the river between the enemy and us, about six miles from us, and three from them.

General Washington arrived in about three-quarters of an hour, and marched at the head of the troops towards the bridge, which place I expected we should have a brush for; however, they did not choose to dispute it with us, and the greatest part of our troops went over the bridge, the rest over the ferry, except some which passed at a mill on a small creek, between the bridge and the ferry, and made their way through some marshy grounds up to the town of Hackensack, and there passed the river.

We brought off as much baggage as the wagons could contain, the rest was lost.

The simple object was to bring off the garrison, and march them on till they could be strengthened by the Jersey or Pennsylvania militia, so as to be enabled to make a stand.

We staid four days at Newark, collected our out-posts with some of the Jersey militia, and marched out twice to meet the enemy, on being informed that they were advancing, though our numbers were greatly inferior to theirs.

Howe, in my little opinion, committed a great error in generalship in not throwing a body of forces off from Staten Island through Amboy, by which means he might have seized all our stores at Brunswick, and intercepted our march into Pennsylvania; but if we believe the power of hell to be limited, we must likewise believe that their agents are under some providential control.

I shall not now attempt to give all the particulars of our retreat to the Delaware; suffice it for the present to say, that both officers and men, though greatly harassed and fatigued, frequently without rest, covering, or provision, the inevitable consequences of a long retreat, bore it with a manly and martial spirit.

All their wishes centred in one, which was, that the country would turn out and help them to drive the enemy back. Voltaire has remarked that King William never appeared to full advantage but in difficulties and in action; the same remark may be made on General Washington, for the character fits him.

There is a natural firmness in some minds which cannot be unlocked by trifles, but which, when unlocked, discovers a cabinet of fortitude; and I reckon it among those kind of public blessings, which we do not immediately see, that God hath blessed him with uninterrupted health, and given him a mind that can even flourish upon care.

I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the state of our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following question, Why is it that the enemy have left the New England provinces, and made these middle ones the seat of war?

The answer is easy: New England is not infested with Tories, and we are. I have been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used numberless arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly or their baseness. The period is now arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall.

And what is a Tory?

Good God! what is he?

I should not be afraid to go with a hundred Whigs against a thousand Tories, were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of Toryism; and a man under such influence, though he may be cruel, never can be brave.

But, before the line of irrecoverable separation be drawn between us, let us reason the matter together: Your conduct is an invitation to the enemy, yet not one in a thousand of you has heart enough to join him. Howe is as much deceived by you as the American cause is injured by you.

He expects you will all take up arms, and flock to his standard, with muskets on your shoulders. Your opinions are of no use to him, unless you support him personally, for 'tis soldiers, and not Tories, that he wants.

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day."

Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.

Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them.

A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion.

Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.

America did not, nor does not want force; but she wanted a proper application of that force.

Wisdom is not the purchase of a day, and it is no wonder that we should err at the first setting off.

From an excess of tenderness, we were unwilling to raise an army, and trusted our cause to the temporary defence of a well-meaning militia. A summer's experience has now taught us better; yet with those troops, while they were collected, we were able to set bounds to the progress of the enemy, and, thank God! they are again assembling.

I always considered militia as the best troops in the world for a sudden exertion, but they will not do for a long campaign. Howe, it is probable, will make an attempt on this city [Philadelphia]; should he fail on this side the Delaware, he is ruined.

If he succeeds, our cause is not ruined.

He stakes all on his side against a part on ours; admitting he succeeds, the consequence will be, that armies from both ends of the continent will march to assist their suffering friends in the middle states; for he cannot go everywhere, it is impossible.

I consider Howe as the greatest enemy the Tories have; he is bringing a war into their country, which, had it not been for him and partly for themselves, they had been clear of.

Should he now be expelled, I wish with all the devotion of a Christian, that the names of Whig and Tory may never more be mentioned; but should the Tories give him encouragement to come, or assistance if he come, I as sincerely wish that our next year's arms may expel them from the continent, and the Congress appropriate their possessions to the relief of those who have suffered in well-doing.

A single successful battle next year will settle the whole.

America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event.

Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.

Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a friend to those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the matter out: I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake.

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.

Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but "show your faith by your works," that God may bless you. It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ' Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.

There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both. Howe's first object is, partly by threats and partly by promises, to terrify or seduce the people to deliver up their arms and receive mercy. The ministry recommended the same plan to Gage, and this is what the tories call making their peace, "a peace which passeth all understanding" indeed! A peace which would be the immediate forerunner of a worse ruin than any we have yet thought of. Ye men of Pennsylvania, do reason upon these things! Were the back counties to give up their arms, they would fall an easy prey to the Indians, who are all armed: this perhaps is what some Tories would not be sorry for. Were the home counties to deliver up their arms, they would be exposed to the resentment of the back counties who would then have it in their power to chastise their defection at pleasure. And were any one state to give up its arms, that state must be garrisoned by all Howe's army of Britons and Hessians to preserve it from the anger of the rest. Mutual fear is the principal link in the chain of mutual love, and woe be to that state that breaks the compact. Howe is mercifully inviting you to barbarous destruction, and men must be either rogues or fools that will not see it. I dwell not upon the vapors of imagination; I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as A, B, C, hold up truth to your eyes.

I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While our army was collected, Howe dared not risk a battle; and it is no credit to him that he decamped from the White Plains, and waited a mean opportunity to ravage the defenceless Jerseys; but it is great credit to us, that, with a handful of men, we sustained an orderly retreat for near an hundred miles, brought off our ammunition, all our field pieces, the greatest part of our stores, and had four rivers to pass. None can say that our retreat was precipitate, for we were near three weeks in performing it, that the country might have time to come in. Twice we marched back to meet the enemy, and remained out till dark. The sign of fear was not seen in our camp, and had not some of the cowardly and disaffected inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, the Jerseys had never been ravaged. Once more we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils- a ravaged country- a depopulated city- habitations without safety, and slavery without hope- our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.

Common Sense.

December 23, 1776.

--Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, "The Crisis No. I"

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (13)

July 3, 2007

Eric: Meanwhile, not far away....

So. I've been trying to work out... well, things. As folks know. And the writing is a part of what I've been trying to work out, because....

...well, because. I'm a happier person when I'm writing lots of stuff, and being a happier person is pretty much a good goal in and of itself.

And that brings me to trying to find the best way to actually do more of it, and to fire the writing spirit, and all that. Because... well, because I want to, and because I want momentum, and because that's all a cool thing.

Let me begin by saying that Websnark isn't ending. Not now, not for the foreseeable future. I like this place. I like all of you. I like the outlet. I like the chance to write on any topic or any subject, at any time. It's amazingly cool, and you guys make me happy.

However, it's worth noting that Websnark, in the end, is an outlet for nonfiction. There have been exceptions, here and there, but this is primarily a blog for commentaries and essays. Critiques, or just me talking 'bout stuff. And that's been amazingly cool, but it's also been limiting. In the nearly three years this thing's been a part of my life there's been a couple million words between Wednesday and I, but my fiction output has crashed through the floor. And that has created an imbalance in my humors, increasing bile and phlegm and requiring an infusion of foods higher in fire and air.

Now, I could change Websnark if I wanted. I could add in fiction, poetry, a wet bar -- whatever I felt like, at least as far as Weds would be comfortable -- and Weds is, at heart, desirous of my being content. But that doesn't seem like the right reaction to me. Folks who come here and who have been coming here have been doing so for very specific reasons. They'll indulge the odd Sestina or the occasional bedtime story, but for the most part they'd rather there not be a monumental shift in tone.

And honestly, I don't want to change what Websnark is. I like what Websnark is.

The solution, in the end, is to expand.

Which brings me to Banter Latte.

Banter Latte is a new blog, chock full of that new blog smell. It was born in the weekend following my existential writing crisis. It is dedicated to fiction, to poetry, to whimsy -- to all the stuff that Websnark isn't. It has a bunch of new bits of writing, some old writing that's been sitting on my hard drive -- sometimes for years -- and locked posts designed to let me put up chapters of novels I'm working on.

That this will hopefully also force me to, you know, finish and refine those novels is a side benefit.

The protected posts, mind, are still meant to be accessible. See, part of the problem of the publishing world adapting to new electronic distribution is the question of what "previous publication" means. By locking the posts, I can skirt the edge between publishing my novel on the web and providing a place for fans of my work and interested parties to read drafts of the posts without actually releasing it. And keeping it out of search engines at the same time.

So. What is Banter Latte?

Banter Latte is a place for me to write. Just like Websnark. They're meant to compliment each other. Folks who like reading what I write will want to head on over there and see what there is to see. Folks who like my essays but can't imagine enduring my fiction can avoid it. (Though I'll post regular links over here to the stuff going on over there -- mostly because I don't want this place going quiet again.)

Though quiet isn't as likely. As I've said before, when I'm writing regularly, I'm usually writing prolifically. You'll notice I've written more on Websnark in the time since I started beta testing Banter Latte than in the three months before. That's likely to continue.

Why "Banter Latte?" Because as has been mentioned, I have a love of dialogues taking place while my characters are drinking beverages. Nothing more or less. Also, I tend to drink a lot of coffee or tea while writing.

There is a schedule to Banter Latte, in hopes of building an audience and (paradoxically) making things easier on me. Mondays are "The Mythology of the modern world," when I tell whimsical stories about the myths behind everyday life. Post beta period, we have two entries up right now: Introductions and Coffee, and Why Does Starbucks Drip Coffee Taste Like Crotch? These are generally going to be written new for the site, which should keep me doing a few hundred or thousand words in a week, all to keep the pump primed. Wednesdays are "Storytelling" days -- vignettes, scenes, stories, past stuff and new stuff all blended. Some of the more serious stuff will go here, though I don't promise that. Right now, we have a short story set in the greater Gossamer Commons universe -- the first entry of Gossamer Reflections, called Whisperdance.

Fridays are when the protected chapters of novels in progress go up. One of the state goals -- born of a conversation I had with my father -- is that I'm going to write one chapter of a novel each and every week, thus making the completion of said novels far more likely. Right now we are in the semi-hard science fiction novel Theftworld, which is password protected (though right up in the nav bar or also on the sidebar you'll see a link to a form for requesting it -- it's not exactly hard to get access to the password if you want it.) We have two chapters plus a prologue and a bit of preface material up.

Thtree days a week with three types of content. Tuesdays and Thursdays are Random days. Any day I feel like doing something that doesn't fit one of those categories, I'll throw something into a Tuesday or a Thursday. That's where poetry will go, fan-fiction if I've a yen to write it, bits of other stories, or whatever. Or nothing at all. Those aren't officially scheduled days, but right now it looks like there's plenty of stuff for them. We have a couple of related stories in them right now: the first part of Interviewing Leather -- meant to be a Rolling Stoneesque interview of a minor supervillain, and we have On Call, a slice of life story about a doctor who specializes in superhumans, played more for laughs.

Finally, on the weekends we'll have very basic open topic posts, for people to shout out comments or make dook dook noises or do whatever it is you kids do.

And, of course, there's a chance to buy ad space if you want. Right now, it's going for like two cents, so it's a bargain!

In the end, all of this is meant to stimulate my doing what I like to do most outside of spending time with Weds or sleeping: writing. And I'm really excited about it. I hope you guys enjoy it. And I hope this helps keep the writing stream -- in Websnark and out of Websnark -- more regular than it's been.

Thanks all. And enjoy.

Oh -- bear in mind the site is still new. There may be functionality changes, and there almost certainly will be look and feel changes. So, you know. Be warned.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:46 AM | Comments (10)

July 2, 2007

Eric: Man, I used to write *happy* posts....

We all have our heroes. Sometimes they're real people. Sometimes they're fictional. And sometimes the line between the two blurs, at least somewhat.

When I was quite young, I knew who my heroes were. The Legion of Superheroes. Green Lantern. The Justice League. The Avengers. The X-Men. Good guys against bad guys, and all very, very exciting.

But above all of them, there were the Micronauts. The first major comic book company book to feature a toy license, the Micronauts were much more than the story of my favorite plastic and die cast metal toys (seriously, I had hundreds of those things) -- it was a grand saga. A full on space opera. A legend. A fantasy. An epic. And I was into it. Commander Arcturus Rann -- the legendary Space Glider and leader of the Micronauts. The beautiful, powerful Marionette -- the Princess Mari, dedicating her life to saving Homeworld from Baron Karza. The wily, canny, laughing Bug -- barely a pastiche of Galactic Warrior, but mostly unique to the series, bringing roguishness and humor to the darkest of situations. The taciturn Acroyear, named for his race, prince and exile, mighty warrior. Biotron, faithful servant for a thousand years and his counterpart Microtron, yang to his yin. Force Commander, Prince Pharoid, the beautiful Slug (don't ask), the mysterious Time Travellers and their Shadow Priests, the evil of Baron Karza, the might of the Worldmind, Captain Universe -- the hero who could be you! And so, so many more....

They were my heroes, and my friends. And through the grace of the Enigma Force, I will never forget them. I owned all their comics -- a complete run. Plus the unfortunate crossover with the X-Men. Plus the trades.

Now, a lesser hero but still one I greatly enjoyed was ROM, Spaceknight! Another toy based line, but this one far more integrated into the Marvel Universe (including a universe-wide crossover where the Dire wraiths attacked), ROM was the story of Rom, a Galadoran who was the first to volunteer to be remade into a cyborg in plandanium armor, who spans the galaxy fighting to protect those who would fall.

Heroes.

They weren't real, of course. I might have had a nine year old's crush on Princess Mari, but she didn't exist any more than Brandy Clark did. Yes, there is a Steve Jackson in the world, but he's not the man who was at once a friend and a rival to Rom (I always wondered if the real Steve Jackson was amused at his Marvel counterpart). But they felt real to me. They helped me to dream of broader things, to believe in the most noble of ideals, to let my imagination run wild.

Behind them, however, there was a real hero. A man who was incredibly formative to my childhood and to the man I would grow into. His name was Bill Mantlo, and he wrote comic books.

A lot of comic books.

Really, there was a time when he worked on almost every comic in Marvel's stable. He had a memorable run on the Hulk (a run where the heroes of Earth had banished the Hulk to other dimensions because he was so dangerous -- a plotline that should sound familiar since they ripped it off for World War Hulk's setup). He worked on Thor, and Iron Man, and even Howard the Duck. He worked on the Avengers, Captain America, Ghost Rider, and he even wrote a few X-Men comics here and there. When John Byrne's star was on the ascendence and his Alpha Flight was still a major comic, it was Bill Mantlo who took it over when Byrne left. He created Cloak and Dagger, for God's sake.

You know what? I'm going to steal a list of his work from the Howling Curmudgeons -- it's easier than trying to explain just how heavily he was involved in the work of this era of Marvel:

Alpha Flight, Amazing Adventures, Amazing Spider-Man, Astonishing Tales, The Avengers, Battlestar Galactica, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Cloak & Dagger, Daredevil, Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, The Defenders, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Hero for Hire, Heroes For Hope Starring the X-Men, Howard the Duck, The Human Fly, The Incredible Hulk, Invasion, Iron Man, Jack of Hearts, Journey Into Mystery/Thor, The Mighty Thor, Ka-Zar, Marvel Age, Marvel Chillers, Marvel Fanfare, Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions, Marvel Tales (Marvel Tales Starring Spider-man), Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Treasury Edition, Marvel Two-In-One, Micronauts, Rawhide Kid, Rocket Raccoon, ROM, Sectaurs, Spectacular Spider-Man (Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man), Spider-Man and Daredevil, Strange Tales (2nd series), Super-Villain Team-Up, Swords of the Swashbucklers, Tales of Suspense (Captain America/Captain America and the Falcon/Steve Rogers: Captain America), Team America, Transformers, The Vision and The Scarlet Witch (the entire miniseries), Web of Spider-Man, Werewolf by Night, What If..., X-Men, and X-men and the Micronauts.

Seriously, dude.

Mantlo had an incredible sense of character voice and motivation. His series featured grand themes, but explored them in sophisticated ways. Relationships were passionate but never simple -- there was pain and joy in equal measure, and his heroes had to walk heroic journeys -- trawling the depths of despair before they could once again find hope. They were incredible.

And Mantlo wasn't afraid to take risks. He subverted the heroic and sympathetic Force Commander, turning him into a villain before killing him off to return Baron Karza to the universe. He killed every living thing on Homeworld -- a horrible, terrible loss -- without losing the idealism that held the Micronauts together. After setting the town of Clairton, West Virginia as the home of pretty much all of Rom the Spaceknight's human friends and secondary characters, he had the entire town killed off and replaced with Dire Wraiths in an effort to kill Rom and Brandy Clark. You couldn't take anything for granted in a Mantlo story -- except that in the end, after terrific pain and sacrifice, good would triumph. But would forever wonder at the cost....

Oh, over at DC he also wrote the Invasion miniseries. Yeah. He actually did one of the monumental crosssovers they did in the eighties, and it was one of the ones that actually did have impact and didn't suck. Who knew?

I can't overestimate the impact Bill Mantlo's writing had on me. I really can't. And it was a very sad day for me when he decided to move on from comics, and enter the legal profession. And even there, he was a hero. He became a public defender, apparently a very good and dedicated one.

And then came tragedy. In 1992, Mantlo was rollerblading when he was hit by a car. He had massive head trauma that led to a coma for more than a year. When he emerged, he had brain damage that he has never (and will never) recover from, needing constant care. Expensive care, I would add. His capacities are diminished at best and will never recover.

When I learned this... all the breath just left me for a while. It was so unfair. It was so wrong. Bill Mantlo deserved so, so much better.

But if there was one thing Mantlo wrote about, it's that being a good guy -- and deserving good things --was no guarantee that you would get them. Bad things happened to good people in Mantlo's stories.

The point, in the end, was what you did with the things you've received. Bill Mantlo needs us.

He needs me.

And he needs you.

Fortunately, there's an easy thing you can do.

Writer/Illustrator David Yurkovich has produced Mantlo: A Life in Comics, a tribute and benefit book that includes fiction, history, and interviews with everyone from Marve Wolfman to Jackson Guice. It costs seven dollars and fifty cents, and all the profits -- all the profits -- are going to help insure Mantlo's care now and into the future.

You can order it here.

My own circumstances aren't good right now (though thanks to you incredible people, they're vastly, vastly better), but on my next paycheck my order for this book is going in. And I pass it forward to all of you. If you were of the era I was, and you liked Marvel Comics at all, you know Bill Mantlo's work. If not, but you like comic books of any stripe, you're a recipient of his legacy.

When tragedy comes, it falls upon all of us to bring hope back into the light, to take off the cloak of the Shadow Priest and reveal the shining embodiment of idealism given form.

Put simply, he needs us.

That's reason enough, and probably all I would ever need to say.

Dallan and Sepsis preserve you all.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:49 PM | Comments (6)

June 28, 2007

Eric: I wonder if everyone feels this crappy doing this.

(Stolen cheerfully from RPG World!. And check out the ultracool animation nockFORCE, by Ian Jones-Quartey and Jim Gisriel!)

I don't much care for this, but it's clear I have to do it. For a couple of months now, a series of bad breaks have kept me pretty low, financially. And people have bought of things and some folks have donated, and that's helped tons. Just absolute tons. But I can't seem to get ahead of it. It's not like I'm, y'know, spending money. And it's not like I don't have a job that pays me in money. But I just can't get in front of things, and trouble keeps pressing, harder than I'd like. And I need to get ahead of it once and for all.

So. I'm doing the auction thing, yet again. And I'll admit I'm going to miss these. First off, there is a five book collection of Nephilim -- the long out of print Chaosium occult RPG of the children of Angels and Man. This role playing game -- with lots of supplemental material by the staggeringly talented Kenneth Hite, I would add -- is one of those that RPG developers continue to cite as an influence today. Myself included. And this one auction -- this one auction -- includes the core rulebook, Secret Societies, Serpent Moon, Chronicle of the Awakening, and Major Arcana. This is a big deal listing.

Also in terms of "historic," "influential" and "well written" I have a second listing of multiple books: in this case, a listing of both The Primal Order and TPO: Pawns: The Opening Move. These were absolutely brilliant supplements, written by Peter Adkison, which took the rather lackluster support most RPGs had for gods and deities and the like in those days (Deities and Demigods listed tons of Gods, but made them into relatively standard monsters to be beaten, at least as far as their stats were concerned, as an example), and made them into something that could be quantified and used in a campaign effectively while still making them freaking GODS. There was also a brouhaha over what was a pretty clear case of copyright and trademark infringement in the games (Adkison had somewhat naively put in conversion rules for pretty much all the major and a frightening number of minor role playing games in the supplement, intending it to be a capstone to be used for other systems rather than a system in its own. Palladium, most notably, took exception to this). And what might be most interesting is these were the flagship products of a very small RPG company in the pacific Northwest which, while they sorted all this out, licensed a card game designed to be collectible from a guy named Richard Garfield.

That company's name? Wizards of the Coast. And on the backs of Magic and later Pokemon they absolutely conquered the planet. Sadly, leaving supplements like The Primal Order behind in the process. These books really are good. And this auction gives you both of them.

Thirdly, and most prosaically, there's d20 Modern. It's, you know. d20 Modern.

Finally... and I'll admit that while I hardly need the book for the rules (I have several other copies, including a legal PDF), I'm going to actively miss this one... I have the ultra-rare, first (limited) edition Black Hardcover edition of the In Nomine core rules. This was the last copy of the core rules I found -- the last version I didn't have. And it's by far the hardest to find and buy.

But, I don't need it. Not even for In Nomine. And it's got to go. They all have to go.

And I'll admit it. If you haven't donated but you've considered? Today's the day. Honestly.

(If you have donated, then I thank you.)

This isn't a threat. This isn't a "do this or Websnark goes away" or anything like that.

It's just... it's been a month. Of one thing after another after another.

Times are tough. So this is what I need to do.

If you can't spare change? Don't sweat it. I'll still be here. We'll still be friends.

Dude.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:52 PM | Comments (8)

Eric: How does someone even come up with a title for a post like this one?

Wrestling, to me, is something I associate with my big friend Frank.

Who, you will recall, I always refer to as "my big friend Frank." And have ever since the day he military pressed me over his head. Never being small myself, I became impressed with his massive muscularity. Frank is a refined man. An intelligent man. A gentle man. But a very physical and powerful man, as befits an alumnus of the South Philly streets.

It was on those streets, and at the Philadelphia Spectrum, that Frank developed his lifelong love of professional wrestling. At the Spectrum, Frank would see then-road agent Gorilla Monsoon at the gate. Gorilla -- with a keen eye for business and for building relationships -- remembered the Philly kid and would talk to him on the way in. "You still mad about what the Sheik did to Bruno?" Gorilla would ask. "You watch tonight, kid. I bet you'll go home happy. Bruno's mad."

And Frank did go home happy.

By the late eighties and early nineties, when Frank and I shared a couple of apartments in the Ithaca area, wrestling was one of those Things Frank Did. And for several months I mocked him mercilessly over it. This was stupid. This was asinine and ridiculous. Why do you watch this stuff.

Until Wrestlemania V, anyway, and a match between Curt "Mr. Perfect" Hennig, and Owen "The Blue Blazer" Hart. A match that was a stunning display of mat skills, of hardcore technical wrestling instead of brawling. I was blown away as I watched them go. And for months, I was glued to my set whenever a mat technician was on the screen.

Frank, being my best friend and being sensitive, mocked me with twice the energy I mocked him before. "Seems like my friend Eric's a rasslin' fan," he'd say, snickering. And he was right.

The gigantic guys didn't usually interest me, though. There were exceptions. We liked the Road Warriors in their prime. In a later era I marked out hard for Bill Goldberg. But you needed a certain charisma to be a big guy and still engage my interest in the ring.

Not so for the mat wrestlers. What another era called the technical wrestlers. Not the high fliers -- the crusierweights or luchadores, though I enjoy that style too. No, these were the mid-sized guys, who could wrestle an hour match and make a story out of it.

Owen Hart was great at it. But now he's dead -- fallen from the top of an arena during a pay per view. Curt Hennig was great at it, but he's dead too. Bret Hart was one of the best at it in his generation, but a concussion followed by a stroke put him out of the game. Dean Malenko, the iceman, was one of my favorites. He was a "crusierweight" who didn't go to the top rope. His gimmick was he knew every damn mat hold on the planet, and he could chain them together in an amazingly interesting story. He's not dead, but he's retired -- working as a road agent now, just like the Gorilla, once upon a time.

Eddie Guerrero was great at it. Really freaking great. But then he died of heart failure, years after he kicked his substance abuse problems, but still paying the price for the damages he'd wreaked on his internal organs.

And Chris Benoit was great at it.

This is a hard essay to write.

It's hard because I liked Chris Benoit. I liked him a lot. He was everything that I watched wrestling for. He was tough and smart in the ring, a good "ring general," who could take anyone, with any physique, and build a good match out of him. Like the Nature Boy Ric Flair, Benoit could have a sixty minute match with a broom and take your breath away the whole time.

I liked his personality. Benoit didn't have the kind of charisma a lot of wrestlers had. He could cut an okay promo, but in the end he let his ring work speak for him. And it held him back for a lot of years. He was the best damn wrestler in the building, but he didn't have the size that made you a top star without needing mike skills, and he didn't have the sheer mike skills that made you a star without needing the size. He was the darling of wrestling critics and serious fans of the form, though. Fans who were pissed that he kept being passed over for the top of the card.

This is a hard essay to like, because I liked Chris Benoit. He was a hard worker, and utterly unselfish in the ring. If he was booked to win, he still made his opponent look good. If he was booked to lose in a hard fight, he made his opponent look either superhuman or like a total bastard (depending on what was needed). If he needed to be destroyed for a storyline, he laid the fuck down without whining.

When Bret Hart wrestled a match for the first time in the arena his brother Owen died, the WCW management let him do an old style mat match -- a full length match, taking out all the stops. A match style almost unheard of during the height of the Monday Night Wars.

Bret chose to wrestle it with Chris Benoit. And it stands out as one of the best wrestling matches I've ever seen.

I liked Chris Benoit.

So did Frank. Frank liked him a lot. Benoit was of the old school. He's one of those guys who'd have fit in during the days of Gorilla and the Philadelphia Spectrum. If you were a serious fan, you wanted him to do well.

And ultimately, he did. He took titles. He took tag championships in ECW. He got the WCW World Heavyweight belt, the World Tag belts, the World Television Title, and the United States Heavyweight Championship. And in WWE, he took the tag belts, the United States Championship, the Intercontinental championship, the World Heavyweight Championship and he won the God damned Royal Rumble. Belts could come and go, but you only had one Royal Rumble winner in a year, and that winner had to carry storylines for the first quarter to third of the year. A Royal Rumble winner was expected to headline at Wrestlemania, and there's nothing bigger in a wrestling promotion.

Benoit did it by being a damn good wrestler. Nothing more, nothing less.

I liked him. Frank liked him. A lot of people liked him. And Hell, I don't know anyone who hated him.

Well, Kevin Sullivan wasn't his biggest fan. Sullivan was a wrestler and promoter, and one of the last bookers of WCW. Sullivan booked his wife, Nancy Daus, into a romantic triangle with Benoit. One that became real -- Benoit ultimately married her. And when Sullivan got the book in WCW, he actually booked Benoit to become champion. And the same night that Benoit won the belt for the first time in WCW was the night that Benoit and his friends in the "Revolution" made the jump to the WWE. A jump made in large part because even as a champion, Benoit couldn't see himself wrestling under Sullivan's book. And without a doubt Benoit flourished in the WWE.

A note, before we go on, about Nancy Daus. This was a woman I remembered fondly from her days as a heel manager in WCW, her era as "Woman," as one of the real prototypes of the modern wrestling diva. Nancy Daus could play a face, switch to a heel, and sell both roles and the transition. It's a damn hard skill, much prized in the modern era, and she's one of the pioneers of it. She was beautiful, a good actress, able to take a bump (a prized skill in women managers of her era) and able to sell both that bump and her 'interference' in matches. She was good at what she did, and deserves mention.

God, she deserves mention. Writing an essay about Chris Benoit without writing about Nancy Daus would be unthinkable now, because Benoit....

Man, I don't want to write this.

Last week, as near as we can tell, Chris Benoit suffocated his 7 year old mentally handicapped child to death. One of the current prevailing theories is he actually applied a wrestling choke hold to his seven year old son until his son died. He bound the hands and feet of Nancy Daus, his wife, and then asphyxiated her. And then, probably a day or two later, Chris Benoit set bibles next to the corpses of his wife and child, went down to his gym/basement, and hung himself with the cord off one of his weight machines.

A brutal crime. A horrific double murder followed by a suicide. The man killed his wife and seven year old son. And then hung around with the bodies for a couple of days.

When I heard the news that Chris Benoit was dead, it hurt. Another wrestler I really liked was dead way too soon.

When I heard that he died after killing his wife and son....

It is horrifying. It is monstrous. It is the kind of crime you can't easily put into words, no matter how much you want to or need to.

And it made all the worse because I liked Chris Benoit. I rooted for him. I enjoyed watching him wrestle. He seemed like a decent guy. A stand up joe. And he killed his mentally retarded seven year old son.

It's not just me. Frank described himself as stunned. And the wrestling world went into shock. The day that the tragedy was announced, the WWE canceled Monday Night Raw and aired a tribute to Chris Benoit. They've taken some heat for that since, now that we know that Benoit killed his wife and son, but at the time I don't think the WWE could have truly known that. And I know that they weren't thinking clearly. Benoit was liked in the company. In the locker room. And they've become sadly good at putting together tributes and retrospectives of "superstars" who die way too god damned early.

They have apologized, of course, though any number of wrestlers still can't get their heads around it. The death of young Daniel Benoit in particular horrifies everyone. Bret Hart mentioned how Chris Benoit worshipped his son -- a popular refrain.

The son he killed. Very possibly using a wrestling hold.

WWE's made some errors since then. They've published a vehement defense against the idea that Benoit was suffering from "roid rage." Unfortunately, such a defense, coming after the tribute episode, makes the company seem like it's doing damage control -- like the last thing they wanted was steroid use by a wrestler conflated with the murder of a defenseless child. That's the worst thing they can do, because now people are going to conflate those two things -- and question whether or not the WWE had pressured Chris Benoit to take steroids.

This is not an accusation on my part. I hope to God they didn't, because if they did, with a child dead now? As a publicly traded company? That could mean the end of the WWE in its current form. Honestly. You don't mess with the SEC with a child lying dead.

And Nancy Daus. The beautiful, talented, saavy Nancy Daus. Who once started divorce proceedings against Benoit but later retracted them.

She's dead.

Daniel Benoit is dead.

Chris Benoit is dead.

God help me, I don't know how to feel. I don't know what to do. I liked Chris Benoit.

It's going to be awfully hard to despise him. But would anything else be appropriate? Nancy Daus and Daniel Benoit are dead. And he did it.

He did it.

Somehow, that match in tribute to Owen Hart? Seems less impressive now. Everything seems less impressive now.

I don't know. This sucks.

All my thoughts and hopes with those left behind. With a family in shock. With friends who are feeling a thousand times worse than I am. With the hardcore fans who are feeling just as conflicted now. With the coworkers who are dealing with their grief over Chris Benoit at the same time as they are trying to reconcile their horror at the terrible thing he did.

Hell, I feel badly for Vince McMahon right now. No matter what sketchy things he's done in the past, he would never, ever want a seven year old child to die. I believe that with all my heart. And he's going to be the only man in all of this to have to show accountability. Because this is a monstrous crime -- as black and dark and horrible a crime as we can imagine, the murder of one's helpless disabled child, the binding up of one's wife to make her helpless and then murdering her, and then committing suicide after it is done -- and people will want resolution. They will want to know why this happened, and what would make Chris Benoit, this guy we all liked, into a hideous monster.

And they're going to look at McMahon, because he plays a bad guy on television, and he's done sketchy things in real life in the past. And because we don't have anyone else to look at. Because the man who killed Nancy Daus and Daniel Benoit is dead, so we can't get any resolution there.

It's not fair. I think McMahon would be repulsed by the very thought of a father killing his son. But the best case scenario will now focus on the schedule that Benoit was working -- all those days on the road in the year, the lack of an "off-season" either in television terms or in sports terms. All the physical stress of wrestling. The need, sometimes, to use steroids just to recover, without even using them to bulk up.

Right now, all those questions are going to be asked of WWE management. Shareholders are going to want answers. And because WWE is a publicly traded company, so is the SEC and possibly other federal investigators. Because a seven year old boy is dead, and so is a woman who was tied up first. And it's their father who did it. Their father, who was missing a pay per view wrestling event at the time. An event he was going to headline.

So yeah. I feel really badly for Vince McMahon right now. This is a dark day.

Most of all?

I feel badly for Frank. Because deep inside Frank is the kid who used to talk to Gorilla at the Spectrum.

And that kid isn't going to understand this. Because the next time the WWE comes to town, no one's going to make it better. No one's going to get revenge. No one's going to redeem the darkness or beat the evil.

We're all just going to have to live with it.

And that sucks.

Rest in peace, Nancy Daus and Daniel Benoit.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (22)

June 21, 2007

Eric: State of the Burns

The question is, what now?

Websnark is going on three years of age, and obviously for the last couple of months it's been at best "quiet." Which is to say I haven't written jack shit for it.

On the other side of the equation, there's the rest of my writing life, where....

...hm. "Not. Jack and Shit."

Nothing of consequence to livejournal. Little to nothing in fiction. Little to nothing in essays or e-mails. Little to nothing... well, anywhere.

My general accessibility has also been much much restricted. I don't e-mail folks. I connect to favored chat hangouts and say nothing all night.

It's not that I'm a complete hermit. I see people at work. I talk to Weds daily, including videoconferencing. (The greatest boon to long distance dating since [inset Mail order Bride joke here].) I speak to my folks.

But I've largely withdrawn into myself. Which happens to me on occasion. My activities become solitary. I just kind of... recharge for a while. Go into a cocoon.

I've had a lot of troubles the past couple of months to boot. Some health. Some financial. Some annoying. (For the record? Losing your driver's license is a pain in the fucking ass and I don't recommend it to anyone.) Some USPS related. I really need to get another major eBay campaign going to start pulling myself up out of some of this shit, but I've been avoiding it, largely because I can't imagine cheerfully announcing more eBay auctions on here without having written anything lately. It seems ungracious, even though I'm not soliciting donations when I do it. "Hi! I'm not entertaining you right now, but feel free to buy some of my old RPG shit!"

Yeah, not so much.

I can tell this one's serious though. because both my father and my fiancée have mentioned that... you know, Eric, you haven't been doing very much writing lately, have you?

Which makes some sense. They all know that writing is kind of my mental checksum. It's what keeps me on keel. And I like to do it. I like it a lot.

So the question is "what now?"

I've thought "I should write about...." for Websnark about two hundred and fourteen times in the last couple of weeks. But I don't have anything ending that sentence just yet. I mean, there's lots of Webcomics out there and I read a bunch, but what can I say about any of them that I haven't already said a dozen times or more. The same with video games or pop culture or political science or what have you. What is there for me to say?

Dad and I discussed my beginning a "chapter a week" fiction writing program, where I do one chapter in a seven day period. It's a good plan. It might get The Recluse done. Or Theftworld. Which is still one of my favorite titles. Hell, I could write Adjusted League Unimpeachable for freaking Superguy if it would get me back on writing track.

But that doesn't help here. And I admit it. I'm selfish. I'm not ready to surrender Websnark. This is a part of my writing landscape. My writing life. My psyche.

It got me engaged for Christ's sake.

And you folks have been awfully good to me. I like you guys. And it seems like that's an important thing too.

So the question is, what should I write about. What can get the spark going? What can get the ball rolling. And make no mistake, when I write (and your milage may vary) there's momentum and inertia involved. It's way easier for me to write five thousand words on day nine of regular writing than three hundred words on day one after time off.

One friend suggested I combine my poverty with my typing skill and auction off topics for me to write about. That's something I've generally been against except for charity, though there does reach a point where it becomes appealing. Though there is generally a feeling of 'payola' involved that makes me quail. "Hi! I just spent five hundred and twelve dollars buying an essay from you. Please write about my webcomic Anime Treacle. Just tell me what you think, okay? No pressure to give me any preferential treatment. Did I mention that five hundred and twelve dollars was my food money for July? No pressure."

...uh... yeah.

So I could solicit for topics. That's always fun. Which, assuming anyone's still reading this (and as of the moment I'm typing this the freaking site's down anyway) means there'll be some comments with suggestions. I'm down with that, but then there's a potential backlog which might seem insurmountable. Or ungracious.

Man, I'm concerned with seeming gracious, aren't I?

Or maybe... maybe I could accept X amount of money to write short vignettes or fiction bits. Do something improv style. Give me a setting, a genre and characters and see what you can come up with, writer boy.

Or would that seem weird?

I dunno.

All I do know is this. I haven't forgotten you guys. I haven't forgotten Websnark, or writing.

Things are just... odd, right now.

Oh, before I forget? Howard Tayler hit seven years like a week ago, over at Schlock Mercenary, and Cheshire Crossing put up issue three in all this, too. Both topics deserve more, but at the absolute minimum, they deserve mention.

EDIT: Just to make things crystal clear, this is not, not, not! a donation solicitation. Some of you guys are amazingly generous and I appreciate that, but dude. I haven't written jack shit for two months. When I'm producing that's one thing, and thank you for your support. When I'm not, your generosity should be turned to the places that are producing. In my humble opinion. Don't make me stop this car and come back there. Don't think for one minute I won't turn around and go right back home. And I'll speed, and I don't have a license on me so if I get pulled over they'll take me to jail! Is that what you want? Well is it?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:13 PM | Comments (34)

May 25, 2007

Eric: Jesus. He's away for a solid month, and his second post is on frigging City of Heroes. God damn rip off....

Eleanor regained consciousness slowly, a feeling like a thousand ants crawling over her skin filling her senses as she regained some sense of herself. She had blacked out on her way to her Founders Falls apartment, and awakened just outside of Louis Forest. To her horror, she realized she was suspended six feet off the ground, held by an unseen force, while a baleful green fire surrounded her. Dimly, through the flames that seemed to burn her soul but not her flesh, she could see red robed cultists chanting, a blue robed wizard with burning green eyes leading them, and some kind of spectral horror floating above them.

"Stop!" she shouted. "Don't do this!"

"You have a destiny!" the mage cried out. "Your sacrifice will open the gateway to a new kind of darkness through the world as we know it!"

"Noooo!" Eleanor cried.

There was the sound of a whip-crack, as inky darkness seemed to swell all around the Circle of Thorns. A vapor-wreathed fist slammed out of the blackness, driving into the stomach of the mage. It was followed by a flurry of blows from phantom arms and a twisting assault. The green fires faded, and Eleanor dropped to the ground. To her shock and joy, a woman in a black and white camouflage jumpsuit was beating the cultists senseless. First one, and then another, and then with a titanic series of darkness-fueled blows, the spirit itself was driven from the plane.

"Why -- Umbral Lass! You saved me!" Eleanor said, leaping to her feet even as Umbral Lass crouched and searched the fallen cultists.

"Yeah, yeah," the heroine said, rifling the mage's pockets.

"I never thought I'd actually meet a hero," Eleanor said. "Especially one who just--"

"Oh shut up, you cow!" Umbral Lass snapped. "Six cultists taken out and not one of them was carrying Spell Ink? I have regenerative powers! I need to boost them with unholy superscience and that means SPELL INK! Get out of my sight! I have to go find more Thorns!"

"But--" But the darkness dynamo was gone, leaving Eleanor to make her way home, just one more speed bump on the heroine's quest to build healing inventions.

Crafting had come to Paragon City.

In the last month, after Weds had returned to Canada... I found myself... well, unmotivated. It was the kind of thing where you're recovering. It's like grief, I suppose. The apartment seemed empty, the days seemed routine. The chemicals didn't make things more than 'okay.'

In such a situation, I turn to City of Heroes. That's most of where I was during the month of not being here. Heck, I've got a character in the middle 40's now, and I'm in striking distance of the elusive 50th level.

For those of you who remember I've been playing since launch, having preordered the game more than three years ago, the fact that I'm just now getting close to 50th level should amuse you. To you I say "screw you. I have a life! Really! Stop laughing!" But regardless, this meant I was doing some heavy punching of Malta operatives and Carnival Psychics right about the time that Issue 9 hit City of Heroes, and with it brought a full fledged crafting system to the game.

Crafting, for those who don't know, is a staple of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Games like Everquest and World of Warcraft used it to flesh out their worlds, giving the heroes something to do besides punch evil. It was addictive in its own right -- the first time you find yourself playing your Dwarf Hunter for sixteen hours at a time, all on one island, killing off six legged alligators you can skin and turn into pants... you realize you're in this for more than Orc punching.

City of Heroes didn't have crafting. It had been looking into ways of doing it for years, but in one sense the genre doesn't really fit it. Super heroes don't take fallen supervillains and skin them for jackets. (Though admittedly if they did crime rates would fall.) With the Ninth Issue of free content updating (well, eight of free content -- one of those issues was City of Villains), they finally rolled out the brand spanking new Invention system.

In the invention system, you get salvage from defeated enemies. You can also find (or buy) recipes to combine that salvage into inventions. Most of those inventions work the same as other Enhancements -- little add-ons that improve your powers, which fit into one to six slots on each power. For instance, a couple of damage enhancements and a couple of accuracy enhancements make your power more likely to hit and increases the damage the power does. Makes sense? Sure it does!

On the normal enhancements system, you can only use enhancements within three levels of your own. So, if you're thirtieth level, you can use anything from L27 to L33.With invention enhancements, you can still slot one in that's up to three levels higher than your own, but lower level ones never lose effectiveness. Among other things, this means that three L25 Invention enhancements slotted into a power will give you roughly as much of that benefit as any other levels, which means you never have to upgrade them again. (The reasons why get into Enhancement Diversification and diminishing returns and the nature of Single Origin Enhancements versus Invention origin enhancements and whatnot, but for all practical purposes three L25 Damage Invention Enhancements will top that power's damage out straight through to L50, for example). Of course, different enhancements require different salvage -- some of it rarer than others, so the hunt for Stuff is on!

There are also other, more specialized Inventions. You can Invent temporary powers -- say, the ability to become intangible five times. And you can Invent costume pieces which you can redeem at the taylor. Say, winged boots, or wings made out of bone, or fairy gossamer wings..

Finally, there are also Invention sets -- rarer invention enhancements designed to all work together inside a specific power. On their own, they give bonuses to one or more of your powers. But when you get more than once Invention Enhancement from a given set into a single power, you get "set bonuses" that can be significant -- like a 10% bonus to your regeneration, or greater maximum health, or having all your powers recover more quickly, or getting various defenses. A hero who doesn't normally get defenses against things like knockback, being put to sleep or immobilized or the like can use these set bonuses to great effect. My own Dark/Regen scrapper now has obscene regeneration rates, a lot of speed, recovery times for both endurance and recharging powers like no one's buisness, and psi defense. Anyone who's played a non-Dark Armor scrapper in this game knows the joy of Psi Defense.

To facilitate getting your grubby hands on rare invention recipes and the salvage needed to build them, the game has added Consignment Houses. These are places where you can put up your unneeded salvage, recipes, enhancements and the like for other people to bid on. Someone beats your bid? Someone gets your stuff. In a truly cool move, the Consigment Houses are cross server -- both American and European -- so if someone out in Estonia has bid four million influence on Hamidon Goo, and you put Hamidon Goo up in the consignment house with a 3.5 million influence minimum bid, you get some sweet Estonian influence and he gets the chance to build Ghost Widow's Embrace Invention Set Enhancements. Or roll around in mitochondrial jello. Whatever makes Estonian superheroes happy, I suppose.

The system, mechanically, works and works well. It's easy to do, easy to work with, and everyone starts spending time in consignment houses selling off crap and jockeying for bits and pieces of salvage to make their own Inventions. (Though I'm not sure "invention" is the right word -- you're not inventing the stuff, you're following 'recipes' you buy. I'm impressed by anyone who buys a DIY book on building a deck and builds it, but I don't generally credit him with inventing the deck.) Badges spice things up as well, and it's possible to ignore the system entirely if you don't want to do this stuff. (Though if you're a PvPer -- and you still play City of Heroes in the first place -- not going for Set bonuses while your opposition tunes around them is asking to lose a lot of fight. But honestly, how many people are playing City of Heroes for PvP and not using the Invention system?)

Conceptually, it's a little harder to justify. I mean, the system rests on the idea that after beating up criminals, you get to take their stuff. Including things like bars of gold, silver and platinum. Or high tech gear. Last time I knew, that's called 'mugging.' Even police officers don't get to rifle the pockets of downed drug dealers for paraphernalia they can use to build better nightsticks or sell on eBay. It just seems weird that the superheroic invention system rests entirely on petty theft, coercion and armed assault.

Of course, that makes it perfect for City of Villains. (In City of Villains, the consignment houses are called the Black Market, and they look like trucks that the stuff "fell off of.")

Would I make it any differently? Well, maybe. I've always felt City of Heroes needed a secret identity system, and it seems to me this would work for that -- have criminals 'drop' clues or secrets that someone with a detective Secret Identity can convert into influence or Arrest Warrants or manufacture into special missions... while someone with 'reporter' could turn them into stories which go for influence, or for Exposes, or manufacture into special missions... an 'occultist' could turn arcane secrets and clues into arcane powers or missions, techs could do the same to technical secrets and clues... and so on and so forth.

But, it's not for us to say what we would do differently. It is for us to assess what they have done. And in my estimation, the invention system works. It adds a new layer to the game -- one I find fun and engaging and useful. One that's helped distract me from the loneliness of the apartment.

I'll keep it up. Heck, it's six months at the least before my Canadian Fiancee magically is allowed by Immigration and Naturalization Services to become my Living-with-me-wife, and that's a lot of loneliness to defer into experience points. L50's around the corner, and various forms of almighty squid follow that....

In the meantime, excuse me. I have to go mug criminals for their spell ink. And would it kill people to sell off a few more Numina's Convalescence recipes?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:31 AM | Comments (29)

May 24, 2007

Eric: On the other hand, Black Scorpion did get made into a television show briefly... maybe that's where they're taking this brand!

(Image number one of this article originated -- for some value of Originated -- over at the Newsarama article where Adam Hughes discusses all this. Which isn't really what I'm talking about here, but you should know where it came frome. Credit. It's what's for dinner. So, you know, have a big lunch.)

So let's have a conversation about brand management, shall we?

I know there's been a lot -- I mean a lot -- of discussion on a recent Sideshow Collectibles Mary Jane Watson Comiquette statue designed by Adam Hughes. A statue where Mary Jane is wearing a stripper thong, is in the full on "presenting" bent-over pose, and who seems sexily servile. There's been significant 'discussion' on the intent of the statue, on the apparent sexism and/or misogyny of the statue, of the almost absurdly 'skanky' dimension of the statue. About the anatomy of the statue -- hell, lots of discussion. Pretty much all of it deserved. I was stunned at the sheer blatentness of the statue.

But I wasn't surprised by all of it, mind. I mean, the collectibles market is laden down with sexualized depictions of comics characters. This was a particularly egregious example of the form, but it's hardly unique. I mean, this market's what made Todd McFarlane a millionaire -- toys of grotesques and of hot chicks (and of hot chick-grotesque hybrids) are big business, and plenty of comic book stores are laden down with them. This was just one more on the pile, as sad as that pile was. The outrage was heartening, as it's outrage that leads inexorably to change, but that's still not what I'm here to talk about today.

No, today I'm here to talk, as I said at the top, about brand management.

Brand management is a key component to success in the comics industry today -- particularly at the big two publishers. At DC and Marvel, comic books don't really pay the bills. They don't sell nearly enough comics to do that, these days. This ain't the eighties any more. Instead, brand exploitation pays the bills. Options by studios to produce properties based on your intellectual property. The actual licensing fees paid as part of those produced television, theatrical or other adaptations. Licensed merchandise -- from the statue we see at the top of the page to the girls' backpacks with the hot pink and sparkly Superman/girl symbol on the back. Tee shirts. Action figures. DVD sales. The characters at DC and Marvel bring in the long green, and more often than not they're not bringing it in sequential art form.

So, when one's brand makes the money, one needs that brand to be out in the public eye. They need it to appeal broadly. And they need to manage that brand. They need to carefully ensure that the brand isn't damaged, that it's not inappropriately applied. They want it to continue to make money for decades to come.

That's brand management. It's not just ensuring the brands are known and available for sale in many forms, bringing in cash. It's ensuring that the brands aren't significantly damaged by those sales and licensing, thus killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. And part of brand management is timing.

Let's be blunt -- overly sexualized and even misogynistic depictions of Mary Jane Watson Parker are themselves a brand, and they have been for a long time. Mary Jane originated as Peter's new supermodel hot girlfriend. She was a media figure. Hell, she first appeared in the comics with the phrase "face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot!" In fact, the original dichotomy Mary Jane's presence set up was between herself -- aggressive, sexual, superhot -- and Gwen Stacy, who was more passive, more virginal, more 'girl next door' (despite the fact that Mary Jane actually lived next door to Peter). It was Betty and Veronica, with our man Pete as Archie. And, you know, a complete absence of the Lodge millions. So it was almost certain, when Marvel began licensing Series eight hundred and sixty four thousand of "our hot comics characters done in pressure treated plastic," that one of them would be of Mary Jane and would pay particular attention to the fact that her breasts are made out of solidified helium. We might not like that fact, but it was still true, and from a purely cynical capitalistic standpoint, it makes economic sense. Mary Jane is a brand, her sexuality is part of that brand, and people will buy it. Ergo -- it will be made available for them to buy at a hundred twenty-five bucks a pop. Face it Tiger, the brand management team just hit the jackpot.

But the timing of the announcement... was horrible brand management. I mean it couldn't have been worse. Because all of this hit right as Spider-Man 3 hit the theaters.

Spider-Man 3 is also the leveraging of a brand for money, pure and simple. The intellectual property has been adapted and packaged so that millions of people can shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to watch Tobey Maguire beat the living Hell out of Topher Grace. And it worked. As of today, according to our friends at Box Office Mojo, Spider-Man 3 has taken in $286,385,002 domestically and $466,984,781 in non-American markets. That's over three quarters of a billion dollars, or almost half a billion dollars more than the reported production costs of the movie.

Stop and consider this for a moment. After paying for the movie's production costs, Spider-Man 3 has taken in half a billion dollars of profit.

At the moment, Spider-Man 3 -- and the other movies in the series -- are by far the most important expressions of the brand on the market. Vastly more important, in brand management terms, than the comics. And the people going in and shelling out three quarters of a billion dollars to see the movie are vastly, vastly, vastly more important to the brand right now than the few hundred or thousand who might buy the statue we're talking about. To the overall health of the brand, the Kirsten Dunst depiction of Mary Jane Watson is vastly more important and more strongly perceived than any of the Supermodel versions of the character.

I saw Spider-Man 3. Unlike a lot of my peers, I actually enjoyed it a lot. And I was surprised at how much I liked Kirsten Dunst and the evolution of Mary Jane in it. She was very real, very human in a superhuman world. I found her story compelling.

And she mostly wore stylish clothing. I can't remember any examples of her wearing clothes that didn't involve a full dress. (EDIT: I've been reminded that for a while, she also wears a white blouse buttoned up to the neck, plus a short black skirt and very conservative black hose, a la an upscale waitstaff uniform. Oh baby. Oh baby. Oh.) I know she didn't wear any brown midriff baring scoop neck babydoll tee, jeans with strategic tears in them, and the kind of thong that only strippers wear (for the record? "Sexy" thongs in today's fashion market at most barely peek over the edge of the jeans. They don't wrap above the hips like some kind of harness for parachutes that anchor on the crotch.) And she sure as Hell doesn't have 44FF breasts displayed like cantaloupe.

Whether or not this kind of sexist depiction is ever appropriate, it's certainly lucrative and therefore Marvel is going to license it. However, in an era where Mary Jane Watson's brand is vastly more lucrative when it ties back to what the people who shelled out three quarters of a billion dollars in the last twenty days have seen, this aggressively sexist depiction isn't cute and it isn't pin-up art -- it's confusion in the marketplace. People who seek out examples of Mary Jane based on the movie will run into it and be turned off. It hurts the overall brand of Mary Jane Watson. And it damages the potential profit that brand can make.

That is a catastrophic failure of brand management. In the wake of these millions of movie dollars being spent, the absolute last thing you want on the mainstream media is a debate about the inappropriateness of your pissant limited edition sex statue. Sure, it's good advertising for the sex statue. And indeed, the statue has sold out in preorder. But the damage isn't to the statue or its sales, it is to the brand, and is of the variety that causes highly paid brand managers to lose their jobs. Saucy Mary Janes would be fine in this climate. Naughty, coy Mary Janes wouldn't hurt the brand even if they annoyed some of the fans. This thing? Hurts the brand.

And it underscores the thing Marvel is worst at right now. Stop and consider. On June 17 of this year, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer will be released. And yet, the past year's comics have depicted Reed as a particularly weak supervillain whose actions, directly or indirectly, led to Captain America getting shot. We can debate the quality of the comics (and we have), but from a brand management standpoint they're horrible. You don't poison core fanbases of your franchise just before releasing a movie that cost a hundred and thirty million dollars to make. That's just stupid. Next year, they're going to try to launch a new Iron Man movie and franchise, and that same year of comic books put Tony Stark not only into a supervillain's position, but conflated him with the Bush administration and Halliburton.

See also: a future Spider-Man killing Mary-Jane with horrific cancer caused by his radioactive sperm two months before his movie comes out.

Now, as a writer and a fan of superheroes (though admittedly not a fan of what Marvel's done to superheroes in the last few years), I wouldn't want to have storylines dictated by the brand management team either. But this is the business that Marvel is in now. This is the business they've been in for years, and it's vastly better business than the comics side stuff. And in corporate America, you follow where the money's flowing. And right now Marvel's doing a terrible job at that.

As one last example, I give you the cover to Heroes for Hire #13, a comic rated by Marvel for teenagers. This would seem to be something entirely different than what I was talking about -- there are no burgeoning merchandise deals for this new version of the Heroes for Hire. There are no movie deals in the offing. One could debate whether or not they really want teenagers to pick up comics featuring highly sexualized victimized women on the cover (including one who apparently had her costume unzipped nearly to her bellybutton by a tentacle creature), but does it really belong here in my nice cynical essay about brand management?

In short? You bet it does. Heroes for Hire is clearly designed to go after a specific market segment. From the promotion it's received and most of the cover art to date, that market segment is clear: Birds of Prey fans. Over at DC, there's a highly acclaimed and clearly successful comic book series starring several strong women who do the superhero thing. It's smart, fun writing in an excellent comic book that manages to prove that you can have (mostly) equal -- even feminist -- takes on superheroes and make them really good superhero stories.

The comics were successful enough, in fact, that they got their own WB series. Now, the television show failed, but that doesn't change the fact that Birds of Prey is a successful comic with enough penetration in culture that they successfully optioned it. Brand Management 101 says there's money to be made off of Oracle, Huntress, Power Girl, Black Canary and Other.

Marvel, of course, can't make money off those characters. They don't own them. But they can assemble their own thematic versions and build a brand based on them. Comics 101 -- if Superman is successful, here's twelve guys just like him at other companies!

So. They're after the Birds of Prey audience, both for short term comics sales and for longer term critical acclaim and brand building.

The Birds of Prey audience is, to be blunt, feminist. At the very least, they're comfortable with superheroines being depicted in a strong, well defined character way. At most, they're solidly feminist, believing in all that "superheroines should be strong figures who aren't needlessly sexualized for male readers." A significant portion of the Birds' audience is female, at least judging by the commentary around it.

So. Brand Management is simple in this case: strong women. They can be attractive and even sexual, but they have to be strong and capable.

Here, we have a cover with five people bound, about to be... er... attacked by tentacles. One of them is male. That's Shang Chi, and he's aggressive, fighting the horror, not giving in.

The rest are female, and they're docile, almost drugged, not resisting at all. With... er... evidence of arousal. And Colleen's being apparently partially stripped by an octopus.

If your brand management plan was to go after Femforce's demographic, you're well on your way. But if you're going after the Birds of Prey audience you just failed your brand management skill roll critically. It will be many, many issues before a lot of Birds of Prey fans will even consider picking up your comic. They sure as Hell won't be blogging about it in a positive way. They sure as Hell won't be extolling it or pushing it to their friends.

In other words, it won't be penetrating the culture as anything more than another example of comics-for-35-year-old-guys-check-out-Misty-Knight's-Rack.

That's a failure of brand management. Oh, and for those who have pointed out that a woman was the cover artist who depicted it? Sorry, the point remains -- this cover will alienate the market segment the comic was designed to appeal to.

Bad brand manager. No paycheck.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:32 AM | Comments (56)

April 24, 2007

Eric: Because I am still alive, some fast facts!

It has been a busy few weeks, storms and all.

Part of the reason for the busyness has been practical. Wednesday is in town. More to the point, Wednesday is in town for the last time for at least six months. Why? Because we will have specific forms filed immediately after she leaves town, and those forms will lead inexorably to her being back here permanently (and married to me, which makes me a very happy person), but while they're in process the government will not let her return to the country. And they will take six months to process. If we're lucky.) So it's important to us to, among other things, consume every waking minute with each other to its fullest. Which has meant sitting and typing on almost anything non-work-related has fallen by the wayside.

I assume all of you would forgive me for that, of course. Because Dude.

We're feeling very very good about the byzantine process of securing Governmental Approval For American Burns to Marry Canadian White thanks to our lawyer -- the startlingly kickass Virginia "Gini" Judd, esq. (EDIT: The link now works! Yay!) Mlle. Judd is someone we know and trust -- she's the wife of Ferrett Steinmetz, author of Home on the Strange -- she, Ferrett and Weds had a great time hanging out in England before she made it back onto this continent. She's already made a process which seems alien and frightening seem much easier to deal with, and we're excited to have her helping us.

(As a side note -- if you or yours are looking into family law, bankruptcy, immigration issues of any form, or just general civil legal stuff, I heartily recommend her. She Knows Her Stuff.)

A few things have happened. I haven't talked about Vonnegut, and it's likely the statue of limitations for writing a remembrance has passed. So let us just remember that the man was willing to appear as himself in a Rodney Dangerfield movie where he writes a term paper for a student on his own work, which gets an F because "clearly whoever wrote this knows nothing about Kurt Vonnegut." Which at once revealed his opinion of such things, as well as denoted something about the man himself.

More germane to my life, my Microsoft Explorer Thinks We're a Phishing Site experiences have been collected into a Help Desk plotline that was seriously funny. Among other things, it actually featured a Wednesday-Day-Of-The-Week joke that actually made Weds laugh -- and very few of those make Weds laugh these days. (For the record? That's not a challenge. Seriously. I've had enough date puns made about Weds's name that I'm ready to never hear another one. Weds has lived with them.) At the time I wanted to push it, but things were just -- well, see above. But by god, you should go look at it.

Also, I've had some other project just go up on some site. It slips my mind right now, however.

Things are well. Weds is well. Oh, and my car seems to be okay -- some gum-out seems to have fixed it right up.

(One last bout of eBay will be going up in the next day or two, for those who have wondered. But obviously the storm has passed, and thank you all for your generosity and cheer. I hope everyone loves their Stuff.)

I'll try to be around more often than I've been in the past month, though... well. I have her for another nine days, and then just when I can sneak to Canada, and you'll understand that I'm going to miss her, so for now....

Dude.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:20 PM | Comments (31)

April 17, 2007

Eric: The road falls away

Time slips away from you.

Time slips away from you and around you and past you. There was a storm here, a few days ago -- a Nor'easter, they called it, which seems weird since the same storm dumped snow on the Midwest before it reached us, but what the heck. Weds and I went driving last night, with an intention to go down south to Manchester. On the way, we found closed roads because the water, running down hills, had undercut and collapsed the roads.

Being enterprising folks, we circled around and tried to go another way. That way led down a road where there were collapsed sides, and we finally came to a point where there was absolutely no way to move forward. A river had sprung up, cut the road down the middle for a good three hundred feet, and then vanished, leaving only the clear signs of water and an abject lack of passable roadway.

Wednesday stepped out of the car and moved off to a safe distance, to tell me when to stop the car as I slowly backed up, moved forward, backed up and inched around to go back the way we came. The reason for this was simple: the ditch on one side of the car was now a good twelve feet deep, and if I inadvertently backed over it the car would have been swallowed up and very possibly rendered undrivable. Which would have been inconvenient. Also, the car might have fallen backwards, landed on the roof, and potentially done me a mischief. Which would have been painful.

Slow and steady got the car turned around, and we drove back up the road, deciding that there was nothing in Manchester worth adrenalin. As we drove back, slowly, we came upon a wild turkey, running down the center of the road in a certain degree of panic. We tried to get a picture of it, but it got into the woods and hid from direct view of us. Which, given that a turkey doesn't know the difference between a camera and a rifle and doesn't know that Thanksgiving won't be for seven more months shows admirable wisdom on his part.

We came back home, driving into town and going out for dinner at the Wolfe's Tavern. The place was practically deserted -- there may have been two other couples in the whole place, and the bar section was empty except for one guy watching Bill O'Reilly speaking on the Virginia Tech shootings. I watched about ten seconds as we headed to the salad bar. It was restrained and respectful -- two words I don't normally associate with Mr. O'Reilly. And I considered how ruined roadways and the weather were unpleasant, but far worse things had been happening in the world.

This is a Sarah Vowell attitude -- one best laid out in her book The Partly Cloudy Patriot -- she goes to the sites of American tragedy and generally has a lot of fun at them. She thinks it's a way she gains perspective. Yeah, it's a bummer that the movie was sold out, but at least she's not being slowly crushed to death under the weight of stones because she's being accused as a witch. They Might Be Giants did a song about it called "It Could Be Worse" on the audiobook version of the book, and it's now my ringtone for when work calls me. Yeah, it's 11 at night and someone's calling to tell me I have to shlep across the street and reboot a few servers and get things working, but at least we're not being forced to march two thousand, two hundred miles in a forced relocation where four thousand of our number died of disease, fatigue, starvation or dehydration, ultimately being forced to live in Oklahoma.

Yeah, there was a bad storm. And as it turns out, routes not just to Manchester and Concord but to Maine, to Rochester, to Portsmouth and to Conway were closed yesterday, some just washed away. But it's not like a madman loaded a couple of nine millimeters and started killing people on my school's campus. Wolfeboro might be an island today, but no one died and we have plenty of toilet paper and twinkies. Perspective is a good thing to have, here.

Reactions to the tragedy have been varied but predictable. Some people are calling for stricter security on our college campuses. Some people are calling for stricter gun control laws. And the blaring of 24 hour news channels which are providing live, up to the minute reports on an event that ended yesterday with horror and death but which is not now ongoing will only magnify the tragedy and make it all the more tragic through reactions. Now, I'm a liberal, and I have a solid set of opinions on gun control laws and on the culture of firearms that's emerged in this country, but as with Columbine before it Virginia Tech does not change that opinion. Nor does it validate it. We are discussing the actions of a madman, doing something unthinkable on a campus where people live. There is little to be done to prevent the actions of madmen, because they have all the time in the world to plan for the things you haven't prepared for. This man would have caused mayhem, horror and death one way or another. Perhaps stricter controls or security would have saved some lives. Or perhaps it would have caused the madman to build crude incendiary devices instead and potentially killed more. We cannot predict the actions of madmen, and we must not overreact when they happen. We must consider the pain, the horror, and what legitimate lessons can be learned from tragedy. We must do so soberly, away from the passions that tragedy evoke. And as we learn more about why Cho Seung-Hui went on a murderous rampage at the college he had attended for years, we must try to learn what we can to identify where the system did fail, without surrendering ourselves to fear of what unknown things might happen. That way leads to xenophobia, to armed guards on college campuses, to a police state being locked down further, and to no promise that someone else won't kill a bunch of kids somewhere else anyway. We have defined much of the Twenty-First Century as a reaction to horror and terror, and few today would claim those reactions ended up being wise or correct. This time, we have to learn from those mistakes and horrors the same as we must learn from the tragedy in Virginia.

The waters recede slowly, but the damage is left in their wake. I have no idea when the roads connecting my town to the rest of the world will be repaired. It's not like my town is the only one to have damage done in what was after all a pretty major storm. There is much to be discussed -- I've been away for a little while, and as I said at the top of the essay, time has a habit of slipping away from you, like water. I'll try to be better, and more here. I'll try to comment on things left uncommented on. I'll try to add something to the dialogue or the day.

But if I miss it, I won't overly stress. It could always be worse. This is minor in comparison to so many things in life.

Be good to each other and to everyone you meet.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:20 AM | Comments (28)

March 27, 2007

Eric: For all the fifteen year olds out there? Yes, you can summon succubi in the game. Yeesh

The thing about Sorcerer is it's short.

Seriously. A hundred and thirty one pages in an attractive hardback that itself is six and a half by ten. It's a tiny little thing. The size of a hardcover comic book, really. And at least three of the pages is an essay elaborating Edwards's GNS Theory. (Said theory has since been deprecated and incorporated into the Big Model. Speaking as a literary and critical theorist, the GNS and Big Model theories are fascinating reading, if a hair structural for my taste. At some point, I should really codify my own theories of collaborative roleplaying as improvisational performance art, but -- as happens so often -- I digress.)

And yet, despite the economy of text, Sorcerer is dynamite. It really is. You read through the pages and it blows your preconceptions out of the water. That shows real economy of text.

The way Edwards accomplishes this is twofold: first, there is economy of text. Edwards is a master of using four words the way a more florid writer (me, say) would use twelve.

Secondly, Sorcerer is a book of concepts. Thematic concepts, practical concepts, mechanical concepts all alike, but concepts. Many if not most RPGs or sourcebooks to come out in the last fifteen years -- certainly since the heyday of White Wolf -- have been executions of concept. If you read Vampire: The Masquerade, to use a now-outdated but classic and well known example, you are reading a book about a realized world. The mechanics woven through the text highlight and derive inexorably from the specifics of the campaign world that the system is modeling, and as a result that system is altered contextually when it's woven through a different role playing game. This is even true of the modern World of Darkness game -- it is more streamlined and "universal," but Vampire: The Requiem doesn't simply add on to the World of Darkness rules -- it recontextualizes them.

Not so with Sorcerer. This is a very specific book, but it is not a book of execution. The core mechanics elaborated so simply and clearly here suggest a plethora of different possible executions. Edwards gives some suggestions and examples, but you find yourself coming up with different paradigms the system works for just naturally. What is left unsaid is as interesting and evocative as what is said.

This isn't to say Sorcerer lacks assumptions. You can't develop a realized role-playing game without assumptions. Even the bare bones System Reference Document that is the cornerstone of d20 -- perhaps the polar opposite of Sorcerer -- is chock full of assumptions. And the most basic assumption of any role playing game are the words "what if."

Seriously. Think about it.

"What if Vampires were real, and were quietly moving behind the scenes, eking out an existence and forming a society within our society."

"What if superheroes really existed, in a world that conformed to the four color adventures of the comics of our youth?"

"What if brave adventurers in a pseudo-medival society crawled through underground passages, killing everything they find, sacking ancient burial mounds and catacombs for their treasure?"

The Role Playing Game is an attempt to answer that question -- preferably having fun while you do it.

Well, Sorcerer's "what if" is pretty simple. "What if the only paranormal power in the world came from intentionally summoning demons?"

That's it.

Note that "what if" doesn't encode what demons are. It might be the Abrahamic demons of the major current world religions. It might be the original Greek ideal of the dæmon -- a creature between a mortal and a god, possessing wisdom or knowledge, possibly petty, possibly noble. It might be a computer daemon given form. It might be a Ferengi ship captain, and man -- would the price of power be worth it?

As I said -- this is a game of concepts, not executions. The concept is simple. The execution is up to the gamemaster.

Which is how these games used to be presented, back in the days of mimeographed and hobbyist roleplayers building and presenting games. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was incredibly detailed and complex -- it was all about the execution -- but the details of the world were entirely left up to the Dungeon Master. Hell, even buying the sprawling original World of Greyhawk product gave you a pile of names, a hex map, and a few very general comments about places like Blackmoor, but the specifics were left up to the the Dungeon Master's discretion. The Dungeon Master filled in the core gaps in the theory, and the players drove the execution in practice. Compare that with the next generation's Seattle Sourcebook for Shadowrun (which is still one of my favorite products, it's worth noting). This was an incredibly detailed Sixth World retelling of the greater Metropolitan Seattle area in a magipunk universe, right down to where you could get Ork food in Puyallup -- with the additional layer of actual Shadowrunners hacking into the files and leaving their own comments about what you'd really find in these places.

Not so with Sorcerer. It's got all the rules you need to create a sorcerer, to go through the process of contacting, summoning, binding and commanding the spirits, to create the statistics for those demons and to elaborate the powers innate to those demons. But it has no assumptions as to what those demons are, what kind of people the sorcerers are, how this has impacted society, or anything else. The rules exist as a theory. It's up to the gamemaster and the player to figure out the execution.

And the player does get to participate. One of the cooler (and more eminently stealable) concepts of the game is the kicker. This is the final part of character creation, and it is essentially a player authored upturning of the character's anthill. One of the core elements of the English novel is the establishment of the norm and the introduction of something that breaks the norm, introducing conflict. That's the kicker. From before you start playing, there's something that has the character out of his happy place... and it's something the player brings to the table instead of the gamemaster.

That's cool.

I've been turning these things over in my brain for a few days. I've been bouncing them off my usual gaming cohorts. I've had story ideas burble up -- it's a fertile field. There's lots of little touches I like (the total and intentional lack of telepathy or "magic evil detection vision" for one. You never realize what a crutch such effects are until you take them out of your game world entirely), but they're all designed to make me think about what kind of world I would make out of these concepts.

None of this is new insight. Sorcerer has been making the rounds for years. Ron Edwards received the Diana Jones Award -- perhaps the most prestigious (and certainly the most difficult to receive) award in the RPG Design community -- largely on the strength of Sorcerer back in 2002. Five years is an eternity in these terms, and Sorcerer's been sitting on my shelf for most of that five years. Hell, it looks like actually buying the game is difficult at the moment -- it's still listed as 'in print,' but it's out of stock. And unlike most modern RPGs -- especially from independent and small press publishers -- it's not available in PDF form.

As a side note -- I am a total RPG PDF junkie now. Give me a way to put my collection on my laptop hard drive and carry it with me? Yes please thank you. Make it searchable to boot and I will be your absolute best friend.

But that's as may be. Right now, I'm turning Sorcerer over and over in my brain, and coming up with things and thoughts, of which this is just a few.

And isn't that a cool thing for a role playing game?

(Auction updates -- most are ended or ending, and it's gone really well! I'm going to put some more things up later today or tomorrow, to keep the cycle moving forward as money is very helpful and I'd like to get ahead on things I've gotten behind on, but for the most part thank you everyone for bidding and participating. And man who thought Amber would go for almost seventy dollars?)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:26 AM | Comments (21)

March 6, 2007

Eric: Seriously. Old *Jimmy Olsen* comics used to sell over seven hundred thousand issues a month. Not Superman -- *Jimmy Olsen.*

I was watching a show on the History Channel, called How William Shatner Changed the World. It was one of those shows that tracked the people who actually made things like ion propulsion drives for NASA unmanned spacecraft and the cellular telephone and had them saying "well, yeah. I was watching Star Trek and hey -- Data was listening to music on his computer so I went down to my job at Apple and then I wrote Quicktime and then we invented the iPod."

You know, a fluffy show, but fun. This one featured some of Shatner's trademark (for this decade) self-deprecating humor.

But... they made an interesting contention in this show.

See, Star Trek was low rated, but then snowballed. And was huge. And Star Trek: The Next Generation was even bigger. (And if you haven't been playing along at home... we're reaching the point where Star Trek: The Next Generation was as long ago as the original Star Trek was when TNG first came out. Feel old yet? But I digress.)

And then Deep Space Nine came out. Which was my favorite of the series. And it did okay... but it was significantly lower rated than Next Generation which was on at the same time.

And then Voyager was lower rated still.

And then Enterprise was lower rated enough that it tanked.

We all know these things. And we all know the justifications. "People were burned out on Star Trek. Competition from cable and the internet killed them." Et cetera. But that's not what they were saying on here.

No, their contention -- and it was a throwaway -- was simple. Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation were Roddenberry's vision of a future where humanity's problems were solved and technology was a good thing that made life a paradise and allowed humanity, who had matured, grown together and embraced that paradise, to develop themselves and explore the galaxy. Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise were darker shows where there were interpersonal conflicts between the crew, a more "realistic" approach to technology (which often failed) was adopted, and there were universal wars, terrorism, and lots of bad things and tense moments. And the millions of people who loved Next Generation didn't love these darker shows in such great numbers, despite their critical acclaim (the critics loved Deep Space Nine -- and so, for that matter did I). They loved the overall sense of optimism that Roddenberry had brought and people like Braga, Berman, and Behr eschewed as hokey.

Now, I don't know if this is right or not. I don't have demographics or interviews or statistical data. But it was an interesting contention for me, because it goes hand in hand with where I think comic books are dying.

See, comics used to be bright. They were optimistic. The good guys were good guys. The bad guys were bad guys. And the good guys eventually won. This was true at DC, where generally the heroes were stalwart and upright, and this was true at Marvel where the heroes were flawed and had problems. But it was still true.

Over the last several decades, comics have "grown up." They've become more realistic. And we ultimately had things like Zero Hour and Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis and Civil War. And some of those series have been popular and everything, but comic books have been in major decline. The most popular books today get the kinds of numbers that middle of the road-to-unpopular books got in the seventies (and let's not even think about the forties or fifties. Superman used to sell many millions of issues a month.) Hell, over on Mister Kitty's Stupid Comics site (which is always good fun), an entire essay was devoted to pointing out that back when comics were stupid they vastly outsold the most popular comics of today. Even Little Dot.

And I've wondered for some time when the comic book companies became ashamed of superheroes. When did Realism, and "secret identities are bad" and "goofy heroes like Ralph and Sue Dibney need to die" and "the government needs to regulate all super heroes in a clear nod to Guantanamo Bay" and "hey, let's show Hank Pym immediately after employing the potential kinky sex acts that shrinking your body to the size of a dildo imply on his ex wife and former abuse victim Janet in our flagship team comic!" take the place of "Captain America beats up Hydra so they can't conquer the world" and "Iron Man is a good guy who fights bad people who want to take over the world."

I mean... what if the William Shatner documentary was right? What if the reason Enterprise tanked was because they'd lost the clear, clean message of the original series and Next Generation. What if the reason comic books are a niche item (and Manga outsells them in bookstores) is people liked the clear cut good versus evil stuff more than the 'popular' depressing 'realistic' stuff?

It would explain a lot, wouldn't it?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:04 PM | Comments (53)

February 21, 2007

Eric: And now, literature.

I'm trying to wrap my brain around On the Banks of Lethe. It's not easy. But James Grant does that to my brain.

I think I probably got into Grant's stuff thanks to Randy Milholland. When Grant's original webcomics magnum opus, the Jay Storyline, was in full flower over at FLEM Comics!, Randy did small cameos in Something Positive. Jay was one of the people Davan knew back in Texas. Simple enough. That led me to FLEM, which later on led me to Two Lumps. I loved it.

I loved it because Grant is a sick fuck. Which is really the only way to describe him. Except he's a funny sick fuck. He's a talented sick fuck. He reminds me, in his own way, of George Carlin. When I watched the DVD of The Aristocrats, I was pretty blase through the telling and retelling of the most obscene joke in the universe. I'm a jaded person by nature, when it comes to such things. But while Sarah Silverman's deadpan version was the best and most memorable, George Carlin's is the one that got me within three gags of actually throwing up. And yet, it was still funny.

That's the kind of power Grant has. And it's a power he carries through into his writing.

I read and greatly enjoyed Pedestrian Wolves, Grant's first book. It was vivid and evocative -- a shout down down the throat of New Orleans, written before Katrina and in its own way a testament to a city that doesn't exist in the same way any more. However, I wasn't sure that Pedestrian Wolves was so much a novel as a travelogue -- a taste of the city, of the mores of the place, of the scene, of one man's understanding of the streets he had walked. Grant's second book, the aforementioned On the Banks of Lethe is a solid, full on, hardcore novel. It's the story of Charlie, and it's the story of memory and loss. Which can't possibly be coincidence -- it is absolutely nothing like the short story "Flowers for Algernon," or the novel that it grew into, and yet when you read about Charlie in Lethe, you think of Charley in that original story. You think about pain. You think about loss.

If I were to describe the book, I'd be somewhat at a loss. It's got a little Noir to it -- a little sense of the One Good Man fighting a battle. But at the same time, it's Noir as written by Sean Stewart and soundtracked by the Sisters of Mercy. The One Good Man is always a flawed figure, but this time his flaws are held together with barbed wire and set on fire. It's Portrait of the Artist as Cursed By Non-Euclidean Monstrosities.

And it's fascinating. Fascinating as the stare of a cobra.

There's no comfort in this book. I never got the feeling that Charlie would win. I saw him struggling, and trying -- saw him trying to hold on to the woman he loved and the world, but this is James L. Grant, so I figured there would be a few shotgun blasts to the ego along the way. And the book doesn't disappoint. It reminded me of some other stories -- Vellum, by Hal Duncan. Perfect Circle by the aformentioned Sean Stewart. Even "The Unpleasant Occupation of Jonathan Hoag" by Robert Heinlein (though more if the other side won in that particular work). The imagery is powerful and disturbing, the voice is solid.

In a way, as stated, this really is Grant's first novel, since I don't think we can really call Pedestrian Wolves a novel. And there's some sense of that in the book. He overwrites a bit, here and there. Sometimes phrases like "Daughter of Red" beg to be shrunk down instead of repeated over and over again. But these are comparatively minor -- like brushstrokes on one of Charlie's paintings. The paint may seem thick in places, but it adds texture to the whole.

This is not a comforting book. But man, it was a good ride getting to the end. I'm looking forward to the next time Grant takes a few shots at our collective psyches.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:01 PM | Comments (15)

February 14, 2007

Eric: Life is what happens while you're making other plans.

Yeah, posting every day. Hah hah... good times, good times.

There's this play I'm in that's ramped to high. I get to be pure uncut evil. There's the chain of minor to not so minor illnesses that define my life. There's... well, there's trips to Canada to see my fiancee. You have to grok that in the priority list.

And... well, there's writing. I've done quite a bit of it despite all of the above. It... er, just wasn't for Websnark. But on the plus side, I feel once again privileged to wear tweed and a beret when I go to coffee shops.

I'll play some catchup on here over the next few days. Lots of goodness to talk about in the world. Thanks, all!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:37 AM | Comments (8)

February 1, 2007

Eric: Many notes, in various forms.

Work started just before 7 and ended... hm. A couple of minutes ago. No breaks today. There was... a problem last night. Tomorrow will be the same. No Wiiplay tonight, and restricted before that (I was deathly ill at the start of the week, and this much exhaustion can't possibly help with that.)

I haven't written my Order of the Stick snark yet, though it keeps getting better and better. This is amazing stuff. If you're not reading it, you ought to be, really.

PvP launched its animated series today, which served as a backdrop while I worked. As Scott Kurtz himself admitted in comments, the pacing wasn't as solid as one would like, and he promises improvements with that. The voice acting was pretty darn cool (I know there was the Skull controversy, but at this point I can't hear him any other way). The others were at least serviceable -- and Brent is spot on perfect. If I had my wishes granted by scantily clad djinni... well, first off I'd be mind numbingly rich, the workstuff would be dealt with, and Wednesday would be declared Canada's Ambassador Without Portfolio to New Hampshire, but at some point we'd reach my PvP animated wishes, and they'd include a little more of the really good incidental music and more of a patter. However, it's worth noting I'll be back next month to see the next, and that's the core thing you can ask of a first episode.

Note to T and Phil. I will, I swear to God, write back. I'm just exhausted.

Note to Frank. See above, times six. Man, do I have things I owe you.

Note to WiiFolks. I'll be adding everyone tomorrow night when I recover from round to from Oh My God Work Is Eating My Soul. I'm excited to see the enthusiasm.

Note to Wednesday -- I love you, and I'm sorry I'm not exactly focused at the moment.

Note to Activision. Marvel Ultimate Alliance for the Wii is f-f-frickin awesome.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:41 PM | Comments (32)

January 29, 2007

Eric: All this said, even after all this time I'd wait in the cold for a ROM Spaceknight. But we knew that.

On friday, temperatures were below zero, especially in the early parts of the morning. Saturday was also bitterly cold. Sunday, on the other hand, saw a spike of temperature, up to a practically balmy 18 degrees Fahrenheit as of 4:45 in the morning.

I was standing in that cold. It was approximately four and three quarters hours since my 39th birthday had ended, and I was spending that first morning waiting outside a WalMart in Windham, Maine. A WalMart that would be selling 19 Nintendo Wiis at 6 am. And I was not alone.

I am not a passionate gamer. Not really. I loves me some City of Heroes as you all know, and I'm forever beholden to Soulcalibur and its ilk, but for the most part I'm a casual gamer. I do not own an XBox 360, and currently I do not plan to buy one. I do not own a Playstation 3, and as near as I can tell no one who doesn't already own one plans to buy one of those. They sit on the shelves next to excited handwritten signs declaring that they are in stock, and people just sort of shrug. There is something to be said for the additional muscle these 'next generation' consoles have, but almost every review I've seen for almost every game released for them is the same -- the graphics are generally slightly prettier (though to be honest, it doesn't look that different to me. I've never cared about being able to see the sweat on a game avatar), but the games play exactly the same way as their lastgen versions did. The same button combinations, the same moves, the same modes. And all too often, the games lack some of their predecessors' functionality. For no good reason I watch XPlay, and review after review they go over this is essentially the same game as Madden was on the original XBox, only with slightly better graphics and fewer game modes. And so forth.

That will change, by the by. Games like Gears of War couldn't have effectively existed on the original XBox, and as developers get comfortable with the greater power and capacity of the XBox 360, the games they release will become bigger and grander. Which is all fine and good for the serious gamer, but of less interest to the casual gamer. As for the Playstation 3? At this point, it almost doesn't matter what they do. It's had the kiss of death in the popular culture -- it's considered lame. Half the people (it seemed) who waited on line to get one turned around and sold it on eBay for a profit, and now no one's into them at all. When prices get slashed way down, they may regain share, but I wouldn't count on it.

The Nintendo Wii, on the other hand, is a casual gamer's dream machine. It's innovative. It doesn't have the graphical power of the other nextgens, but in part that's because they decided to make the console more fun instead. It was the Christmas must-have. It continues to sell out whenever it becomes available.

Which is why, two months after the system release, I was standing in the cold for one.

I wasn't alone. There were a good number of others waiting too. High school and college guys who didn't luck out before. Parents (and grandparents) trying to make good on Christmas promises. A couple of little kids who were so excited you could power a turbine with them. Every new person who showed up kind of chuckled, too. "I'm glad I'm not the only one," was the common refrain. "I was gonna feel ridiculous if I was the only one."

At the same time, there was a way I was the only one. I was neither a late teens/early twenties guy, nor a parent or grandparent, nor a ten year old kid. I was a full adult, waiting in the cold for a toy. For myself. For my birthday.

Which might be 39 in a nutshell.

This is your last chance. Your last shot. Right now, I'm still thirtysomething without kids. I'm not beholden. I can cling to the extended adolescence that has been the hallmark of my generation -- the first generation of Generation X. I don't have to be all the way grown up just yet. I can still get excited for a new toy. I can still wait in the cold to buy it. I can still drag my amused parents on a pre-dawn quest. (Which was nice, as they could run to Tim Hortons and grab me coffee.)

The time came. There was acrimony as it looked like they opened other doors first and there was the possibility of line jumping. The doors opened. There was a mad dash to electronics. And everyone who waited got a Wii. (Though the first guy in line -- who sent his 12 year old son at a full on sprint to be the first to the electronics counter -- wanted to buy all 19. The WalMart employee just snickered, said "one to a customer sir," and moved on to the next.)

I bought my Wii. I didn't get any additional games or the like, just then. I wanted to try it out on its own merits. And I was in no way disappointed. The Wii is fun. We brought it back to my folks' house and set it up. We downloaded patches. We created Miis. And we bowled. And I was stunned at how... well, good the bowling was. My mother, who became disenchanted with video games after Zelda went 3D and the maze games of the Ladybug era were phased out, happily did the same kind of bowling dances you do at actual alleys when she did well. And the bowling went exactly as bowling always does for me. I do really well for four or five throws, and then I overthink it and it becomes harder. My Dad hooked to the right generally, too. And all that just amazed me.

Boxing? Really cool. Tennis? A lot of fun. Baseball kind of bored me, but golf was okay. All in all, it was a fun thing. A good thing. A good game that everyone enjoyed.

Tonight, I'm going to buy my first real game for it. (Not counting The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past that I downloaded off of virtual console last night, of course.) Everyone tells me I should grab the new Zelda, and of course I will. I love Zelda. But the thing that really, really stood out for me was how much fun the party game aspect was -- so I'm thinking I'll grab WiiPlay or Warioware -- quick, easy and fun games that don't take long and really use the Wiimote and the like.

Next year, I'll be forty. Chances are likely I'll have a wife and household. I trust I'll still enjoy fun, but I don't anticipate I'll wait in line at four forty-five for a toy, no matter how cool it is.

But this year? I got the best toy on Earth for my birthday, and that just plain rocks.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:54 PM | Comments (26)

January 25, 2007

Eric: On having a research department, even when they don't know it.

A couple of days ago, I caught a story.

This happens to me. I'll be walking or driving along, and something will occur to me, and I'll decide "huh." And the next thing I know I've got an opening, at least twelve scenes and a denouement in my brain, trying to claw their way out. And, because I was cursed by influenced by Hard Science Fiction, I then need to... oh, you know, do real honest to Christ research on the subject in question.

Now, this is not science fiction. If anything, it's Magical Realism, set in today's world. Something very Sean Stewart, with a soupçon of Hal Duncan for good measure.

What?

Soupçon.

It's a word.

Yes, it's originally from the French, but it's an actual, honest to Christ in-Webster's word now. It means "smidge."

No I couldn't "just say smidge." Jesus.

Anyway.

Lost my train of thought.

Oh, right. The story. It's a very contemporary story, and it's meant to actually be a road trip sort of story. In fact, it's meant to be a shunpiking story. Shunpiking isn't in Webster's but it's a fantastic word which should be. It means "avoiding major highways and interstates and turnpikes in lieu of back roads, secondary roads and the like." It means taking the remnants of old Route 66 instead of the thruway. It means driving through small towns and places instead of bypassing them.

That's what this story needs.

So I want to do it right. So I have a starting point and an ending point. And I have an internet. And if you look at our friend Mapquest, they have an "avoid Highways" feature to them! Score!

Only... said feature only works for trips of 250 miles or less. And even with interstates and highways, it estimates the trip I'm describing as over 2,700 miles.

Now, going step by step, leg by leg in 250 mile jumps is one solution to this problem. But it's not a good solution. See, the only way to effectively do that is to chart your course via interstates and then select waypoints along the way. You can then tell it to give you a shunpiker's route between those waypoints. The problem is, it's entirely possible that if you shunpiked across the country you'd end up far away from where the highways run, through the dead areas between major interstates. By using the highways as your guide, you end up less shunpiking and more tacking around the direct route -- you still end up passing through the major points serviced by those highways. It's just less convenient for you.

I checked the other driving direction services online, and as near as I can tell, those services don't even have a shunpiking function.

So, I've spent the last several days wrestling with this -- in my brain. I've been trying to either find a new service or find software that might do it without being unreasonably expensive for what, in the end, is going to be a single use or... I don't know. Something. Because I really, really want to do this right, and I don't see any good way to do it electronically.

This morning, the solution hit me. It had the triple advantage of not costing me anything (at least anything additional), giving me the route I specifically want, and providing me monumental amounts of research on the side, thus saving me time elsewhere in this process.

See, I'm a Triple-A member. I have been... well, practically forever. And once upon a time, before GPSes and the Internet, they were my route planners. If you're a member, you can call them up any time and order a triptik -- a printed series of flip maps with your route highlighted in orange highlighter, that someone has painstakingly mapped out for you.

I haven't used them for this in years. Between things like Mapquest and GPSes, I have lots more convenient ways to find routes to where I'm going. I'm sure they've had a sharp decline in these services over the years.

But now I had a project my GPS and Internet couldn't help me with.

So I called my member service number (not the roadside assistance number), and talked to a travel agent. And she cheerfully took the information I wanted down. I told her about the shunpiking, and she told me she could arrange all secondary and back roads with no problem at all -- where possible, anyway. And she offered to send along state maps and tour guide books with tons of additional information. All, of course, at no charge. I am a member, after all.

It is worth occasionally remembering that as wonderful as our Internet is, there are times the good old fashioned way is vastly better.

Things have been nuts. Catching up begins now. Rock on, dudes.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:34 AM | Comments (23)

January 17, 2007

Eric: So, how was *your* weekend?

It's two fifty-six in the afternoon on Tuesday. At 1:14 I watched Wednesday step through the door onto the accessway of her plane to Philadelphia and her Canadian transfer. The Manchester Airport was built to be airy and pleasant and accessible, and the security precautions of the last six years have only moderately changed that. Bulletproof Lexan between me and her didn't blunt my line of sight of her, and cell phones mean being able to talk right up until.

Which is sappy, I realize, but you have to understand. We do this entirely too often. I drive up to Ottawa, we have a great time, and then I have to climb back into my car and drive away, and neither of us really want that. She comes down here, and we settle into a routine that's warm and inviting, satisfying and pleasant. And then she has to leave. That's the part I'm not too fond of.

It was mitigated, of course, by the knowledge that there's just so much longer we have to do this. I asked, she said yes. We're engaged. And that makes a difference.

My friend and panelmate from Arisia, The Ferrett, says I shouldn't call her my fiancee -- and that she shouldn't call me the same. "You might as well just get started calling her your wife," he said. "Since you're getting over calling her your girlfriend anyway. Why relearn the habit after the marriage?" And I can see his point. At the same time, it's actively fun to call her my fiancee right now. It's like trying on a new jacket, and running your hand over the nape of the fabric. At some point you become used to it and then inured to it, but at first it's just cool. Why wouldn't I want that same experience again after the ceremony takes place?

As for when the ceremony takes place -- well, that's a darn good question. We're not looking for a particularly long engagement, but the details aren't really up to us. Despite the fact that we were born less than four hours away from each other by the driving of the automobile... despite the fact that we grew up with the same local television channels, the same cultural referents, the same potato-driven interruptions of the standard calendar and the same freaking weather, we are considered foreign to one another, and our respective governments must process, acknowledge and ultimately approve of our getting married. Until we know what Immigration has to say about our Visa applications (which haven't yet been filed, due to total lack of time since the weekend to do so), we won't know when she'll be let into the country to live with me. And by the nature of the Fiancee Visa, we will then need to get married within 90 days after she has been. That is the rule, and we will abide.

Which probably means a small and nigh-perfunctory civil ceremony, followed by a fully planned out reception et al with invitations and starchy clothes and wedding registries and all the fun that is getting married. And that will be cool, but we can't very well set dates for any of it.

Knowledgeable people who have passed the bar have told us this is the way to go, by the by. It is easier and faster to get the fiancee visa approved than it is to actually get a wife into the country.

(Before someone asks -- yeah, we're looking at her moving here. It makes more sense, given our current employment circumstances. Naturally, if someone reading this wants to give her a Canadian dream job, we will both be pleased and reconsidering our plans. Though it is worth noting we like our domestic circumstance in America.)

Three forty-one, and I've managed to find the thing causing bigass trouble to our RSS feed. I predict a veritable flood of stuff, followed perhaps by another spike of traffic. We're probably moving to Project Wonderful soon, ad-wise (it just makes sense), and it has been noted that we should really have done so back on Thursday or Friday, before the wedding announcement. It has been a mind-numbingly large amount of traffic since then (six figures of pageviews, easily. Which is very, very cool all around). And there is something to be said for that, but... well, on balance I'm glad I didn't. I didn't propose to Weds as part of a ratings stunt or a moneymaking venture, and the amazing people who pitched in and helped out didn't do so to make us money. Better to do the switch when things are settled back to normal, which will happen soon enough. If people bid on our ads based on traffic patterns, they should have accurate information about those traffic patterns.

Some people have asked me about traffic since I came back, it's worth noting. Well, we were up well over 60,000 pageviews a day at our peak. 2006 eroded that significantly, and rightfully so. Since the traffic's gone back up, we've moved to between 20,000 and 30,000 pageviews. I anticipate a moderately slow increase, unlikely to hit the same peaks as the past, ignoring for the moment something like this past weekend. Certainly, the weekend didn't hurt overall traffic, despite my now having to make up essays I missed.

Which brings up one of the amazing sides of all of this. The response to the proposal has been staggering. Weds and I have been downright delighted with the comments and responses and calls of "Dude" and "Merf" and "Woot" all over the web. On Sunday, we sat for a while in an internet cafe, waiting for some friends of hers to join us for fast nosh and squeeing and the like. We did vanity searches and Technorati searches and giggled at comments and acted... well, like a pair of giddy kids who just got engaged in front of the freaking planet. People have been fantastic, and we are really, really touched. And thank you all.

A special thank you should also go to Phil Kahn. Phil agreed at the 11th hour to be the emergency "fill in" guy, just in case one of the last panels couldn't make it. He also penned an 18th panel to go after the whole thing, but I didn't receive it before we went down to Arisia, and the bandwidth and network at Arisia were so spotty I couldn't get it uploaded. I include it here, so you can pretend it followed the Milholland Money Shot Cliffhanger. Phil is a dude.

But so many people are dudes. Not the least of which is Ursula Vernon, who happily provided a new Snarky which I then didn't think to add to the comic either. I include it up above (though viewers of the video broadcast got to see it). Along with all the other artists in question -- the artwork, some black and white, some color, all essentially springing forth from their brains (for the record, my stage directions to everyone were "Eric standing and smiling as he talks," which means every nuance, every reference, every detail and every cool thing in those panels were put in by the artists themselves) was perfect. It brought Weds to tears when she saw it, in a very good way.

Okay, so I cried too. Give me a break -- I'm sentimental.

Everyone I contacted was supportive and happy. (Two never responded, it's worth noting, but I assume that means nothing but that spam filters can be overzealous -- it's happened way too often to me.) Of everyone who did respond, only one artist opted out, and that was schedule based -- he had just way too much stuff to do, but he wished us well.

Another fast note, this time on the ring. One or two people noticed the ring in the Milholland Money Shot Proposal panel had a red stone instead of a white one. Neither Weds nor I are partial to white diamonds (and we both find the "two months salary" thing absurd -- if I'm going to spend enough money for a car or computer on my fiancee, we're going to get a car or a computer), so we went with sentimental and meaningful to us instead of cold.

There was some discussion among my family, by the by, of my using a diamond that had been my grandmother's. So it's not sheer economics that caused us to eschew the thing. We could easily have had full on bling -- and classy bling at that -- had it been the direction we wanted to go in. Weds and I had been talking for some time about 'hypothetical' rings, and that was the guide I followed. The metal is titanium (Weds has some metal reaction issues with jewelry, and besides -- titanium is the geek's platinum when it comes to engagement rings). The central stone is garnet, which is why the ring stone is red. We also have smaller black diamonds on it, which look cool. And in the end, don't you want this thing to look cool?

Which brings up one other thing -- one or two people have asked what would have happened if Weds had wanted to say no, and here I was being so public. Well, the simple fact is, Weds and I had discussed marriage often. I hadn't asked her to marry me, but there was more than a little discussion on the finer points of Immigration Law, rings and "what we should do if we ever got married." I am a firm believer that you shouldn't ask someone to marry you if you're not pretty old certain of their answer to begin with.

Did that mean the proposal was risk free? Of course not. But she said yes and spent the rest of the day... well, weekend... deliriously happy. I conclude it was well done.

We fast forward (in one sense) to ten fourteen p.m. On Wednesday. This is the sort of thing that "just happens." I ran out of power at Panera. I climbed in the car. I drove home. And....

...well, I coped. The apartment is quiet when it's me and the cat. And I was exhausted. The trip, the con, the engagement... everything. I dozed, I talked with Weds on the phone, we tried to get the Slingbox working (by now we've succeeded in that) and then a night's sleep, an ultra-early morning, a day's work and catchup, a four hour theater rehearsal. ("So look out for me! Oh muddy water! Your mysteryyyyyyyyy's both deep and wide!") I got home and crashed again, this time for a couple of hours, easily.

Of course, there was something else to report from work today. See, I had a very... um... public proposal. Which means that someone posted a link on the school's Firstclass server. Which means everyone at the school had seen it.

I've worked here for just shy of nine full years. In that time I've never walked into the dining hall only to have the students applaud. I could get used to that. The cast of the play did the same, later on.

It's nice. It's very nice. And I'm surprised to realize how differently I feel now. My status has changed. I'm an engaged man. A fiance. I have a fiancee of my own. That's stunning.

And it's wonderful.

The massive "makeup posts" start tomorrow. There's lots of stuff to talk about. Lots of strips I thought were cool. Lots of things.

But as for me, for now? I'm tired again. Night, all.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:59 PM | Comments (33)

January 14, 2007

Eric: The necropost for January 14: Star Harbor Nights

A brief post to make up for the missed day on January 14 (penned all the way on January 29), in praise of Star Harbor Nights, a superhero fiction site run by the action squad of Alexandria Erin (who is a sometimes commenter over here at Websnark), Quinn Isley and Sonya Kenderdragon (which might -- might be a pseudonym. Though, given I used to write superhero fiction under the name Eric, Lord Sabre, I'm not about to rag on someone for a sobriquet.)

I know from Superhero writing -- especially the building of a shared universe completely separate from those that came before. As I've mentioned many, many times my first heavy internet activities were based around the Superguy mailing list -- which while more satirical than Star Harbor Nights certainly shared some of the frenetic joy in the form that Erin, Isley and Kenderdragon have brought to their stuff.

It reminds me, really, of how much I miss writing Superguy, and things like that. Last November, I made a serious effort to do a superheroic mosaic novel. Sadly, said novel was a failure -- it just fell apart almost immediately. I might be able to write several novels about the intertwined stories I was mosaicing, but I couldn't create enough of a thread to make the mosaic work.

So, if you like superheroes for themselves (as opposed to liking "the X-Men" or other character specific stuff), you might want to give Star Harbor Nights a look see. It's free, so it sure can't hurt, and they seem to be having a lot of fun, and in the end that's the sense I would want in a site like this one.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:57 PM | Comments (5)

January 12, 2007

Eric: Necropost: On the Culling of iTunes

(Written January 26) Recently, I underwent a Culling of iTunes.

Part of the joy of iTunes is the astoundingly simple access to music, the convenient management of your music library, the trivial capacity to download new songs, and somewhat inflexible but always cheerful organizational tools. I've used it for years now. And, as I mentioned some time ago, iTunes allows us to express our musical tastes without exposing them to the sniffs or snorts of others. If we want to enjoy ourself some Pat Benatar or "The Final Countdown," we can and we do, and it's no one's business but our own.

But there is a down side to this. Once a song enters your MP3 collection... it is generally a very cold day in Hell before it leaves it again. You begin to hoard your songs. It's as if you can't bear to lose any of them. Even if you're not interested in listening to something, you might want to listen to it someday. So your music collection grows and grows, and you begin to come up with new playlists of stuff you actually like and might want to listen to so you don't need to weed your way through a thousand songs written by ten thousand people about things you couldn't care less about to begin with.

Which is where I was. I had like forty gigs of music and another thirty gigs of video, which meant I couldn't fit my collections on either my old 20 gig iPod or my spiffy new 60 gig iPod video. It was time to Do Something About It.

Naturally, I backed stuff up to external hard drive, 'just in case,' but otherwise I was brutal. Stuff I actively liked stayed in. Stuff I had an active interest in listening to or developing an appreciation of stayed in. Other stuff went. Frank Zappa went, because even though I know he's brilliant that brilliance hasn't translated into an actual desire to listen to the songs. And if Frank Zappa went, no one was sacred.

I cut it down to about seventeen gigs of music. Most of the video made the cut (though I wiped most video podcasts, because I subscribed to them originally because I didn't have video for my Video iPod, and now I have tons of it. The complete run of Justice League Unlimited. The complete Venture Brothers. A near complete Penn and Teller: Bullshit. A disturbingly large amount of Power Rangers: SPD -- but more about SPD another time.

And now, when I drive, I just click on my library and hit shuffle, and listen. Sometimes I click to the next song because of mood, but almost everything that's on the playlist is something I actually wouldn't mind hearing. And that's cool.

As a side note, one of the miscataloged things I saved was my rip of the Hitchhiker's Guide CD sets -- the ones of the original radio shows. And because I didn't quite understand how to rip CDs of audiobooks before, it both wasn't tagged as an audiobook and was broken up into 2-5 minute chunks. And as it turns out, that makes for surprisingly fun brief bits of humor interspersed among the music. It seems weirdly intentional.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:23 PM | Comments (5)

January 9, 2007

Eric: The State of the Steve Jobs Reality Address

In Apple's defense, it's a very nice cell phone.

You have to understand. I'm a long standing Apple fan. My big graduation present from high school, back in the mists of time before most of you were born, was an Apple IIc with monitor and printer. One of my first purchases in Seattle was a behemoth Macintosh IIvx that was surplused from Boeing. Later, I upgraded to a Duo 230 with DuoDock (man, I loved that combination). The first major purchase I made when I established myself as middle class was one of the last generations of the Pre-Mac OS X Macintoshes, the Power Macintosh 8600. (A computer still in nominal use today, I would add.) At my day job, I sysadmin for Macintoshes. I've been a part of the purchasing decisions for the school, and had a significant role in close to four million dollars worth of Macintoshes and other Apple products over the past decade.

And MacWorld Expo is one of those wonderful times of year to be a Mac user. We get our Brent Sienna on -- we go all pretentious and excited, and we tell the world about the exciting world we live in that you too can be a part of. And the centerpiece of MacWorld Expo is the Steve Jobs Keynote, where he comes out onto the stage in his sweater, lights gleaming off his receding hairline, and proceeds to redefine reality with the power of a Balseraph and the conviction of a Preacher who sells used cars on the side. It's fun.

And so we came to this year's MacWorld Expo. And this year's Keynote. Coming off of a banner Apple year, no less, with a lot of excitement in the air. There's a new operating system coming out. There's Core Duo 2 computers. There's things, and we're full on ready to grab hold of them. And we were waiting for Brother Steve to come out and show us the promised land.

Well, we have seen the land of milk and honey now. Only I can't say that the milk is healthy for drinking and the honey would trigger my dumping syndrome, and I'm feeling at best some Christmas Let-Down.

It's not that the previewed products are bad. They're not. They're solid pieces of engineering. They're exciting. They're well designed. In short, they're Apple products.

They're just not products... well, for me. Or, for that matter, for most of the Apple faithful.

There was the usual "here's how much better business has been" gloating, and the obligatory Microsoft mocking (including yet another Mac vs. PC commercial -- which continues the odd but moderately delightful casting of the Macintosh as the somewhat staid straight man and the brilliant John Hodgman getting all the laughs as the PC. Frankly, the Mac's a better computer but I'd rather spend time with the PC.) And then we actually got to the new product announcements. The charting of the course for the year.

That course opened with the Apple TV -- a box that looks like a very thin Mac Mini. The device is designed for WiFi or network access, and it allows full on synchronizing with a Macintosh and streaming from up to five others. It then feeds that signal at 720 dpi into a widescreen television, letting you take all the video you suck down from the iTunes store and otherwise get it into iTunes and watch it on... well, your television.

And it looks good. That much is very, very true.

But... it requires component video or HDMI out, and a widescreen television to use. And... it has a 40 gig hard drive, which is smaller than my iPod Video currently has. The iPod Video I can put on a dock and watch on the television I already own, rather than necessitating me buying a new television.

Which doesn't make the Apple TV a bad product. It's not. It's really slick. But it's nothing that'll be in my life any time soon. For three hundred bucks I could get some pretty staggeringly cool video components for my current setup. And if I did get a new HD television, that money would probably go a lot farther towards grabbing a full PVR for it, instead of an interface for the more limited selection of video in my iTunes folder.

(I actually have a ton of video in my iTunes folder, but a plurality of it came from my Tivo, which means it's not high definition in the first place.)

But fine. A cool thing I can't use is still a cool thing, and it was clearly setting the stage for something amazingly cool.

Really.

In Apple's defense, it's a very nice cell phone.

It's called the iPhone, and it's been rumored approximately as long as there has been Apple and Cell Phones. It is a full on next generation Smartphone, which looks as easy to use as Apple products usually are. It has monumental integration with contact information, it's widescreen with a massively cool touchscreen interface -- it's absolutely the next generation of these things, and at four or eight gigabytes of storage--

Um...

Well, it'll replace your Nano, dagnabbit! And it's gorgeous and exciting, just plain working and blowing the socks off of any other phone in the room. Which is good, because it's as expensive as any phone in the room, with a two year commitment. But it deserves to be. Seriously -- this thing is just astounding.

But, it's exclusively on Cingular, and Cingular doesn't work all that well in these here parts, and I'm not going to pay that much money for something that might not work all that well for me. If I were in the big city, I'd think a lot harder about it -- it's that much the sex -- but right now it wouldn't make sense at a fifth the price, and I'm sure it wouldn't work financially for that amount of money.

Even if they worked well in my area, that is a lot of money, and while I have an iPod Video and a cell phone and a PDA, and this wouldn't cost as much as all three of those did... I already have an iPod Video, a cell phone and a PDA, and they're not going to give me my money back for those.

Okay. So there were two cool things -- and an intimation that Google and Apple were getting really cozy together, these days, and an announcement of Paramount coming to the iTunes store, which... um... well, cool, I guess. And then they had a musical number... but it was okay. They hadn't done "One More Thing." There was always "One More Thing" and it would blow everyone's socks off. Maybe it would be Leopard related, or a MacBook Tablet (though the new third party ModBook is poised to come out at least until the cease and desist). Or something.

But there wasn't. There wasn't one more thing. Except an annoucement, that Apple Computers was becoming Apple Incorporated. After all, they sold digital music, and music players, and phones, and consumer electronics. It doesn't make sense to call themselves a computer company any more.

And... that was it. A thing for the television, and a cell phone. No computer announcements. No Leopard update. No software update. No announcement that the Intel Adobe Creative Suite was about to come out....

...and here we were. At MacWorld Expo (not AppleWorld Expo), we had a couple of really cool consumer electronics announcements, and a musical number. The tone for the year has been set, and it ain't the Macintosh.

But in Apple's defense, it's a very nice cell phone.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:12 PM | Comments (32)

January 7, 2007

Eric: Erratatica!

I've had some interesting (and sometimes spirited) reaction to my recent City of Heroes post. I stand by it, but in writing, I let enthusiasm and memory guide my writing, and said memory failed me in a couple of areas. Areas which should be acknowledged and corrected.

For those who are new around these parts, when I need to issue a correction -- and it does come up -- I leave the original essay up. It seems to me that the nature of discourse requires we have our errors stay in the record.

The errors, it's worth noting, were not in the thesis. The core theses -- that Issue 8 was a superior edition to City of Heroes which both introduced great innovation and highlighted other innovations that have come along to distinction, leading to a revitalized game that deserves to be played -- I stand by without comment. The errors were in supporting materials.

Probably the most egregious was in terms of the various holiday events that have happened. I had forgotten that last year's winter event had temporary powers (including a really cool Jingle Rocket Flight Thingy, and yes indeed, a costume part) aplenty, for example. And I ascribed the first co-op Hero and Villain mission to the Halloween event, instead of to the Valentine's Day event from significantly earlier. The halloween event didn't have a co-op mission -- but it did have the ability to add a permanent costume slot to a character, which was a really cool perk.\

The reason this is important is twofold, really. One, because it again highlights that the innovations listed predated Matt Miller's heading of the development team. We need to remember that Jack Emmert initiated many if not most of the innovations that have revitalized the game that he was one of the core visionaries behind.

The second reason this is important, however, is it really does highlight the stronger public relations position the game is in now. I remember very clearly, when City of Villains was scant weeks before release. I was in the beta, and like most folks in the beta I loved City of Villains. There was a groundswell of excitement both for the expansion/new game, and for what it implied for the future of City of Heroes itself. (Things like Elite Bosses/Archvillain scaling, the more mature mission design, contacts who gave cell phone numbers early instead of late in a contact tree, and... well, Masterminds, which remain the coolest archetype ever. I still wait for the last to be ported in some fashion into City of Heroes -- perhaps by creating a 'duplication' powerset). There was some real, hardcore excitement.

Which is when "Enhancement Diversification" was first announced. And it was announced on the beta forum for City of Villains, where anyone who broke the NDA to tell the regular community about it would be subject to losing their beta status and very likely from City of Heroes entirely.

Naturally, someone immediately broke NDA. And a huge maelstrom burst. Now, I don't actually think the Cryptic team was trying to deceive anyone. I think they had decided the Enhancement Diversification scheme was the best thing for the game, and they were actually going to their beta testing community with it because they actually meant to... well, beta test it. However, the way it all went down made a lot of people angry and upset.

And it made them angry and upset just a few weeks before the first sequel game and/or paid expansion of the game came out. Scant weeks before they wanted people dropping money in stores -- and recouping a lot of investment and development costs -- their most devoted fanbase was, to be blunt, losing their shit.

That was, to put it mildly, a public relations problem. It got people angry when they wanted them frothing with excitement. And it was hardly an isolated incident.

Matt Miller, on the other hand, has built significant momentum and enthusiasm, both by having several successful big changes and events in a row, by teasing future upgrades and new elements ("oh, gosh, we accidentally turned the Wentworth's contacts on on the test server! How could we have so foolishly let people see these potential future plans that we're doing -- woe! WOE!")

Now, there's been problems too. Maybe most significantly, there have been some persistent bugs in the game. One of the most serious I'll quote from the Known Issues page:

Gauntlet and other Inherent Taunt powers currently do not effect Lieutenant, Bosses or Underling rank critters.

What this means is one of the lynchpins of team-based City of Heroes, the Tanker, has trouble with his most important power. Tankers are designed to absorb massive amounts of damage, so they have the power to attract the attention of the enemy, so that the squishier heroes can avoid being smacked around. Take those abilities away, when it comes to the most dangerous enemies, and that's a major problem. Heck -- one of the things I love in Veteran Rewards is the team base teleport, and I've been dumped out of it back to the zone I just left more than once.

But despite persistent issues, the majority of players seem to be pretty darn happy and excited about the future. Not blasé, not pissed off, not accusing the devs of immorality... happy and excited for the future.

That's public relations. And they're doing it well. And that's a good thing for this game.

Had I gotten the details right the first time around, that would have been made clearer.

(I also had a couple people point out I described the Event co-op missions as 'task forces,' which mean something quite different in the game, and I called the old Faultline a Hazard Zone instead of a Trial Zone. I regret those errors too,)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:44 PM | Comments (17)

January 3, 2007

Eric: Strange Homes, Strange Times

(From Home on the Strange.)

There's been plenty of discussion, over on the internet byways, about Questionable Content's core premise. The debate, simply put, is whether or not Questionable Content is specifically a romantic comic strip -- and whether the core relationship between Faye and Marten is the centerpiece of the strip -- or if the comic is a more general comic about a group of people and their various relationships and oddities. As late as last year at this time I would have solidly said it was the former. These days, I'm not as sure. Still, for a good number of Questionable Content's readers (and various obsessed thanksgiving turkeys), the question remains "when are Marten and Faye going to hook up/have sex/declare everlasting love."

I'm not here to talk about Questionable Content today. I realize that might be slightly confusing, but bear with me. You see, I'm here to discuss Home on the Strange. And it's hard for me to discuss Steinmetz and Pare's strip without at least having Questionable Content come to mind. Because if the central question of Questionable Content is "when are these two going to get together," the central question of Home on the Strange seems to be "when are these two going to break up already!?"

In this case, "these two" can refer to either of the major couples in the strip. Tom and Karla are the primary couple -- theirs is the home which is apparently on the strange. Izzy and Tanner are the other. Not long ago, I read a comment by Steinmetz about how Izzy and Tanner were the "more dysfunctional couple" of the two, and I agree with that -- but it's like saying a 36' sloop is "pricier" than a powerboat. That's very true, but that doesn't mean the powerboat's cheap. And you can't exactly call either relationship a pillar of understanding and stability.

Not, I hasten to add, that there is any problem with this. Home on the Strange is a strong strip and all the characters are believable. So don't take this as your old pal Eric panning a strip he in fact loves. I'm not. This is analysis. You remember that, right? I used to do that sort of thing, once upon a time....

Let's pause for a moment and examine how the two relationships are similar. Both involve a male and a female. In both cases, the woman has taken a dominant position -- this isn't absolute, mind, but it's persistent. In both relationships, the woman is setting the tone, the rules and the agenda. When the male is setting out on a misadventure of some sort, the woman is generally being indulgent (or finds out too late to do anything about it, which leads to the argument). When the woman sets out on a misadventure, it is generally against the advice and better judgement of the male. (In fact, more often than not, it's against the better advice of Tom, who has been generally cast as the sanest and most well adjusted of the characters -- the Mary Tyler Moore to Izzy, Karla, Tanner, and the rests' Ted Baxter, Murray Slaughter, Lou Grant et al.) Both use various geek reference points as channel markers, and both are largely based on sex.

But more about sex in a bit.

Finally, both are marked by a strong desire on the part of the woman in the relationship to have the world be the way she wants it to be, while both are also marked by a strong desire on the part of the man to have the woman be happy while actually living in the real world. Which is where we get to the nub of things.

This is actually best demonstrated between Karla and Tom -- the 'less dysfunctional couple.' Karla is a woman who sees the world dogmatically. She typifies a geek trope, actually -- she believes her opinions and experiences are natural laws. When she meets Izzy -- a "fellow nerd" as she puts it -- she proceeds to "pour all her favorite fandoms into her." It's a cute, funny and very real strip. I've seen the phenomenon between geeks many times... right down to "we do not talk about season five."

Which is the nub of Karla, in a way. She loves Babylon 5, but we do not talk about Season Five. The same with Buffy. She loves Buffy. She talks about Buffy constantly.And if you haven't seen Buffy, you will see Buffy. Karla's world is the way Karla wants it, and when it isn't the way Karla wants it, there's trouble.

Which is where a lot of the conflict of the strip comes in. Karla has a new friend, and she has a lonely friend in Tanner. So she sets them up (against Tom's advice). The date goes as badly as Tom thought it would, and it looked like Izzy was on her way out of the strip. Tom manages to patch things up.

Then, Karla wants Izzy involved in Seth's roleplaying game. Now, she doesn't acknowledge all the warning signs that Izzy isn't like her when it comes to roleplaying, because Karla can't comprehend that another girl gamer might not want what she wants from roleplaying. So once again, we hit disaster -- Izzy nearly destroys the campaign. (And naturally, it's Tom who saves it. See a trend? Thought you might!)

Izzy, on the other hand, is generally more than happy to live her own life and let Tanner live his -- so long as the terms of their life together are absolutely locked down. After their disastrous first date, Izzy declared they would never have a relationship. There was no romance. Now or ever. But, of course they could have sex. Eventually, they clearly settle into a committed relationship -- only Izzy refuses to admit there is a relationship. Eventually, this becomes problematic -- Tanner wants there to be something he can point to. Izzy simply doesn't. It leads to arguments which leads to problems. Now, obviously the last panel is the evocative one there, but the most significant panel of that strip, to my mind, is the third. Tanner says "oh! So you set all the boundaries in this? I don't get a say?" The answer, unstated, is of course yes. To the point that Izzy refuses to tell Tanner she's moving to a new apartment on the chance he might want to live together.

Which brings us inexorably to sex. Obviously, the one area where Tanner and Izzy do see eye to eye is sex, right now. And it's pretty straightforward. For Karla, on the other hand, sex is power.

And more to the point... sex is currency.

In its most benign form, sex becomes a reward. Tom saves Seth's RPG campaign, despite the fact that Seth is actively trying to sleep with Karla (which Karla apparently knows, which says something). He does it because it means a lot to Karla. So Karla rewards him with hot Cosplay sex. Which is successful. In fact, it seems pretty much always successful. (Possibly because Karla is absolutely attracted to Tom's conversational skills, as opposed to his body.) Later, Karla -- having learned absolutely nothing from her experience with Izzy and roleplaying -- wants Tom to teach Branch how to roleplay. Branch is a monotoned creepy girl and Tom knows this is a desperately bad idea, but Karla sees herself in Branch (see above: Karla sees her experiences as universal) and wants to draw Branch out, the way she wishes someone had drawn Karla herself out as a teenager. Tom absolutely refuses. As he says, there are limits, and she just hit them. The way Karla gets around it? Cosplay sex. I'm reminded of the old Berkshires circuit joke: a prostitute is a woman who has sex for money. A wife is a woman who has sex for a new refrigerator.

Well. In the last couple of weeks, we've absolutely hit pinnacle point with both of these relationships and all of these relationship trends. Tom is running a play by e-mail campaign with Branch, and Branch wants to go sexual. Tom is opposed to it. He knows this is a bad idea. Karla, still embodying herself in Branch's experiences, demands he go through with it -- to the point where she takes over writing the sex scenes to live out the fantasy. Only they learn that Branch is a virgin.

Tom freaks. This is way out of his comfort zone. He refuses. He knows this is a bad idea, and when Tom knows things like this, Tom is always right. Karla, on the other hand, is still convinced that this is a safe way to bring Branch out of her shell, and she continues to see herself in Branch, so she pushes. And when Tom doesn't budge, she uses sex to entice him once more.

Okay. Two things, before we go on.

First off? We already know that Branch has become romantically... let us say interested... in Tom. Not in the game, mind. In Tom. Which means yes -- Tom is right. This is absolute dynamite and Karla's lighting the fuse while smoking in a room full of gasoline. Which is not a complaint, mind -- we the readers are waiting patiently for the Earth Shattering Kaboom.

Secondly, however... this is staggeringly creepy. Think for a moment if Tom was the girl and Karla the man. Consider a wife being pressured to consent to explicit cybersex with someone she finds creepy and clingy and problematic by a husband who sees this in terms of a fantasy and who sees himself in the potential stalker? This would not be the adorable misadventures of a geek couple in an odd world, this would be grounds for the wife's friends offering to give her a place to stay until she can get her feet under her. I'm pretty sure Lifetime's done three or four movies on this topic. Pushing your mate past their comfort zone in sexual matters is never good. Pushing your mate past their comfort zone in sexual matters with someone outside the marriage is not cool, man. It's just not cool.

Over on the other side, Izzy has learned that Tanner continues to talk to the ex girlfriend who cheated on him. Now, let me open by saying Tanner's a fucking moron. I'm sorry, but if a person cheats on you multiple times, stiffs you on large amounts of money, and actively uses you, and you give that person any opportunity to continue to screw you over, you're an example of evolution in action and should not be permitted to breed. Please let us stipulate that before we move forward.

Izzy is not reacting as a friend who is concerned. She is acting as a girlfriend who is pissed off. She is demanding that Tanner not "keep secrets" from her. And when Tanner (rightfully) points out that she moved apartments without telling him, her response is "I never fucked my apartment!" When she continues to scream at him for "going behind her back," he answers that he thought they weren't dating, and is angrily told to "stop using my own logic against me!" It's all a very clear call back to the last argument. Izzy wants to set the boundaries. She wants to be able to live her life exactly as she's comfortable with. She wants Tanner to mold into that boundary without complain. And she doesn't want him to push those boundaries or set boundaries of his own. In particular, she wants him to act as a boyfriend would, without actually letting him even talk about her to others as a girlfriend.

And then goes on to talk about how she has decided what movies they're going to watch on Christmas, because after all this is setting a tradition for next year. And the readers start thinking expletives about this woman, while Tanner quietly -- veeeeery quietly -- rebels.

So.

Like I said at the top, this strip has become an interesting contrast to Questionable Content. Both strips are entirely about relationships and interpersonal interactions. Questionable Content's conflict and tension derives from wondering just how the romantic tension between the cast members will finally, ultimately resolve. Home on the Strange, on the other hand, has developed the opposing tension. We can see that these things aren't going to end well. There are going to be explosions, on all sides. Which could lead to severe ugliness.

And that's why we like this strip. It's one thing to rubberneck at a train wreck. It's another to watch two trains very slowly head for each other on the same track.

And you will note: Tom and Tanner can both see the trains coming.

Ain't that a kick in the head?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:29 AM | Comments (32)

January 2, 2007

Eric: Waking up from Slumberland: The End of Narbonic

(From Narbonic.)

Endings and beginnings. Narbonic is over.

We knew it was coming, of course. Shaenon Garrity never made any secret of the fact that she had a story to tell, in many chapters, and when it was done, it was done. And now that we're on the far side of it, we can have a reckoning.

And it was amazing, in these last several weeks, to have callbacks to references none of us ever considered appear. We met a time traveling daughter we never suspected was related to the cast in her two earlier appearances. And like a lot of Narbonic fans, the moment she made a reference to those two times, I tore through the archives until I found them. We had the swimming pool get filled, the future change, Dave go mad, and most horrifying of all Mell becoming a Lawyer.

This last bit of Narbonic, entitled "Genius," was not as frenetic or insane or action packed as... well, any of the chapters that came before. And this was fitting. "Madness," the arc that preceded it, was the climax of the series. It was where the basic conflicts came to a sudden, titanic conclusion. It was the end of the saga.

"Genius," on the other hand, was denouement. The end of the story. We tied up loose ends. We saw people actually moving on with their lives. We checked in with Mell, with Artie, with Lovelace, with Madblood (back, as always, at his mother's). We saw Dave, now through the painful and violent transition into true Mad Scientist, settle into his new existence. He got work, found purpose, found (fatherly) love, and went to make things right with Helen. It was a quiet story, with few explosions and no one dying on screen.

As said, it was appropriate.

The last strip was, as we have seen every New Year's Day since the beginning, Dave in Slumberland. This has always been one of the great strengths of Narbonic. Garrity is a true student of the art and history of comic strips, and these flights into the mind of Windsor McKay's Little Nemo in Slumberland have always been note-perfect and, with the strength of hindsight, eerily predictive of what was to come. Garrity has played a subtle game, and we feel all the more amazed to see she put every piece of the puzzle right out onto the table for us to see, and even gave us occasional walkthroughs to follow. And, as with all the Dave in Slumberland strips, we are given glimpses into the future. Only this time, it's a World According to Garp/Animal House style glimpse, where we're told bits and pieces of what happens to our heroes and the supporting cast over the coming years. (One of the pictures is an explicit shout-out to Animal House, in fact.) And it seems to me that everyone more or less gets what is coming to him or her.

Narbonic is over.

I feel an odd emptiness in typing that sentence. I've made no bones that Narbonic is my favorite comic strip. It got it right. It got everything right. It was well drawn (though Garrity begs to differ. Because she is wrong. With wrongness.) with a perfect blend of Story and Funny. It had astounding pacing, from one strip to the next. And yet, each strip's individual execution was crafted and superior. Garrity knows her trade and knows her craft and Narbonic is a master class in the art of the hand drawn, four panel comic.

Which leads us into our own future. Narbonic is over, so long live Narbonic: starting on the First, Narbonic: Director's Cut began. Taking a page out of Aerie's handbook, Garrity is now republishing Narbonic from day one, seven days a week, with commentary on each strip. And the first two strips have incredible commentary, including links, callbacks, references to her pre-Narbonic work, notes on who in her real life inspired what characters... I called Narbonic a master class before -- well, now we're getting the lecture notes.

And of course, when Queen of Wands did its commentary reposting, it was going from a 2-3 day a week strip to a 7 day a week strip, so it finished up in (relatively) short order. Narbonic has been seven days a week for... well, forever. Going back to the very first week of Narbonic strips, I see six strips and a full color Sunday strip. Which means that the six and a half years of Narbonic will take six and a half years to actually process through to the end of the director's commentary. That means that Narbonic: Director's Cut will live in my daily trawl until August of 2013 -- and since that's after the Mayan end of the world where the entire universe will collapse in on itself and we'll all become Orks and shit anyway, that essentially means forever, at least from my point of view.

And that's great. That's wonderful. I'm really looking forward to it.

And of course, Garrity is still writing Smithson and Li'l Mell, not to mention freelancing over at a little company called Marvel and editing Modern Tales. She's not going anywhere. I have no reason to feel badly. There's daily Narbonic, continuing Garrity writing... what else could I want?

And of course, the answer is "the next chapter of Narbonic." I want it so badly I can taste it. Or failing that, a sequel series full of the same joy. Maybe the adventures of Artie as he moves into the (banal) real world. Maybe a coffee shop banter series starring Caliban! I mean, Hell -- Questionable Content has snarky baristas, but Faye didn't actually fall from grace into the Pit of Hell in her last job, now did she? Or maybe a tight legal drama with pistols starring....

...but it's not happening.

Narbonic is over.

For the first time since September 3, 2004, I don't have an answer to the question "what is my favorite comic strip?" The dream's over.

Time to face the day.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:48 AM | Comments (27)

December 19, 2006

Eric: Download this book! Right now! Before it stops being free!

I am not in the habit of repeating things I see on boing boing. It's not because I have anything against boing boing. I don't. I enjoy pop culture tidbits, Cory Doctorow losing his shit about copyright, and Xeni Jardin writing about sex as the next person. However, typically I figure I don't need to repeat it. Most of you will have seen it anyway.

Well, I'm not taking it this time. For a limited time, John Hodgman's brilliant book, The Areas of My Expertise, is available on iTunes as an audiobook for free.

For free.

Guys, I paid for this audiobook on Audible.com, and it was worth every penny. It's one of the audiobooks I've listened to as I drive from New England to Ottawa and back, as I do every couple of weeks now that Weds lives up there. To see that it's free now is to say to me "Eric, you must tell the people of this glorious thing."

For those who don't know John Hodgman, shut up. Yes you do. He's the PC on the "Hi, I'm a Mac" ads. He's on the Daily Show. He's brilliant and funny and the audiobook is wonderful. But it doesn't have to be wonderful right now because it's God damn fucking free so download it already.

Whew.

In other news, read today's Something Positive, because holy Fuck.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:36 PM | Comments (42)

December 17, 2006

Eric: Script Format is kind of fun.

I'm not entirely sure what this post is.

It was born out of a couple of Aaron Sorkin parodies I'd seen, like Mad TV's Studio 69 on Van Nuys Boulevard or Kevin Levine's brilliant If Aaron Sorkin wrote a show about baseball. I was laughing about it with Weds, and said "I should write a script where Aaron Sorkin was writing about a webcomics collective."

And, since this has been a week where I've needed a diversion or two, I did.

Only I'm not sure what it is, in the end.

It's not a parody of Studio 60. If anything, it's a Sorkin satire. Only I caught myself trying to really catch his cadences. I caught myself trying to invoke what I really like about Sorkin.

Because despite everything, I do like Aaron Sorkin. On a recent episode, he had a subplot featuring two freshmen writers and the staggeringly brilliant Mark McKinney, and whenever they were on the screen, it was electric. It gave me hope. (There was also this subplot where we learn Harriet Hayes might be the most brilliant comedienne ever according to the show, but despite the fact that she does their Weekend Update pastiche -- an entire sequence where she does nothing but joke setup-punchline -- she is incapable of actually telling even the simplest knock knock joke in the world. It was a subplot meant to make Harriet endearing and instead makes us think she's got neurological damage and would never in a million years be hired for a comedy show, but I digress).

So... I'm not sure what the resulting three scene script is.

And as a result, I'm going to post it here. Behind a cut, as it's... well, huge.

Please enjoy Aaron Sorkin's Comicsense.com.

(Oh, and yeah -- I'm fully aware no actual webcomics collective would be organized like this. Cut me some slack. Sorkin writes about workplaces.)

AARON SORKIN'S

COMICSENSE.COM

[SCENE ONE: The metropolitan offices of Comicsense.com -- a webcomics collective fighting its way up the pack. The offices are full of desks and piles of clutter, made all the more chaotic by the lack of cubicles, walls or offices for the most part. There are several winding paths around the desks, drawing tables and production equipment. As we fade into the scene we see DANNY WALSH, Executive Producer in charge of web content. He is looking over a messy pile of printouts. Near him, two Administrative Assistants, CAROL and SHELLY, are waiting on his words.]

DANNY

Eight months Bobby's been drawing this thing and Hell if I understand what this strip is about.

CAROL

It's about a robot pirate captain.

SHELLY

I thought it was about the talking dog.

CAROL

The talking dog is comic relief.

SHELLY

The talking dog is comic relief?

CAROL

The talking dog is comic relief.

SHELLY

But he did that whole plotline where the talking dog met his parents.

CAROL

Did you notice the parents were talking dogs too?

SHELLY

Well, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

CAROL

I'm just saying -- they make such a big deal over the talking dog--

SHELLY

Well, it's not like you see them every day.

CAROL

But when his parents show up, everyone just accepts that they're also talking dogs.

SHELLY

What kind of parents would you expect a talking dog to have?

CAROL

My point is--

SHELLY

I mean, is it that they talk or they're dogs that has you in a tizzy.

CAROL

I'm not in a 'tizzy.'

SHELLY

You seem a little tizzed out.

CAROL

I just think that if they're surprised at one talking dog, they should be three times as surprised when they meet three.

SHELLY

Is the surprise cumulative?

CAROL

It seems like it should be.

SHELLY

Because after the first talking dog, I'd think you'd get jaded.

CAROL

I think I'd always be pretty impressed by dogs that talk.

SHELLY

The talking dog really isn't the main character?

CAROL

He's the comic relief.

DANNY

You two keep talking and talking but I still don't have any idea what this strip is about.

CAROL

A robot pirate captain.

SHELLY

With a talking dog.

DANNY

See, this is how wars break out.

[Danny hands the paper pile to Carol and begins to WALK TOWARDS CAMERA on a Steadicam shot. He is joined almost immediately by JAKE PARSONS, Editorial Director and writer of the hit Comicsense.com webcomic COFFEE SHOPPE. They WALK AND TALK as they weave between the desks.]

JAKE

I've lost it.

DANNY

You've lost it.

JAKE

I've lost it.

DANNY

You had it?

JAKE

Oh, I had it.

DANNY

But now?

JAKE

Not so much.

DANNY

What's the problem?

JAKE

I can't find the funny.

DANNY

You can't find the funny?

JAKE

I can't find the funny.

DANNY

How's the plot coming?

JAKE

I'm not doing plot today.

DANNY

You're taking a break from the plot?

JAKE

It's been plot heavy. I need a couple days.

DANNY

Away from the plot.

JAKE

I'm giving the readers a break.

DANNY

Easing back on the heavy.

JAKE

My audience likes to laugh.

DANNY

Everyone likes a few yuks at the end of the day.

JAKE

It's what makes me at the top of my game.

DANNY

Fifty thousand readers.

JAKE

Fifty thousand unique IPs.

DANNY

People from around the world.

JAKE

I get hits from Dubai.

DANNY

I've seen the webalizer stats.

JAKE

Presidential suite of the Burj al-Arab, they're trolling the archives.

DANNY

Sunnis like to laugh.

JAKE

That's a problem, though.

DANNY

'Cause you can't find the funny.

JAKE

I can't find the funny.

[The pair are joined by systems administrator SIMON FISHER, a somewhat geeky but oddly compelling figure. He is played by Joshua Malina.]

SIMON

I'm hearing an interesting buzz around the building.

DANNY

Yeah, that's the lights. We're having maintenance look at it.

SIMON

You're so funny! I have a hard time believing United Press Syndicate let you go.

DANNY

Well, you know. No one likes to laugh while wearing ties.

SIMON

The buzz is we're courting Pennyfarthing.

DANNY (snorts)

Yeah, and while we're wishing I'd like that Baron Karza I asked for when I was seven.

JAKE

I was more a Force Commander kind of guy.

DANNY

Force Commander was lame. He had handles on his cheeks.

JAKE

Those were air hoses. He had to breath in that helmet, you know.

SIMON

This is fascinating but let's get back to the subject at hand, shall we?

DANNY

Pennyfarthing.

SIMON

You know how many readers they have?

DANNY

Seven and a half million.

SIMON

Seven and a half million readers, Danny.

DANNY

Jokes about Super Mario Brothers never go out of style, do they?

SIMON

If you seriously court these guys, I gotta know about it, Danny.

DANNY

It's not gonna happen, Simon.

SIMON

Seriously. I have to know.

DANNY

Seriously, it's not gonna happen, Simon.

SIMON

I don't care how much of an ad buyer's dream they are. They're an IT nightmare waiting to happen.

DANNY

It won't happen in a million years, Simon.

SIMON

They update spot on at 11:27 in the morning three days a week.

JAKE

You can set your watch by them.

SIMON

By noon they've had millions of hits. They make servers sob like schoolchildren just by showing up on time.

DANNY

We're not getting them, Simon.

SIMON

They link to a website and it crashes, guys.

JAKE

Wait, what do they call that? They have a name for it--

DANNY

Sporking.

JAKE

Right! Because they did all those strips early on--

DANNY

The ones with the sporks, right.

SIMON

I'm serious, guys. We get these people they're gonna need a dedicated server. They might need dedicated bandwidth. We try to put them on our existing servers and our whole three-day lineup's going to hemmorage.

DANNY

Simon, listen to the words I'm saying. We're not going to get the Pennyfarthing guys. It's not gonna happen. There is no way in Hell Pennyfarthing is coming to Comicsense.com.

SIMON

I need a heads up if they're coming.

DANNY

They're not.

JAKE

I lost it, Simon.

SIMON

You lost it?

DANNY

Jake has just four hours to get a script to Dale or Dale won't have time to draw it and then half the United Arab Emirates won't have their morning Funny.

SIMON

Yeah, they're big comic strip fans over there.

[SIMON splits off from the pair as they continue WALKING AND TALKING.]

JAKE

We're getting Pennyfarthing, aren't we?

DANNY

I need to talk to Jubal about it.

[The pair are joined by MIRANDA CLAUSS, reporter for The Comics Informant.]

MIRANDA

You've been ducking me, Walsh.

DANNY

I wouldn't call it ducking you, Miranda.

MIRANDA

What would you call it?

DANNY

More of a sidestep, really.

MIRANDA

Joke all you want. The word on the street is--

JAKE

Wait, they're talking about us on the street?

DANNY

Actually, I think they actually draw the words on the street. Like, with chalk.

MIRANDA

You had seven cartoonists walk.

DANNY

It's the most exercise they've had in months.

MIRANDA

Laugh all you want, Danny. You lost Hinterlands, Sirocco, Furbridge Heights--

DANNY

Yeah, we "lost" Furbridge Heights.

MIRANDA

It's got a solid readership, Danny.

DANNY

And that fact scares me more and more every day.

MIRANDA

The furry community thinks you guys hate anthro comics.

DANNY

We... have that talking dog in Bobby's strip.

JAKE

Doesn't he just play second banana to the Robot Pirate Captain?

DANNY

There's some debate.

MIRANDA

Danny--

DANNY

His main character is a skunk/beaver crossbreed stripper, Miranda. This wasn't The Class Menagerie or Kevin and Kell. The only reason Furbridge Heights wasn't porn is because we told him we'd lose our Paypal rights if he crossed the line.

MIRANDA

And if you had The Class Menagerie or Kevin and Kell, Furries wouldn't care, but you don't. So they just know that you had a solidly read Furry comic, and he walked. Along with six other people.

DANNY

It happens. We have churn.

MIRANDA

You're not upset?

DANNY

Why should I be upset?

MIRANDA

The Alexa stats on Hinterlands alone--

DANNY

Oh, don't tell me you buy into Alexa rankings.

MIRANDA

It's an independent website that gives you a solid indicator of--

DANNY

It's a sham, Miranda. Pure and simple. It's not a representative sample of anything. It doesn't use statistical modeling or selection criteria or anything else. It only includes those people who actually download the Alexa toolbar. It doesn't include Mac users or Linux users because it's for Windows only. It doesn't even include Firefox users. If you want to measure impact on the web, use Google PageRank. Or Technorati. Hell, check Bloglines but don't shove an artificial "ranking" down my throat because it sounds good.

MIRANDA

So. You're saying Hinterlands wasn't a popular webcomic?

DANNY

...it was popular enough.

MIRANDA

So. You're not upset that seven popular comics left, regardless of whether or not you liked them.

DANNY

Jesus and Mary Chain, Miranda -- of course we're upset. Of course we want those strips. Of course we want their audiences looking at our ads and going to our online store. But they felt they could do better on their own, and I'm not going to trash them in your magazine just because of that. I hope they do better on their own.

MIRANDA

Commendable.

DANNY

We try.

MIRANDA

Will you be that philosophical if Debbie takes Fishtails to the Houghton/Wilkes Syndicate?

[JAKE stops walking, prompting the other two to follow suit.]

JAKE

Debbie's doing what?

DANNY

Oh, Hell.

JAKE

Debbie's considering a newspaper jump?

DANNY

Thank you, Miranda. Like Jake wasn't heading to a nervous breakdown to begin with.

[JAKE crosses OFF stage left]

JAKE

Excuse me.

DANNY (shouted after Jake)

Don't lose focus! Fifty thousand expatriate Iranians need their Funny!

JAKE (shouted from off camera)

Whatever!

MIRANDA

I thought those two broke up.

DANNY

You'd actually have to start dating before you could break up.

MIRANDA

Are you guys getting Pennyfarthing?

DANNY (crossing off)

Oh, leave me alone.

[SCENE 2: One of several art studios in the building. This is DEBBIE DAWSON'S space. The area is cluttered with art supplies of all varieties -- pencils and pens and easels, of course, but also brushes and paints and watercolors. A powerful Apple computer sits on the desk, silently earning us product placement money. DEBBIE DAWSON is there -- a twenty-eight something perky artist with cascading blond hair and a cheerful attitude. As she sits and painstakingly draws a line, her door is slammed open and JAKE storms in, causing her pencil to skid.]

JAKE

Are you out of your mind?

DEBBIE

That was two hours of work, Jake!

JAKE

Are you out of your mind?!

DEBBIE

Two hours I can't get back! I have deadlines too, you know.

JAKE

When were you going to tell me about this?

DEBBIE

Some of us actually draw our own strips, you know? We don't spend all day frittering away--

JAKE

When were you going to tell me about this?!

[DEBBIE turns away, uncomfortable]

DEBBIE

...I don't know what you're talking about.

JAKE

Houghton/Wilkes, Debbie?

DEBBIE

Jake--

JAKE

Houghton/Wilkes, Debbie?!

DEBBIE

Yes, Jake. Houghton/Wilkes. The Houghton/Wilkes Newspaper Syndicate. I'm having discussions--

JAKE

You're doing a newspaper jump.

DEBBIE

I'm having discussions with their editorial board.

JAKE

You're not going to do this.

DEBBIE

I think that's my decision to make, Jake.

[JAKE stares at DEBBIE a long moment, then walks to one side, looking at a framed strip on the wall.]

DEBBIE

You know, some of us didn't start all this out of some dream of redefining the world of online distribution, Jake. Some of us fell in love with comic strips in the newspaper. We read Bloom County and Calvin and Hobbes and fell in love with the form. And we dreamed about the day when we could open the newspaper and see our strip there.

JAKE

Sandwiched at 40 LPI between Beetle Bailey and Hagar the Horrible.

DEBBIE

Not all newspaper comics are Beetle Bailey or Hagar the Horrible.

JAKE

And none of Houghton/Wilkes's strips are Bloom County or Calvin and Hobbes.

DEBBIE

Jake--

JAKE

We have a responsibility, Debbie. In fact, more than we, you have a responsibility--

DEBBIE

A responsibility to who, Jake? Fishtails is a good strip. I want people reading it. Houghton/Wilkes is going to put it in a hundred papers to begin with. They're talking about print collections. Collections sold in Barnes and Noble, not just on the Comicsense.com website.

JAKE

Where they can sit between fourteen Garfield collections and seven Foxtrot collections.

DEBBIE

Alphabetically they would come before Foxtrot.

JAKE

Trust me. Bill Amend trumps the alphabet.

DEBBIE

Jake--

JAKE

You have a responsibility to those who came before us, Debbie. To Al Capp and Walt Kelly. To Charles Schulz and Chester Gould.

[JAKE turns to face DEBBIE, slowly advancing as he speaks.]

JAKE

Comic strips used to be epic, Debbie. They used to be the playground of Windsor McKay and Segar and Hal Foster. Flash Gordon wasn't a movie or a movie serial, Debbie -- it was a comic strip. This is the form of Terry and the Pirates. Look at Blondie in the thirties and then look at it last week, and you tell me you want to be in the newspaper.

[The pair lean close, suggesting a kiss.]

JAKE

You're a foot more talented than any of us, Debbie. Fishtails is the real deal. Of course Houghton/Wilkes wants it. But they don't really want it, Debbie. They don't want your grand stories or your edge. They want a family friendly version of it. They want the version that would come after their editorial board gets done with it. Your gay characters would lose their teeth. Your wit would be blunted. You'd be just another flash in the pan strip that they'd announce and trumpet and then would vanish. You'd appear in a hundred newspapers and then you'd be in fifteen papers after people complained that Luann got cut to make room.

DEBBIE

For Better or For Worse has edge. The Boondocks has edge.

JAKE

They're not Houghton/Wilkes either.

[DEBBIE looks away, at the wall of cartoons.]

DEBBIE

Bloom County was in a thousand newspapers, Jake.

JAKE

Opus is in two hundred, and you're not Berke Breathed.

[DEBBIE turns back to face JAKE.]

DEBBIE

So I spin my wheels here?

JAKE

You're not spinning your wheels.

DEBBIE

Jake--

JAKE

You're not spinning your wheels. You have three hundred and fifty thousand people show up to read you every day. You quit your day job to do this. You have a rabid fanbase. You have awards. And you're going places. You're going to break through. There's going to be animated specials. There's going to be collections in Barnes and Noble. Collections where you get the lion's share of the royalties -- not a syndicate and not even ComicSense. And one day you will be in newspapers, but you'll hold onto your web rights and your merchandising rights and your control over your own property. You're going to do it. Don't grab a third rate newspaper syndicate with a fourth rate deal. Don't give up your merchandise and your freedom. Not for these guys.

[The two look at each other for a long moment.]

DEBBIE

I hate you.

JAKE

I'm comfortable with that.

DEBBIE

I have a deadline.

JAKE

Me too. People in Dubai are yearning for my wit.

DEBBIE

Someone would have to be.

[JAKE turns and walks out. DEBBIE watches him go, then slowly smiles, very slightly.]

[SCENE THREE: Musical cue: "Take a walk on the wild side." The office of JUBAL GREEN, elder statesman of comics and the principal investor and chairman of ComicSense.com. He is gruff, but speaks with wisdom. DANNY enters through the door, knocking on the frame.]

DANNY

Are you aware that they're reading Coffee Shoppe in Dubai?

JUBAL

I suppose that explains all the burka related fan mail Jake and Dale get.

DANNY

Seriously. The webalizer stats--

JUBAL

Webalizer tracks location based on domain name. The domain name for the United Arab Emirates is dot ae. What happened is someone, probably in America, came up with a domain name that dot ae suits, and they registered with whoever owns the rights to dot ae. Some firm in Qatar gets twenty bucks, some guy on the web owns the rights to 'titan.ae,' and Jake--

DANNY

--has readers in Dubai.

JUBAL

That's right.

DANNY

Only not really.

JUBAL

That's right.

DANNY

Okay.

JUBAL

You didn't come into my office to talk about Jake's stats.

DANNY

No.

JUBAL

Mind telling me why you did come into my office?

[DANNY looks off to the side.]

DANNY

Pennyfarthing.

JUBAL

I've been hearing rumors.

DANNY

You and everyone else.

JUBAL

You made them an offer?

DANNY

They made us an offer.

JUBAL

They made us an offer.

DANNY

Yeah.

JUBAL

Pennyfarthing made us an offer.

DANNY

Pennyfarthing made us an offer.

JUBAL

I'm listening.

DANNY

They're sick of bandwidth bills, their sysadmin is in the extended process of flaking on them... they want to get out of the business of running a comics website and into the business of exploiting their brand.

JUBAL

What's the deal on the table?

DANNY

Eighty percent of ad buys, reduced Comicsense.com branding on the site -- though we can do the linkbox -- merchandise in our store but book collections through their guy. And they would comp us nine designed banner ads, so we could get their look and feel in targeted advertising.

JUBAL

Have you talked with Simon about this?

DANNY

He caught me in the hall. We'd need a dedicated server. Probably manage the bandwidth. He says it's an IT nightmare but you know Simon. He kind of lives for IT nightmares.

JUBAL

So what needs to be done?

DANNY

Nothing.

JUBAL

Nothing?

DANNY

Nothing.

JUBAL

Everything's been done?

DANNY

Nothing's been done. I'm passing on the deal.

[JUBAL leans back. He doesn't look surprised. DANNY is slightly nervous, not looking directly at JUBAL.]

JUBAL

The most popular webcomic in the history of webcomics offers to come over to our website, and you're passing on the deal.

DANNY

Yeah.

JUBAL

And that's why you came to my office.

DANNY

No, I came to your office so you could fire me.

JUBAL

For passing on Pennyfarthing.

DANNY

Yeah.

JUBAL

Why?

DANNY

'Cause Pennyfarthing is a slam dunk. We get them, we shoot past Keenspot and Modern Tales. We reverse the trend away from online syndicates and towards online guilds. We wipe the bad press for losing seven creators in the last week, and we replace a contentious furry fanbase for Furbridge Heights with seven and a half million gamers. Of course you need to fire me for saying no.

JUBAL

No. I mean why did you pass on Pennyfarthing?

DANNY

For the same reason Debbie needs to pass on Houghton/Wilkes. It's a dream deal but it's not a good deal.

JUBAL

I'm listening.

DANNY

We bring in Pennyfarthing, and they become the eight hundred pound gorilla. We have to rededicate a majority of our press and advertising to them. Getting the message that they're part of Comicsense.com. Their deal would be better than what we give anyone else, which would breed discontent in the creator pool. Discontent that would only be increased by the staggering degree to which Pennyfarthing would overshadow everyone else on the site.

JUBAL

We could manage that.

DANNY

Maybe, but that's not the whole of it. Editorially, they're just not a good fit.

[DANNY turns to face JUBAL, walking towards the desk.]

Pennyfarthing reaches gamers. It's a niche we barely scratch, and on one level getting them would be good. We'd get some percentage of them reading our comics. But on another level, most of them wouldn't be interested in Coffee Shoppe or Hybrid Deal. Pennyfarthing just isn't like our lineup, and we can't expect a huge crossover appeal from their readers.

JUBAL

We would get some of them. And some of seven and a half million--

DANNY

Sure, but there's a downside to that. We'd also get buried under an avalanche of trolls and dicks. Fractions of men who hide behind an internet login and spew over everything they see.

JUBAL

Danny, I don't care what their rep is. The vast majority of Pennyfarthing readers are perfectly nice and responsible internet citizens.

DANNY

Yeah, but a certain percentage of all internet fandoms are mouth breathers who think this whole thing is a video game and that winning comes through slash and burn. Apply that percentage to Pennyfarthing's readership and you get a number close to Comicsense.com's whole current readership. All people who take delight in hitting forums and messageboards for webcomics they hate and turning them into steaming piles of crap. And they'd hate most of our comics.

JUBAL

And you figure all this means I should fire you?

DANNY

Seems like it.

JUBAL

Is that why United Press Syndicate canned your ass?

DANNY

It... might have something to do with it, yeah.

JUBAL

And you don't credit me with being smarter than United Press Syndicate? Danny -- what was the most significant comic strip to come out of the thirties and forties?

DANNY

Li'l Abner.

JUBAL

What about the fifties?

DANNY

Peanuts.

JUBAL

The sixties?

DANNY

Pogo.

JUBAL

The seventies?

DANNY

Doonesbury.

JUBAL

The eighties?

DANNY

Lemme jump ahead here. The eighties was Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County and The Far Side, in kind of a three way race. And the nineties was Dilbert. Why?

JUBAL

Just this. What's the most significant newspaper comic strip of the past six years, Danny?

DANNY

I... don't really know. I'm not sure it's been figured out, yet.

JUBAL

We're six years into the decade, and you're an expert in comic strips, and you don't know which comic strip is the most significant of the decade?

DANNY

Well... yeah. I mean, the Boondocks got a deal at Adult Swim, but--

JUBAL

But nothing. The newspapers are dying, Danny. It'll take decades, but they're going the way of eighteenth century pamphlets. For a while, the only reason half the newspapers in this country were being sold was the comics page. Now, that's not a compelling reason any more. We're in the wild times now, Danny. It's chaos. And if comic strips cling to newspapers, the form will die with them.

DANNY

Comic strips aren't dying, Jubal. There's... like a billion of them right now.

JUBAL

That's right. On the web. Where we are. It's a crazy time. An exciting time. An explosive time. But it's fragmented, right now. No one webcomic -- not Pennyfarthing, not PvP, not Something Positive or anything else has taken the cultural place of a Li'l Abner in America, because no one knows where to go. No one knows where the really good webcomics are. The independents thrive on word of mouth. The first generation of online syndicates grabbed every strip with an audience they could get. Or they went the other way, and went so idiosyncratic only the intellectuals or the gamers wanted to read them. The one way an online syndicate can really thrive and flourish is through editorial standards, Danny. If they grab strips with the broadest appeal, that fit together into a cohesive comics page, representing the spectrum of comics while remaining consistent in quality, the word will get out. People will begin to gravitate to that syndicate. The publishing world will see them as professionals. The reading public will ee them as a gateway to good comics.

[JUBAL leans forward.]

JUBAL

That's where we're headed, Danny. I don't know if Comicsense.com will become that portal. I do know that the only chance we have is if we make hard decisions. Professional decisions. We need to say 'this is a good strip, but it doesn't fit our site, and we pass.' That's why I hired you, Danny. I need someone who can look the single most popular webcomic's creators in the eye and say "I'm sorry. You don't fit."

[DANNY looks away, smiling a hint.]

JUBAL

What's the PR fallout look like?

DANNY

The rumors are out there. I'm saying there's no chance Pennyfarthing would come to our site.

JUBAL

What are the Pennyfarthing guys going to do?

DANNY

They're going to have to address the rumors, and keep their street cred. I expect they're gonna make fun of us.

JUBAL

Sooner rather than later?

DANNY

I'd bank on it.

JUBAL

And they'll link to us in the bargain?

DANNY

Seems like they generally do.

JUBAL (smiling)

Then you might want to let Simon know that at 11:27 tomorrow, we're going to be having a few hundred thousand guests show up.

DANNY

Seems likely.

JUBAL

Now get the Hell out of my office. Some of us have work to do.

[The camera pulls back. The music swells up, taking center stage, in time for Lou Reed to sing: Jackie is just speeding away/Thought she was James Dean for a day/Then I guess she had to crash/Valium would have helped that bash/Said, Hey babe,Take a walk on the wild side.]

[Fade to black and EXEC. CREDITS, as the song continues: I said, Hey honey/Take a walk on the wild side/and the coloured girls say/doo do doo do doo do do doo....]

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:22 PM | Comments (61)

December 13, 2006

Eric: An unreasonably warm rain

It is a rainy day in New Hampshire. Rainy and unseasonably warm. Yesterday, I had been in Maine with my family, and my sister had been looking through the newspaper for the week's upcoming weather. "They say it's going to be unreasonably warm," she said, misreading. It got a laugh. Perhaps you had to be there.

We had gotten together the night before, because that's what you do when someone passes away. The family gathers. We felt oddly, more than anything. We had known that Grammie would die, sooner or later. She had been in decline, mentally, for many years, to the point where she couldn't walk or speak, though her body remained healthy. Healthy for a 96 year old, anyhow. It had turned into staying overnight, and then getting up the next morning and doing many things. For one, I hadn't had a chance to view the body. If I didn't attend to it that day, I wouldn't have another opportunity, and it was important to me.

That was yesterday. Today, it was raining. And it did indeed seem unreasonably warm.

Death is too much with us.

---

It was midday when I got pinged by a friend. Not the kind of friend who reads Livejournal, mind. Or at least, not my Livejournal. He didn't know about any recent events in my life, or the extended life of my family. He didn't read the Portland Press Herald either. He didn't see the notices -- not even the paper's story declaring my grandmother the "featured obituary of the day," which made us all pretty happy. He didn't read the actual obituary we put together, my mother, my sister and myself, bouncing wording back and forth...

Madeleine Ames Chicoine
WINDHAM -- Madeleine passed away peacefully Dec. 11, 2006. She was born March 26, 1910, the daughter of Forest J. and Lizzie (Mann) Marsh in North Gorham, Maine.
She attended schools in North Gorham and graduated from Windham High School in 1928. In 1929 she married Philip L. Ames of Windham. They eventually moved to Portland where they resided until Philip's death in 1960.

"Martin Nodell died," my friend told me.

"I know. I'd heard." I was a bit absent as we spoke.

"I thought maybe you'd write about it. You write nice remembrances."

"Do I?" I thought about my mother, my sister and I , talking about the right wording, trying to distill Grammie's life appropriately. Succinctly.

"Yeah. I mean, he was a big deal. I mean, he wasn't a big deal, but he should have been."

"This might not be the right week for it," I said, not wanting to seem insensitive.

"He created Green Lantern, you know. The original. Alan Scott."

I allowed as I did know.

"You know, you never wrote about Dave Cockrum either," he said. "That surprised me. I mean, you're such a Legion fan and all."

"It's been an odd time," I said. "I've been tired, and busy."

"Yeah, well. I was just surprised is all. I wanted to see what you'd say about them."

"Them?"

"Cockrum and Nodell."

"Oh."

"They deserve notice," he persisted. "Don't you think they deserve notice?"

Twenty four hours before, we stood in the family home on the lake -- the property I grew up visiting my grandmother on. It was bitterly cold inside the house, where the heat and lights were off, a mute testament to its unoccupied state. "It's colder in a barn than out," Mom said. I stood in the house while my mother and sister were looking over clothing. We needed to find something appropriate for Grammie. Well, they did. Dad was downstairs, putting the electricity on so we could get some lights. And I was wandering, a little bit. Looking around.

"Yeah," I answered in the here and now. "They deserve notice."

Madeleine was an energetic homemaker and dedicated gardener. Within her community she was a Cub Scout den mother, a member of the PTA and the Deering Band Mothers Club, and a founding member of the Suburban Club. Her children grown, she worked over the years as a clerk and manager at Len Libby's, Sears, and several other retail stores.

The Golden Age Green Lantern stood out, even among the lurid heroes of the Justice Society of America. His story was lush and rich -- Alan Scott, broadcaster, had his life saved by a magical lantern, carved from the stone of the Starheart into first an ancient lantern, then recarved into a train lantern by a man suffering from brain damage. Three times the Starheart burned. Once to bring death. Once to bring life. And once to bring power. Alan Scott was the recipient of that third fire -- a fire that became the light of the Green Lantern. He wielded that flame through a mystic ring that gave him almost unlimited power. Only the natural world -- in particular, plants and wood -- was impervious to the power of the Green Lantern.

I remember my first encounter with the Green Lantern. It was at my cousin Cory's house. He had a comic book which featured "two classic stories of the Golden Age Green Lantern." On the cover, the Hal Jordan Green Lantern was looking with shock and amazement at the scenes of his Earth-2 predecessor -- no doubt to remind the reader that yes indeed, this was Hal Jordan's comic book. We're just bringing you a different Green Lantern this month.

I was maybe five. Maybe six. I don't remember. I had never seen Hal Jordan before. I didn't bother to pay attention to the guy in the body stocking on the cover. Instead, I read the comic. Read about Alan Scott. Read about the Green Lantern. In the end, he'll always been the real one, to me. Oh, I loved the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. I loved the Green Lantern Corps, the neoLensman aesthetic brought to the concept's redesign in the Silver Age. Green Lantern was cool.

But Alan Scott was more than cool. He had character. He had texture. He was mysterious, and his ring was amazing.

There was comic relief in those comics, too. "Doiby Dickles," a cab driver, palled around and cracked wise. I was never a huge fan of Doiby, I'll admit. But then, Doiby didn't come from Martin Nodell. He was created by the writer who worked with Nodell during Nodell's tenure -- a man named Bill finger -- and a subsequent artist called Irwin Hasen. When Nodell drew his mythic mystery man, he meant there to be mystery alongside the action.

My father, in one of our earliest discussions of comic books, knew from the Alan Scott Green Lantern. He remembered the Green Lantern Oath. I think it helped connect us in an early age. I think I felt like Alan Scott belonged to our family -- we remembered him. Not Hal Jordan. The real Green Lantern.

When Martin Nodell was pitching his idea for a new comic to various authors, Madeleine Ames, nee Marsh, was living in Portland, Maine, in the Deering neighborhood. She was raising her family and making her home. She seemed tireless to those who saw her. She was involved in her community, in her schools, in the lives of those around her. Having come of age during the Depression, she never wasted a thing. She was neat as a pin, a lover of life and of dance and of music, but always with a sense of decorum. Always with a sense of propriety. Her husband, my genetic grandfather, was Philip Ames -- a watchmaker.

Among the effects collected from the nursing home on Monday was a photograph of Philip Ames. It showed him at a worktable, looking up. It is essentially the only impression I have of him -- he passed away eight years before I was born. Hard at work, looking up to have his photograph taken. A kind face. A dedicated face. Along the bottom of the picture is a note in pencil, indicated it was taken while he worked for Carter Brothers, a jeweler in Portland.

Along the top, my grandmother had written, very precisely, "how I loved him so."

In 1969, Madeleine married Donald Chicoine of Livermore. Upon his retirement, and until Don's death in 2000, the couple traveled the United States and Europe, summered in the family home on Sebago Lake, and wintered in the home Madeleine built in Nokomis, Florida.

My earliest memory of the property I mentioned above was even older than that first time I saw a Green Lantern comic book. I was... man, maybe three years old? And I remember a piano.

It was a toy piano, of a style no longer made, but once desperately common. It looked like a miniature grand piano, and all the keys worked, causing tinny little notes to play. It was exactly the kind of toy piano Schroeder had in Peanuts. I loved Schroeder, with the kind of irrational fixation that three year olds get, and I had declared I loved "Beeth-oven," pronounced as it was written, which is to say pronounced wrongly.

At "White" Grammie's, there was that piano, and it was enthralling.

She was called White Grammie not as a statement on my Grandmother Burns, but because she had a white topped car. My sister, who at the time was very little herself -- I hadn't been born yet -- could only distinguish between the two grandmothers by fixing on that detail. The white car Grammie. White Grammie. By the time I could distinguish between words, it was a given in our house. There was Grammie Burns, and there was White Grammie. I'm not sure I knew her married name was Chicoine for quite a few years.

That piano stood out in my memory. It was distinctive and exciting to me, and I loved playing it. One trip to their house was bitterly disappointing to me, because the piano had disappeared. "Oh, we couldn't find it," I was told. It may have been so. It may also have been that White Grammie and Grampa Don simply decided that listening to five hours of a three year old hammering on the keys of a toy piano was too much to bear. In either case, it was much, much later that the piano would be found again.

I remember that piano, and I remember oatmeal cookies. Grammie always had oatmeal cookies. And I remember a series of candlesticks she had that had prisms hanging off them like icicles. Sitting in the window, they caught the sun. I remember lying on her carpet, not far from a Parcheesi set, looking at the pools of rainbow cast by the prisms.

And I remember Grampa Don, an amiable man with precise hands and a warmth of spirit. A man who used to craft little people and animals from seashells he would gather during their winters in Florida. A man who was quiet, but always so gentle and loving.

And I remember Grammie.

In a way, she defined dignity to me. A woman who always had control over her environment, Grammie worked hard to make it seem like she didn't need to work at all. Gatherings became catered affairs in Grammie's kitchen, always seeming effortless on her part. She could take little and make gold from it -- I remember treats she would make with the leftover pie crust dough she would roll out. She would bake them, seasoning and spicing them, and creating little cookies from those leavings called chiggers which I generally liked more than the pies themselves. Pies were heavy, and even though Grammie made a wonderful pie, those chiggers were like crisp heaven on a plate.

But no matter how busy Grammie had been, no matter how much she worked, she was always dressed impeccably. She generally had on jewelry or a brooch or a silhouette. Her hair was always perfect, as near as I could tell. She spoke quietly, but with firmness, and she expected to be heard and listened to. And you did. You just naturally did.

During these years and times, Dave Cockrum was working in comics. In fact, he was directly responsible for two out of the three biggest success stories in the comics of the seventies, eighties and beyond. He was working at DC, redesigning the Legion of Superheroes, and following his designs over the next several years the Legion went from a backup story first in Adventure and then a sideline to Superboy and into the single most popular comic being published. Until the eighties and the heydey of the Teen Titans and the X-Men, the Legion ruled the roost, and it was largely the new costumes that Cockrum (and to a lesser extent, Mike Grell) put the team into. He took them out of their Adventure-era sixties jumpsuits and costumes, born of the Jet Age and swiftly becoming dated, and ushered them into an era of plunging necklines, nearly nude women and pony-tails. His costume design for Phantom Girl remains the best she has ever looked. His design for Lightning Lad is still the costume most associated with the character -- the costume that appears on the new cartoon series today.

Some of the designs he made for new Legionnaires never got brought into the comic book, though. Instead, they came with him when he crossed the street and helped design the all new X-Men. Characters like Nightcrawler, Storm and Colossus were wholly created, visually, by Cockrum. He was the first artist on the new X-Men, outlasting his co-creator Len Wein (who left the series after just an issue and a half) and collaborating with Chris Claremont, the writer still most associated with the Mutant team.

Between the Legion and the X-Men, Cockrum was strongly responsible for some of the most popular comics of the past forty years. His designs made DC and Marvel countless amounts of money. His costume and character designs fueled merchandizing that still goes on today.

"You know," I said to my father, as I looked through the cupboards of the house, just yesterday. "There should be oatmeal cookies in the cupboard."

There weren't, of course. Grammie hadn't lived there for many years. As she had gotten older, her body had remained healthy but her mind had slowly slipped. Dementia, it was called -- not Alzheimer's, or so I have been told, but I couldn't tell you the distinction. While Grampa Don was alive, he could help keep care of her, even as she declined, but when he died almost seven years ago there was no real way she could continue to live on her own. It couldn't be done. So her children found the very best homes available -- places where real love and affection went into elder care. And they stayed involved in her life. My Aunt Dona, who lives in California, flew out several times a year and spent all the time she could visiting. My Uncle Alan saw to her needs, and my mother saw to her affairs.

During the time, other folks lived in and stayed in the buildings on the property. When my sister and her children moved east, she lived there for several months while getting her new home squared away. My whole family goes there during the summer, to enjoy the lake and the company. What food was in the cupboards were artifacts of those visitations. Dog biscuits (most of my family is beholden to dogs) and staples. Crackers. Sugar, sealed away against the elements.

But no oatmeal cookies.

"I guess she hadn't had oatmeal cookies here for a while anyway," I said. "Even when she was here. I don't think she got out to the store much when she still lived here."

"Don't worry," my mother said. "I kept her in cookies."

As a lifelong Democrat, Madeleine had a strong commitment to charities and causes dedicated to relieving suffering and uplifting the human spirit.

Martin Nodell was largely forgotten. I'd seen many publications claim the Green Lantern had been created by Gardner Fox or Alfred Bester (who did create the Green Lantern Oath, or so they say). Or Bill Finger, who certainly gave him his voice, though the creation was really Nodell's. Or else they mention John Broome and Gil Kane or even Julie Schwartz, confusing Hal Jordan with the creation of the Green Lantern. Nodell was an afterthought. A footnote. The kind of fact people like me came up with so we could sound superior on Internet message boards.

But Nodell was perfectly happy with his role in comic book history. He did conventions as late as last year. He had left comics early on, and had gone on to do commercial illustration and advertising. It was later in life that he really realized that an entire subculture revered his contributions, and he gradually embraced that subculture and enjoyed his part in it.

Dave Cockrum wasn't forgotten, but he wasn't remembered as he should have been. The Legion renaissance was credited primarily to Paul Levitz (and later to Levitz and art collaborator Keith Giffen, who did another redesign of the 30th Century in the 80's, and then an ill-advised grim and dark redesign in the late 80's moving into the 90's). The X-Men, even though Cockrum was the principle artist for several years before and then after, were really credited to Chris Claremont and John Byrne. (Which is a real shame, as that credit fed Byrne's legendary ego -- and for my money Byrne was never as good a draftsman as Cockrum.)

But Cockrum was a dynamic force in comics all the same. He adored them. He ate and drank them. The night he passed away, he was wearing Superman Pajamas and sleeping under a Batman blanket. In an odd synchronicity, he was to be cremated while wearing a Green Lantern Tee Shirt. Cockrum legitimately loved comics, in all their manifestations.

Nodell died because that's what happens to 91 year old artists. Cockrum died much much younger, at 65, due to complications and health problems stemming from diabetes.

Madeline Chicoine, my grandmother, was 96 years old, going on 97. I don't know if she ever actually read a comic book in her life.

But she understood heroes. And she understood that we have to carry heroism in ourselves, every day. She gave substantially (not that she had tremendous resources to begin with) to charities. In particular, she supported Opportunity Farm -- a home for at-risk children who have nowhere to turn. She couldn't bear the thought of kids having nothing and nowhere to go, and she felt passionately that they needed to be given a chance. She was the sort of person who would cry while watching the news, because she couldn't bear to think of such suffering. But she never felt that suffering just had to be endured. She believed -- she truly believed -- that each and every one of us had the capacity to relieve the suffering of others and make the world a better place, and that with the capacity came the responsibility to act on it.

In the attic of the home she once lived in, while my sister and mother looked over clothing, I noticed white out of the corner of my eyes. I leaned down, and moved a magazine off a pile, and saw the toy piano. Easily thirty-five years old, that piano was, made out of wood painted black -- a black that was peeling and fading in places. I plunked my finger down on three of the keys, and heard it ring out, and for the first of three times yesterday I cried.

Madeleine is survived by her children, Dona (Ames) and Elton Clark of Glendale, Calif., Alan and Edie Ames of East Sebago, and Dian (Ames) and Roland Burns of Standish; her grand and great-grandchildren, David Clark; Suzanne, Steven, Catie and Will Sanchez; Brian, Angie, Taylor, Owen and Hailey Clark; Laurel, Gary, Christy and Tim Webber; Alan and Ann Ames; Peter, Alice, Brittany and Matthew Ames; Bill, Kyle, Caleb and Elise Bourassa; Kristan, Hilary and Hadley Gibson; and Eric Burns; beloved nieces and nephews Joanne Pratt, Joanie Grady, Bert and Betty Murch, Mary and Walter Sawyer, and Richard Hall; and her cherished new families in the Casco Inn and Ledgewood Manor.

It was sunny, yesterday, and cold. Not like today, when it's raining hard and unreasonably warm. It was that kind of day that saw me with my parents walking into the funeral home, so I could view my grandmother.

My mother and sister had viewed her the day before, when I had still needed to be at work. This would be my last chance, and it was important to me. The times I have encountered death, I have better been able to handle it when I could see the body of the person I loved. My grandfather Burns. My Grampa Don Chicoine. It was hard, and painful, but it forced closure upon me. The times I haven't been able to view a body -- like my Grandmother Burns (I had been three time zones away with no chance to return), or my childhood friend Richard (closed casket services) -- the deaths had stayed with me far longer. I had more I had to work through.

And I wanted to see my grandmother one last time. I wanted to.

There was a sign on the path as we walked up to the door, "Chipmunk Crossing" it warned. And I smiled, slightly, at the mental thought of it. I can appreciate a funeral home that has a slight touch of whimsy.

We were met by two men in grey suits. They were smiling and pleasant. Comforting. Making sure we knew all would be attended to. They had brought my grandmother back out to be viewed upon my request -- we had called before heading over. I turned off my cell phone, and we went in.

The reason this would be our last chance was because Grammie wasn't to be embalmed. Which relieved me, to be honest. I find the very concept of embalming creepy. When I die, I don't want to go anywhere near embalming. I equally don't want to be sealed away in a concrete bunker. I came from the Earth, I want to return to it. Given my druthers, put me in a burlap sack and compost me.

Well, we weren't going to do that to Grammie, but there was no desire to embalm her either. Services were going to be graveside, without a viewing. There was no need to introduce other elements.

She looked peaceful. And beautiful. Her face was smooth. I was stunned at... well, how much like my grandmother she looked. If that seems odd, remember that Grammie had been in a decline for some time. She had lost that dignified, precise mind, that sharp will. She had slowly moved into the past, and then beyond. The last time she and I had spoken, while she was still able to speak, she hadn't known me. She could recognize that I was a nice person, and people she did know clearly thought highly of me, so she was very loving and warm to me, though she had absolutely no recollection of me. She had seemed much older then than I could ever remember her seeing. Much, much older.

The times before that, when I saw her, she had asked me things many times. Asked about work. Asked about friends I hadn't seen in years. Asked again about work. Asked about... asked about me. She was frustrated -- she could tell her mind was going, and she didn't want it to.

That had been years before, but she had spoken about death then. To her, death wasn't something to fear. She believed. She knew that it would be a reunion with my grandfather Philip. And she knew that the confusion she was feeling would be alleviated.

Looking down onto the face of my grandmother, I saw no sign of that confusion. I kissed her forehead, noticing almost in a detached way how cool it was, and I cried a very small amount. I whispered that I loved her. And then we headed out.

That was the second time I cried. The third time was late into the evening, lying in bed, remembering her and remembering the day, and feeling oddly fragile and mortal. Grammie was the last of her generation to pass on. Now my parents' generation moves into the on-deck circle. My aunts, my uncles, my mother and father. And we have many years, fortune favoring us, before it becomes likely, but it was still the passing of an era. A passing of time.

My friend Eileen said something to me, earlier today when I was seeing her. I work with her, and I was back with her, and we were discussing life and death. "I really want to see all my friends and family and freeze them. In fact, I want to freeze them in their twenties. It's fine if I get older and die, but it's just not fair that they will."

And she's right. It's not. We shouldn't have to put up with death. It's unreasonable. As unreasonable as fifty degree weather in mid-December.

But we have to put up with it. And we have to move on from it. Life has to go on.

My friend was right. Even though he would never have brought up dead comic artists in a week where my grandmother died had he known, he said something that rang true to me. We need to note these events. We need to note these people. Those we loved and were close to. Those who influenced us or brought us the things we love. The Dave Cockrums and the Martin Nodells. The Madeline Ames Chicoines.

My grandmother would understand that. She understood that you did what needed to be done. You remarked, because it was the right thing to remark. You affirmed the lives of others. You witnessed. You did your part. And you tried your best, each and every day, to make the world a better place.

It was the kind of lesson the Green Lantern taught one generation, and Nightcrawler taught another.

You had to do it, in part because you wouldn't always have the chance to. Life would go on, whether you wanted it to or not. And this was true enough. As I prepared to write this essay -- not the easiest one I've ever committed to the ether -- I glanced at my Livejournal Friends list. And there I saw that Peter Boyle, the character actor known for Young Frankenstein, Taxi Driver, Yellowbeard and many other shows and movies, had passed away at the age of 71.

Outside, more rain falls. It is unreasonably warm.

Tomorrow, there will be more to do.

A graveside service will be held on Friday, Dec. 15, 2006, at 10 a.m., at the Brooklawn Memorial Park in Portland. In lieu of flowers, donations in Madeleine's memory may be made to: North Windham Union Church, 723 Roosevelt Trail, Windham, Maine 04062

Goodbye, Grammie. I will always love you.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:55 PM | Comments (20)

December 7, 2006

Eric: I believe it's actually an old Austrian word that means "Under the Koffler." But I could be wrong.

People who know me know one of my favorite role playing game developers is Mister Chad Underkoffler. Which is a fun name to type, but that's not germane to the discussion at hand. One of the earliest essays I ever wrote on this website was in praise of Chad's innovative and creepy Dead Inside. Last year, I enthused at length on Truth and Justice, the first really new and innovative superhero RPG to come along in quite some time. All Underkoffler, all superior. This stuff was and is just plain good.

Well, Mister Underkoffler (seriously -- take a moment, grab a pen, and just write Underkoffler. It's an unexpectedly complex pleasure!) has come out with his third RPG -- this one somewhere between an expansion and a campaign sourcebook. His subject matter this time is fairy tales -- true, honest to Christ kid's stories that start in Oz, segue into Wonderland or Neverland, take a sharp left at Narnia and travel back through Grimm with an intent of making Mother Goose pay protection money. It's called The Zorcerer of Zo, and it's good. It's damn good. It's got wonder and hope mixed together with just enough ironic self-awareness that you can play it any way you like. If you want to be Cinderella twenty years later, with six kids and a mortgage payment due because her layabout husband isn't good at anything but being Charrming? You can be. At the same time, if you want to be a walking and living set of Tinkertoys, rebuilding your limbs into new and useful structures you can be that too. It's one part Through the Looking Glass, one part Wicked, at least two parts Sondheim's Into the Woods and a scosh of Willy Wonka to taste.

And it's available for preorder right now. This preorder is for a resplendent softcover book, and within a day of preordering you get The Zorcerer of Zo as a PDF, so you can launch into it immediately even before you get the book itself. I heartily recommend it.

Or I would heartily recommend it. But you see, there's a hitch. I edited the book.

This is a new line for me. I've been a professional RPG writer and developer for several years now, which is heaps of fun and occasionally gets me money. This is the first time I'm being paid to edit a book though. To offer my command of English and my perspective as a reader and a RPG writer and player to improve a work. I was thrilled to get the gig and I loved every minute of doing my job.

However, that means I get a small slice of royalties from this here book. So if I come on here and say "Dude! You totally need to buy this book because it rocks!" it's at least a little unethical, because I get some of that thirty bucks.

The temptation is there, of course. It's Christmas. I have bills to pay. Not to mention the price of gasoline -- half the time in Canada, which is an ancient First Nations word that means "ninety-five cents a liter." You shelling out cash for this book makes my car go vroom, and that makes Eric a happy person. But if I don't preface my advocacy with "by the way -- I make money from this, so my opinion may be colored by that," I become a dick.

No one wants to be a dick. Jesus Christ, it's Christmas.

At the same time, I honestly do think Zorcerer of Zo is a fantastic game, unlike anything else out there. It uses an even lighter version of Underkoffler's Prose Descriptives Qualities (or PDQ) system -- which means it's like ten minutes between grabbing the game and playing it. Its got a sense of style and wonder, and it has an in-depth description of the first campaign ever run in Zo -- which both shows you the sensibility of the game and gives you ideas galore. And it contains a complete and playable campaign world which you can use, steal from or ignore as you see fit. I think anyone who likes fairy tales, fantasy or role playing games would get their money's worth out of it.

So. I'm stuck on the horns of a dilemma. How do I extol the virtues of a good game, heartily encourage you all to buy it (and thus increase my own cashflow), maintain my professional sense of ethics, and manage not to be a dick in the process?

I have no idea.

So buy the game anyway. The man's name is Underkoffler, for Christ's sake. That's reason enough right there.

Come with me... and you'll be... in a world of pure imagination....

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:24 PM | Comments (22)

November 29, 2006

Eric: Unabashed appreciations are fun to write, you know it?

From Goats.)

Jon Rosenberg's mind is a strange, strange place. It's easy to become lost there.

Things aren't always easy to follow in Goats these days. Oh, that's always been true. Some of the epic battles against Gregor Mendel got 'complex,' in their time, but there used to be more of a reset after plotlines. Things got back to some value of normal. Philip and Jon ended up back in the bar, Neil and Bob went back to their amusements, Toothgnip went back to nailing chicks. The usual. The normal.

Eventually, Rosenberg got bored. And then he got ambitious.

Two years ago today, he started a plotline called Space Wizards. It started the cast on a roller coaster of change, of understanding, of universal apocolypse, of talking vegetables and universe-hopping virginal farmer's daughters. In short, Jon Rosenberg set "normal" on fire with a matchstick of mayan demon fire.

And it's been fun. Folks at the time e-mailed me, saying he was going for a Cerebus Syndrome. But that wasn't accurate -- the Cerebus Syndrome is when someone's been mostly humorous and decides to go for a balance of serious with humor, in hopes of getting the best of both worlds. Misdone, it leads to First and Ten Syndrome -- the replacement of humor with drama (or melodrama) in such a way that you alienate your existing audience and completely fail to attract a new one.

Rosenberg hasn't done either of these things. Goats is, if anything, significantly funnier today than it was two years ago. And it was pretty damn funny two years ago. What Rosenberg did was change the underlying assumptions of his comic -- he went from picaresque, where short adventures and jokes passed through, to recurrent -- where each strip builds on the last. He changed the scope from moderately local to epic. And he let his inner bastard (never too far from the surface) out to have fun.

And here we are. It's been two years. Not long ago, Rosenberg celebrated his birthday and his two thousandth comic strip, alike. And I took some stock. After all, I read Goats every day, but I had been having some trouble keeping track of what was going on. Goats is a complex strip these days, with plots that go past labyrinthine and straight into "what the fuck?"

So. I decided the best way to refresh myself and to see how well Rosenberg's experiment has gone was to start over from the reboot. To hit that link to "Space Wizards" above, and gorge myself on the plotlines.

So I did. I went through Fish's transformation into Fineas. I went through his revenge on Toothgnip, the trip to the Mayan underworld, the discovery of the lands of the space monkeys and the infinite typewriters. Our cast set each other on immortal fire, kidnapped each other into grayscale bars, became messianic figures to transdimensional farmland totalitarianist theocrats, and drank many, many glasses of fine single malt scotch.

And you know what I discovered?

Jon Rosenberg is a demented genius.

Demented is obvious, and needs no explication. Genius, however, becomes revealed as one devours the strip, watching huge chunks unfold as fast as you can click the next page link. He builds constantly, each new layer fitting atop the foundation that came before it. The resulting story might be sprawling and huge -- an invention Rube Goldberg would love -- but by God it does what it set out to do.

If you're new to Goats, make the commitment to jump in. Start with that link to Space Wizards up above. You might be a little confused in the beginning -- there's no cliff's notes to follow -- but the story should be pretty comprehensible. By the time you get to the far end of Good Hitler vs. Space Hitler, it will soon become irrelevant. The history of Goats before Space Wizards is great, but hardly necessary to the adventure to come.

If you're not new to Goats, you already know this.

I opened saying it's possible to get lost in Rosenberg's mind. And that's true, reading day to day. But going back and rereading from his new beginning on? That makes it all plain as day.

Better hurry up. We have only six years before it all ends. And, if Goats is to be believed, us with it.

And the next time I see Jon Rosenberg, I'm going to stand him to single malt. I figure alcohol can only make things better.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:28 PM | Comments (10)

November 27, 2006

Eric: On history and the future, without much on the subject of pay-for-play

So let's talk web animation.

I'm one of those folks who isn't sure about pay-for models when it comes to web animation. I had little to say when Ctrl-Alt-Del did it, because I don't read Ctrl-Alt-Del, so I didn't have to decide if I was willing to shell out the cash to watch animations or not.

Well, as you almost certainly already know, PvP is releasing a pay-for animation series. So now it's something I have to consider, because I do read PvP. I like PvP. And so here we are.

Now, unlike many critics of the model (critics who most famously include the Penny Arcade guys and... well, Scott Kurtz himself), I've never had an innate problem with pay-for content. I was and am a Modern Tales, Graphic Smash, Girlamatic and American Elf subscriber, for example. The biggest problem with the model (as Gabe and Tycho included in their Webcomics Manifesto at the back of their reissued/remastered/new-take-on their first book) is it creates a barrier to creating and holding an audience. Well, PvP already has an audience -- a substantial one. So, in one sense this is a new experiment -- will all those monthly unique visitors turn into the few thousand subscribers needed to enable Blind Ferret to at least pay off their production costs? The quality of the first teaser is pretty damn good, with strong (and well engineered) voice acting. (Though there are intriguing differences between this setup and the strip -- the cubicle environment for one. C'est la guerre. Different media, different choices. Kurtz (and Kris Straub -- Kurtz's most prolific collaborator) are apparently both writing and executive producing the series, and succeed or fail, it's clear they're putting their all into it.

That's not why I'm here. I'm going to subscribe, but then I would, wouldn't I.

I'm here to talk about Dino Andrade.

Dino Andrade is one of those names that you'd only know if you were anal about things like voice acting. Which I'll admit I am. I'm the sort of person who pauses the Tivo so I can read the voice actor credits at the ends of things like Justice League Unlimited and Legion of Superheroes, because voice acting can make or break a project. It's damned hard to voice a character and have it work -- you're doing an entire performance with inflection, minus your hands, your eyes, your face, and everything all actors in other media work with all the time. You don't even have the advantages of radio drama -- in radio drama, your voice is in a vacuum which the listener can build a scene around using imagination. In animation, you're distracted by the visual. We actively listen to radio. We passively watch television. It's a huge transition, and as a result voice actors tend to slide by us.

Dino Andrade is not a world famous voice actor. That would be one thing, and easy to explain. Dino Andrade is instead an engineer, a producer, a voice coach, a voice teacher -- and one of the strongest and most significant elements of one of the most significant voice actresses of the past twenty years. An actress who happened to be his wife.

Her name was Mary Kay Bergman, and she passed away in 1999.

If you don't recognize that name, you're not alone. A lot of people don't recognize that name. But there's a lot of names you would recognize. Let me quote myself, from a remembrance I wrote for her back in my old online journal, at the time:

For those of you saying "who's that...?" Mary Kay Bergman was the voice of every female character on South Park. From Wendy Testeberger to Mrs. Brofloski to Mrs. Cartman to the Nurse with the Fetus on her face. Every one of them.

She was, for all intents and purposes, most of the movie in South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut. She sang the entire of the Blame Canada song in four different voices. "What what whaaaaaaaat?" was her. Mrs. Cartman jovially explaining what a rim-job was was her. She also played the role credited only as "Female Body Part," which has to be the greatest mystical vision sequence of all time.

She, of course, didn't get as much attention or as high a billing as Minnie Driver, who was the voice of Brooke Shields for one stinking line.

Mary Kay Bergman was more than South Park, though. Unlike Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Mary Kay Bergman was a voice actress for years. She was the current voice of Daphne, in Scooby Doo on Zombie Island and Scooby Doo and the Witches' Ghost. She was the animated version of Batgirl. She was significantly involved with Beauty and the Beast, the animated Disney Hercules movie, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan and The Iron Giant. She was a villain on The Tick. She was Mrs. Butterworth in the commercials where the bottle talked. She was the official voice of Snow White in Disneyland, Disney World and any Disney productions where it came up. She was six different voices in Star Wars: Episode One. She was the female vocalist in Weird Al Yankovic's "Pretty Fly (For a Rabbi)."

When I mentioned her passing to some fellow killer geeks, all of whom were respectful, one of them said "I think I've heard of her." He didn't mean it to be an insult. It was the level I was at before I noticed she was dead and went websurfing.

A star on one of the most popular TV shows currently out there commits suicide. She was also in both the South Park movie and The Phantom Menace for Christ's sake. And the people who most consumed the shows she did most of her work on vaguely knew of her name from somewhere.

She clearly did more voices and work on The Iron Giant than Jennifer Aniston, who voiced Hogarth's mother. But Mary Kay Bergman's name didn't appear above the title, even though Jennifer Aniston's voicing was the weakest in the movie. But Jennifer Aniston is a star, you see. For reasons that escape me at the moment, but give me time....

One of the sites I did research on had a picture of her. She was a strikingly attractive red haired woman. She was close to forty at death, and looked it, but she could have played Daphne at forty with no trouble at all, it seems. Her husband posted a message to her fans on her own website. And she did have fans who left condolences. And, as it was in an open guestbook, there were some morons too. I fear for the species sometimes.

This seems deeply wrong to me. Voice acting isn't simple. Animation isn't simple. We should have enough respect to mourn when someone who's brought a lot of joy into the lives of others dies tragically early.

Well, I mourned -- at least as much as I mourned any television and movie actress whose work I really liked. And I pass that on to you.

And if you like a cartoon, from The Powerpuff Girls to The Simpsons to South Park, get to know who the voice actors are. So, when one dies, you won't have to wonder why you feel badly.

It was almost exactly seven years ago I wrote that, but it still sticks with me. It's a lesson I learned then, and I've tried to live by it. I track the voice actors and actresses I like, and I treat them with the same significance I treat other actors. More, really, because these are people who have to endure hotshot 'stars' walking onto their turf and getting better billing for generally weaker performances. It was a happy day for me when Peter Cullen was given the gig for voicing Optimus Prime in the live action Transformers movie -- almost certainly the studios would have preferred the voice of Clint Eastwood or Bill Paxton or someone like that, in hopes of drawing in a crowd even if it meant a substantially weaker performance.

These things mean something to me. They should mean something, damn it.

And after all this time, Mary Kay Bergman still means something to me. Jesus -- Batgirl, Daphne Blake, Snow White and Sheila Brofloski? How could she not mean something to me. That's a huge part of our culture at the times she lived in.

And so I feel a kinship with her widower, who has continued since then to teach, to support voice acting, and most of all to keep the memory of his wife alive.

I've seen some people online say they didn't like Skull's voice -- basing that on the one minute we've seen, so far. And I can understand that. But the one thing I'm certain of is Dino Andrade knows voice acting. He knows how to build a character, make it expressive, and give it a soul. And if it continues to kindle the flame that Mary Kay Bergman sparked, I'm entirely behind that.

It's likely I would subscribe to PvP on the basis of Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub.

It's certain I'm going to subscribe if Dino Andrade is involved with it.

Besides, the little dinosaur 'grab-handle thing' Skull handed Brent the coffee with absolutely sealed the deal. "Gnram gnram!" indeed.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:55 PM | Comments (25)

October 31, 2006

Eric: Time for the yearly Wikipedia bitching-out. After all, they've been *so* successful in the past, right?

From Girly.

I've received a number of e-mails about Josh Lesnick.

Specifically, the removal of Girly from Wikipedia.

Now, we've discussed this before. In fact, it's been a solid year since the last time we had this conversation. And in that year, as near as I can tell, the poisonous culture that's infected Wikipedia seems to have gotten no better.

It comes down to this -- very few people who are cognizant of Webcomics as an artistic form would even think about eliminating Girly. Girly's significance is broad and persistent. Josh Lesnick has been doing this for years. Josh Lesnick is one of those webcartoonists all the other webcartoonists read. He has had tremendous influence over the form. His development of Slipshine rewrote the book on NC-17 webcomics. Wendy was one of the seminal comic strips on the web, and while it's not Lesnick's best work it helped shape all that came. Cutewendy was a time of huge creative growth for Lesnick which itself provided a blueprint to many who came after of how to create and develop a purely joyful gag comic and have it Just. Plain. Work. And now we have Girly -- Lesnick's finest work to date, and a strip that has tremendous critical acclaim and a reading list that as far as I can tell includes put never everyone who is considered a notable webcartoonist by Wikipedia.

But Wikipedia has no mechanism for understanding derived influence.

They have no means of accepting solid expert opinion that says "this person is notable, not because of the breadth of his popularity, but because of the tenor of his popularity." Which is depressing, because that's why we actually need encyclopedias. If someone began to do serious research into, say, expanded canvas. Or into the influences on people like Scott Kurtz (who said on Digital Strips that he was a big fan). Or into the history of Keenspot. Or into the history of artists leaving Keenspot....

Well, they would turn to Wikipedia, figuring that it would be a more up to date and complete reference.

Only it's not. It doesn't come close.

I'll admit -- I use Wikipedia all the time. It's convenient, as a starting point. But I am always -- always -- conscious of the fact that it's only as reliable as the fatigue levels of competent people to refute incompetent but entitled people -- and that sooner or later, the incompetents always win that fight. As evidence, I submit Girly -- a strip no serious student of webcomics would describe as anything less than "notable," which failed the acid test for deletion because serious students of webcomics figured out long ago Wikipedia sucks on toast for this field, and only gets worse.

In the meantime, there's Comixpedia.org -- a comprehensive resource on webcomics that actually doesn't suck because the people involved actually know something about the field they're "editing." Go figure.

Girly, Wendy, Cutewendy, Slipshine, and Josh Lesnick himself all have extensive entries on that.

Gosh, almost like the Webcomics community -- for some value of community -- considers Lesnick notable, or something.

One can only look forward to whatever comes to replace Wikipedia, in hopes that it will succeed where Wikipedia -- a noble experiment with many, many good aspects -- has so clearly failed.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:55 AM | Comments (100)

October 23, 2006

Eric: Addendum to the last -- Jesus, Sorkin. Go read a paper or something.

To add on to the last post... because now I'm obsessed....

One of the current subplots involves Jordan McDeere's brief ex-husband writing a tell all book about his life and sex club patronage (not that squeaky-clean Jordan enjoyed such nasty things -- and as a side note does anyone on the planet care about the scandalous lives... of network executives? I mean, show of hands -- who here could name six current network executives working for any of the networks? And of those executives, how many of them have sex lives you give a shit about. Anyone? Anyone?) It's as ridiculous as McDeere's drunk driving arrest making the news, when... well, see above RE network executives and giving a shit.

Well, now I've come to find out that the prostitute a drug-using Aaron Sorkin used to patronize wrote and self-published a tell all book about it.

With luck, Sorkin will someday soon run out of axes to grind and might get around to writing engaging television about things we actually do give a shit about.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:12 PM | Comments (11)

Eric: Live, from Studio Sorkin on the Aaron Sorkin strip, it's Monday Morning...

Long time readers (and really, who's left around here these days) know I love Aaron Sorkin. I love his dialogue, which takes the art of broadcast (or theatrical) dialogue back to the heydey of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. I love his plots, which excel at taking the glorious and reducing it to the mundane -- and taking the mundane and exalting it into the glorious. (That's what made his tenure on The West Wing so good -- first off, he humanized the administration of the White House. You got a real sense of the everyday knocks and pressures the leaders of the Free World went under. And then, he managed to get you to care passionately about Farm subsidies and payroll deductions. The little day to day issues that are of paramount importance to actually running a nation like this were the real conflicts of the show. The big ticket stuff was just backdrop. Until he was forced out.)

Hell, the only Tom Cruise movie I've seen more than once is A Few Good Men. Sorkin's writing is solid enough that I can get over a near-pathological hatred for Tom Cruise. That's saying something.

Beyond actually loving Sorkin's work, I've also loved what Sorkin represents. In an era where, in Futurama's words, writing is essentially one of the minor technical awards at the Oscars -- in an era where what big name star you attach is paramount, what director you secure is key, but who actually writes the thing is irrelevant because it doesn't chart at the box office -- Aaron Sorkin became a significant and major presence because of his writing. His was the name to emerge from Sports Night. His was the name to cling to The West Wing. His departure from The West Wing is regarded by many as the shark-jumping moment of that series. Sorkin was like a megaphone shouting down into the well of American entertainment: the writer matters. What the writer says and does matters. And more to the point, absent the writer, none of the rest of it matters. The only way a kickass actor or director or producer can save a trainwreck of a script is if they essentially rewrite it. And that's not enough, in the long run -- there's a reason the phrase you can't polish a turd exists.

Needless to say, I watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

It's funny. NBC/Universal sort of owns me, right now. A year and a half ago, I'd have said that was impossible, but here we are. Of my top four slots on my Tivo's season pass list, three are taken up by NBC/Universal shows. Two of those are on NBC itself, on Monday Nights (Studio 60 and Heroes). The third is over on wholly owned subsidiary SciFi (come on -- you knew I watched Battlestar Galactica, right?). The fourth... well, I'm an old school Legion fan, and they have honest to God Interlac on that cartoon. Of course I watch it. But I digress.

Studio 60 is on one of those top four slots, like I said. But it's not number one. Nor is it second. Of the top four shows I will not miss recording at this stage of the game? Studio 60 is fourth.

And I'm not sure how solidly it's going to stay there.

On last week's show, Danny (played by ex-West Wing alumnus Bradley Whitford) looked up at the skybox in the theater -- the box reserved for the top brass at the fictional NBS television network -- and noticed that for the first time since he and fellow wunderkind Matt Albie (played by Matthew Perry) took over the venerable live late night comedy show Studio 60, the network president (Jordan McDeere, played by Amanda Peet) hasn't shown up to watch the show. Which is a laborious way to get to the quote I want to quote: "You think she fell out of love with us? It happens. People change."

Which is true enough.

Of course, Jordan hasn't fallen out of love with Studio 60. She's just out there fighting the good fight for quality broadcasting over mindless but popular schlock. But it's an interesting quote nonetheless. And it makes me wonder -- am I falling out of love with Aaron Sorkin? It happens, you know. People do change.

Only, I think it's Sorkin who's changing. Not me. Because in the old days? Sorkin was pretty good at concealing his jabs, his backbiting, and his thefts from his own life -- he certainly didn't let them interfere with his work. These days, the whole affair is All About Sorkin, and frankly it comes across as lame.

Let's start with the entire premise of the show. Four years prior to the pilot, NBS forces pioneering television producer Wes Mendell (played commandingly, passionately and all too briefly by Judd Hirsch) to fire hotshot superstar writer Matt Albie after Albie publicly supports Bill Maher after Maher's controversial post-9/11 statements blew up. Albie's BFF Danny Tripp walks when Albie walks, and the two go off to make movies, where they become so hot they're nuclear, baby -- living good is the best revenge. Flash forward four years, and the show is a shell of its former self, as Mendell's lack of backbone over Albie has translated into a complete loss of power across the board. Now his show is being written by total talentless hacks, standards and practices dictates what he can and can't do, and his life continues to be an ever descending spiral into irrelevance. Finally, after he tries to get an actually funny sketch on the show, both to inject humor into the show and as an act of penance (the sketch was one written by Matt Albie years before), only to have it shot down because it might offend Christians (the sketch was called "Crazy Christians" -- go figure), Mendell snaps on live national telvision. He goes on a rant so reminiscent of 1976's Network that the show name checks Network no less than twelve times through the rest of the show. The fallout is monumental, Mendell is fired, and in the process of damage control brand new NBS president Jordan McDeere says the core problem is people will think Mendell was right, and by firing him they just proved his point. To usher in a new era of courageous, quality television, they rehire Albie and Tripp to take over the show -- able to get them because Tripp, a recovering drug addict, fell off the wagon and failed a drug test, so for two years he can't get bonded to direct a movie. So, the pair comes onto the show to reverse its fortunes even as McDeere reverses the fortunes of the network as a whole, while contending with interpersonal issues ranging from a hack-laden writing room to Albie's ex-lover, Christian comedian Harriet Hayes (played by Sarah Paulson) distracting Albie by being all hot and sexy and stuff, while still... you know, being all Christian, too.

Got all that? Good.

A solid enough premise for a show? Sure. You have an automatic built in conflict right at the top -- every week they have to produce ninety minutes of cutting edge comedy to be performed live in front of America. You have tons of potential subplots. You have many quality actors playing many interesting characters. With quality. Granted, it's a television show about television, lacking even the underdoggish qualities that helped make Sports Night so endearing in the first place. Sure, Sports Night was about a television show -- but it was about a show that struggled hard to make third place among late night cable sports roundups. In part it was compelling because the stakes were so small. Studio 60 is a network's flagship show -- meant to be a solid competitor for comedic mindshare with Saturday Night Live itself, which is innately less interesting. But that's surmountable. In the end, we have a lot of characters, many of whom are sympathetic, and we have a lot of opportunities for that cracking Sorkin Dialogue being delivered at fast pace while the character stride through the set. And that's what we look for.

The problem is, Aaron Sorkin isn't writing the show I just described. Instead, he's writing Studio Sorkin on the Aaron Sorkin Strip Starring People Portraying Aaron Sorkin's Life, and as I said above, it's just lame.

Let's start with the whole situation. Take "Wes Mendell" and replace it with "John Wells," the executive producer who worked with Sorkin on The West Wing and who stayed on the West Wing after Sorkin was ridden out on a rail, and you have the situation Sorkin was in with NBC when he became controversial and was forced out. And you better believe he's making NBC pay for that now -- those gutless, spineless cowards who got rid of Sorkin when the going got tough are going to pay now that he's back.

Only, well, Sorkin wasn't fired for political comments. He was fired because he got arrested for drug possession years after he cleaned up his act in the first place, plus he was constantly late on the scripts he insisted on writing himself (and late in a network production means people sitting around doing nothing while being paid unimaginable salaries and overtime, which greatly upped the cost of doing business for The West Wing), in a time when the ratings were beginning to slip. But that's okay, he covers the drug issue with Danny Tripp (who mostly stands for Thomas Schlamme -- the director Sorkin works the most often with. Sorkin and Schlamme are pretty transparently represented by Albie and Tripp, though their qualities are intermingled between the pair) who then admits to the (secret) failed drug test on national television because that's courage (and thus subverts the whole point of bringing the pair in. Honestly, in the real world Albie and Tripp would be shown the door right then, because the entire point of bringing them on the show was to rehabilitate it, and they can't do that if Tripp's own drug woes become the story).

So. Matt Albie and Harriet Hayes are ex-lovers, driven apart because she's a Christian who actually recorded a Christian album and promoted it on the 700 club, and he's an agnostic Jew who thinks that Pat Robertson is evil and hypocritical. (Which she agrees with, but she still appeared on the show). Which would be a great point of romantic tension on the show, if we could ignore the fact that Aaron Sorkin used to go out with West Wing alumna Kristin Chenoweth, a self described liberal Christian comedian, television and broadway star who recorded an album of Christian music which she promoted on the 700 Club. I guess the best way to win an argument with your ex-girlfriend is to make it a subplot on your multimillion dollar television show and clearly paint you in the right and she in the wrong. Oh, wait, I don't mean 'best way to win an argument.' I mean 'most self-indulgent and moderately creepy way to perpetuate an argument.' My mistake.

Which isn't quite as unctuous as one of the faceoffs that Danny Tripp has with Jordan McDeere. McDeere has had an old arrest for drunk driving surface. Because we are meant to think that McDeere is spunky and pert and perfect in most every way (Sorkin actually quotes the famous exchange between Lou Grant and Mary Tyler Moore about McDeere: "You got spunk, Mary. I hate spunk." It is always a mistake to remind people of truly groundbreaking television on your show about television that isn't actually all that groundbreaking), it is the most bloodless "drunk driving conviction" we can possibly imagine -- McDeere pulled over herself, went to ask the cop directions, the cop had her blow in a breathalyzer, found she was over the legal limit, arrested her, and then the Judge literally expunged the arrest from her record. But, that doesn't stop Tripp from sermonizing to her about the differences between their vices:

Jordan: I'm sorry for the stupid thing I said in your office -- about the drugs.

Danny: Thirty thousand people died in car fatalities last year. Seventeen thousand of them weren't wearing seat belts.

Jordan: ...what does that have to do with anything?

Danny: No, it's just... you read it all the time. Two guys in a car. One wearing a seat belt, the other one isn't... they're doing sixty down [Mullholland Drive], they blow into a telephone pole. The guy wearing the seat belt's got two bruised ribs, a cut on his forehead and the guy without the seat belt gets decapitated.

Jordan: I was wearing a seat belt.

Danny: I'm sure you were. I'm just not as sure that everyone else on the Long Island Expressway was. When... I put a life in danger, it's my own.

Now, beyond the fact that we're talking about a drunk driving situation where the woman pulled over to ask a police officer directions and got caught over the legal limit, we're also discussing a drunk driving situation that apparently happened like twelve years before the episode. Danny, a known drug addict, was caught by a drug test two weeks before, and as a result has had his career capsized. So the argument is specious since all accounts are Jordan McDeere doesn't drink and drive. But beyond all of that....

Well, you know, I'm going to quote the master snark-meisters at Television Without Pity -- specifically, "Joe R," who says it as well as can be said:

They banter awkwardly for a moment, and then Jordan apologizes for "the stupid thing [she] said earlier, about the drugs." That's kind of her, and more than he deserves. Danny doesn't quite see it that way, however, and proceeds to, I swear to Christ, lecture Jordan about how when he does coke it's a victimless crime, because he's only harming himself, but when Jordan has a drink and then chooses to get behind the wheel, she's putting all sorts of people -- especially the seatbelt-less! -- in danger. Gee, thanks, DAD. When I first saw this scene, I almost couldn't believe they had Danny go there, and not even temper it by having Jordan call him a dick, because: oh my God, seriously. I'm sorry, Aaron Sorkin, that everyone made jokes about you smoking crack. They really should have taken a look at the gin and tonic in their hand before mocking the crack pipe in yours. Now can you please go back to making a TV show instead of telling everyone else what assholes they've been for criticizing you? Sometime before NBC cancels your low-rated ass?

Joe gets it in one.

In a later episode, the network is pitched a "sure fire hit reality show" by an extremely transparent pastiche on Mark Burnett, which all the networks are chomping at the bit at, but Jordan passes on it, and has to fight the Chairman of the network who goes to the owner of their parent organization to overrule her. She actually quotes Aaron Sorkin from an interview he had, likening Reality Television to "bad crack in the schoolyard" and goes on to say that if they stick to highbrow programming, they'll make money. Which is very Aaron Sorkin (one of the most egregious pre-Studio 60 inserts Sorkin did was a jab at ABC back on Sports Night, when he had the new corporate owner of the Continental Broadcasting Corporation say "anyone who can't make money off of Sports Night should get out of the moneymaking business") but also downright stupid. First off, reality programming is just like any other programming. There's bottom feeders and there's less so. Hell, PBS has reality shows where people try to live the way their ancestors did, and the reason The Amazing Race keeps winning Emmys is because it's actually good television. It especially amused me as the quote came out in the same week that NBC made it clear their new strategy was to program the weeknight "family hour" -- eight to nine PM -- with game shows and reality shows, from The Apprentice to Deal or No Deal, because... and I can't help this argument never got made on Studio 60... reality programming is vastly less expensive than scripted television. So, during a time when NBC is rehabilitating their last place stance with really solid programming like Heroes and (so I've been told) Friday Night Lights, they're managing to pay for it by giving over the least lucrative hour of television to the cheapest venues for television. This is how grownups do this kind of thing, you see. Grownups who understand that the television market is shrinking and ad buys don't go as far as they used to, and wishing doesn't make it any different.

But Sorkin is all about wishing. Still smarting after all this time over his Internet experiences, he throws a snarky bit into the mouth of one of his actors decrying blogging (gosh, why did that attract my attention) as being credential-less, and wishing the New York Times would go back to being the Media Elite instead of paying attention to some woman with "a freezer full of Jenny Craig and five cats." Now, I'll admit I'm not unbiased, but that's just stupid. This isn't journalism we're discussing -- this is criticism. The blogger in question was writing an opinion piece, and that kind of thing requires no more credentials than the trifecta of argumentative essay writing: a well written thesis, concrete support for one's thesis, and an audience to read it.

And then there's Darren Wells.

Darren Wells is a professional baseball player who is now casually dating Harriet Hayes. This makes him a foil for Matt Albie, who after all broke up with Harriet Hayes not long ago. She gave him a baseball bat that Wells signed -- one that as it turns out had his phone number on it. "You gave me a used cocktail napkin, basically," Albie snarks to Hayes in what was, admittedly, a fun exchange and one of the better moments of the show. Since then, we see Albie carrying the bat around, in reference and echo to Aaron Sorkin himself, who reputedly carries a baseball bat around with him as well.

But, Albie goes on long tears about Wells -- especially the fact that he gave Hayes a bat when he's a pitcher -- that he couldn't get a hit if his life depended on it -- and you know what? He's not all that great a pitcher either, damn it! And he's taller than Albie and bigger and stronger and younger, and and and and....

...and I'm sitting here going "wait a minute. His name is Darren Wells?"

Remember back above? Remember John Wells -- the producer of ER, the guy who was co-exec of The West Wing. The one who didn't leave when Sorkin got curbed? The one who took it over?

Yeah.

He's a pitcher, not a slugger. He couldn't get a hit if his life depended on it.

Pitching concepts to network executives, hit television shows. Oh, that Mister Sorkin is a clever one.

Only... ER predated The West Wing. It's still on now. And its ratings are significantly better than Studio 60's. Not only is it a pretty crass jab at someone who didn't stand by Sorkin when Sorkin was screwing up, it's a fluffed one.

And that brings us to the core conceit -- the biggest problem Studio 60 and Aaron Sorkin have: the core principle is "really good, highly literate television will work. The problem is, networks are shoveling out garbage so that's all people have to eat." And there's something to be said for that.

Only Studio 60 is operating way, way below expectations. Some people say it's too "inside," and that's true. Honestly, no one gives a damn about the high pressure world of Saturday Night Live except the people actually inside that world -- they just want to laugh on Saturday nights. All the topics on Studio 60 are fascinating, I'm sure, to the entertainment industry, but we need a lot more of that beautiful Sorkin dialogue and characters we really, really care about for anyone else to actually enjoy this stuff. And there's way too little of that right now.

Part of the problem is we lack one of the staples of the Sorkin ensemble cast. Generally, there's always a mentor figure, above the plucky heroine and snarky (Jewish) writer, who acts as a moral compass, a foundation, who lends gravitas to the proceedings. On Sports Night, it was Robert Guillaume, playing Isaac Jaffe. On The West Wing, it was the incomparable John Spencer as Leo McGarrey. And on Studio 60, it's clearly Judd Hirsch's Wes Mendell, only Wes doesn't make it fifteen minutes into the pilot before he's ejected from the building. It's like that point on Sports Night when Isaac has had a stroke (prompted by Guillaume's own stroke) and is hospitalized and far away from the proceedings -- there is a gap. An absence. A definite wrongness about everything. Only it started on Studio 60 on day one. They're all plucky upstarts or hacks or greedy network executives. We don't have that one person who can calm everyone down and get them all to talk to each other.

(It's possible the currently underutilized Cal, as played by Sorkin alumnus Timothy Busfield, is meant to settle into that role. However, on the pilot he was put in danger of losing his job and he hasn't actually settled into a firm sense of position in the cast since.)

As it is, we have morality tales and moralizers and pluck and wit and some beautiful performances. I'm serious -- I was never a fan of Friends and even within that cosm I didn't like Matthew Perry, but Matt Albie is a great character and Perry acts the Hell out of him. We also have a lot of glimpses of sketches which, to be honest, aren't that funny (to Sorkin's credit, they're unfunny in exactly the way that Saturday Night Live is generally unfunny, these days), though it makes it dissonant to hear how brilliant these sketches are. And there's some downright strange decisions. (I happen to like Sting, and I happen to like the Lute, and I thought the traditional lute piece and the cover of his own "Fields of Gold" that Sting did on the last episode were both beautiful, and I spent the whole time thinking "wow, this has totally derailed the show. Why am I watching Sting play the lute? What the Hell, people?")

But mostly, we have a show which comes across as Aaron Sorkin taking out his personal grudges against the world. And if he were doing it in a way that had us applauding and coming back for more, that'd be fine. But he's not. He's alienating people. He's boring others. He's confusing still others. And he's managed to not only not win Mondays, he's managed to be completely upstaged by the higher rated, far more compelling Heroes. In fact, he's managing to lose the audience Heroes leads in.

And each week, fewer viewers come back to watch Studio 60.

And I keep thinking "come on, Sorkin. This is you. You can pull this out. You can make it work."

But maybe he can't.

People change.

And people fall out of love.

We'll see what happens.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:44 PM | Comments (36)

October 11, 2006

Eric: Culture and Identity, and the kindness of coffee counter clerks.

They are, in the end, two of the simplest transactions in Western Civilization.

Seriously. You're on a long trip, on major highways. You pull off, and hit the drive through of a McDonald's. You order one of the extra value meals, with water. (Water and coffee are about all I can have from a McDonald's beverage menu.) You then stop at a coffee shop with a travel mug from that coffee shop, and get a refill with cream. I've done both thousands of times. I could do them in my sleep.

The highway in question was the Transcanada, heading southeast through Quebec. My ultimate goal was a border crossing in Vermont.

Now, the trip had been a lot of fun, up until that point. A little time in Ithaca and Syracuse, to show Weds some of the places I came of age as an idiotic twenty two year old. A drive north, across the border at the Thousand Islands. (A border crossing with a jam packed automobile, as we were moving Weds North. We were concerned of delays while being searched. As it happened, it took maybe twenty-two seconds of conversation and in we went.) And then, up into the greater Metropolitan Ottawa area.

Now, Canada is not America. There are a thousand reminders of that fact in every direction if you know to look. But Canada is comfortable for Americans. Especially for Americans like me. I grew up on the New Brunswick border. We used to go to Canada for lunch, at the Maple Leaf restaurant in Claire. I come from Acadia, where a variant of French is used on the street. I had decent enough French grades in school and I can still swear a blue streak in that hallowed patois.

But now, I was in Quebec. And it really hit home as I pulled up to the speaker box.

Intellectually, I knew the woman said something like "bienvenue à McDonald. Est-ce que je peux prendre votre ordre?" But it came out as meaningless sounds. All my smug complacency as to my knowledge and my place in the world just deflated.

"Parlez d'anglais?" I stammered, getting in wrong in more than one way.

There was a long pause. A difference voice said a curt "Yis?"

I ordered a Meal number two with water.

There was another pause. "Yis?"

I said something, relatively banal sounding, about chicken. It was the grilled chicken I was going for.

"Deux, yis. Yis yis."

Having no idea what else to do, I pulled to the window.

Three people were there. They were all smiling. I handed them a bill, and they murmured to each other. One nodded to me in an exaggerated fashion. They were all being very, very nice. They counted change, murmuring words half in English and French, and smiling very broadly when they handed me the money.

Now, I've heard stories about the Quebecois being (for lack of a better word) snarky with people who don't speak the language. I'm here to report that didn't happen. I legitimately think every person in this McDonalds wanted to help me, take my money, and give me food.

The same with the Tim Hortons I then went for coffee from. I actually walked into that place, as I had a travel mug, and it's significantly easier to hand someone a travel mug than it is to try and explain that you want coffee in a travel mug you already have to a person who doesn't speak your language. Walking in, I nodded pleasantly to the people coming out. They were dressed... well, somewhat differently than I would expect Americans to dress. I can't put my finger on it. Their clothes weren't radically different, but it was obvious just at the looking that they were people of another culture.

I held the door for a girl coming out as I went in. She favored me with a smile and a blur of language that might as well have been speaking in Tongues. I nodded, smiling without speaking. I felt my whole bearing shifting, becoming nonthreatening. I am a stranger here, I seemed to be saying. I mean no harm, nor disrespect. I simply need caffeine and I will be on my way.

I managed to stumble through je ne parle pas français at the counter. The girl behind the counter got a look of panic, looked around for someone, then gave me the most winning smile she could. "Yis?" she asked.

I held up the cup. She looked relieved and took it. She said something in French.

I blinked.

She repeated herself, slowly, then pantomimed putting things in the cup.

"Oh!" I said. "Coffee and cream?"

She paused, then nodded. She got the coffee and the cream. I think she would have liked to ask me about flavors and options, but neither one of us wanted that, right then.

She handed it to me very slowly, speaking in French very softly, enunciating each word.

And it hit me.

I was an idiot.

Literally. The only way that any of these high school kids could deal with me was to treat me as one of the feebleminded. Like I was developmentally disabled or just plain stupid. None of them were angry or annoyed -- just compassionate, and sympathetic to the sub-literate moron in their midst.

It is a shocking discovery. Less than seventy miles from my native land, myself a man who grew up in Franco-America, and my entire identity as an intelligent and literate man, given to rhetoric and clever turns of phrase, was obliterated. I was literally in a culture where I was reduced to pantomime and the kindness of sympathetic, almost patronizing strangers.

It's one thing to be depressed. I was plenty depressed. Leaving Weds behind in her home and native land was like cutting off a foot and replacing it with a clever bit made out of lego. I could walk and all, but every step reminded me of the loss. Now, I wasn't just depressed, I was an idiot.

I tried to get Ketchup chips for a friend from a convenience store, but I was simply not bright enough. The concept of "ketchup chips" was too difficult, and they weren't sitting out where I could get them. I got back into my car, thanked God for "pay at the pump" gas when I needed gas (though that involved long minutes of peering at the french display and occasionally making best guesses -- I must have looked downright stupid to any onlookers), and then driving once more, to make it back to America, where I could once more be a smart person.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:06 PM | Comments (39)

October 10, 2006

Eric: Apropos of nothing, she looks good in my green turtleneck.

(From Narbonic! Click on the thumbnail for full sized... well, you know.)

I am in Ottawa, Canada. It is very nice. I have met Frank Cormier and Meaghan Quinn in the flesh. They are both awesome.

Before that, we were in Ithaca. I showed Wednesday many places significant to Gossamer Commons.

In both places, I had alcohol.

I will tell you of these things in more detail another time. I have little time now. All I can say is this.

There was water in the swimming pool.

Was this the time? Does he need to <em>re</em>fill it? I dunno. But there was water in the pool today.

God, I love Narbonic.

Back later. I have to go tear my arm off.

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

September 25, 2006

Eric: Requiescat In Pace: John M. Ford

And though I had slain a thousand foes less one,
The thousandth knife found my liver;
The thousandth enemy said to me,
'Now you shall die,
Now none shall know.'
And the fool, looking down, believed this,
Not seeing, above his shoulders, the naked stars,
Each one remembering.
--John M. Ford, The Final Reflection

I have a report from the truly wonderful weekend Weds and I had in Pennsylvania to write, but sometimes (all too often) life gets in the way. And then it's time to write another one of these damn things.

You may recall I'm part of a certain fraternity in the Role Playing Game developers community: guys who've written for Star Trek's officially licensed role playing game. That's an astoundingly cool thing -- a chance to play in the ultimate geek playground. But as neat as it is, the chances of actually influencing Star Trek that way are negligible. Sure, I can dream that someone will read my writeup on Mudd, decide it makes sense, and make reference to it in a later movie, but it's so astronomically unlikely that I might as well go back to hoping I win the lottery or spontaneous evolve superpowers: either of those is more likely. Even Kenneth Hite, arguably the finest Star Trek RPG developer in any system or game, hasn't had measurable effect on the universe we played in.

But one man did. One man hit the lottery. The same man who went on two write two Star Trek tie-in novels which rank among the best written, most popular, most commonly cited and most influential of the Star Trek tie in novels of all time.

His name was John M. Ford.

Ford's RPG work, over in Star Trek, was largely centered on Klingons. Back in those pre-Next Generation days, Klingons were an ill-defined metaphor for the Soviet Union -- a totalitarian race who enslaved peace loving worlds and turned them into fodder for their own empire. The closest we came to sympathetic Klingons was in Day of the Dove, and even that didn't make them into a fleshed out race. And in the plethora of Star Trek tie in novels, Klingons were adversaries and enemies at best. Barbarians and cruel sadists at worst.

Until John M. Ford came along.

Ford wrote several seminal products for the original Star Trek Roleplaying Game, published by FASA. He wrote The Klingons, Klingons: Star Trek Intelligence Manual, and Klingons: Game Operations Manual. He went from the then radical idea that Klingons shouldn't just be adversaries -- they should be a complete and fleshed out race. In fact, his work was designed to actually let players and GMs run entire Klingon-based campaigns -- campaigns that didn't need to focus on killing and torment, but actually were set in a consistent, workable, and above all alien empire.

Such things have been done before, and they've also been done since. But Ford pulled off something even more amazing. He (alongside editors and publishers at FASA) convinced Pocket Books and Paramount to let Ford also write a Klingon Star Trek-tie in novel. And that novel was entirely set in Ford's Klingon Empire, with the same terminology and assumptions he made for the role playing game being reflected in the novel.

That itself would be staggering. That sort of thing just doesn't happen in Star Trek. It would be many years and people like J. Michael Straczynski (with Babylon 5), Joss Whedon (with both Buffy and Firefly) and most significantly George Lucas (with Star Wars) before we would see tie-in literature and media incorporated into the official canon of their properties. Paramount has always been extremely chary about letting anything into the canon (including the entire Star Trek: The Animated Series). They sure as Hell never let two different license holders collaborate. That way lies chaos, and possibly even dancing.

But, they let Ford write his book. All by itself, that would be remarkable.

The book he wrote was The Final Reflection.

"It's not whether or not the bear dances well, but that it dances at all," or so they say. Well, this bear knew how to dance.

The Final Reflection is a serious and somber book about an extremely sympathetic protagonist who happens to be a Klingon. As we follow his life and times, we also learn about an empire where the strong grow, the weak fall into decline, and all others are kuve -- Servitor races, sometimes mistranslated as "slaves" (or even "meat"). There is even an analogue television program in the Klingon Empire -- Battlecruiser Vengence -- which culturally fits the same kind of roles for Klingons that a show like Star Trek (or, say, Galaxy Quest) would have fit for the Federation. There is the deeply significant chesslike game klin'zha. There is a heavy tradition of song, of music, of dreams. And of the stars in the sky above watching the deeds that brave men do and remembering them. There is an afterlife -- the Black Fleet, where brave warriors go to fight and spar for all eternity, killing their enemies a thousand times, laughing, and perhaps dying at their hands as well, for honor and glory.

Klin'zha is especially interesting. Our protagonist's foster father is a grand master of the game, and many Klingons believe that all of existence is itself an extended game of klin'zha (the Perpetual Game, as they call it). Fitting, perhaps, for a race that was itself largely defined (in this way, at least) as part of a Role Playing Game.

The Final Reflection sent a shockwave through Trek fandom. Back in those days, before any of us had ever even heard of Captain Picard, the Star Trek novels and the very rare movies (this was the same year that Star Trek III came out), the novels were what the faithful had to keep going. This novel stood out as one of the best -- it was serious, hardcore science fiction even if one cut out "Star Trek" from it entirely. It was even distinctive in that the original crew -- who had been in every other novel to come out, most of the time at the center of it -- were relegated to a wrapping device at the very beginning and very end of the book. This was a book almost entirely devoid of Kirk, and while both Spock and McCoy had some influence in the book, it was entirely different than we had come to expect.

Most of all, it was good. And it managed to make Klingons not just respectable, but sympathetic. People began to like the Klingons as more than brutes or enemies (or as more than a simple reaction against the Federation). While some folks (primarily Star Fleet Battles players, at least in my experience) enjoyed Klingons before that, it was always through the lens of their opposition to the Federation -- their antagonistic role. Now, Klingons could be protagonists.

Ford then followed this novel up with a second Klingon centered novel. It was a musical comedy.

Seriously.

The printed book was a musical comedy.

It was called How Much For Just the Planet and it was hysterical. From Scotty and a Klingon Engineer meeting and dueling on the field of honor (a golf course) to full sized inflatable starships, to an honest-to-Christ pie fight. And yet, the characters remained strong (and true to themselves) throughout. This was definitely the crew of the Enterprise from The Trouble with Tribbles and I, Mudd, but it was still the crew of the Enterprise.

While How Much For Just the Planet wasn't the same kind of epic transformation that The Final Reflection was, it was popular. Usenet sig files became full of quotes from it (my personal favorite being "Blueberry," Kirk thought instead of ducking. WHAM! Blueberry it was, which appeared quite often for a while in those sigs.) This was good old fashioned anarchic fun.

It was also a reaction against Paramount, who had explicitly kiboshed Ford's true sequel book to The Final Reflection. Their reasons became apparent quickly, when Star Trek: The Next Generation came out, with a Klingon on the bridge. Paramount had begun to tighten their grip on Pocket Books's continuity, which in turn tightened their grip on the authors. Which Ford mocked in the book (at one point, Scotty looks at a distant mountain, notes its crown of stars, and makes mention of the comfort he feels in some higher power arranging them -- a clear reference to the Paramount logo).

Regardless, How Much for Just the Planet represented the end of Ford's involvement with the Star Trek license. But not his influence.

Klingons in The Next Generation and beyond are not Ford's Klingon's. For one thing, they're nowhere near as feasible, well developed, sustainable, rational, or alien. They are far more simplistic. And they're almost unreconcilable with the Klingons of the original series. In fact, the only way one could reconcile the two visions of the Klingon empire were through John M. Ford's eyes -- his Klingon Empire could support the original series and the far less sophisticated Next Generation model. However, even though Paramount went with other writers to create their House Klingons in Canon, you could see lots of places where the serial numbers have been filed off from Ford's version. The much mocked (and much celebrated) tradition of Klingon Opera comes from Ford, admitted or not. The three legendary Klingon captains from the Original Series to appear on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine were named "Dahar masters," in echo of the foster father of Captain Krenn from The Final Reflection, an undrawn Grand Master of klin'zha.

And then there was "Heart of Glory."

"Heart of Glory" was the first Klingon-centered episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It featured Worf (the first episode to really put Worf front and center) meeting with renegade Klingon warriors. And it was clearly heavily influenced by The Final Reflection. Korris, one of the renegades, cries out "you have betrayed Kling!" in clear echo of the concept of klin from The Final Reflection. They make note of Worf's name (which he said was because he was fostered to humans before the "Age of Inclusion") in clear echo of the tradition of Klingons in Ford's work to change the first letter of their given name to K if they join the navy or M if they join the Marines. (All of the warriors' names began with K in the episode.) At one point, it looks like the Klingons were going to take a hostage, only to surrender the child in question. Worf is dismissive at Yar's concerns. ("Cowards take hostages. Klingons do not.") This was in direct echo of The Final Reflection:

Orion pirates take hostages for ransom. Kuve in desperation take hostages for their lives. And now the Federation shows us more rules than a Vulcan would make, about selling hostages! I will tell you what the Klingon law of hostages is: a dead thing is without value.

The only thing "Heart of Glory" lacked was Ford's name. It was a significant lack.

Ford has done much more than write about Klingons, of course. He wrote about elements of what would later be called Cyberpunk in 1980's Web of Angels, a full four years before William Gibson's Neuromancer and two years before the redefinition of Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep into Blade Runner. His book Growing Up Weightless won the Philip K. Dick award. He published poetry. And his RPG work was significant and broad: he did some of the seminal work on GURPS (including the GURPS 4th edition Characters section) as part of a long and fruitful association with Steve Jackson Games. He wrote some of the finest GURPS supplements, including GURPS Infinite Worlds and GURPS Time Travel. And he wrote The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues, perhaps the single most significant work ever done for the Paranoia game.

Most of all, he was accessible. He was a notorious and fully forum gadfly. I had more than one conversation with him on the Steve Jackson Games forums. He was largely recognizable for his signature file, which was hysterical and which he changed at least daily (and sometimes it seemed for every post). He was also recognizable, of course, for being a funny and friendly and above all easy to talk to correspondent. Mike Ford (as he was called when not being formal) made any online home he was part of better by his presence.

And now he's dead.

Making Light broke the story. Neil Gaiman quoted the last e-mail he received from John M. Ford, just a few days ago. My friend Mason, who used to roleplay with him back in the days of the original pre-Seizure Illuminator BBS, is in shock. And everywhere I turn, people are sad, and so am I.

But not sad for Mike Ford himself. Because unlike so many of us, he had impact. He wrote good things people read and loved. He touched lives, he was always funny (even during some horrible health issues including a kidney transplant), he was always kind.

And I turn my eyes back to that improbable event that essentially no other RPG writer has done -- his Klingons, which actually reached up from his FASA products through truly great novels to help shape the course of Star Trek itself.

I said above that the one thing that "Heart of Glory" lacked was Ford's name. And it is true and it is wrong, not just because Ford's word deserved to be commemorated, but because Ford's work was better than what they ultimately went with. No episode of a future Star Trek will be dedicated to Ford's memory -- that's not the way Paramount works.

But his impact was still there. And in the poem I quoted at the top of this piece he pointed out an essential component of his Klingon culture. The stars see our actions. The naked stars know what we have done. It doesn't matter if the millions of fans of Star Trek know his name or not, if they know the things he did or not. John M. Ford's fans know what he did. His readers know what he did.

The naked stars saw his deeds, and each one remembers.

And so will I.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:46 PM | Comments (23)

September 20, 2006

Eric: Needful things and personal appearances

First off, and by far most importantly, Paul Taylor, the man behind Wapsi Square, has had a child with his wife. Unfortunately, the little one was born almost a month prematurely, and there are ongoing and mounting medical costs. His confederates at Blank Label Comics have put together a joint fundraiser to help this family through these expensive early months. There's some kick ass art and other such things being auctioned there, so go have a look and bid often.

If you'd like to contribute directly, there is a Paypal link on Wapsi's front page, or you can Paypal to pablowapsi@yahoo.com. In my case, I've both donated what little I could directly, and I also took the time to buy the Wapsi Square Print Collection, which I've been meaning to do anyhow. It's 160 pages of tasty goodness.

Secondly, for those of you who might be in a position to attend, there is a bit of excitement at the end of the week. Wednesday White and myself -- your action Snark team -- are two of the guests at the upcoming Free Culture Webcomics Lecture Series at Swarthmore College. In addition to Weds and myself we have good friend (and Modern Tales editor) Shaenon Garrity scheduled to be there. We have excellent online acquaintences (and people I'm looking forward to meeting in person) Howard Tayler and Rich Burlew coming. Finally, J.D. "Illiad" Frazer is coming, who I can't call an online acquaintance (I'm not convinced he knows what Websnark even is), but who I'm still looking forward to meeting.

The lecture takes place at 7 pm on Friday, with workshops on Saturday to boot. So, come on over if you're able and get your Academic on.

You know, after you give Paul Taylor a hand.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:05 PM | Comments (7)

September 13, 2006

Eric: Revelations

In the last five days, I have had a total of sixteen hours sleep. Which is a roundabout way of saying the school year has begun, and with it we have had our first monumental problems. I'm really tired of looking at my wiring closets at three in the morning. Life is miserable.

It is also worth noting that about seven days ago, Wednesday arrived. She is... well, perfect. Glorious. So, despite the assertions of the last paragraph? Life couldn't be better.

That's not what I'm here to talk to you about. See, I just got published.

Specifically, I was published (once again) over at Steve Jackson Games. And so, on top of my monumental fatigue, my first-week-of-school misery, and my joy at... well, domesticity... I have abject euphoria going for me. The combination should be considered a controlled substance.

Long time readers know that I love In Nomine. I love the game, I love the culture, I love the implications. I love the Symphony metaphor. I love playing with expectations. I love. This. Game.

Well, going back... man, eight years ago, we find that there were opportunities to submit outlines for expanded writeups of the Superiors. (Superiors meaning Archangels and Demon Princes -- the folks in charge of the War between Heaven and Hell.) And a lot of people ran out and did outlines for the major players -- Michael, Gabriel, Baal, Belial, Lilith. People you might have heard of, here or there.

And I? Submitted a proposal for Litheroy, the Archangel of Revelation.

Never heard of him? I didn't think so.

Litheroy was a so-called "minor" Archangel. This meant he didn't appear in the core rules, but instead was released in a supplement later on. He appeared, in fact, in the supplement that came with the In Nomine Gamemaster's Screen, featuring a skirmish in the never ending war between Litheroy and his opposite number (and Fallen former Servitor), Alaemon, the Demon Prince of Secrets. This supplement was ably penned by S. John Ross, and to be honest it was at most a blip on In Nomine's radar.

I loved it. And I loved both Alaemon and Litheroy. I loved them because they felt like such paragons of their Words (in In Nomine, a Word is a concept that a given angel or demon can be bound to, body and soul. In their cases, Alaemon's Word is Secrets, and Litheroy's is Revelation). I loved the dynamic between enemies that used to be so close. And I loved it because both of these Superiors subverted expectations.

Alaemon is an Impudite -- these are the most charming, social and human-like of the demons. But Alaemon's Word is Secrets, and he is paranoid and double-faced, never letting any of himself out where he could be hurt. In other words, one of the demons who most craves human contact and sociability is isolated by his Word and nature. I love that kind of innate conflict. It's so rife for character moments, for conflict, for tasty, tasty roleplaying. For eeeeeevil.

And Litheroy, the Archangel of Revelation, is a Seraph. The Seraphim are the highest order of angels -- the closest to God, and the furthest from Humanity. Their resonance and nature demands nothing but truth, and they have neither the time nor inclination to bend from it.

Only... Litheroy loves and is fascinated by humanity. He doesn't understand humanity. He can't understand humanity. But he yearns to understand humanity -- understand the alien twists and turns and self-deceptions they put themselves through. He believes that if they know the truth, it will set them free and they will find a purity of spirit to go with the great beauty of the human condition.

So. We have a demon who craves contact but fears everyone, opposed by an angel who is far removed from humanity but yearns to understand them. Each are subversions of what someone expects from a celestial of their type.

So. I submitted an outline for Litheroy, back in 1998. And as a lark, I did one for Alaemon too.

Alaemon got bought, and was published in Superiors 4: Rogues to Riches. And, while it's not my most celebrated RPG writing (I've been ENnie nominated for other stuff), it's considered one of my best. And some people say it's one of their favorite bits of In Nomine writing, period.

I don't know about that, but I know it makes me feel good.

Well, flash forward to two summers ago. Steve Jackson Games has created e23, their new online publishing venture. And with that venture comes new life for In Nomine. And hand in hand with that comes new life for Litheroy.

At this stage, I've published quite a bit of stuff in the RPG world. I've published in Star Trek supplements and written Westerns. I've done magazine articles and I've written [REDACTED BECAUSE DUDE, STILL UNDER NDA OVER A YEAR LATER AND WHAT THE HELL?!]

But, given a chance to actually write and publish Litheroy? The very first proposal I sent to the good In Nomine folks?

Oh, Hell yeah.

Writing it was a blast. Playtesting and editing was intense but good. And I am amazingly proud of the results. The "cover" art (sampled above) is by Ramón Pérez, of the fantastic webcomic Butternut Squash. The layout and production values of the PDF are great. And it took a long, long time to appear because....

...well, because that's the publishing game.

Most of all, electronic or not, this is an RPG product by Eric A. Burns. It's based on material done by S. John Ross, Derek Pearcy and others, but it was all put through the filter and crucible of my brain. This isn't a co-author credit, or a "section by" me. This is my damn RPG supplement.

It's significantly longer than was contracted for. I offered the extra verbiage at no extra fee, because I wanted to do this right. And I'm God damned proud of the result. Litheroy was, in his own way, as much fun to write as Alaemon was. It's somehow really cool to get into the mindset of someone so completely guileless. Someone who accepts the world is not as he wants it to be, but doesn't accept that it has to be that way or that it should be that way.

I'm torn. I really, really want people to spend the eight bucks and buy this thing. I want them to read it, and enjoy it. At the same time, I recognize that it's a supplement for In Nomine, and not everyone might be interested. Fortunately, if you go to the catalog page, you'll see a preview that includes a table of contents that maybe will whet your appetite, both for Litheroy and for In Nomine in general.

And one or two of you might buy it because, well... you like me and you want to buy my supplement. I'm utterly okay with that.

I'm a writer. I write. For money.

There's proof, right over there.

Work is Hell. Weds is here. I am published.

Life is good.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:14 PM | Comments (31)

September 6, 2006

Eric: Lea Hernandez Needs Our Help. Seriously.

Lea Hernandez, author and artist of the epic and wonderful Rumble Girls books, a former Transmetropolitan artist, as well as the former editor of Girlamatic, has suffered a terrible house fire. Her family is safe, though they lost some of their pets (two dogs and four cats). They have also lost an incredible number of the necessities of life and of Lea's business. They have lost most of their clothes. They have lost shelter. They have lost almost all of their media collection. They do not yet know how much of Lea's original art is gone.

Lea is an incredible person, a firebrand in comics (in Gail Simone's words, which I agree with), possessed of an iron will and a kind heart. And right now she is in great need, both on her behalf and on behalf of her own family.

I am going to repost what Gail Simone posted, via The Beat, the Talkaboutcomics blog, and other places. We ask everyone who reads this be as generous as possible. Lea has meant a great deal to the webcomics world, the print comics world, the world of graphic novels, the world of art... you name it, she's had an impact. Let's show her how wide that impact is.

Early this morning, the Texas home of award-winning writer/artist Lea Hernandez, my friend and co-creator of the graphic novel Killer Princesses, caught fire and burned. Half her house is now gone, and the rest is smoke-damaged. In addition, she lost at least six of her family’s beloved pets, two dogs and four cats. If you knew Lea, you’d know how devastating that is.

She’s lost a great deal of her family’s possessions, including irreplaceable art. She doesn’t yet know the full accounting of what’s been lost at this time.

Most know Lea as the brilliant creator of such works as Rumble Girls and Cathedral Child. She drew the Marvel Mangaverse PUNISHER book, and has drawn for TRANSMETROPOLITAN, among many other accomplishments. She is also the co-founder and original editor for GIRL-A-MATIC, one of the most important venues for female-friendly comics created to date.


She’s also my friend, and it’s entirely possible I wouldn’t have a career in comics if she hadn’t asked me to write Killer Princesses for her to draw.

And finally, Lea is one of the last great firebrand hellraisers in comics.

Lea has two (wonderful, amazing) special needs children and right now they need a place to stay and some clothes to wear. More than that, they need some help, and fast, in the form of donations to her paypal account. Lea’s a proud person so I’m going to ask FOR her. This is important, and a great chance to do a wonderful thing for a creator who has consistently enriched this industry we all love so much. Please, take a moment and send WHATEVER YOU CAN to Lea’s paypal account and help make this time a little bit less painful for someone who would do the same for you if the positions were reversed.

If you’re a retailer, I ask that you set up a donations jar. If you’re a creator, I ask you to think of how devastating this would be to your career and donate what you can. If you’re a reader, I’m asking you to take a moment and hit the paypal link. You’ll be doing something heroic and you’ll feel great about it, I promise.

Read what Lea had to post on a neighbor’s computer while wearing her pajamas at: Livejournal.com/users/divalea

Donate (PLEASE) to her paypal account at: REVISED: divalea@gmail.com

Finally, if I understand the story correctly (as told to me by Lea’s good friend and current Girl-a-matic editor), it was Lea’s daughter hearing the smoke alarm that allowed the family to get out in time, so for God’s sake, do everyone you love a favor and CHECK YOUR SMOKE ALARMS.

> Thank you so much for helping. Really, any amount you can send will make a difference. That’s all I can say.

Sincerely and gratefully,


Gail Simone

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:59 PM | Comments (10)

August 29, 2006

Eric: Omnipedia: Meta'd

I did this a while ago, as part of a background for a role playing thing I was doing. Hand in hand with it was some noodling with old Superguy concepts, and the odd notes for background materials for some potential fiction I wanted to write.

Why I did it in the style of a faux Wikipedia article I can't say.

Anyhow, it interests me, and I figured it might interest some of you, too. So enjoy.

---

(Taken from 2025 Omnipedia article on Meta'd, under a Creative Uncommons License.)

OMNIPEDIA "One Tome to Rule Them All, One Tome to Find Them. One Tome to Bring them all and in the Darkness Define Them."

Category: Culture: Modern Street Gangs

META'D

The Meta'd (pronounced 'metaed') are a loose network of related 'sets' or street gangs in major metropolitan centers of the United States. Originally centered in the Midwest, particularly Chicago and Detroit, the Meta'd now have significant concentrations in Los Angeles, New York, Miami and the Pacific Northwest. Unlike most street gangs, the Meta'd typically organize around paranormals (thus the word 'meta'd,' which is derived from the slang term 'meta,' which means superhuman or paranormal human), and so often individual sets of Meta'd can rival much larger non-superpowered (or "norm") gangs in power and influence. Meta'd are typically identified by wearing blaze orange (the color typically worn by hunters), with different sets using different applications to denote their individual set allegiances. Some sets of Meta'd have rivalries as intense as any the Meta'd have with external street gangs. Meta'd are often associated with the more militant side of neo-punk music.

History

The Meta'd first appeared in Chicago, when Ted "Slash" Condit and Roberto "Burn" Gabriel struck up a friendship, though they were members of rival norm street gangs. The pair realized they had more in common than they had with their gang members, and both knew other paranormals (generally with limited powersets) who found themselves marginalized even within their own gangs or separate from themselves. Forswearing their old allegiances, they founded the L-Train Loop Meta'd in 2014.

The Meta'd grew in Chicago and the ideas began to spread to other cities almost immediately. To a certain degree, this caught authorities by surprise, since there was little indication that paranormality had become quite this common. (The conventional wisdom to that point had the rate of American paranormality -- which was believed to be a higher concentration than the rest of the world -- was approximately 1 in 1.1 million. By that standard, statistically there should have only been two or three paranormals in all of metropolitan Chicago. Instead, the Meta'd of Chicago had grown to 50 members in various loosely affiliated sets by 2015. While some no doubt came from other cities, there was clearly a much higher native paranormal population than was previously expected. Some sociologists believe that due to discomfort with their abilities (and the differences perceived between themselves and normals) a high percentage of metahumans with limited powersets never reveal themselves as paranormal -- with the appearance of the Meta'd, these paranormals -- particularly those from disenfranchised, disadvantaged or economically depressed or otherwise dysfunctional conditions -- found the idea of a safe haven very appealing.

Over the next several years, the different sets of Meta'd have grown and flourished in and around other gang cultures. As Neo-punk began to gain traction in urban areas, many Neo-punk artists have developed strong ties to the Meta'd community, with groups such as the Cheshire Kittens and Death of Superguy using Meta'd as security for their venues. (The Cheshire Kittens typically wear blaze orange on stage, identifying themselves with the Meta'd directly, though it's not not know what if any set they were ever actually part of.)

The Meta'd Today

The Meta'd have known sets in Chicago, Detroit, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, New York City, Miami, Baltimore and Boston. The sets are at best loosely affiliated, and rival sets have been known to emerge in the same city. At the same time, Meta'd typically stick together when threatened by norm gangs, so many norm gangs simply leave the Meta'd alone.

Gang income comes from the usual sources -- protection/extortion money from their neighborhoods, crime, petty theft, being hired out by bodyguards (particularly among neo-punk artists and the neo-punk community), and in some situations controlling drugs and/or prostitution in their areas. Most sets -- even those who run drugs to norms -- eschew drug use themselves for safety reasons and to set them apart from norms. Some sets specialize in the so-called Power drugs that grant some measure of paranormality to normals for brief periods of time as part of their effect (or side effect). There are rumors that some cut these drugs (or make them unusually pure), either in an attempt to injure norms or to drive the creation of new permanent metahumans. Gang representatives dismiss such claims as propaganda.

One interesting division between sets are their attitudes towards sympathetic norm gangs. Some sets of Meta'd form alliances with norm gang sets as part of a mutual protection pact (these are called the "Live" Meta'd, for "live and let live."). Others eschew all such alliances as a violation of what the Meta'd stand for (these are known as the "Pure" Meta'd). One of the best known of these schisms is in the Seattle Meta'd community. The Aurora Street Meta'd are a set of Live Meta'd directly tied to a norm street gang that calls themselves the Aurora Street Metabees (for "Meta-wannabe"). The Metabees wear bright shocking green bandanas on their left upper arms. The Aurora Street Meta'd wear their orange bandanas on their left upper arms and a darker green bandana underneath it. In contrast, the Broadway 2-Told Meta'd, from the Broadway neighborhood, are a strictly Pure Meta'd set who guard their territory from any encroaching norm gang activity, and wear their blaze orange on their right arms. (And naturally wear no green colors at all.)

Politics and Sociology

One common trait between Live Meta'd and Pure Meta'd is in the political arena. Many Meta'd actively campaign for broader acceptance of metahumans in society. The restriction of paranormals from such lucrative careers as professional sports (often seen as a route off of the streets for athletic norms, but denied to metahumans as unfair to human competitors) and various legislation designed to maintain public order and enforce fair business practices are seen as blatantly discriminatory against the metahuman community by a significant percentage of the Meta'd.

More radical elements within the Meta'd hold forth that the superior abilities the Meta'd possess should yield superior privilege -- that if metas were given unrestricted access to the opportunities the norms enjoy, then metas would swiftly displace norms at the top of the social order. They call for immediate abolition of all legislation restricting paranormality and its expression in legitimate business, holding forth that given equal opportunity, metahumans will swiftly outcompete normals. They also hold that this truth is self-evident to the point that normals actively conspire to oppress metahumans, in order to preserve norm prerogatives. Finally, some sets of Meta'd believe themselves wholly above norm law, since the laws are written to benefit norms over metas.

One prevailing theory among cultural anthropologists and sociologists is that with the decline in the past two decades of so-called "Supervillain activity" (in particular the grandiose schemes of potential world-conquerers, many of whom employed low level or otherwise less potent metahumans), the paranormal elements of law enforcement are seen less as protectors and more as oppressors by the underclass. Absent a more ritualized "supervillainous" outlet, they find themselves collecting and developing into ganglike structures. Certainly, a key component of the Meta'd philosophy is that "super heroes" are traitors to their race, acting to protect norms instead of exalt metas. Meta'd have similar responses to the concept of secret identities -- finding such 'passing' behavior to be the social equivalent of closeted homosexuals, who feel they will have their rights infringed upon and become social outcasts should their secret be revealed. The act of concealing one's paranormalities so that they can appear 'normal' is referred to in Meta'd circles as "bluesuiting," from a speech given by Meta'd activist Helen "Cold-T" Taylor:

"You know what I'm talking about. The god lands on Earth, and conceals his spandex suit and bright red cape. He puts on a blue suit and tie that makes him look stiff and awkward, and combs his hair to look unexceptional. His eyes are much better than human eyes, but he puts on glasses so he looks weak, and frail. He clothes himself not only in mundanity but in depectitude, and acts the part of the awkward fool, so no one suspects he is not a man, but a god. The Meta'd reject these blue suits. They reject these glasses if we do not need them to see. We reject the idea that we must not just conform but present as inferior to the normals around us. We stand before you proud, distinctive, and dare I say it superior. We embrace our godhood."

Another catchphrase of Meta'd philosophy is the principle of "Just Clever Enough," which is held up as a key component of norm oppression of metahumanity. This too comes from a Meta'd activist's speech -- in this case, Charles Foster White ("I.Q. Nu") of San Francisco's Wharfside Meta'ds:

"We threaten norms because we outdo them in every way. The golden trait of humanity over all other species has always been intelligence. They think, they rationalize, they use language, and they conceptualize, and so they can master lions and tigers that are stronger and faster and more physically robust. And now there are metas. And one of the four most common metahuman expressions is enhanced intellect. Metas think better than norms. Metas rationalize with greater facility and sophistication than norms. Metas can develop languages and concepts norms cannot begin to keep up with. If intelligence is the great advantage of humanity, then humanity is doomed.

"However, the norms have figured something crucial out. While they stand at the top of the heap, they do not need to be smarter than metas. They do not need to be more clever than metas. They do not need to be better than metas. They simply have to be just clever enough. They have to be just clever enough to pass laws that say we cannot use our powers in the course of human affairs. They have to be just clever enough to lift some of our most powerful up, and convince them to act on behalf of norms over metas, to negate our advantages. They have to be just clever enough to consistently act in their own best interest instead of in the interests of a greater justice. They have to be just clever enough to know that if they keep us minimized and disorganized we cannot pose a threat to them no matter how powerful or clever we are.

"And so I say we must not strive to outthink them. We must not strive to use brute intelligence or strength against them. Instead, we must come together. We must recognize their tactics. We must understand that if we act as one, with organization and with cunning, we can defeat the impediments they put in our path. We do not need to collectively be more clever than all of them -- we need to be just clever enough to act in our own best interest, in a way that counters them. Once we do that, our natural superiorities will let us outstrip them, and we will assume our rightful place without any need for violence or pain."

This sense of inevitable superiority over norm society is a common trait among Meta'd. Some sets of Meta'd (particularly Live Meta'd sets) feel that as metahuman expression becomes permitted in norm society, the natural advantages paranormals possess will elevate them to prominence. Others -- particularly among the Pure Meta'd -- believe that being "just clever enough" involves knowing when to actually strike back. The debate is typified by Evolution versus Revolution -- the former believing that Metahuman superiority is inevitable and will come in due course, the latter believing that only by shattering the old world order can a new world order take place. Neither camp, however, is particularly concerned with what happens to norms as society changes. "Norms don't care about me," Cheshire Kittens guitarist Tabitha "G-Listening" Strong once said. "So why should I care about them? I'll look after my own kind. There's a lot of norms out there. If they got off their fat asses and did for themselves instead of letting Uncle Tom metas protect them, they'd be able to take care of themselves, right?"

The use of paranormals as 'super heroes' and other forms of law enforcement -- which some might say is the traditional use of paranormals in American society -- is seen as direct evidence of a cornerstone of the Meta'd philosophy: the oppression of the paranormal on behalf of the normal. The recognizable tropes of Superhumanity -- the distinctive (often sexually exploitive) costuming, the adoption of codenames so as to make them archetypes instead of identifiable people, the use of "secret identities" to allow super heroes to assimilate into norm society when they aren't acting to protect that society, and even the use of 'signals' and other dramatic devices for norm police to summon paranormals at their whim to fight (generally metahuman) opposition are seen as clear signs of the devaluation of superhuman identity hand in hand with the exaltation of superhuman acts on behalf of norm society. "Good" superhumans strike down antisocial metahumans on behalf of norms, then change into their blue suits, put on their glasses, pretend to be norms themselves, and don't even ask for thank yous in return. Meta'd activists claim that these acts marginalize and devalue metahumanity on both sides of the equation -- "uppity" metahumans get struck down by docile "superheroes," thus preventing norms from having to do anything about paranormal rights.

Paranormal poet, writer and philosopher Dr. Harold T. McGinnis (himself a public Meta'd sympathizer), wrote about the issue this way in The New Yorker:

"My heritage is African, my birthplace is America. And, like many African Americans of my generation, I have reaped the benefits of the Civil Rights struggle that began previous to the Civil War in this nation and culminated in the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. And while we have not yet achieved all our goals, we are vastly closer than our grandfathers were. And so I have studied the Civil Rights Movement and the attendant movements that surrounded it, and I have been struck at how differently the Metahuman Rights Movement actually is.

"Blacks used to extol 'Black Power,' but more telling was the Black Panther's exhortations of 'all power to the people!' All people, not just black people, and not just white people, should share in the power. This was the key to our struggle in those days -- we were not asking to be made masters in the house where once we were slaves. We were demanding that our former masters look us in the eye and shake our hands, both sides free and equal in all things.

"This is not something metahumans can say, with a clear conscience. We cannot claim a desire to be equal in all things with our normal brethren, because we cannot be equal to them. Our powers and abilities make us demonstrably, obviously superior in too many ways for us to claim 'equality.' If all barriers were stripped away tomorrow -- if metas could compete with norms in all arenas, then the next day would see the sun setting on norm dominance. They simply cannot compete.

"The Zooside Meta'd of New York once challenged the New York Knicks -- that year's World Champions -- to a pickup game. The Knicks declined, which was probably smart on their part. The Zoosiders have four different metas with enhanced dexterity, speed, agility and accuracy in different ways, not to mention a character whose arms stretch far enough to let him 'dunk' free throws and another who could leap for a dunk from center court. However, the idea that these tall men of basketball are "world champions" is ridiculous on the face of it. I say, let them play a team of Meta'd. In 2019 the NBA Salary Cap was made $142 million per team. All right. Do a best out of seven series between the Knicks and a given local Meta'd gang. If the Meta'd win the best of seven series, give them the next year's one hundred and forty-two million and let the Knicks try to make ends meet. Do you think the Knicks will take me up on that offer?

"Put metas of intellect into 'publish or perish' positions in direct competition with norms, and they outperform the norms four to one in research and publication. This has been shown time and again, to the point that private laboratories typically have clauses in their contracts that restrict meta researchers from claiming full patent rights or exercising stock options in the same way, lest they overwhelm their less gifted colleagues and end up running the company de facto if not de jure. American business learned the lessons of Awesome Amalgamated and Harxxon Energy well, and norm executives have moved to secure their industries and their positions against the encroachment of the next Andy Awesome or Chalandra Harkness.

"Give metas a chance to use their paranormalities to make a living, and they will always -- always -- exceed norms in that same position. I don't care if we're discussing steelworkers who can withstand the heat of blast furnaces or nanotechnicians who can shrink to atomic size or even ditch diggers who never get tired and can dig a ditch in fifteen seconds instead of fifteen minutes. When give absolutely equal opportunity alongside norms, with all preference or prejudice taken out of the equation, the metas win every time.

"That means that we cannot demand equality and expect to be heard. It cannot be done. And we cannot even blame the norms for their perceived prejudice or short sightedness. The norms are not short sighted -- they can see all too clearly the inevitable result of metahuman equality, and they don't like the looks of it one bit.

"And yet, metahuman equality -- the reduction and elimination of all barriers to metahumans in society -- is inevitable. It is inevitable because it is the only fair thing to do, and it is inevitable because if America doesn't open its society to metahumans, some other society will -- and that society will overrun America in the long run. Darwin is alive and well, and the most fit will take over the right niche, like it or not. The question is, will American norms figure out that their long term best interest is in embracing their future quickly, letting themselves take a subordinate role to their gifted and superior children, and letting our Nation be the leader in the changes to come... or will they hold onto their power and suppress the smartest, fastest, strongest and most capable members of their society, marginalizing them and calling them "villains," until one day they discover that the Europeans are colonizing Titan and curing cancer and running their flying cars without gasoline, and no one will even trade with us because of our backwards ways?"

{This article has been MARKED FOR DIVISION into "Meta'D," "Meta'D Philosophy" and "Just Clever Enough." Please go to our forum and make your opinions heard!}

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Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:26 AM | Comments (45)

August 13, 2006

Eric: And crude euphemisms appearing in my e-mail box in five... four... three... two...

Every so often, someone tells me sexism in comic books doesn't exist. That yes, the costuming is sexualized but it's the same for both sexes.

Here's what I'd like to see.

I'd like to see every team based comic book in a month have its sexes inverted. All the men become women, and all the women become men. But page composition should remain exactly the same. Posing should remain the same.

And costuming should directly port. The new "Batwoman" or "Captain America" wear costumes exactly the same, except cut to be similarly form fitting on a female figure. The new "Wonder Man" or "Scarlet Warlock" (I won't dignify what they've done with the Scarlet Witch over the years with Wiccan terminology) would have clothing similarly cut to bare legs, buttocks, and pectorals. (Probably some kind of high cut wrestling unitard or the like.) Obviously, a character like Spider Woman would end up with a full body suit. However, in cases where "full jumpsuited" heroines usually have front zippers unzipped to somewhere between the cleavage and the navel, the resulting man will have his suit unzipped the same amount.

In the comics themselves, posing will port absolutely one to one. Where male superheroes have poses that accentuate the buttocks or penis, the new female characters will have the same. Where they have nonsexualized poses or poses accentuating the face, the new female heroines will have that. Where female superheroes are posed to accentuate their breasts, crotch, buttocks or legs, the male hero will have his pectorals, crotch, buttocks or legs accentuated exactly the same way.

Which brings us to anatomy. In cases where the male superheroes have exaggerated physiques (Superman, Thor and Captain America all fit the bill) the new heroine versions would have similarly exaggerated female anatomy (so Superwoman would be large breasted and hipped, as an example). On the other hand, where male physiques aren't particularly overly enhanced (like, say, Spider-Man) the female hero would be similarly slender and small busted. The primary goal should be to highlight the differences in male body types in that given comic as different female body types. Finally, overtly sexual heroes (especially in the area of the Johnson -- say, the Schumacker era Bat Codpieces and Nippled uniforms) would yield similarly overtly sexual heroines, while more restrained heroes would produce sexually restrained heroines.

Similarly,in situations where superheroines have exaggerated female anatomy (large bust and hips, generally), the man would have exaggerated musculatures (think bodybuilders/male strippers), buttocks and crotches. So, Wonder Woman would yield a Wonder Man who looked like an overbuilt prettyboy pro wrestler with an armadillo down his speedos who is at least as well built as superman with particular attention to detail in the primary male characteristics, while (most depictions of) Kitty Pryde would yield a slender runner's build hero. Once again, the primary goal is to show the diversity of female forms in a given issue turned male. And in situations where a heroine is overtly sexualized, the resulting hero should be overtly sexualized.

This would carry through to the villains and bystanders as well. Male police officers in the original would be female in the new version. Female secretaries in business professional outfits would be male secretaries in business professional outfits. Female secretaries, on the other hand, in 'business professional' that looks more librarian dominatrix than anything would yield men kitted out for their fantasy appeal more than their businessplace professionalism. Male thugs of various sizes and shapes would be female thugs of various sizes and shapes, and vice versa.

Above all, and I can't emphasize this enough, no more attention should at any time be drawn to the sexual characteristics, poses, attire or attitude in the new comic than in the original comic. The urge to either overcompensate or undercompensate for the gender swap would be overpowering. It would have to be fought off at all costs. For the experiment to work -- for what level of implicit sexism actually exists in comics to be appropriate revealed -- the comics would need to map as closely as possible.

The thing is? If they were absolutely accurate to nine decimal places, at the end, I'm willing to bet the vast majority of comics fans would think they were exaggerated to desexualize the women and overly sexualize the men. Consider the cover of New Avengers #7, conveniently on Wikipedia. We would have a large busted (though fully clothed) female Sentry with some sexuality to her walk (though not overly much), a slender Spider-Woman, an almost entirely desexualized Iron Woman, a Spider Man (James Drew) at least as muscular as Sentry is shown on the original, in a filmy bodysuit absolutely posed for sex (with very prominant and large penis), a female Captain America (chesty, but in highly concealing scale mail, not terribly sexual at all), a short, somewhat squat female Wolverine, and a well (and loosely) covered ronin. Going inside the comic, we'd find a world full of women with occasional token men (all slinked up in their SHIELD uniforms), and every page (the Drew) Spiderman was on would emphasize his pectorals, his buttocks, his legs or his crotch. And of course, he'd be the only man on the team, and his maleness would be kind of emphasized as primary characterization.

Or consider a Justice League -- sure, you'd have a busty Superwoman and Captain (ex-Billy) Marvel, a somewhat more slender Green Arrow or Hal Jordan Green Lantern in full body suits, a Batwoman mostly covered by her cloat at all times -- heck, if we're lucky a faceless female Question in a business suit and trenchcoat. But you'd also have Wonder Man, Zartra and Black Canary (the latter two in netted tights and high cut hipped costumes). And of course, Power Boy.

Look, I don't claim any moral high ground here. I play mostly female characters in City of Heroes because I like to look at them. Hell, back in my Superguy days, I had a character (admittedly meant as a bad Wonder Woman parody) called Spandex Babe. But the simple fact is this -- there is monumental sexism in American comics. Not mild sexism. Not "oh, it's there but it's not so bad, because the guys are just as sexualized as the girls." Monumental. If we had a single month where a second issue of all the team comics came out with all the genders reversed as absolutely fairly in all ways as possible, the vast majority of (male) comics fans would accuse them of being A) unfairly balanced and B) borderline male pornography.

(Almost certainly that actual accusation would be "gay pornography," but that's another essay.)

The first step to acknowledging the sexual double standard and the extremely prevalent and overt sexism in comics is to actually acknowledge it. So why not come right out and do it. One month, where we just flip roles. Let's see how many male role models most teenaged American boys would want to follow would come out of that month.

While we're at it, let's see how many of those teenage boys bought the issues in question.

Gosh, maybe we can figure out one or two reasons why girls don't buy as many superhero comics as guys while we're at this.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:22 AM | Comments (91)

July 17, 2006

Eric: Oh, might as well finish the job.

I've been asked about the Webcartoonist's Choice Awards, as well.

I have two basic reactions, really.

First off, there's no winner I disagree with. I think pretty much each and every one of them is deserving.

At the same time... I'm perfectly fine with an award where webcartoonists nominate the... er... nominees. And then vote. I think that's perfectly valid. But when you've started by taking a small group and having them select the nominees, you have to accept who they nominate. Tossing a nominee from a category as inappropriate in effect negates the people who devoted a nomination slot to it, mostly because they disagree with your definition. Or because they got organized enough to screw with you.

So, you know. I'm happy enough with the list of winners, but I'm having a hard time putting much stock into the whole affair this year. On the whole, I'm beige.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:20 PM | Comments (29)

Eric: You know, I haven't gotten into trouble in a long time.

I should open this discussion with a frank admission: I don't read Dominic Deegan.

I have friends who love it. One friend in particular has tried on numerous occasions to engage my enthusiasm. That he didn't succeed proves nothing other than I'm not him, and he's not me. It's one of those that just didn't grab me. There are lots of them. It happens.

That's not what I'm here to talk about today.

I get mail. It's generally a lot of fun. But a non-trivial amount of the mail I get... well, has an agenda to it. Or at the very least wants to line up sympathetic support from perceived authorities (after all this time, I still have some trouble seeing myself as an actual authority, mind). And today I've gotten some mail about Dominic Deegan. In particular, about the note that Michael "Mookie" Terracciano (the webcartoonist in question) put up on the strip, reprinted here wholly without permission:

Wow.

I had a lot of people really mad at me this weekend. Lots of forum posts and e-mails about how upset y'all were about Siegfried's death. There was even some name-calling in a few instances. I kinda felt like there was a big middle-finger hovering over me wherever I went this weekend, like one of those little black rainclouds... only in the shape of a middle finger. Hell, even my mother was mad at me this weekend (although for completely unrelated reasons).

But Siggy's demise seemed to open up a floodgate of feedback about how unhappy many of you are with this storyarc and the comic in general. Many of you said that the comic has "gone astray" or "descended into melodrama" or "there's too much angst." For those of you who would like things to lighten up, I ask you to bear with me for just a little while longer while things wrap up with The War In Hell. Afterwards, things won't be so "epic" around here.

Oh, and there won't be so much crying in the rain.

Now, I know why I'm getting mail about this. I'm getting mail because of terms like "Cerebus Syndrome" and "First and Ten Syndrome" and stuff I've written about General Protection Fault and the like. I get that. I understand.

(Though it's worth noting, for those who have equated this situation with GPF's -- Terracciano's saying "hang in with me, and things will cycle up." Darlington said, roughly, "go away and come back and read the whole thing as a single unit after the morbid stuff is over." Apples and oranges. But I digress.)

And you know -- it's possible. Maybe Terracciano is going for the Cerebus. Maybe he's going headlong into First and Ten. I don't know. I don't read the comic. Though it's worth noting -- if the series has been a mixture of serious and light all along (or at least for the last X amount of time), then it doesn't apply. It's when you go from wholly lighthearted to angst-ridden that we have First and Ten. In any case, I don't know.

I do know, however, that I was drawn, inexorably, to the Dominic Deegan forum. Maybe because of the trainwreck principle. I dunno. I was chatting with a friend online at the time, and he went too, and we were both kind of stunned.

My favorite comment in the thread about the note:

[...] if Michael can't handle negative as well as the positive, then he's not an artist worth shit.

Holy fuck dude.

All right. Let's cut to the chase. Because I don't know Dominic Deegan, but I do know fandoms. And I know artists. And I know what happens when a webcartoonist brings his story into an unpopular area. The vast majority of readers trust the artist knows what he's doing and hangs in there. Generally, a smaller group gives feedback, some of it negative, and see above. They hang in there, having registered their concern.

And then there's the other fans. The ones who take it desperately personally. Mookie is ruining Dominic Deegan! Doesn't he understand? This -- this is shit! This is all wrong, and any cretin should know better! We should take this away from him! We should destroy it now, before he shits all over our memories! He's wrong! And bad! WRONG AND BAD!

I talked about them before. It's in one of the most popular of the evergreened essays. And their byword, spoken or not, is entitlement. They feel that because they've been good and loyal readers, investing their time and energy and yes their love into Dominic Deegan, they have some stake in it. Some ownership. And when things happen they can't abide, they're ready to flense Terracciano to the bone over it.

Well. I believe them. I've loved webcomics this deeply before. I know how painful it can be to see characters I love die, and bad things happen, and horrors be inflicted. And failure occur. I know.

Get. The fuck. Over it.

You're not paying for this. You're reading it. And believe it or not, conflict is not a bad thing. Dominic and his... um... orc friends are going to have some mind numbingly miserable days. Dominic Deegan has always been a story comic (as near as I can tell), and that means everything has to go hideously wrong sometimes. If you can't abide the direction it's going in, if you can't take the pain of seeing characters you love going through hell, or if this just isn't what you read Dominic Deegan for and you feel he's lost you as a result? Stop reading the damn comic. Write about it if you must. God knows I do, in those situations. (You might remember those essays.) But be constructive, explain your reasons why, try not to be acrimonious and then leave.

Good on Terracciano for not punching out of his storyline. Clearly, he's going to stick to it until it gets where he wants. And he'll lose some people for doing that, and maybe he'll gain some others. But if you're sending venom and vitriol to him because he's making the comic something you don't want to be, turn off the fucking computer, go outside and rejoin life. You don't have to support it if you don't want to any more, but Jesus Christ, don't be those people. Those people suck.

Oh, and one other thing?

Terracciano clearly can handle the negative as well as the positive... because despite the shitstorm, he kept going. And almost certainly that's what's pissing you off the most.

He doesn't owe you anything. This isn't his job. You're not his bosses. He understands that you might leave. You have to understand that if this is going to be worth your time in the first place, he's got to draw it without caring if you leave or not.

Jesus, people. Think.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:58 PM | Comments (73)

July 13, 2006

Eric: In Memoriam: Jim Baen

I remember where I was when Robert Heinlein died.

You know how people from an earlier age than mine remember where they were when they heard Kennedy was shot, or where others from a later generation than mine remember where they heard Princess Diana had died? For me, it was Lieutenant Robert Anson Heinlein, U.S.N (ret.).

Lt. Heinlein died in May of 1988, which was the tail end of my second year at Boston University. I had moved off campus in that year, and into my first apartment. It was a squalid affair sitting right on the green line on Commonwealth Avenue in Brighton -- a one bedroom apartment I shared with my good friend Andy. (That we both slept in the same bedroom didn't bother us, particularly. We had both moved out of the dorms at B.U., where having a roommate was de rigueur. And this place reeked of being a one bedroom apartment shared by two bachelors. There were constant problems with cockroaches (I found one inside a sealed tin of homemade hot cocoa mix. To this day I have no idea how it got in there), though it was cheery with good windows and the floors were... well, wood, if not 'hardwood.'

We loved it. It was our home. It was an expression of our first true freedom. It was a pit, but it was our pit.

I was at home. Alone, as it works out. Sitting at a drawing table Andy had set up. Doing something -- possibly inking a picture he'd drawn of Iron Man. I was a terrible inker, but he was cheerful and liked to do joint projects, so we endured. The television was on behind me, but I'd tuned it to the public access channel, which meant it was showing a neon green screen with white text scrolling on it, letting us know about exciting community events in Brighton. As with most public access channels of the late eighties, it broadcast a local radio station while it did this. Unlike most public access channels, it was broadcasting NPR, which meant I was listening to All Things Considered.

Which at the time was unusual for me. I'd grown up listing to All Things Considered, but I was 20 years old and vastly more likely to have MTV on in the background than NPR, whether it was on the television or not. But on this day, it was All Things Considered, and they told me that Robert Heinlein was dead. They talked about his legacy in science fiction and popular culture, they read a passage from Stranger in a Strange Land, and they pretty much did all the things you do in these situations. And I sat there in a haze and felt my whole world was melting out from underneath me.

Robert Heinlein was dead. Which meant that I would never again read a new Heinlein book (which turned out not to be true. For a while there, the estate was churning out found manuscripts, "restored" original versions, nonfiction essays and the like on a regular basis. And later this year year, his story notes for a new book will be released in an authorized novel by Spider Robinson).

But that's not what hit me the hardest. Not by a long shot.

I realized in that moment I would never meet him. I would never thank him, for his role in helping me grow. For the lessons he taught me. For the experiences he gave me. For helping create the content of my character.

And I realized he would never read anything I wrote. And that hurt almost as badly.

Really, that's the thing about having a literary hero pass away. You lose potential. You lose the chance that one day not only might you shake their hand and say something about how much they meant to you. But even more than that, you lose the chance that maybe -- just maybe -- they will read something you wrote that they enjoy, and you can repay them in kind, even just a little.

It's a sickening feeling. Like you had all the time in the world to do something important, and now there was no time at all left, and it's your own damn fault, and the Lieutenant deserved better.

Which brings me, inexorably, to Jim Baen.

James Patrick Baen had little to no direct effect on me. He didn't write the seminal novels of my youth, for example. In fact, I never even heard of him until 1992. 1992, you see, was the year that the seminal Heinlein memorial came out. It was called Requiem (and Tributes to the Grand Master). It included a few Heinlein speeches and lesser known stories (including one I have yet to read, so I can eternally know I still have a Heinlein story out there I haven't read), and a series of tributes and remembrances by the people who knew him and were as profoundly affected by him as I was. This was a diverse lot who included astronauts, mainstream writers (Tom Clancy was among them), and some of the greats of Science Fiction. Poul Anderson, Arthur C. Clarke, Spider Robinson, Joe Haldeman, Larry Niven, Harry Turtledove, Gordon R. Dickson, Jack Williamson, Charles Sheffield... and others. Reading that book was profoundly affecting to me -- these were some of the absolute stars of science fiction. Some of the people who could call Heinlein a peer and a friend, instead of just an idol. And yet, they wrote things I could have written -- about growing up on the Heinlein juveniles. About the lessons he taught. About the yearning they felt to give back. A couple of them wrote about the intense pride they felt in knowing he had actually read their work (and that reminded me of my own sense of loss, from those years before).

And one of those remembrances was written by a man named Jim Baen. A man I had never heard of, which was very unusual in this group.

Jim Baen, as it turned out, was an editor and publisher. He had worked at Ace Books, and then Tor Books -- two of the great SF houses -- and gone on to launch his own company: Baen Books, which was an independent publishing house (whose books were and are distributed by the Pocket Books arm of Simon & Schuster). He related a story of how, when he was at Ace, he discovered that the one Heinlein book that Ace still had (a collection of essays) had a royalty rate half Heinlein's normal rate. Baen decided that was wrong and convinced his employers to double it, with no expectation of quid pro quid. This turned out to be a good move, as it prompted Heinlein to expand that collection into the staggeringly successful The Past Through Tomorrow at an advance that was vastly below his normal rate, and pitch it exclusively to Ace. Baen then edited the expansion.

Right there, I knew that if I ever met Jim Baen, I would buy him a drink. He was "in the honor guard." (The Honor Guard being the people I considered folks I... well, had to buy drinks because they were good to Heinlein. Spider Robinson was the charter member, when he put his career on the line to loudly defend Heinlein at a time when the SF community was trying hard to pretend he didn't exist.)

That Baen was someone special was highlighted more by Robinson's filk song "Ol' Man Heinlein," reprinted in that same collection. The specific lines were: "You and me sit and think/Heads all empty 'cept for drink/Tote that pen, jog that brain/Get a little check in the mail from Baen." And yeah, okay. "Tor" doesn't rhyme with brain but still....

Over time and over the years, I developed a respect for Jim Baen that far exceeded my appreciation of how he took care of Heinlein. For one thing, Baen was one of a dying breed -- a man who owned his publishing company (as opposed to selling it to a large multinational) and who selected books not just for salability but for significance. David Drake (in his superior obituary for Baen) mentioned how Baen had kept buying Keith Laumer's books (and in fact still keeping them in print today) despite Laumer's skills having degraded after a stroke in the early seventies and despite Jim Baen disliking Laumer personally because Baen recognized Laumer's significance and because he wanted to ensure an income for someone who had profound effect on Baen.

Loyalty is a rare commodity in the publishing game. All evidence suggests Baen had loyalty in spades.

But loyalty isn't enough to make money as a publisher. You need to have a good eye, a good sense of what will sell, and chutzpah. Baen had all of these things, and because he owned his company, he had the ability to indulge it.

There was a time when publishers kept some books because they made money and kept some because they should or they wanted to. Before conglomerates bought corporations that bought businesses, there were just companies that published books, and sometimes their heads could be idiosyncratic. The most famous publisher of the second half of the twentieth century was a man named Bennett Cerf. He actually was one of the regular panelists on What's My Line, given the tale end position and generally a chance to tell a (bad) joke at the top of every program. Today, writers can't get on television, much less publishers. Cerf founded Random House, and in addition to publishing the books that made that house great, he also bought the Modern Library, whose mission was to keep the great masterpieces in print in hardcover for libraries and the public. Cerf believed in that, and at the time publishers could do that. It is in no small part thanks to Cerf that the Modern Library persists today, too grand a name to be cut apart and watered down even though Random House is now a wholly owned subsidiary of publishing giant Betelsmann.

Well, Jim Baen owned his company and made his decisions. That allowed him to publish The World Turned Upside Down, which is a short story collection assembled by Baen, Eric Flint and David Drake, comprised entirely of the short stories they could get ahold of that had rocked their world as teenagers, setting them on a course that would change their lives forever. You know, in exactly the way Heinlein (and others) had done for me as a teenager. This is a massive collection -- almost seven hundred and fifty pages in oversized trade paperback (much larger than a standard paperback page) crammed full of words by people like H. Beam Piper, Arthur C. Clark, Jack Vance, Fritz Lieber, C.M. Kornbluth, Poul Anderson, that selfsame Keith Laumer and yes, of course, Robert A. Heinlein, selected not because they're the most salable of names available (though some of them are, of course), but because these were the books that had the goods. These were the ones that could hook a person. You slip in the big names and the big name editors, and you use them to slide in the names of people they've never heard of, in hopes that they'll go out and read twelve authors where they might have only read two before.

Baen did things like that. And in the last few years, he absolutely turned conventional wisdom, the internet and publishing on its ear.

See, e-publishing hasn't met its potential yet. Which isn't surprising -- we really haven't entered the information age yet. We're at the threshold, but we haven't gone through the door. But conventional wisdom is e-publishing is A) the future of publishing and B) a monumental threat to publishing in all its forms. Piracy was already a problem in some fields, because the internet persists in being open and anarchic and dupable. Book publishers (the same ones who in an earlier generation tried to restrict the sales of photocopiers lest they destroy publishing as we know it) have been terrified by the thought that people could pirate books trivially. This has guided their initiatives moving forward: Digital Rights Management. Systems that require the credit card number used to buy the book sometimes years after that credit card had been cancelled. Systems that assumed by definition that the fans of the book were criminals who wanted to do bad things.

Systems which, essentially universally, actual criminals cracked trivially. So it was all worthless, and did nothing except piss off honest people. But it was that or open the doors to anarchy.

Jim Baen said "screw it," and put up completely unprotected PDFs html files, RTFs and other open formats of his books.

On his website.

For free.

Honestly. It's called the Baen Free Library, and it has dozens of books on it, available in multiple formats. And the same books available in html format for reading right on the website. Want to read Larry Niven's Fallen Angels online? Go for it. Want to get the first four Mercedes Lackey Bardic Voices books (and other Lackey stuff) down onto your PDA? Okay. Want to try Lois McMaster Bujold on for size -- see if you like her style? You can. It's. Literally. Free.

Why did he do this? First off because DRM offended Baen. And second off because he believed, fervently, that someone who reads books for free online will then buy copies of those books or others by that same author.

Guess what. He was right. Sales of the books in the Free Library, plus other books by those authors, increased after they were made freely available. Which maybe people should have figured out before that, since it's been known for generations that putting copies of books in public libraries (which publishers also resisted) led to increased book sales.

It takes guts to try something like that. He did it and he was right.

Baen made himself available to the general public. He was a huge participant on his company's forums, Baen's Bar. He wasn't afraid to be himself on those forums, either. He expressed his honest opinions and he was sometimes frighteningly blunt for a man who, after all, was trying to sell products to the general public. But at the same time, while Jim Baen was himself a conservative (at this point in his life, anyhow), he never tried to stifle dissent or debate. He publishes a number of openly liberal books -- he might have disagreed with their content, but he didn't disagree with the right to express that content, and he could look beyond where he might disagree with the author and see the book for what it was: a valuable part of the discussion. In short, he respected men and women of conviction who supported their arguments, even when he disagreed with them. And he published the people he respected.

And women. Guys, Science Fiction is a field where the guys outnumber the girls by an order of magnitude. It's better in fantasy, but not astoundingly better. And yet, in going through the lists of authors, I counted (very quickly) a good thirty female authors currently in print at Baen. Not enough? Sure, but more than a lot of companies. (And some of them are giants -- Anne McCaffery publishes through Baen. André Norton. Catherine Asaro. Bujold and Lackey, who I've already mentioned. Holly Lisle. And many, many others. Baen was clearly more interested in finding a good story than anything else.

And he was actively, deeply interested in encouraging new talent. He honestly felt that here were giants in the field who haven't actually entered the field yet, and he wanted to be the one to let them through the door. His new project, a web magazine called Jim Baen's Universe, was at least in part devoted to that principle.

And all of this brings me back to the beginning of this story. It brings me back to a twenty year old in a squalid apartment who had heard that his hero had died... and there would never be a day when Heinlein would read his work. Never. He had blown it. It was too late.

It's not that I didn't have plenty of opportunity, practically beating my door down. For one thing, one of my good friends, name of Chris, is a regular on Baen's Bar. He had pointed to stuff I wrote for Websnark out to them there, and gotten some discussion going. And he encouraged me to participate. "There are some good opportunities here," he kept saying. "You should be getting to know these folks. Especially Jim Baen! He's great!" "Hey Eric -- you need to get a book over to Baen. They've been talking about how they're looking for stuff, and it sounds a lot like Trigger Man!" "Hey Eric! You need to check out Universe -- it's perfect for you, and they're looking for short story writers, especially ones not established!"

And I kept agreeing, but I never got to it. And yeah, I've always intended for Trigger Man to go to Baen Books, when I finished the rewrite. I just had other things on the docket, first. There was just stuff. There was still time. There's always still time.

Only, that's a lie. On June 28, after a massive stroke suffered sixteen days before, Jim Baen passed away.

There have been much better obituaries than mine. I never met the man. I never shook his hand. I seriously doubt he ever heard of me. But at that moment, when I read that he was gone, I felt something I hadn't felt for eighteen years. I felt that crushing, nauseating sense of lost potential.

Jim Baen will never read my novel. He will never know how grateful I was as a Heinlein fan for all he did and said about the Lieutenant. He will never know how grateful I am as a writer for all he's done to keep Science Fiction and Fantasy alive and thriving. Of how grateful I am for the Baen Free Library, and what it means for the future of e-publishing. And the sick, tragic part of that (from my own selfish viewpoint) is it's entirely my own fault. I could have gotten off my fat ass and submitted. I could have taken the myriad invitations offered and participated in the Baen's Bar. I could have sent the man a god damned e-mail saying thank you.

But I didn't. And now I can't.

And I'm sorry.

So, I do what I can. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers people purchase copies of The World Turned Upside Down, that book full of seminal short stories by seminal authors, which once upon a time blew Jim Baen's mind (as well as the minds of others, of course), and, in their words, "donate them to libraries or teenagers of their acquaintance." That, I can do. And I have. I now have four copies of the book. One for my school library, one for the town public library, one for a student I know who needs to have Science Fiction in his life.

And one for me.

If you want one, for you, for a teenager or for a library, it is available. As it is a book of short stories with conflicting rights in many cases, it's not in the free library, but it is available for download for a minor fee. Or you can buy it outright.

But it makes so much sense. Even in death, Jim Baen is less concerned about his name being lauded, and more concerned that young people be turned on to science fiction. That people who haven't had their world turned upside down should. And I can respect that.

I just wish I had told him so when I could.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:00 PM | Comments (29)

June 12, 2006

Eric: Schrödinger's Friend

Tracking backwards over several weeks. Tracking backwards through time. Tracking backwards to Orlando, Florida, where EduComm took place in the sprawling, almost frighteningly huge Orange County Convention Center, attached to InfoComm, which defies my easy description. A land of trade show booth babes and nerf swag and everyone and his mother showing off nearly identical large screen HD monitors and televisions. A land of panel discussions and presentations on the latest offerings and mergings of technology and education. Moodle was the big star of EduComm. Moodle, and apparently there is such as thing as "podcasting" out there.

But I digress.

This was an evening. In fact, it was Friday evening. EduComm was over. Two of our party had already left, flying back home. My Supervisor and I had decided to stay overnight that last night, rather than rush like Hell after the end of the Conference. And I was all for that, because that last night was my night to have fun. More to the point, it was my night to have dinner with an old friend I'd never met.

It's the era of the Internet, and these are recurring stories. We all have those friends we've gotten to know. Friends we know through message boards and instant messenger services and mailing lists and Livejournal. People we have slowly let ourselves get to know. People we like. People we consider intimate friends. We all have these experiences.

This friend I have known -- known well, I would say -- since 1993 or 1994. He dates back to the Superguy era. He's not the most public man I know, so I'm going to enpseudonymize him for these purposes. We'll call him "Clive Staples." Those folks who know him can work it out from there.

Please note. He is not in Webcomics in any way. He is not a regular contributor here. He is not famous or infamous on the internet in any given way. I am obfuscating his identity not because I want to create a fun game of "let's guess who Eric had dinner with," but because the experience I'm relating... well, has less to do with him than the experience, and because I'm respecting his desire for privacy. I ask, as your old pal Eric, that you do the same. And let us say no more about it.

We decided to meet in the lobby of my hotel. Now, this was a pretty cool hotel -- the Wyndham Orlando resort, made up of many small two story buildings on a resort complex with pools and other amenities sorted throughout, down on International Boulevard, which is something of a Miracle Mile in Orlando -- lots of neon signs and restaurants, stores and tourist traps. Not far away from Universal Studios, from Sea World, and from the Omnipresent Mouse. And just a mile and a half from the Orange County Convention Center itself.

(On day one, we were told it was "about fifteen minutes" away from the hotel, so we walked. It was very hot. And we were carrying computer equipment. It was a mark of personal pride that it was inconvenient and long, not a moment of horrific physical failure. I take the victories where I find them.)

So. I went down, about a half hour before we were supposed to meet, and I sat down in the lobby. I had a book, recommended to me by a good friend who's one of the best, most knowledgeable reviewers I know in science fiction and fantasy. The book was Vellum, by Hal Duncan, and it is indeed brilliant. (And that friend's own review of Vellum can be found here. Eagle's entirely right in his review, as he is in most of his reviews.) So. There with a good book, waiting.

And watching.

Hotel lobbies in Orlando are amusing affairs. Even here, in June, when it's miserably hot, there was the parade of families coming into town for their vacations. Orlando is enslaved to theme parks. Every restaurant, from the upscale (and weirdass) Salt Island through Perkins down to McDonalds has a "hospitality desk" staffed during all business hours, where discounted tickets to dinner shows, Sea World, Universal and the Mouse may be bought, and free shuttle buses arranged. They are as ubiquitous as slot machines in Las Vegas establishments, and just about as subtle. In the Wyndham Orlando, the desk called itself the "Concierge," but when I asked about a hotel service, the woman blinked blankly and informed me that she didn't work for the hotel and she had no idea what might or might not be available there. But, if I wanted to see Shamu the Killer Whale, she was my hookup.

I was opposite the Hospitality Desk, sitting, waiting for my friend Clive Staples.

There was a large number of high school students there. The Florida chapter of the Future Farmers of America were having their week long leadership conference at the same time as EduComm, and they were holding it at the Wyndham Orlando itself. Which meant during this scorching heatwave, there were piles upon piles of cheerful high school boys and girls... all in heavy, dark dark blue corduroy jackets with embroidered names and patches, and black slacks or skirts (girls also wore heavy dark pantyhose). I asked one of the girls if these outfits -- perfectly suited for doing outdoor work in October back in New Hampshire -- weren't beyond uncomfortable and into deadly.

She looked at me with the kind of pity I feel for Floridians in my New England homeland, the first day we approach 20 degree weather and they can't imagine it could be any colder, ever, and said "well, you get used to it." She wasn't even sweating. I, on the other hand, was wearing light colored shorts and a tee shirt and I was still pathetically glad I was waiting for Clive in an air conditioned lobby.

And so I waited. And I watched.

A man walked in. And I found myself wondering "is that him? Is that Clive?"

And it hit me. I had no idea what Clive looked like.

None.

Now, I don't consider Clive an "internet acquaintance." I don't consider him an associate. Clive is a friend. A very, very close friend. He was one of the first people I told when Weds and I went from associates to "dating." When I have depression, he's one of the guys I turn to. When I had my surgery, he was one of the last people I messaged. He has been there for me when I've needed a friend. I've tried to do the same for him. He could show up on my doorstep and I would take him in without a second thought. He knows my secrets, and I know his.

And like true friends, we have had knock down drag out fights, at least with words. We agree on a great many things and we disagree on a great many others. We feel passionately about the things we feel passionate about, and we don't agree on all of them. But he is intelligent and well thought out, and I respect him even when I disagree with him.

I'm in the acknowledgments in his Ph.D. thesis. Which I was very proud to see.

But... we've never actually spoken before this moment. We've only typed to each other. And I've never seen a picture. Of this specific coterie of friends, he's the one almost none of us have been in the same room as before. And there's never been any reason to discuss physical appearances.

It really sunk in at that moment. I don't have any idea what this man looks like.

I had preconceptions, of course. But they were vague, formed over long periods of time. Filling in gaps with assumptions which built on random choices my subconsciousness had made. I had my mental image of Clive. But that mental image had never been based on even slight bits of reality. I was waiting, in a hotel lobby, for a complete and total cypher.

Think about this, for just a minute. Think about the people who are close to you. Think about identity for a moment. I knew Clive. I knew his opinions, I knew his religion, I knew his job, I knew his attitude. I knew what he liked. I had bought him Christmas Presents. I had received Christmas Presents from him. I borrowed money from Clive once. This went way beyond any "internet friend" thing. I mean, most of my internet friends I at least had seen pictures of. In fact, a huge percentage of my internet friends were people I met at one time or another. In person. I know what each and every friend in common Clive and I have look like.

But not Clive. I knew everything in the world about him, except anything about his appearance.

A hispanic man of about the right age walked into the hotel lobby. Followed a couple of minutes later by a white man. And I honestly couldn't say that the white guy was a better candidate to be Clive than the Latino guy. We never talked about the color of Clive's skin. I had assumed he was white... well, mostly because I'm white. But there was no reason that had to be true, or even should be true.

Was Clive fat or thin? Short or tall? Handsome or ugly? I knew he was brilliant -- I've read his thesis -- but I had no idea if he could convey that brilliance in his bearing, or if like so many people he came across as intelligent when he had a chance to write things down but lacked any social skills. How would his hygiene stack up? Did he have any scars? What color was his hair? What color was his eyes.

Hell, how did I even know he was male? I've know girls -- especially in technical fields -- who adopt masculine identities online to ensure their gender wouldn't color others' opinions. It seemed fantastic to consider, but jeez louise, we live in a culture where Gender Bending comedies came out of the Shakespearean tradition and show up on a yearly basis often starring a Wayans brother.

It hit me, as I watched more people walk in -- in a lot of ways, right that moment, Clive was like Schrödinger's cat. He was Schrödinger's friend. He could literally be anyone. The only boundary was there was only so young he could be. I knew he had a Ph.D. I'd read the thesis. I knew he had been at least adult in attitude going back to '93. Beyond that, it was a clean slate.

I watched a man as heavy as I was walk in, in green shorts and a "Git'r'done" tee shirt. I dismissed him -- Clive wasn't the "Larry the Cable Guy" type. Or so I believed. I watched a handsome black man in a suit come in. It was a professorial suit. I weighed possibilities. I could see that, I thought. I watched a well tanned guy come in -- a real "Used Car Salesman" type. White trash. Young Republicans. Guys in Sears clothes. Guys in Abercrombie and Fitch.

It was like a game. And a puzzle. Would I know this man? Would he somehow feel disappointing to me? Would I be ashamed for not knowing more about him? And more to the point... would I recognize him? Would my complete and utter lack of identifying information mean he would seem anonymous to me, or would somehow our hours upon hours of conversation, of discussing, of argument and revelation somehow impart an ineffable sense of recognition upon me? Would I know Clive Staples on sight?

I wasn't worried we wouldn't find each other. As incognito as Clive has been online, I have not. Hell, he saw the same picture of me in a purple polyester kimono you all have. He knew what I looked like, at least well enough that I wasn't worried we'd pass in the night.

But it was a profoundly strange experience -- like no meeting of an internet friend in real life had been, up until that point. I didn't consider this meeting Clive. I knew Clive. This was just having dinner with someone I knew. It just happened that I had never encountered any means of identifying him in a police lineup before now.

More teenagers. More Future Farmers. Beautiful women in tube tops, sauntering to the Hospitality Desk to get tickets to meet Mickey Mouse. Powerful looking men. Small, humble men. Bent and sickly men, coming to vacation with their families. And me, sititng with a book I wasn't even looking at any more, trying to discern some clue, some magical mark that would scream "Clive" to me.

"Eric?"

I looked.

I considered.

Yeah.

"Hey," I said, and shook Clive's hand. I looked my friend in the eye. And whether or not I could have picked him out of a police lineup, I could see the man I knew back behind those eyes somewhere. "Hungry?"

"Starved," he said. And we headed to the door.

"You're in long sleeves and a jacket," I said. "Aren't you unbearably hot?"

He shrugged. "You get used to it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:38 AM | Comments (15)

May 17, 2006

Eric: Dude.

Here's the thing. I'm a writer. I write.

I do it because I love writing. I do it because I'm not happy when I'm not writing. I do it because... well because it's what I do.

Sometimes, I get paid for it. And that rocks.

Getting my copies of books with my name on the cover rocks too. Smelling the paper, smelling the ink.

People reading what I write rocks. You all rock.

And I have had any number of moments. Thresholds. Moments that are seminal. Moments where my world rocks a little, but in a very good way.

I had one of those tonight.

I've been honored and privileged to write a few introductions and forewards for comic and cartoon collections. It always humbles me to have someone whose work I respect ask me to contribute something to one of their collected works -- I mean, this is one of the high points of their lives we're discussing. To be asked to be a part of that is an honor and a privilege. It is, in the end, fun.

And it's a blast to see them offered online. And those rare moments I go to a comic book store and see them there, it is amazingly cool. It is just as cool as it is to walk to the RPG section of those stores and see one of my books over there as well. I like RPG stores. They're good for my ego.

Well. Ever since I've sold stuff professionally, I've haunted Barnes and Noble, Borders and all of their ilk. Because while I've known that the likelihood that Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures or something from In Nomine would be sitting on a Barnes and Noble shelf was small, it wasn't zero. (I thought I'd have that moment with Star Trek: Worlds. And then it went PDF only. Sometimes, the Gods enjoy laughing at us.) I still do it to this day.

And I look through the graphic novel section. But not for anything of mine. I look there to see if folks from the webcomics world have made the jump. It happens on occasion, and I think that's really cool.

Well. So, tonight, I was looking over the graphic novels, and my heart stopped. Because the Image Comics collections of Scott Kurtz's PvP were there. And well they should be.

More to the point, volume 3 is there.

I should have expected it. PvP is big enough to make the jump to bookstores -- more than big enough. And Scott Kurtz has worked hard, and Image ain't small potatoes. Of course the Image PvP collections are there.

So I picked up Volume 3. And I opened the cover. And I read the opening words of the foreward.

I get a certain amount of e-mail about webcomics these days. A good number of those e-mails center on webcomics the writer loves. They extol the virtues of their favorite webcomics. They talk about the art, the writing, the characterization and the jokes. They are enthusiastic about webcomics and they want to share their enthusiasm with others.

I'm not going to write about those letters in this introduction.

I skipped ahead, to the very end.

Specifically, to the part that said "Eric Alfred Burns, New Hampshire" and had a picture of the Ursula Vernon 'Snarky' you see in the corner of the web site's pages.

And I knew, right then, that it was highly unlikely that a Barnes and Noble in New Hampshire was atypical in its ordering. It's better than even odds that the other Barnes and Nobles in the region carry similar selections.

And pretty darn likely the same is true throughout this half of the country. Or maybe even the full country.

And that the same is probably true of Powell's. Or Borders. Or the Elliot Bay Bookstore. Or Tattered Cover.

For the first time in my life, I can walk into any given large chain bookstore in the country and there's at least even odds I can put a hand on my book that has my fucking words in it.

I'm astoundingly grateful to Scott Kurtz for the opportunity. And I'm just blown away. This is one of those moments that just throws me. I literally have to adjust my world view to fit this fact.

I'm a writer.

I write.

The proof can likely be found at your friendly local bookstore.

Dude.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:08 PM | Comments (24)

May 16, 2006

Eric: In other news, Marmaduke endures.

(From Peanuts, of course.)

For the second time recently we've got a Peanuts cartoon up on the old site for you to have a look at. And given the topic of this quick essay, this one's somewhat apropos. Loneliness in a crowd is one thing, but it's something else entirely when you're all alone.

On Sunday, the Winston-Salem Journal announced that it was dropping Peanuts from its comic page. It's kind of amazing that this is as significant as it is. After all, Peanuts by definition has been in reruns for years. And yet, it is in fact news when a major paper drops it.

In the words of Tim Clodfelter, the reporter who drew the short straw and had to write an article justifying dropping Peanuts (and whose surname is now my new favorite word):

Now, don't go sending the Red Baron after us. Just hear us out. We love Peanuts. It was a terrific comic strip, arguably the best in comics history. But the truth is, it ended more than six years ago when Charles Schulz died. Schulz was adamant that no one else would do the strip after him, an admirable sentiment in an industry where some long-running strips become little more than cartoon mills run by ghost artists and writers.

The Journal has been running repeats of the strip since 2000 because no one wanted to be the person who put Snoopy to sleep.

But the fact of the matter is, the strip is taking up a spot on our comics page that could be handed over to a newcomer. One reader wrote to us back in February 2000, when Peanuts ended, saying that he felt that Schulz would have wanted us to give the space to a younger cartoonist, to give the next generation a chance. That sentiment stuck in our heads, but change is hard, and changing something as fundamental as Peanuts on the comics page is even harder.

Clodfelter (seriously. Say it out loud. Clooooodfelter.) is right, of course. Charles Schulz didn't stipulate that no one follow him on the comic strip so that his own strips would continue being rerun forever and a day. He meant for Peanuts to end. And ultimately for other strips to come along behind. He deliberately eschewed the tactic that has Blondie, Dick Tracy, and that loveable acid trip Annie in the comics section to this day. It had a monumental run, but that run was over.

That run is over.

And yet, dropping the strip is problematic for the editors. Who indeed wanted to "put Snoopy to sleep," even if we were really just looking at Snoopy's home movies from an increasingly long time ago. And it's worrying to his successor, Mark Tatulli, who writes and draws a comic strip called Lio. Lio is itself a dramatically different strip than we've come to expect on the newspaper page. In a world of talking heads and situations, Lio is a comic that is all art, no dialogue, using a sense of wit and whimsy to convey visual humor. In a way, Lio is as unexpected as... well, Peanuts itself was back in 1953. (Yes, once upon a time Peanuts was considered edgy and innovative). I look forward to adding Lio to my own daily habit the minute they get on the web like every comic that actually wants an audience.

(You laugh. Opus was the big dramatic holdout. You can see how that holdout's doing right here if you like.)

Tatulli is understandably thrilled about the reception his new comic is receiving, but chagrined about who he's replacing in a major market:

Tatulli was a bit shell shocked to hear that his strip would be taking Peanuts' place.

"Oh, jeez, oh my God, you made me the bad guy," he said. He recalled a previous incident in the late 1990s when he was in a bar talking with someone about his other comic strip, Heart of the City. Another patron overheard their conversation and angrily declared "You replaced Calvin and Hobbes!"

Technically, that was true; Bill Watterson, the Calvin cartoonist, retired from the business, leaving a hole that newspapers had to fill.

"Like I had anything to do with it, but people immediately blame me," Tatulli said. "It's a real Catch-22: People don't want to change, but then there are other people complaining that the comics aren't relevant anymore. I'm trying to walk that line, make comics relevant but at the same time not make the people angry who have loved Blondie and Peanuts."

Look. I love Peanuts. I'm thrilled to see the growing library of Fantagraphics Peanuts books on my shelf. I'm thrilled to read through the strips. I will always, always love Peanuts.

But it doesn't need the increasingly small newspaper space any more. And I don't think it's bringing people to the paper -- or at least, not in the numbers necessary to reverse the decline of the newspaper subscription. It's time to let Peanuts move on... and for newspapers to move ahead.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:36 PM | Comments (21)

Eric: On Net Neutrality

It is worth noting two things. First off, if you happen to be an American and you're reading these words, you've already been bombarded with information about Net Neutrality and Saving the Internet. And, you know. I'm on that side of all of it, too. Save the Internet, and all that.

If you're not an American, but you live in some sort of representative governmental system, you ought to be contacting your own legislators, representatives, Ministers of Parliament or the like as well. After all, the Internet isn't American, per se, and legislation that makes deep seated changes in the United States will have impact on all of you. I would think the European Union would be sending quiet messages across saying "screw with the Internet, and we're going to start talking about trade sanctions." Or some such.

That's not really what I'm writing about, here.

I want to write about what happens if this legislation passes.

Specifically, I want to write about what happens to the companies that actually start trying to throttle the internet based upon their premium service.

Simply put? If you work for one of those companies? Keeping that resume up to date is in order.

See, I may be a liberal, but I'm a liberal who actually believes that the Market forces really do exist and really do correct mind numbingly stupid mistakes. And the day that COPE and such legislation passes... the day that telecoms start insisting people charge fees for 'premium access...' is the day that smart companies will absolutely decimate those telecoms in the marketplace.

Think of it. Google, Intel, Microsoft, Skype, Vonage, eBay, Earthlink, Amazon.com and Yahoo are all proponents of Net Neutrality. And of course they are -- they have no interest in paying premium fees to companies they don't even do business with. You think they won't throw their massive support behind backbone companies that pledge to "stay net neutral?" You think Earthlink and other ISPs won't start advertising that their DSL service "doesn't come with a toll booth?" You think hosting companies won't flock to those backbones that agree to provide broad service without 'tiers,' and you think that new backbone companies won't spring up to provide new routes free of this kind of interference?

Of course they will. Hell, I halfway expect Google to announce "Google Net" the week after this thing passes.

Remember America Online and CompuServe, and how they had huge amounts of premium content? These days, AOL's biggest selling point is a messenger service anyone on Earth can use. And as for CompuServe?

Is anyone reading these words a member of CompuServe? Anyone?

Didn't think so.

By the same token, if the only people out there who have trouble getting to Google, eBay or Amazon.com -- or small mom and pop websites, for that matter -- are Verizon or Comcast broadband customers... do you honestly think Earthlink won't make a huge deal about that in their advertisements? I do. And if the hosting companies that connect to Verizon or Comcast or AT&T's backbones directly abandon them for backbones that won't require additional fees for 'premium' access, I can see a lot of corporate boardrooms with a lot of unhappy managers in them.

Am I saying we shouldn't fight to defeat COPE and its ilk? Not hardly. Passage would be inconvenient at best, and there would be Trouble. I signed the petition and I contacted my representatives beyond that. But if it passes, do I think that it would devastate the Internet? No, I really don't. I don't because there's way too many companies out there who would be more than happy to take Verizon and Comcast's lunch money and give them swirlies in the bathroom if those companies were stupid enough to give them such an obvious and powerful selling point.

Capitalism. It's a rampaging heartless beast. And sometimes that's a good thing.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:26 AM | Comments (28)

Eric: You know what's cool? The Emergency Broadcast System. It's so cool when it's actually really an emergency.

It is a sodden day, in our State of Emergency.

For those of you unconcerned about the daily lives of your cheerful blogging cadre beyond what you see crop up in your RSS aggregator, Livejournal Friendslist or web site link, one of the cheerful writers for this site lives in New Hampshire. New Hampshire, which is currently in day 12 of 40 of Noah's Flood 2006 Brought To You By Pepsi. Large chunks of this state, of Massachusetts and of Maine are under water, with dams straining, sewers overflowing and backing into the rivers that have surged, and water tables saturating all over.

Interestingly enough, even though I live essentially next to a lake, I'm fine. My home is on high ground, my workplace is up a sloping hill. Lake Winnepausakee would have to rise like 20 meters before it became an issue, and if we had a sixty foot high wave of water come into town, we're officially into Waterworld territory.

But, there is impact. For one thing, there have been power flickers and even outages, which is to be expected since much of the electrical grid is now being exposed to our buddy water. For another, there are weird troubles with the internet -- which might have something to do with several of our backbones running through places like Manchester, which is among the hardest hit areas in New Hampshire. (Not to mention places like Peabody and Haverhill, in Massachusetts, which as near as we can tell are now lakes.)

Walking in to work, I noticed the ground was one big sponge now, though, and torrents of water sheet down every road and walkway, pooling wherever the ground bowls slightly. The earth is saturated here, and there is no where for the water to go except on the surface or sheeting down any incline. My feet are still wet.

And still the rain falls. It falls steadily. It falls hard.

Dover, where friends of mine live and good coffee can be had, is flooded. Roadways crumble under the onslaught of overflowed rivers. Rochester, the "Lilac City," is essentially drowned right now. And having been in Maine on Sunday (Mother's Day, don't you know), I'm at least somewhat surprised my trip home didn't involve driving through the Saco River. As it is, I assume my town is an island, cut off on all sides by roadways obscured by water.

And yet, life goes on. Though the state is in a State of Emergency, that emergency hasn't really hit my town, where things are pretty much normal. I'm at work today, and have no reason to think I won't stay at work the normal hours. Really, the new 13" MacBooks are a bigger deal in the office than the floodwaters. I have light and comfort, shelter and hot coffee, and after work I have to go buy cat food. When the biggest issue facing you in a State of Emergency is remembering you need a bag of Iams for Adult Cats, life is officially going on.

Still, there is some indication we should get used to such things. There have been rumblings that this year's wildcat hurricane season might trawl up the Atlantic and nail the Northeast. I'm certain readers in the Southeastern United States will think it's our turn, God Damn It, and they might be right. Certainly, it seems that when an area gets hit with extreme weather these days, that extreme weather comes in waves, not in isolated incidents. And the Nationwide (and Worldwide) incidence of extreme weather seems to be spiking higher, not leveling off.

So.

Stay dry. Have some coffee. Sit back. Look at the new MacBooks. And relax.

It's just a State of Emergency, after all.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:00 AM | Comments (18)

May 15, 2006

Eric: Also, Survivor ended. But I didn't care.

Two shows, radically different and yet in weird ways similar, had their finales this weekend. They're both shows on my list of favorites. I'm going to miss them both, in very different ways, and both have 'sequels' in the pipelines, even though neither sequel is direct.

And that has me wistful.

The first, of course, is The West Wing, which ended its seven year run last night. The second, of course, is Justice League Unlimited, which ended its five year run (if we count Justice League before it) and closed out the DC Animated Universe as envisioned by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini.

There will be spoilers for both shows. I invite you not to read on if you've a problem with that, because... well, because. That's the way of things.

Justice League Unlimited, on one level, was almost a disappointment. We had a full season of shows building up to the climactic confrontation between the Justice League and a revitalized Secret Society of Supervillains, initially created by Gorilla Grodd and then subverted by Lex Luthor, in a clear pastiche on the old Challenge of the Superfriends series that pitted the Super Friends against the Legion of Doom. The Society's swamp headquarters was clearly an updated Hall of Doom for example, and the new Justice League Metro Tower's base was clearly evocative of the Hall of Justice.

Well, we never actually got that confrontation. We built to it, but at the literal last second, when it looked like Luthor would regain Brainiac and ascend to near Godhood with a full army equal in power and numbers to the expanded Justice League... we suddenly had a war against Darkseid, who was coming to shatter Earth, and the League and Society ended up needing to join forces to beat them back. And in the end, it wasn't the League but Lex Luthor who defeated Darkseid. What's up with that?

Well, I figured it out. Justice League Unlimited actually ended last year.

No, seriously. We had the JLU finale last year. The show built around the conflict with Cadmus, came to a beautifully orchestrated end after a fantastic two year run, and paid off both the general leaguers and the Power Seven of the original League. It was then followed by a coda that closed out the entire Timm/Dini 'verse. It was glorious.

And people went nuts for it. For all intents and purposes we were standing on our chairs, clapping and wooting and waving lighters. There was a last minute reprieve -- the show was renewed.

Guys, this fifth season of JLU? Was an encore. This was the band coming out and playing one last set of their hits. This was the extended curtain call. And looked at that way, it was brilliant. Over the course of the season, we had some loose ends tied up, and others left to dangle. We had groundwork laid and other groundwork paid off. And this last show, the series finale, was one long, extended geekfest. This was an episode designed to make fans go squee, over and over and over again. And it did that very well.

Setting aside the Significant Moments for our major characters (though Superman finally truly being Superman for one brief shining moment was wonderful), there were all the little touches. The little homages. Especially the two Marvel nods. (Commander Steel -- a character who I think never even had lines in the show -- was the most patriotically costumed character except for Stargirl. And he had a chance to grab a circular parademon shield and hurl it, knocking aside two parademons who threatened Hawkgirl, in an absolute and clear nod to Captain America. And even more than that, Fire and Ice had a truly great double-fan service moment. On the one hand, they were in bikinis, so. You know. Fan service. But on the other, Ice sealed herself in a block of ice to get into costume, and Fire tossed her hair and costumed up in a halo of flame... exactly the way that Iceman and Firestar used to get into costume on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends).

And, in my absolutely favorite moment, we saw an old, distinctive (and, to a certain type of comic book fan, recognizable) heavy set man walk up to parademons and batter them about, so well that Wonder Woman herself was stunned. ("Hera," she murmured, staring. It was great.) Now, it turned out to be J'onn J'onzz, and that's cool enough on its own level. They didn't telegraph the reveal at all.

But that doesn't change the fact that for one moment, Jack Kirby was punching 4th World parademons. I mean, dude.

The final moments featured a pastiche on the opening of Challenge of the Superfriends, with the heroes descending from the Hall of Justice Metrotower and leaping through the screen. But that pastiche was itself a fantastic nod to the true fans and to the seventy year history of DC Comics and a superteam we called the Justice League in this series. For the record, we opened with B'Wana Beast, Metamorpho and the Creeper, along with Steel -- slightly eclectic, but three of them (all but Steel) were backup features in The Brave and the Bold. This was followed by the Question, Hawk and Dove and Captain Atom, who along with the Creeper were all created by Steve Ditko. (Which was the only creator nod in the final curtain call, but as it gave them an excuse to have the Question -- undoubtedly the breakout star from relative obscurity of JLU -- I'll take it.) Followed by the Crimson Avenger, the Shining Knight, Vigilante and Stargirl and STRIPE, who were (versions of) the Seven Soldiers of Victory (minus Green Arrow and Speedy, admittedly). They were followed by Wildcat, Doctor Mid-Nite, Doctor Fate and Hourman -- modern versions, perhaps, but still the four characters most directly tied back to the original version of the League, the Justice Society of America. Followed then by Commander Steel, Vibe, Gypsy and Vixen, who were the 1980's version of the Justice League of America (an era often forgotten, so that they were remembers and Vixen even had a major character arc in the series is wonderful, to my mind). Followed then by Booster Gold, Fire, Ice and the Elongated Man -- seminal members of the 90's version of the Justice League International. (They could have put Crimson Fox in there too, and gotten a Justice League Europe nod, but I'll take it.) Followed then by Zatanna, Red Tornado, Black Canary and Green Arrow -- core members of the 70's version of the Justice League of America. Spaced out, I would add, so that Green Arrow and Black Canary had almost a solo bow run through the screen, which is appropriate given how significant Green Arrow was to the development of the series.

And finally, of course, we had the Flash, the Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The stars of our show. The Justice League. Ending on a shot of Batman, who launched the Timm/Diniverse so many years ago.

We got a full season as a curtain call, and then they had their moment. And now we close the curtain. Next up, their "sequel" is a series that is dear to my heart: The Legion of Super Heroes. But, even though JLU set the series up, they've gone with all new, very un-Bruce Timm designs (sort of troglodyteish, really). They have intentionally said it's meant to break away from the past and move forward, so it's not the next edition of the DC Animated Universe. Not really. It's something new, and we just... move on, in the end.

Which brings us to The West Wing. Which was a finale.

If JLU seemed like a disappointment that turned out to be a celebration and curtain call... The West Wing came across as a celebration and curtain call that ended up as a disappointment. We knew it would be something of a downer -- they had to convey the essence of life moving on, of the President we've had for seven seasons leaving office and a new President coming in. And they did that, and it was effective. The quiet scene where we hear Santos taking the oath of office in the background while the White House Head Usher's staff sweeps into the Oval Office, packs everything up in a whirlwind, leaving the place bare for the new President's things to come in, and the photograph of Bartlet is taken down in the outer office and replaced with Santos was astoundingly effective.

But, one of the hallmarks of transitions like this is a sense of anticlimax. The new President set to governing immediately, and three of our cast members -- Charlie, Will and Kate -- are standing in the entryway to the West Wing. "Hey," Charlie says. "Wanna go see a movie?" "It's two p.m.," Will says. "You got something better to do?"

And of course, they don't. Oh, Charlie's heading to law school, Kate will no doubt reenter public service in some capacity (she's career military. She'll have a job, though she was denied the National Security Advisor position she wanted). And Will Bailey we know from the beginning of the season is destined to become a United States Congressman in two years. But for now, they got nothing to do. They're done.

And so it was with all our heroes. They're leaving. Their service is done. Of our major cast, only Josh and a returning Sam still work for the President. Donna -- in a plot arc almost as unrealistic as the White House Press Secretary with no previous Washington experience being tapped to replace Leo McGarry as Chief of Staff, no matter how asskicking Allison Janney is) -- has risen from being a cubicle dwelling secretary in only her third real job after dropping out of college to being the First Lady's Chief of Staff, which makes Josh and Donna one Hell of a Power Couple. And whatsername with the mind numbingly abrasive voice is now the First Lady's communications director.

Everyone else is out. Gone.

The loss of John Spencer -- the man who played Leo McGarry -- was keenly felt in this episode. They showed the pilot of the West Wing in the hour before this finale, reminding all of us that Leo was the first character seen on screen, walking into work in the White House in the morning. In Sorkin's original pitch, the President would barely be seen -- instead, the ensemble lead would really be Leo. (Rob Lowe's ego notwithstanding). And thematically, this last show should have ended not with Bartlet in Air Force One flying home to New Hampshire, but Leo walking out of the White House for the last time (I'm convinced that thematically, had Spencer not had his untimely death, Vinick would have won. Things the producers have said seem to bear that out.) Instead, we had C.J. do that walk, followed by the new President and Josh saying "what's next" in a clear echo to the end of that first episode of the West Wing, followed by Bartlet flying out of public service once and for all.

And... well, maybe it was (somewhat) realistic, as the succession takes place. But it in the end was sad, more than anything else. There was no sense of triumph -- of eight solid, good years and a torch being passed. There was instead a sense that there was more to do. Too much left by the wayside.

Which I think was intentional. Right at the beginning, the first lady said "Jed -- you did a lot of good. You did a lot of good," to a President who is staring out a window in the Residence, clearly seeing all the good he never got around to.

The one arc of real substance left to this last episode was the fate of Toby Zeigler, exiled in disgrace after he outed National Security secrets to save the lives of several astronauts. The question right up until the end was whether or not Bartlet would use one of those infamous 11th hour pardons to pardon him. Now, we knew from that same first episode of the season where we saw Will Bailey was a Congressman, at the opening of the Bartlet Presidential Library, that Toby was not in jail. He was at Columbia. But that could have been a deal or an early release or who knows what.

But yes, Bartlet pardoned him, as we knew he would from the moment that we learned he was considering it. And in what I think was the worst omission of the show, Richard Schiff didn't even appear on this final episode. Leo couldn't be there, because John Spencer died. Toby should have at least been shown at home, watching the Inauguration he could no longer attend.

In short, and in the end, life goes on. The West Wing is over. The "sequel" to it doesn't have anything to do with it, except a couple of actors in common (most notably Bradley Whitford). However, the show -- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip -- marks the return of West Wing and Sports Night creator Aaron Sorkin to television. Sorkin was forced out of the West Wing due to a drug scandal and softening ratings (and the abandonment of Lowe over what amounts to a hissy fit because he wasn't at the center of everything, leading to a staggering series of professional failures on Lowe's part). The show never really recovered from Sorkin's loss, as it went from being policy porn to ER style shocking moments of the week (in the Sorkin years, we could be made to feel the emotions behind farm subsidies and the movement to abolish the penny. In the post-Sorkin era, there were wars, explosions, peace in the Middle East, heart attacks and lots of Gigantic Moments, minus the dialogue that made us care in the first place). Sorkin returning with a show that is bar none the most anticipated thing on NBC's schedule while the West Wing limps to an end is no doubt the sweetest kind of revenge for him, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

But it's not the same, any more than The West Wing really replaced Sports Night.

So. Two shows I always looked forward to, both gone. One an anticlimactic climax that turned out to be a startlingly effective celebration and curtain call, the other a celebration and curtain call that turned out anticlimactic and bittersweet. Two sequels that aren't really sequels, to give me some hope for next year. Endings, and beginnings.

Life goes on.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:27 PM | Comments (33)

Eric: The Super Secret All Powerful Method To Protect Our Children From The Dangers Of The Internet

Hi all.

There's tons of things, actually, I want to write about. Tons. American legislation that affects us. Cultural events. JLU and West Wing. A crisis of faith I've been muddling through. Some kickass writing I've been doing. Many things. Lots of things.

However, there's something more important to write about. You see, there has been a tremendous amount of emphasis put in my nation and around the world on the massive and overpowering need to protect our children from predation online, from horrific and dangerous imagery online, from immoral and unethical websites that challenge the values that parents wish to instill in them or otherwise simply don't want them to have access to.

It is a natural impulse. It is a correct impulse. I honestly believe that children do need protecting.

So, as a good citizen of my town, state, nation and world, I would like to give you all the super secret method to protect your children from the dangers and images on the internet. From pornography and predation. From immorality and immodesty. From distraction and diseased minds. It is not 100% accurate, but it is vastly closer than any law, any technology, and any censorship that has yet to be developed.

And it is free.

First. Go into your son or daughter's room.

Second. Disconnect the computer. Be careful to note where the cables connect, if you're not familiar with them.

Third. Bring the computer downstairs.

Fourth. Go back to your son or daughter's room. Take the desk the computer was on.

Fifth. Set the computer and desk up in your living room. It should be angled so that wherever you sit when you're watching television, you have a view of the screen. Make certain the child cannot easily block the screen with their body.

Sixth. Verify everything is working.

Now, you're probably going to want to invest in two good pairs of noise canceling headphones. The first should be set up at your child's computer, so they can listen to their music, do their homework or play their games without being distracted by your television watching or other downstairs activities.

The second is for you, so you can watch TV while they're screaming at you for being such a heartless monster -- don't you trust them? Don't you care? I hate you!

You should post rules, stating that at any point, you have the right to walk up behind them without them knowing it and read over their shoulder, and that they have no right to say you can't. When they're using the headphones, this will be easy, so insist that they use them. After all, you don't want to hear their machine squawking all the time when they're using it.

You can use this as an opportunity, by the by, to set reasonable limits for things like gameplay and Instant Messaging. Have them verify their homework is done before they use anything like that, and when bedtime comes, they have to head upstairs.

If they say they can't possibly study down in the living room, even with the headphones, hand them a notebook and their textbooks and wish them well. If they need the internet, e-mail or word processing to complete their assignments, tell them that they're able to use a computer in a classroom without a problem, so they can use a computer in their living room the same way. If necessary, block their view of the TV and once again insist on the headphones.

You might think this is a pain in the ass -- you don't want to have to watch your child like a hawk. You don't want to have to tailor your evening activities around monitoring them. You don't want to be put in that role.

Welcome to parenthood.

Do I sound glib? Maybe so.

But I'm an adult, using the internet. And I'm sick to God of being told all the ways we have to change the Internet to protect the children. Protecting the children is important, but nothing Congress or Parliament (any of them) or SurfControl or any of the rest can possibly do will come anywhere near keeping your child's computer in a public area and not letting them use it in private. Ever.

The power of embarrassment and self-consciousness will work vastly better than all the filter software and censorship in the world. I promise you that.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:12 AM | Comments (84)

March 28, 2006

Eric: There is life, and there is living. But they're best done together. In volume.

Robert Jordan is the pen name of a man named James Oliver Rigney, Jr. He is a science fiction and fantasy author, best known for his epic length The Wheel of Time. He also wrote a number of popular books starring Robert E. Howard's Conan. I have friends who adore his books. I have other friends who... well, don't. And one or two who adored his books until they felt they were unending.

Now, I suspect those friends hope they are unending.

In a letter dated March 23rd and published by Locus online, Robert Jordan disclosed that he has been diagnosed with amyloidosis -- a rare blood disease that can take many forms. In his case, the form it is taking is an accretion of misshapen proteins which are accumulating in his heart's cardiac muscle, producing a condition called cardiomyopathy. In his case, said cardiomyopathy refers to a stiffening of his heart muscle, leading ultimately to death, likely from a form of congestive heart failure. He has been told that untreated, he has a median life expectancy of one year. With aggressive treatment -- which in this case means chemotherapy that will destroy all his bone marrow, followed by a reseeding of his bone marrow through stem cells harvested from his own blood (so the Bush administration has nothing to fear in its use). If it works, his median life expectancy quadruples.

Which, of course, means four years.

This has had something of an impact on me, as you might imagine. It would have an impact on any of us. But it has more meaning for me than most.

Not because of Jordan's work, mind. I actually never read the Wheel of Time, though I own a copy of the first omnibus edition, and I've meant to get around to it. No, it's his situation that has resonance for me.

In late November and early December of 1999, I saw my doctor, complaining of feeling frighteningly out of shape. I got winded so easily, which I ascribed to how painfully fat I was. I couldn't go two hundred yards without stopping to catch my breath. I needed to lose weight, and I needed a doctor's help in doing it.

Only my breathlessness wasn't my being out of shape. As it turned out, I was in congestive heart failure. The habit I had of coughing my lungs out when I laid down wasn't a lingering cold or allergies, it was fluid flowing into my lungs because my body was hoarding it, thinking (because my heart rate had been steadily speeding up, which the kidneys interpret as low blood volume) I was dehydrated. I was in danger of drowning on dry land.

The cause was an enlargement of the left ventricle and atrium of my heart, causing it to lose cohesion and become unresponsive. The diagnosis was idiopathic cardiomyopathy. I, like the Grinch, had a heart that grew three sizes too large one day. And because it's not designed to do that, my ejection fraction -- the percentage of the blood in my heart that gets squeezed out with every beat -- was 12%. That instead of the 50% or so you should have. To compensate, my heart beat faster and faster to force the trickle of blood out. My blood pressure went up as my body tried to deal with the reduced blood flow. And of course, my kidneys overreacted and here we were.

Now, had this happened in 1989, my option would have been a heart transplant. Period. As it was, there were medicines I could take. Blood thinners, to help prevent clotting (you're in huge danger of having a stroke in those conditions). Beta Blockers and ACE inhibitors, to flog my heart back into normal operation. Diuretics, to get the fluid out of my body. (And sharp restrictions on sodium and daily fluid intake -- drinking too much could kill me.) And the clear, certain knowledge that I was fighting for my life.

The medication was horrible. I would lose days to fatigue and nausea. I would wrestle with incapacity -- I was on exercise restriction to, to the point that I had to drive to work (a walk of six minutes, tops). I had a handicap placard for my car. I got dizzy and lightheaded easily. And I was fatalistic at best.

It is 2006. My cardiomyopathy is in remission, at least for the moment. I'm vastly healthier than I was.

But I'm sickly. My health is fragile, at best. It takes me time to recover from things, and new things hit me very easily. I've had people say that my situation sucks.

But I know it doesn't.

My situation is great.

I'm not dead.

Each and every day I'm not dead is a precious gift. Being able to think in terms of my eventual retirement, as opposed to thinking I'm going to be dead by forty, is a gift beyond price. Between managing my heart condition and the gastric bypass, I am stunned at how bright and beautiful the simple joy of prospect is.

I don't think about my heart failure or cardiomyopathy, much. Not any more. It's still a part of me, but it's remote. But reading about Robert Jordan's cardiomyopathy... about his staring down at a death so close you feel like you should offer it tea like a good host... that resonates with me. That means something to me. I've been there.

And then reading his reactions to it meant even more to me:

In any case, I intend to live considerably longer than [four years]. Everybody knows or has heard of someone who was told they had five years to live, only that was twenty years ago and here they guy is, still around and kicking. I mean to beat him. I sat down and figured out how long it would take me to write all of the books I currently have in mind, without adding anything new and without trying rush anything. The figure I came up with was thirty years. Now, I'm fifty-seven, so anyone my age hoping for another thirty years is asking for a fair bit, but I don't care. That is my minimum goal. I am going to finish those books, all of them, and that is that.

[...]

If I get less than full remission, my doctor already, she says, has several therapies in mind, though I suspect we will heading into experimental territory. If that is where this takes me, however, so be it. I have thirty more years worth of books to write even if I can keep from thinking of any more, and I don't intend to let this thing get in my way.

And I thought Hell yeah! You tell them! You do it!

I was feeling my own mortality today, anyhow. One of my best friends spent the morning in surgery. (It was that best friend -- a guy named The Mason Kramer -- who (without telling me ahead of time) sent Scott Kurtz an e-mail saying "hey, this guy named Burns is writing about your strip in his blog." The reason any of you have ever heard of me is because of Mason Kramer.) He's come through it all right, but one thinks about such things.

Somehow, reading about Jordan's struggle -- and his sheer determination to live, because he has to get things done, means the world to me.

I haven't read him yet. But I'm going to. I have to make a trip down to Portsmouth tomorrow, and I'm going to buy his latest book while I'm down there.

And when it comes out, I'm going to buy his next, damn it.

And thirty years from now?

I'll make him a deal. He live to write and publish it? I'll live long enough to read it.

And then I'll loan it to Mason.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:26 PM | Comments (47)

March 17, 2006

Eric: Also, don't pat them on the head and say 'aren't you clever?' They *hate* that.

One thing that always amazes me is the kind of questions Weds and I get -- especially when we both get asked things in the same e-mail or letter or communique.

I get a lot of questions about blogging. About webcomics. About payment systems. About content management. About the role of the editor in the process. About editorial freedom. About critical discourse. About stuff.

Weds, on the other hand, generally gets "what is it like to be a woman in webcomics," and "what issues do you think women face in webcomics," and "how do we get more women in webcomics."

We get these from both men and women. It's happened many times, now. I have an opinion. Wednesday has a vagina.

Let me pause, and put forth a few names for your consideration.

Aeire, Donna Barr, Jennie Breeden, Vera Brosgol, Maritza Campos, Kelly J. Cooper, Danielle Corsetto, Leigh Dragoon, Barb Fischer, Kaja Foglio, K. Sandra Fuhr, Lisa R. Jonté, Dorothy Gambrell, Shaenon Garrity, Anne Gibson, Meredith Gran, Amber "Glych" Greenlee, Emily Halifax, Rachel Hartman, Lea Hernandez, Starline Hodge, Mel Hynes, Gisele Lagace, Jenn Manley Lee, Meaghan Quinn, Nitrozac, Veronica Pare, Tiffany Ross, Ryuko, Indigo Skynet, Ping Teo, Ursula Vernon, Wednesday White, Jin Wicked

Please note, this is not a comprehensive list. Nor is it a researched list. These are the women I could think up off the top of my head who do webcomics, webcomics commentary, or both. If I've forgotten you, it's because I have a small brain and besides, I didn't devote much time to it. I just typed.

Look at that list. Thirty odd names worth. Including some of the best webcomics on the web. Including some of the most successful creators in comics.

I'm not posting those names so we can say "gosh, look at those plucky chicks go." I'm posting those names because the idea that webcomics has the same kind of glass ceiling that society is struggling with on every level is laughable. Think about the last block of comics Keenspot took. Jennie Breeden, Starline Hodge, Mel Hynes. New Keenspot strips only trickle in, bear in mind. Look at Shaenon Garrity. Shaenon writes for fucking Marvel. Fucking Marvel. Nitrozac was contemporary with User Friendly's Illiad, made a living solely from her art before Penny Arcade or PvP did, and got guest of honor credits at Linux expos back in the 90's.

There are people up in that list above who are relatively new, building an audience. There are people in that who have a solid audience. There are people in that list who have absolutely rabid fucking fans. (Trust me. I've gotten e-mail from Aeire's fanbase before, when they haven't been happy with me.) They have absolutely the same capacity to build a webcomic, create a readership, develop an audience and influence and make a living as anyone else. It's the web. It doesn't fucking matter what kind of genitals they have. We can't see them.

And yet... if you read interviews with them, or questions posed to them, they continually come back to "so, you have breasts. How is it you draw webcomics? How can we get more people with breasts to draw webcomics? Would you mind showing us your breasts?"

Or it's about sex. Because if they're women, they must all be about the sex. Hell, Fleen just added a female columnist. Fine and dandy. Only, her column is This Week in Webcomics Boning, and it's done pseduo-Wonkette style.

Guys? One of the reasons I got into writing about webcomics is because I was reading some really exciting stuff on the web. Both comic strips and commentary. One of the people who most excited me, commentary wise, was Wednesday White. She predated me in this field. She knows at least as much as I do about it. And I fact check and reality check with her constantly.

But, see, she has a vagina. Therefore, her field of expertise must be women's issues.

It especially frustrates her because she can't actually write about women's issues when they do come up. Not comfortably, at least. When she does, it becomes "them womens complaining about them womens things." Or it becomes invisible. Or it becomes what she's known for. As an example -- Weds wrote two of the first, most comprehensive primers on RSS feeds for webcomics (here and here), as an example. These are issues people are still wrestling with with their webcomics today. (Didn't Keen just get RSS functionality?) But when people talk about Weds's pre-Websnark writing, they talk about her essay on Geek Women in webcomics. When they ask her about webcomics or popular culture, they ask her about women's issues, not Jack Chick or religion in comics or any of the myriad of subjects she's written about for Websnark.

And at the same time, no one ever asks me about women or men in webcomics. Now, I should be an expert in men and men's issues in webcomics because I have a penis. But for some reason, I get general questions or critical questions or questions about the field, that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with what sex I was born.

Which is weird, because I actually have an answer to the question.

How do we encourage women to draw and participate and read webcomics?

Let them.

Seriously. Women find out about webcomics the same way men do -- through word of mouth or occasionally through advertising on sites they read. When they find out about webcomics and like them, they read them. Sometimes just one, sometimes a bunch. If they're artistic in temperament, they might get a yen to give this a try. Absolutely nothing stops them.

Nothing, that is, except a prevailing attitude. An implicit sexism, that comes not from what they can or can't achieve, but instead comes from the assumptions that get laid upon them.

In other words, if you really want to encourage women to be involved in webcomics? Stop defining them as women in webcomics. Talk about their art, talk about their stories. Talk about their criticism or their commentary. Talk about what's being done.

And if you recognize them as being significant enough to interview in the first place, put their vaginas out of your head and ask them about the webcomics field itself.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:29 PM | Comments (120)

March 12, 2006

Eric: Channel markers.

Webcomics criticism has grown, since the days we first started putting pen to virtual ink over here at the 'Snark. We weren't the first to talk about webcomics, we're far from the last, we're not the best (unless you think we are -- and if you do... well, thank you!), but we're among the better known.

One sign of growing, in any critical field, is when the field begins to turn on each other and devour each other's sweet, sweet flesh. And we've kind of moved into that realm. There is rending and gnashing and pain. We have reached the point where Webcomics Criticism has Drama of its own. Drama between critics. Drama and hatred and bile.

The great thing about Critical Drama, as opposed to, say, Webcomics Drama, is no one gives a shit except other critics.

Seriously. Oh, a few Webcartoonists stare and shake their head and say things like "what in God's name are you people doing?" But for the most part, the only people who care about internecine warfare between critics are other critics. And, as has been pointed out, it is this very internecine warfare between critics that is the foundation of literary criticism from at least the 19th Century onward.

As a side note, as has often been mentioned, Harold Bloom is insane. But I digress.

Well, I'm not going to add fuel to the fires. For one thing, I have a hard time caring about them. In the words of Wednesday White, I'm going back to bed, blearily eating saltines, and watching Doctor Who. For one thing, Doctor Who is really good, these days. And for another, the arguments hardly need me.

However, I do recognize that, for whatever reason, folks read what we have to say. So, it seems appropriate to offer some advice to the prospective webcomics critic, blogger, journalist or what have you. This is my advice, as opposed to The Websnark Style Guide. I don't necessarily speak for Weds here.

Consider this some channel markers. These aren't rules, because... well, honestly, who the fuck am I to set rules? But these can help keep new critics and bloggers out of the shallows.

If you think I'm specifically writing about you... I probably am. But let's pretend I'm not. This isn't meant to be personal. It's just advice.

Be up front and consistent about what you're writing. Some people write because they really enjoy writing. They don't really care if they get an audience or not -- they just want to put words on the internet. Others really like having people read their stuff -- they want an audience. They crave it. And they're going to shape their writing to that audience. Some people want to be vicious and mean, tearing into the banal and substandard with a vicious glee. Others want to support and promote the things they actually like.

The important thing is to understand what it is you want to do, to be up front about what you're doing, and to be consistent about it. If you're a webcomics review site, wanting to render your opinions (be they positive or negative) about webcomics, and rate them according to your scale, that's fine. But you should make it clear that's what you're doing. If you hate all webcomics and want to take webcartoonists down several pegs, be clear about that. (And if you hate all webcomics and want to take webcartoonists down several pegs, admit it to yourself and others -- don't claim to be a general review site.)

This, by the by, is why Weds and I so firmly say Websnark isn't a webcomics blog. It's not that we don't write about webcomics. We do write about webcomics. But we write about other stuff, too. We write about Bibleman and video games and Jack Chick and my cat. We get to do that because we're up front about it.

If you're not up front about your intentions, people will castigate you. They will call your motives into question, and use it to undermine your credibility. And some people will believe them. If you are up front about your motives and intentions, some people will still castigate them, of course, but you'll remain credible through it all. And credibility is coin of the realm for any kind of critic.

Accept that not everyone is going to agree with you. This one should be highlighted, underlined and circled in your notebook. Not everyone is going to agree with what you say. Your opinions aren't natural laws. You may think something is great. Someone else is going to think it sucks. Accept that. Don't worry about converting them to your opinion. Express your opinion as clearly as possible, accept that some folks will disagree with it, and move on.

Support your thesis. It's easy to write "the webcomic Anime Treacle sucks donkey." Heck, I just wrote it, and it took less than five seconds. However, declaring that Anime Treacle sucks donkey doesn't do anyone any good if you don't support what you're saying. You need to demonstrate why it sucks donkey. You need examples. You need evidence.

Now, you might not understand why this is important. "It's just my opinion," you say. "No one can claim it isn't my opinion." And that's true. No one can.

However, if someone who likes the webcomic Anime Treacle reads that, all they can say is "wow, what an asshole." And then they'll never believe anything else you ever write. They'll assume you're stupid. If you weren't stupid, you'd agree with them about Anime Treacle. They'll tell all their friends "wow, this guy is stupid." The word will spread. The word "stupid" will appear in many peoples' descriptions of you.

And people who agree with you that Anime Treacle sucks won't come to your defense, because there's not enough there to defend. All they can say is "well, I think it sucks too!" And sooner or later, you'll post that one of their favorite webcomics sucks too, and you'll lose them. Ultimately, every person on the planet -- including various people in the third world who have no electricity, will think you're stupid.

Which honestly isn't the point of blogging, now is it?

On the other hand, if you explain why you think Anime Treacle sucks, and give examples, you give people a chance to see where you're coming from. You'll convince some of them. Others will disagree, but they'll have a sense of why you came up with that opinion. And yes, a couple of people will disagree and say you're stupid, but it will be easy for other folks to come to your defense. You will begin to build a reputation as not being stupid. Life will be better.

As a side note -- saying that Anime Treacle sucks, and then linking to a particularly suckful example strip? Doesn't much help if you don't go into why that strip is an example of sucking. Any time you figure it's self evident? It's not.

Don't argue your point on that webcomic's forums. It's absolutely natural. You post a well thought out essay that makes a solid point about a webcomic. You support your thesis. You try to be as fair as possible to your subject. You make it clear you know your subject and you're not doing this out of hate. This is honestly what you felt, and you just hope that -- if it's negative -- it doesn't hurt the cartoonist's feelings as much as it helps him improve.

What's the first thing you do after posting? You go to that webcomic's forums, to see if they're talking about your essay.

Don't lie. We all do it.

And at first, we get upset because no one seemed to notice. "Where the Hell are they," you think. "Someone on this forum must read my site too!"

As a side-note? No. No, that's not true. I don't care how many people you've got reading. We've got a frighteningly large audience over here on Websnark, but that audience pales in comparison to the internet in general. There are vastly more people out there who've never heard of Websnark than those who have, and it's entirely plausible that the majority of a given webcomic's audience would be among those who've never heard of us.

And it's also true of you.

Anyhow. You become tempted to post a pointer yourself. Don't. Let them find it, or not find it.

If they do find it, and they start a discussion, go ahead and read that discussion. Like I said, we all do. We want to feel like we've had impact. We want to feel like our words have been read.

Well, you start reading, and you begin to realize that these people didn't get the point. They're reading things into your essay that you didn't mean. They're accusing you of things that you didn't feel. And some of their responses are clearly wrong. They clearly didn't even read the essay -- you address the very things they're accusing you of! They're lying or they're wrong. And no one's taking your side. No one's explaining just how wrong they are.

You will have an overpowering urge to post your response. To say "no, I think you misunderstood. I'm not saying Anime Treacle is pornography. I'm saying that Anime Treacle's use of nudity can be off-putting to the potential audience." You want to reasonably show them what you meant.

Don't. Walk away. Take deep breaths. Go read Wil Wheaton's blog for a while. But don't go to their turf and try to get them to "understand." They're not going to. And you'll get a reputation for being a defensive hothead who can dish it out but can't take it. And no one will ever -- ever -- take anything you write seriously.

Yeah, they're going to get it wrong. Guess what? That's okay. These are the hardcore fans of the comic strip you just said mean things about. They're not going to kiss you for it. They're going to hate you. Let them. This is their place. The place where Anime Treacle is the coolest damn strip on the web. You've posted your opinion. Let them froth all they like over there.

If you see something you honestly didn't think of -- a clarification of your essay you honestly feel must be made? Do it on your blog. That's your place. If they want to get into it, let them come to you.

But be sparing on those responses, even then. See "defensive hothead who can dish it out but can't take it" above.

Don't take yourself too seriously. Writing is largely ego-driven. We all know it. We want to believe we're carving our words into the living rock of history and the Critical Discourse®. We want to feel that the things we say will be remembered for the decades to come, will bring men and women to tears, will change lives, will out-Oprah Oprah. And in our heart of hearts, we believe that will come to pass, one day.

Leave those sentiments in your heart of hearts. Jesus, guy. It's just blogging. When you see people dismissing you, shrug and move on. Let what you've written speak for itself. If someone makes fun of you, laugh and try to see their side of it.

And don't lose your sense of perspective. Some people really love criticism. Or bloggers. Occasionally, you might get groupies. Enjoy it. (Though, you know. Use a condom.) However, most people who read webcomics criticism are fans of webcomics. They're interested in what you have to say because they're interested in webcomics, and they think it's neat someone's writing about them. Never confuse that with being more important than your subject matter. A hell of a lot more people read Penny Arcade than read your critical site. The minute it seems like you consider yourself the starmaker, the filter through which webcomics fans will see all their work, the person who stands as Editor To Webcomics who must be appeased lest you bring your wrath against the apostates? Your audience will start laughing at you. And then most of them will leave. If you're really lucky, someone will write something making fun of you. Truly lucky people might get a webcomic's daily strip devoted to mocking you.

Hand in hand with that is learning to accept the criticisms made against you, whether they're fair or not. If you get any sort of audience at all, you're going to get some responses to your work. And if you're like most of us, you're going to obsessively look for them. You'll surf Technorati and your site statistics for links, google your site name, and otherwise haunt the halls of fora and blog to find what people are saying.

Well, some of them are going to say some pretty brutal things about you. They're going to accuse you of things, rightly or wrongly. Some of them will be young enough (at least emotionally) to think they're pretty cool if they call you various words that mean "homosexual." Some of the things they say will be very, very hurtful.

And, worse yet... sometimes they'll be right. Sometimes their criticisms will be well thought out, whether they're being reasonable or inflammatory. Sometimes, they'll actually be pointing out your flaws.

The best thing you can do is ignore the idiots and try to learn from the smart people. I don't mean you need to change to suit your own critics -- sometimes they're going to fail to understand where you're actually coming from. Sometimes they're going to be right, but you're going to decide to continue anyway, because it's what you want to do.

Most of all, you should only rarely respond to them. If part of their criticism involves the now infamous phrase "they've lost me as a reader," it's fine to post a polite note thanking them for reading up until now. Don't try to defend yourself. It can't go well. It won't go well. And if they said hurtful things... well, try to get over it, and when you're writing your own stuff, remember what it felt like and try not to dish it out to others.

Unless, of course, that's your bag.

(And for God's Sakes, don't make every conversation you're in be about you. If you're in a forum or comments section of a blog, discussing something, don't phrase every comment to be a thinly disguised self-advertisement. Self-promotion is just fine in moderation. But if you're finding a way to relate a debate folks are having about an essay someone wrote about Anime Treacle, don't use it as an excuse to pimp your own recent essay on Manga Saccharine. That way lies people yearning to have you skinned as a rug.)

Be confident. The flip side of the last point, however, is a need for confidence. You have to be confident in what you write. You have to stand by your words. If you participate in a forum discussion or a comments section of your or another blog, you need to have the courage of your convictions.

Does that seem self evident? It's not. It's not because it's very, very easy to discount yourself. After all, you're talking about webcomics, and that means you're talking about webcartoonists. You're talking about Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub. You're talking about Gabe and Tycho. You're talking about Jon Rosenberg and R. Stevens. You're talking about people who tens of thousands of people read every day. (Sometimes hundreds of thousands of people. Sometimes millions.)

Hell, even in the critical community there's folks everyone's heard of with loud voices and loud opinions. There are Phil Kahns, William Gs, Fleen Folks, and yes, Eric Burnses and Wednesday Whites. People who've been in any number of screaming matches with each other and with the aforementioned webcartoonists.

And here you are. Thirty people read your blog. You have no street cred. Who the Hell are you? No one.

Weirdly, it's a safe place to be in. "No one's going to give a damn what I have to say, because I'm nobody." It's a way of posting opinions which you can then disavow. And, it's a way to fish for affirmation -- if you say "no one gives a damn about me -- I'm just a guy with a blog," it's an opportunity for people to post back "of course you're someone."

The problem is? It doesn't work. At all.

Trust me. I've been there. "I'm just a guy with a blog" was my rallying cry for the first nine months of Websnark's existence. And the best thing I ever got for it was an eyeroll. It was a mistake, because what it really says is "I'm not important enough to take seriously."

Well, if you're not important enough to take seriously, why are you wasting everyone's time by posting essays and comments in the first place?

You know that list of names I put up above? Kurtz, Straub, Tycho, Gabe, Rosenberg, Stevens, G, Kahn and the like? They play streetball. They go full on balls to the wall. When they show up, they show up to play, and they will tear your throat out if you pull that "I'm nobody" shit on them. I know. I've seen it. I've been it. If you want to participate, participate. It doesn't matter if they've never heard of you -- make your points, support your points, and have faith in your points. And if you're wrong, you're wrong. But at least you brought your A game.

Don't try to rewrite history. Look, we make mistakes. We all do. Sometimes we post an essay and we get stuff wrong in it. Sometimes that stuff makes the whole essay wrong. Sometimes, we put up an essay innocently and it turns into a firestorm of controversy we never meant. Sometimes, we find ourselves in a crucible on all sides.

The temptation is to go back. Revise. Reword what we said. Take the essay down entirely.

It is never a good idea. Ever.

For better or for worse, we live in an ephemeral medium. It's dirt simple to pull down posts, delete comments, go through and re-edit after the fact. One of the truisms of creative writing is "writing is rewriting," and it's so simple to go ahead and edit edit edit.

The problem is, people have responded to what you wrote. If you go and change what they responded to, they're going to remember that fact. Even if you have the best of intentions, any editing or rewriting you do is going to come across as self-serving -- an unwillingness to admit to your mistakes. An attempt to make the record show you made no mistakes, so your critics must be wrong.

Have you ever seen the glee someone takes in posting a Google Cache copy of an original post you've since changed? It's particularly savage glee. And boom -- you have no credibility left. At all. In anything. Congratulations. You have just been demoted to punkass bitch.

And then, there's the deleted post. Or comment. Or whatever. You know the one. You made a mistake. You took a ton of heat for it. A controversy has brewed. It's not what you meant, at all. So you pull the post down. Maybe you post an apology as well, but you get the mistake out of the record.

Well. The people who hated your post don't forget it because you deleted it. They remember it. Only now, they remember their version of it. And their version of it is vastly worse than what you actually wrote. And they're more than happy to tell the world about this horrible version of what you wrote, and here you are completely unable to refute them, because you took down the evidence. Even if you put it back up, it's trivial for your critics to say "hey, they rewrote that while it was down!" You have absolutely no way to win if you do this. And all too often, you seem like a coward when you do it.

It's not right. It's not fair. But that's how it is.

The best thing -- the only thing -- you can do is post a correction. "I said this in my last essay. I was wrong. I didn't mean for it to go where it went. I'm sorry." If you want to absolutely make certain you acknowledge the areas you were wrong, add html strikethroughs to highlight the areas you were mistaken in. If you need to add a correction to the essay itself, put it at the bottom next to a clearly marked edit marker.

We all make mistakes. Sometimes, you have to own your mistakes, in order to keep your credibility.

Everything counts, and your audience has a memory. This goes with the very first point. Remember how I said to be up front? Well, the reason for that is over time your intentions -- your real intentions -- will become clear.

If you start your blog claiming loudly that you're going to be a critic who's highlighting the problems and issues you see in sequential art today, that's fine. If, however, you spend the next four weeks trashing Anime Treacle or Manga Saccharine, over and over and over again? No one is going to believe you're trying to make sequential art better. They're going to believe you have a vendetta against Anime Treacle and Manga Saccharine. They're going to believe this because they're right.

I'm not saying your vendetta against Anime Treacle or Magna Saccharine are wrong, mind. I haven't even read your vendetta yet. However, the simple fact is, you have a hate on for those webcomics and that hate is eclipsing everything else you do. And people aren't going to look at you as a reasonable webcomics critic with good credentials in the field and credibility in various matters. They're going to look at you as the guy who hates Anime Treacle and Manga Saccharine. They're going to see everything you do through that filter. Even if you end your blog and launch a new one where you never, ever talk about Anime Treacle or Manga Saccharine, a core group of people will dismiss everything as being part of your vendetta. Or will remind people of your vendetta. You will be seen as having an agenda.

Understand, this has nothing to do with whether you are right or wrong. This has everything to do with credibility. I've said before that there's no such thing as objective criticism. This is true. However, there is still a capacity to be deceptive in your criticism. When you're seen as having an agenda, people become suspicious of your work, regardless of that work's intention. They'll question whether you're being selective, to build support against the objects of your vendetta. And even if there's no evidence of that, they'll bring that bias to whatever you write.

The same thing can happen when you cut a swath across broad sections of webcomics. If you rail against gamer comics, or sprite comics, or furry comics, or Keenspot comics, or any group... and if you do it often enough... then you stop being seen as a critic and you start being seen as "anti-gamer" or "anti-sprite" or "anti-furry" or "anti-Keenspot." Or whatever. And again, what happens is that then defines you. You can post about how much you like Sluggy Freelance, and they'll come back at you and say "but Bun Bun and Kiki are talking animals, and you hate furry comics. So either you're lying now or you were lying then! Which is it? Huh? Which is it, Skin Boy?"

Remember, you'll get back what you give out. A couple of times up above, I made mention of "being able to dish it out but not take it." That's actually a rhetorical fallacy. Our capacity to gracefully accept criticism has no bearing at all on whether or not our own criticisms are valid.

But, remember that word I keep using? "Credibility?" Credibility doesn't care if we're discussing a fallacy or not. If you're giving a sense that you don't have as thick a skin as you're expecting your own targets to have, you're going to lose credibility. It's not fair, but it's true. And that's mostly true when you're posting vitriol.

It's a simple relationship. If you post reasonable essays, with well thought out points that are well supported, you'll get back comments that engage those points in a reasonable way. (With, admittedly, a few people flinging feces against the walls. It is the internet.) If, on the other hand, you mock people, you're going to get back anger and mockery of your own.

If you give your audience the capacity to comment, understand that means you're going to get comments in kind. (You'll also sometimes get purely dickish comments, because sometimes people can be dicks, but I digress.) If you're not emotionally ready to be torn to shreds every time you post... don't tear into other people with your posts.

Be prepared for thunderous silence. Sometimes, we put a lot of work into our essays. We really, really research them. We bring our A game writing wise. We make it entertaining. We have just the right touches of humor. We make them accessible. We do all the things that we're supposed to do. And we post, and we read the post, and we know... we know we hit that one right out of the park.

And we wait for comments to arrive.

And we wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And sleep on it.

And check in the morning.

And where the fuck is everyone?

It happens.

Sometimes it happens because you didn't resonate with people as much as you thought you had. It's sad, but true. Sometimes, we don't actually do as well as we think we have. Sometimes we do nail a given essay, but no one cares about the subject matter.

And sometimes it's just as good as we thought, and everyone loves it... but no one has anything to say. It's easier, sometimes, to comment when you disagree than it is when you agree. If you get it absolutely one hundred percent right, persuading everyone who sees it... sometimes that leaves no room for anyone to provide feedback.

It can drive you completely insane. But there it is. Sometimes people are just going to be quiet. Anything you do to drum up discussion will only weaken the original essay. You're stuck.

It sucks. But as there's nothing to be done for it, we move on.

Finally, no one is under any obligation to you. This might be the hardest one for people to admit. Remember above, when I said not to take this stuff too seriously? This is why.

No one is under any obligation to you.

They're under no obligation to agree with you.

They're under no obligation to respond to you.

They're under no obligation to link to you.

They're under no obligation to acknowledge you.

The subject of your essay is under no obligation to listen, to change their ways, to acknowledge, to point their audience in your essay's direction or to in any way make any indication they know who you are.

Your audience is under no obligation to give you feedback, to agree with you, to get the point of your essay, to understand you, or to come back for more, tomorrow.

Your peers are under no obligation to consider you a peer.

No one is under any obligation to take you seriously.

No one is under any obligation to you whatsoever.

If you spend time, and energy, and have a little luck, you will build up a reputation... you will slowly build credibility. You will get return visitors. You will get people agreeing with you, and arguing with you. You will get linked. You will get influence. You will get acknowledgment. You will get an audience. Whether that audience is 30 people or 30,000 doesn't matter. You will get them.

But you don't get them for free, just by showing up. It takes time, and work, and effort. It takes accepting when people misunderstand you, and being thick-skinned when they insult you. It takes working damn hard to get your facts straight and admitting when you get it wrong. It means being honest about what you're doing and accepting that not everyone will agree with you. And it means having a sense of humor about yourself, but also standing by your work.

It can be pretty damn cool. It can also suck. And it can be hard. How do I know those points above are channel markers? I've screwed them all up at some time or other. If you go through the past, you can see where.

So. Maybe these will help others as they move along their way. In the meantime, I'm not going to trash any other critic right now. Not when there's a bed, and crackers, and Doctor Who.

Good luck. And if you run aground, mean to.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:05 PM | Comments (82)

March 6, 2006

Eric: From an e-mail sent about my last post

The following got sent to me by a fellow named Dale. Or, I suppose, a woman named Dale. Either way, Dale says:

Tell me something. How much of your unhappiness with City of Heroes came from little new content? And how much of it came from multiple waves of forced re-specification for "balance" purposes, and "enhancement diversity" (which wasn't), and "here's how we're changing everything again?" without any real reward to go with it?

Dale's a smart person.

There was a ton of rules changes, power changes, and "balance" issues in and around there. To the point where we were begging and pleading for them to just stop. They already had us. We were playing. Please please please stop messing with it.

Well, they've stopped messing with it... but they also haven't really ever given the Heroes something really, really cool to bring them back. Special events have been Hero and Villain events, not just Hero events.

So, yeah. I think that is a big part of why I just feel "meh" towards Paragon City these days.

The Rogue Islands, on the other hand, haven't been nerfed yet. Right now, I can solo to 21 with a Necromancy Mastermind -- and have a blast doing it. Right now, Brutes can lay waste all around themselves. It's fun. We feel eeeeeeevil. In a good way.

Maybe next year we'll be screaming about nerfs again and begging them not to "balance" us once more. And maybe not. Maybe they'll just leave well enough alone for a while.

Because in the end, they really did lose the war for the sake of a few battles, when it comes to their flagship.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:13 PM | Comments (14)

Eric: It's been a long time, so here's a City of Something post. Just accept it and move on.

It seemed like the love affair was over.

Oh, I still liked super heroes. I liked the conventions. The spandex. The pummeling evil. The defeating of evil with glowing green rays coming out of my character's eyes.

However, sometime back in November, I got busy. Very busy. And then Christmas was busy. And January was staggeringly busy. And so I stopped logging in. Days between sessions of punching became weeks. And then months. It seemed like I just no longer cared.

I had fallen out of love with City of Heroes.

I went back to it, finally. Got back together with my cadre of hero pals. But it just wasn't the same. They were still full on synchronized in their banter. They still cared. They still wanted it. But I was running along behind, and kind of yawning.

Maybe it was because all the development love for many months now is going to City of Villains. And the next Issue of free content updates ("Destiny Manifest") is almost all Villain content as well. So going back and trying things out was very much the same old same old.

I thought about canceling. I mean, I wasn't that interested in City of Villains. Oh, I had playtested it. And I knew it was worthy. I knew it was good. But it wasn't for me. I liked playing heroes.

And besides, they were really, really pushing the City of Villains PvP content, and I detest PvP. At least in part because I suck on toast at it.

Hey, I'm honest. Give me that much.

Well. I got together with my friends during the "Valentine's Event," but it seemed like a last hurrah.

And then last week, I made a new City of Villains character. Somewhat randomly, mind. In fact, the whole reason I did it was because I wanted to make a character wearing a lab coat. That's all. So I made a doctor, and decided to make that doctor a Mastermind. Masterminds, you see, control henchmen. They control ninjas. Or robotic minions. Or soldiers. I've played them before, during the playtesting, and they're fun.

Well, I decided to give this character a backstory. I always give my characters backstories. I'm into the whole "role play" thing. I know, I know, you can steal my lunch money later. Anyhow, I decided my character had been a medical student who was badly injured. Said medical student was then reshaped by the vivisectionist known as Doctor Vahzilok -- an archvillain from City of Heroes known for his Frankensteinian monsters and the reanimated flesh he sends out as waves of cadaverous zombies of death. Because my character had a decent amount of money for his "treatments," the character wasn't used as spare parts for an abomination of nature, but instead had organs largely replaced and flesh remade into a super powered wielder of darkness -- what in the game is called a Murk Eidolon.

Well, when Doctor Eidolon broke away from Vahzilok, the knowledge for reanimating and vivisecting flesh went along with. And so Doctor Eidolon commands not only the powers of darkness... but zombies! Better than zombies, even. Science zombies! Mu hu hah hah hah!

You get the idea. It's a role playing game.

Anyway, I started playing the character as a lark. Soloing, instead of teaming. In fact, I'm not even playing this Doctor Eidolon on my normal server.

And I discovered something.

City of Villains is a good game.

City of Villains is a really good game.

First off, I discovered I was able to solo, in a practical way. See, "soloing" is exactly what it sounds like. You're not gathering together with other players, teaming against the forces of... well, whatever. No, you're going it solo.

City of Heroes didn't do soloing well. At all. It could be done, with just the right build... but it was far too onerous. Level advancement, for someone who took missions instead of just hunting the streets and grinding out levels, took too long and didn't give enough rewards. The missions didn't chain together well -- there were "plot arcs," but they were relatively few and far between.

City of Villains, on the other hand, has a vastly more mature system of mission chaining. First off, thanks to the "newspaper" system, you're never without a mission if you want one. After all, we're supervillains. We don't wait to be given a mission. Sometimes, we flip open a newspaper, learn that Doctor Aeon's built a cool new thingammie, and realize "hey, I could steal that and get a ton of money for it on the black market." Or a psychologist releases a new book claiming your antisocial behavior stems from an unhappy childhood, and you get astoundingly pissed off and go kidnap her. Or you just decide to break some heads because you just like breaking peoples' heads.

Do enough newspaper missions, and you get to knock over a bank or a casino or the like. Knock over said bank, and you get a contact, who'll almost always put you into a full plot arc -- sometimes chaining you to other contacts who do further plot arcs.

And the contacts are brilliant this time. In City of Heroes, the contacts are almost cyphers. Sure, they're written in character... but there's only so many upstanding young environmental reporters or public defenders or taciturn men in black you can deal with before they all seem the same. The fight for justice is never ending, but it's also dull.

The contacts in City of Villains, on the other hand, are all over the freaking map. One of them doesn't like to be seen, so your contact is actually his car. His gigantic solid gold Cadillac, to be exact -- you can practically hear Isaac Hayes music in the background when you see him. (His "contact picture" in your list is his hood ornament.") And then there's the radio. See... one of your contacts is a radio. And when you listen to it... it almost sounds like... like they're talking about you. Giving you suggestions. Giving you hints. Passing you messages.

In other words? City of Villains has an entire mission chain being given to you via delusion of reference.

The missions themselves are delightfully villainous -- in a "high villain" style. You're not killing schoolchildren or selling peoples' daughters on the street for drugs. This isn't real evil. This is supervillain evil. You're taking nasty peoples' money and shutting down the generators to the television station before they can broadcast their exposé. You're picking sides and factions and playing them off each other. You're sneaking off to Paragon City and destroying their efforts to rebuild the war-torn sections of town so the "city of heroes" has to stay on the defensive. You're going back to Paragon City and blowing up some of their freaking superhero statues just to wipe the smug look off their smarmy little hero faces.

In City of Heroes, after a solid week of solo play, you'd be lucky if you had four or five plot arc "souvenirs" of your heroic exploits. And there's only so high a level you can become without teaming up with other folks or being really good at soloing.

In City of Villains, I and my undead horde of science zombies have been soloing for a week. And I've broken level 21. And I have twelve souvenirs of my exploits. Including a hat from when I went back to Paragon City's prison (which you break out of to start the game) and busted out a bunch more villains. And a report faking my own death and falsifying my involvement in an affair where one of the leaders of the corrupt military used me as a freelancer to take down some of his rivals. And a drawing of me from the future, that implies that the true horror of that future was born in my bloody, bloody hands. And a golden hub cap. Because everyone should have a golden hubcap on the wall of his trophy room.

I'm having fun. In a way, with my solid pack of zombies, I'm teaming by myself -- acting in a support role for my own characters. The zombies are freaking cuisinarts, too -- whirling dervishes of total death, though squishy enough that I have to stay close to heal them and weaken their enemies or else they'll be cut down and said enemies will want to eat my head, instead. I just recently got the power to take a dead zombie -- well, a zombie that's been hacked up. I mean, it was reanimated flesh to begin with -- and tear out his very soul and put it against my enemies. Think about it. Not only am I taking a dead man and making him do my twisted bidding... but even after that dead man is hacked to pieces, I'm ripping its spirit back out of its eternal reward and shouting "Hey! Get back to work! Being killed twice is no damn excuse!"

The graphics are lush and only get better. The ambient sound is a quantum leap ahead of City of Heroes. The opposition -- whether other villains, the horrific result of villainous activity gone awry, the police, superheroic paramilitaries or superheroes themselves -- is well designed and thought out. Clearly it would scale well if I were in fact teaming with other villains, but soloing is a joy, straight through past the current half-way point in levelling.

And I look back at City of Heroes, and I sigh a bit. It's showing its age now. It got some graphics tweaks when City of Villains went online, but that's not the same thing. And of course, all the new content has been going to City of Villains, so it hasn't really had anything exciting added to it since the "Forest of Dread" update (issue 5) last August or so. Really, at some point they're going to need to do a heavy overhaul of the mission trees and chains, to bring it up close to the level of City of Villains, and to be honest, it would probably make more sense to do a full on City of Heroes 2 instead.

I don't know.

City of Villains isn't perfect. For one thing, their constant drumming on the PvP bandwagon has gotten a small contingent of PvPers who've appeared, and who level up to the point where they can PvP, and then go do that -- PvPers who make the low level zones less pleasant than we're used to from City of Heroes, and not in a grand villain way. (I remember one particularly odious player stood next to the Quartermaster in Port Oakes and literally said "joing team]" over and over and over again, so anyone who showed up to buy or sell something got flooded out with requests to have someone pick him up and powerlevel him. (And why wouldn't he want to powerlevel. He was clearly just trying to get to the point where he could jump in the PvP zones. Man, I wish they had their own server or something.) For another thing, while the missions are meaty and fun, a lot of the time you really are just fighting other villain groups. I'd like a lot more bank heists and followup contacts -- maybe even a place where you can sell ill gotten loot. (There's a salvage system for bases, but there's no pawnbroker where you can buy and sell pieces of salvage, so you lose that chance to fence your goods.) And, weirdly enough, the NPC citizens of the Rogue Isles can be snarky to your face and you don't get to send your zombie hoard out to eat their sassy little brains before your eyes.

But that's minor. All I know is, I may have fallen out of love with City of Heroes, but there's a new obsession in my life. And that makes me very, very happy.

My girlfriend? Somewhat less happy. For the record.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:25 PM | Comments (16)

March 3, 2006

Eric: A random moment of conversation, about the whole thing from today.

"You know what I think the cover should be? Zig-Zag. Showing her tits! Now that's the history of webcomics!"

It is worth noting alcohol was involved.

I'm not going to tell you who actually said it, either.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:19 AM | Comments (39)

March 2, 2006

Eric: On History, Spin and Advertising: or drama.

My e-mail program has developed an aversion to webcomics drama, apparently.

Seriously. Wednesday just mentioned the current ongoing Webcomics Fracas, and was surprised to find I hadn't heard anything about it. In part, that's my own fault. It's been busy around these parts, so I'm behind on blog reading and rant-scoping. That apparently includes seeing the rant on PvP's front page. Perhaps I was distracted by Francis's new hair style. (And I like the new hairstyle, for the record. Though now I'm wondering if he still uses troll snot as 'product.' But I digress.)

Anyhow, as happens when there is Drama, I got several e-mails about it. As has not happened, just yet... every last one of those e-mails ended up in my spam filter. Every last one. I got other e-mails about other things, but anything to do with T Campbell, Scott Kurtz, Rodney Caston, The History of Webcomics, Antarctic Press or Previews magazine found its way into my spam filter, and there it sat, lurking.

Clearly, my e-mail spam filter took one look at the drama and said "oh, no fucking way. If I give this to Eric, he'll just write a post. And no matter what he says in that post, it'll angry up the blood of countless people. And when their blood is angried up they'll write hundreds of e-mails, and I'll have to sort through them. Fuck that. Fuck that in the ear. I declare this argument spam."

Sadly, for my e-mail program, it doesn't get to make those decisions. That's falling on my shoulders.

So. Here we are. Hi there.

You might have heard that T Campbell has a book coming out.

A caveat. I have not actually read The History of Webcomics. This is not due to lack of opportunity. Campbell solicited opinions and the like from a number of people, and I was one of them. If I remember correctly, I did have some input on a section from several months back, and I'm vain enough to be pleased that Websnark is covered in the book and Campbell asked permission to reproduce a Gossamer Commons strip for the book. However, with everything else that's been going on, I simply didn't have time to actually read the book itself. As such, I can't weigh in on the core of the arguments about it. I do know that Scott Kurtz actively dislikes a number of points about the book, and he elaborates on them well in a rant on PvP's front page. Rodney Caston also had some harsh words when he saw Campbell's depiction of the end of Caston's involvement with Megatokyo. And T Campbell responded, most notably in two posts on his blog (entitled Why You Weren't Interviewed and Wow, I'm Famous, respectively).

Those will give you a precis of what Kurtz, Caston and Campbell have to say about the content of the book. I encourage folks who have any interest at all to read and judge for yourselves.

However, I can comment on a couple of the core areas of contention, one of which I can comment on because I can see it for myself, and the other of which I can comment on as an issue of methodology, without speaking directly to execution.

Don't worry. I'll explain myself better than that when I get to it.

However, I'm going to start with the area that Campbell has, to his credit, acknowledged is problematic. An area that I can see for myself and, to be blunt, I think Scott Kurtz is completely right about. And that's the solicitation that Antarctic Press did in Previews for the book proper. You can click on the thumbnail over to the left if you wish, and it will do this javascript thing that will pop up and be, like, full sized. Or you can just click here and see it without the rigamarole.

"Rigamarole" is a fun word to type.

Now, have a look at the ad. You see a cover for the book, featuring characters from Argon Zark, Penny Arcade, Suck.com, Megatokyo and the avatar Scott McCloud used in his books Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics. You see a splash bullet at the top announcing that "millions upon millions of readers can't be wrong!" And you see 48 point text announcing "PvP! Megatokyo! Penny Arcade!" And then they go on to talk about "world renowned historian web comic historian T. Campbell."

Well, setting aside the fact that Campbell doesn't put a period after the letter T (apparently it's his first name, now -- or at least the first name he uses -- which puts him in the same category as "5" from 60's Peanuts comics. But I again digress), there's something disingenuous about calling him "world renowned." I mean, I suppose if someone in England and/or Canada said something nice about him, it could be called accurate, but that's splitting hairs. There isn't anyone -- not Jerry Holkins, Scott Kurtz himself, Fred Gallagher, or Scott McCloud -- in webcomics who constitutes "world-renowned." To then go to the far more removed niche of "webcomics historians" and give Campbell that title is to border on the ridiculous. (Which Campbell agrees with -- remember, he didn't write the ad copy.)

More than that, however, we have those three examples in big text. PvP, Penny Arcade and Megatokyo. Those are indeed three of the very biggest webcomics out there, and no doubt are heavily referenced in the book. However, any casual reader would take their placement in the ad as both endorsement of and heavy participation in the book -- that the book was by Campbell, Kurtz, Holkins, Krahulik and Gallagher. As this isn't the case -- and as Kurtz at the very least emphatically does not endorse the book -- it doesn't just deceive. It creates potential rancor. Why wouldn't the webcartoonists in question look at that ad, furrow their brows, say "wait a second -- why is my comic in this ad?" and write annoyed stuff on their comic's front page.

The adage "there's no such thing as bad publicity" is a lie. If you manage to piss off the fanbases of three of the largest webcomics for your book about webcomics? You're not going to sell more books than you were before. Just putting it out there.

To me, that's just made worse with the bullet splash above it. "Millions upon millions of readers can't be wrong!" Well, first off -- of course they can. Millions upon millions of people read The Bridges of Madison County, and I'm here to say they were to a man, woman and child wrong. I mean, seriously -- that book was turgid. I never saw the movie, but since Clint Eastwood was in it, I figure they threw in a few gunfights just to raise the level a bit.

However, the other side is, it's a lie. Millions upon millions of people haven't rendered any kind of judgement on The History of Webcomics. You could almost get away with making a claim like this if this were The Webcomics Experience or The T Campbell Field Guide To The North American Webcomic or something -- then, you're describing a cultural phenomenon, and it's something close to fair to invoke the fans of that phenomenon.

This isn't a book about a phenomenon, however. It's a history book. And so the only possible reading of that splash point is that seven figures of readers agree with this history's interpretation and have signed off on it. And that, to use the industry term, is horse shit.

None of which is T Campbell's fault. He didn't write or lay out this advertisement. However, it's creating the initial conditions for what "buzz" the book is going to get, and that buzz right now is pretty harsh.

The cover? The cover's in Campbell's court, and that brings up the next aspect of this little adventure.

You see, we have folks like Piro and Scott McCloud hanging out, looking for all the world like the Breakfast Club, with Argon Zark taking the place of Judd Nelson in the ceiling tiles. Makes sense, right? A group picture of some of the seminal figures in webcomics identified in the book proper.

Well, there are two problems with this particular interpretation. One is composition-based, and the other is... well, etiquette based. The etiquette based problem has gotten some play -- Campbell didn't think to ask permission to use the characters on the cover.

Scott Kurtz covered his in a PvP strip, yesterday. (Click on the thumbnail to see it, as always.) It's not that Campbell needed permission to use these characters -- there are fair use issues involved, of course. It's that not getting permission was... well, dickish. It takes liberties with the webcartoonists and their property. In Kurtz's words, it's asking forgiveness instead of permission.

Campbell has acknowledged it was a mistake, and sought permission of the involved parties -- and indicated a willingness to replace the cover if they said no. The parties agreed. So hey -- that makes it better. Life is good, right?

Well... I dunno.

See, looking at that cover, I don't see a montage of webcomics characters crossing the spectra of the webcomics experience. I see a group picture of webcomics characters who are apparently about to go off on an exciting adventure, during which Argon Zark is going to nail Molly Ringwald in a supply closet. Once again, the feeling of the cover art -- to me -- is less one of subject matter and more one of endorsement. "Join Gabe, Piro, and some chick from Suck.com as they go on an action packed adventure through the history of webcomics." I'd rather see a montage of actual strips by the actual artists, laid out in some way that conveys the sense that we're talking about a history book here.

(And for that matter, all apologies to Terry Colon, but why Suck.com and not, say, User Friendly. Or AfterY2K -- a strip that was astoundingly popular in 1998-1999. Or GPF or Superosity. Or Fans for that matter? But that's a matter of taste, on my part.)

This creates a condition where people feel pissed off. Pissed off because they have expectations raised that then aren't followed through. ("Hey -- wait! There's not really any Piro in this book! It's all just words!") Pissed off because their characters or brand are being used to imply an endorsement they may not actually feel. Pissed off because they perceive a violation on the behalf of the webcomics they love. Pissed off because... well, because that's what happens in Webcomics when things come out.

And we haven't even gotten into the book itself yet. We're just talking about an advertisement and the cover.

Fasten your seatbelts, kids. This really is going to be a bumpy flight.

The other thing I can speak to, that I alluded to all the way back up in the paragraph laying out what I was going to talk about? Is methodology. Specifically, the method that Campbell has said he used to gather information for his webcomical historical.

You see, the core of Caston's complaint is that apparently Campbell discussed the breakup of Caston and Gallagher ("Piro" and "Largo") in Megatokyo. In so doing, he quoted statements of Gallagher's. Statements Caston disputes. He feels that Campbell should have solicited responses or interviewed him, and by failing to do so he has permitted a skewed interpretation of the events to be entered into what, after all, purports to be the historical record.

(Much like 'rigamarole,' I have to admit I like using the word 'purports' in a sentence. It's so... woody. But I digress.)

Campbell responded that he restricted the total number of interviews he did for the book to around 50 -- which is actually a pretty small number when you consider the breadth of webcomics. Hell, I personally read several hundred webcomics a day, each with their own set of webcartoonists and the like. Instead, he researched what was actually said online at the time of the events he laid forth. In his own words:

I had reasons. I started distrusting the interview process after a while. When somebody's asking you to sum up five to ten years in comics for posterity the temptation to "spin" your answer has to be overwhelming.

Some of my interview subjects seemed to resist the pull, but I still found myself preferring to consult the typed word, because:

a) there was no shortage of written words on ALMOST every topic that related to webcomics,
b) typed words were often composed in the past, not in the present about the past,
c) words in cyberspace could be contradicted by other interested parties or the general public and
d) if the words had been typed instead of spoken, there was a greater chance they were words the author stood by.

There is validity to this method. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't. However, it is less valid than Campbell might believe, in part because it believes it's drawing off primary sources, when it isn't.

Let me go into the theory of research, for just a moment.

When you're doing research on an academic subject -- be that history, English, or what have you -- there are several kinds of sources you can draw off of. Primary sources are just what they sound like -- the specific materials in being interpreted. If you're writing about a book, quoting from that actual book is using a primary source. Using a piece of videotape of an event is using a primary source. A well researched piece of journalism, reporting the facts of an event with a strong effort towards objectivity, can be seen as primary, though it's a fine line sometimes.

Eyewitness accounts, interviews and the like, on the other hand, are secondary sources. You're getting your facts put through the filter of another mind -- through "spin," as Campbell said on his blog. You're getting an interpretation of events, not actual events.

This can be tremendously valuable, especially when doing historical research. In many cases, secondary sources are all we have. However, to get anything approximating an accurate picture, you need to gather as many points of view as you humanly can, picking and sifting through conflicting stories and interpretations until you can find a set of facts that can be verified... or simply highlighting the controversy and presenting a summation of the different viewpoints when a single course of events can't be demonstrated indisputably.

Campbell made the conscious choice to work from primary sources -- or as close as he could get -- in researching this book. This was the reason, along with sheer considerations of time, why he didn't interview eight or nine times as many people as he ended up interviewing. Rather than interview, say, Gallagher and Caston over their professional breakup, he found what was on the record from the time and drew off of that.

The problem is? Those quotes, and posts, and writings from the time? Weren't primary sources either.

We have almost no solid primary sources for news and information about webcomics right now. Comixpedia does all it can in that regard, but a tremendous number of its news items come, essentially, from press releases put out by the webcartoonists themselves. Newsarama, Comicon.com, the Comics Reporter and the like all do some webcomics coverage, but it's hardly comprehensive.

And websites like The Webcomics Examiner, I'm Just Saying, Fleen, Tangents, and, yes indeed, Websnark are one step removed from standard secondary sources. Websnark isn't news -- it's analysis. There isn't a thing that appears on this site that hasn't been filtered and altered by my or Weds's opinions and interpretation.

Now, the breakup of the professional relationship between Rodney Caston and Fred Gallagher is a watershed moment in the history of webcomics. Let's not pretend otherwise. There is a standard by which we can say Megatokyo is the single most successful webcomic to date. Simply put, it's the one that's in every major bookstore in America. It charts among the top selling manga titles in America (and the top selling Manga collections significantly outsell the top selling "pamphlet" style comic books, these days). Before Caston left, Megatokyo was a very specific kind of comedy. After he left, it was far more centered on Gallagher's storytelling and shounen romantic plot points. And while many people -- myself included -- preferred the Caston era Megatokyo, the simple fact is the post-Caston Megatokyo exploded into the mainstream, and had tremendous impact both on the Webcomics form and on sequential art in general. This breakup had impact. It was, in fact, a historical event, in a field that hasn't had many of them.

And in the end, the only two people who were in the room for it were Rodney Caston and Fred Gallagher. And the two of them currently dispute how it took place.

So, when Campbell quotes Gallagher from the time, he's not getting an objective accounting. He's getting Gallagher's interpretation. Because Caston elected to not go on the public record in the wake of his leaving Megatokyo, his interpretation of the event is being left out of the historical record. That reduces the accuracy of the work, and ultimately codifies disputed events into accepted ones.

And that is a significant problem of methodology. Because if I read the section on Megatokyo in this book, not knowing the above, I'm sure I'd accept it as given. That's the nature of writing down history. It becomes History, capital-H, and errors get written in ink. If that's indicative -- if Campbell sifted through reams and reams of forum postings, rants, blog posts and the like in putting together his history, in the end we're only getting his interpretation of others interpretations. By not getting fresh 'takes' on these things by as many of the involved parties as he possibly could, he is ultimately getting spun far more thoroughly than if he'd conducted the interviews in the first place.

Of course, if he had done the interviews in the first place, I doubt he'd be a quarter of the way through the book. But that might not be a bad thing.

I haven't read this book. One day, of course, I will. And I expect it will be a standard reference for some time to come. But the book says "Version One" on the cover, and that's good -- because I suspect Version Two will be significantly different.

When it comes out, I hope the advertising doesn't make peoples' blood boil before they ever see the book. Because if there's real issues to discuss with Campbell's methodology, having PR that makes people mad before they ever consider it just adds gasoline to a grease fire.

On second thought, maybe my spam filter had the right idea.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:19 PM | Comments (142)

February 6, 2006

Eric: For those who never tire of debating the experimental...

...you can now find Gunfight at the Experimental Webcomics Corral (or the Shroud of Tarquin) at the Webcomics Examiner.

For the record? I was responsible for the "shroud of Tarquin" part of the title.

This was a sometimes spirited roundtable discussing webcomics experimentation, past and present, including bright and fun people. Besides myself, there was also Neal Von Flue (who also conducted and edited the Roundtable), Alexander Danner, Cat Garza, Eric Milliken, Tym Godek, T Campbell, Philip Sandifer and Bob Stevenson.

Have a look -- if nothing else, so you can see how I contend that at least once upon a time both Megatokyo and Penny Arcade were full on experimental webcomics -- and feel free to leap into the comments over there and have it out. The purpose of roundtables is debate, after all, and there's a lot of fuel for debate in this one.

Also? Eric Milliken has a kickass piece of cover art for it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:51 PM | Comments (16)

Eric: Put another way, calling an e-mail server a "digital courier" doesn't change the nature of e-mail -- it just confuses people. Which may be the point. Damn, my titles are getting long.

So, every so often, you read something that makes you squint at the monitor and think "people have actually devoted time and effort to this?"

I had one of those tonight, via Boing Boing.

You see, in the latest Wired... or at least on Wired.com, they had an article declaring that the term "Cyberspace" was dead. Which I think we'd all figured out some time ago. And they had a roundtable to figure out a better word... a more twenty-first century word for what Cyberspace used to mean. And they consulted William Gibson (who came up with the term in the first place), other authors, venture capitalists, futurists, university people.. all kinds of folks to coin the next term for this, our shared electronic identity.

Well, way back in my first post on Websnark, I suggested that "Websurfing" should be replaced with "Powerslacking," since that's what we were doing. And so naturally I considered the question of what magical Word described our electronic infotastic webnetular universe.

And realized, almost immediately, that the whole concept is stupid.

When Neuromancer came out, it made perfect sense that Gibson would find a term for this shared universe of electronic virtuality he had posited. Especially since he didn't understand Information Technology of the time to begin with, so it was more shamanic higher spaces than information sharing. But in case you came in late, that was 1984 when that was published. Since then, we've had entire generations of people born, raised and developed inside of the electronic world. We are no longer discussing science fiction. The digital lifestyle is already here. And we have a word.

Not Cyberspace. And not the terms Gibson and the others came up with (like "Global Brain," "Infosphere," or Cory Doctorow's "Chattergoods"). No, we have a term that means "reading my electronic mail," "peer-to-peer filesharing," "bittorrent," "blogging," "googling for stuff," "surfing," "powerslacking," "buying shit from Amazon.com" and "checking out sweet alt-porn chicks" all at once. And it's a term pretty much every person with any exposure to that thing we used to call the Information Superhighway understands implicitly.

What is that term?

Online.

Online.

My father is a wise man. A good man. A learned man. He is a retired professor and dean. He has a Ph.D. And he has the computer skills of a rutabaga. I say this with love. He can learn, but it takes him time and effort, and it will never come naturally to him.

And yet, he says "all right, I'm going Online. Now--" when he describes a problem he's having. He gets the difference between online and offline.

When we play City of Heroes or World of Warcraft, we're generally not checking our mail or surfing the web. But we know each and every one of those activities is Online. We know that Google is an Online Resource we can use to search all the stuff Online and find what we need. And the things we do Online are many and varied, and exist right now.

Hell -- I have Voice over IP Telephony. I get my phone calls Online now.

This isn't science fiction. This isn't the future. This isn't (God help us) a brave new world Venture Capitalists can fund. This is today. We're already here. And we know what we mean when we use the word "Online."

I'm sorry. I'm sorry it's not as romantic as "Cyberspace" was, back in 1984. I'm sorry it doesn't excite the blood and found a new digital revolution. The thing is? We had the digital revolution. All apologies to "Web 2.0," but that revolution is over. The Online world is a part of the overall world now, and people have both expectations of and for it.

There will come new technologies that will blow us out of the water. I'm sure of that fact. There always are. But those technologies won't be a new kind of "Cyberspace" that will change everything, because we've already done that. Coming up with a new term for "Cyberspace" won't renew that sense of excitement and mystery for the digital world. It just sounds like people can't get over the dot com bust, and Jesus people that was how many years ago?

People get it. They know what Online means. They go Online right now, to do all kinds of shit. When you come up with more shit for them to do Online, they'll do it. But the sheer fact that this is Online won't excite them any more.

Still, I think Powerslacking can have legs. Don't you?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:03 PM | Comments (51)

December 30, 2005

Eric: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 22, 2005

Eric: The Snarkographia Webcomicka

My field of study, for those who don't know, is literature. And, within said literature, literary criticism and critical theory. I've logged a lot of hours learning the ins and outs of it. I've cut my eyeteeth on it. I've done the criticism thing.

Well, one of the foundational works in literary criticism -- required reading if you want to graduate -- is the Biographia Literaria. Published in 1817, it was an absolute landmark in the study of literature, in the study of poetry, in the study of imagery and composition. It delved deeply into critical theory, but also deeply into the study of poetry itself -- most prominently the Lyrical Ballads, which itself was an exercise by Wordsworth and Coleridge to overturn what they felt was the priggish, lackadaisical, overly formal, underly emotive state of poetry in English Literature at the time.

(In this, they succeeded. Wordsworth and Coleridge -- along with Blake and in a sense Robert Burns (and echoing the work of Milton in a previous generation) -- launched what today we see as the Romantic movement in poetry. Blake, Coleridge and Wordsworth collectively formed the first generation of Romantics, followed closely by Keats, Shelley and Byron in the "second generation." Though, ironically, all of the second generation of Romantic poets died before any of the first generation did. But I digress.)

The author of the Biographia Literaria? Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poet himself.

To Coleridge, a true poet was also a critic of poetry. He had to be willing to delve deep, to break the surface, to tear the living guts of poetry out. He had to figure out how one took nature and reflected it in words, in a way as true to the nature as was possible, but even more importantly true to the poetry. As he said in the Biographia Literaria itself (ch.15):

No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher.

And the philosophy of literature and of the aesthetic is critical theory. Indeed, Coleridge believed that the critical faculty -- the philosophical outlook -- that formed the perspective necessary to produce art of any kind had to be applied to the world. One had to examine all things with a sense of the critical, before they could produce art. And that most especially applied to the works of other artists, writers, and poets. One could not glean truth or beauty from a work -- truth that could be used in one's own art -- until one had applied the full extent of their critical prowess to that work. "Until you understand a writer’s ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding," he wrote in Chapter 12, and he meant every word of it.

This was hardly a controversial position, however. At this stage in history, poets, writers and artists were presumed to also be critics and philosophers. A poet who didn't also write essays was seen as something of a lightweight at best. An artist who didn't also examine the art of others was less a genius and more a dabbler. Fair or not, proper or not, the bias existed.

Robert Heinlein, who remains one of my favorite writers, expressed similar but more extreme opinions. He held literary criticism in disdain, because so many critics weren't writers. Who but a 20th Century American Poet was qualified to critique 20th Century American Poetry. What were philosophers and pedants and critics doing interpreting and breaking down the work of writers and artists? If they were any damn good at it, why weren't they writing literature?

This is, of course, fallacious. Of course a person might be better at interpreting literature than writing it himself. Likewise, a bad critic might be a brilliant poet. But some folks are driven to both write literature and criticism, even if it's not simply a given in today's day and age.

However, in recent years we've had an interesting reversal of these positions. More and more, you hear critics of criticism (now there's a recursion for you) decrying writers who also write criticism. The charge -- one that remains almost hysterical to me -- is generally the same: a writer cannot be a critic, because a writer cannot separate his own work from his critique. He cannot be objective.

Guys, if I never, ever manage to do anything else, let me manage to do this. Let me manage to teach this one, ineffable truth of criticism:

There is no such thing as objective criticism.

All criticism reflects the opinions and interpretation of the critic. That is the innate distinction between journalism (the reporting and analysis of fact) and criticism (the rendering of interpretation and opinion). That is what criticism -- whether we're discussing the critique, the critical essay, or the review -- is. It is opinion. Thesis, in our terminology.

Good criticism is well written, and supports its thesis with example. Citation is the coin of the realm.

Bad criticism is badly written, or fails to support its thesis, or supports its thesis fallaciously (quoting out of context in such a way that a statement appears to be in support of a point, when the larger work contradicts that point, for example.)

Well. In Jon Rosenberg's latest blog entry, over at the (as always, excellent) Goats, he announces the revivification of the Fleen name. It's not the Fleen of old, but a webcomics blog. Specifically, it's a webcomics blog writ by critics who explicitly are not now, nor have ever been webcartoonists or webcomics creators. It is Rosenberg's thesis that the critic of webcomics who is also a webcartoonist is innately flawed. His writings are tainted by his hopes, his own work, his own thesis. He will advance his own works and those of his friends and like minded people. He will not be objective enough to produce either criticism or webcomics with veracity. In his own words:

The one thing that is unforgiveable is that, almost without exception, all of these sites are run by and staffed by webcomic creators. They all have agendas, they all have friends they want to promote, they all have their own approaches to the artform that they want to see vindicated. These people are biased from the get-go. In the worst cases, webcomics bloggers have used their bully pulpit to launch their own nascent webcomics initiatives. This is the worst kind of journalism, the most terrible kind of comics crticism. It is the same sort of cronyism that has corrupted larger organizations like Fox News.

If these sites hope to have any sort of journalistic integrity, we must establish a divide between the creators and the people writing about them. The new Fleen is the first webcomics blog to attempt this.

Check it out. Biased. Agenda. They all have their own approaches to the art form they want to see vindicated. It all comes down to the same thing. They will lack journalistic integrity. They're not objective.

He even makes mention how a biased critic will have his own thesis to advance. Believe it or not.

At this stage, of course, I had to pause and go outside so I could finish laughing. Because Jon Rosenberg is right. All critics -- all critics -- have their own opinions about the art form they're criticizing. All critics have examples they think extol the virtues of their art form. All critics have approaches they think work better than others. All critics have hopes for the art form they're writing about. And all critics -- all critics -- have theses they are writing about and supporting.

That's actually what an essay is. A thesis. Introduction. Thesis Statement. Support. Conclusion.

Opinion.

I've read Fleen. And you know what? It's good. The guys Rosenberg found to write on the site are good essayists. They have a clear knowledge of and love for webcomics. I'm going to keep reading it. You should read it too.

But I'm not going to give those guys any greater or lesser credence by their lack of desire to write a webcomic. And if they turned around and launched their own webcomic tomorrow, I wouldn't think any less of them. I'm going to take their posts, their essays, their theses and their opinions based on the criteria one must take these things: do they state their thesis clearly? Do they support their thesis well? Are they good enough writers to make their essay entertaining without sacrificing their essential point?

Rosenberg ends his post (which is, of course, itself criticism -- this time about webcomics criticism instead of webcomics proper) with a challenge to those critics who also produce webcomics:

Finally, I'd like to call on all of the webcomics creators who are out there moonlighting as webcomics journalists (and vice versa) to pick a side. If you want webcomics and webcomics journalism to be taken seriously, you can't be doing both. It's like how my ex-girlfriend used to put on stage shows with her friends for her other friends -- cute, but certainly not professional and ultimately pitiable. And everything you write until you pick a side will be suspect.

In other words -- if I want Websnark to be taken seriously, I'd better give up Gossamer Commons. Otherwise, I'd better give up Websnark. But I can't do both. Not without being suspect.

Ridiculous.

If you like what I write on Websnark, read it. If you agree with me? Cool. If you disagree with me? Cool. Comment if you like. Don't comment if you don't want to.

If you like the story we're telling on Gossamer Commons, fantastic. If not, hey, that's okay too.

But the idea that somehow, I have to pick and choose what kind of writing I want to do is, to be blunt, silly. You, the reader, get to pick and choose what you want to read. And if you don't like my webcomic, don't read it. If you don't like my criticism, don't read that. I won't be offended, either way.

But the idea that my essays are invalidated by my webcomic, or my webcomic invalidated by my essays? Is just plain wrong.

Am I biased? You bet. I don't even write about the comics I don't like, because I don't read them.

Are the essayists and critics on Fleen biased? You bet. Heck -- here's an excerpt from a really good post by Gary Tyrrell, over there:

This was Tex’s usual mode of creating cartoons: a wide-open, anarchic approach to story, character, and reality, but with a limitation that must be respected. Pushing up against that limitation (like a game of “I’m not touching you!”) is when things get funny. Jeff Rowland’s Wigu is in the finest tradition of Averian work.

Check it out -- a thesis. "Jeff Rowland's Wigu operates in the tradition of Tex Avery." That's not a fact -- we don't know that Rowland got up one morning and said "dude -- I'm going to do a pastiche on Tex Avery." For one thing, I don't think Rowland uses either the words "pastiche" or "dude" on a regular basis. However, it's a perfectly valid interpretation.

And Tyrrell goes on to support his thesis:

Wigu Tinkle lives in a world where anything can happen. The only rule is that reality conforms to the perceptions of an eight year old boy, and when you’re eight, your big sister is a serious weirdo that you know deep down sorta really loves you, parental fights are the scariest thing in the world, and your dad can beat up anything. Everything else is possible: Cartoon characters come to life? Check. Magic fridge? Check. Coolest car ever invented (complete with eleven TVs)? Check.

Et cetera. It's a good essay. It's well supported. It's good criticism. I'm looking forward to reading more of what Tyrrell has to say.

But it's no more objective than me writing about Narbonic. And me writing about Narbonic is no less valid than Tyrrell's writing because I write Gossamer Commons. It's an opinion, vindicating a storytelling technique that Tyrrell approves of, and tying it back to a broader tradition. Which is precisely what it's supposed to be.

(What it isn't, by the by, is journalism. Any more than what I'm doing is journalism.)

I have said all along that I'm hopeful that the critical discourse in webcomics will continue to grow and flourish. I think Fleen is going to be an excellent addition to that discourse. However, I think Rosenberg does it a disservice by setting it in diametric opposition to all webcomics blogs and critical outlets that have ties to webcomics. There's no good reason to create enemies here. None at all. Neither do I think Comixpedia, The Webcomics Examiner or I'm Just Saying going to vanish because Rosenberg thinks they're flawed.

Neither, of course, is Websnark.

Maybe Fleen will be better than Websnark. Maybe it won't. I'm not going to sweat it either way -- I'm going to write the stuff I want to write, and I hope you guys like it. However, it's not going to be Gossamer Commons that sets the difference between them. It's going to be those same criteria I listed before. If my theses become muddled, if I don't support my writing, if I don't write entertainingly, then people will stop reading.

Regardless, I'm going to keep writing. I invite you all -- no matter what your credentials -- to do the same.

Coleridge was wrong, in my opinion. An artist doesn't have to be a critic. Heinlein was wrong, in my opinion. A critic doesn't have to be an artist. Rosenberg was wrong, in my opinion: an artist can be a critic, and a critic can be an artist.

What matters is the art, and the criticism.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:18 PM | Comments (99)

December 21, 2005

Eric: What do I do when Wednesday leaves? Here's four thousand words about Star Trek. Geeks cope with absence in geeky ways.

Since there's a (really well laid out, nicely paced, and pleasant) discussion on ID and evolution going on in the comments of the last snark, I thought I'd follow it up with a post that...

...actually, might make everyone mad. But on the positive side, it's about absolutely nothing that matters, and that's the best kind of angry.

See, I was thinking about evolution, and I was thinking about science fiction. After all, science fiction is where some truly hardcore speculation both about scientific debate and the consequences of that debate get played out. And it occurs to me that there's a very prominent example of science fiction tackling evolution. And in so doing, it's not doing evolution or societal development any favors.

The science fiction in question? Star Trek. All of them.

Star Trek fetishizes evolution.

All kinds of evolution. Biological evolution. Microevolution. Macroevolution. Societal evolution. Technological evolution. Even Intelligent Design gets into the act.

And it does so in a wholly incoherent way. It simultaneously buys into a divine plan -- never so stated, but implicit -- and wholly uncontrolled evolution. And it blurs the lines of evolution of society, technology, and species until they all end up being the same thing.

The first example is one of the most prominent. The Prime Directive states that the United Federation of Planets "cannot interfere" with the proper development of an "immature" world. The Prime Directive is social Darwinism of the first order -- if a planet hasn't independently come up with Warp Drive, then the Federation isn't supposed to help them do anything. Warp Drive is the magic bullet for inclusion in galactic culture. Without it, that society is supposed to sink or swim on its own merits.

Of course, the Prime Directive gets violated constantly. Almost casually. In a first season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard said (paraphrased) that "Starfleet takes violations of the Prime Directive very seriously." And ten million Trek fans around the world fell off their chairs, laughing. As near as we can tell, no one has ever taken the Prime Directive seriously. It's there to provide dramatic tension before the given Captain of a given starship goes in and does whatever the Hell he wants.

But, we're discussing the theory. And the theory, passionately defended on countless episodes, is that each species and society must be allowed its "natural development" to reach out for the stars. Until then, they're not even supposed to know there's a galactic culture out there. And if they should find out, then they're essentially treated like backwards tribes. The Outrageous Okana -- one of the worst episodes of Next Generation written -- detailed a number of backward starships who knew all about the Federation (and at one point, Worf snorts about how a ship is locking 'lasers' on target at them -- lasers that wouldn't even penetrate their navigational deflectors, much less the shields) but who limp along generations behind galactic culture because "they're not ready" to join it. It also featured a spectacularly unoutrageous Okana nailing Transporter Chief Teri Hatcher, but I digress.

The pairing of societal and technological evolution goes back to the original series. Remember the episode of Star Trek where the Klingons started arming a bunch of American Indians aliens with flintlocks, so Captain Kirk began doing the same with a different tribe. And the two groups began doing an arms race, each pacing the other? At no point did the Federation say "okay. The Klingons have already poisoned the well. It's time to land Federation observers and teach these people something about the universe they live in and how to survive in it." No, instead, they gave them rifled barrels "just to keep things fair." At this point, societal and technological evolution is as much out the window as using the cheat system in Civilization IV to give your Civilization musketeers because your enemies has them. However, they're not "interfering." They're "balancing the interference the Klingons already started."

Next Generation had an answer to this, by the by. In one first season episode, a decrepit Starfleet Admiral goes to mediate a peace on a world he "interfered" with a generation before. That time, when a demand for advanced weapons was given to one faction, he gave them those weapons -- but also armed their enemies. "My own interpretation of the Prime Directive," he said. And when we remember that the Prime Directive really is just enforced Social Darwinism -- if they get smart enough, survive and emerge in a Warp 1.1 ship, then they get the keys to the Kingdom -- I suppose he has a point. Though it's a point that seems to contradict everything else we've seen to date.

This variable (and capricious) enforcement of a Prime Directive that states that the Federation must not interfere in "natural development of species and cultures" was highlighted extremely well in an episode of Next Generation. In this episode, it turned out that David Marcus from Star Trek II was an alien whose planet had a "disease" and Khan's aide Joachim from the same movie was from a world whose entire economy was devoted to selling them medicine. Only, of course, we were actually talking about drugs. And their ships were breaking down. So, the Enterprise started rendering aid to fix the ships. Then, of course, the Federation determined that this was all a drug run and there was an entire planet of addicts on their hands. But Joachim laughed in their faces. "Your own Prime Directive says you can't interfere with our development," he laughed. "So you can't tell David Marcus that we're just pushers and they're a planet full of bitches. Hah hah hah!"

And Picard agreed with them, but then announced that they couldn't actually fix the starships. Prime Directive, don't you know. If they can't fix them themselves, they can't fix them at all.

Are you seriously telling me this policy isn't insane? These are two cultures who know about the Federation. If anything, Picard should never have been able to offer to help fix their ships in the first place, but should have been able to say "you know you're not sick, right? I mean, you're addicted to that medicine. That's all." Certainly, there's no possible justification to perpetuating a lie against a culture aware of space and of the Federation to begin with.

Except, of course, the cold justification of social Darwinism. If David Marcus's alien race is strong enough, they'll survive the withdrawal symptoms, and figure out they've been duped. Of course, if Joachim's race is strong and smart enough, they'll figure out how to fix their own starship, and the next thing you know it all starts back up again. That's life in the cold universe!

"Okay, fine," you say. "A disproportionate number of Star Trek episodes are dedicated to an inconsistently applied policy of social Darwinism. That's hardly the same thing as fetishizing biological evolution." Ah, but it is. It certainly is. Because biology -- and genetic engineering -- are also a recurring theme in Star Trek. An eeeeeeeeevil theme.

We learned, back in the original series, that humanity had a "eugenics war." This was when well-meaning but critically blind scientists gengineered a superior life form out of humanity. That life form, specifically bred for aggressiveness -- man, that's some careful genome mapping they did -- turned around and with their superior brains, their superior speed, their superior coordination, their superior strength, and their superior accents (dude, we are discussing Ricardo Montelban here) they killed millions of people, conquered most of the earth, and were only beaten back by humanity's innate pluck, vim, vigor and superior numbers. And, after all of that, humanity swore to never again tamper in God's domain try to genetically enhance humanity.

We also know that a generation or two later, Data's creator's progenitor, Dr. Arik Soong, tried to revive the whole thing, and made a whole new generation of feral adonises. And at the end, of course, he too had decided -- despite a lifetime of work thinking of ways to safely enhance humanity and unprecedented genius -- that it would be better to make androids.

Only... one of the things he mentioned to Captain Archer by Doctor Soong was that Archer's father died of a genetic disorder. One that they could apparently have cured through genetic engineering. Only, all such programs have been stopped. Which means, they didn't just foreswear the creation of genetic supermen capable of destroying humanity, they shut down all genetic engineering, regardless of reason. If mankind were to evolve, it would evolve in its own way.

Including enhancements that somehow, magically, would work on everyday people. The smooth foreheaded Klingons of the original series turn out to have genetic damage after augmented human DNA was turned into a disease that made Klingon supermen who were dying. As a result, Klingons looked human for a long time. Who knew you could catch superpowers?

One link I find staggeringly hideous between the philosophies happened on a different Enterprise episode. The Enterprise comes across a sublight ship crewed by a couple of people desperately looking for help. (And dying of a disease.) Visiting the world, they discover there are two species of sentients on the planet. One species is fully intelligent and sapient. The other species is far less intelligent. The former species is the one with the disease. They have been desperately seeking a cure, but -- as they know there are more advanced civilizations out there -- they have also been sending out missions to find faster than light travel or otherwise bring compassionate people to their world to help.

Doctor Phlox isolates a cure inside of a day, proving this race was right to do what they were doing. But he also realized that the inferior species is evolving up... and it seemed likely that the dominant species was meant to die out so the inferior species could replace them.

As a result... the Enterprise didn't help them find other worlds and didn't share the cure with them. They had to let the natural order of things go through. They couldn't tamper with the natural order.

I'm sorry, but what respect I had for what would, later in Star Trek's chronology, become "the Prime Directive" died right there. That's like a team of scientists discovering a cure for a plague affecting a tribe of Australian aborigines, only to withhold it from them until they developed microbiology and cured themselves, or died out trying. It's absurd. It's obscene. It's unjustifiable, given that Starfleet does, now and in all future iterations, "interfere" with cultures that have passed their acid test by getting warp drive.

Well, almost unjustifiable. There's one justification that can be used... and that brings an interesting specter into the room: it's justifiable -- and even morally defensible -- if one assumes that evolution is meant to occur the way it is.

In other words, the Prime Directive -- and its Enterprise antecedent discussions -- is moral and justifiable as it is, if one presumes Intelligent Design.

While you think about that, let's move ahead a few hundred years, and consider the case of Doctor Julian Bashir.

Lieutenant Bashir was an absolutely brilliant, albeit young doctor. Second in his class at Starfleet Medical -- and embarrassed at coming in second. One of the finest minds ever seen. Nominated for awards that only went to people after decades more service than he had shown. You know the drill.

And several seasons in (in what was a clear and somewhat clumsy retcon, given that before then Bashir 'wasn't good enough' to be a professional tennis player, but was a champion racquetball player at the Academy -- and then not a good enough actor to fake being beaten by O'Brien, even though by definition he would need to have been an expert at downgrading his own athletic performance) we discovered that Bashir's parents subjected him to a highly black market series of genetic enhancements as a child. He is an augmented human.

As a side note: Khan Noonian Singh. Doctor Arik Soong. Doctor Julian Bashir. Is there a particular reason that all the genetics/augmentation stuff is coming out of the Indian Subcontinent in the Star Trek universe?

And, decades later, Bashir almost lost his position in Starfleet as a result, and his father ended up going to prison for it. And we learned that other black market augmentations had been performed, with varying levels of success -- but that in almost every case, the augmented humans turned out to have a staggering level of brilliance. As Bashir himself had. And working with other augments led to stunningly powerful work.

In other words... from Khan's time through Bashir's time, what has been shown time and time again is that genetic engineering and augmentation techniques work and can be applied retroactively. And that the results are human beings who are stronger, faster, healthier and -- and this is the crucial point -- smarter.

But, not only doesn't the Federation pursue this technology... but neither do the Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans, Ferengi or anyone else.

(As a side note -- why aren't the Ferengi making an absolute killing going to every planet the Federation won't give the time of day and giving them technological doodahs right up until the planet is bereft of valuable resources. And then at that point give them warp drive and tell them to go ask the Federation for help with their environment and economy. I mean, if the Federation is going to give them an opportunity like that, why wouldn't the Ferengi of all races take it. But I'm digressing.)

The only galactic culture to use genetic engineering are the Dominion, from the other side of the Wormhole. And they use it both as a weapon and to build their tools. The Jem'Hadar have been built as genetic supersoldiers, tailored for absolutely loyalty and absolute dependence. The Vorta have been augmented and built up into the perfect aides de camp for the Dominion. Both species are cloned to keep their numbers up, and brain-transfer technology allows one clone to remember what the last clone did. (What Car Wars fans think of as the Gold Cross option.) We also know that the Dominion uses it to curse a race with "the quickening--" a genetic disease that is killing off an entire species, slowly and horribly, over many generations.

(Please note -- there may have been genetic engineering episodes of Star Trek: Voyager I'm not referencing here, on the principle that why in God's name would I have watched Star Trek: Voyager?)

So. You have to go fifty thousand light years to find a galactic power that doesn't "naturally" assume that genetic augmentation is wrong and bad. Fifty thousand light years.... or travel through time. Remember, the Suliban were cooperating in the Temporal Cold War because the future alien people thingies were giving them genetic enhancements. Useful ones, like being able to deflate. And of course, Archer derided their "impatience" with "natural" evolution.

We have a more "natural" example of the conflation of racial evolution, societal evolution and technological evolution as well, by the by. The Pakled race, in The Next Generation, was dumber than a bunch of hammers. "We like him! We are strong! We make things go! We like power! He is smart! Make us strong!" But, recognizing that other races had stuff that would make them powerful, they went out and stole what technology they could get their hands on. (And somehow managed not to blow themselves up, in the process.) They were clearly meant as a (humorous) cautionary tale, underscoring the essential truth of the Prime Directive. Step outside the natural order, and you end up playing with things you dassn't understand.

So. Bad guys genetically engineer. Typically, genetically engineered people are bad guys, or else have to continually atone for their superiority. It is better to let a race die out so someone else can take their place than help them "unnaturally." It's okay to fix a sublight cruiser's flat tire, but not tell a galactic culture they're being abused by another culture of drug pushers. If your enemies give new technology to one tribe on a world, it's "balancing" to give another tribe the same technology, so long as you don't overcompensate. This restores the "natural" balance. In all ways and all times there is the sense that there is a proper form of evolution, and that subverting it subverts the implicit design.

A design, by the by, which was demonstrated during the run of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was discovered that, back in prehistory, a race of progenitors visited worlds all over the quadrant and uplifted and genetically modified them -- encoding their genetic code with a sequence which could ultimately be decoded into a freaking Quicktime movie. (It's a good thing those genes never... you know, mutated in any way during the evolutionary process. If they had, they might have gotten compression errors or something.) This is why, canonically, so many races look like human beings wearing prosthetic foreheads. (It's know that the Cardassians, the Romulans -- and therefore the Vulcans -- the Klingons and the Humans all were augmented in these ways.) I wonder if Khan had the message in his genes too, or if it was unnaturally and evilly eliminated when he was augmented.

(Actually, had Khan's DNA been used, the movie's narrator would have had his glorious Mexican accent. And you know, that would have made the line read superior.)

(Yes, Mexican, not hispanic or spanish. Ricardo Montalbán was born in Mexico City. But I digress.)

There is even a reward for all of this. There is even a Heaven -- a brass ring -- being held out for the good races of the universe who patiently wait for evolution to take its course. If you wait long enough... you become immortal beings of energy. The Q and the Organians alike said that they were once corporeal "much like you are." Evolution let them be vastly more, after they passed all their tests and ate their vegetables. And Wesley Crusher is clearly meant to be a precursor for humanity's own evolution into higher beings.

If, you know, he manages to pass his genes on to another generation.

I kid. I kid.

In the end, it comes back to the natural order of things. Societies progress. Technology improves. And different species will, left to their own devices, either die out or manage to struggle their way to the stars, whereupon they can be welcomed into galactic society. Species themselves will evolve, from slime all the way up to divine beings, in this selfsame process. Anyone who tries to shortcut these processes -- through stealing technology, infecting young cultures with mature ideas, or genetic engineering -- are sinning against the natural order... the unwritten plan. They are wrong. They are bad. And they don't get to become omnipotent letters of the alphabet.

Which, in a lot of ways, makes no sense. I mean, when you know that it is possible for corporeal beings to ultimately evolve into balls of light capable of stopping the Klingons and Federation from going to war, wouldn't you immediately start trying to figure out the mechanisms for doing it? Wouldn't you go on the fast track to posthumanity, lest the Klingons become superpowerful balls of light imposing a thirst for blood wine and gutteral opera on your entire species?

Not, it seems, in the Star Trek universe.

Here, at the end of this essay, I want to talk about one last episode of Star Trek. One last episode dealing with evolution. Not the ones where Picard or Kirk or Sisko talk about how when a culture is "ready," they get to sit at the big boys' table in the Federation. Not the ones where savage races with magical healing herbs or drugs never seem to be able to say "give us your warp drive, your computer database and membership in your Federation before we give you our life giving vaccine," but instead decide they want Denise Crosby's hot bod.

No, this was an episode that seemed to fly absolutely in the face of everything I've said above. An episode that has never been referred to again, despite a ton of philosophical and practical questions raised.

That episode's name was "Unnatural Selection" -- which should be a giveaway. And it featured the U.S.S. Enterprise being summoned to the Darwin Genetic Research Station on Gagarin IV. There, despite rules against eugenics and genetic engineering (rules which put Julian Bashir's father in prison years later), we find a funded research group building a race of superchildren. These superchildren are telepathic, telekinetic, and have active immune systems capable of sending antibodies out of their bodies to kill germs from across the room.

Sadly, those antibodies are lethal to normal humans, causing them to age rapidly and die tragically. Because... um....

...oh, right. Because tampering with the natural order is wrong, and bad. And because genetic researchers are apparently dumb enough to think they could create an aggressive immune system and then never suspect it might have some effect on the immediate environment surrounding the child.

We never hear from the superchildren again, of course. Nor do we hear of the transporter's use to reverse the aging process, reverting Doctor Pulaski back to a younger self. You'd think that would make the news or something, but apparently not, as people continue to get old and die in the Star Trek universe. But that's an entirely different discussion.

No, it's the children I'm thinking of. See, we knew that they were going to be put into isolation, to protect others from their deadly immune systems. (I get stupider just typing "deadly immune systems.") And we know, implicitly, that all such research will end. The superchildren will be studied, but that's it. No more messing up the natural order. No more messing up the plan.

Babylon 5, in the meantime, postulated a world where many different races have many different technological levels. These become matters of intense concern, militarily. Exploration vessels seek out new life and new civilizations so that technology can be stolen and sold from them. In the end, an Intersteller Alliance is founded. One of its first acts is to start sharing advanced technology like artificial gravity with many other races and worlds as an inducement for joining.

In the course of Babylon 5's run, we met a race called the Lumati. The Lumati were being courted by Earth Force, for diplomatic relations. But the Lumati wouldn't treat with Earth -- wouldn't even directly speak to Earth representatives -- until they determined that humanity was sufficiently evolved, as a race and as a society. It was buried, somewhat, but it was also clear that they stood for Star Trek's Prime Directive -- inverted, because it was now being directed at humanity instead of by humanity.

That episode said, far entertainingly, everything I said above.

If you need proof that it was a Star Trek reference, remember: at the end of the negotiation, the Lumati ambassador immediately sealed the deal with sex. The single finest sex ever performed on American Television, in fact.

Jim Kirk would have been proud.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:01 PM | Comments (142)

December 20, 2005

Eric: Live from just outside the airport I saw Wednesday off at... another Howard Tayler inspired snark.

Howard Tayler and I are very different people in many ways. We have different theological positions. We have different philosophies. Many of our political stances are different. Our backgrounds are at least moderately different.

In his blog post on today's Schlock Mercenary, Tayler talks about how much -- and why he dislikes Intelligent Design. The whole thing deserves to be read, but I want to quote a small piece:

Let me explain it more simply: My faith enables me to live happily. Science and technology enable me to live LONGER. I don't want to see science used to discredit religion, because that will make people live LESS happily, and I don't want to see religion used to discredit science, because that will further delay the delivery of my flying car. If this simple dichotomy can be honestly and openly explained to our children, they can embrace the apparent paradox, and get on with the important things in life: being happy, and figuring out how to build me a jetpack. It's 2005, for heaven's sake. I was supposed to have a silica farm on the moon twenty years ago, and I can't even get my replicator-bots onto the roof of the house.

We may be very different people, but in this matter, and in his essay, Howard Tayler absolutely speaks for me.

(One caveat I think Tayler would agree with -- a theory is not a fact, as Tayler so eloquently said. However, a theory is a scientific term. Something can only be described as a theory when appropriate experiments have been designed to demonstrate that theory, and the results of those experiments -- conducted more than once, by several differing scientists -- demonstrate that the theory fits what we currently know. Evolution is a theory, by that definition. Gravity is a theory, by that definition. Relativity is a theory by that definition. None of them are facts, but what we currently know fits. Intelligent Design is not a theory, because no one has yet developed any kind of experiment that can measure, demonstrate or derive it. It is, in the end, a philosophical position -- and a perfectly legitimate one. However, just because it's a legitimate orange doesn't make it a tasty apple.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:09 PM | Comments (157)

December 18, 2005

Eric: All these decades later, they're still *pests!*

So, I own several seasons of SCTV. I think it's probably the funniest television show... well, ever.

And on one of the Season 2 discs, there's a Christmas Special.

And on that Christmas Special, there is a "Liberace Christmas Special" being promoted.

And on that special within a special, Orson Welles gives a dramatic reading of "Good King Wenceslas." Only he kept interrupting it, and ranting about people moving on set, finally storming off. "I wouldn't rehearse an actor in Shakespeare under these conditions!" he ranted. "No money is worth this!"

Now, if you remember back a few months, you'll remember a meme that went around the internet, pointing to a real life bootleg recording of Orson Welles complaining about the copy of a Frozen Peas commercial. It's hysterical because... well, Welles sounds insanely concerned about this peas commercial.

The above SCTV piece was clearly directly a parody of this bootleg. Clearly. And was well enough known that they felt they could parody it. In 1982.

We sometimes think that, because we now have the internet, that we have vastly better access to such gems as Orson Welles screaming about "pests" and "the depths of their ignorance," that it's hard to remember that yes, there was an underground bootleg community in the 70's and 80's too, and embarrassing recordings could spread through it like wildfire. I was astounded at having the connection between a bootleg I saw on the internet in March and a twenty-three year old television program made so clear.

And I share that astonishment with you.

What do you want with me? It can't all be A-material, you know.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:25 PM | Comments (46)

December 14, 2005

Eric: Holy Fuck.

As you should already know, Child's Play is once again ongoing. Child's Play is a charity founded by the exceptionally cool folks at Penny Arcade. For those who don't know, this is a charity that provides toys and other needful things for children's hospitals all over the world. You can donate money, or you can donate actual presents via Amazon.com wish lists that get sent to the hospitals in question, so you know exactly what's going to what hospital when you order.

Which, by the by, is very cool. As a New Englander who lived on the Canadian boarder much of his life, I have a certain love of the Maritimes. So, I sent a gift via Child's Play to the IWK Children's Heath Centre in Nova Scotia, and I sent some cash via Paypal to the main charity as well. You should do so too.

(I have no idea if I'm going to do another charity snark this year. I'm still waiting to hear from the guy who got the charity snark last year -- though at one point he sent an astounding piece of fan art for Gossamer Commons, so I know he's out there somewhere. But part of me feels like I should close the book on that one before I do this one. And other parts of me think "that's silly. Let the fans give money to the charity people." Chime in if you wish.)

Anyway. That's not why I'm saying all this. I'm saying all this because the Charity Dinner was held yesterday. Last year's dinner was highly successful, bringing in $17,000 plus. So, hopes were high for this year.

Guys.

Gabe and Tycho, at their charity auction, raised eighty two thousand, one hundred dollars. There was a bidding war for the "appear in Penny Arcade" item that went up to twenty thousand dollars.

Holy fuck.

Holy fuck.

At this point, I think those two could commit murder and still get into Heaven.

Wow, guys. Wow.

Don't think for one second that means you don't need to donate, though. Santa is watching.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:58 PM | Comments (40)

December 8, 2005

Eric: On "You Never Had Me To Lose Me."

So. Let's talk some more about Ctrl+Alt+Del. Because it's come up, and it's worth noting a few things.

It's safe to say that I don't like the strip. And part of the reason I phrased that dislike the way I did in my last essay is to forestall... well, a certain kind of response.

You haven't given it a chance, that response goes. Go to XXX. That one's hysterical. Look at the art! Look at the characterization. Look at the--

No, thank you. I've looked at it before. It didn't get me.

See, that's the thing. Remember You had me, and you lost me? That only works on strips that actually lost me.

"All right," the response has come. "If you don't like it, what is it you don't like about it?"

That's really not how it works.

I can give you surface impressions of the work, at best, right now. On the surface... it seems derivative to me. It seems a lot like... well, Penny Arcade. Crossed over a bit with PvP with a side order of Angst Technology here and there. Only that's not really an answer, because I've read derivative stuff before that I've liked.

But that's not fair, you answer. You're admitting you don't know much about it. How can you say it's derivative?

The answer is... I can't. Not well. I can't support my arguments. The nature of surface impressions are they're just that. Surface. To know more, I'd have to dig deeper. Read deeper. Do a concerted archive trawl. Do a concerted, deep read of the work. Know my subject.

And I'm not going to do that, because I don't like Ctrl+Alt+Del.

To me, that's the key to a happy life. "I don't like this webcomic, so I'm not going to read it." "I don't like this television show, so I'm not going to watch it." "I don't like this food, so I'm not going to eat it." I've given Ctrl+Alt+Del a number of chances to hook me. To get me wondering about tomorrow. To get me laughing my ass off. To get me.

Without that? I'm never going to care about it enough to say good or bad things. I can only render surface impressions.

And surface impressions aren't a good enough reason to write a review. I've already said -- often -- that this isn't generally a review site anyway. And I can't write a true critical essay about Ctrl+Alt+Del without actually knowing the subject well. It's not fair. It's not fair to Buckley. It's not fair to the readers, as well. They expect me to know my subject before I shoot off my fool mouth about it.

If you ask me about the more derivative aspects of Ctrl+Alt+Del, I'll cop to them. Seems like that accusation's accurate, from what little I've seen. If you ask me to support that with examples, I'll shrug and say "just a feeling I have, Guv." Which sounds like a copout because it is a copout.

It's come up more often recently, with the animation announcement. People have asked my opinion. And... well, for a Ctrl+Alt+Del fan, it's pretty exciting stuff, I figure. But... well, there's been web animation before. Some of it really well done, some of it not so well done. I don't know where Ctrl+Alt+Del will fall, because I don't read the strip, so I'm not going to pay for any of the animation. So, it's just kind of a shrug for me right now.

Which describes the whole Ctrl-Alt-Del thing in a nutshell to me. I don't hate it. I know people who do. And I know people who like it.

Me? Meh. I don't like it. So I don't know it.

My strongest recommendation, therefore, is this: if you like it, read it. If you don't... don't.

Me, I'm with the "don'ts." So don't ask me to go on more of a record about it than this. First, I'd have to read it, and they never got me in the first place.

Wow. I've never dissatisfied everyone with an essay before.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:33 PM | Comments (146)

Eric: On Best of Lists and the bread that is short

I've had a few people write to complain to me about the Webcomics Examiner's best of list. Almost as many as have written to me saying "so! When's the 2005 Shortbread list coming out?"

(I would think the fact that the remainder of the 2004 list never having come out would make the 2005 list suspect at best suspect, but I digress.)

It's a wonderful dichotomy of response, really. On the one hand, I have this constant stream of letters saying who are these people to say what the best comic strips of the year are? On the other, I have a similar stream of letters saying when are you going to tell us what the best comic strips of the year are? It is, in the end, the curse of the critic. You are excoriated for your tastes, and equally excoriated for not sharing them in a timely fashion.

Well, I have the secret. The silver bullet, if you will, for taking "best of" lists of any stripe in the spirit in which they are intended. They are two concepts that you need to understand, to read and enjoy the lists that come out this year, and to -- maybe, just maybe -- use as guidelines in coming up with a list of your own:

• No one thinks the lists are objective.
• You're not going to agree with the list.

That's really all there is to it.

Yeah, the list isn't going to reflect your tastes. That's because... well, your tastes are yours. The list is going to reflect the tastes of the compilers.

Take that Webcomics Examiner list. (For the record, I was not one of the folks who helped compile it, so it's a good test case for me.) Not everything on their list is one of my favorites. And not all my favorites are on their list. Narbonic isn't on the list, for example, whereas for my money no comic strip on the web does it better. (Granted, Shaenon Garrity is one of the list compilers, but still.) PvP isn't on the list. Penny Arcade isn't on the list. Goats isn't on the list. Diesel Sweeties isn't on the list.

And you know what? Those absences don't invalidate the list.

I'm sorry, they just don't. Because the things that are on the list truly do reflect what the compilers thought the best comic strips of the year were. And even the strips that I don't read I can see are high quality, produced well, with good writing and art. The absolute worst case scenarios for me and this list are twofold -- I might see a strip on it that I'd never think of as "best of," and have to reevaluate it... or I might decide that they were wrong.

Which brings us back to the above. I'm not going to agree with the list, and the list isn't objective.

This is especially true based on the kinds of e-mail I've been receiving about this list. A good number are angry because X wasn't included. (X in these e-mails has generally been PvP, Penny Arcade, Diesel Sweeties, Questionable Content or Queen of Wands. With a few Wigu lovers thrown in for good measure.) Many of them say that the list's compilers are biased against the popular strips. Generally, they say, out of jealous.

Which I'd buy a lot more if I didn't get e-mail saying "why the fuck is Something Positive on that list? They're just kowtowing because it's popular!" Or the same, only they invoke American Elf. Or Dinosaur Comics.

(Or they invoke Achewood or A Softer World as "critical darlings." Second verse, same as the first.)

In the end, I've looked long and hard at that list, and you know what? It recognizes Copper and Dicebox alongside Schlock Mercenary and Girl Genius. It notes strips with hundreds of thousands of readers and strips with hundreds of readers. It notes strips of incredible black and white line art and strips where the same art is used day after day. It's a list you can't quantify simply, no matter how hard you try, except in two ways. These are the strips the compilers liked at the time they put this list together, and this is a list that's different than the one you would come up with.

Now, I know one of the subconscious drivers at play, here. For a webcartoonist not represented by this list, it's hard to read it and not get a little pissed off. Even if you know there's no reason on Earth to get pissed off, except your exclusion. I know this because hey -- I felt it too. The first thing I did was scroll down and see if either Gossamer Commons or John Stark made the list. And know what? They didn't.

Why didn't they?

Because the people compiling the list didn't think they were among the best strips of the year.

That does not equate to "they think my strips suck!"

Nor, I should add, have they deliberately insulted me by excluding my comic strips.

However, both of those things flashed through my head on first reading. Because I'm not objective about my own strips, and I have an ego the size of Montana. And it flashed through the heads of (almost) every cartoonist who read that list, because they typically have state-sized egos too. That comes hand in hand with having the chutzpah to put your creative work on the web in the first place.

It spreads, of course, to the fans of those strips. To have a strip you adore not make some critic's best of list doesn't mean that critic is faulting your taste, but it feels like it does. So you get pissed off. And you don't even have the excuse of false modesty for beating that angry reaction down. You're not the artist -- you have no stake in this. Therefore, you're objective and those bastard critics are mean and wrong!

Except you're not objective. You do have a stake in it. You have invested time and appreciation in your favorite comic strips. Reading the "best of" list and seeing the strip you've invested in appear is a validation. Seeing it fail to appear feels like a rebuke.

It's not. Honestly.

Let me give you a practical example -- one that might well piss off a huge fanbase. (Because Lord knows I need to do that, this morning.) Let's talk, for a moment, about Tim Buckley's Ctrl+Alt+Del.

I get a reasonable amount of mail asking why I've never snarked Ctrl+Alt+Del. There are a lot of people who really like it. And a lot of people who don't. And I seem to like things that are similar to it -- I like Penny-Arcade, I like VG Cats, I like Questionable Content -- why wouldn't I like Ctrl+Alt+Del?

The truth of the matter is, I don't read Ctrl+Alt+Del. I've tried to, before. I've done archive trawls and the like. And I just don't cotton to it.

I don't dislike Ctrl+Alt+Del. I think it's well written. I think it's well drawn. I think Buckley knows how to execute a joke and I think Buckley knows his subject matter. Looking at the last few weeks of strips (which I did before writing this) I can definitely understand why it has fans. I think it's well done.

But... it's not my cup of tea. I'm not sure why. It's not Tim Buckley per se -- I actually enjoyed the strips he did at the back of the volume one City of Heroes comics quite a lot. It just doesn't... "do it" for me.

That's not an insult to Ctrl+Alt+Del. That's an expression of my own, personal taste. And you might well disagree with me. You might love Ctrl+Alt+Del and hate Achewood. Or love them both but hate Something Positive. That's possible. That's legitimate.

But, that doesn't change the fact that if I did a "Best of 2005 Shortbreads" list, Ctrl+Alt+Del wouldn't be on it. That doesn't make me "wrong." And it doesn't make you wrong if you think it should be on it. It just means we're different people. Maybe you'll find something on my list you'll like. Maybe I'll find something on your list that I don't currently read that I'll like.

Does this mean you shouldn't publicly debate the lists as they come out? Of course not. Arguing about what should and shouldn't be on a list like that is fun. Treat it like fun and everyone has a good time! Hell, I'm still happy to go into a frothing rant on the reasons why Forrest Gump was populist, sentimental trash that stole the Oscar Pulp Fiction so richly deserved, and that was eleven years ago.

But I don't say "who's this Academy to say what the best movie of the year was?" I disagree with their choice. But that doesn't invalidate it, and that choice doesn't invalidate my opinion as to the best movie of 1994.

So, this isn't an essay about the argument. It's an essay about the movement to "reform" Best of the Year Webcomics lists. I know of several movements -- movements to discredit the Examiner. Movements to use del.ico.us rankings to "definitively" prove what the best comics were. And always, always, always the decrying of critics for the crime of not sharing your opinions.

Or, for that matter, acknowledging your comic.

That's one reason why I'm not doing Shortbreads this year, by the by. The point of the Shortbreads was a Best-of list. But I thought it would be fun to structure them as an awards show, tongue-in-cheek. That, as it turns out, was a mistake. I'm still getting hate mail. And as a result, I never did the Story awards because... well, it was a Hell of a lot of work and I knew it wouldn't exactly reap positive benefits.

I've already contributed some "best of" stuff to a Comixpedia feature I participated in. I'll do some other stuff over the course of the month, I'm sure. And when I do, rest assured it will reflect my opinions at the time I do the post. And rest assured I don't mean to challenge your opinions or insult your favorites in the process.

In the meantime... do yourself a favor and check out the strips that the Examiner cited. Maybe they'll be your cup of tea. Maybe they won't. But they're not likely to suck on toast, so you might as well give them a shot.

And if you're really convinced they got it wrong? Write up a list and put it somewhere people can read it. Highlight what you think the best webcomics of 2005 were.

And try not to take it personally when people get mad about it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:36 AM | Comments (46)

December 6, 2005

Eric: On discourse

There was an interesting thing that happened yesterday.

See, I did a post about Questionable Content, dealing with suicide. And I expressed my opinions of how the strip handled the subject -- the suicide of a character, and more to the point the way a character dealt with surviving in the wake of her father's suicide. And I expressed opinions about suicide. Feelings I'm quite clearly passionate about.

And many people responded -- more to the latter than the former. I think most (though not all) folks agree that Questionable Content has done something remarkable, and agree it was worth noting.

Where there was divergence was in the expressed opinions about a subject that is very hard to feel objective about. Suicide is painless, or so goes the song, but in the end it's only painless for the person who's dead -- for the living, whether they've experienced the kinds of circumstances where suicide becomes an option, whether they've had to deal with the aftermath of a suicide of another, or whether they've just considered the question in a hypothetical sense, suicide is raw, and inspires both emotion and thought.

In the comments that followed, there was significant debate and disagreement on what is appropriate. There was significant empathy for those who get to that point. There were discussions of personal responsibility versus the irrationality that runs through a suicidal person's head. There was debate over the act itself, and a continuum of opinion of whether suicide is innately selfish or not. There were even nods to the right to die movement.

And others, in their blogs and livejournals, picked up the discussion -- both from here and from other placed discussing Questionable Content.

Only... there was also something missing from the discussion. Something that you would fully expect, given the rawness of the emotions and the touchiness of the subject. But, for the most part, it just wasn't there.

Acrimony.

There was a profound lack of acrimony out there, in discussing this subject.

You have to understand -- this is a bit surprising to me. I mean, there was acrimony flying on all sides over weddings and snarking priorities just a few days ago. Warnings made, whistles blown, the whole nine yards.

We've quoted it before, we'll quote it again, and we're quoting it today. "The infighting in academia is vicious because the stakes are so small." It's easy to start bandying around accusations of totalitarianism when we're discussing things like the subject matter or priority list for a blog. Because in the end -- who cares, Dale?

But suicide? The stakes are big, there. And yeah, there's a lot of opinions about it, and a lot of disagreement.

But no acrimony.

A lot -- a lot -- of people disagree with my contentions for yesterday's essay. (One of those people is my partner in snarking.) About as many others agree with them. Still others can take or leave it, but have insights and points of their own.

All I know is, the discourse worked, yesterday. Both here and elsewhere. This is how debate should happen.

Good on everyone. And even more to the point, good on Jeph Jacques, who got people thinking.

I'm going back to bed.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:38 AM | Comments (74)

November 25, 2005

Eric: Dogs form a good flying wedge.

Weirdly enough, I seem to be on vacation.

This rarely happens. Even when I'm on vacation, I'm not on vacation, you know? I stress about Websnark, and Gossamer Commons, and John Stark. I worry about work and about friends and about she who is across the sea. I fret. It's really quite cute.

I'm sleeping in the basement. My bed from the old house growing up is down here, and it makes sense since I'm the night owl of the family, which means I'm up watching television, writing and doing stuff much later than everyone else around here. I've got the cat with me, even though there are many dogs in this house right now. See, my parents have two dogs. My sister has a third, and said third dog is staying with my parents as my sister is out and about. As the token family cat owner, we've had to make special arrangements to make sure my seven pound cat doesn't abuse the twenty-five to thirty pound dogs.

Anyway, about five minutes ago, I went upstairs to make a cup of tea. There is, as you can imagine, a lot of tea in this house.

I opened the door. It was dark. The folks were abed already.

And then, I heard the sound of thunder. Hoofbeats. The stampede of doom. And three -- count them three -- meteors shaped like dogs came tearing down the stairs and flew at me like barghasts. They didn't bark, mind. But they were in full on hunting pack mode, ready to kill the interloper.

And all three of them stopped when they saw me. Two wagged. The third attempted to convince me it was time to feed her.

"Guys," I said. "I'm just getting a cup of tea."

The dogs looked properly chagrined. Except the one who was trying to convince me to feed her.

So. I got them biscuits and sent them on their way. It occurs to me the next time I have to go up there to go to the bathroom, I've guaranteed another thunderous assault, since I positively reinforced it with biscuits. It also occurs to me I don't care.

My cat, meanwhile, loves having the extra room to wander around. And loves sitting just out of dog reach, taunting them with her very existence. One dog -- Teddy -- clearly adores her, and wants to play with her all the time. I swear to God it's like watching Percy and Pooch in Sinfest -- Sarah stares at him with disdain and barely concealed joy at play, and Teddy fairly prances all around her doing the happy puppy dance.

Sadly, Teddy thinks playing should involve barking and chasing and possibly eating her. So he gets admonished a lot. Which seems to make Sarah even more amused. They also like to play a lunging game on opposite sides of a door that's been cracked open. It's open wide enough so Sarah can retreat to the basement (which is also where her litter and food are) but not wide enough so the dogs can follow (and get into the food and litter). So, Sarah sits on the top stair beyond the door, and Teddy sits crouched next to the door. Sarah swats at him through the door, and he dodges and lunges and she ducks back. Neither one is trying to actually hit the other (Sarah's claws aren't out, and Teddy's mouth isn't open). It's a game.

Now, it might occur to you that you don't care. And that's fair.

But then, neither do I. I'm on vacation.

I need more tea. And to go to the bathroom.

Off to tempt the assault.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:52 PM | Comments (39)

November 22, 2005

Eric: Very, very briefly...

I'm sick (yeah, again), so this will have to be brief.

However, I've been hearing a few things about Infinite Crisis.

I'm not going to go into it right now. I'm just going to say this:

It's possible -- possible -- that I've been wrong about this series.

More another time. I need to go lie down and die.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:59 PM | Comments (38)

November 20, 2005

Eric: However, the entry for the Queen's Theater in Hornchurch, in England? Is perfectly safe! Because, you know, that's notability in action.

For those of you playing along at home, Wikipedia just put Checkerboard Nightmare up to votes for deletion.

It's official. Wikipedia is officially worthless for webcomics. I can't speak to any of their other subjects, but if you ever hear of someone going to Wikipedia to look up webcomics information, gently redirect them to Comixpedia.org.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:08 PM | Comments (181)

November 19, 2005

Eric: Resonance

It's November 19 again.

I'm staying holed up at home. Drinking tea, plugging away at writing, listening to the dishwasher churn while the crock pot turns vegetables, potatoes, tomato puree, broth, meat and flower flour into a mutant but hopefully good tasting stew.

With luck, I'll avoid the Weird today. But we'll see.

Twenty years.

Still remembering, Rich.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:36 PM | Comments (22)

November 18, 2005

Eric: Also? Good yet unobtrusive music.

Breaking the Grounds is a cafe in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In fact, it is in downtown Portsmouth. Which means it's about fifteen minutes farther trip than any of the places I usually visit when I go to "Portsmouth." So, between 75 and 90 minutes travel from where I live.

This is the third night in a row I have made that trip, specifically to come to this cafe, where there is free community wifi. And while I have been here, there has been writing.

A lot of writing.

Why?

Well, it's bright.

It's cheerful.

It has more character than the Cafe on the Corner, which is the Dover cafe I've told you about before.

It has much more reliable internet access.

It has cuter baristas with more attitude (I think only one of them's smiled to me, and I don't think she meant it).

None of those are the reason.

They do loose tea.

By the pot. About three cups' worth per pot.

For under two bucks.

And they have Lapsong Souchong.

A Hella Lotta Recluse has been writ under the influence of cheap pots of Lapsong Souchong.

Also, there have been well behaved dogs here, now and again. And I respect well behaved dogs. There's a beagle who's watching me type right now.

Last night, I watched a blind date unfold at the next table as I wrote. I watched the girl acknowledge the presence of her safety friend who was sitting nearby making sure she was safe (he was clearly bored out of his skull). I watched the guy's eyes light up when he saw how cute his date was. Later, I saw the universal facial expression of the guy who cannot believe he has to sit here and listen to this woman. They did end up leaving together. I find myself hoping she had a good time.

The dog is now silently communing with another dog outside in the brisk cold air. It's twenty degrees in Portsmouth, right now, but that dog doesn't care. It's silent communication. Dog wireless.

The writing calls. The Lapsong Souchong has begun to do its work.

Enjoy your evening.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:11 PM | Comments (26)

November 17, 2005

Eric: I think there should be gigantic legs representative of "Mom" from Two Lumps in the picture, too. But what do I know?

It's been quite a while since Randy Milholland dared his readership to rent him for a year. Over a year in fact. (So I figure there's just two and a half more years before people who didn't donate to him during the drive stop accusing him of not giving his fans their money's worth, but I digress.) Since that time, we've had several folks made the grand attempt to replicate the drive, even in a small way.

Well, there's another one out there now, but it's... well, slightly different. Because it's James Grant. And James Grant is like no one else.

Let me make a side-trip here for a second. I like Grant's work. I like it a lot. I like FLEM! I like Two Lumps. I own, read and enjoyed Pedestrian Wolves. I own, read and enjoyed Timmy Kat. I have serious history with Grant. I have legitimate Grant cred.

This is despite the fact that if we ever met, J. Grant would kick my ass.

It would be nothing personal, mind. James Grant has absolutely nothing against me. We've had some good conversations. I interviewed he and his writing/creative partner Mel Hynes for Comixpedia, and it went well. I think if someone else were kicking my ass, he'd run in with a tire iron and beat them until their bones were rubbery and inconsistent.

But, if we ever met in a bar, he'd look me up and down, get a funny expression on his face, and say "look, I have to kick your ass now. Everything about you demands I kick your ass."

And I'll acknowledge the necessity and proceed to get my ass kicked. I'll do my level best to fight back, but honestly, who am I kidding.

That's as may be.

The drive comes for a sadly good reason -- he's being laid off, along with a lot of other folks in his company. And it seems to him it's time to make a hardcore attempt to do the art thing full time. And, as with many others, he's got a pretty substantial readership -- enough of one that if each person on it donated two bucks he'd more than make his goal.

His donation page shows the gift he's sending out to people who donate -- it's a nine by twelve print that features... well, pretty much all the main characters we've come to associate with him. Sure, there's Jay, and the men and women of the Jay storyline. And Ebenezer and Snooch from Two Lumps. But there's also Timmy Kat and his friend, and Angry Patriot Boy. There's the Duck. (Fucking duck.) And of course, Hank the Dancing Abortion getting his groove on.

In addition to the gift, he's pledged to move FLEM to three or five days a week depending on the totals he manages to get. His top total is twenty eight thousand, four hundred (which is significantly less than his current salary, but is a living wage for him), which will move him to do his thing at least until June and possibly start a new strip. Which, well, I for one would like to see.

Is all this possible?

I dunno.

I said a while ago that there were just so many webcartoonists who could pull off a Milholland Drive (I know, I'm going to Hell). After a while, the novelty wears off and the fanbase runs out of cash.

At the same time... FLEM fans are rabid and sick, and unlike most other fandoms. Somehow, I don't think they spent their money subscribing to the Norm. So it might be an untapped demographic.

All I know is this -- James Grant got some of my cash. I'd like to see him succeed. And someday, I'd like to buy the man a drink.

And proceed to get my ass kicked. Hey, I'm a realist, if nothing else.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:52 PM | Comments (58)

November 16, 2005

Eric: Passages

(From General Protection Fault. Click on the thumbnail for full sized David Willis is God, and Jeff Darlington has a sense of humor, praise Buddha.)

Time continues to pass, no matter how frightening that seems. It feels like we just launched Websnark sometime last week, sometimes. I'm never quite clear on just how much my online life has changed now, but it clearly has. And I've changed. And this blog has changed.

And time continues to pass.

It's November 16, which means we have reached another milestone. The third and last current "You Had Me, And You Lost Me" essay has come up on Lastday and failed to renew, so the Sandmen have hunted it down and shot it. Or at least removed it from the front page.

It's official. We can talk about General Protection Fault again.

And that has me thinking about Sluggy Freelance.

No, stay with me here.

You see, last year at this time I was wrestling with GPF in my head. This was a strip I had literally been reading for years. A strip I once had loved. A strip I had watched grown. But it had grown in directions I didn't want to follow. That's not Jeff Darlington's fault. Nor have I ever said that GPF fans were wrong for continuing to like the strip. But, for all the reasons I laid out in the original Snark, I had to move on, and I wanted to explain why.

That's why I have a blog, you see.

Well, I knew this day was coming. I knew that, as with Megatokyo and It's Walky! before, that the strip's link would be coming off the front page. And that it would be happening for the same reasons that those two strips had their "You Had Me" status expire. Namely, I don't read the strip any more. It's unfair to continue to have a strip laying out what I perceived as problems with the strip as if those problems were immediate and ongoing when a full year had passed and I didn't know if the strip continued to have those problems or not. Or if, indeed, the passage of time had vindicated the webcartoonists and their vision over my critique. No one says I was right here. That's not the point.

In a way, the You Had Me... essays were among the most personal I put up on the site. I tried, of course, to build a thesis with them -- explain why I had grown to love those strips, and why I had stopped loving them, using examples. I tried to make them as open as possible. But those essays were ultimately even more of an expression of opinion than normal. (If it's possible to be more than 100% opinion, which everything else on this site is. Stick with me here -- I was an English major.) They weren't fun to write. They were hard. It's hard to look someone in the eye -- someone who has given you years of free entertainment -- free entertainment -- and say "look, here's how all the stuff you're doing isn't working for me." It's hubris, in a way.

But, it's also honest. And if I'm not honest on this site, what's the point of me writing on it?

I stand by all those essays. I stand by those opinions. And my "expiring" their status doesn't change that fact. They're still in the archives. You can easily read all of them by clicking on the Category link in the sidebar.

But, I can't pretend they're current. And it's not appropriate to continue having a moratorium on discussing them. And that's especially true of General Protection Fault.

I'm not sure why, but I've gotten about six times the mail about GPF since I dropped the strip than I got for Megatokyo and It's Walky combined. Some of that mail was negative towards me -- that's the price of doing business as an essayist, of course. But a lot of it was... well, structured like this. "Eric -- I know you don't read GPF any more, but did you see today's strip? Man, you wouldn't believe it. He's done...."

And then they would talk about something they found particularly egregious, or particularly illustrative of one of my points, or what have you.

I always found that interesting. Here's a strip I've explicitly stated is no longer part of my daily life, and I've had folks from far and wide... well, bringing it up. Often. Linking to bits and storylines.

And, because I've been curious, I've gone and looked. So, this is a strip I don't read, but I'm actually fairly up to date on it. Which seems odd to me.

Why GPF and not Megatokyo? I'm honestly not sure. But there it is. And during all this time, I haven't commented over here about the goings on of GPF, because of the moratorium, but also because even if I've kind of kept up to date because people link things to me or talk to me about them or send me mail... well, I don't read this strip. It might be a technical definition, but I'm sticking to it. One of my guiding principles on Websnark is I don't read strips out of a sense of schadenfreude. If I don't actually like a comic, I don't go on reading it. Even if I "kind of keep up to date" because people send me links or the like, I don't put the day to day energy or effort into reading that a decent critique requires. I'm not qualified to comment on GPF these days.

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to Sluggy Freelance. Because over the course of the last eleven months, I've undergone quite a sea change when it comes to Sluggy.

As I've mentioned before, had the Shortbreads not died an abortive death each time I've tried to put them out, Sluggy Freelance would have gotten last years overall "Bringing the Story" Shortbread. To me, that means that of everything that was done last year, Sluggy was the comic strip that did it all right. "That Which Redeems" was, in my opinion, exceptional storytelling done exceptionally well. It was everything that is good and right and mete in the whole "Cerebus Syndrome" concept. Pete Abrams just did everything right.

If you would have told me a year ago that I would have seriously considered replacing General Protection Fault on the "You Had Me, And You Lost Me" list with Sluggy Freelance, I would have called you a liar. To your face.

But here we are, and I did indeed strongly consider it. Certainly, Sluggy is the strip closest to "You Had Me" status of anything I read. It's been on the (sadly not often mentioned any more) Why Do I Read This Comic, Anyway list for... well, pretty much since the start of Oceans Unmoving. Almost as many people who've written to me saying "I know you don't read GPF any more, but could you have a look at this..." have written saying "dude, why exactly do you still read Sluggy?"

And it's been harder and harder to answer them. And more and more of the snarks I've written about Sluggy in the past year have been negative, and it continues to be a truism for me that if I'm on balance being negative about a strip, I'm probably not enjoying that strip, and I should let it go.

Had it become an active plan? Dropping GPF from the sidebar (and the You Had Me status) and putting Sluggy Freelance on? Not really. I hadn't decided. But I was leaning that way.

And then, last week, Pete Abrams put an open letter on his front page. (This link will only work until it goes off the front page... since... well, I don't know where or if Abrams archives old news items.) This letter talked about "Oceans Unmoving," and about the difficulties of telling a story like this, and the reasons why he told this story. Here's a quote:

Hey everybody! I wanted to let you all know what a horrible mistake I’ve made in and with the comic lately! You see, I like throwing in epic complex storylines from time to time. That Which Redeems required a lot of background info about the “Dimension of Lame” and explaining too much detail could slow down the story at times, but I chose my battles and told my tale and was very happy with the finished product. Then I made a mistake.

I’m kinda like Hereti-Corp! “Even our mistakes are big!”

Timeless Space (a concept that was so durn cool and simple in my head) is a whole environment in which next to everything needed explanation and it has slowed the storytelling process immensely. There is just too much to comfortably and seamlessly weave into the daily strips without buckets of words or hundreds of panels. And to follow it so closely after That Which Redeems was very bad timing. But I really wanted to get back to Bun-bun who had been waiting far too long to be gotten back to (similar to Oasis and Aylee).

He then goes on to discuss exactly how he feels that things went off the rails, and go through the potential solutions he discussed. And he mentioned that this would all probably make a really cool Graphic Novel that would be read all at once, instead of a daily strip.

And I had a sudden and pernicious flash of deja vu. From my original essay on General Protection Fault:

It was over. It was finally over. And don't make any mistake -- it was a major blow to GPF. It got bad enough that Darlington actually had to post disclaimers swearing that the funny would be back, give it time, this was the payoff to the whole series, no honestly. Just have faith. And if it's just too much and not why you're here, then just drop GPF for a while and come back in December!

Guys, when you have to tell your fans to stop reading until your plotline is over... you've lost. You have completely lost.

Seeing something that evoked the ineffable sense of Surreptitious Machinations in Abrams's current plotline struck me. But not nearly as much as the difference in tone.

You see... Jeff Darlington didn't say "look, I screwed up." Darlington was and is convinced Surreptitious Machinations was his masterwork. He really, really liked it. He liked how it came together. He liked how it read. He is very, very proud of it.

And I have no right to say he shouldn't be. None.

Nor is he the only one. I know of people who loved Surreptitious Machinations. I know of people who absolutely disagreed with every point of my essay.

The point of the essay, however, wasn't that Jeff Darlington was wrong or bad. It's that he had me -- he had me as a reader and fan -- and then he lost me. It's not that Darlington did things wrong. It's that his vision no longer matched up with what I wanted from my daily GPF reading. And there's no reason that it should. Nor is there a reason Darlington should care that I left. People have different tastes. If he could glean insight from my essay, good enough. If he read it and said "well, whatever -- I'm going to tell the story I want to tell the way I want to tell it," good enough.

The point, which I am belaboring, is that it didn't work for me any more, and I didn't get the sense it would work for me after that... so I left it behind. C'est bien.

The difference between that and Peter Abrams's open letter is that Abrams does think this has gone badly.

Not "I've gotten some of you upset but this is pulling together the way I want it." No, this is "I had an idea and I think it was a bitching idea but it didn't come together the way I expected. I don't want to drop it entirely, and I don't want to force a sudden and unsatisfying ending, and I think it might make a good graphic novel but that's not what I'm doing here! Which he did say, actually. Well, what he said was:

I think the whole story and all its complexities will come together as a nice tale once together in one piece (this probably would have made a great graphic novel, but as it were, I’m not in the graphic novel business) but for now I understand the torture to daily readers. Now the question is what do I do about it?

The distinction is subtle, but it's there. Darlington had a story he wanted to tell and he felt he told it successfully. I didn't enjoy it, on the other hand. Abrams had a story to tell, but it's not going successfully, in his opinion. And I concur.

It's the difference between "he's going away from the stuff I liked, and it's time I go off on my own direction," and "this isn't what I like, but there continue to be signs we'll get back to the stuff I do like."

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think Pete Abrams cares if he has me as a reader. (Pete Abrams is one of those people I'm moderately sure doesn't know who I am. And there's nothing wrong with that.) But as I said, "you had me, and you lost me" is a personal thing. That open letter gives me reason to hope.

And if I have hope, then he hasn't lost me. Yet.

So. Obviously, with GPF going off the list, the sidebar item had to go away. There was nothing left to put in it. (No, Garfield doesn't count.) So, I took a suggestion given to me by the Snarkoleptics a while back, when we first discussed whether or not the "You Had Me" essays would expire -- I'm putting in an "Evergreen" section. These are some of the snarks and essays I'm proud of. Three of them are mine, two are Weds's (I haven't discussed them with Weds, so they may change when she says "dude -- I don't want the Sailor Moon thing there" or the like). And I'm officially soliciting suggestions for other classic snarks to put up there. Here's your chance to say what we at Websnark have done really right.

And otherwise... the question is, what's going to change. There's nothing currently on "You Had Me, and you Lost Me" status. It remains in the arsenal, but it's unused right now. How're things going to change?

Well, for me, they're not. You see, I don't read GPF.

But I'm not the only writer for this website.

And the other writer? Does.

I strongly recommend you watch this space tomorrow. I've seen some advances. Dude.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:50 AM | Comments (61)

November 11, 2005

Eric: Remembrance

In Canada, Veterans Day is called Remembrance Day. Same holiday, same theory, same date (the day that World War I ended, called Armistice Day before that).

I like Veterans Day. I like it a lot. But I like the word "remembrance." To me, it's not enough to honor our Veterans. We should remember them. We should remember what we did. We should remember that they died, and they did it for us.

(Note that this isn't directed to Americans. Or Canadians. Whoever you are -- wherever you are -- someone in the course of human history has fought for your people, for your rights, for your survival. And some of those people have died. Nobility is not regional. Sacrifice is a part of the human condition.)

I am an American. No matter what else I might be, no matter my opinions of our administration or of the things being done in our name, I am an American. I am proud of my country. I am proud of its ideals. I am proud to be able to say "I am an American." In my office, I have a small flag up on my bulletin board, and I have facsimiles of the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution on my walls.

Those documents are there, and I'm in this office, free to write whatever I want in this post, are thanks to the people who put themselves on the line for my nation and for me.

It is not enough to honor them. We must remember them.

This list is exclusively American. If you are not American yourself, it's up to you to compile the appropriate list for your own fallen.

• The American Revolution: ten thousand, six hundred and twenty three missing, killed and wounded.
• The War of 1812: six thousand, seven hundred and sixty-five missing, killed and wounded.
• The Mexican War: seventeen thousand, four hundred and thirty five missing, killed and wounded.
• The American Civil War: six hundred and thirty four thousand, seven hundred and three Union missing, killed and wounded, three hundred and thirty five thousand, five hundred and twenty four confederate missing, killed and wounded, totalling nine hundred and seventy thousand, two hundred and twenty seven missing, killed and wounded.
• The Spanish-American War: four thousand, one hundred and eight missing, killed and wounded.
• World War I: three hundred and twenty thousand, seven hundred and ten missing, killed and wounded.
• World War II: one million, seventy-eight thousand, one hundred and sixty two missing, killed and wounded.
• The Korean War: one hundred thirty six thousand, nine hundred and thirty five missing, killed and wounded.
• The Vietnam War: two hundred and eleven thousand, four hundred and seventy one missing, killed and wounded.
• The Gulf War: Seven hundred and sixty missing, killed and wounded.

This list details two million, seven hundred and fifty seven thousand, one hundred and ninety six missing, killed and wounded American servicemen and women since the American Revolution.

It is also incomplete.

It does not include the tens of millions of Americans who went to war, fought for their ideals, and returned home, unscathed in body but marked and enduring in spirit.

It does not include those Americans missing, killed or wounded in border actions, in disputes. In operations. In Somalia. In Grenada. In unofficial conflicts with the Warsaw Pact over the course of a generation. In military actions throughout the world not big enough to be considered an official or unofficial war.

It does not include those Americans missing, killed or wounded in wars and conflicts that were not official members of our Armed Services. It does not include spies. It does not include civilians who assumed the role of soldiers when the time came, with or without support. It does not include the men and women of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001, who were not soldiers but who willingly laid down their lives to protect America.

It does not include the men and women who fought and died in Afghanistan following September 11.

And it does not include the seventeen thousand, six hundred and twenty six Americans missing, killed and wounded as of this writing in the ongoing mission in Iraq.

One of those Americans was named Jay Aubin. He was a Major in the United States Marine Corps. He was from Waterville, Maine. I happened to know him, somewhat, from my brief time in the Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps during college. We compared notes about people we knew, and his name stuck in my head.

Major Aubin was a pilot. He actually had the honor of piloting Marine One on several occasions. He was also a trainer of new pilots.

He was assigned to the Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona. On March 20, 2003, Major Aubin was killed when his CH-46E helicopter went down.

I saw his face on the news. The shock of recognician was palpable. I knew him. It was from years before, and maybe he'd never have remembered me, but I remembered him. And he was dead.

I remembered him.

I remember him.

And I always will.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:05 AM | Comments (32)

November 10, 2005

Wednesday: Poorly considered shelving units

(From Questionable Content. Click for volumes of issues.)

This one really, really bugs me.

It's a beautiful punchline, of course. Do not get me wrong here. It's that I'm incredibly uneasy about what we've just built up to, and about what we might be building up to. I don't think that it's going to bode well for Faye no matter where it goes from here, either.

The point's been made over on Snarkoleptics, and again here in the strip, that having Issues isn't a blanket excuse for constantly being a bitch. That's true. But it's fallacious to assume that everything can be kept tidily partitioned without trouble, either -- asking Faye to walk away from a major shaping force in her personality is a pretty tall order.

Trauma recovery has a certain amount of process associated with it. Faye hasn't gone there or done that, and that's been the thrust of any number of strips lately. Either you work through it, no matter what it is, or you build around it. The former approach is painful and difficult; it can also take bloody well forever. The latter will do for a limited period of time, but eventually you come up against the limitations set by the damage and your compensation methods. At that point, you can either demolish and work through, quite possibly backwards, or keep building up your intricate latticework.

It's not unlike shelving. It is a right pain in the ass to organize your books (assuming you're, you know, a sane person, and you keep a sensible number of books about the place) in a fashion which is both systematic and space-efficient. It takes bloody well forever, and involves considerable amounts of planning past a certain point. It will probably also trip off your allergies for days. That said, if you don't devote the requisite amount of energy to a decent foundation, you're just going to stick your books wherever you perceive there to be space. Pretty soon, there's stacks all over the damned apartment, and where the hell is Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity again?

Most people mix strategy with disorganization. They have an organized bookcase, but they've also got the unfiled stacks. Faye is more stack than bookcase, though, because she hasn't got the shelves set up right to begin with.

At the other end of the extreme, we have Raven. "Cheer up and move on" Raven. Now, that sort of advice is fully in character for her. She's dim, she's perky, and she's determined to keep the vibe Positive At All Costs. Of course she wants Faye to buck up and stop being so gloomy; in her world, that's what you do.

The trouble is, "just moving on" -- pat, simple, just walking away from the past -- is near-as-dammit the exact same thing as not dealing with it at all to begin with. You're still not putting the books in the bookcase, and you're doing it for very similar reasons: shelving is unpleasant.

I wouldn't like to assume that Raven doesn't have any screwy issues of her own. While a lot of people really just are that way, again, "just move on and be happy" is as much of a noncoping mechanism as "I'm going to be bitchy because I Have Issues."

Have an example. It doesn't prove anything, but it's an illustration. When I was a teenager, I knew a girl who acted an awful lot like Raven. Her family wasn't the most functional one around, but she dumped all of her personal energy into the idea of being happy. Her volunteer work placed her in a position of minor leadership -- she worked with girls a few years younger than herself -- and she felt it was important "not to dwell." So, that was the advice she gave to her girls: don't dwell on bad stuff. Embrace joy. Don't be mean or grumpy, even if your day sucked. Just move on. Bad stuff is just no excuse. Even when working with girls who struggled with clinical depression, she wasn't big on processing the root causes (this was pre-SSRI antidepressant boom, too). Snap out of it! Life is good!

Then her father died.

It was sudden. Largely unexpected. This left any number of unresolved issues in the family, the way a death like that tends to work. Everyone was more than willing to let her take her time to cope, to be around to help her adjust, to take on shares of her work as needed so that she had a bit more space in her world. She wasn't interested.

She was back, at full strength, inside of a week. I saw her in black just once, and I think that was for propriety's sake.

Because, you know, it's in the past. And he's gone now. And there's nothing for it. You have to move on, you know. And why make other people unhappy? Why be unhappy? Embrace joy.

Every time I saw her after that, she got a little more brittle and a little more desperate. She piled her books in a neat and tidy stack which got taller and taller every day. You wouldn't know it just to look at her, or to talk with her casually, especially if you hadn't known the situation and you'd never met her before it all went down. I did know her, though, and I'd watched her pretty closely. I don't like to think of the legacy she left, or of the example she set.

I don't know what happened to her. Last time I checked, neither did anybody else.

My guess is that the books fell on her.

On the other hand, if you don't have a lot of books, you don't need much room to put them away. You can't tell the difference at a glance, and glances are all that we really get of Raven so far. Faye writes her off as a lamb, and Faye could be exactly right. But if that's the case, Raven's also not the one to be passing out advice. (Telling a Suicide Girl to take Prozac before she hurts herself is funny, but it also suggests a Band-Aid approach to depression maintenance. There's a reason why drugs are considered an adjunct to therapy.) And Faye's epiphany could be a step in completely the wrong direction: what if she's not going to deal with the mysterious issues?

Does this mean that Faye's just going to learn to pile the books more tidily? That would be a great shame. See, you can leave it there and move on?

But you never just leave it there and move on.

Because that's not how it works.

Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 7:14 PM | Comments (53)

November 9, 2005

Eric: This is a completely good idea, executed well, completely opt-in, and utterly useful with little work. Why do I expect there'll be a 300 comment long argument about it?

(From Oh No! Robot!.com)

Every so often, someone comes out with something that is unremittingly cool. Action Ryan North of Qwantz.com (the home of Daily Dinosaur Comics as well as many other cool things) and Cool Hand T Campbell of Penny and Aggie and about seven thousand other comic strips have decided to build a tool that's amazingly cool, and give it to the world.

That tool is ohnorobot.com. And the idea behind it is so simple, it's staggering it hasn't been done before. Or if it has been done before (I know Bo Lindbergh has been doing indexing for searching, for example) and implemented in a wide scale before, I don't know it. That's all right, though. I'm allowed to not know things.

The idea is this. Comic creators receive a bit of javascript they can put on their web pages. That javascript causes a small icon to appear on archive pages of the comic (right now, it only happens about one out of four times, to help throttle bandwidth until their hosting changes). Any reader who wants to can click on that link, and enter a transcript of that day's comic into a database.

Once I approve the transcript, that text then becomes searchable. It can be searched along with dozens of other comics in a unified search page, or I can direct people to a custom search page just for my comic, or I can add another trivial bit of javascript to my page and get a search form right on the page.

I added John Stark to the service (hey, I never said I wouldn't mention it), and gave it a try. Transcribing given strips is simple. There is absolutely no coding needed -- just hit return between speech bubbles and two returns between panels and submit. I get a chance to approve all transcripts that come through. And then it just plain works.

Very simple. The tools have been available for years now. And we know that the fandoms of comics would love a chance to dig deep into this -- this is the kind of things fandoms love. It's a chance to pitch in, a chance to feel like a part of things. And since you can put your name into the form, the artist will even know it's you!

And, because the transcriptions are so easy, a dedicated fandom can breeze through adding strips to the archives (well, as soon as the bandwidth throttles are taken off. Pray for bobo.) And then, we'll have a resource that lets us search the archives of dozens of strips at once or just our individual strips in particular. It's fast, it's easy, it's entirely opt-in (you have to add the javascript to your own site. If you don't add the javascript, your site will never be a part of it.) Already, some of the big hitter sites like Wigu, Goats and White Ninja Comics are on board. And given how little work is needed on the part of the artists, there's no reason why most or all of the big guns can't jump in. (Unless, of course, they don't want to. "I don't want to" is fair, you know. Don't try to claim it isn't!)

Eventually, this will become a regular stop for me. Especially since there's a number of strips I sometimes need to refer to in a given comic's run, and finding those strips more easily would be a Godsend. On the other hand, I could see sometimes needing to review Valentine strips, and typing Valentine in and seeing what comes up would be an easy way to do that.

Which means, of course, that the engine can also be promotional.

Dude. This is a good idea. And kudos to T and Ryan for doing it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:35 AM | Comments (48)

November 8, 2005

Eric: What good is Nanowrimo?

I've had a couple of people ask me what good Nanowrimo does in the long run.

Not for me in particular, mind. Both of these correspondents are firmly convinced I'm more than capable of producing the wordcount and not sucking wind. And, so far things are going well. (For those of you who don't read my livejournal, where most of my personal nanoruminations are going, or the site where I'm posting the work in progress, I'm just shy of eighteen thousand words so far.)

But what these folks want to know is, what good does Nanowrimo in general do? To their way of thinking, participants are often (even generally) not that good. This is the rough equivalent of a dare. What, they ask me, is the point of an event that doesn't care about quality, only completion.

So. Rather than answer them individually, I thought I'd throw a few points out here and let people chew on them.

1. Nanowrimo encourages people to put up or shut up: I'm a writer. If you don't know that by now, how the Hell did you find the blog in the first place? But, regardless, I'm a writer. I self-identify as a writer. I think of myself, before systems administration, before education, before webcartooning or criticizing, as a writer. I tell people this.

And I always get the same block of responses when I tell people I'm a writer:

• Oh, really? What have you published?

• Oh, really? I prefer knitting/sewing/watching sports/some other reference to a hobby.

• Oh, really? Yeah, I always meant to write a book, but I never got around to it.

It's the last one of those that always gets to me. The implication is that it's not very hard. The same people who responded to every three page paper in high school with a combination of sheer, unmitigated dread and rage thinks that they could do what I practice every day of my life probably about as well as I can. After all, they actually speak English, and that's all that it takes, right? That and an industry in. I mean, they weren't born yesterday.

The stumbling block is always "I never got around to it," or "I never had the time." What they really mean is they've never had the excuse. Well, here it is, in all their glory. You think you can do this? Go for it. You have thirty days. Fifty thousand words. One month to do a two hundred page paper. Go for it.

Some of them succeed. And good for them. Some make a good effort, and good for them. Some crash and burn inside of a week, and good enough.

But every one of those people gets to the far end of Nanowrimo, and never casually mentions how they're going to write a book when they get around to it again.

That's worth its weight in gold, my friends.

2. Nanowrimo encourages people to try:On the other side of the equation, we have the folks who really would like to write something, but they're convinced they can't do it. Now, for all I've implied above about how ripped I get when someone implies that my craft is easy, the simple truth is my craft is accessible. Almost anyone who's willing to put in significant practice can write, with time. They won't all be Hemingway, but then he blew his own head off, so that's not a bad thing.

Writing well is another matter, of course. But for a lot of these folks, they never even start down the path, because they're so concerned that whatever they do will suck that they never even try.

And you know what? If you've never done concerted writing of this kind before? It is going to suck.

But who cares? Sucking for a while is the gateway to not sucking.

Nanowrimo, by putting its emphasis on fifty thousand come Hell, high water, or crap, takes the pressure off. "Go for it," they say. "Who cares if it's terrible -- just do it!" And so some of those folks who've always wanted to try do try. And some of them discover that they enjoyed it. And some will discover that the last five thousand words they wrote were a lot better than the first five thousand words they wrote, and decide to keep working on this. And some people will discover that writing actually is fun, and will keep it up.

And all of those are good things too.

3. Nanowrimo teaches the single most important aspect of writing: People sometimes ask me what is the best thing a writer can do. What improves them the most? What strengthens them? What puts them in a position to succeed. What gets projects finished.

The answer is as simple as it is daunting: you have to write.

Every day.

Every day.

A plurality of "how to write X" books, where X is a novel, or a romance novel, or science fiction, or fantasy, or nonfiction, or whatever recommends that the new writer write at least one page every day. That's just two hundred and fifty words. Two hundred and fifty words. You want to know how much two hundred and fifty words is? Take a look at point two, above. From the words "On the other side of the equation" down through to "keep it up?" That's two hundred and fifty one words. That's it.

But it seems impossible. It seems like a monumental act of discipline for folks.

Nanowrimo cuts through that. Your daily quota is seventeen hundred words, and at no point do they tell you you have to do it. They just say "hey, you need to hit fifty thousand by the end of November."

So, people give it a shot. And they track their wordcount. And shoot for seventeen hundred words a day. And they discover they can do that, so they shoot for two thousand a day instead, so they can take the weekend off. They give it a full on shot.

And in so doing, they learn the core discipline. They write every day. They learn they can write every day.

It's not that far a step to actually writing every day, after that.

4. There are worse reasons to form a community than creativity: Look, I make no bones about the fact that I'm a liberal. And like most liberals (and many conservatives, for that matter), I think the arts are important. I think there's something more to human beings than working, fucking, drinking beer and watching television. I think we have the capacity to create something meaningful out of ourselves, out of our lives, our of our dreams. We can make things that never existed before.

One of the saddest facts of American society is that artistic impulse just isn't encouraged. If it doesn't make you money, what good is it? It's a waste of time. As a result, the only people who try to be writers -- or painters, or artists of any stripe, really -- are those who are downright driven to do it. People like me. I couldn't not write. I'd go insane.

But this sheer, unadulterated creativity, done for its own sake and for the simple joy of it, is the birthright of every human being with a moderately functional brain. It doesn't matter if it's any good, so long as you enjoy yourself. You don't have to be driven to be an artiste to enjoy crayons or writing a story or essay or journal entry. It's right there.

It already belongs to you.

Nanowrimo provides a community of people without expectations beyond the attempt. They say "hey -- this is pretty damn cool. You should try it!"

I know some people resent Nanowrimo. They resent their livejournal friends lists becoming full of people posting regular word counts, getting all excited because they're taking a shot at writing a book which probably will suck in the first place. They hate it as much as they hate... well, Harry Potter, because of what that does to their Livejournals and online environments every couple of years.

But even though I don't personally read Harry Potter, I'm thrilled there's a book series out there that children and adults alike are desperate to read. That kind of excitement for a book gives me hope.

And I think any yearly event that gets so many people excited about writing is an unqualified win for Civilization.

I'll check back later. I've got two hundred and fifty words to write. Followed by fifteen hundred more. And then we'll see where we go from there.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:32 PM | Comments (52)

November 5, 2005

Wednesday: NaDruWriNi: Every Perv's Battle

I haven't talked about the side reading I've been doing for the sixteenth. (Or the seventeenth. It depends on how well everything goes.) Fortunately, some of it has very little useful application to the central work, so I can talk about it without fear.

I hadn't kept up very well with the American evangelical Christian "sexual purity" movement in recent years. The rhetoric didn't seem significantly different from what I'd run across as a teenager, or at the start of adulthood. Secondary virgins, premarital tongue kissing is a steep slope to slide, yes, yes, yes. I get better explanations of why oral sex is problematic to this worldview with my breakfast cereal. (Most of them necessitate a broader view of what constitutes "purity" or "sex," let alone virginity, but you really ought to wait for the marvelous Hanne Blank's upcoming book for the latter.)

As pornography became more and more of a going online concern, of course, I was captivated by the whole notion of "porn addiction" -- moreso, of course, the bizarre notion that such afflictions were largely the purview of men; most of the people I knew who enjoyed and produced the stuff were, and are, female. They've done studies? Whatever. Men are visual in studies? Whatever. That's not my observation, and that's not the life I know.

(Apparently I live on a different planet. You know, the one where you can have a few silicone wangs and it's not, you know, the stuff of NIGHTMARES. The one where you read On Our Backs and it's not about abstract notions of how breasts are sexual objects to men and maybe some lesbians, or humouring onlookers. The one where the old "men are visual and women are emotional and that's it" saw just doesn't exist. The one where you default to expecting that chicks like both, and it's not just about making a point or having a rebellion?)

Anyhow. Porn addiction: apparently that's every man's battle. (The hell. But more on that.)

I've known a few people who couldn't reconcile their taste for porn with their belief system, so phrased their struggle in the language of addiction. It made sense in one case, inasmuch as anyone can have a hobby which spins right out of control and takes over their lives. It didn't always wash, though. More often, it just registered as fear. It's not that they had an addiction.

It's that they indulged occasionally.

"I had a glass of beer once a week at the pub. I'm an alcoholic."

Fair enough if your faith or worldview doesn't permit you to include porn consumption as an expression of your sexuality. That's fine. Lots of people aren't comfortable with erotic art or entertainment in any form, even if they enjoy it. But phrasing it as addiction is a really, really good way to overblow your issue, misrepresent yourself, misrepresent pornography and cause more damage than your occasional sin was doing on its own.

But you know that, right? You're not dumb.

Porn addiction was the only bit that really struck out at me as new for a very long time. I wasn't expecting "emotional affairs," which is what chicks are supposed to do. I don't think I have the language to express the ire that concept inspires in me. An emotional affair can be anything from what really is a romantic relationship with someone you haven't got leeway in your central relationship to pursue, up through and including a goddamned crush on Clark Gable. I kid thee the heck not.

And girls have this. Women have this.

Instead.

Yes, all right, fair enough. As with porn addictions, take it to the extreme and you devalue the model? But take it to the extreme and you apparently also have a fair few lucrative books.

Which brings me to True Love Waits.

Why didn't anyone tell me that the TLW campaign pretty much belongs to a Christian merchandising company named Lifeway? It's a beautiful racket. Studies demonstrate that a chastity pledge tends to last about eighteen months (so much for [REDACTED] and [OMITTED]) before you get yourself some backsliding. So, introduce your product range -- True Love Waits rings, necklaces, books, CDs, and other "inspirational" tat -- into the Christian marketplace, and put some viral marketing into play. Make your logos and your rituals freely reproducible; provide some engaging activities for youth leaders to bring into their high school groups. Make it very easy to inject those rituals into the course of a normal church service, particularly ones which, you know, if you really want to, because you could use a silver ring, of course, but you could use a TLW branded ring to remind the kids of the pledge they'll be taking. The one you wrote.

The one they can take more than once. With a new ring each time, if you like?

One you can pick up at your local Christian bookstore?

This bothers me. (It's not just TLW, either. There's Silver Ring Thing, but that's more of an event-driven operation.) TLW is the Kleenex of youth sexual purity in the United States right now, and it's rigged. Coincidentally enough, you can start a teenager on this path right now, which'll get them into senior year of high school or the first year of college. At that point, you can start in on the Waterbrook Press series of Battle books for your age group and gender -- Every Young Woman's Battle or Every Young Man's. Problem with porn? Or all-consuming crushes on more than one person? There's books and music and CDs and events for all that, too.

And then, you know, eighteen months to three years? Do as well as you can, then fall over, because you're meant to fall over. That's not what you should do, and of course it's your fault (you wouldn't keep up on this path if you didn't keep right with the Lord, right? Dude, you need to keep an eye on that). But you will.

And then the adult stuff -- Every Man or Woman's Battle -- will be there for you. In the Armed Forces? There's Every Soldier's Battle.

Of course.

Of course.

Did you know that Lifeway own several Christian bookstores?

Do you know how angry I am right now that there's an industry devoted to drawing money out of people who set themselves up for failure in their romantic and/or sexual relationships, whether through an addiction model or through the notion of any sort of fulfilling extramarital bond (notwithstanding your girlfriends, of course, because you don't want them like that) or just getting overwhelmed by hormones and hewing to the letter of the law to stay sane? That it exists to trap you, with cheap rings as a teenager and manipulative workshops as an adult, when you fall over every eighteen to thirty-six months once you've been suckered into this paradigm?

And that it works in the name of God?

You know I keep an eye on Jack Chick, and I watch TBN, and I read Left Behind. I do this stuff for more than one reason. I take the power this stuff holds out of myself, and I look at it, and I dismember it.

I remember the time a well-meaning friend tried to send me into the arms of Exodus International. He wasn't the first, but he was the most persuasive. He was misguided. He was wrong. I knew better, and thank God I was strong enough to do that much; all it took was one phone call and I could see this road ahead of me. (The book you want here is Stranger At the Gate by Mel White. It's nothing new.)

You send yourself to the workshops, you read the books, you lag one step behind the fiscal trail; in one year or three or five or ten, you stop being able to put things in the little boxes, and you fall apart. And there's the machine.

There's the machine, which tells you it can put you all back together again. For a price.

For a price.

Do you know how angry I am that they've found a way to do this for everyone else, too?

Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 11:10 PM | Comments (47)

November 4, 2005

Eric: The thing about cutting your nose off to spite your face? It makes your mustache look *weird.*

Here's the thing. I'm not dumb.

Oh, I look it, sometimes. But I'm not, really. I actually have a pretty good sense of things. A sense of public relations, a sense of repercussion. A sense of what will play in Peoria and what won't.

And I know what's a good sign for a website or blog, and what's a bad sign. And what, in the long run, is likely a death knell. I know where poison enters the body of a community. I've seen it many, many times. I know what creates subtle changes.

And I know myself. I know how much time I have to devote to the written word, and how much time I don't. I write an absurd amount of... well, stuff in a week. But there are limits. And of course, it's a question of how much passion I have for a given topic.

Take Nanowrimo. My official total is up close to thirteen thousand words after three days. Unofficially, I've broken 15k, which I'll update later today. We knew that was going to be a drain on my writing time. Novembers are like that. But I always had plans of how I would keep Websnark updated. How I would keep going during all of it. Because I know that the most important thing you can do for a weblog is... well, show up.

It's the same as a webcomic, of course. And while I've been late a few times on the comics, there's been something new on both Gossamer Commons and John Stark every day there's been something scheduled to be there since the beginning. Right at the moment, I have two comics -- one of which I do by myself, admittedly with stock images rather than dynamic art, but not without design effort needing to go into the daily strip -- that both have consistently updated on time. While keeping Websnark going.

And most of all... I love writing.

I love it.

I love writing when ten thousand people read it. I love writing when ten people read it. I love it when no one reads it. I love putting words together. I love the feeling of reverie as I say things. I love the feeling of connections to characters, or themes, or theses, or work. I love writing.

Websnark has been a godsend to my writing. It's kept a sense of discipline going -- getting something out, even if it's a "got nothing, sorry" notice. And the community -- my God, the community. That's just astounding.

Also, I got a girlfriend out of it. One I happen to like a lot. And that's astoundingly cool too.

But here's the thing. It's the thing that people don't seem to understand. It may be the most important thing that anyone reading this takes away from this essay. Future generations, surfing old web sites looking for ancient porn, who happen to come across Websnark should take this away from it before anything else.

Websnark isn't as important to me as my writing is.

It's just not. I'm sorry about that.

Quite a while back, I posted a snark about how I wasn't going to play the whole "I need to figure out what people are going to want to read on Websnark or my numbers will drop" game any more. I recognized then that at some point my numbers were going to drop regardless. There's a life cycle to the Internet. You start as something new. Something cutting edge. Holy Fuck, here's this guy and he's critiquing Webcomics. And people come and read. And then you become mainstream, while a bunch of other folks pick up and do it too. And then, you become old hat, and someone else does it better than you do. And your numbers decline.

You can't do something like this for pageviews. You just can't. Webcomics? Yeah, sure. That can be about readership. It has to be. And I'm obsessive about the readerships of Gossamer Commons and John Stark. This is why I spent money advertising Gossamer Commons.

But at this point, I pretty much ignore the webstats of Websnark. Maybe once every three or four weeks I check to see how much bandwidth we're using or how many uniques we've gotten recently. It's not about that. Not any more. It's about writing. Websnark was where I could write. And yes, get feedback -- the feedback is incredible. When I put out a bedtime story with Weds, to get the rush back is addictive. It's wonderful. It rocks. And when I critique a webcomic and someone dissents, that's amazing to me. I believe in criticism. I believe in the critical dialogue.

I love Websnark. I love what we've got here. I love all of you.

But it's not as important as my writing is.

It's just not.

I'm sorry about that.

Last night, I couldn't sleep. I'll admit, the latest round of "Websnark has jumped the shark" talk had really, really pissed me off. I had actually been enjoying it for a long while -- I mean, I'd made my position on this clear, had indicated that doing it this way was more important to me than keeping my readership numbers up, Wednesday agreed with me, so people could say whatever they like.

And then someone pissed me off, using a turn of phrase they almost certainly didn't mean to piss me off this much.

"Shameless self-promotion." If I talked about John Stark or Gossamer Commons (or the Recluse novel, or my Star Trek Worlds bit -- which I get no additional money for, by they way -- or In Nomine, or Sidewinder, or anything else where I might actually have some stake in the project), I would be acting shamelessly.

On my own blog. Which, I would add, costs me money. Not inconsiderable money at that. Our bandwidth consumption's significant.

That pissed me off beyond all rational belief. I went on a tear in the comments -- and broke my own rules in doing so, and for that I am sorry. I carried it further, into my Livejournal. The implication, meant or not, that I should be ashamed for writing anything at all in here was about the most offensive thing I could think of. I built this house, damn it. Don't tell me what I should be ashamed to do in it.

And I hold to that. And I hold to the core concept that this right here is a place where Weds and I get to write about whatever we want to write about.

But, unable to sleep last night, I realized I would have a hard time writing about John Stark over here now, even if that's what's on my mind. I'd have a hard time forcing out the fact that a minority of readers would be pissed off if they saw it.

My inner Milholland was immediately tempted to write a ten thousand word John Stark retrospective and post it, mind. But the rest of me was... well, sad. Because if I'm not comfortable writing about a subject here, then I won't. But I have things I know I'll want to say. Things about the creation process. Things about the webcomic process. Things about Webcomicsnation, which would be of interest to new Webcartoonists who are making a decision on where to go and what to do. Things about American history. Things about folklore. Things about Peggy Shippen's truly remarkable breasts.

And I knew that I wouldn't be able to do it here. Which means the bastards had won.

So, last night I put together a livejournal community on John Stark. One that people interested in that stuff... or who don't give a damn what I'm writing so long as I'm writing... can read.

And I stared for a long moment at the "submit" key, because I knew the moment I hit it, I was injecting poison into Websnark. And I love Websnark. I really do.

But there's only so many hours in the day. And if I did this, I couldn't very well be anal about updating Websnark. If I couldn't feel comfortable writing whatever the fuck I wanted in this space, I couldn't let myself be fretted about not posting stuff over here on days I post stuff over there.

You see, I know about this stuff. I know part of the reason I abandoned any thought of a separate "essay" journal is because a monolithic blog is in the end vastly stronger than several niche blogs. The audience is stronger. And the core best practice you can do -- showing up each and every day -- is vastly easier. And I know that if I divide my attention to more than one place -- if my writing shows up in more than one place -- then every one of those places will be weaker.

And I also know that this isn't actually what the people complaining want. They don't want me to write about John Stark somewhere else. They want me to write about webcomics here. They want me to write less stuff about John Stark in the first place. (Which is a dodge, by the way -- there was a month between Stark posts. It was petering out the same way Gossamer Commons petered out before.) They want me to write less about video games or role playing games.

But that won't happen. I'm not going to neurotically find stuff to say when I'm not in the mood. And by taking my John Stark ball and bat and going home, I'm not going to start writing more webcomics related stuff on Websnark. I'm just going to write less on Websnark.

And it's a domino effect. Sooner or later, someone will bitch about In Nomine to the point that I revive my old In Nomine website and put all those writings over there. Sooner or later someone will bitch enough about video game snarks that I'll beg 32_footsteps to give me a corner of his Video Game site for my ruminations (I won't say he'll say yes. I'm just saying I'll beg.)

But none of that will cause me to write more about the stuff any given person wants me to write over here. All of it will simply serve to lessen what I do write over here.

I stared at that submit button for several minutes. Because I knew all this, and I love Websnark. I love Websnark. I'd want to hold this lightning in a bottle forever if I could, because you guys rock, and besides, why would I give a small percentage of my readers the satisfaction of doing damage to it.

But it's not as important as my writing is.

And I knew that I couldn't write comfortably about John Stark over here any more.

It feels like caving, really. Only it's a particularly petty sort of caving. Because now no one gets what they want. My attention gets divided, Websnark begins to become less of a priority for me... and even the people who don't want to read such things find themselves... well, not reading anything, since I'm not writing it where they can see. But I had to have a place I knew that I could write about this chunk of my creative life without feeling like I'd have to defend it.

So, I clicked submit.

And no, I'm not taking Websnark down. Though I thought about it. I actually discussed ending the site entirely with Wednesday. And also discussed withdrawing from it entirely and giving it to her. But while I'm already cutting off my nose to spite my face, I didn't want to shave down to bone at the same time. We both still love Websnark. We still love you guys. And I was just pissed off, and you get over that.

But things are different now, regardless. My mindset is different.

If I lose readers -- if I lose all my readers -- that's okay. It was inevitable anyhow. Projects end. New ones begin. The secret is to never stop writing, through times of feast or times of famine.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry there aren't three of me. I'm sorry my brain doesn't necessarily go the way some folks would want it to. I love Websnark too. I really do.

But it's not as important as my writing is.

And it's never going to be.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:12 PM | Comments (181)

November 2, 2005

Eric: Did you hear he now claims Japan is trying to invade the U.S. through corruptive video games? No joke.

Chaobell, who once wrote and drew /usr/bin/w00t/, which is one of my favorite webcomics in the vast history of webcomicka, has suggested that whenever a person uses the phrase batshit insane they should link to Jack Thompson's entry in Wikipedia. Of course, this is to build the proper corrolation between Thompson and the phrase batshit insane in Google.

I can't speak for Weds, but I'm entirely behind this concept.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:40 PM | Comments (36)

Eric: General Stark makes you feel -- he's a cool exec with a heart of steel!

As Websnark evolves, and change comes into the air, it is natural that it will come under critical review of its own.

And yet, there is no honor so singular, no dream so great, as to have the Modern Humor Authority take notice of your efforts and render its judgement.

And so it is with Websnark. And yes, I realize that Mr. Lemon's baleful glare is finding us wanting, but one must take such things for what they mean.To have a critic of Mr. Lemon's stature even show that he has read our words is a compliment of the highest order. I mean, sure. He's no Lance Sharps. But who is? Even Lance Sharps is no Lance Sharps.

The question, of course, is how one responds to such a critique. I fear to make changes -- to make a change would be to invalidate the thesis, and to invalidate the thesis would be to urinate on Picasso's Guernica. It's not like I don't have urine and it's not like Guernica doesn't invite it, but that would still make it wrong.

So, who do you have to blow to get Isobel Rai Belpheger to notice you, anyway?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:59 PM | Comments (152)

November 1, 2005

Eric: It is happening in NANAIMO! Er... Nanowrimo!

It's November 1, and as stated before, I'm taking another shot at Nanowrimo. I was a winner last year, but was ultimately dissatisfied with the result. (It's still on my edit this until it stops sucking pile, and perhaps I'll do just that one of these days.) However, another year has come, so it's time to dust off the battered underwood icon and start up again.

As stated before, I'm actually working more towards creating a publishable document than simply getting to fifty thousand words, this year. My true goal is to have a manuscript I can put into the mail on February 28, 2006. November is designated as a month where a plurality of the work is written. December is a spillover month for finishing it, and then the rest of December, all of January and all of Feburary is designated for editing, polishing, rewriting and preparing.

(There will be some delays. My birthday is in January. Christmas is in December. Wednesday's going to be in America for several weeks during this. Honestly, there are priorities here.)

Some of you will want to read this as it's being written. And I'm happy to oblige that. However, its going to be put up on a locked website, with appropriate warnings. This is specifically a site designed for writing and editing, not publication. (I may or may not do the Cory Doctorow thing with this on the far end. I dunno. But I'm reserving all options in the meantime.) If you want to be one of the people reading this as it's done, you should send me e-mail at the websnark address asking for instructions on where the page is and how to log in to read it.

If you do so, however, understand something. This is going to be a rough, first draft. It will not be polished, it will not be completed. I less need accurate, honest criticism and suggestions as I need cheerleading, at this stage of the game. The first draft is not a time for critical assessment and new directions. It is a time to get the damn thing writ.

Which doesn't mean, if you are reading that page, that you have to lie in comments. But if you hate it, stop reading it and don't comment, 'k? If you like it, feel free to say so, as said spiritual lift will help.

In December, I will be soliciting the "okay, you've seen what I've written -- tell me where I've fucked up" comments. So there will be a chance.

Danke!

For the record, though I strongly considered the Romance Novel, I decided to go with the pulp novel.

The title?

Enter the Recluse.

So, for those who thought "recluse" for the character name? Give yourself ten bonus points.

Here's where the fun starts.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:50 PM | Comments (42)

October 28, 2005

Eric: On Scumworlds, Ecosystems and Textual Whores: Thoughts on Star Trek: Worlds

People sometimes ask me what it's like to do work for hire for an RPG company. It seems like such an ugly phrase. Work for hire. It seems one step away from Word Writing Whore.

(For the record? My e-mail signature has been "Freelance Writer and Textual Whore" for some years now. Alongside a link to a website or two and a quote, usually from a webcomic or Alton Brown. Before that, my e-sig was "Gadfly for Hire.")

(Also for the record, "Gadfly for Hire" embarrasses Wednesday. I'm not entirely sure why. I think it's the way the word sounds. Gadfly. A fly noted for being a gad. This is not why I stopped using it. I stopped using it years before she and I even talked, much less started going out.)

(Also, for the record? Yes. Yes we're going out. Subtlety isn't working here, so let me be blatant. Me am besotted. She am besotted. We am the thing of besotted. Is that perfectly clear to everyone?)

(I lay odds that in the comments, someone will say "I think Eric's seeing Shaenon Garrity. Also, Wednesday's dating John Allison. But they're covering for each other.")

Anyway. Work for hire.

I never minded it, myself. I know I'm supposed to, but there's something about being paid to write about role playing games that makes me think "grab the money now and giggle incessantly." I enjoy writing for role playing games. I enjoy the process. I enjoy engaging that part of my brain. I enjoy working in other peoples' sandboxes. I enjoy getting slips of paper in the mail that say "Pay to the order of" because I spent a few weeks writing about planets on Star Trek.

And I enjoy reading what I've written.

I'll admit, it's more fun to get comp copies of a printed book. There's something about the smell of fresh printer's ink that's in the shape of words you came up with that makes a fellow high as a kite for days. But getting a PDF is almost as good, especially when it's as pretty as Star Trek Worlds. The production values are top notch. And the other guys wrote some kickass stuff about planets in there too.

And then there's my stuff.

I didn't get to do very many of the... how you say... name planets. I didn't get to do Vulcan or Bajor or Cardassia Prime. I was originally scheduled to do Rigel, which is like twelve planets all by itself, but Ken Hite had developed a kickass Rigel system for the previous incarnation of the RPG (Last Unicorn, for those playing at home) which he thought could be the basis for an even more kickass version in this setting. So, we traded off. He got Rigel, and I got Romulus and Remus.

(For the record? The stuff he did for Rigel was vastly better than what I had thought of.)

Only, this was in the months before Star Trek: Nemesis was scheduled to come out, which meant we had to wait for official information, since the product was originally supposed to be scheduled for a concurrent publication with the movie, to get some solid publicity off the excitement and hype that Nemesis provided.

Stop laughing.

Anyway -- that meant we needed to get solid information on the movie's take on Romulus and (especially) Remus. Which meant we were waiting on Paramount.

And waiting.

And waiting.

And finally, my editor (Jess Heinig, who's one of the best editors I've ever worked with) said "hey, Eric? We're running low on time here. By the time they clear the info and send it to me so I can send it to you, and then you read it and write the thing and send it back, we're going to miss our deadline. I'm still going to pay you for that section, but we're going to have to do this part of it in-house."

Which to be honest is part of the Work for Hire experience too. And you smile, nod and say "sure, Jess. No problem." When what you want to say is "you bastard! Romulus was mine! I will destroy you!"

Saying that kind of thing, by the way, is not considered conducive to getting later assignments. So. I went with the "sure, Jess. No problem" solution. And felt lucky to be getting the money for it anyhow. That was certainly not promised.

As a result, the twenty two or so worlds I contributed were more the settings for episodes or movies, or background information, rather than the core planets of the Federation or its enemies. So, I didn't get Vulcan or Andor, but I got to do Athos IV, which is where Michael Eddington met his end alongside his former C.O. and enemy Benjamin Sisko. I got to do Benzar, which features the fish headed guys with the breathers that Wesley Crusher always ended up befriending. I got to do Cordian, where Jonathan Archer and T'pol were taken prisoner, and some hundred years later was the subject of the Babel conference Sarek of Vulcan got himself stabbed over. And I got to do Boreth, where Worf, seeking answers to the void in his soul, first saw Kahless step into the firelight.

On the one hand, this was liberating. I got to do planets that the fans would care about, but that didn't have tons of stuff already defined for them. Let's be honest -- there's a lot of information out there for Vulcan or Kronos (I know that's not the Klingon spelling. Sorry). Doing that job involves collation and culling and shaping. On the other hand, there's next to nothing about Farius Prime or Rura Penthe. I needed to eke out all there was (and I bought a fair number of reference books and watched a lot of episodes of different Star Trek series), but there was also tremendous latitude. I could actually work to tie up loose ends and stretch my Science Fiction Worldbuilding muscles.

And, I got to do Ceti Alpha V. Also known as "THIS IS CETI ALPHA V!!!!!!" being screamed by Khan in the best Star Trek Movie. That was worth the price of admission right there.

And so, there were... interesting challenges as a result. Take Athos IV. On the episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine where it appeared ("Blaze of Glory," for completists out there) it was shown to be a world shrouded in fog, well able to confound sensors. This is why it had become an outpost for the Maquis, and why it had become their final fallback after the Dominion and Cardassians had smashed the Maquis into tiny pieces.

As a side note -- you are aware Wesley Crusher is directly responsible for the formation of the Maquis, right? His actions led to a terrorist underground and almost led the Federation into war with the Cardassians several times. And ultimately got all those people massacred. Including, by inference, all the folks on the planet that the Enterprise tried to resettle. The ones who swore they wouldn't mind being left by the Federation, and then blamed the Federation for abandoning them. Punk ass cadet, thinking he was smarter than the whole Federation....

But I digress. Read Wilwheaton.net.

Anyway. It wasn't enough to say "here's a planet they used to use as a base, and then Michael Eddington got spacked." I had to come up with a history for Athos. What was it before the treaty was signed? Why did it have the materials for an outpost? Eddington made reference to people having lived there.

So I created a world of rainforests and airponic style vegetation. I detailed the resources. And I worked on the history. I knew what Starfleet vessel had surveyed it. I knew the valley that the colonists had first settled. I knew why people came to Athos IV. I made it a real place.

And, in writing about Athos IV, I realized that not counting that planet of Native Americans Wesley Crusher refused to let be displaced again, it was the only Maquis world that we knew anything about. In a way, I was writing about the worlds of the Demilitarized Zone as a whole -- creating an entire kind of people. A people who sought new lives, and new worlds, and had the foundation for their universe taken away from them when the Federation pulled out of the Zone. What sort of people would remain? What sort of people would be left to say this world is mine. It is my home. I grow things here. My family is here. You cannot have it!

And so I wrote about the rise of the Maquis on Athos IV. And the fight they fought. A world named, ultimately, for a Musketeer. (And I notice, looking at the map the graphic artist put in, that the continents got named for the other Musketeers. Good on him.) And I wrote about the destruction of the Maquis, until there was nothing left but a handful of desperate men in a fallback base, doing whatever they could to survive until someone could rescue them.

It was like that on a lot of worlds. We knew about the firestorms of Bersallis III, but we knew about it from an episode that was far more devoted to Captain Picard nailing one of his subordinate officers in a jeffries tube than about the planet. I detailed the reasons why the Federation (and others) kept going back to a planet that turned into a plasma fireball every seven years. We knew there were mind control slugs in the sands of Ceti Alpha V, but I went into the ecosystem that allowed them to grow and flourish before the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI changed everything. With Turkana IV, I went into how a Federation backed colony of humans could descend into abject chaos and horror, leading to a planet where human beings organized into packs and gangs. And with Iconia I got to play with hearsay and legend.

In the question of "what's it like to do Work for Hire," one answer is "sometimes frustrating for reasons no one but you will get." Take Gagarin IV -- a planet from a second season episode of Next Generation, where genetic research is being done. And indeed, the Darwin Research Station is the only thing of interest from the show. (Well, that and the genetic supermen who then fade into the night never to be mentioned again, but I digress.) One of the hardest things to work on for this planet was the planet itself. See, I watched the episode... and it was green. Luminescent, even. The orbital shots showed the Enterprise swooping around a green planet. The matte paintings of exterior shots showed a planet of lush greenness (though no visible vegetation) and green skies. It was, in Scotty's words from another era, green.

So, being something of a planetary science aficionado, I made it a "scumworld." That's a planet that has gone from anaerobic simple single celled life forms (prokaryotes, for those who like biology) to more complex single celled life forms that expel oxygen (which is actually caustic and poisonous to cells not evolved to use it) called eukaryotes. A planet with enough moisture and sunlight could become covered with eukaryotic life, which could even end up floating in the atmosphere, for millions of years before events happened to nudge it into multicellular life. So, I made Gagarin's star a blue star, which meant that a planet in its comfort zone would by definition be a young one -- perfect for a scumworld -- and also meant that the star would burn itself out and change size and shape long before multicellular life could evolve, which meant there was no chance the Darwin Research Team could interfere with evolution (since the Federation has a serious fetish for evolution). It gave them an oxygen world, but also gave them such simple indigenous life forms that there would be little chance it would interfere or corrupt their genetics work.

So why is this frustrating? Because I've seen the artwork of the world in the completed product and they made Gagarin IV blue. Blue!

These are the kinds of things that cause head shaped dents in nearby walls. Significant others of writers should take note.

Of the worlds, the ones I'm probably most proud of are Benzar, Galor IV and Tzenketh. Benzar was a planet of intriguing aliens which hadn't been otherwise elaborated on, but which seemed unduly confident (one could even say arrogant) in their ways. And the intriguing word "geostructure" got used. So I developed a race that evolved on seashores, close to their seas, so that when they speak of their geostructure, they speak of their clan, their waters and their continent, all at once. Galor IV was a nothing world on the show -- it was a reference, only. The Daystrom Institute had an annex there devoted to cybernetics and android research. A Starfleet Admiral who had been attached to that annex had shown up to steal Data's daughter and bring her there, because they never got tired of beating the whole slavery horse when it came to Data. And that was it.

Well, I came up with a reason this planet had not only an Annex of the Daystrom Institute devoted to it (and one specific to android research) and a reason a Starfleet Admiral would be attached to it. It was a reason a plurality of old school Star Trek fans would love, at that. A reason... well, I'm not going to go into here, but I for one think it was brilliant, and I figured there was at least even odds Paramount would nix right out of the gate.

Finally, Tzenketh was a planet which we knew the Federation had had a war with -- and which was a serious enough problem that a new potential war could have been disastrous for the Federation with the Dominion looking over their shoulders. Other than that, it was a completely blank slate, and so I created a race -- a good race, different than anything I'd seen in Star Trek but perfectly compatible with the Star Trek universe. I was astoundingly proud of the Tzenkethi and their planet, and I figured it was even odds that Paramount would nix that too, because they might have plans for a planet at least as significant a threat as Cardassia Prime.

When I got my copy of the PDF, like every other writer out there, I immediately went and read the stuff I wrote. And I was stunned. It was beautiful, and the vast majority of the stuff I did got passed through. So I immediately checked on the stuff I knew was iffy. The Ceti Alpha V ecosystem thing? In there. The Tzenkethi? In there exactly as I'd put them. The Galor IV thing? No problem at all.

But they changed Benzar. Whether it was Paramount's review, or an editor changing it to conform to some other book in the line (though I'd seen Star Trek Aliens), or my research having failed to turn up a major element of their history and development or some editor just not liking it, I don't know, but they remade the Benzites into an uplifted species instead of an evolved one (and took out the evolutionary adventure hook I'd put into it.) They kept all the geography and sociology, but changed the core fact that had it make... well, sense. It's not bad, but....

In fact, it's perfectly fine. It's good. No one on Earth will care about this, any more than anyone on Earth but the most anal of Trekkies will notice that Gagarin IV was green on the show and is blue in the book, but I notice. I notice.

And that might be the final lesson of this. What does it mean to be a Work for Hire guy? It means reading through a book you poured thirty-four thousand of your words into, seeing that thirty-three thousand, five hundred of those words are essentially as you had them, minus copy editing, and fixating on the five hundred words they changed. And knowing that they had every right to do so. This is their book, not yours. They own it. You got paid for it.

It was green, damn it. And the Benzites make more sense being evolved rather than uplifted. Damn it.

That's what Work for Hire is.

This is a damn good supplement. I'm proud to be a part of it.

And now, back out to the streetcorner.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:14 PM | Comments (74)

October 24, 2005

Eric: On the other hand, my own entry in Wikipedia's pretty darn spiffy. Just for the record.

So, last weekend, a user named Hahnchen began the process of "weeding out" non-notable webcomics over at Wikipedia. He doesn't seem to be a bad person. He just figures... well, that somehow he knows what's notable and what isn't. He's admitted he doesn't know much about webcomics, but he figures it's somehow obvious. I guess. I don't know.

One of the people who got weeded out was Patrick Farley. So... I guess Webcartoonists Choice Award nominations, academic work, being cited and singled out for documentaries, multiple citations as one of the best webcartoonists of last year, articles about him at Comixpedia and the Webcomics Examiner (and, for that matter, here) and the opinions of dozens of webcartoonists and thousands of webcomics fans don't have as much bearing as... well, Hahnchen's snap judgment. I thought Ryan Estrada being purged as "non-notable" highlighted a failure in the model. Patrick Farley being purged as non-notable is downright stupid.

And it highlights the core problem with Wikipedia. In the end, it's not the issue of whether or not Wikipedia can be trusted -- which is what critics have said from the beginning. I think the record shows it's pretty damn solid in that regard. No, the problem with Wikipedia is a bizarre amalgamation of elitism and anti-elitism which will ultimately come down to "whatever editor is more stubborn than all the others."

We saw that with John Byrne, who managed to purge out anything negative from his bio largely because he was stubborn enough to continually revert his entry, over and over again, regardless of questions of point of view. And we see it with monumental disparities between guidelines for inclusion based solely on whether or not a significant number of editors are fans of the work in question or not. Go through the Star Wars, Star Trek, West Wing, DC Comics and Marvel Comics sections, and you will see the most mind numbingly obscure bits of trivia developed. Go to webcomics, and you have criteria based on voodoo and prognostication put forth.

This again highlights the driving need to use the Comixpedia.org Webcomics Encyclopedia instead. It's already vastly more useful to a student of webcomics than Wikipedia, and it's only getting better. What's more, its driving principle is "comprehensive." Wikipedia wanted at one point to be comprehensive. Now they want to be "legitimate," but their practices seem doomed to consigning it to illegitimacy with time. I suspect that more and more esoteric subjects will be "weeded out" (to use Hahnchen's term) by people who don't actually know anything about the subject. (The distrust of authoritative review has been highlighted before. One of the original members of the Wikipedia team, Larry Sanger, has gone on record on this subject:

The root problem: anti-elitism, or lack of respect for expertise. There is a deeper problem--or I, at least, regard it as a problem--which explains both of the above-elaborated problems. Namely, as a community, Wikipedia lacks the habit or tradition of respect for expertise. As a community, far from being elitist (which would, in this context, mean excluding the unwashed masses), it is anti-elitist (which, in this context, means that expertise is not accorded any special respect, and snubs and disrespect of expertise is tolerated). This is one of my failures: a policy that I attempted to institute in Wikipedia's first year, but for which I did not muster adequate support, was the policy of respecting and deferring politely to experts. (Those who were there will, I hope, remember that I tried very hard.)

I need not recount the history of how this nascent policy eventually withered and died. Ultimately, it became very clear that the most active and influential members of the project--beginning with Jimmy Wales, who hired me to start a free encyclopedia project and who now manages Wikipedia and Wikimedia--were decidedly anti-elitist in the above-described sense.

Consequently, nearly everyone with much expertise but little patience will avoid editing Wikipedia, because they will--at least if they are editing articles on articles that are subject to any sort of controversy--be forced to defend their edits on article discussion pages against attacks by nonexperts. This is not perhaps so bad in itself. But if the expert should have the gall to complain to the community about the problem, he or she will be shouted down (at worst) or politely asked to "work with" persons who have proven themselves to be unreasonable (at best).

This lack of respect for expertise explains the first problem, because if the project participants had greater respect for expertise, they would have long since invited a board of academics and researchers to manage a culled version of Wikipedia (one that, I think, would not directly affect the way the main project is run). But because project participants have such a horror of the traditional deference to expertise, this sort of proposal has never been taken very seriously by most Wikipedians leading the project now. And so much the worse for Wikipedia and its reputation.

This lack of respect for expertise and authority also explains the second problem, because again if the project participants had greater respect for expertise, there would necessarily be very little patience for those who deliberately disrupt the project. This is perhaps not obvious, so let me explain. To attact and retain the participation of experts, there would have to be little patience for those who do not understand or agree with Wikipedia's mission, or even for those pretentious mediocrities who are not able to work with others constructively and recognize when there are holes in their knowledge (collectively, probably the most disruptive group of all). A less tolerant attitude toward disruption would make the project more polite, welcoming, and indeed open to the vast majority of intelligent, well-meaning people on the Internet. As it is, there are far fewer genuine experts involved in the project (though there are some, of course) than there could and should be.

It will probably be objected by some that, since I am not 100% committed to the most radical sort of openness, I do not understand why the project that I founded works: it works, I will be told, precisely because it is radically open--even anarchical.

I know, of course, that Wikipedia works because it is radically open. I recognized that as soon as anyone; indeed, it was part of the original plan. But I firmly disagree with the notion that that Wikipedia-fertilizing openness requires disrespect toward expertise. The project can both prize and praise its most knowledgeable contributors, and permit contribution by persons with no credentials whatsoever. That, in fact, was my original conception of the project. It is sad that the project did not go in that direction.

He is, of course, right. The more that true experts on given fields feel like their input is not only disregarded but dismissed in an effort to be egalitarian, the more that said experts will simply stop writing for Wikipedia. In researching the extended criticism page, I went to the Wikipedia entry on Deconstructionism. At the top of the page, there is a note saying the entire page needs a complete rewrite. Going to the talk page shows the reasons this is being done. One of the comments (from an avowed engineer) is as follows:

[The entry on Deconstructionism needs] a concise definition. Even controversial articles like abortion and religion start with such definitions. I seriously doubt that there is anything special about the deconstruction article. If something is truly not-definable, it can't be recognized for study, and thus does not deserve an article. People are recognizing and studying deconstruction and it does merit an article, thus it must have a definition.

Part of the entire philosophical debate surrounding Deconstructionism -- something that is core to the study of Deconstructionism -- is its lack of definition. Jacques Derrida himself said that he has spent his life and every essay he ever wrote trying to define Deconstructionism and failing. Now, I'm no fan of Deconstructionism, and I think its very opaque nature makes it specious as a literary critical theory, but I absolutely don't feel Deconstructionism should be eliminated from Wikipedia -- and the assertion that "abortion" and "religion" have definitions, so Deconstructionism must as well, is patently ridiculous. Philosophy isn't so easy to categorize, and Deconstructionism is ninth level philosophy. Someone who doesn't know anything about the field, criticism, analysis, or the interplay of philosophical viewpoints and how they relate to art in the mid to late twentieth century has no more business saying it "must" have a definition than I have saying that a computer "must" have a carburetor because my 1969 automobile and speedboat both do.

(No, I don't have a '69 car or any speedboat at all.)

Now, I just mentioned I went to Wikipedia for that article. This is true. I use Wikipedia right now. I believe in Wikipedia. I think that a dynamic, user-edited encyclopedia isn't only competitive with other models, but will ultimately supplant them. However, I also know that at this point I wouldn't recommend Wikipedia to anyone for any webcomics related article. I have no faith even in the webcomics articles they do think warrant inclusion. I will always direct those folks to the Comixpedia Webcomics Encyclopedia instead. Always.

And I think that's a symptom of the deeper problems that are beginning to surface in Wikipedia. Either it will need to remake itself in such a way that expertise is rewarded and inclusion guidelines be set by what's actually significant to a field instead of flawed indicators set by the uninformed masses (and those inclusion guidelines be relaxed across the board, for that matter. Whether or not something is "notable" does me no good whatsoever if I show up looking for information on it. If I do a search, it's clearly notable to me, isn't it?), or ultimately Wikipedia will simply be an evolutionary step, and either a loose collection of specialist encyclopedic wikis will form surrounding it and ultimately supplanting it, or someone will fork the Wikipedia project, pull all the current data, and set up a competing project that does incorporate both respect for expertise in a field and much broader guidelines for inclusion, and Wikipedia will be left behind.

No bets on which way it'll go, right now. I just know that taking out Patrick Farley (and having someone who doesn't know webcomics going through and deleting things in general) is indicative of a future that's not so rosy for anyone.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:56 PM | Comments (88)

October 20, 2005

Eric: At this hour of the morning, I'm lucky I can spell "Dayfree." So, don't complain if this analysis makes no sense.

One news story that I haven't touched on, as yet, are the paired (though one expects not synchronized) announcements that Girly has joined up with Dayfree Press, and Schlock Mercenary has joined up with Blank Label Comics.

This strikes me as interesting, it really does.

First off, this is a big win for both these collectives. Girly and Schlock Mercenary are both good, solid strips with solid readerships, solid update schedules, solid writing and solid art. And other uses of the word solid. That Tayler and Lesnick are willing to ally with them is a solid proof of concept of the small collective model. And it's also clearly a win for the strips -- shared hosting, shared costs, co-op, cross-marketing (including on some very, very popular strips that might have something of a different audience than these strips currently have). It really is win-win.

Secondly, though... two of the biggest strips to leave Keenspot -- especially to leave Keenspot and not join up with some other online syndicate -- have shifted from going it alone to going back to a collective model. Albeit, a collective model that's significantly different than Keenspot, but still. Schlock Mercenary had become the poster child for a strip that left its collective parent and struck out successfully on its own. And Girly had done all this years before -- albeit with side projects helping keep it afloat. Of big ticket Keenspot alumni still out there... I guess it's Errant Story still keeping the faith. (Though I have to believe folks are negotiating with Michael Poe as well.)

(Earlier Keenspot alumnus Real Life Comics already joined up with Blank Label, of course.)

This sends a message to the current crop of Keenspotters, even as Lesnick, Tayler, Dean and Poe's leaving sent one. (A message that you figure had to have influenced the Keenspot Six when they left as a unit to form the initial core of Blank Label.) The implication was you can do this on your own. You don't need Keenspot if you don't want Keenspot. You can make a leap of faith.

The implication now is you can leave Keenspot... but you should probably have a parachute ready. Or a collective interested in you. Or you should band together before leaving. Or you shouldn't leave in the first place.

This isn't surprising to me, mind. It's not bandwidth costs or the like -- such things are dirt cheap, these days. It's shared infrastructure. Shared advertisements, servers, crosspromotion... it's a sweet deal if you can swing it.

More and more, I believe we're moving into the era of the collective. I think fewer and fewer folks will go it alone, and more and more collectives are going to form. It almost seems like a guild structure is forming. What this means for the large online 'syndicates' like Keenspot or Modern Tales remains to be seen.

But as we said before... the one thing we're sure of is that Schlock Mercenary and Girly are good additions to Blank Label Comics and Dayfree. And Blank Label and Dayfree are good for them. Congrats to everyone involved.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:07 AM | Comments (44)

October 19, 2005

Eric: The Podcast and the Examiner: on the nature of Webcomics Criticism.

For those who don't know, I was one of the participants in the Webcomics Examiner's Artistic History of Webcomics roundtable. This was a collection of artists, writers, critics and the like who examined some of the seminal comic strips in the evolution of webcomics as a medium, trying to analyze the nature of their significance and the guide posts of where our specific little corner of art history came from.

These forms of analyses are pretty necessary in criticism, by the by. We need interpretation and analysis if we're ever going to have hope of artistic understanding and recognition. This is the Critical Dialogue, and it's necessary.

What it isn't (and more to the point what it can't be, is objective.

We live in a world where the principle of objectivity in Journalism is under attack as an impossibility -- and the loss of that objectivity is seen as a wholesale abandonment of journalistic ethics and principle, all at once. Really, it's a reflection of the current American character -- decrying idealistic principles as unrealistic and impractical, and then excoriating public figures for failing to live up to them. I blame the Amish, because I figure they won't argue, and I really don't want to discuss it.

And, this has spilled over into the criticial arena. "It's impossible to be objective when rendering a critique, and if you're not objective, your critique, interpretation or review is flawed and very likely worthless." I've seen it before. I'll see it again.

And it drives me nuts, because criticism isn't journalism.

Let me say that again. With italics, because everyone loves italics!

Criticism isn't journalism.

A critic, whether he is rendering a review, an analysis, an interpretation or a critique, is by definition working in a subjective field. Every critical essay ever written is an argumentative essay, putting forth a critic's interpretation of the work in question. Every historicist treatise trying to place a given work into the overall cosm of other works, the author's life, or what have you is rendering their opinion of that work, its significance, the reasons for that significance, the aesthetic and stylistic attempts being made by the work, and whether or not those attempts were successful. It is not a recitation of events and it is not a declamation of fact -- it is opinion, and it's what all criticism runs on.

This is why the essential tool of a critic's trade is the citation. When putting forward that opinion (called a thesis in my line of work), the critic has to demonstrate why he has that opinion. In short, he has to validate his opinion. Citations can reference the work in question, other works, events in the author's life, events in the author's society, the critical work done by other critics (which actually is crucial -- the critical dialogue is built on the foundation of other interpretations and critical work, and validity becomes far easier to show when you can show other folks agree with you) and any other evidence that can support the critic's contention. And here you thought we put all those quotes into our papers so we could avoid having to write so much ourselves. If the cornerstone of criticism were objectivity, there would be little need for citation. A simple description of the facts would suffice, and the conclusion would be self-evident and inarguable.

As it is, so long as you can build validity through your citations, your interpretation is valid. Which means, among other things, that two people can have wildly opposing interpretations of the same work and both be equally right.

(Note too that, especially in the last hundred and fifty years, the opinion of the author is given no more weight than anyone else's interpretation. Meaning and the aesthetic can be different for different people, and someone can read things into your story you never intended, and carry those meanings away and spread them. This isn't television, where everything is put onto a screen for you to consume. Interpretation is active.)

For the record, the theory that informs most of my own criticism (though I'm not a purist) is New Criticism. This criticial theory grew out of Southern universities in the early twentieth century, and holds forth that the only applicable source for citation is the actual work itself -- facts about the author, facts about society, facts about other works... these are irrelevant. The work itself contains its own interpretation, and by reading the subtextual links under the surface of that writing (particularly in a process of rigorous textual analysis called close reading) a viable and valid thesis can be developed and supported. It's one of those theories that makes Authorial Intent as irrelevant as possible, because what an author says outside the work is irrelevant to the work in question.

This is not the only critical theory, of course. Historicism takes an opposing track. All theses must be developed with an eye to the cultural, social and aesthetic context of the work. Art, literature, poetry and the rest evolve, and one cannot interpret those forms without understanding the work's place in that evolution. (Naturally, citations have to strongly support that placement.) And then there's Jung, and collective unconsciousness which leads to Myth Criticism or the political critical theories (it's amazing how earnestly a good Marxist critic can turn any interpretation of any story into a Marxist parable) or estheticism ("Art for Art's Sake," in Oscar Wilde's phrasing) or any number of others.

The arguments between critics who subscribe to opposing theories are beautiful to behold. It's like watching a verbal fencing match where both sides are packing concealed heat and are just waiting for a chance to shoot out their enemy's kneecaps. They are champions of interpretation and theory and worldview, battling it out to prove their point.

But, and I can't emphasize this enough, one isn't right and the other wrong. So long as they can support their arguments, they're both right.

A corollary to this principle is the simple, ineffable fact that anyone can be a critic. Anyone. It doesn't matter what training you've had or what theory you subscribe to (if you even realize you subscribe to a theory at all). A person who tries to interpret, to review, to critique or to place a work is criticizing that work. And if they can support their thesis, they get to be as "correct" as Harold "nutjob" Bloom himself.

(Of course, if you don't know the rules of the road, the critics who do know them will blow by you at two hundred miles an hour. And your right to your own interpretation won't do you a bit of good when no one agrees with you or gives credence to you. But then, we're an ornery, pretentious, elitist lot pretty much by definition.)

Which brings us, twelve hundred words later, to the topic of discussion. That round table discussion.

And, on the other side of it, there was this weekend's Blank Label Podcast.

A little bit of necessary background. First off, I'm a fan of Blank Label Comics. In particular, I'm a fan of Dave Kellett and Kris Straub. I like their comics. I like their insights. I like their humor.

Further, I was a guest on an earlier edition.

Further still, I have been interviewed before for the infamous Modern Humor Authority. And I had a blast with it, and continue to enjoy MHA. (If a critic cannot enjoy satire levied at him, said critic deserves satire levied at him, in my humble opinion.)

This week's guest, furthermore, was Scott Kurtz of PvP. By now, you guys should have figured out. I like Scott Kurtz. I consider him a friend. He considers me a friend. I attribute my success to an early link he gave us. And I'm a mammoth fan of his comickal strip. And I'm loving the current storyline in it to an absurd degree. (I don't want to see that daughter go away, damn it!)

So, going into this podcast, you already know that I'm biased to agree with the BLC/Kurtz gestalt, right? Right.

Further... I hadn't listened to this week's before today. (Exhaustion, illness, dishwasher, work. You know the drill.) In fact, it was Scott Kurtz IMing me that let me know there was even a controversy. So there as well, you'd think the bias would be on the podcast's side, right?

Yeah, didn't work out like that.

KURTZ: Oh, my God, that Webcomics Examiner article was the most ridiculous piece of shit.
[laughter]
[...]
KURTZ: That Webcomics Examiner article was a bunch of people who've got nothing going on in webcomics just talking as pretentiously as they can about webcomics. It's like, "why?" Don't do this. You're not Entertainment Weekly. Like, if Entertainment Weekly did that, or, if like, Time Magazine did that, it'd be like "wow, there's something to this webcomics thing, man. Look how much time they're dedicating to this."
STRAUB: Right.
KURTZ: But, come on, man. You know? It's a bunch of webcomics guys that are currently not-- well, I guess Shaenon is. Shaenon Garrity is. But, like, you've got T Campbell, right, who is one of them. Eric-- well, Eric's doing Gossamer Commons, but Eric is most known for commenting on comics, as opposed to making them. I mean, that's his claim to fame. But, T Campbell is -- you know, he's... and then William G... oh, don't even get me started on William G....

And they went from there. Focusing in on William G, mind. But with a subtext of the idea that somehow the entire premise of an extended analysis of webcomics, done by webcomics creators (who... um... have nothing going on in webcomics, I guess. If one ignores the stuff that's... um... going on in webcomics....) is absurd. A flight of fancy. Pretentious.

Needless to say, I had something of a problem with this stance. And as Mister Kurtz and I were already IMing, we had...

...well, I guess the best expression would be a 'spirited discussion.'

Kurtz's thesis in the argument was relatively simple. (And, for the record, he encouraged me to discuss the argument over here on Websnark. And yes, we're still friends. Believe it or not, it's possible to have an argument with Scott Kurtz and not leave the argument in a Klingon Blood Feud.) With someone like me, criticism is one thing, because I'm already a critic. I come from a critical background. And yeah, I'm doing Gossamer Commons, but I'm maintaining my critical perspective.

The other guys, however... they're webcartoonists. They have their own cartooning aspirations and agendas. They can't analyze other peoples' works objectively. They don't have the perspective -- they see things through their own lens, and that's going to color everything they do. And so a roundtable of that type is doomed to failure.

And this is the crux of my disagreement with him. You see, he can think we all have our heads up our ass. (I'm not entirely sure why -- if you read the Scott Kurtz/PvP section of the roundtable... well, it's pretty complimentary. And rightfully so. PvP is good, but more importantly to the discussion, PvP is significant. It has had clear and pronounced impact on webcomics, in terms of methodology, design, execution, and evolution. But that's all listed out there, better than here.) That's fine. It is perfectly legitimate in the critical discussion to reject another person's interpretation for your own purposes. This is, after all, a subjective medium. We're not always going to agree with each other.

However, Kurtz challenged the ability for the roundtable to be critics in the first place -- to have the necessary perspective to properly be objective. In effect, he challenged the credentials of the panel.

And that attitude is absolute death to criticism.

The critical dialogue can survive disagreement. Hell, it thrives on it. The one thing it can't endure is the implication that those people over there can't be critics.

Anyone can be a critic. And there is no requirement that they be "objective." The requirement absolutely begins, rests upon and ends on what you can cite and what you can support, period. If the thesis is "Scott Kurtz is a total hack who produces work of no merit, when compared to more deserving works," you have to show citations to support that thesis. You have to demonstrate how his work is inferior. You have to cite authorities agreeing with you. You have to build validity into your citations to prove your thesis.

And, if you happened to try it, my answering thesis and essay would nuke yours, because I've got assloads of citable evidence that Scott Kurtz is really good at what he does. This is where the checks and balances of criticism come from -- not a presumption of objectivity, but the capacity for subsequent criticism to use the balance of evidence to produce antithesis.

(Note, by the way, that wouldn't "disprove" your interpretation. If you can support your interpretation, you've sufficiently "proven" it. But, if I have a preponderance of evidence and a thesis that's more strongly supported, it will generally receive greater acceptance and spread father. The "hack" thesis would be considered weak in comparison, and fade with time.)

Further, I've reread the roundtable, and I think it's an excellent piece of critical work on almost everyone's part. (And no, I won't elaborate on the "almost" part of that statement.) Most people have clearly defined theses in each section they participate in. They draw off of the evidence at hand. They cite examples. They build their case. And where there is disagreement, it is informed disagreement.

(For a good example of the critical dialogue in action, have a look at Shaenon Garrity's statements and my answers on PvP. Shaenon's contentions are excellent and well supported, but I disagreed with part of her conclusion. She felt, ultimately, that PvP's appeal and base was gamers, and that it was a gaming comic. I was able to pick the dialogue up and cite evidence that says PvP was focused more on workplace humor than gamer humor -- and that if anything, it was a strip that embraced geek pop culture in general. Interpretation begetting interpretation.)

The other part of their contention was that webcartoonists discussing webcomics is... well, a fool's errand. No one's listening but us, so what's the point? And I can understand why they feel that way.

However, this too is wrong. There is a point to webcomics criticism -- and to the dialogue.

And that point is the future.

Look, the web has been a stick of dynamite in illustration. And in the fine arts. And in art in general. The medium is changing because of the web. It's broadening, and growing, and developing. And right now no one knows where it's going to go, or what that evolution's going to become. No one.

But twenty years from now, it will be a fait accompli. And it will be interpreted scholastically. And the trends that have come from it will be dissected, developed, and debated. This is what Academia will talk about. This is what schools of art will teach. These are the lessons that will come from the stuff we're actually doing right now.

And as the work we do passes into the broader critical realm, students and scholars and theorists are going to be drawing off of tremendous material. Remember... citation is king in criticism. You have to support your thesis. Support it with evidence from the work in question, from related works....

And from critics. Support it from authority.

And you'd better believe The Webcomics Examiner will be one of those authorities. It walks the walk and talks the talk. It generates quotes that a Class of 2019 Art History student will be able to insert into her paper and make it march.

Further, T Campbell has a book deal -- a book deal -- on the history of webcomics. At some Universities that's practically worth tenure.

T Campbell is going to be cited. Joe Zabel is going to be cited. Eric Milliken and, yes, William George are going to be cited.

So, by the by, are Eric Burns and Wednesday White. Both over there, and juuuuuust maybe over here, too. Right now, we get to do foundational work in a whole new medium. This is a critic's dream.

And through our criticism, our critiques, our reviews, our essays and our interpretations, new generations are going to discover the work in question anew. And that means Scott Kurtz and PvP are going to be cited too.

So yeah, maybe the short term benefits seem small. But what the critical work says now becomes the foundation for conventional wisdom, scholarship, and the very evolution of art itself in the future.

(And if you're reading this and you want to get into the exciting world of Webcomics Criticism... you can be part of the foundation too. That's the power of criticism. If you can support it, you can do it.)

So yeah. I got upset. Because Kurtz and Straub are wrong. The Examiner serves a function. They're free to disagree with it, dismiss it as pretentious, and actively dislike it, of course. But the moment they talk like it's wrong to have it exist, then I get pissed off. No, it's not Entertainment Weekly.

But in the long run, it's going to be significant.

Is there any greater aspiration a critic can have?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:32 PM | Comments (267)

October 18, 2005

Eric: It's like playing kitchen, only... you know, with a real kitchen.

There is a certain point, as a man gets older, that his toys change.

Which is not to say I don't own Micronauts. I do. I'm just depressed the line failed and Palisades stopped producing remakes. I was holding out for a Hydrocopter and a full sized Biotron.

But, instead of games or puzzles or action figures or transformers, a guy buys an Xbox or a PS2 (and soon all new consoles await purchase, just as soon as Soulcalibur IV come out for one of them. But, as PS2 Soulcalibur III is in just a few weeks, there's no hurry for a next generation console in my life. But that's another essay). And then a computer, and a car. And a nicer television. And a tivo.

And yeah, I have lots of guy toys.

But today, I have a dishwasher. I have bought a major kitchen appliance.

I first flirted with a dishwasher at the beginning of the year -- one of the 18" portables. For one reason and another, it didn't work out, though, and it had to go back to Best Buy. To their credit, they took it right back, no questions asked.

But that left... well, dishes.

I hate doing dishes.

I hate doing dishes.

I hate the dishrack. I hate the scrubbing. I hate pruned fingers. I hate trying to judge if all the scum's off the dish. I hate trying to judge if all the soap is off the dish. I hate distrusting my clean dishes because I was there when I washed them, and I don't know, man. I hate taking that kind of time out of my day.

I've tried all the bachelor tricks, too. I've done the "pretend I have only one dish, and wash it after every meal" trick, which works great until it doesn't. I've done the "well, I'll just go with plastic silverware and cups and the like and save real dishes for when I need them," which ultimately results in a ton of dirty dishes you let sit even longer because hey -- you have plastic forks and cups and the like, right?

I had maid service for years, once a week. And yeah, vacuuming and mopping floors is a great reason why (and when I was in congestive heart failure, it was the only chance any of this would get done, mind), but the real reason I laid out significant portions of my salary to pay a domestic was I hate doing the dishes.

Well. I did some looking at things. I talking things over with people in the know. I figured out what the problem was with the last portable I got. I did a lot of research.

And finally, I called Sears. And I ordered a dishwasher.

A General Electric "Nautilus," to be exact. Which means I fully expect to discover it's nuclear powered with a stern Hindu commanding officer living under the washer arms.

Today, the installers came. They installed it. It is white with butcher board. Installation was literally "take the aerator off the faucet, put the new aerator on it, clip the unit to the aerator, turn the water on, and load the dishwasher." It took three minutes.

It's a portable. Technically, it's a convertible -- had I the counter space, I could have had them install it. As it is, I can take it anywhere I want and it will just work.

And I loaded it. (Yes, I saved dishes to put into my new dishwasher. I knew this was coming two weeks ago. While I didn't save two weeks of dishes, I knew I'd want to try it right away and besides, I hate doing the dishes.) As it worked out, I had (technically) two loads worth. They could have been combined, but I wanted to put pots and pans into their own load with some carryover, and try the pots and pans setting.

And I turned it on.

The sound it makes is comforting -- whirling water in a regular cycle, alternating a high sound with a lower one. "Fush-WEESH fush-WEASH! Fush-WEESH fush-WEASH!" I'm reminded of the noise the air refresher was supposed to make in David and Chuck's spaceship, designed by Mister Bass, when they would fly to Basidium. When a new ship was built, Mister Bass's cousin Mister Theo built an air refresher that worked silently -- but he knew that wouldn't be so comforting, so he tinkered until it made the same noise....

Look, if you didn't get a chance to read Eleanor Cameron's Mushroom Planet books as a child, I'm sorry that your world was a little less magical. In any case, I now have my own comforting noise.

The first load, using the sample detergent that came with the thing, sudsed a little. The second, I had gel for, and it worked vastly better. And it cleans things wonderfully, leaving the plates hot and sterile, the cups ready for tea, the silverware shining bright. It worked exactly as it was supposed to.

It works.

I have a dishwasher.

I own a dishwasher.

And now essentially every dish I own is clean. Every dish I own. And all I had to do was load it and listen to the cool sounds, and push some buttons and twist a dial. It was fun.

But that's over now. I mean, every dish I own is clean, now.

...every dish....

You know, I hand washed a bunch of dishes over the last several days, and you know I'm nervous about those. I said so up above. Besides, I was very ill -- I'm still sick, in fact -- and so how germ free could those be? And you know, a bunch of my pots have been sitting in my cupboard unused for months. And I couldn't tell you the last time I disassembled the blender and gave it a thorough washing. You know, in the interests of good dish hygiene, I think we'd better plan a complete sweep....

When you get older, your toys change.

And if you're smart, you learn how to make anything into a toy.

Excuse me. Got to play with the dishwasher.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:17 PM | Comments (64)

October 14, 2005

Eric: Now you fools shall feel THE WRATH OF UNORTHODOX!!!!

Still sick, for what it's worth.

So, the NDA has been lifted, and I'm able to report, at last, that my stress relief of choice from August on has been the two hours a night (later expanded, though I still stuck to about two hours a night on average) of the City of Villains beta. You know it's been an intense time for me, so I've been in the perfect mindset to go home and be evil for a couple of hours, clawing for sanity, time and work schedule permitting.

Truth be told, I'm very impressed with City of Villains. Far more so than I expected. Six months ago, I was convinced I wouldn't even buy the game -- I don't play these things to be a villain, after all. And like some friends of mine I was concerned this would turn out to be Grand Theft Auto: Paragon City. But no -- the developers announced their intent was good old fashioned comic-book grand evil. Not so much the Joker of The Killing Joke, nor the goofy take on the Joker from the 60's, but the Joker who used to run around Steve Englehart's comics in the 70's. A Joker who probably was a mass murderer, but he also had a cool pad under his cell in Arkham.

In other words, it's designed for fun evil. My first character was based on the longest running villain of my Superguy days, Doctor Unorthodox, and the game modeled him perfectly. It's a game that inspires you to occasionally shout "the fools at the Institute shall learn the errors of their ways! Now, feel the WRATH of UNORTHODOX!" And then cackle with malevolent glee. It's important to cackle with malevolent glee.

Gameplay wise, the game really is the next generation of the City of Heroes engine, and at least for the moment City of Heroes suffers by comparison. Of particular note is the upgraded ragdoll physics engine. Now, when you use Force Bolt (and you use it a lot more often than in City of Heroes), the hapless victim flails like a madman. It's a symphony of fear and knockback.

Granted, that's a best case scenario. For the past several weeks playing the beta's been an exercise in framerate destruction and frustration, as the server has been so hammered as to be unplayable. (The first post-tutorial zone, Mercy Island, had spawned ten duplicates last night. Frankly, it's somewhat remarkable the thing works at all.) I got to be in the beta from the first week invites went out, so I got to see it far smoother, at least.

The new archetypes play wonderfully. And they somewhat inform the desperate alterations and (lord help us ) "play balance" in City of Heroes. It's not (simply) that right now, Villains could easily take the heroes' lunch money at will (more about that in a bit). It's that the villain archetypes show months and months of maturity and sophistication. The heroic archetypes have been a combination of the old descriptive archetypes Champions 4th Edition used in its notes, with standard MassMOG classes. (Tankers are somewhere between Champions bricks and the Tanks of fantasy games, for example, and "Energy Projector" became "Blaster" pretty seamlessly, as two examples.) The Villain archetypes, on the other hand, owe far more to the comic book source material and to a balance within this game than they do to other games.

Those archetypes are:

Brute: I predict that, after everyone makes and levels their Masterminds for a little while, just for the novelty effect, the Brute will become the most popular archetype by far. It's just plain fun. If you have to shoehorn it into City of Heroes terms, the Brute is a better Tanker than Tankers and a better Scrapper than Scrappers -- but in the end it's neither. It's a Brute, period.

Brutes get the highest hit points of all characters in City of Villains, and some of the best defenses. More to the point, their melee only powers are decent. They're at base probably just about what a tanker can do. But you don't stay at base very long. You see, the game models the Hulk concept of "the angrier they are, the stronger they get." (You could also look at it as Wolverine's berzerker rage, if you prefer) with a "fury bar." As you attack enemies (whether you hit them or not) and as they attack you (whether they hit you or not) your fury bar goes up. And as it goes up, the damage you inflict buffs. So, run into a pack of Hellions, attract their attention, and start punching. That few points of damage per hit you do in the beginning skyrockets by the end, leaving you at the ends of battles with a sliver of hit points left and the ability to two shot the strongest Lieutenants at your level. You are a damage machine.

Of course, keeping your fury bar maxed out requires you to run from pack of mobs to pack of mobs, hitting and hitting and hitting unt hitting so you end up dying a lot if you're not careful, and your teammates might resent having to keep up with you. Rest is death for a Brute, as his fury drops to nothing.

Brutes? Just plain fun.

Stalker: On the other end of the scale, we have stalkers, who are the ninjas and assassins of the villain world. You would think scrapper when you see them, and you would be wrong. Stalkers are squishy -- they're almost as squishy as Blasters in City of Heroes (though they do get some defensive powers, so it's not too bad). They make up for this by being able to Hide -- which is a full speed invisibility power at the very first level. So they can sneak their way through anything. Further, when fully hidden, Stalkers get a massive bonus to critical hit on their first strike (reflective of their backstabbing prowess). However, they have Dungeons and Dragons™ brand invisibility -- one punch and all your enemies see you and can start with the hurting. It's just, the one enemy you punched is too busy bleeding to care.

In PvE, Stalkers are sort of mediocre. Useful for nuking pesky Lieutenants or doing a potent hit on a Boss, but once they've shot their Hide/critical wad, they're ready to roll over and go to sleep. However, Stalkers absolutely own at PvP. I mean, they're beyond death incarnate. A lot of heroes, on their first trip into Bloody Bay or Siren's Call, will discover quickly the "joy" of running along, only to suddenly fall over, dead, with a grinning Stalker standing over their hospital-teleporting corpse. I have to admit, it seems odd to me, given how dubious so many City of Heroes players are about PvP to begin with, that they'd decide to create a specific archetype of gankers, but they have.

The natural enemy of the Stalker, by the way, is the Fire Tanker. Stalkers need to get right next to you to do their Instant Gank of Horrific Bleeding, and just like doing any kind of attack neutralizes their Hide powers, if they take so much as one tick of damage from an AoE attack, suddenly they've visible, their Critical Hit doesn't work, and you can proceed to make them weep like small children.

Generally, Stalkers are best paired up with teams that can keep them alive to nail the really tough enemies and then run until their Hide resets.

Corruptors: Based, extremely loosely, on City of Heroes Defenders, the Corruptors don't have quite the glitz of the other Villain archetypes, but they make up for it by sheer lethality. Corruptors essentially reverse Defender Primaries and Secondaries, buffing and debuffing their allies and enemies while pouring out Blaster levels of damage. Further, once they get their enemies below a certain percentage of hit points, they have a chance to scourge them. Scourging doubles the damage they inflict, without the Blasters' need to be badly injured first.

Corruptors are the best characters of range in either game. Their powers are broad but they don't sacrifice the pure pain they can inflict. And, being able to buff themselves and others (an enemy who can use Kinetics powers like Siphon Speed and Siphon Power while doing Blaster levels of damage should scare you. One who can use Radiation levels of debuffing to your hero before nailing you with Blaster levels of damage should terrify you) means they're solid members of the team they're on, whereas Blasters often need to stand to the side and just pour out AoE damage when the rest of the team moves forward.

If you've ever been part of the joy that is a full team of Defenders in City of Heroes, just buffing and debuffing and tormenting evil on all sides? A full team of Corrupters is just like that. With critical hitting. And more damage.

Yeah.

Also? Fire Corruptors get a Fire based buffing power. Which means you can set your teammates on fire.

This is far more fun than you can imagine. Especially if you role play.

Dominators: Into all game worlds must come some suck, and in City of Villains suck is named "Dominator." It's easy to think of Dominators as Controllers, but that's not fully right. It's like they're Controllers without the Buffing. Instead, they have some assault powers which honestly are better than anything a controller can field, but compared to the maimfest that pretty much every other Villain Archetype can put forth, you get the feeling someone ought to give Dominators a cookie, gold star and hug just for showing up and doing their best.

Tactically, think Controller and you're not far off. Once you've Dominated an enemy, you're far more able to solo that enemy than a Controller, and in fact Dominators aren't bad solo characters. (They're not as good as Brutes, mind, and neither one can hold a candle to Masterminds, but that's neither here nor there.) Certainly psychic Dominators are far more fun than Psychic controllers or defenders, over on CoH's side. But for the most part, you've got to really love holding your enemies with hold powers to even think about playing a Dominator, and for most people, it's not going to be worth it.

On the other hand, Plant Control is a great powerset. Adding in Thorns actually makes your close to a Mezzing Scrapper, and that doesn't suck. Except when you compare yourself to actual scrappers. Also, not great Hit Points.

Masterminds: I save this archetype for last, though it'll be the first thing every new player plays. Of all the villains, this is the one that doesn't remotely resemble any Heroic archetype, and it's the one that most radically changes the PvE landscape in City of Villains.

Simply put, Masterminds aren't CoH/CoV characters at all. They're refugees from a Real Time Strategy or Squad Based Shooter game, and they brought their interface and squad with them. Masterminds, far more than even Controllers in City of Heroes, are summoners. They call down robotic henchmen from the sky, or ninjas from the shadows, or the Undead from the depths of the underworld, or Mercenaries from right out their ass.

Well, okay. Mercenaries just sort of run in, but my way is funnier.

You have incredibly granular control over your henchmen, and you can direct them into battle with your enemies. The interface comes with basic point and click fighting, but you can also go with an advanced option menu that lets you customize your henchmen's AI and responses, as well as giving them orders. Your other powers are pretty much devoted to enhancing your henchmen (the secondaries are essentially Defender secondaries, but you spend a lot more time buffing and healing your own henchmen than you do protecting the rest of your party.) For the most part, you spend your time hanging out back, letting your henchmen run in and get slaughtered in your name, summoning replacements as needed, and doing potshots here and there. "Skippy," you say to your robot, "be a dear and fetch me some XP, would you?" And Skippy waves his metallic arms with glee and runs over to start seriously hurting Hellions, delivering the XP to you while you stand out of the way and sip tea.

Yes. It really is that much fun.

The robots are death machines, and tough. The ninjas are more fragile, but they do in fact flip out and kill everyone, which is all we can ask of them. The mercenaries are a good, core paramilitary set. The zombies... well, didn't impress me, but at least for once in a City of Whatever game the zombie vomit is on your side. I think they should add in a set where you create duplicates of yourself, though. Doctor Unorthodox demands Doom-bots. DOCTOR UNORTHODOX DEMANDS DOOM-BOTS!

Beta testers who love them some Controllers over in City of Heroes are pissed, by the way, that Controllers don't get the nice interface. (Which also lets you rename your henchment persistently. This is an excellent sign.) I'm not, because my Masterminds don't get, oh, I don't know, to hold their enemies down while the henchmen attack. Controllers and Masterminds are very different critters. Don't approach the latter with the former in mind (that's what Dominators are for), and don't think the latter should correspond back to the former.

Visually, the game is gorgeous. (Though it should be far less vertical and far more linear -- don't take Superspeed in this game. Just don't. In fact, Flight and Teleport are by far your best bet.) The shininess of Paragon City is replaced with old building and shanties and a byzantine nature. The Rogue Islands are both old and corrupt, and this is conveyed in the atmosphere.

And that's a good thing, because your missions don't help with that at all.

Oh, you get to occasionally knock over banks, and that's fantastic. (They play action music in the background the whole time you knock over a bank. It definitely adds to the experience.) And they have the astoundingly cool innovation of newspaper missions. Villains, you see, are proactive. So at any give time they can thumb through the paper, look for a likely target, and run out and attack. No contact needed. But... those missions become very repetitive, very fast, and for the most part you don't feel... well, villainous while you're doing it. Sure, you're not retrieving artifacts from the Hellions to give back to Azuria and MAGI any more, but you're still fighting Hellions and you're still retrieving artifacts from them, and you don't get to keep them. In the early game, you rescue a Casino from Snake-men. Because you're... um... evil.

And for the first fifteen levels, and from what I can see beyond... there aren't any super heroes.

Now, City of Heroes has a dearth of Supervillains. You have occasional "Arch Villains," but you have no run of the mill villains. You have minions and Lieutenants and Bosses, but that's not the same thing. Still, fighting street gangs and Organized crime figures and occasional science monsters still feels essentially heroic, so you let it slide.

But for the whole beginning of City of Villains... you're fighting street gangs and organized crime figures and occasional science monsters.

Hrm.

They're wonderfully rendered, mind, but still. There are only two hero groups you even encounter in the early levels -- some SCA rejects called... the something. I forget. And Longbow, which are Freedom Corps, only they're armed like street Hellions -- but you see very little of them. For the most part, this is just City of Heroes only without people thanking you after you "rescue" them. There should be a dedicated "resistance cell" of heroes working out of the Isles that you see over and over again as they try and stop your nefarious deeds, at the very least.

My understanding is that in later levels -- and probably in Strike Forces, which is their version of Task Forces -- you can go to Paragon City, and no doubt heroes will fight you there. But for the most part, it's just you and the Hellions and the snake men and the Family, and if you're really good you can fight Lost or Council. And every six missions or so you can knock over a bank. Yeah.

Of course, the developers clearly intend for players to spend a lot of time playing PvP against player heroes. Their base system -- which is kind of cool -- is optimized for supergroup raids, for example. And there's lots of PvP zones.

And, well, I haven't any interest in them whatsoever. Like the vast majority of City of Heroes players, I like PvE a lot. That's why I stuck with this game instead of going somewhere where the PvP is mature to begin with. As a result, even though the goodies to be found in the PvP zones are designed to be enticing, I've had little interest or pleasure in trying it out. I honestly suspect we'll have three or four weeks of PvP, followed by months where random folks go through and try to get the goodies, figuring no one will be around. Of course, that one tiny population of psychotics who live for PvP and ganking will take up permanent residence in the PvP zones, waiting for a player to wander nearby so they can break Hide and gank them out of nowhere with a massive alpha strike, putting them in the hospital and making the player think "screw this. I'm going back to Paragon City." The PvP ship sailed a year and a half ago, and this isn't likely to bring it back into the harbor.

Base building was, as of this writing, still only semi functional. You do accrue tons of "salvage," however, and they have tables that are clearly designed to bring crafting to the table... so you can add cool things... well, to your bases. Only if you get enough cool things (specifically Items of Power, which I don't think you can build, but who knows right now?) your base becomes open for invasion, which means that your place is going to have most of its cool stuff broken and your items stolen by those three or four Supergroups who actually do get into PvP to a psychotic degree. For small or moderately casual Supergroups, the whole thing seems to be kind of boring. Still, bases mean that you can teleport to them after being killed, and then hop right back out to where you fell, so you can get back into the fight more quickly.

Still, the PvE experience, while sadly heroless, is engaging and loads of fun, to date. The archetypes are mostly pure joy to play, and the graphics and physics engine are glorious to behold. I can't imagine, especially with the pricing structure, a City of Heroes player not grabbing a copy. (Especially since you get an extra month of combined play automatically, so you need to subtract fifteen bucks from the cost.) On the other hand, those players feeling burned by the whole "Enhancement Diversity" fiasco (how do you mismanage public relations so completely less than three weeks before the major sequel that makes or breaks their company comes out, I wonder?) might give it a bye until they get a chance to really take the changes to City of Heroes out for a ride.

So... I can imagine a City of Heroes player not buying a copy, after all. I'm clearly a liar.

Still, it'd be a pity for those folks, because this is a solid PvE experience with the benefit of 16 months of City of Heroes development. It's richer and more sophisticated, and the archetypes are substantially better than the City of Heroes archetypes -- not because they're more powerful (though generally they are -- the villains really should be able to conquer the world) but because they're vastly more mature in design.

And besides, it's a game that lets you command ninjas to flip out and kill stuff, while your neighbor the brute is slaughtering entire towns. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Well, unless you're into the whole "legal" thing.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:11 PM | Comments (43)

October 12, 2005

Eric: Illness, part 5247

For those of you who've been paying attention, it might seem my health is... somewhat fragile.

This would be because my health is somewhat fragile. Blame it on a number of factors I won't rehash. In a practical sense, I seem to get sick easily and get significantly affected when I am sick, and we're in that right now.

This particular illness has floored everyone in my department, one by one. I just seem to be next. It got merged in with dumping, yesterday. It's nigh impossible to keep my eyes open more than twenty minutes out of each hour right now. My cat is concerned -- she can sense when I'm sick, and I think she reacts the way she would to another cat being ill -- keep the animal awake as much as possible, show affection, groom as needed, heavy purring. Which, when I just want to be dead to the world, is not really helping.

I dreamt at one point, and hit sleep paralysis -- you know, where you sense your unmoving body, and can't force it to move? We all hate that. This time, however, I dreamt that there was a dog lying on top of me. (My cat wasn't up there in real life, for the record). It was, as near as I could tell, either Buddy, who is a cockapoo of my parents, or Polly, who was the cockapoo I grew up with. Said dog was benevolent, licked my paralyzed face a couple of times, and clearly wanted to keep me warm and healthy. So if it was a ghost dog, I'm okay with that. More likely, it means my subconsciousness could sense I was getting unhappy with the whole affair, and chose to give me comforting imagery to go along with my psycho nurse-cat.

Trying to force myself to stay away, I turn to City of Heroes, only their extended downtime (which should have ended at one) has gone to three-thirty. One tries not to imagine God laughing at them, but you know...?

In more positive news -- and yeah, I'm bringing up John Stark again. Sue me -- Webcomicsnation has now enabled the possibility for page-at-a-time installment blocks instead of the elevator style, if you prefer. So Stark can now be read as God and I intended, clicking back one page at a time, artificially pumping up my pageviews and letting me link to specific strips I liked. (And, since I've brought the thing up anyway, I should mention that of the ones that have come to date, this one has my favorite punchline so far. For what it's worth.)

On the novel front, there seems to be significant support for both the romance novel and the pulp novel, among commenters who elected to give an option on my NaNaWriMo-for-publication efforts in the coming year. The romance novel folks are interested to see how I would handle it. (One note -- if I do a romance novel, I'll do it legitimately. I won't be subtly mocking it. I'll be trying my best to write a good romance novel. And I do not assume I can do it, yet -- I need to do significant research into the form between now and the first of November. I want to write something good and publishable, after all, and I can't do that in a vacuum. And even if I do research it, that doesn't mean what I come up with will be good. It would be hubris to believe otherwise.) The pulp novel folks want to see where my Not-Spider character goes. (As well as find out his name, which they certainly would.)

At the same time, I would need to ensure it remains publishable, which means a private server of some sort. I have an internal mechanism for such a thing, which is what I intended. But a cool person offered bits of their own mechanism as well, and that's tempting. I'll keep you posted.

As for the rest... all is a haze, and I need to go back to sleep. Carry on.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:14 PM | Comments (74)

October 11, 2005

Eric: A bedtime story.

Would you think less of me if I asked you for a bedtime story?

What sort of bedtime story? I ask purely because... well, I was about to go to bed.

Something brief but reassuring. If you're going to bed yourself, no worry.

Well, but I like reassuring. What nature of story? Or genre?

A fairy tale sort of thing. Princesses. That kind.

Hmmmmmm.

Plucky urchins are also acceptable.

Oooookay. Give me a couple of seconds to consider....

'k. Thanks.

It's just started raining here.

Envy. The rain gave up here about a day ago and it's been warm for no good reason. Instead, we get birds. Birds and sunrise.

This is a driving rain. Hard rain on pavement, yet soft on grass. The kind of rain that washes the air as it slides to the ground.

The right kind.

Indeed.
Of course, you know why rain like that falls, don't you?

No.

It's because of the Viscountess of the Northwesterlies, of course.

I'm unfamiliar with her.

It's convenient, then, that I'm telling you about her, isn't it?

Indeed.

The Viscountess, as with her mother before her, and her mother before her, and her father before that (there being some confusion as to the proper description of a matrilineal line), is the lady of the estate of the Northwesterlies, a Cumulous sort of affair -- which is a Latin word meaning heap, which derives from the Latin word cumulus, which is of course a number of clouds. Which perfectly describes the estate of the Northwesterlies, which are founded within absolute heaps of clouds.

And this is where the problem lies. You see, there is rather a lot of upkeep needed to keep layers upon layers of cloud clean and manageable and presentable. It's rather a full time job even with an estate full of servants. And it takes dedication and concern not to make a right dingy mess of the whole affair.

(For the record? Clouds that aren't properly kept up ultimately become the raw material of dust bunnies. Though it involves a certain purifying process as they go from sky to under the bed. Needless to say, no matter how pleasant a dustbunny might be, you wouldn't want a cloudful of the raw stuff floating around the sky. For one thing, think of the poor allergy sufferers.)

(But dust bunnies cause allergies too, even from under the bed.)

(Yes. Now imagine if they were raining allergies down from the sky constantly. There isn't enough Allerga in the world to handle that.)

(Eek. Indeed not.)

So. it's an important duty, which is why a Viscountess was assigned to it generation after generation. And generally it went well, until the accession of her Right Honorable Lady, the Viscountessa Northwesterley Laurial.

Who, at about the time she took up the Viscountess's tiara, was a right brat.

That's allowed?

Well, that's the problem with a matrilineal system. Sometimes a brat or three squeak through.

Eek. That's not right.

It's considered a step up from a patrilineal system, however, which seems to lead to total nutjobs.

Well, yeah. Boys.

Anyhow. Laurial was not know for her diligence to duty. Quite the opposite, really. She liked to lie about, watching Magic Mirrors (trashy programs at that), eating bon bons and letting paperwork pile up unattended for weeks at a time.

"I am the Viscountessa Northwesterley," she was wont to say. "And I don't eat peas if I don't want to. I don't have to make my bed if it doesn't please me to do so. And as for cleaning the cumulus -- I'm certain I have better things to do with my time."

Which leads to downfall. (Although she's right to refuse peas.)

Well, naturally it leads to downfall. Because obviously, dust and gunk began to clock up the cumulus. It became dingy and grey, not fluffy and white. The gentle slopes and rolling white fields became treacherous and slippery and full of portent.

Big, big clouds.

Big and dark and grey, with rumblings and flashes... you see... when you have bits of the dust and the like, underneath a bed, you get bunnies, which cause allergies but aren't very harmful. There isn't that much dust and gunk, after all. And dustbunnies can be taught several entertaining dances, and are noted connoisseurs of smooth sandwich spreads.

But in the Cumulus, you don't have bits of dust. you have great heaping gobs of it, and you don't get bunnies from gobs.

What do you get?

You get wyverns of grey smoke and dust, with flashing, hissing lightning stingers on their tails. Gigantic beasts, who think nothing of chomping up a person or three and wreaking havoc upon the countryside below. Beasts who wouldn't care about the very finest of sandwich spread, and, if pressed, would take chunky anyway.

The unrefined.

Indeed.

Now, there were a goodly number of servants and peasants and artisans in the Cumulus before all this happened. The Northwesterlies were known for culture and hard workers, and they kept things clean. but Laurial had distracted them with orders and demands -- she had them cooking for her and dancing for her entertainment and sewing her new clothes and rearranging the furniture and standing juuust right to improve Magic Mirror reception. And so none of the work that she was supposed to be responsible for was getting done, and the dust and gunk and goo was clogging things up and the clouds were getting greyer and greyer. Then one day, the wyverns began to rear their serpentine heads, hissing, their tails flashing with lightning that split down to the ground.

And the servants and artisans and peasants of the Northwesterlies looked up and saw the wyverns -- saw them getting closer and getting stronger -- and collectively said, "Oh, no freaking way." And they got out of town as fast as they could.

Laurial, unfortunately, was sleeping late, as was her wont. So her first indication that she was suddenly alone in the Northwesterlies was when she woke up and discovered there was no breakfast made. Nor anyone to make it. And after a long period of grumbling and the breaking of the coffee maker -- it's not particularly easy to figure out a coffee maker when you've never actually used one one before -- Laurial put on her traveling clothes and tromped out to the estate to start slapping people and otherwise demanding a reckoning.

Of course, she didn't get nine feet out of her castle before she discovered that A) there were no people to slap, B) there were wyverns, and C) the wyverns were entirely too large and hostile-looking to slap.

And so, like any smart person who's discovered she's way in over her head, she ran into her castle and locked the door. She didn't think to ask the wyverns if they knew how to work the coffee maker, which is something of a pity since wyverns pull espresso like champs. But that's neither here nor there.

She probably only had a basic drip machine, anyhow.

Almost certainly. And she'd broken it besides.

So. Trapped in her castle, Laurial had an opportunity to consider what she had done wrong up to that point. She figured out relatively quickly that the lack of cloud maintenance and cleanliness had led to the rise of the Wyverns, but as the people who were trained in cleaning the dust away had all run away, and the Viscountess herself had never received more than the most formal of training with a feather duster (far more for ceremonial purpose than anything else), it looked like things were going to get bad.

So she's toast?

Well, not yet. It's a good castle, you see. Made of solid dolomite -- and that's one bad mother building material. So the Wyverns grew and grew outside, feeding off the dust and gunk that continued to collect and spread, slamming their lightning tails, smashing the buildings of the estate other than the castle, cracking lightning stings down to the ground below -- generally making a mess of things.

But if she hides, and the people are gone, it's not going to be a sustainable situation.

Well, the story isn't done yet -- and besides, the dust that gathers comes from all over the world. So who knows how much will collect or how many wyverns will rise up out of the gunk or how big and mean they'll get -- especially if they have no espresso machines.

Forty.

Forty wyverns?

Yes!

It's a big number.

Mmm. Yes. Yes, that sounds about right. And of course, forty wyverns would cause a lot of trouble, not only for what was left of the Northwesterlies, but for all the other clouds and indeed for the whole world.

And Laurial knew it. And knew she had to do something. For her land. For her castle, for the world.

But mostly because she only had so much food in that place, and besides, who wants somewhere between one and forty wyverns tearing up the hedges and howling at the doors all day and night?

After a while she got on person-to-person crystal ball service, to try and call in some favors. But, because she'd been such a brat, none of the other duchies, counties or earldoms wanted to give her the time of day. They figured so long as the wyverns stuck to the Northwesterlies, why should they worry? Which was short sighted of them, but what can you do?

It's what they get for bringing up a neoconservative viscountess.

Well, there is that, certainly.

Finally, however, Laurial managed to get a call in to the Spirit of the South Wind herself. Southy had gone to finishing school with Laurial, and while she didn't much care for brats in general or Laurial in particular, she had been raised to be courteous and helpful to all people.

In the annals of the kingdoms of the sky, such people are called "suckers" or "soft touches."

Laurial explained what had happened to Southy, and to her credit didn't try to shift more than one third to one half of the blame on the townsfolk and peasants who had left.

Well, they did leave.

On pain of being stung and devoured.

Details.

Southy listened. She considered carefully, and she said, "All right, Laurial. It all comes down to getting your clouds nice and clean, so that the dust and gunk and the wyverns are all cleaned away."

"But how can I clean the Northwesterlies all by myself?" Laurial moaned. "It takes thousands of workers and peasants to do that. With my people fled, I would have to hire migrant workers and strike breakers, and I think the AFL-CIO's just waiting for an excuse to unionize my whole operation. What can I do?"

And Southy took pity on Laurial, and sent a zephyr to deliver a very special flute to the girl.

Flute?

Yes. Well, more like a pennywhistle or a musical pipe.

So, not classical.

No.

"Take this to the very highest tower of your dolomite castle," Southy said to Laurial. "Once there, step onto the roof. It will expose you to the wyverns, so you must be very brave. And then, begin to play. Play with all your might, and the flute's magic will whisk away all the dust and dirt and gunk, and the wyverns with it. Your lands will once more be clean."

And Laurial took the flute, and climbed the many many circling stairs up the tallest tower of her castle. Higher and higher she climbed, counting the stairs as she went to help keep her bravery awake. For she knew that at the top, she would have to see the wyverns once more.

And their taste in sandwich is suspect.

Wait. They have a coffee maker, but no elevator? The tower is inaccessible?!

Yes, well, it was very old, and not built with progressive ideals in mind. Besides, there was a service elevator, but even after all this, Laurial was enough of a brat to not want to take a "service" anything.

And finally, she reached the top, and climbed out onto the roof. And the wyverns (there were thirty-eight at this point, so you can see just how close to disaster we had come) circled and rumbled, their tails flashing lightning.

But in perhaps the first truly selfless moment of Laurial's life, she did not flee. Instead, she lifted the flute to her lips, and she began to play.

And from the flute came a great torrent of wind and water -- water that purified all it touched, and wind that could blow apart even the mightiest of dust wyverns. And as she played a great flood of water and wind frothed all around her, down the castle and over the cumulus, washing away the dust and dirt and gunk that had made the clouds so dark grey, and filtering down into droplets that fell from the sky, forming a driving, hard rain down to Earth. The kind of rain that scrubs the very air as it falls, and lands into mud puddles and slick streets below.

Of course, the wyverns fought back, so even as the rain fell there were flashes of lightning all through the clouds from their tails.

And when the song was done, Laurial looked around and realized that her dark, dingy, grey cumulus had once again become pure, snowy white, as far as the eye could see.

But she also saw that aside from her castle, there was no sign of any other building anywhere. The estate was gone, completely. And she knew that her former servants would never come back -- that in the end it would be up to the Viscountess herself to wash clean the clouds, with the song she played on her flute.

And even today, you see some days when the white clouds turn grey and dingy. And you sometimes hear the rumble of the thunderous voices of the wyverns. Because even though Viscountesses come and Viscountesses go, in every boy and girl there lives a little bit of a brat, and sometimes you let even the most important things slide. But when things look darkest for the northwesterlies, the Viscountess still ascends to the top of her tower, and plays her song, and washes the clouds clean with purest rain.

If everyone is gone, how do they make more viscountesses?

Oh, there are arranged marriages and the like. The Kingdom must go on, of course. The current viscountess is actually married to the Earl of Moss. He's not a bad sort, as it goes. A bit dull, but he appreciates a good cup of tea. And he had a coffee maker of his own to contribute.

Okay. That works.

And, listening out my window, it sounds like the rain has gone down to a drizzle, which makes me think the viscountess has finished her night's cleanings and rainings, and probably headed to bed. And it occurs to me I should probably do the same, and so should you.

Probably, yeah. Thank you. Dude.

Dude?

I had figured on Cinderella or something. Dude.

Another time.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:17 AM | Comments (54)

October 10, 2005

Eric: Respecification sounds positively Orwellian, doesn't it?

For point of reference, today we're talking about the video game City of Heroes, not the comic. Just for the record.

Over the weekend, the development team announced Yet Another Change to the underlying mechanics of the game. This one's far less dramatic in appearance than the Issue Five Radical Restructuring... but in actuality is far more pervasive.

You see, City of Heroes has an "enhancement" system in the game. These are little pie shaped doohickeys you apply to your superpowers to customize them. You put a "damage" enhancement on it to increase the amount of damage you do. You put an "accuracy" enhancement on it to hit more often. And so on and so forth. You have to choose what powers you want to enhances (all powers get one "free" enhancement slot, and with time you can add up to five more enhancements on popular powers).

Well, the development team is now looking to change the underlying core of enhancements, so that after two enhancements of a given type, all others have diminishing returns. So, whereas before the enhancements would each add another X to the effect of a power, up to a maximum of 6X, you can now get 2X, and then 3(X/.9), or 4(X/.7), or....

(Note -- I'm pulling the math out of my ass. The principle is the same.)

They claim they're doing this to encourage "Diversity." Everyone, it seems, slots five damage and one accuracy to their powers.

The practical effect is, someone will figure out the perfect build for every power, post it to the boards, and everyone will use that instead.

And on my side, I find myself... well, exhausted with the whole affair.

I haven't done a mathematical analysis of the change, but I can tell already it's going to be huge. Characters built on defense (and most defensive powers only have one or two enhancement types they can take to begin with) are going to have their defenses lose effectiveness rather significantly. In all cases, powers are going to stop working as they have. Pretty much all characters of any level at all will need to be respecified, which means you run a utility that lets you remake your character from level one up to your current level. (Respecs, as they're called, used to only be available after you do heavy in game trials that involve your character getting hit with heavy radiation or the like -- which was an in-joke nod to Champions, which used to call the wholescale remaking of an existing character a "Radiation Accident." These days, we get a new respec for free every time they update the game, because they keep screwing with the underlying mechanics.)

And maybe the new system is vastly better. I dunno. Maybe it will truly improve gameplay.

But I really, really, really don't want to respec my characters again. It's an exhausting process that isn't even slightly fun.

Truth be told, I don't like the enhancements process to begin with. It's not that it's bad -- it's that I honestly don't play a Superhero game to sit there and tinker with my powers. I like punching things in the head. I like it when they fall down. I like needing to organize tactics with the team I'm playing with. So, I always just slot as basically as I can. I slot for damage with attack powers, because it's simple and I can live with the tradeoff that I might not be fully efficient with damage over time. I hit harder, but I don't hit as often or as fast as some others. Fine, whatever.

Having everything drop that critically actually takes that choice away from me. Now it's not a matter of me being less efficient. Now my characters will be demonstrably inferior to characters who are tuned for maximum enhancement effect. Which means I'll need to follow the online recipes.

The excuse they're using is "diversification." They want people to make more diverse choices. As it is, I'm now going to have to have all my characters be cookiecutters of the optimum builds I find online, because that's now the simple way to deal with things. Sorry, guys. Diverse this ain't.

This next iteration doesn't just make respecs necessary, it makes long, organized thought into your choice of enhancements necessary. It makes it a numbers game. And I don't have any interest in that at all.

And I just don't want to have to remake all my characters again. We just did that after Issue Five's changes.

The most astounding thing to me is this is taking place on the eve of their release of their spinoff game/expansion pack, City of Villains. I mean, they just built up tremendous goodwill among their base by announcing there would be absolutely no additional monthly cost to play both games -- which makes City of Villains a one time cost for existing players. And the game adds a free month to your time, so you mentally have to deduct fifteen bucks from the price. And it adds a ton of new content and four character slots to every server, and... oh, right, lets you play supervillains, too.

People were honestly psyched last week. There was enthusiasm.

This week? Not so much. The hardcore base is incensed, and the number of casual players who are upset is surprising. I mean, most casual players take these changes in stride. They look at all the cool new stuff being added and say "well, I guess I can accept they need to balance the game."

Those people, like me, are all completely sick of play balance. "Just let me play the stupid game," they say. "Walk away from the tweaks. Just put it down and walk away. You've got me already. I like the game. I play the game. Stop screwing with it."

I know of people who canceled their City of Villains preorders based purely on the announcement that they intended to go through with this. Which would seem like an overreaction, but I don't think they're canceling because of "nerfs" or enhancements, or whatever. (Well, one or two are, maybe.)

No, they're canceling because respeccing their characters isn't fun. It breaks the roleplay aspect. It makes the whole thing a grind. And they're just sick of the mechanics being changed. They just don't want to do it any more. They're not having enough fun to want to remake their characters again.

I honestly wonder if they just don't have any PR people at all over at PlayNC or Cryptic, because this was a terrible move. It's completely harshed the City of Villains buzz right when they want that buzz to be frothing. They want the diehards who stuck with the game after the PvP fans went to World of Warcraft to be babbling with excitement to those fans. "We're getting new zones, and we can do villains! And there are henchmen, according to the website!"

Instead, the base is bitching and moaning and complaining about it. People are calling for Jack Emmert's head on a pike. People are talking about how the dev team are a pack of liars and cheats who hate fun and (and they may have a point with this one) care more about their vision of the game than the people who are actually sticking around and playing it.

And the dev team may figure -- and may be right -- that this will burn itself out and calm itself down. Which is fine. But scant weeks before their major sequel is coming out, the base is pissed off instead of psyched. And that's just stupid.

As for me? I'll say it again. I honestly don't know if this is the end of gameplay as we know it or not. I just know I'm sick to God of respecs. I don't want to think about the mechanics of the game any more. I'm done with that for now. Please, Cryptic, just let me play the game.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:24 AM | Comments (34)

October 9, 2005

Eric: I've had to write too many of these too recently.

Saturday morning saw an earthquake estimated between 7.6 and 7.8 on the Richter scale strike Pakistan, particularly Kashmir, Islamabad and the Northwest Province.

There are eighteen thousand confirmed dead. Eighteen thousand.

There are over forty thousand injured.

Entire cities in Pakistan have completely collapsed, along with all infrastructure.

From the Tsunami last year through hurricane season and now this, this has been a year of tremendous natural disaster.

This time, it's going to be international aid charities that need your donations. Remember, the American Red Cross doesn't correspond to the International Red Cross.

I know we're tired and shell shocked. Horrific things keep happening. But there are people out there suffering, trapped, hungry, cold, and injured right now.

And they need our help.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:11 AM | Comments (29)

October 8, 2005

Eric: CoH Comic Rant: The Sequel.

The world endures. The cycle turns. A new issue of the City of Heroes comic book has appeared in my mailbox.

Before I discuss this issue, I should mention that there's only this and the next issue still coming to my mailbox. Cryptic Studios/PlayNC have announced that as of issue 7, the comic will be available electronically for City of Heroes subscribers, and people who want to continue receiving physical comic books can order it at "a reduced rate" through their PlayNC account.

I'm entirely behind this decision. Granted, I'm a webcomics sort of person anyway. But given the economics of producing, printing and shipping out comics to all those subscribers who haven't opted out, it only makes sense to me.

Anyhow, the second Troy Hickman penned issue has arrived. And as you'll recall from my (harsh) comments on the last Hickman issue, I promised to give this one a full chance -- to try not to let my admitted disgust at the post-modernist/unheroic "heroes" we've been given in the person of Statesman and Sister Psyche color everything I read. To have faith that the man who wrote Common Grounds -- a comic book that unremittingly gets it -- could bring a sense of the heroic ideal out of Paragon City... and lift it back up to the city that I like to imagine my own heroes and heroines fight for justice in, over at the video game (which I remain a staunch fan of).

Okay. I've got the next issue. I've given it a chance. I honestly have. Mr. Hickman, you can't claim I didn't keep my word.

I really liked it.

Made you look.

Maybe it was the near exclusion of Statesman and Sister Psyche. Those two wet blankets clearly shouldn't be put out front, because the rest of the Freedom Phalanx, without them, becomes pretty cool. The story picks up where the last issue left off. Our heroes failed to stop the Circle of Thorns from kidnapping the first of three scions of mystical macguffiness to prevent the whole thingy from doing the whatsis. Mystic plot three-fourteen in your Big Book of Comic Book Plots. Don't worry about it. The point of the plot is to give us character development punctuated by head-punching guys in green robes. The difference this time is we're given some solid Troy Hickman development in the story. Two other teams of two -- in this case Manticore and Citadel on one team and Synapse and Positron on the other -- go to save the other two scions etc. And on their way in, we get insight into the characters, which really is something Hickman is good at when the characters he's developing aren't jerks.

Manticore is, as we've seen before, the real star here. He and Citadel (a character who's had less screen time away from the game, which isn't a bad thing) are in a ghetto -- their target is a young boy of a heroin addict, who lets her little girl be the primary caregiver for her little brother and a baby. Manticore's "super power" is extreme wealth coupled with athletic skills (all right, he's also gotten some teleportation tricks, but he still counts as a Natural hero in game terms. We all make compromises). On his way in, he talks about the guilt he feels any time he shoots one of his arrows and misses -- the arrows cost a lot of money to develop and then produce. When he wastes one, he can't help but think of how much good the money that went into it could have done in poor neighborhoods like the one they're in. At the same time, he acknowledges (when Citadel asks) that simply handing out wads of cash won't make societal changes in places like this. It's a hard issue and problem.

All right, it's a touch unfortunate that we have a high-attitude, loud-mouthed, ultra-rich, ultra-liberal philanthropist who also happens to be an archer. I mean, you can't help but think "Green Arrow" every time he opens his mouth, especially in the post-Justice League Unlimited understanding of the character, where Ollie Queen's full billions have been restored to the character. Hickman didn't get to choose that. (Or the costume colors that strongly -- strongly -- evoke Hawkeye from the Avengers.) C'est bien. You take what you've been given, and this time the character of Manticore and Citadel feel heroic. Further, although we don't have a tenement tile set in the game (and I really wish we did), you could otherwise see this mission as actually happening in the game. There's nothing in it to prevent it. So, that too was helpful. This one felt like City of Heroes to me. And as our heroes fail this time, there is less a sense that they find failure to be a nuisance (and the victim an imposition) the way Statesman and Sister Psyche did, and more a sense that they failed to help people, which cuts them up inside.

The third mission -- with Synapse and Positron -- was also some solid characterization and another sense that these guys are heroes because it's a good thing to be a hero. It wasn't quite as solid, but again Hickman was somewhat saddled by constraints on the material. Synapse, for example, is set up to be so much the JLU version of the Flash it hurts -- right down to his juvenile reactions to half naked women. At least this time we have some echo of the brilliance Hickman invested in Speeding Bullet, over in Common Grounds, but it's just that. An echo. Still, I had no problem with these two heroes this time, and the idea that Positron doesn't like mirrors is appealing.

There is a return of the "people who resent super heroes for no good reason" trope in this mission, however, and that's unfortunate. Given that in-game Serge is specifically a Super Hero's costume designer, and he's putting on a Super Hero Fashion Show (with designs taken from actual in-game characters, though these girls aren't super heroes, they're just models) it feels a bit ridiculous that two members of the Freedom Phalanx showing up and saying that one of the models is in tremendous danger gets the degree of attitude it does. Serge of all people should know the score. And of course, they fail too, because otherwise... well, we wouldn't have a third arc issue, too, now would we? The dynamics and the fight scenes show a good, solid understanding of City of Heroes, and that's all I can ask.

Well, almost.

See, Synapse is a speedster, and so he does a number of superspeed tricks to avoid being hit, before blasting (he's a blaster) with electrical bolts. Only with the recent nerfs, you can't use Superspeed to dodge and avoid enemies, even in PvE. So, Synapse is specifically doing stuff players can't use speedsters to do, these days. (These days, Superspeed is pretty much only a power for travel, which Synapse as a comic book character doesn't help the in-game case for. Speedsters should have a solid set of tropes they just don't have in the game. I'd rather see Synapse acting like a full on Blaster -- using his speed to get to the fight, then standing at the periphery shooting electricity at his enemies, rather than wading through trusting his speed can get him out. However, I recognize that even as the game has some trouble modeling comic books, sometimes the comic will have trouble modeling the game. It's likely a good idea not to point out all the tricks that in-game characters have had taken away from them in your official tie in comic, though.)

Anyway, we have set up the climactic confrontation for the last issue. And Statesman and Sister Psyche will be back for it, so it's entirely possible I'll be back to hating the Freedom Phalanx by the end of it. (If only Statesman weren't in the clear Superman/Captain America role for this world, it wouldn't be so bad. As it is, when he shows up and acts so standoffishly, I'm never sure why the younger heroes don't say "screw this" and go join Arachnos.)

There remains one core problem with the comic, which is underscored and alleviated, all at once, with the backup feature. It's actually a problem Champions suffered from for a while. My friend and fellow RPG designer, David 'Doc Blue' Wendt, put it this way in a recent LJ post:

It's a shame really - CoH is almost everything I want in a Supers Computer Game - but in the end, I don't feel like I am a major hero and so it just can't compete with my new-ish shineys for now.

Doc Blue's right, of course. One of the core problems with City of Heroes the game is there's no real way to impact the game world. What's more, your heroes, no matter how powerful they become, are never the stars. Everyone instead talks about the Freedom Phalanx.

When the comic was about random teaming heroes, then the sense that the signature heroes were part of the landscape but the point of City of Heroes were the players' heroes wasn't lost. Now that City of Heroes the comic is about the signature heroes, the underlying message is "the player character heroes don't matter. You're just also-rans in the signature heroes' comic book. And Statesman kind of resents you, too."

The backup feature, which has nothing to do with the signature heroes or the Freedom Phalanx, is an incredibly positive step. It features a heroine named Morgan Le Fey (a descendent of the original) who has two costumes in the piece, both of which look like they could have come from the costume creator, remembering her backstory and doing some fighting. It's a nice piece, and more to the point it's about a heroine that a player could (and probably does) play. I can identify with Morgan le Fey, because it could as easily be about Transit, or Vibrex, or Lady Vermilion.

I hope that becomes a regular feature, even after they jump to all digital for subscribers.

As of today, I have some hope for the comic, in the meantime. Keep up the good work.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:19 PM | Comments (15)

October 7, 2005

Eric: An observation.

Nicholas Cage has gotten a lot of press because he named his son "Kal-El Cage." People are mentioning how silly it is to name his son after a super hero.

That doesn't bother me.

I'm just stunned he didn't name the kid "Luke."

Sweet Christmas indeed.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:46 PM | Comments (68)

Eric: Those Cinematic Moments, and how Star Trek's lost the ability to do them.

As a note of warning, this post contains spoilers for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, The Empire Strikes Back, Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek: Nemesis. I probably don't need that spoiler warning -- the statute of limitations has long since expired on four of these movies, and even the fifth is now three years old. However, while I sincerely doubt there are any surprises left on the first three movies for anyone who'd be coming to Websnark in the first place, only twenty-seven people saw Star Trek: Nemesis in the continental United States, and it might well be on someone's "I should really see that before I die" list, so, you know. There it is.

Oh, and I spoil some of Star Trek: The Next Generation, too. Just to say.

Oh, and the last episode of Babylon 5.

In Wednesday's post on Serenity spoilers, yesterday, she made mention of the fact that for some people the movie had events or moments on a level with Star Trek II or The Empire Strikes Back. She wasn't referring to those movies as a whole, of course. She was referring to the "holy fuck" gut punch moment of the movie. "Luke, I am your father!" "I have been, and always shall be your friend." Shocks that reverberate through you. (I don't know what the nature of such shocks might or might not be in Serenity, mind. This isn't about that.)

I found it interesting to think about, though. Frankly, The Empire Strikes Back, while my favorite of the Star Wars films, failed to have that intense a shock for me. I remember sitting in the movie theater back in 1980, twelve years old and full of wonder. I remember digging on Yoda and Dagobah, and I remember being impressed with Cloud City and thinking that Leia should be with Luke, not that smuggler. (Hey, it was years before they played the incest card, and besides, I was twelve.) I remember thinking that hey, you mess around with another man's girl, you get frozen in carbonite.

Regardless, I was completely hooked.

And then Vader shouted "Luke! I am your father!"

And I thought "oh, now that's just stupid. What is this? The Young and the Restless?"

Sorry. I was an opinionated kid. Still, given that (and given that Leia was Luke's sister), it really didn't surprise me that teddy bears could soundly defeat the Empire while our heroes stood around, got shot, and failed to do anything of significance to the main battle while fighting Vader on the Death Star. I mean, sure, why not?

Star Trek II, on the other hand? Devastated me. There was an intensity to that death scene that became literally a part of cinematic history. The entirety of that movie built to that one, shocking moment. In a movie that on one level was about growing old, growing up, and letting go of the past (seriously -- it was Khan's inability to let go that led to his ultimate destruction and the destruction of all his followers, even though -- as Joachim said -- he had already won, and had a ship, and could do whatever he wanted. At the same time, the death of Spock gave Kirk a new chance at life -- and a chance to feel renewed and young, once more, even as David let go of his anger and pain at Kirk, and so on and so forth -- hell, even the Genesis Device itself was a symbol of letting go of the old and creating new life!), this was the ultimate moment of ending. Spock wasn't just dying -- he was letting Kirk know he had to move on. I still tear up when I see it, even though I've seen all the sequels. Even the crappy ones.

As a side note, I felt similarly when Enterprise burned up over Genesis in Star Trek III. We had tremendous emotional investment in that ship.

So. You'd like me to get somewhere near the point, right?

Well, I was one of the twenty seven people who saw Star Trek: Nemesis. And if you haven't seen it, let me clue you in. (See, I told you there was a spoiler warning.) Data dies. Horribly. He leaps across the gulf between the Enterprise and the bad guy ship, crawls inside, finds the captive Picard, slaps a plot sensitive macguffin emergency transporter on him, sends him back to the Enterprise, and then dies as the ship explodes.

Now, Data was, without a doubt, the Spock of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The most popular character after Picard. The character with the most depth added to him over time. The character the writers lavished all the experience points on during the series. Seriously -- every third episode was Data finding a new friend or Data learning how to dream or Data having to fight for civil rights again (my favorite was the attempt to classify Data as Starfleet property, so he could be disassembled -- despite the fact that Starfleet never built him in the first place, and that if he was anyone's property it would be the estate of Noonian Soong), or the emotion arc. Dear Christ the emotion arc. Contrast that with poor Geordi, who was played by an actor who'd won awards long before this (and who was considered to be slumming by taking the job in the first place). I think there were... what, three Geordi centered episodes in the series? Four, maybe? Reg Barclay got more episodes devoted to him.

Every one of the Next Generation movies had significant Data subplots (Insurrection the least such, mind, but it was still there). Jonathan Frakes was top billed after Patrick Stewart and whatever major guest stars were in a given movie in each of the films (a relic of his Next Generation contract) but Brent Spiner was clearly the most significant returning character in each of them. Gates McFadden, on the other hand, might as well have just sent a photograph in, for all they gave her to do. Clearly, the thought was the fans would have a maximum sense of investment in Data, and his death would be Spock's death for a new generation.

(Also, similarly to Leonard Nimoy at the time, Brent Spiner wasn't all that interested in continuing to play his electronic counterpart, and was having trouble 'not aging' as time went on. So there were pragmatic reasons to do such a thing.)

And so, Data died.

And no one cared.

Hell, it seemed like the Enterprise crew barely cared. There was a wake, which featured (surprisingly enough) some fine acting by Jonathan Frakes, but the scene seemed perfunctory -- of less significance than Riker and Troi leaving the ship. And of course, there was a scene before where Data's memories and brain patterns were put in the prototype B-4 in an effort to "force him to evolve," despite the fact that this would be like taking eighty gigs of a Windows XP install and loading it onto an IBM XT in hopes of forcing the 8088 to develop the ability to handle it. It was such an obvious and clear attempt on the part of the producers to have an out for Data's return that no one who actually saw the movie thought for a second Data was really gone.

This wasn't the first time such a thing had happened. When the Enterprise burned in Star Trek III, there was a powerful sense of history and endings that went with it. This was a ship that we loved -- a ship that Kirk loved. A mythology had built around it that was tremendous. (And the producers learned pretty quickly that it wasn't easy to replace.) When the Enterprise-D was destroyed in Star Trek: Generations, it was at best an exciting set piece and crash sequence, but even the characters didn't much give a damn. (Riker, once again, seemed to be the only one who even had wistfulness for the ship's being destroyed. Maybe Riker is just a big softy at heart.)

So, setting aside the fact that Rick Berman has no actual poetry in his soul, why is it that the most powerful and evocative moments in Star Trek, when replicated by the Next Generation crew, fail to inspire even slight interest?

Well, for one, there's the sheer banality of how they went about it. As was said, when Spock died in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, it supported the underlying themes of the movie as a whole. Things die. New things are born. Those who let go of the past can move on. Those who can't stagnate and die. Joachim's sacrifice led to Khan's death. Spock's sacrifice lead to Kirk's life. And the Enterprise died -- a painful, horrible sacrifice -- to turn death into (in the words of Leonard McCoy) a fighting chance to live, harkening back to the central themes of the previous movie. These events and sacrifices had weight, because the movies gave them weight, and built successfully off the series. It wasn't enough that Spock was a beloved character -- his death still needed meaning, and still had to have pain.

Next Generation pulled this off once, weirdly enough. When Tasha Yar died in the epitome of the meaningless death scene, there was a far more evocative wake. And her death caused ripples through the rest of the series. Data kept his holocrystal of her, and their shared intimacy continued to matter. We met Yar's sister, and that sister's failings contrasted with Tasha to the point that it hurt even more that Tasha was gone. With "Yesterday's Enterprise," Yar was returned in an alternate timeline, and in learning her death was meaningless specifically travelled on a suicide mission to the past in search of that meaning. And that in turn meant she was alive to give birth to Sela.

In Generations, the Enterprise-D was destroyed for no good reason. Mostly, it was so they could design a really bitching Enterprise-E, one without all those stupid kids and families on board and have it be entirely designed to be a kickass warship without exploration (seriously -- they said as much, in the voice of Picard. The Enterprise-E was designed to be able to fight Borg, not explore the galaxy). That palpable sense of extraneousness -- that lack of dramatic purpose in the Enterprise's destruction -- reinforced to the fans watching that they weren't really supposed to care.

Remember, we're discussing Star Trek fans -- the ur-fan. The archetype for obsessive fans who care. Teaching them not to care was not a survival strategy.

Then, on top of that, we had the last series that truly invested in its characters and set that way -- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine -- end. Star Trek: Voyager began, and managed to inspire... well, no real passion from anyone. The continuing sense that maybe we just shouldn't care continued, day after day, show after show, movie after movie.

Of course, those fans do continue to care -- just not about Star Trek. They're the ones who cried their eyes out when Babylon 5 was destroyed in "Sleeping in Light" (right there was a textbook definition of how to make your audience care. The visuals, the music, the buildup). They're the ones who, when Joss Whedon said "please don't spoil Serenity for other people" took him at his word and took it as a commandment. They're still out there.

But they don't feel that passionately for Star Trek any more.

So, Data died -- in an even less meaningful and more... well, stupid fashion than the Enterprise-D did. Seriously. He had to die because he only had one magical transporter device, and he gave it to Picard instead. Now, forget for just a moment that the idea that Data -- a functionally immortal being who was the only representative of his race -- clearly was a higher priority to keep alive than Jean-Luc Picard, who was a great Starfleet officer but who's only got a few decades left in him anyway, and will no doubt die just like this somewhere down the line, unless the Space-Senility gets him as was presaged in "All Good Things." Forget that, and focus on the magical transporter device he only had one of.

Guys, he'd had that singular device for most of the movie. And every fifteen feet there's a magic box on the Enterprise that makes exact duplicates of things. They even call it a replicator. Data knew Picard was over there, he knew that they'd both need a way back, and it's not like we've ever seen a replicator take more than eighteen seconds to make anything in the past. What the fuck?

For that matter, he died because he shot the Macguffin with a phaser, blowing everything up. But he'd already made one leap into space, and there was no one left alive to stop him from doing anything. So why not take out the phaser, set it to overload, run down through the ship retracing the path with your super Android memory and your super Android speed, and leap back out into the black before the bomb went off? Why? Because then Data wouldn't die, and the point was Data had to die.

Naturally, no one cared.

And of course, a complete copy of Data's brain is in B-4, all Spock/Katra like. So either B-4 will magically have his processors become Data-capable somewhere along the line and "oh, hey, Data," or someone will get the bright idea to copy those files back out of them, load them into any random Starship's computer, and then recreate Data's body on the Holodeck.

Of course, the Holodeck gives us a good reason why no one in Starfleet gives a damn that Data's dead. Seriously, the point was sentient artificial life, and now they do that so trivially there's a Ferengi bar owner who has a sentient 1960's lounge singer. Why would anyone bother with android tech now that they have "photonics?"

So, after seven full seasons and four feature length films, the death of the character with the most development, the greatest time and energy put on his growth, the most importance placed upon him and the most focused investment by both producers and fans was met with abject indifference. Far from being "a Star Trek II" moment or a "Empire Strikes Back" moment, it couldn't even compete with the emotional resonance and long term repercussions of the death of Tasha Yar twenty two episodes after we first met her.

So. We have Firefly now. And Babylon 5. And Battlestar Galactica, of all things. And Stargate. They're where the emotional investment is going. They're keeping the faith. And Star Trek? It's off the air for the first time since the 80's, with no chance of it coming back any time soon, and while they're supposedly working on another movie, no one's sure why. Certainly I don't want them to. If they have to, I'd want it to be about Sulu's Excelsior before, you know, George Takei gets too old to play the part. (Or give Chekov the Enterprise-B. I'd pay seven bucks to see Chekov in the center seat.)

This is how you end a franchise. Not with a whimper and not with a bang, but with a bang that everyone treats like a whimper.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:49 PM | Comments (44)

October 3, 2005

Eric: National Novel Writing Month: The Sequel

So, National Novel Writing Month will soon be upon us.

Last year, I did a thing. And I got to fifty thousand words. And I've edited and revised it since then. But in the end, it was a thing. Not terrible, but not great. A story that with heavy editing could be publishable, but I haven't done that editing yet and I might never.

But it was still a worthy endeavor. And the question becomes, what about this year.

And more to the point, what can I do this year that might, in the orgy of sheer writing creativity, be more generally worthy outside the box. I don't just want to write fifty thousand words to write fifty thousand words. I did that last year. This year, I want to get to the other side of the project (which will take more than fifty thousand words and more than a month) and have something that I can legitimately cut down, rephrase, edit, bounce off Wednesday and others and in all make not suck and then send off. With a hard target date of sending out of February 28, 2006 or sooner.

So. The question is... what do I do?

On the one hand, we bounced the idea of a romance novel off one another earlier this year. (Certainly, that's what Shaenon Garrity would vote for -- though if I promised her sufficient goinking in whatever I did, she might let it slide.)

On the other hand, we have the pulp novel I wrote about earlier this year. With the figure who isn't the Spider. By their very definition, the pulps are meant to be written at a breakneck pace, and this might be a perfect experiment.

On the gripping hand, there's this superhero/rumination thing I timelined. This in one way is the most interesting, since it would be an interwoven series of short stories -- which might suit the nanowrimo process perfectly. And could be the most interesting to highlight on here. (I'd throw it on a locked -- to prevent 'previous publication' sub-site that folks could access as I went along. Short stories and bits and pieces could go all hitherby like, well suited to 2000 word chunks as we went along).

Ultimately, I'll do what I want to do, of course. That's how writing works. But I'm curious what people would suggest.

One way or the other, I want a stuffed envelope with this year's project sitting on my desk no later than the last day of February. I have two publishing houses I'd send it to first, for wholly unprofessional reasons. It'll be addressed to one of them.

Then, after the one rejects it, I send it to the other.

And when they reject it, I send it to the next publisher on the list.

And then the next.

And then the next.

And the one after that.

And sometime in 2008 I'll say screw it and self-publish through Lulu. But damn it, we're hitting the ground running.

We know, all too well, that I can write fifty thousand words in a month.

Now it's time to make them good.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:43 PM | Comments (62)

September 30, 2005

Eric: Because I listen... bigger pictures!

(I promise I don't only think about John Stark.)

One of the recurring comments I've gotten this week has been a difficulty in reading the text in The Adventures of John Stark. The strips are, simply put, too small. And I agree. I wanted them bumped up enough to make them easy to see. Unfortunately, Comic Life (the program I've been doing the strips in) just won't resize graphic groups, making in-program alterations prohibitive. And its output options were limited to 72 dpi, 150 dpi or higher in resolution. So I could double the size or leave it as is, but I couldn't, say, export it at 96 dpi and bump it up nicely.

Well, I've got a solution -- export in the larger resolution in tiff, then batch convert to JPG at 80%. The result is a 514x800 image that should be plenty easy to read.

The problem now is it's too large to fit without scrolling. I could shrink it down to 600 in height, but that brings back some of the trouble in reading the text. So. My plan is to enlarge the existing strips and the buffer, then recreate the layout in a monitor-friendly 800x600 at 72 dpi that should resolve the issue once and for all.

However, part of the problem there is I've got three more weeks of strips in the can. Meaning that even if I rebuild the template, you won't see the benefit until this time in October.

(That's right. I'm working on a month buffer. See what power you possess when you... er... have no art requirements whatsoever?)

I'm vaguely considering redoing all the old strips in the new template, ultimately. But that seems like cheating, somehow. Anyway. I'm soliciting comments. Take a look at the current size, let me know what would make your heart glad, and we'll move on from there.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:32 PM | Comments (35)

Eric: In class, we also sometimes learned from claymation and other stop action photography. This was our multimedia, damn it!

John Stark has consumed my brain. Not just the comic. The man. But more on that in another snark. Today we're going to talk about the structure of the strip..

So, I'm looking over the archive page for this week, which now has six strips on it. And it's in the "elevator style" of archive which Joey Manley has espoused in the past (I'm going to shift to page a day when the functionality is put in to do so, though I can at least understand why Manley doesn't care for it as much). This means, particularly with the structure I have for the strip so far, that one blends into the other like a long, continuous strip. Or Infinite Canvas. Which isn't the point.

But, that's not what occurred to me today. No, what occurred to me today is "huh -- it looks like one of those filmstrips from when I was a kid, only not formatted so well."

I don't know if generations that followed me -- generations that have VCRs and DVDs and the like -- know the joy of the filmstrip or the 16 mm film in class. The films fairly rocked -- you would use an old Bell and Howell projector, which would inevitably have some sound problems which at least one kid in the class could imitate perfectly (I'm one of those kids in class, for the record), and you would watch whatever cheesy or cretinous film was a relic of the sixties that got pulled out on Day 119 of the school year, like "Our Friend Iron Ore Refining" or "Make Way For Posture!" Then, if the class was good -- I swear to God they always said this. We had to be good to get this -- they would run the film backwards to rewind it, and you could see iron pour back up out of the ingot mold or childrens' posture steadily worsen. And there would be giggling throughout.

But almost more trippy than that... was the filmstrip.

The film strip was just that. A strip of film run through a special projector, one frame at a time, while a cassette tape was played. The cassette would say something about the frame we're on, and then there would a prerecorded "beep" that told whichever kid got tapped to run the filmstrip projector to advance the strip one frame, and then the cycle would continue. Sometimes the frames were pictures, but more often they were whacked out drawings -- like a form of mescaline for second graders. Kids of my generation dream of that "beep" sound. To this day if you played it for us we would reflexively look for the next frame to come up.

You realize, this is how I should have formatted John Stark. 4 or 8 panels of film strip, with "beeps" in between, and different "narration" from day to day on the side panels. I suppose it's not too late, though I don't really intend to change things now.

Of course, the strength of Webcomics Nation is you can always start another series. It's trivial. Maybe a clip art series of "educational film strips" would be a fun project sometime.

Of course... by definition a film strip comic would be... you know. Infinite Canvas.

Fucking infinite canvas, sinking its hooks into my brain....

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:27 PM | Comments (41)

September 29, 2005

Wednesday: He also looked an awful lot like Dave Broadfoot, later on. I just noticed that today.

Writing about famous, recently dead people with whom one is not acquainted is a bit on the tricky side.

Pigeonholes make rotten gravesites. Of course, you're in something of a quandry anyhow, going down this road; what do you know this person for? Chances are it's for one high-profile job. You're somewhere around Barstow, at the edge of the desert, when the tri-ox begins to take hold. Suddenly, there's a terrible roar, and the sky is full of caped guys flying out of their wheelchairs, all swooping and screeching and diving around your car, which is going a hundred miles an hour towards the Experience down in Vegas. And you hear a voice reciting the lyrics to London Calling. Over and over and over again. And you'd like to call for help on the shoe phone, or possibly the finger phone, or the coconut phone, but you figure there's no point in mentioning this to anyone. Penny's probably blogged it all by now anyways.

Which brings us to Jerry Juhl, who died this past Monday from cancer complications.

Some of you are going, "Who?" Stop that. Right now.

Juhl was the writer behind an incredible quantity of Muppet material. He started out more or less behind the puppets -- covering the pregnant Jane Henson on Sam and Friends, co-piloting the LaChoy Dragon, and such -- but found his strengths were better suited to writing. He co-wrote most of the cinematic Muppet movies; he worked on specials like The Muppet Musicians of Bremen and Hey, Cinderella!; he wrote for shows like Fraggle Rock, The Jim Henson Hour, and Sesame Street. Second head writer on the Show. Creative producer on the Fraggles. He worked on the Meeting Films. His fingerprints -- his handprints -- are all over the Muppet oeuvre. His involvement with the Muppets predates even that of Frank Oz.

(Also? He worked on The Cube. That's versatility right there.)

Untangling specific moments where you can point and say, "Juhl did that bit right there," isn't easy. You can cover how profoundly he influenced the core Show characters out of the gate, but things start getting slippery beyond that. It's not all down to the usual problem of a group effort getting chiefly attributed to a single driving force, which you get a lot of with the Muppets and Jim Henson in anything coming out after Henson's death. (Henson was charismatic and very hard-working, but he was never a Joss Whedon.) Even before that, though, the emphasis on documenting Muppet lore has very often been with the performers and technical staff. This is fair enough, since that's the sort of material fans tend to be after, but this makes learning about the very tangled writing process for all of the Muppet projects a bit frustrating. Right now, for example, I'm having a really hard time turning up an obscure note on Gonzo's early history.

No, not Muppets From Space, the script for which was Kirk Thatcher's instead of Juhl's at the end of the day. Before that.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume I saw it in Of Muppets and Men, a book I read into the ground as a child and would perform terrifying acts of derring-do to own today. (Our family begged the local library to let us just buy it and have done with it. I'd have it on constant renewal, for months at a time, until the librarians would yank it forcibly back and beat me with novelty clubs.) I'm positive it turned up in magazine articles from the era as well, and possibly in passing during documentaries. (My R2 disc of the accompanying special is in another country. I can't check that particular one right now.)

We know that Gonzo's chicken fancying comes from an ad-lib Dave Goelz made concerning passing poultry: "Nice legs, though." His nature, though, was never so clear. Up until Muppets From Space, he was a "whatever" or a "weirdo." If you asked further about this, though, it'd come down to Gonzo's mother.

No, we don't know what Gonzo's mother was. But we knew what one of her pastimes was, while she was pregnant with him.

Gonzo's mother enjoyed sitting in the Nevada desert. She enjoyed watching the pretty lights in the beautiful night sky.

The pretty lights from the nuclear testing.

That informed Gonzo for me, growing up. My family didn't care for him so much -- too bizarre, too flagrant -- but, once I realized exactly how you end up looking like a tweaking Grover with a twisted beak, I had no issues at all. He fell into place for me. And if he wanted to run away to Borneo to launch his Bollywood career, or swing with semi-anthropomorphized hens, hey, great. When the kids at school are throwing rocks at your head for whatever's wrong with you this week, and no one's bothered to show you an X-Men comic? Muppet mutants are pretty compelling stuff.

But I can't remember whose idea that was. Goelz? Juhl? Chris Langham? I want to say Juhl, obviously, to point to that and a slew of other character details and say, "he did that." I could probably do that with Fraggle Rock if I had the interviews from the R1 series 1 boxed set to hand, but I don't have them, either.

Which is probably missing the whole point of writing about what Jerry Juhl did for the Muppets. Reading interviews with him, you get the sense of a very communal workflow which he worked hard to shape and direct. (This is, of course, the way of television, but one gets the impression it was much more so.) Pointing to moments becomes an exercise in playing with one of those weiner-shaped water balloons, the ones which are all wrapped in upon themselves and slip out of your hands when you squeeze them with any force.

The Muppets are in a curious state these days. Recent and upcoming video releases have the old material in sharp focus, but new developments are a bit alarming. The team suffers from a certain amount of attrition and flux. Richard Hunt died two years after Jim Henson. Many of Frank Oz's characters have been handed over to Eric Jacobson, and a number of Henson's have been split between Bill Barretta and Steve Whitmire; Barretta is now going through the same mastery process it took Whitmire considerable time to deal with, with more key characters at once. If you had the principal credits from anything up to Manhattan stashed away in your head, something's going to give if you look at them today. Even as Kermit prepares a fiftieth anniversary world tour (and, make no mistake, I'll go and find him in whichever major city I can reach), the Muppet Holding Company are auditioning new puppeteers to play the original cast on cruises and at theme parks. No matter how one feels about the state of play these days, it becomes increasingly obvious that one needs to cherish what one had. They're building on a legacy, but they're still starting somewhat from scratch.

Boiling Juhl's work down to a soundbite would be a disservice. He was woven all through the Muppets. He doesn't have that one first book, or that one unforgettable role, or that one song. With his stuff, you just can't point at all; you have to make broad, sweeping gestures with your arms.

And you'll look really silly when you do that, too. "He did that!" you say, swooping dramatically. And then you fall over, possibly down a flight of stairs. With cakes.

And that? That's the right thing to do, right there.

Posted by Wednesday Burns-White at 9:01 PM | Comments (16)

September 28, 2005

Eric: On death and dementia and things Positive.

This one's going to be a little more serious than normal. I hope that's okay with folks.

See, I've been thinking about the reactions folks have had to yesterday's snark of the current Something Positive. It seems Milholland really hit one out of the park, this time. People have been seriously affected, and no one's trying to burn down his home as far as I know. Certainly, it means a lot to me.

In part, because of the juxtaposition of Monette's words and the document on the table. "I love you too, Daddy," she says, in a voice full of tears. They're tears that come because Monette is overwhelmed, because she has had something wholly alien to her happen. She has screwed up, badly, and the man who adopted her as his daughter used it as a chance to show her how much he loves her.

Monette hasn't had much of that. Her birth father was horrid to her -- dismissive of her and her stupidity. Her friends -- even the ones she has been closest to -- have never been afraid to be snide about how dumb she is. Her closest friend in the world walked out on her -- leaving her with bills galore -- with nary a glance back.

And now she's loved. Loved by parents who think the world of her, and -- astoundingly enough -- believe in her. And in that environment, something's beginning to grow out of her. Something... dare I say it... positive. And they would never leave her.

But Fred Macintyre is old. And Faye, though not as old, is getting on in years. And one of the two at the very least has been screened for Alzheimer's Disease and the prognosis isn't a good one. Happily ever after isn't -- all things come to a close, and there's a countdown timer on this home Monette has finally found.

And it hits close to home for me.

Not because of my parents. Oh, they're not getting any younger and we make jokes -- you have to make jokes, or you go nuts -- but they're both healthy and mentally acute.

But, you see... both of my grandmothers suffered from forms of dementia. One passed on, but went through periods of fear because she couldn't understand what was happening. One is... well, she's comfortable. She's in a good home. The last time I saw her, she had no idea who I was, mind. I'm not sure she knows who any of her children are, much less her grandchildren.

But she seems content. And she's well cared for. And, of course, she's loved, even if she doesn't know it.

Both sides. On neither side did my grandfather survive long enough to know if it would be a problem there, but there's at least some genetic predisposition on both sides of my family to an eventual mental decline on my own part.

And that terrifies me.

My whole life, the one thing I've had going for me was my mind. I know things. I put pieces together. I can write. I can think. I understand the universe. I contain stories and multitudes and attitudes and opinions. I am legion and I am myself.

But I'm not quite as sharp as I was in my twenties. I don't pick things up like I used to. Take CSS. HTML was no problem for me. And more to the point, the concepts involved made sense to me, and as I learned them, I learned markup, and it all worked. Sometimes I have to look things up, but I know what I'm looking for.

CSS? It's like I'm dealing with an alien language. I can make out some of the words, and I can make guesses as to some of the effects at poking with things, but for the most part it's opaque to me. I don't understand. I can't understand. I tried, so hard, but I couldn't get it. I can't build the framework in my head.

And I realize that's going to become more common with time.

That's the fear that can keep me up long hours at night. What will happen to me when I lose my mind? When I don't recognize things? When I make no sense.=? When the world is huge and alien and frightening and I can't figure it out?

Those who immediately think "too late" should know that the joke has already been done.

It's almost odd to consider. See, I've never much worried about it, because I've known -- known -- I wouldn't last long enough to make it a worry. Hell, I was pushing five hundred pounds. Getting out of bed in the morning was courting a heart attack. I'm still not out of heart attack country.

And I'm a survivor of advanced congestive heart failure and idiopathic cardiomyopathy. In both those cases I've recovered and become healthy (though my health is still somewhat fragile, as all of you should have guessed by now). However, even as a survivor there is some -- to use the term for it -- diminished life expectancy involved. There's every chance that even if I make it to goal weight my heart will just stop sometime in my sixties and that'll be that.

...or my fifties....

...or possibly my forties....

...but not my thirties, more than likely. I've put at least another six or seven years on my life with the weight loss. That doesn't suck.

So, I've been somewhat morbidly comfortable with my eventual painful death. I've had time to work it into my experiences.

The thing is... medical science is improving all the time. All the time. And one of the areas it's getting massively better in is recovery from cardiac issues and heart failure. Hell, had my cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure gotten critical six or seven years earlier -- six or seven years -- I would have needed a heart transplant to survive. Now, thanks to beta blockers and ACE inhibitors, we got my original heart back to a manageable size and functionality. With diminished life expectancy, but since my life expectancy without them was, oh, 2001 if I was lucky, we're calling that a net win.

By the time I'm into my sixties, I fully expect them to be a lot better at rehabbing and improving cardiovascular performance. Tons better. So there's no reason to expect that they won't be able to keep me around for another forty or fifty years after that. And after those fifty years, there's every reason to think that medical science won't have ways to make my hundred and ten year old ass feel at least as good as it does right now. Remember, the Baby Boomers are ahead of me, and they're going to demand the best damn research into fixing aging that monumental amounts of money can buy. As an early-generation Generation-X'er, I can slack right into the benefit of it the way I slacked into everything else behind the Baby Boom.

Maybe that means they'll work out dementia and Alzheimer's and all the other conditions that used to be lumped together into "senility." There's research going on, certainly. Maybe.

But maybe they won't.

Death I can deal with. We all die, and I'm on borrowed time as it is, and I'm grateful. I really, really am.

But living to a ripe old age with a rotten and corrupt mind, a swirl of old characters and dead friends and confusion and outdated understandings at best... that's very close to my definition of Hell. And I can see it happening. So clearly.

Fred and Faye, in Something Positive, have before anything else, tremendous dignity. It's what makes it funny when Fred charges into a room and discovers Monette having sex with another woman.

Alzheimer's takes dignity away from you, along with rationality and comfort.

Milholland hit one out of the park, all right. It's a damn good take on a damn hard subject, and everyone wants to see what happens next, and almost certainly it'll be weeks or months (or years) before we do.

In the meantime, late at night, it's just me and my mind. And I'm wondering which one of us will check out first. And wondering if it's cowardice to hope it's me.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:33 PM | Comments (55)

September 26, 2005

Eric: Fear drives exploration. We always suspected that was the case, right?

So, a good number of people have been coming to have a look at The Adventures of Brigadier General John Stark, which is heartening because... well, hey. I like people reading the things that I write. It's especially heartening since at the time of the statistics I had, there was only the one strip, which had already appeared on Websnark. (The second strip is there now. Like all good gag-a-day webcomics, it features a penis joke. My father must be proud of me.) In fact, on Sunday I was second on the daily "top 25 webcomics" list at WCN, and as of the moment I'm fourth for today. I mean, hey. Rock on.

(For the record? I have the next two weeks queued to go already. Admittedly, this is not the hardest webcomic to do a buffer for, since the art never changes and I have a program that lets me quickly and easily insert the artwork. But at least until mid-October, I already know I won't miss a daily update. Yay! A winner is me!)

However, looking at the top 25 of the day also gave me pause... because I discovered that (at least yesterday) Unfettered by Talent was on the list too... and looking at the top 100 all time strips on Webcomics Nation I discover that Unfettered by Talent is currently #54!

This cannot be permitted to stand. Unfettered by Talent sucks. Clearly, people need to start reading a lot more Webcomics Nation strips. Here's a few to get you started, but you should also look at the lists in the sidebar of the Webcomics Nation home page:

• Irrational Fears. Ursula Vernon, of Digger fame (as well as the designer of Snarky in the corner of this screen), presents a full color odyssey to search out the monsters that plague our subconsciousness. It's one of the most popular Webcomics Nation strips, and I'm going to do my part to keep it that way, because this right here is damn good stuff.
• Gods and Undergrads. I am seriously getting into this story about a sophomore in college and the slice of divine life she finds there.
• JACK COLE, A Life in Comics. Gary Chaloner, who was fortunate enough to work with Will Eisner on John Law, brings us a series of interwoven stories, illustrated and textual, crossing between fact and fiction on the life of one of the greatest -- and most tragic -- comic artists of all time. Jack Cole, the creator of Plastic Man, noted and revered for his glorious sense of whimsy and the anarchic, ultimately took his own life. Chaloner isn't quite over that. (And neither am I, for that matter, even though it happened before I was born.)
• World War Two Wild West Zombie Tales. Exactly what it sounds like. Plus, gorgeous artwork.
• Catharsis. A self contained story well worth your time to go through. A touch of theology, with just a scosh of... well, you'll see.
• Amazon Space Rangers A. Prosser's story of... well, Amazon Space Rangers. Also, family. A perfect way to follow reading World War Two Wild West Zombie Tales
• Space Goth. Once again, I'm not sure how to improve on the title in this description. This is more a Space Goth come to Earth, than Goths in Space, just for the record. There's a qualitative difference, you know.
• Playing with Dolls. Ever since the first edition of The Sims, people have been making up stories to go along with screenshots. But Spike takes it to a whole new level, harnessing the high graphical power of The Sims 2 and building coherent narratives from her "doll collection." It's the facial expressions that nail it for me.
• Polly versus the Tentacle Monster. A surprisingly PG (well, okay, PG-13. Well, all right, with slight R tendencies, but no actual nudity or anything) 24 hour comic from Ghastly, who has been sadly underrepresented in Websnark to date
• [nemesis]. What? I was going to go through a list of stuff for you to read on Webcomics Nation and not mention [nemesis]? Greg Holkan. Good stuff.

This should get you started, but it just scratches the surface. I think Webcomics Nation is a success to date, because there's a ton of good stuff just waiting for you. And, of course, a photo-comic with static art about Revolutionary War Era Generals and their statues.

And none of it needs to be Unfettered by Talent. Really.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:38 AM | Comments (39)

Eric: It's like I'm being punished, only I wasn't bad! I WASN'T BAD!

The ISP transition alluded to on Friday went well, though there are repercussions. The school I work at actually has its own IP range, as opposed to an IP range assigned by an ISP, so when we switch providers we also need to change routing tables, which then have to propagate. This means that a certain number of people trying to send us mail or come to our website can't do it for sometimes north of 72 hours after the transition, and a (much smaller) subset of web sites won't return requests we send to it properly. They literally send the requests to the old address.

"So what," you ask. Why should you, the reading audience care? Well, most of you probably won't. However, bear the following two facts:

1) I'm having issues with my cable modem at home, so I need to use the campus network instead, so my access is the same at home and at work. Which is no big (we just got a big pipe). However;

2) All of Keenspot and Comic Genesis are among those sites we cannot reach right now.

As a result, I haven't seen any 'spot or 'nesis comic since, you know, Friday.

For the record? I read a lot of those comics.

Theoretically, the routing tables should finish updating today. Alternately, my at-home cable should clear up. Either way, really. Until one or the other happens, though, I'm... well, stuck. So if something really amazing happened on a Keenspot comic today... um... well, I hope you guys liked it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:34 AM | Comments (10)

September 21, 2005

Eric: Rita

I am having a bad day, and yet my bad day is measured, because there are worse days out there.

Hurricane Rita has, as of this writing, just been upgraded to Category 5. It's barometric pressure is worse than Katrina's was at Katrina's height.

Galveston, Texas is in its path. Houston may be hit very hard as well.

At least two webcartoonists live right where it's going to hit. One -- Chaobell, late of /usr/bin/w00t and currently of various rather incredible Silent Hill poser works -- has publicly talked about her preparations. The other I'm not sure has publicly stated information, so I'm not going to identify unless given permission. Regardless, I hope Chaobell and [REDACTED] and any pets they may or may not have are well and truly far away from the hurricane's path right now, and my hopes are with them.

And with everyone in that city. And throughout the affected area.

Because my bad day? Is nothing. Nothing. I'm going to be fine.

Please let all of them be fine too. Please.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:07 PM | Comments (29)

September 20, 2005

Eric: I don't suppose anyone at Fox is interested in a modern fairy tale with jazz undertones? Anyone? Anyone? Damn.

(From You Damn Kid!)

Okay , it's official. I'm surprised. And we now officially have a frontrunner for "biggest story of the year in Webcomics," and -- with all apologies to Owen Dunne -- I never expected it to be You Damn Kid.

For those who don't know, Dunne's comic strip -- which has been running since 1999, and is a perennial favorite of the people who recommend comics to me -- has been optioned for development by 20th Century Fox Television.

What does that mean?

Well, first off, it means a pretty decent payday for Dunne and for Keenspot. I don't know how decent a payday, but I do know a thing or two about how much development companies pay for short story rights, and it could easily be six figures. In the writing world, significant optioning is the long green, and this is about as significant an optioning as we could imagine.

(It's also possible that they didn't get six figures. Or even five. We literally have no idea, and that's not going to change. But let me dream for a minute, okay?)

Secondly, it means it's possible that a Keenspot comic might -- might -- end up on Fox. That's network. And that's huge.

We know Fox is very interested in animation right now. We know that Fox felt burned by Cartoon Network/Adult Swim successfully marketing Family Guy when they let it languish, and we know that they've started a lot heavier interest in animation. We also know that Adult Swim gets demographic numbers that makes the people at The Late Show With David Letterman weep.

At the same time, 20th Century Fox Television doesn't equal Fox. They could just as easily develop You Damn Kid and try to sell it directly to Adult Swim. Or, for that matter, to G4 (which has been pushing for late night Adultswimish humor to try and get some of that sweet demographic). Or to whoever might want to buy.

Or, the development might stall out. Or a pilot might get made and might not sell. Or a lot of things. A lot more shows get optioned than made.

Now, if You Damn Kid gets made and put on the air in network, that's monumental. That's life changing. If it's a hit, then suddenly a whole lot of webcomics could get serious interest in them -- our corner of the media suddenly becomes a place for inexpensive mining for potential hit shows. But even if You Damn Kid never gets made, this is huge news for Keenspot.

You see, according to the information we have (and Dunne has confirmed it), it's Keenspot that negotiated the option. So... for a couple of years now we've know that Keenspot's been shopping strips around. And there's been some laughter about the subject.

Only now, they've done it. And it's a truism that your second sale is a lot easier than your first. Suddenly, Keenspot has credibility in the development cycle. Certainly, if You Damn Kid goes somewhere, it's going to be easier for the Crosbys to successfully option other Keenspot strips.

Suddenly, being on the 'Spot has a potential for, as stated, long green. And, while a hit cartoon based on a webcomic will be good for webcomics in general (I can see G4 suddenly hungry for Penny Arcade, or Adult Swim really wanting PvP or Something Positive, just to throw a few common names out), it's going to be a bonanza for Keenspot and for strips on Keenspot.

The next year is going to be very, very interesting.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:33 PM | Comments (62)

September 18, 2005

Eric: Timelines.

Back about a decade ago, I sold a serial to Greg Fishbone (these days of Last Week's News among other things -- and someone who just this weekend had a book accepted by a publisher, so good on him!) called Paragon's Last, Desperate Stand. It was a five part serial detailing the efforts of Paragon, Mightiest Man on Earth, Last Prince of a Dead World, the Diamond Hard Man, et al to fake his own death, because he was sick to God of being... well, Superman. To that end he recruited his arch nemesis's help. The first part detailed Paragon coming to that decision. Each of the following covered his attempts to do so following a different trope based on the Superman mythos that I was clearly satirizing. Part 2 was going to be their attempt to fake his death in the middle of the Crown City Chronicle's 75th Anniversary, only "Paragon's Girlfriend" (actually his ex-wife, at this point) managed to foil the evil Dr. Lucas's "plot." Frustrated, the pair would try again in Part 3, this time heading to his home town. Only once there, his childhood sweetheart and high school best friend manage to foil their efforts. And so on and so forth.

Well, we didn't get to the point of the series being published. Sadly, Mythic Heroes didn't last long enough. So it's been sitting on my hard drive as two completed parts and an outline since the mid-nineties, waiting for something.

That something cropped up about three weeks ago, when I started plugging away at a different short story (in a nutshell, it's a story about retired Batman villains going to a Supervillain-fan convention). And I needed a background for it that couldn't actually... you know, involve Batman. And I had a background sitting over there in the Paragon story, so I pulled it up and reread it. And discovered that man, I've learned a thing or two about writing in the past ten years.

But there was something that interested me in that old story. Namely... the fact that Paragon, his ex-wife, 'chum' and so forth... were all pushing fifty. In formulating my story, all that time ago, I clearly threw out the convention that said that super heroes never get any older.

And this got me to thinking. (And Common Grounds and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay had some influence on that thought.) I mean, besides the rather unfortunate take on real time superhero aging done by John Byrne in Generations, we haven't seen much done with real-time super heroes. And reading the 30th anniversary party of the Liberty Balance in Common Grounds kind of solidified it in my head, since the heroes of that party were from the seventies and early eighties, and hey -- I'm beginning to feel my own age.

And, as it turns out, I have a copy of Bee Docs' Timeline.

So I started to play with a superheroic history that needed to evoke elements of DC and Marvel, but not actually be DC and Marvel. And all with the idea that these people actually aged as time went on. I timed the start of the modern heroic era with my own Junior High years. And I worked on the high points. Figuring out where different characters I would need for my stories would be born. When they would premiere. When they would retire (important, for the supervillain convention story). My Justice League analogue got a renaming (it had been the Liberty Protectorate, but as there was a Liberty Balance in Common Grounds, I thought better of it).

It didn't hurt that working on a timeline is something you could do with three minutes to spare here, and three minutes to spare there. Given my work situation, this was the closest thing I could do to writing for most of August.

Timelines do interesting things. They form a sense of evolution. Particularly when you considered that these characters and events would only exist in backstory -- the stories (and it had grown into a collection of short stories, some satirical, some serious) would be starting in late 2005 and moving forward from there. So, this was becoming a continuity that only one person knows... an evolution that only exists in a virtual notebook.

It's fascinating. Because quickly enough it began to reflect the evolution of super heroes themselves.

Oh, the times don't match up. My Superman analogue first appears publicly as "Paragon" on January 3, 1982, and that doesn't sync with any major comic company's "eras." But it syncs up perfectly with mine -- especially when I throw in some behind the scene stuff in the seventies (and some WWII era mystery men stuff from way back when). But growing out from there lets me do the goofy Batman years, and then build in a reason why my Batman then becomes morbid and gritty in the nineties. I can build in events for a Wonder Woman analogue, and a Flash analogue, and a Green Lantern, and a Captain America. Their organization was founded in 1986, and could grow from there. And various detritus formed around each, as time went on. I could see a sense of continuity bogging down in the nineties -- even though everything was straightforward -- and found that I was culminating into an "event" over the course of 1994 through 1996, at the end of which things were streamlined and "modernized," and a series of hip new heroes had displaced some of the old ones (old being relative, of course.)

And now, ten years after all that... you have heroes who've been doing this stuff for thirty years, and they're sick of it. Because you also end up factoring in real life events. I know when different heroes married their significant others. And I know when they divorced, too. (Lois Lane probably wouldn't be Superman's biggest fan at fifty. Nor Steve Trevor Wonder Woman's biggest fan at fifty. Ignoring for a minute the whole retconning of the Steve Trevor thing post-Crisis.)

It's also worth noting that when you actually lay out events and treat them as actual history... then they have impact. Impact which quite honestly the comic book companies these days fail to have with their major events. Think about it -- by far the most successful of the supercrossovers from a storyline standpoint was Crisis on Infinite Earths. Everything in Crisis was planned, it held together tremendously well, and at every moment there was a sense of finality.

And these days? Pretty much everything done in Crisis has been eliminated. I think the only death that happened in Crisis (of someone not so insignificant as to be irrelevant) that hasn't been reversed is Barry Allen, and frankly death is the best thing that ever happened to Barry Allen. No one gave a damn about him before he died. Now he's the patron saint of the DC Universe. (Not that they aren't trying their best to sully that, along with the rest of the Silver Age Justice League, but that's another rant.) Hell, Supergirl is back. Kara Zor-El, running around in a fashion nightmare. It bothered the Hell out of me when they made Superman's eulogy of Supergirl a lie (it ended with "I will remember you forever," and then John Byrne promptly made him forget her). But to simply put her back? Start over? I mean, yeesh, guys. Exactly how much emotional investment do you expect us to have in these characters?

(And the argument that this Supergirl is for a new generation doesn't wash, since... well, they're not marketing comics to this generation. They're marketing them to my generation. Hell, they're hoping a significant portion of the folks who read Crisis will come back for this upcoming megaevent. So they're effectively trying to have it both ways.)

In making up my timeline, I discovered time and again that an event that happened in 1988 informed a subsequent event in 1998. There was a real sense of weight to everything, because these things, even just as backstory, were cast as stone. When someone dies in my timeline... they die. And when the supervillains grow darker and more gritty... then the people who were around for the goofy, primary colored years feel a sense of disgust. And even though this is just a barebones sketch of major events, I can already sense that if this were a comic book series, it would take a hundred issues to tell. Maybe two hundred issues. Or twenty or thirty issues each of Paragon, Freya, The Nightwatch, The Justice Wing, and so on and so forth.

I wonder if it will ever happen that a comic book company will launch a line explicitly with the idea that events move forward in real time -- not the "world outside your window" thing that Marvel tried with the New Universe, but an actual four color superhero comic line where every twelve issues, another year would tick over on the calendars, our heroes would get another year older, their lives would continue to evolve, their deaths would not get revised or resurrected, a series 'reboot' would involve something more than just starting it over... and thirty years after it started, people would actually be thirty years older and the next generations of super heroes would actually be the next generations.

Probably not.

Though, maybe it's worth applying for an NEA grant and trying it. It seems to me there could be a real artistic -- a real aesthetic process here. Maybe the first one in super hero comics since the Marvel era.

And at least these comics would have an excuse for marketing to the same people who were reading at the start as at the finish.

In the meantime, I have a well laid out timeline. From here, I'm probably going to bounce back and work on my pulp story or my hard SF story for a bit, now that I'm getting writing time back. But this timeline and its events -- and those twelve stories -- are waiting for me whenever I get to them.

And I find myself wanting to keep going. Wanting to see where my heroes and their descendants go over the next twenty years. Or the next two hundred. But I don't try to find out. I need to write the actual stories before I can suggest what happens after them, and besides, worldbuilding is addictive. Sooner or later, you have to take it out and drive instead of just fiddling with the transmission.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:03 PM | Comments (23)

September 15, 2005

Eric: We're up!

The Gossamer Commons submission for the Webcomics Telethon went up at 4:00, and is on the main page until 4:20, when the next strip takes the space.

I've been anxious for it to go, because I'm really, really proud to be a part of this telethon. But also because Greg Holkan, who did the art, absolutely blew me away with the first panel of the strip. It's staggeringly good, and it should help people realize what a top talent Greg is.

Sometimes, people get fooled when they look at [nemesis]. [nemesis] is highly stylized -- featuring characters that I can best describe as the Powerpuff Girls after they've grown up and taken up cigarettes and alcohol. However, the stylization and chibiness of the figures doesn't change the level of sophistication that's going on. As with this strip, it's a subversion -- you take the happy-go-lucky elements of comics and animation, and you make them subtly wrong.

I'm thrilled with our entry. I hope you guys like it too. I'm excited we've raised all this money. And I hope that we can do some real good.

But I'm also just proud of the way this came out -- artistically, as a writer and as a collaborator, I couldn't be happier.

I hope you guys like it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:00 PM | Comments (26)

Eric: Sometimes "adult" doesn't mean "tits."

Something kind of wonderful is happening over at the Adult Webcomics Telethon.

See, the Webcomics Telethon (which is in the held-over day and still churning out comics every twenty minutes. And they're not done yet. I know this because dang it, the Gossamer Commons strip hasn't come up yet. And yes, I obsessively check for it on the hour, at twenty after and at twenty-til) has done truly great things -- we're up over twenty-five grand and people are feeling really great about what's going on. But when Blank Label put the telethon together, they decided to keep stuff (mostly) in the Safe For Work/PG-13 category. Which is fine. (Though it meant I had to revise my script, because Trudy? She likes that word "Fuck.") And they also wanted to have everything "in hand" before they actually went to 'press,' so they could set everything up and test it out before the telethon went live. As a result, people who want to jump in and help (or participate) who didn't get something in by deadline don't get a chance.

Well, the Adult Webcomics Telethon was created to be a refuge for people who want to participate in the process but... well, let's just say its for the folks whose comics don't fit into the above. And at first, it was the White Lightning Productions regulars and the like who jumped in. And, of course, there was nudity and sexual content. I mean, duh.

But then... something started happening. Something that's in the beginning stages right now, mind. But something cool.

I guess it started with Chris Crosby and Owen Gieni, who decided to do two crossover strips between Superosity and Sore Thumbs. The Crosby-drawn strip went up on the Webcomics Telethon. The Gieni strip -- which, in Crosby's words, was a little more "spicy" (though I think it would actually run in a PG-13 movie without trouble) appeared on the Adult Telethon.

Then, Ryan "how many hours of the day does he put into comics, anyway" Estrada discovered that Welton Colbert had produced a strip and sent it along (featuring "gratuitous nudity" that doesn't actually show anything that directly ties back into the Webcomics Telethon strip Colbert appeared in). Now Brad Guigar, who was the coordinator of the Webcomics Telethon, has thrown in one of his Courting Disaster strips. Which is... as they all are... "spicy." But again, it's not like it has actual nudity or sex in it.

Now, there's plenty of nudity and sex in the donated strips. I'm not going to claim otherwise. And hey, cool. Long live nudity and sex. But it seems to me that something even cooler is happening here. People are beginning to use the Adult Webcomics Telethon to participate in a broader, more general way. Israeli artist Eva Speranza produced the comic strip I thumbnailed and linked to, above -- a strip with no adult or salacious content at all -- and sent it on in. A strip that seems more to be an expression of grief and pure artistic expression than anything else. A strip that no one at the Webcomics Telethon would have batted an eye at running.

And it hits me... the Adult Webcomics Telethon is on the cusp of becoming something entirely different. If the Webcomics Telethon is one professional collective's response (doing tremendous work and operating with very specific guidelines), then the Adult Webcomics Telethon, operating without restrictions on content and happy to accept new submissions right now, is on the cusp of becoming a freeform poetry slam. It's on the cusp of becoming interactive, where strips can even react to each other.

I mentioned before that the Adult Webcomics Telethon might be a good place for Fetus-X or other strips where outrage can't be contained by PG-13. And that's of course still true. But it seems to me it could also become the place where, freed of all content restrictions, people contribute strips less in the "please give generously" mold and more in the artistic one.

I know I'm thinking about it. I should get together with Greg or Weds -- someone who knows the business end of a pencil better than I do -- and see if they might be up to doing a strip where Trudy says "Fuck."

And maybe some poetry. Because I have a lot of emotion wrapped around this tragedy that wasn't a good fit for the Webcomics Telethon... and it might be nice to have a place to express it where it might do some good.

EDIT: There's some residual weirdness in the navigation links between strips at AWT. But this page has direct links to all of the currently published strips. Obviously, there is no guarantee that any of the links on that page are even remotely 'safe for work.'

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:48 AM | Comments (37)

September 14, 2005

Eric: Naturally, this is the day when we could potentially have a huge new influx of readers....

So, a couple of people have noticed Gossamer Commons seems to be... well, down. A database/WordPress error crops up when you go to the page. Which makes it seem like there's a problem on our end. Only... well, GC's hosted on the same server as Talk About Comics, and Talk About Comics is also down.

So it's not impossible that there's something wrong with our site, but it's more likely to be on a deeply unhappy box that needs some attention. (Which, if I know the landlord, is happening even as we speak). So, patience, all!

(With luck, it'll be fixed before our strip comes up on the telethon...)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:24 AM | Comments (10)

September 13, 2005

Eric: Hour 22...

...and the telethon has raised over $17,000. That's just staggeringly cool. Hand in hand with it we have the Adult Webcomics Telethon (not safe for work -- I mean, duh) which covers the comics that wouldn't otherwise fit into the generally SFW telethon. (They haven't racked up -- huh huh huh, he said rack -- the donation numbers that the other telethon has, but there are ways in which I see the two as two sides of the same coin. A person might not be able to make two donations, after all... but that doesn't mean that more adult-oriented webcartoonists shouldn't be able to pitch in without feeling they have to conform to a family standard.)

I'd kind of like to see the more... direct artists contribute pieces to the AWT as well. I know one or two artists, feeling outrage about Katrina in some way that can't really be "safe for work", who would probably broaden it. (Though I suppose people heading over there might not expect to see, say, Fetus-X among the strips. On the other hand, that might be a good reason to include it.)

In any case, people rock. They really do.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:39 PM | Comments (21)

Eric: Drawing against the darkness.

The Webcomic Hurricane Relief Telethon has begun. Every twenty minutes, for the next two days, there will be a new comic strip. Some will be funny, some poignant. Some related, some unrelated.

Gossamer Commons has a strip contributed. So does Greg Holkan's Nemesis. Webcomics superstars and virtual unknowns alike have contributed.

I was unhappy to see they don't take Paypal, though having heard of some folks having problems with Paypal since Katrina, I guess I can understand why. I've contributed to the ARC already since Katrina, but I'm putting more money in tomorrow, after I get up. In the meantime, drink deeply. This is an event. Three comics an hour for forty-eight hours. Our community should be proud of that.

Let's make them prouder still, by opening our wallets and our hearts.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:27 AM | Comments (24)

September 7, 2005

Eric: An admittedly personal note.

Gossamer Commons has been added to the new comics wiki. No, I didn't add it.

For the record, it had been cut from Wikipedia as non-notable. I supported that decision. I voted for its deletion.

But, I have to admit... it's very very nice to see the entry in the new encyclopedia.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:43 PM | Comments (14)

Eric: And now, for the five people still reading, some talk about encyclopedias

Hey all!

So, Comixpedia's webcomics encyclopedia is go. It's in the extreme early stages, of course, but we're up to 110 entries imported from Wikipedia (under the auspices of the Free Documentation License) and some original work to boot. A good number of people have jumped in, and more are coming all the time.

And I'm a little amazed. It's still rough, sure -- but remember, we didn't start talking about this until September second. Here it is, one week later, and it exists and is growing, quickly.

There's still stuff to do. A name needs to be settled on. A logo needs to be prepared. The front page needs to be designed both for people who are looking to contribute and for people who are coming for information. We need to start putting the word out. We need to start recruiting more help.

And we need to reach out to the other Wikis out there. The Comic Genesis Wiki project, started to facilitate similar goals for the expansive Comic Genesis/Keenspace community is an obvious first step -- clearly, they should be able to draw off of our work and we the same for them. However, they're operating under Creative Commons, and we're under GNU FDL, and I'm not entirely sure how the two interact with one another. (If we alter and derive from their text, the new text needs to be released under the same Creative Commons license, for example. But we need to use the FDL to continue drawing off of Wikipedia.)

But these seem like resolvable issues, really. My suspicion is that the folks at CGWiki will want to pitch in, and I know we'll want to help support them. I think the same is likely to be true of things like the Achewood Wiki, which is under the FDL, so we can definitely cross information back and forth as needed. The amazing thing is, this is a project that really can cross all the different cliques and communities. This is something that could be of benefit to Penny Arcade fans, PvP fans, Scott McCloud fans, Keenspotters, Blank Labelites, Modern Talsians, Webcomicsnationalities, Drunk Ducakises, BuzzComixii.... you know. The whole nine yards. Everybody. It's like Babylon 5, only in convenient wiki form.

It's astounding to me, though. Every so often, I have to remember how new technology like this really is. When I was 18 years old, the internet was text-only and a project like this would be impossible. Not that there were webcomics at that time. Today, not only is this project possible... there's nothing stopping people from just up and doing it. "Hey, that is a good idea. Right! I've created it!" "Cool! I've imported the first five entries!" "Cool! Hey, here's some templates we can use!" "Cool! Hey, here's a list of categories we should flesh out...."

Astounding, really. We do in fact live in the twenty-first century, and there really are some dramatic changes.

Head on over, have a look, and pitch in. This belongs as much to you as anyone. And there's lots to do for everyone.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:26 AM | Comments (23)

Eric: One of the more cathartic things I've written

One thing people have figured out -- and I've gotten some criticism for -- is that I don't tend to put cut-tags or the like in my essays here on Websnark. Wednesday does -- she's old school when it comes to the Internet, remembering the people on slow connections and dialup, the people who read this on an RSS feed and the like.

But I don't, typically. I don't because I read an essay from a Livejournal user called The Ferrett. The Ferrett said that the difference between an essay being read and an essay being skipped over by a majority of users was that single point that needed to be clicked. Without that click, you might well get the same hit count as you did before, but a huge number of people won't read your words.

I write what I write to be read. I'm confident in my readers. I'm confident that if what I say is important enough -- or good enough -- they won't unsubscribe or stop coming when they see a given snark is five thousand words long. I'm confident that they know what they're getting. And I'm confident that if it is more than they can take, they will leave and let me know. To date, I haven't been disappointed on any of these scores.

But today I'm using a cut tag. Because today's essay is highly political, and very critical of our elected government. And that's also not why people come to Websnark, and I'm aware of that. Folks know I'm a liberal because I never shut up about that fact. A good number want nothing to do with my politics.

So. I'm putting in that extra step. If you want to read what I have to say, realizing I'm far far far past the point of being 'fair to everyone involved,' then by all means click through and read it. If you're here for webcomics commentary or slice of life or whatever, and you just don't want to read yet another person talking about the Gulf Coast, then you don't have to. I won't be offended.

But I also can't be silent in this forum. Not any more. Not and still look at myself in the mirror. So even if no one actually reads this essay, I need to write it. I need to say it. I need to go on record as clearly as I humanly can.

Thanks, all. Click on the "more" link to see the essay. If you're on an RSS feed, click on the actual link to the entry to read it on Websnark.

Peace.

We as a nation are shocked and outraged. We are shocked and outraged at a government whose response to nigh-unprecedented disaster has been lackadaisical, whose response to the untold suffering of tens or hundreds of thousands, and the death of tens of thousands in estimate, has been slow and halting at best. A response whose lack of will and accountability has been criminal through all of this. I don't know a better word to use -- the levels of neglect and unconcern by leaders who have sworn an oath, who have specifically taken on the responsibilities to protect, comfort and aid us in our time of need go far beyond incompetence and into the willful abrogation of those responsibilities. There should be lawsuits of unprecedented scope against our national government in the months to come.

And it is increasingly obvious that no one in a position to care, does care.

Hilary Rodham Clinton -- a contentious figure in her own right -- went on the record some time ago about the current administration. "It's very hard to stop people who have no shame about what they're doing," she said. "It is very hard to stop people who have never been acquainted with the truth." And this is true, of course. And it is an increasingly apt description. And in the weeks and months to come, we will see a systemic distortion of events repeated over, and over, and over again, in all the familiar outlets, recasting these last few weeks. Administration officials and pundits will have their talking points and they will go on the familiar television programs and they will say a very clear message in very clear language over and over again: it wasn't our fault. We did everything right. It was an act of God, and the Democrats in State and Local Government didn't act when they had to. This is how they deal with catastrophic failures in response.

And it might well work for them. It has before. When you have absolutely no shame... when you absolutely feel no remorse... then you can continually play on peoples' natural tendency to think the best of you. And when they begin to think the best of you, they'll listen to whatever mean-ass things you say about those you want to blame.

Don't believe me? Remember, George W. Bush's Vietnam war record was shocking. Shocking. John Kerry's Vietnam war record involved volunteering multiple times for multiple missions and being shot multiple times. And on election day, Kerry's Vietnam record was a negative and George Bush's wasn't.

But the abject, catastrophic failures of our national government are simply not in doubt right now. They're simply not in doubt. We have seen Federal responses to natural disasters before. We have seen Nixon respond to Hurricane Camille. We have seen George Herbert Walker Bush respond to Andrew. Both Republicans, I would add -- but when there was a disaster, they mobilized immediately. When there was advance warning, the resources to save and secure life were prepared before it hit and moved in immediately afterward. When FEMA was a cabinet level department before the days of the Department of Homeland Security, they were empowered during times of disaster to order any resources they needed from any Federal department.

The difference now? We are at war against an enemy who specifically attacks us without warning.

That's right. We are in a war against terrorists who if they get a chance will attack us with horrible weapons without warning.

We had warning with Katrina. We had loud and clear warnings. The administration, following the obvious failure to respond to the crisis, said that there was no way to predict that the levees would fail. That right there was clear and unmitigated bullshit. I know this because I watched the News on Saturday and Sunday, and every last news program went through the scenarios of what would happen to New Orleans should the levees fail, and the fact that the levees weren't rated to this level of hurricane. When the levees did fail, there was no sense of surprise -- just the impeding sense of horror that the worst case scenario did come true.

I didn't much care that George Bush didn't cut his vacation short and return to Washington, by the by. I really didn't. The mechanisms of government follow the President. Sure, I thought that by keeping his schedule of leisure activities he came across as mind-numbingly callous to the suffering in his own nation, but I didn't figure that callousness would abate by his flying to Washington and sitting in the White House instead of his ranch, so whatever.

But when he flew down, to "take a first hand look," after being asked not to come by the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans, who didn't want to take time away from efforts to save people's lives to provide Presidential Security in a city where law and order were washed away in a tide of poisonous and infected water, and he ignored them so he could get his photo opportunities and timed the arrival of Federal troops to coincide with his visit, I knew we had gone beyond callousness and into a disconnection from reality. When George Bush was there, no relief flights were allowed to put food and water into the hands of the suffering, out of concerns for security. When George Bush was there, rescues were put on hold out of concerns for security.

It is entirely possible that people died because George Bush had to begin salvaging his public image.

This has been a recurring theme, by the by. Laura Bush visited the Astrodome to get photographed handing out supplies to refugees. But while she was there, Red Cross operations were suspended. She got her photo op while people were told to wait before seeing a doctor. Nice pictures, Madam First Lady. Hope no one died while they were taken.

Do I sound bitter? I am. I'm astoundingly bitter. Because this is a government that has wholly defined itself by its response to national tragedy and international threat, and when we actually had a disaster, they weren't just ill-prepared, they clearly didn't care. Kayne West broke away from his script on NBC to declare that "George Bush doesn't care about black people," and that's clearly true. But it doesn't go far enough. I'm not wealthy by any stretch, but I live a comfortable life and I have a good number of toys. I'm solidly middle class. And I'm white and was raised Protestant. But if New Hampshire were the disaster area instead of Louisiana, George Bush -- and his government -- wouldn't have responded to save my life any more than he did their lives.

And the lie of Red State/Blue State has finally been abjectly exposed. Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama were all solidly red, but when disaster struck the response was anemic. It's not that Bush only cares about his supporters. It's that Bush doesn't care... well, about anyone.

The Port of New Orleans is devastated. The economic repercussions have already been tremendous, and they're only going to get worse. And our enemies have seen what has happened and how terrible our response has been. They have seen how unprepared we were when we had days of notice. They have seen how sluggish our response was forty-eight hours after the levees failed. They now know that if they manage to get a nuclear weapon into the middle container of a container ship, set to go off at dock, they could take out another one of our ports and we wouldn't be ready to contain the disaster as well as we were able to response to 9/11.

I need to repeat that.

The mechanisms of response to a disaster are worse now than they were on 9/11! The billions of dollars spent, the terror alerts, the injunctions to get duct tape, the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security... all of these things have been done in the name of improving our security and when the time came we were unable to leverage a prepared response to a two hundred mile long hurricane we had days of warning about.

There's a reason that Geraldo Rivera -- Geraldo fucking Rivera -- was sobbing on national television, begging our government to allow the refugees in the convention center to cross a bridge and get to where there's power and water. There's a reason the cable news networks -- which have given George Bush and his administration five solid years of bye during some of the darkest moments in American industry -- have finally started to say what the fuck is going on here!

We're dying here. Americans are dying here. We have a refugee population now that potentially exceeds the population of my home state of Maine. And the response our government has had to that disaster has been halting and slow and unconcerned.

"George Bush doesn't care about black people." Yeah, no shit. He doesn't care about white people either. In fact, the one population we know he cares about in all this is Haliburton. Fucking Haliburton. They have a half-billion dollar government contract out of the disaster.

So, we know Dick Cheney responded quickly, at least.

Over the next several months, the spin machine will begin. The blame machine will begin. And for all I know it'll work, and the Republicans will overwhelmingly take the midyear elections, and they will pass another ten pieces of legislation that strip us of our rights and centralize authority in the hands of the Federal Government "to better protect us in the event of another Katrina." But for right now, for today, the American people who voted for George Bush and the American people who didn't vote for George Bush are united in shock and horror and a sickness that reaches into their very souls. And some are bitter, like I am. And others are just numb, staring at the government that ran on the platform of keeping us safe, and wanting to know why this happened.

And no one can tell them, because there's no real answer to that question. It just wasn't a priority at the time.

God help us all.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:43 AM | Comments (94)

September 5, 2005

Eric: Also? There is a psionic midget. I'm just saying.

A couple of people have written to me about my recent City of Heroes comic book post. Not the post on the recent video game update, mind. The post talking about Troy Hickman's first issue of the comic book. The people who wrote to me noticed that I put a lot of blame at the rather... depressive tone of the first three issues at Mark Waid's feet, but failed to do the same with Troy Hickman -- instead, I seemed to put the bulk of concern on Cryptic itself.

This is true. And it's true for a couple of reasons. The Waid issues seemed to follow a trend from other Waid materials, and the tone was so radically different than the earlier City of Heroes comic that it seemed to be Waid's influence primarily. However, the continuity of depressing 'role models' among the Freedom Phalanx seemed to take the onus off of Waid. And as for Hickman?

Hickman gets it. I know this, because I've read Common Grounds.

Common Grounds was an anthology series. It didn't really feature a single hero or hero team, so much as it featured a recurring setting which told several... well, largely non-violent stories about the kinds of people who became superheroes and supervillains. The hook was a chain of coffee shops and donut stores that seem like a cross between Dunkin Donuts and Tim Hortons (the donuts and the like reminds me of Dunkin D's, but the culture surrounding the shops reminds me of the sense of Canadian pride and community that surrounds the Canadian chain). These coffee shops were neutral ground, where heroes and villains could come in, sit down, drink coffee, eat donuts, relax and shoot the shit with each other. Highly powered bouncers were on staff to prevent fights from breaking out.

It's a relatively high concept, and it's the kind of coffee shop that a city like Paragon City would actually need -- after all, there are hundreds of superheroes running around every neighborhood in the city, not to mention roving packs of villains. It's almost certain they would need a place to kick back, relax and have a cruller or three.

Now, long time readers know I'm not particularly happy with the state of comic book super heroes. In a world where the Justice League is stealing plot points from the Gruenwald Squadron Supreme, where ex-wives of super heroes are killing off wives of other super heroes to win their man back, where rape and hate are par for the course and where the entirety of the Giffen/DeMatteis is subverted into a plot by normal humans (and murderers) to make super heroes subjects of ridicule, it seems to me that the core idea that super heroes are supposed to be heroes, idols for millions, and adventure stories which adults and children alike can enjoy has been totally lost. Many people have highlighted the watershed events of the eighties -- Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, Miracleman, and even Crisis on Infinite Earths have led an increasingly post-modern and adult take in the nineties and the twenty-first century (including such clear successes as Marvels and Sandman) which, while yielding some great stories (as well as a ton of crap) also have meant that super heroes aren't simply 'not just for kids any more,' they're not for kids at all, these days. In particular -- the core concepts of the super hero... principles of justice, of honor, of truth, and of heroism for its own sake... are seen increasingly as either quaint or suspect. There must be something really going on.

Well, Common Grounds certainly counts as acting in this post modern tradition. The stories don't accept superheroes on face value. (It reminds me in a lot of ways of Astro City, but that's a different essay.) And yet, even cloaked in sophisticated storytelling... the stories all proceed from the core assumption that being a super hero is a positive thing.

Some of the stories are funny -- detailing a very human face among the heroes. Speaking as a fat guy who's struggling to get less fat, I found the Superheavyweights wonderful. Others are darker, but the dark stories never subvert the heroic principle. Sometimes, a person breaks under the strain. Not to spoil folks who haven't read it, but the story of a former hero who couldn't go on after someone died on his watch resonated hard -- because it was the kind of thing that would have been a given in the 70's, and it's the kind of thing that no modern hero thinks about in the twenty-first century. You have Superman and Batman who won't kill, but there are days they feel like they're it, and they're always seen as quaint because of it.

Hickman remembers the power of a hero who just wants to do the right thing.

There are two stories in the collection that contrast with the City of Heroes comic in question. One is a patriotic hero having to defend her values and choices to people who feel America has let them down, which compares to Statesman's general sense of fatigue. The difference was, even though American Pi -- who did in fact pull herself out of the gutter to become a heroine -- had her faith waver, she never let it go. Statesman one doesn't get the sense has that faith to begin with. And even as Sister Psyche goes through her laundry list of the ways she hates her life and powers, we compare that to Speeding Bullet, whose own life and powers is pretty old crappy. And yet through it all, the one thing that makes it work, the one thing that keeps him going is the fact that he helps people.

Troy Hickman gets it.

I could mention Charm and Strangeness and their discovery, and what it means to them and why it affects them as powerfully as it does. Or I could mention the bathroom talk, where even the villain mentions that hey -- he doesn't want to destroy the economy. Or the sheer joy that is Flamebelle's debut. But the point threatens to become redundant. While this story is firmly in the twenty-first century, it harkens back to Silver and Golden Age beliefs and attitudes without sacrificing the story that's being told. Grim and grittiness is acknowledged satirically if at all.

In a way, it strives to be as genre expanding -- as deconstructionist -- as Watchmen was in its time. But Watchmen, as Moore later acknowledged, did so destructively. Common Grounds, while not as groundbreaking a work, deconstructs the myth while also celebrating it.

This is why I don't blame Troy Hickman for the dour, bitter, cynical ultimate heroes of City of Heroes. Because Troy Hickman gets it. And the old man Statesman and Sister Psyche meet (and fail) in the comic? He gets it too.

So. I'm not a fan of the Freedom Phalanx, but as I've already promised in the comments of my last snark on the comic, I will read the rest of Hickman's run with an open mind. Because if Statesman and the rest aren't careful, he might sneak superheroic ideals into the comic when they least expect it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:26 PM | Comments (19)

September 3, 2005

Eric: 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: 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)

August 30, 2005

Eric: 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)

August 22, 2005

Eric: The razor blade in the masthead just makes the site complete.

A clever name for a website, tying it back into the website's mission, is a difficult thing in today's day and age. I lucked out with "Websnark.com," for example. As I said over the weekend, I assumed someone would already have taken it. However, even as evocative as Websnark is as a name -- and I do appreciate it -- it's somewhat misleading. We're not snide first and critical second, we're critics and editorialists and essayists first and snide second or third at the most.

So, when I ran into Christopher Wright's Eviscerati.org, I was impressed, both at how intensely evocative the title is, and how well it ties back into what he's trying to do.

Wright is rightfully best known for Help Desk, a long standing webcomics gadfly that's been one of the best satires of Microsoft I've run across. Well, Wright is bringing his savage wit and focus to Eviscerati.org, now, and I can see I'm going to be a regular reader. The title is a conflation of the verb "eviscerate" and the neologism digirati, and stands for those cognoscenti who have seen the great golden promise of the web, then seen the execution of that promise by snake oil salesmen and Amazon.com, and grown surly. From his site's mission statement:

So youÌre looking for the soft underbelly of this so-called ÏenlightenedÓ age, and youÌve got a very sharp stick. While the white hats are out there finding ways around onerous encryption restrictions, and doing everything they can to defeat the technical impediments to our freedom, you are out there trying to knock down the social ones. I know you guys (and ladies) and I salute you. You are not the digerati Û those shysters, those prophets of a false god called Ïcomputing.Ó You are the eviscerati, and you will not rest until every stupid idea put forth by corporate stooges, political flaks and self-important twits has been exposed as empty, meaningless drivel. And youÌll do it in the most painful, scathing, and sarcastic way possible, because you understand that weÌve been so beaten down by this idiotic culture that the only sensation that will get past our defenses is the sweet mixture of irony and pain.

Shine on, crazy dreamer. Shine on.

I'm vaguely surprised he hasn't elected to slap a Creative Commons license on his work, but that's as may be. Wright knows his subject and knows his philosophy and he's unafraid to be mean when they come in conflict, and that's worth reading right there.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:28 PM | Comments (6)

August 20, 2005

Eric: I promise to do this just once a year.

On August 20, 2004, things were in a state of flux for me.

That should be somewhat obvious, right? I mean, last year was a year of unmitigated change for me. In March of 2004 I had my gastric bypass, which included over three weeks of recovery, followed by a month or so where I had to ask friends over to pick boxes up off the floor for me, because I was on severe restriction for lifting things, lest I herniate the incision. The incision today doesn't seem to be in any danger of herniating -- it is a long, pink thing on my stomach that makes it look like I was knifed in a well choreographed scene from West Side Story.

In May of 2004, I agreed to leave my position of 6 years and accept a different one at the same school. I was moving away from Management, and back deeper into technology. In part, I hoped to preserve my sanity. The job I had before was miserable, with stress no human being could endure, from sources political and through lack of crucial support in necessary areas. More than once, while I had it, I considered suicide. But I never did get around to that.

The new job, systems administration and IT, had all the bits I liked from the old job without the miseries, and I found my moods vastly improving. I also found that I had more time -- I wasn't bringing my job home with me so often. I wasn't stressing. The job wasn't filling every minute of the day. And as a result, I had a yen to write more.

Writing is what I do. It's how I keep on an even keel. At those low points I mentioned above? I could barely write. The words wouldn't come. It wasn't a block -- it was a lack of willingness to write. When I could work up the gumption, I'd play City of Heroes but that was about it. Now, freed from the pressure cooker, I found my spirits rising, my natural optimism flowing... things seemed... well, okay. And so I started writing.

Primarily, I worked on a rather ambitious novel I'd been working on for years, called Theftworld. I still work on it, though it takes exactly the right mindset. I'm not sure when it'll be done, but when it is I suspect it'll be the novel that builds my reputation in SF. But I have a love of the essay form. When I had my Online Journal, it swiftly became a series of essays about life and about me. My Livejournal, on the other hand, had swiftly become a long series of memes and... well, highlights of webcomics. "Look!" I would say. "This is a funny picture of a dog! Laugh at the funny picture of a dog!"

So... it occurred to me that I had a Livejournal, which meant I had a venue for serious essay writing. But it was being cluttered with the detritus of the web. I mean, honestly, Memes? And while webcomics weren't detritus, the stuff I was writing wasn't exactly in depth criticism. I had no idea I had that level of criticism in me.

So. I decided on three courses of action. 1) I would reactivate my online journal, this time using Movable Type as an engine (in the old days, everything was uploaded by hand. I don't recommend this). In this journal, I would write essays of substance. 2) I would have my Livejournal, where I would keep the day to day stuff of my life, of interest only to me and a few of my friends. 3) I would have a third blog -- one devoted to the crap I found on the web and the amusing pictures of dogs I found. The least significant of the three, if you will.

That one I originally was going to call 'stripping-the-web.com,' off the old Bloom County 'stripper' pun. At the moment I was getting ready to register the site, however, I thought "well, why not try websnark. It's certainly been taken, but who knows? What the Hell?"

It hadn't been taken. So here we are.

---

The Mission Statement, posted August 20, 2004

Do we really need another commentary blog on the web? I mean, honestly. How many of these are we supposed to accept, willy nilly? And who actually says willy-nilly in casual conversation? Or is that getting off the subject.

Why are we here?

It's more than the core of Western Philosophy going back to the Greeks as refined through Augustine and briefly sidetracked through the Asharites who figured we can't know the answer anyway so why ask the question? It's a justification for effort: the effort I put into creating websnark.com, and the effort you put into reading it.

Well, I've always been snarky and opinionated. My tribal totem is the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons (though a friend always claimed my avatar should be the Sea Captain. I don't know why. He also thought I was most like Nate from Overboard. I'm generally polite, though. An outlet where the ground rules state explicitly I'm being an opinionated bastard can only be a good thing for my psyche.

And besides, like a lot of websurfers ("surf" the "web." Is that hopelessly 90's or what? Should we have an updated phrase for the 21st century? Like "powerslacking?") I consume an absurd amount of web content every day. I read over sixty comic strips on the web. I read news sites and commentary sites and livejournals and weblogs. We live in an era where your office computer and your living room television have exactly the same capacity to entertain, with only differences in production values.

Looking back over my Livejournal for the past couple of years, I realize the ratio of content (defined as me bitching about my life, which is what you do in a Livejournal. It's in the terms of service) to "hey, look at this funny picture of a drawn dog" posts is pretty lame.

So. Why not put the dog pictures into their own shiny website, complete with automated systems for posting and automated comment systems so you, the reader, can agree that the picture of the drawn dog is in fact funny.

That kind of answers why I'm here and what I'm doing. But it doesn't really get into why you're here and what you're doing.

I have no answer for that. I mean, I don't think you're my mom, who wouldn't be reading this garbage anyway.

Whatever. Thanks for coming.

---

So. 365 days of writing. Well, I didn't post on every single day (though I went a very long time when I did), and after Wednesday came on board a good chunk of the writing is hers, but still. Standing from the vantage point of a year following, I'm able to look at the whole.

Let's talk statistics. This specific post is the eight hundred and eighty-eighth post on Websnark. The previous eight hundred and eighty seven posts have accrued nine thousand, seven hundred and thirty six comments. Just looking at text without any graphics at all, the writing for Websnark comes to eight point five megabytes. That constitutes one million, four hundred and ninty-six thousand, six hundred and forty-one words, not counting the words in this particular snark. So, call it one point five million words. Broken into standard typewritten pages, that becomes roughly five thousand, nine hundred and eighty seven pages of writing. Or, an average of about 16 and a half pages a day.

Wow. Not bad for the blog I wasn't going to actually care about, huh?

The thing is, I found the format fascinating, right from the get go. I was cheerful about it, and interested in it... and there wasn't much to say about my life in the livejournal and I had no "essays of substance" to put into the journal, and after a little while I discovered that I was writing essays of substance. They were just happening over here.

My expectations for Websnark were, at best, modest. I thought some of my friends would read it. Maybe my father. I figured I'd mention it in a couple of places, and maybe I'd get some links out of the deal.

The most people who ever showed up in one day? 213,000 people (by Unique IP numbers). That was from a Penny Arcade link. On average, we vary between 30 and 54 thousand folks these days. Links from the major sites always spike those numbers up. On the whole, the readership is stable, otherwise. Possibly trending downward. I've maintained for a while that we've found the audience we're going to find, and readership is only going to decline from here.

The only advertising I've ever done for Websnark is on Comixpedia, and that was because it was part of my compensation package for writing a column for them. When Gossamer Commons came out, I switched my banner ads for that.

The entire population of my home town could be reading Websnark, stop reading tomorrow, and I would never even notice the difference.

Where did everybody come from? I get asked that. "How'd you build your audience?"

Fuck if I know.

I know the two points it started from, however. The two links that were the difference between keeping a readership in the two figures and hitting five figures as a matter of course, a year later.

The first is Scott Kurtz. When I posted one of the dumber things I've ever done -- the PvP Update Pool (based on the premise that someone who made sure there was a comic strip up each and every day should also... I dunno, do it by a stupid timeclock or something), my friend Mason sent the link to Scott Kurtz. He was amused -- thank Christ -- and posted it to his forum. I actually said "yes, it's just a joke. Heh. Um... heh," there in the forum. The forum regulars regarded me as... well, like a nine year old kid who just shouted "Doodie" in church, expecting everyone to laugh.

However, Kurtz apparently took the time to read more stuff. And he happened to read, a couple of days later, the snark that was probably the best one I had done to that point -- a comparison of Miranda and Jade from PvP, done on August 26, less than one week into the life of Websnark.

This particular snark was also significant because it referenced Geek Women -- Your Little Standards Compliant Fantasy, which was an excellent Comixpedia article. One that probably informed the development of what Websnark turned into as much as anything.

That essay's writer? One Wednesday White. Who to my knowledge first became aware of Websnark because of that link.

Scott Kurtz read that particular snark... in the same day he got savaged (unfairly, in my opinion) in a book review that was less about the quality of Kurtz's compilation and more about how pissed the reviewer was that Kurtz poked fun at alternative comics in it. So he was feeling pretty low, and here was an essay that not only seemed to like PvP, but also put some thought into it. It addressed characterization issues and the like. It... well, treated the medium with a certain amount of respect.

That made Kurtz feel better in a day when he was feeling pretty bad.

So he linked to it. On his front page. Just briefly. "Check out Websnark's detailed deconstruction of PvP and the character development of Miranda and Jade." (The literary geek in me wishes to point out it's actually a Compare-and-Contrast essay with a little Mythopoetic criticism thrown in for good measure, not any sort of deconstructionism. But no one but me cares about that.)

And thousands upon thousands of people followed that link.

It's safe to say that that moment changed my life.

---

From PvP's Blog, posted October 12, 2004. Not the same thing I mentioned above. But it made me feel good so I want to reprint it here. Used without permission, so Kurtz gets to beat me up if he wants.

Websnark gets me.Everytime I get a high concept for the strip, I am always fearful that it will be lost on my audience. It's difficult sometimes because I have those pure moments, when all the pistons are firing and I really come up with something I feel to be inspired...then people email me because they don't get it.

But websnark gets me. His recent breakdown of Miranda was dead on the mark, and now he's exposed the thin veil covering my villain, Max Powers.

If you've ever wondered "Why does everyone hate Max? What did he ever do to the PvP gang?" You need to read websnark's latest article.

Don't think it's a Kurtz love-fest over there, however. He's critical of me where appropriate. I always say that I'm not as cool, nor as much of an ass as those on the net would indicate I am. Websnark has me nailed.

---

The other link that really changed Websnark -- and changed my own views about it -- didn't bring the same avalanche of short term readers that Scott Kurtz's did. However, it had at least as profound an impact on the site, and what Websnark is today. It certainly shaped what I did with the site. And it certainly blew my mind.

It came from Lore Sjñberg, the brilliant mind behind the Book of Ratings, the Slumbering Lungfish, Lore Brand Comics and one half of the now defunct but still hysterical Brunching Shuttlecocks. Sjñberg is one of those people you just end up instantly respecting, because he's so naturally, effortlessly funny. And he attracts a highly discriminating, highly amused crowd.

His link to me included some of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me. I'll quote some of them here, because... well, it's a retrospective. That's what we do. That's what we're supposed to do.

One thing I like about Eric Burns is that he's firm with his criticisms, but he's enthusiastic with his praises. The Web as a whole came of age in the Ironic Nineties, and it still retains a lot of that "must be critical to be cool" aura. With a name like "Websnark," you'd expect endless essays on how this comic or that just feeds pabulum to the masses and the only comic worth reading is something in a corner of Keenspace that nobody else likes -- or at least it used to be worth reading, back before the author sold out.

But no, instead of a bitchy aesthete, Burns comes across as a tough-but-fair coach or English teacher, the sort you see in TV movies. When you cross him, he's livid, but he's not just being livid to score cool points. He's livid because he cares, and when a comic does something right, you can tell how thrilled he is to be here, now, at this point in history, when strip comics are moving into new territory.

That means a lot to me. (And wasn't the first comment to make me wonder if calling this blog 'websnark' was perhaps not a good idea, since I don't in fact tend to be snide. More than one person has avoided the site because they've assumed it would be chock full of negativity.) Since reading that, I've striven -- not always successfully -- to live up to it, as well. I want to be the tough-but-fair English teacher, thrilled when someone does something great, but dedicated to the idea that we all can do our best, damn it.

It's not up to me to say whether or not I've succeeded in that, by the way. Nor is that necessarily what Wednesday seeks to do with her part of this whole affair. But it's in the back of my head when I'm snarking something. So take that for what it's worth.

When Sjñberg linked me, it didn't cause an avalanche of readers to come to my site. However, it did cause two discrete groups of readers to take notice. One was a certain kind of cartoonist -- Lore Sjñberg is one of those folks that webcartoonists read for the same reason the rest of us read... well, webcomics. And that (along with the Kurtz link) got webcartoonists talking about Websnark, linking to Websnark, and visiting Websnark.

The other thing Sjñberg attracted to the site -- more than Kurtz's link did -- was the kind of people who commented on snarks. Who did so intelligently and humorously and with a strong critical facility. The kind of folks more than willing to call bullshit on me, but do so in a way that made me think "wait -- this is bullshit.'

In short... Kurtz gave me an initial audience. Sjñberg gave me an initial community.

And the commenters on Websnark full on rock. There's a dedicated cadre of folks who clearly love the site, love what Weds and I do, but never feel like they have to agree with us just to agree with us. No, they disagree. They tear into us. They make fun of us where necessary. But they do it intelligently. They do it creatively. They do it well. I love them all. I really do. If you ever wonder how to absolutely make Weds's or my day? Comment on something we wrote. It blows our tiny little minds.

The initial audience and community that formed out of PvP and Slumbering Lungfish's links had one distinguishing characteristic, by the by. There were some fans of webcomics who stayed around. There were some fans of the writing who stayed around. But a surprisingly large number of webcartoonists started regularly reading. This surprised me. This surprised me a lot. And it made me realize that there weren't that many people out there doing what I was doing -- offering up critiques of the medium and discussions of the individual executions.

I had my lexicon -- which always was more based on me liking to use metaphors than anything else. Cerebus Syndrome. First and Ten. You Had Me and You Lost Me. And so on, and so forth. And I started seeing those references elsewhere. And more links began showing up. More people started pointing us out. More people started talking about Websnark. Joey Manley said, and I quote, "Websnark.com is the talk of webcomicsland right now. Everybody whoÌs anybody (yes, IÌm an elitist Ò and so are you, actually) is reading it." Things began to really catch on fast. Readership began to swell.

And... and this was a new thing for me... people started knowing my name. I go to cons, and people show up to see me. I had a beautiful, beautiful girl -- an artist, as it turns out -- go to a panel I was part of at Arisia, learn it was the Websnark guy, and squeal with joy.

Squeal with joy.

If you think I was unused to beautiful women squealing when they saw me before this point, you're absolutely right. I had another girl at that con -- also beautiful -- ask me excitedly if I could say hi to her sister in Websnark. So, you know, I did. When I went to the Dumbrella Meet and Greet, Phillip Karlsson recognized me before I recognized him. Phillip Karlsson, of Goats, knew who I was. So did Jon Rosenberg.

That still gets me star struck, by the way. I try not to name drop, but this is an anniversary, so let me throw out some of the people I've had contact with -- in some cases gotten to know, in other cases just gotten comments or messages from, and everything in between -- over the past year: Aeire, John Allison, Darren Bleuel, T Campbell, Maritza Campos, Mitch Clem, Kelly J. Cooper, D.J. Coffman, Chris Crosby, Alexander Danner, Greg Dean, Johanna Draper Carlson, Kaja Foglio, Paul Gadzikowski, Shaenon Garrity, William George, Ghastly, Amber "Glych" Greenlee, Casey Grimm, Brad J. Guigar, Lea Hernandez, Greg Holkan, Steve Jackson (who knew of me before then, but still. Dude), Jeph Jacques, Jerry Holkins, Phillip Karlsson, Dave Kellett, Mike Krahulik, Scott Kurtz, Josh Lesnick, Joey Manley, Scott McCloud, Mckenzee, Randy Milholland (who knew of me before then, thanks to Superguy, but still), Eric Milliken, Meghann Quinn, Jon Rosenberg, Jeffrey Rowland, Brandon Sonderegger, Paul Southworth, Tom Spurgeon, R. Stevens, Bob Stevenson, Kristofer Straub, Paul Taylor, Ping Teo, Steve Troop, John Troutman, Ursula Vernon, Andy Weir, David Willis, Christopher B. Wright, and everyone else who I should have namedropped up there but forgot -- it's not you, it's me.

I should point out, not all the people in that list like Websnark or like me. That isn't a list of endorsements by them. That's a list of the names who, when I look at, make me say "holy Fuck, [X] has heard of me?"

Some of the folks up there, I've gotten privileged to know better than others. DJ Coffman and I have had some spirited e-mail exchanges. The same with William G and I. I've spoken and written back and forth several times with Joey Manley (and I pay him to host Gossamer Commons, and very likely will be moving Websnark itself to his servers in the next year, for financial reasons and because I like him). I've gotten to serve on panels with and learn to really appreciate Alexander Danner and Kelly J. Cooper (the latter I've had some time to socialize with). I've had dinner several times with Randy Milholland. I've had extended e-mail and other conversations with Shaenon Garrity -- who I also got to tromp all over big chunks of San Francisco with, and who gave me some of the coolest things I've ever been given. I've been able to Skype-talk with Scott Kurtz several times -- in fact, when he was being interviewed for Digital Strips, he actually thought to yank me into it. I mean, wow. And so on, and so forth. Yeesh, what a suckup.

But as blown away as I am by the above, you catch yourself looking at the people who haven't linked you, or commented, or acknowledge you. And it's a list that never grows smaller. You get linked by Scott Kurtz, and you think "how come Penny-Arcade never linked me?" You get linked by Penny-Arcade, and think "why hasn't Scott McCloud ever linked me?" You get linked by Scott McCloud, and you wonder about Boing Boing. Or Mark Evanier. Or Peter David. Or Wil Wheaton. Or Slashdot. Or CNN. Or the BBC. Or the Presidential State of the Union. And what's a guy got to do to get Pete Abrams to notice him, anyway?!?!

It's unending. It's a treadmill. It's a mug's game. In the end, you have to accept -- as impossible as it is -- that not everyone's going to notice you. And you have to get to the point where you no longer care. It's wild and fantastic when someone you know and respect says something -- agreeing or disagreeing -- with something you wrote. You have to take that for the compliment it is and move on, and not worry about the people who don't acknowledge you.

Besides, as wild as all of the above is... it's nothing compared to the commenters.

God, so many commenters. I'd try to list all of the ones that mean so much to me, who've said or acknowledged or disagreed or made this place what it is. But it's so easy to forget people. There have been hundreds of commenters. How do I avoid forgetting someone basic? Start throwing names out (Kate Sith, Shadowydreamer, Larksilver, Spatchcock, gwalla) and you start remembering all the ones you've forgotten (whoa, wait -- what about PatMan, Lucastd, Darkstar and miyaa? Dude! You forgot SeanH! And JackSlack! You forgot Robert Hutchinson! Jesus -- you forgot John Bankert! You slept on his floor for a summer, you moron! And Frank, Lisa, Seanna, Becki and Karen! And Mason! And what about all the folks who were heavy commenters in the beginning, but moved on? Huh? Centurion13, say! What about Flit? Flit hasn't commented for a while, but-- yeesh, man, where's EDG? Where's Robotech_Master? Where's Dave Van Domelen? Or Snowspinner, or TRPeal! Or Forsytheferret, or or or or... Yeeesh.)

You get the point -- and if I didn't mention you and you think I should have? That's because I should have. There's just so many names. So many people. And it's that foundation that's built this whole thing up.

There's been low points. Bad points. Missteps. Mistakes. Drama. (Oh Christ, has there been drama.) There have been times I've been ready to close the site down, and times when I've kept the right attitude. But we've also made a difference. We've had influence. We've had amazing things happen.

It's why Wednesday White is here. We got to be friends, and she offered to post something for me once, and from there I gave her the keys. And she's an equal partner in this now. I don't just up and do things without bouncing them off her. She keeps me level. And she helps me deal with Internet Fame, which is still an odd thing to me. (Wednesday -- who will kill me for bringing this up -- knows from Internet fame. When the Web was still a newborn babe, struggling to find itself, and the King of the Online World was Usenet, Wednesday actually had Usenet groups devoted to her fandom. When I mentioned her to my old guard friends and cohorts, they all knew who she was, knew her from way back, knew she rocked. Which of course she does.)

And all of this got me a Webcomic. Greg Holkan -- whose Nemesis is fantastic, came on board with me to help launch and create Gossamer Commons. And we've really hit a stride in chapter two. The press on it's been fantastic. The pacing has ramped up. Life is good. Really, really good.

And, more to the point, Websnark helped spawn the dialogue.

The dialogue is all important in art. It's criticism -- in the truest sense of the word. The understanding and analysis of what is there. The placing of art within the cosm of its fellows. The distillation and discovery of new truths from interpretation. I'm not going to claim to be the first webcomics critic, nor anywhere near the best, but through luck and timing I managed to become one of the better known. It got me two gigs that mean the world to me -- writing for Comixpedia, and contributing to the Webcomics Examiner -- and it's spawned others trying to do the same thing. Tangents, by Robert Howard. I'm Just Saying, by Phil Khan. Journey Into History (and the HB Comic Blog) by Bob Stevenson. Webcomic Finds by Ping Teo. The Digital Strips Blog and Podcast, by Zampson and Daku. And many, many others.

I'm not saying I'm the reason those guys are doing what they're doing. I'm not saying Websnark by Burns and White was necessary for all those other voices. But we clearly had an impact. We clearly caused some folks to read what we wrote and say "wait a second -- I can do that!" And that's monumental. That's massive. That is good for comics in general. That is good for webcomics in particular. The dialogue improves everything. And if my making this blog a year ago helped that... well, that's about as fine a thing as I could hope for.

There's so much else to talk about. So much more to say. So much more to hope for. And there's the future. I don't expect our readership to grow, but I also think we're going to be around for a good long time. I've gone from a "I can't see why I'd ever sell merchandise" position to actively selling tee shirts (and the Snarky shirt should be up for sale tomorrow, just like the Strunk and White shirts should be in from the printer next week, in time to be shipped out to all the good people of the land.)

Oh, that reminds me -- I haven't talked about Snarky -- Ursula Vernon's little Snarkasaurus, created when I asked for a self-caricature for my Comixpedia column (Ursula figured she hadn't seen me, so I might be a comic-gnawing dinosaur), which became the mascot for the site. Or the Snarkoleptics -- created by Mckenzee after he coined the term to convince me I actually had a fandom. However, the Snarkoleptics have grown and flourished as a more general Webcomics community, devoted more to the dialogue than to me. And that's astoundingly cool.

There's so much I haven't talked about. So many bits of evolution, so many epiphanies I've had over the past year. I haven't discussed You Had Me, and You Lost Me, and the very different reactions that Fred Gallagher, Jeff Darlington and David Willis had to those essays. I haven't talked about the Shortbreads. Or the astounding feeling I got when I saw one quoted in a Diamond solicitation. Or the overall sense of failure I took away from them.

I haven't talked about so much that there remains to talk about. Even though I want to. There's too much to distill. Too much to quote. Too many people to thank. I haven't talked about my family's take, or how stunned I was when my sister started reading Websnark and my father started reading Gossamer Commons. I haven't talked nearly enough about Wednesday.

Wednesday.

Yeah.

It's been a phenomenal, exciting, frightening, wonderful year. I haven't got the words to express my thanks to everyone, to all of you reading this. I'm astounded at how far we've come. I'm astounded at how big this became. I'm astounded that you guys haven't figured out I'm a hack from New Hampshire with a big mouth.

But I'm also proud. I'm so very, very proud.

Thanks, everyone.

And in case you're wondering? This is post 888. It is 5,205 words long. Which means our collective word count, as of the moment I hit "submit," will be 1,501,846. In one year.

Dude.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:24 AM | Comments (109)

August 17, 2005

Eric: Wow. I get to trash the New York Times. And I'm not even a conservative.

So, the New York Times has a piece on webcomics. And the best thing we can say about the article is nowhere in it were the words "Pow, Zap, Sock! Comics Go Onto The Web!" Don't laugh -- the last serious, in depth piece on webcomics I saw in a mainstream newspaper (well, on the mainstream newspaper's site) was on USA Today, and it ended -- coverage of the Small Press Expo, if I remember correctly -- with an interactive question. "WHAT SUPERHERO WOULD YOU BE! Write us at...."

However, Sarah Boxer's article is pretty poor, all told. Not because her conclusion is necessarily wrong or her thesis is bad. No, it comes down to this: Boxer's research would barely qualify for a Freshman Comp essay, much less a piece of journalism in a newspaper of record. She seems to have drawn her information off of several Comics Journal articles, read Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics, and looked at the Web Cartoonists Choice Awards.

Well, at least she dipped her toe into webcomics before declaring it a failed experiment.

Her conclusions are threefold -- one, that infinite canvas doesn't seem to be a revolution. (Which is no big shock.) Two, that the better Flash gets, the more the resulting Flash Comics resemble animation instead of comic art. (Also true.) And three, there's no good way to make money on the web -- why, people are actually selling subscriptions.

Yeah.

And she quotes Gary Groth a lot. Which is like trying to talk seriously about Evolution versus Intelligent Design, and quoting a lot of William Dembski in the process.

Not that I really expect she spoke to Gary Groth (though she quotes him as though she had). The Fantagraphics blog points to a series of articles on the Comics Journal website where Groth and McCloud sparred on the state of Webcomics. (Articles, I would add, from some years ago.) I don't know if she solicited Groth for quotes or not. From the tone of the article, it's clear she didn't solicit McCloud. Or go in depth into what Webcomics are, what's been successful artistically, what's been successful financially, and why.

She argues she couldn't read Narbonic -- whose name she clearly got from the WCCA -- because it's behind a subscription wall. That's potentially a good argument when comparing Narbonic's merits to, say, Nukees, since Nukees is free-supported-by-advertising. But her implicit comparison is to print, not other webcomics models... and when's the last time you got an issue of Eightball for free? When's the last time you picked up any Fantagraphics book for free? Hell, when's the last time you could pay three dollars and get the last six issues of Eightball for free?

(You could arguably go to a library and possibly -- possibly -- read Eightball for free. You can also go to the Modern Tales site and read several Narbonic storylines for free. And you can also purchase two volumes of Narbonic in print. Maybe not at your local Barnes and Noble -- but I check the graphic novel section of B&N every time I go in, and there's not a lot of Eightball back issues there either.)

The effect is an article on webcomics written by someone who hasn't actually read the comics in question. (She mentions only one webcomic unreservedly positively -- Count Your Sheep. Which she could read for free. Nice to know the Times won't spring for a three dollar one month subscription for her expense account. And also nice to know that she didn't bother to check around for... oh, I don't know... Webcomics resources to use in research.)

Of course, in talking about making money -- and the failures of webcomics to fulfill that promise -- she manages to not talk about PvP, Penny Arcade, Sluggy Freelance, User Friendly, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Something Positive, or much of anything else. In other words, she doesn't know the first thing about the debate of commercial success in webcomics, much less the topic. She doesn't know the Keenspot model versus Modern Tales versus Blank Label versus independent sites. She doesn't know the argument of advertising support versus merchandising support versus subscription versus micropayments. And it's not like it's hard to find evidence of those debates. Just going to Scott McCloud's website would do that.

Finally, she misses a key, crucial point about the artistic side of webcomics. A point vastly more significant than infinite canvas, or Flash. A point which, believe it or not, directly touches on Gary Groth's opinions of us.

Webcomics frees us from Gary Groth. Just like they free us from DC, Marvel, Image and all the rest.

I know -- we're not supposed to lump Gary Groth in with the establishment. However, for decades Fantagraphics has been the eight hundred pound gorilla in the Independent Comics Scene, and Gary Groth in particular has been the arbiter of what is "truly worthy indy" versus the unwashed and unworthy. And, as with all such things, once you become institutionalized you stop really being indy. Groth and Fantagraphics have done tremendous things for the art of cartooning -- anyone who denies that is flat out wrong. Fantagraphics brought us Los Bros. Hernadez. They keep Crumb in print. They keep Dan Clowes in print. And they bring back the treasuries of truly great comic strips of the past. I owe Groth several drinks for The Complete Peanuts alone.

But... I don't read a lot of the Fantagraphics comics line. I don't like a significant portion of the Fantagraphics comics line. I respect those comics, but that's very, very different from liking them.

And sure, I like some of them. I groove on Love and Rockets. I sometimes go through cravings for R. Crumb. I get a hoot out of Angry Youth Comics. But they're not my bread and butter.

And when my only serious source of independent comics was Gary Groth's company, I spent a lot more money on men and women in spandex punching things. Because they didn't hold me.

But these days? I read very little in spandex, and a ton of independent comics. Independent comics that are funny, and poignant, and rich, and deep. Gag-a-day four panel strips and graphic novels one page at a time. And Gary Groth doesn't get to decide what's good and what sucks about them, any more than DC or Marvel do. I get to decide, and those comic creators get to create.

Does that mean there's reams of crap out there? Sure. Of course it does. That's the price of doing business without a significant entry barrier. But it also means there's glorious work out there. Do you think Fantagraphics would have printed Narbonic? Or Yirmumah? or Something Positive? Do you think Scott Kurtz would have an Image book today without the web?

Do you see a Fantagraphics logo on Same Difference and Other Stories? Because I sure don't. And if you don't realize that Derek Kirk Kim's on the threshold of being what Dan Clowes was for the '80s and '90s, you're not paying attention. And where did he come from, get his audience, build his reputation and then break out into print all over the place?

Oh yeah, right here on the web.

Which is also where I discovered James Kolchalka. Who also isn't published by Fantagraphics, I would add. (I wonder if Top Shelf Comix has taken the print indy crown away from Fantagraphics in general, these days. But that's another essay.)

Thousands of people read a comic strip I write, three times a week. Thousands of people. Do you think Gary Groth would publish Gossamer Commons? It's so not his kind of thing it's funny. No one probably would, right now. But we'll have a good shot at a book publication the way things are going now.

Tens of thousands of people are reading this essay. Tens of thousands. Do you think, a year ago (specifically, a year ago this Saturday) Gary Groth would give me a Comics Journal column? Do you think he'd give me one today?

Of course not. And why should he? Why should he publish my comic strip? Why should he publish any of the stuff I mentioned? He clearly doesn't like it.

But I do. And a lot of you do too. And we get to read it.

And that's a Hell of a lot more impressive than animation or canvas size.

It'd be nice if Sarah Boxer had figured that out.

C-, Miss Boxer. Coherently written, but poorly researched. Next time, know your topic before filing.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:06 AM | Comments (91)

August 16, 2005

Eric: Seriously. How does one manage to miss the hole that many times?

So, I'm typing this at FedExKinko's -- a place that once upon a time I worked at, before FedEx made the whole "we're going to go public someday" line they fed us in the 90's bunk. It's still essentially Kinko's, though instead of either blue prison shirts or (my store's policy) good work shirts and ties (ignoring for the moment that we worked with equipment that makes a tie a life-threatening proposition) they get to wear kind of nice rugby shirts now. So that's a step forward.

I'm here to get my printout of Truth & Justice bound. I've also ordered a Print On Demand copy, because... well, because I wanted to. I do crap like that. But having printed it two-up to a page, I figured doing a spiral bind was a good idea.

So here I am, in a day when we had an office outing, including mini-golf. I had never played before. I was doing quite well despite that, until we got to the paddlewheel hole and I came in with an 11. Par 2. I shoot an 11.

Things decline from there. I finish dead last of our office, at a "can you even see" score of 31 over par. Bearing in mind the best player was 7 over par, and the average was about 15... yeah, I suck hard. But it was a heap of fun, and beat actually working by a long shot.

And I'm here. At FedEx Kinko's. Which once was "the new way to Office," and I get my now wire-bound book. And I thumb through it, and hit the advertisements at the end of the book. I see the other Atomic Sock Monkey works. And I see some banners for Something Positive, Warehouse 23 and Rhymes with Witch (which is Milholland's non-S*P merchandise site). And then I notice an ad for Greg Holkan's own webcomic, [nemesis]....

And I blink three times, because there's an ad for Gossamer Commons sitting there.

It had honestly never occurred to me that, since Greg is as much a part of Gossamer Commons as I am, of course he'd advertise it as part of his free ad space in the back.

It's... oddly tangible. Oddly real, to see the ad sitting there, with Keith and Sonata. It's one thing to see this stuff on the web. And I supposed if I'd noticed the ads in the back of the PDF, that'd be another. But to see it in print in front of me....

It feels significant, somehow. Like the bomb could drop tomorrow but there would still be tangible evidence that once there was a webcomic that features fairies and slackers and Jazz music. And I had no idea it was in there.

(And, accordingly, it had no impact on my opinions. I love this game. I've been working on some short stories that have super hero type characters in them, and this is the most flexible system I've ever seen for just... I dunno, designing those characters effectively.)

And I feel good today, physically. All in all, after a long day or four, full of stress and headaches and annoyances... today feels like we rounded a corner. Today feels downright good.

And I feel like I was due.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:31 PM | Comments (7)

August 12, 2005

Eric: Momentum and the lack thereof.

Here's the thing about writing. It's a question of momentum.

All those people who say "you should write every day, no matter how crappy a given day's output is?" They're essentially right. At least, if your brain works like mine -- and it's safe to say not everyone's does. You hear a lot about it -- practice, priming the pump, keeping the gears turning, and so forth. And they're probably all true, depending on which person we're discussing and what muse they're working with.

For me, however, it's a question of inertia. Of momentum.

See, if I write every day -- each and every day -- then writing comes frighteningly easy to me. Probably too easily -- there are some pieces that benefit far more from agonizing over word choice. So, when you discover you've written four thousand words when two hundred well chosen words will do, you haven't done the story any favors. (I know some people who think pretty much all my writing suffers from this. Nolo contendere.) However, I'm perfectly happy with it -- I enjoy editing after the fact, and I especially enjoy the headlong rush of the writing process. Fiction, nonfiction, stuff about webcomics, stuff about stuff, whatever. I like it. I like it a lot.

This is why something like the Shadow knockoff name issue can wreck my output so hard, by the way. When I have a good head of steam going, with many days of solid writing output behind me, hitting something that refuses to budge until I resolve it means suddenly all that momentum is slamming into a wall. It completely obliterates everything else in my brain. Curing cancer is nothing compared to resolving this one stupid point about a story no one will ever read -- my life is devoted to it.

(By the by -- the Shadow knockoff seems to be working, though not over the past several days, but then that's not the Shadow knockoff's fault.)

It's all about momentum.

That's where a week like the past week really kills me. I mean, kills me. I was very sick, and work was unbelievably stressful, and my hours were filled with unmitigated crap.

And I didn't write.

I couldn't write. I had no time to write.

I finally forced myself to have an evening off, a couple days back. And I got some writing done, and it made things better. But it came hard.

Just like this is coming hard.

The problem with the 'inertia/momentum' method of creative output is when you stop dead, you're dead. The blank page mocks you. It seems impossibly hard to fill the screen with words. You're smoke. Utter, total smoke.

And that sucks. That sucks donkey.

This is where I am today. There's stuff to talk about. There are good webcomics. And (wonder of wonders) I have ten minutes I don't need to be on the phone with angry people. So I have an input screen. For this. Our blog. Which theoretically I write for.

So what you're reading right now? Is essentially me walking around to the back of the car and shoving, hoping that there's not too much of an incline to push it up before we get going. Here's hoping it works.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:30 AM | Comments (23)

July 29, 2005

Eric: In other news, the Duke Nukem sequel shipped, O.J. found the real killers and Hell is totally frozen over!

Web Comics Nation has launched.

For those who don't know, Web Comics Nation (or WebComicsNation or Webcomics Nation -- I'm not entirely sure which, but they contract it to "WCN," so I'm going with what I've got) has been Joey Manley's magnum opus for some time. This was the project that would move Manley out of being a publisher and into being a tool supplier. Where something like Keenspace Comic Genesis is there and completely free for webcartoonists who want in, there's a relatively baroque set of tools you need to use in setting your site up. Webcomics Nation, on the other hand, costs ten bucks a month or eighty bucks a year... but is as easy to use (or even easier to use) than Blogger or Livejournal. You take your comic strips, you upload them, the system puts them out. You set up multiple strips if you like. If you want to make one of your strips subscriber only, it just works. If you want to sell ads, you just can. It's not free, but it's simple.

I was fortunate enough to beta WCN, and so I put up an all new Unfettered by Talent site. I put the old Unfettered by Talent strips up as one 'series,' and I put up Sketchbook and Other Unfortunates as another. This gave me a chance to play with the control panel and the like.

And... well, I like it. I like it quite a bit. It works about the way it seems to me it should. I haven't done much to the HTML of these pages, but I could if I wanted. If you look over the current strips using WCN, you'll see a good sized range of stuff people can choose from.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this works as an experiment. Obviously, Manley wants his business's core profit to start coming from this side of things -- he wants to be Kinko's more than Fantagraphics -- and I'd like to see how well that works out for him. For one thing, I want to see if the dirt simple control schema draws people into the service or not. I know that were I just launching Gossamer Commons now, I'd have gone with WCN -- the content management system we went with has caused both Weds and I to age forty years and drink the blood of the living to revitalize ourselves. (And yes, now that it's functional, it's actually significantly cooler for what I want to do with it, but was it so much cooler than just, I dunno, something that worked right out of the box? I don't think so.)

Between this and the Comic Genesis rebranding and relaunching, things are officially getting interesting, all over again.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:19 PM | Comments (45)

July 28, 2005

Eric: I tried to come up with a pithy title. I failed! I failed!

Save ConnectiCon has pulled it off. Inside of a couple of weeks, they've collected the thirty-five thousand plus to help the ConnectiCon folks raise the money to cover the debts and overages. If I get to the point of needing to do a fundraising drive for the second stage of surgery, I know what people to call, clearly.

(Well, except that I barely know any of the folks who are involved. But that's neither here nor there.)

I'm frankly glad to see it done and done well. Regardless of your opinion of ConnectiCon, that was a crappy position for the organizers to be in. Matt Daigle has indicated they're going to be taking a bunch of the steps that some folks have advocated in organizing next year's convention, so this might be a learning experience for everyone. Certainly, it's a demonstration of the power of a given community to pull together and pitch in.

(Which community? I'm not sure. I suspect the largest number of donations came from Ctrl-alt-del's fanbase, but it's a disservice to the fans of VG Cats, 8 Bit Theater or any of the others to give Buckley all the credit. Nor is it exclusively gamer comics. Certainly, a Snarkoleptic or five put money in too, and good on you guys.)

I stand by the stuff I said in my last snark on the subject. At the same time, it feels good to pitch in, to help, to try and make a difference to a couple of people in a tight spot.

Here's hoping the lessons learned by Daigle and Benn will lead both to a more financially secure ConnectiCon, and in general to a better one.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:53 PM | Comments (1)

July 22, 2005

Eric: It's raining in Dover, New Hampshire

It's raining in Dover, New Hampshire. I'm pressed up against a door, and extremely loud children are screaming nearby. I'm writing on deadline, which I'm not serving by writing this, but my head is throbbing and I need to relax, and sometimes venting is the only way to do that.

This is a cafe. The finest in New Hampshire, up until now. It has always been extremely homey, with random, almost junkyard furniture, and table lamps from random homes. College students and professionals hang out here, drinking well pulled espressos.

Only, tonight there is a Bible Camp that has brought the full load of their children in. There is no reason for it -- there's nothing to do here for a kid. There was, before -- in addition to the junk furniture, there were also piles of books and old games and the like everywhere.

That was then. Over the fourth of July weekend, the owner closed and put in all new, matching wooden furniture and uncomfortable wooden chairs. There's still a couple of couches, but they're not as inviting. He painted the walls in maroon and gold, and spruced everything up. The place looks like the bastard love child of Starbucks and Panera Bread, now.

It's night, and it's raining, and I'm writing on deadline, and nine year olds are in the room drinking espresso and screaming as loudly as they can. Screaming for Jesus. I want to tell them I was responsible for Jesus being depicted as a vengeful God casting people out for misusing grammar, but I don't think they'd understand.

There is a very pretty barista on tonight -- the first full on barista I've seen here. I don't just mean she knows how to pull a good latte. They all know that. No, this barista is the incarnation of surl. She has piercings, and tattoos, and cannot imagine what horrible acts she performed to deserve these children, tonight. She seems to like me -- she's mocked me, but that's what baristas do. But I'm an adult and I'm trying to write and I clearly don't like these children, and those are all positives in her book.

I don't have the heart to tell her that she seems every inch as much a child to me as the Biblical scholars. Somewhere in the past year I became old, and college Freshmen are still the same age. I envy her, tonight. I feel my age tonight.

It's raining, and I'm writing on deadline, and I have the same headache I had for three nights running tonight. It's a headache that means fever. I don't know why I've had a recurring fever, but I have. It broke last night and left me bathed in sweat and overheated for the entirety of the night straight into the morning. I should probably be home and asleep, but I have a deadline. And instead of working on that, I'm listening to children scream, at least sometimes about Jesus.

Their grammar is atrocious. This camp may have higher motivations, but effective communication isn't one of them. I mentally condemn them to Hell, one by one. This one shall burn for crimes against the language of Shakespeare and Twain and Faulkner. This one shall suffer for all eternity for desecrating the words that became Churchill's rhetoric, and Holmes's books, and Johnson's sermons. They are all damned, and their wardens -- I can scarcely call them teachers or even camp counselors -- will burn along side them. My God is not only a God of Faith but also Works.

When I was a Manager of Information Technology at our school, I used to mark up the e-mails students would send me and send them back. It was a terrific joke at the school. No one took it seriously, least of all the students in question. They too will burn, but I have faith and works.

And I have a headache, and a deadline, and an internet that's barely working in here. And it's raining in Dover, and my favorite cafe looks like Ronald McDonald was murdered in here.

It's going to be a late night.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:07 PM | Comments (59)

July 21, 2005

Eric: Some due diligence/advertising for Save Connecticon

I mentioned in the last post that I'd kind of like to know who the consortium of artists and the like is, working to save ConnectiCon.

Well, besides Phil "Hoojie Crew" Kahn, who I mentioned, and Tim "Ctrl-Alt-Del" Buckley, I now have access to the Donations Only area of the Save ConnectiCon website, and that has strips, wallpapers and the life from 8-Bit Theater, Chugworth Academy, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Mac Hall, Paradox Lost, Staccato, and VG Cats, as well as special offers from Ze Stuff and Konsekai: Swordwaltzer.

That, naturally, adds a level of legitimacy to the whole affair. And naturally, fans of those strips and sites might want to donate just for the free swag. In any case, kudos continue to go out to folks who pitch in and help out.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:52 PM | Comments (7)

Eric: Conventioneering

The folks who run ConnectiCon are in serious trouble, financially. This year cost overruns moved beyond the standard into the epic, and reports are the organizers are now just shy of thirty-five thousand dollars in personal debt following this year's event. An organized campaign to help them out has started at Save ConnectiCon. My friend Phil Kahn is auctioning off one of his critique/essays at I'm Just Saying to raise money, and asked if I'd be willing to mention that fact. Naturally enough, I am.

I'm also deeply sympathetic to the campaign to bail out Matt Daigle and Briana Benn. This is a monumental debt they've incurred, and that just plain sucks any way you look at it. I'm an old Lefty at heart, and when I hear about trouble, I want to help out. The community pulling together in times of trouble is the kind of thing communities are there for in the first place.

At the same time... and I recognize that there are people who dearly love ConnectiCon and its role with the community... I'm far more interested in saving Matt Daigle and Briana Benn than ConnectiCon itself. I think there have been some core problems that seriously need resolution if they're going to put on ConnectiCon 2006 and beyond, and I think it doesn't do them any favors not to bring them up right at the forefront. This is especially true if we're going to look at this as a "Webcomics friendly" con -- and the Save ConnectiCon site is heavily webcomics driven. "They have been so wonderful to us. Now it's time to pay them back" is the message. And I'm down with that. But to save ConnectiCon, we also need to talk about what changes need to be made.

First off -- and I realize we don't have the full story here, or the organizational chart, or anything -- why on Earth is it Daigle and Benn's future on the line here? Most significant conventions form non-profit corporations or LLCs to shoulder the burdens and risks. This should be a movement to prevent ConnectiCon L.L.C. from filing for bankruptcy protection and canceling next year's con, not saving the financial future of the organizers. There's too much money involved in the production of one of these events to have it resting on the backs of the organizers.

(And if there is a non-profit or L.L.C. involved, we need to know that before we donate. It changes the dynamic significantly.)

Secondly -- if this convention really is shooting for the major Webcomics action... they seriously, seriously, seriously need to alter their schedules so it's not conflicting with San Diego. San Diego is the comics event of the year. The fact that so many of Dumbrella's cartoonists live within two hours of ConnectiCon, but (to my knowledge) all of them went to San Diego, says something. If ConnectiCon is going to be the core Webcomics con, that's fantastic, but they need to be smarter about how they do things.

Thirdly -- last I knew, there was a debate going on about their webcomics invitations -- if I remember correctly, they wanted proof of page views to tell you what sliding scale of invitation they'd extend. Now, obviously we already see that they've overextended themselves this year, financially, through little fault of their own. At the same time, I think they would be vastly better served by their sitting down in committee, working out what webcomics guests would best represent their commitment, offer them Special Guest and Guest of Honor status as a result, and give other comics a chance to buy tables or attend for free (but without room and board paid), like most other Cons. As it is, some of the top tier refused to have anything to do with them because they were offended by the very concept of "proving" they had an audience to them, and ConnectiCon as a whole got some bad press out of the affair. Which sucks, because they clearly were trying to be fair to their guests, but it's also the nature of the beast.

Finally, Daigle and Benn knew that ConnectiCon 2005 was a risk, according to what the website said. They were deeply increasing the overall expenses of the con by moving to the premier venue. Obviously, there are degrees to which they got shafted, but going put near forty-thousand dollars into debt over what was apparently a successfully attended event raises major red flags. If we're going to "save ConnectiCon" as opposed to saving Daigle and Benn, I think there also needs to be a major movement to build a board structure that can also more rigorously plan the event, research potential costs, and build an expense/income analysis. I think that board should be talking to the major successful cons of the area -- Arisia, Boskone, and Anime Boston all leap to mind as New England cons that apparently make their nut back every year without these kinds of major hits -- and building a new business plan that factors all these things. And I think that has to start today.

Also... call me a bit paranoid, but given that Save ConnectiCon is "a group effort by dozens of webcomics, artists, and related businesses working on behalf of Matt Daigle and Briana Benn of ConnectiCon to raise the money needed to save them from severe financial and legal problems, and to keep the convention alive," I'd kind of like a list of who those webcomics, artists and related businesses are. In part, that's because there's an advertising dimension. I happen to know (because I checked their site) that Ctrl-Alt-Del is one of the sites in question, because they're pushing it hard. (And kudos to Tim Buckley for pitching in with this -- he's a top tier webcartoonist who can get them a good amount of exposure and raise them a good amount of money.) The Save ConnectiCon site should be pushing that connection, both to raise legitimacy and to catch search engines looking for Ctrl-Alt-Del.

Am I saying "don't contribute?" No. Hell no. I'm tossing them some money. You should too. The house is on fire, and we don't stop to ask why the sprinkler system didn't go off until after the flames are quenched. It's easy for me to sit here and Monday Morning Quarterback, but Daigle and Benn are watching their lives go into tailspin.

But if we're doing more than bailing them out -- if in fact we're trying to save ConnectiCon -- then we need to recognize they need a lot more than money to do that.

(And now, I am going to be killed. Goodnight, everybody!)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:36 AM | Comments (25)

July 20, 2005

Eric: Shatner didn't even fight in World War II. Of course, he was ten at the time.

An addendum to my remembrance of James Doohan.

He had served in the Royal Canadian Artillery during World War II, culminating in getting shot multiple times on D-Day. His cigarette case, in his shirt pocket, saved him from a fatal chest wound, but he did have a finger shot off (which he concealed on camera, without using prostheses or the like. Which is astounding if you think about it).

So, wounded and maimed in combat on D-Day. An honorable sacrifice for tremendously honorable service, right?

The thing is... since he couldn't be an artilleryman any more... he retrained as a pilot, joining the Royal Canadian Air Force and flying as a Pilot Observer for the British for the rest of the war.

The man lost a finger and nearly lost his life on D-Day... and retrained to fly planes that accompanied B-17s on bombing runs.

The world didn't deserve someone that good.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:14 PM | Comments (9)

Eric: You know, it's probably bad form to disagree with publishers who are saying nice things about you.

For those who haven't seen, today's Daily Illuminator, over at Steve Jackson Games, is about Websnark. And specifically about me. This has happened before (back on December 29 of last year, not that I made special note or anything, no, really), and my reaction then is substantially the same as my reaction today:

"Whoa."

See, one of the things about writing for a site like Websnark is people you know of or have heard of sometimes acknowledge it. Sometimes, a Lore Sjñberg or a Scott Kurtz or someone else you've been reading since 1996 links you, and your mind is blown, just a bit. Even now, firmly ensconced in R-Level Celebrity (a level of celebrity which means no one has ever heard of you, but occasionally cute girls are tongue-tied around you at conventions, which is better than being kicked in the teeth no matter how you slice it), having someone I respect say something nice about me is a thrill.

And then? Then there's Steve Jackson.

Let's set aside In Nomine for a second. Yes, it's my favorite role playing game. Yes, I occasionally get a check or two for it. Yes, I would gladly sacrifice the freshman class at the school I work at for a second edition. But let's set it aside, and cast our eyes back... back... back to a younger world, innocent of the ways of the Internet, where the Cold War was frigid and Disco was still twitching. This is the world... of 1981.

A world where I am thirteen years old. At this point, I'm already a multiple year veteran of Role Playing Games. (For the record, I lived in Fort Kent, Maine -- you'd have a rich fantasy life, too.) I had gotten into them following a television report about the dangers of Dungeons and Dragons and crawling around sewers and access tunnels while practicing Satanism and losing all sense of reality so that you kill your friends and loved ones followed by yourself that made me think "what a cool sounding game." I had Traveller. I had Villains and Vigilantes. Champions was still about a year away for me, but it too would come. I subscribed to Dragon.

And I had Car Wars. I had several of those "turning keys" you used to figure out maneuvers. I had ziplock baggies of games. Hell, I had a copy (long since gone) of The Fantasy Trip.

Now, for me, the games were far more significant than the writers -- at least in those days. I probably wouldn't have known the names Jeff Dee or Loren Wiseman, even though I played stuff they were heavily involved in on a regular basis. The only exceptions were Gary Gygax (because let's face it, Gygax has always been an Iconoclast)... and Steve Jackson (whose name, after all, was on the front of all the boxes).

So, when I read a Daily Illuminator that says "I like Websnark" and has Steve Jackson's name at the bottom of it... when I read a Websnark comment that has Steve Jackson's name on it... when I read something that makes it clear that Steve Jackson reads Websnark... my first reaction doesn't come from the part of my brain that's a professional writer, that's had conversations with Jackson on different things, or that's gotten paid by Steve Jackson. It should be, but it isn't.

My first reaction is a thirteen year old boy, buried in my psyche, doing -- in Aeire's words -- the happy, squirmy puppy dance. The man who designed Ogre and Illuminati READS MY SHIT. DUDE!

So... it's with great sadness that, having had that little boy be so thrilled, and the professional writer in me be so affirmed... that I take his post, which is so laudatory to me, and disagree categorically with it. Is this career suicide? Perhaps. Is this ungrateful? Almost certainly.

But this is about a higher calling. This... is about grammar.

He said, and I quote:

PS: I fear that he will burn in Grammar Hell for pluralizing names ending in S by adding an apostrophe and another S, which is irony for you. I know some authorities say that construction is permissible. They'll burn hotter than Eric Burns.

"Some authorities" say it is "permissible?" No no. No no no no no.

This comes from Rule One of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. And The Elements of Style, by William Strunk, Jr., with edits and essays and contributory information by E.B. White, is simply put the foundation of modern grammar. It is a slender volume, dirt cheap, and required of essentially every Freshman in English Composition in America. You can still typically find the book for under five dollars (Amazon currently lists it new for seven, but also acknowledges it can be had new and used for five from other vendors). It is short, easy to read, easy to digest, and easy to put your hand on it at any time. The original work, by Strunk, is broken into several sections, with the most important being a list of eight elementary rules of usage, and ten elementary principles of composition. All of which (minus White's influence) are in the public domain, I would add.

And the first rule, the first rule in the first section... rule number one... is as follows:

1. Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's.

Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write,

Charles's friend
Burns's poems
the witch's malice

This is the usage of the United States Government Printing Office and of the Oxford University Press.

If you look at the first web page I ever put on the web -- a terrible, horrible web page from 1994 or so, that scars the retinas of those unfortunate enough to see it -- you will find I quote this rule. Having the surname of Burns means having this discussion on a regular basis, you see. So yes, this is a matter of dogma with me. This is a matter of religion -- of theology. But damn it, the holiest of testaments in the world of grammar, usage and style concurs, in plain, simple language right there on the first page of rules. This is not "some authorities," this is the bedrock on which all modern English grammar lies, and I will not suffer stones cast against it! Not even from Steve Jackson.

You can take your Chicago Style Guide (though, actually the latest Chicago Manual of Style says both are acceptable but concurs that Strunk's interpretation is preferable), your MLA guide, your Harbrace Handbook, and you can subscribe to their false theologies of the possessive. I will not use the plural possessive with a singular noun, no matter what happens. It's right there, in the book, for all to see, and false prophets will not dissuade me. When I stand in Grammar Heaven, before the light-bulbed visage of William Strunk, Jr., he will not say to me "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the Grammar Devil and his angels."

Of course, when I'm writing for Jackson, I'll do as he says, because he pays me. And money is good. At the same time, I drive Elizabeth McCoy, the In Nomine line editor, insane because I continue to create the singular possessive following the letter s with "'s", and she has to edit it. But if I am to be a good evangelist, I must carry the Word to the unbelievers, yes?

On the other side of all this, Jackson was excited to learn the word Apophenia, and says he'll put it in the next Illuminati set. This thrills me, but also amuses me, because I learned the Word from watching the Question on Justice League Unlimited, and every time we hear one of the Question's theories, I immediately assume the writers just finished playing a round of Illuminati.

Needless to say, this is a good way to start the morning.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:52 AM | Comments (75)

July 7, 2005

Eric: Why I'm not a good person to have on your comic notification service

So, I'm having conversations with the Comic Nation Feedback form today.

Let me open by saying I actually really like the Comic Nation service. I can see myself sticking with them after the trawl reconstruction, just because it's bloody convenient to have a list of what's actually updated instead of going through everything and seeing.

However... despite the fact that they have roughly a billion comic strips I don't read on their service, there are also a lot of strips they don't have that I do read.

So I'm submitting them.

Greystone Inn... American Elf... Home Run Comic... Nahast... Ascent... Queen of Wands (remember, it's in reruns with commentary -- it's not dead)... Rip & Teri....

And, well, a whole lot more. I mean, a whole lot more.

Plus, I've started noticing what hasn't been updating regularly, and cross checking, and submitting "this link seems to be broken" notes....

Oh, and if they'd come out with a page with checkboxes next to the comic strips, and you can tell the system to add all the comics you've checked, instead of needing to do it one at a time? That would be a kindness.

They're going to learn to hate me....

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:53 AM | Comments (104)

Eric: For people who wonder why their strip wasn't on my list of "pulls" from Comic Nation

If you're wondering why your strip -- which I am certain is a good strip. A fine strip -- isn't on the Comics Nation trawl I published a few days ago, take heart by this example.

One of my favorite comics is Goats. I'm a big big fan. I like Jon Rosenberg's sense of humor. I like the art. I like the sense that a powerful man with a pony tail is lurking somewhere in the background of the site maintenance, ready to subdue criminals with a chair. Seriously. I love me some Goats action.

Okay, that came out wrong.

Anyway, I love Goats.

Okay, that came out wrong too.

The point is, I was doing the Comics Nation thing this morning, and beginning to go more deeply through the list, and I discovered that Goats wasn't on my list. I was stunned. "Could they not have Goats yet?" I thought. I mean, they don't have Greystone Inn, so anything's possible.

And yet... it was there. I had just missed it in the adrenalin soaked atmosphere of putting together a list of the strips I like.

So. If your strip isn't on there, take heart. I clearly just missed it. I mean, Jesus -- I missed Goats.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:11 AM | Comments (14)

July 6, 2005

Eric: Back in time

It's not that I've gone back two months in files. It's not even the stuff I've lost, working with the powerbook I have, now. No, that's inconvenient and sometimes infuriating, but it's not the point.

It's the stuff I've thrown away, that's suddenly back.

It's the files and graphics and bits of cruft that I cleaned out. It's the plethora of bookmarks I got rid of in May that decided to stage a return. It's the sense of repetition.

Redoing work is one thing. Redoing cleaning? That's hard.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:17 PM | Comments (10)

July 5, 2005

Eric: On the reconstruction of daily trawls.

So, the multi-hour process of bringing a loaner machine to the two month old "last known good" state continues apace. In the meantime, I've been over on Comic Nation plugging in my reads. And it occured to me, once that was done, it might be interesting for folks to see what I grabbed.

Now, this is by no means a complete list of my daily trawl. It doesn't include any of the 20 or 30 newspaper strips I read, for example (even the ones that are in their system, like Helen). There are alsoplenty of webcomics that aren't on Comic Nation's system yet (including some weird omissions -- how is it they have Courting Disaster and not Greystone Inn, for example). And I was doing this from memory and may have missed a bunch going through the list. Cut me some slack -- I've had a long day. All told, there's probably at least as many strips that aren't on this list that are in my trawl than are.

However, there's still a neatness to it all, and that makes me think "what the heck. Let's put it up on Websnark so people see the stuff I've gotten into the system for the moment." So. Here's... well, a quick hundred webcomics or so that are currently on my radar.

It's behind a cut, to save everyones' sanity. Collect them all!

A Softer World
Achewood
Alien Loves Predator
Andiewear!
Bob the Angry Flower
Casey and Andy
Checkerboard Nightmare
Cheshire Grin
Count Your Sheep
Courting Disaster
Crap I Drew on My Lunch Break
Diesel Sweeties
Digger
Dinosaur Comics
Eat The Roses
El Goonish Shive
Felicity Flint, Agent from HARM
FLEM Comics
Freefall
Gaming Guardians
Geebas on Parade
Gin and the Devil
Girl Genius 101
Girl Genius Advanced Class
Girls With Slingshots
Gossamer Commons
Help Desk
Hound's Home
How Not To Run A Comic
indietits
Irregular Webcomic!
It's About Girls
Kevin & Kell
Kiagi Swordscat
Lore Brand Comics
Loserz
Lost & Found
Men in Hats
Midnight Macabre
Narbonic
No Stereotypes
Nodwick
Nothing Nice to Say
Nukees
Overcompensating
Ozy and Millie
Penny and Aggie
Penny Arcade
Planet Earth (and other tourist traps)
PowerPuff Girls Doujinshi
PvP
Questionable Content
Real Life
Return to Sender
Road Waffles
Rob and Elliot
Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan
RPG World
Sam and Fuzzy
Scary Go Round
Schlock Mercenary
Sexy Losers
Shortpacked!
Sinfest
Sinister Bedfellows
Skinny Panda
Skirting Danger!
Sluggy Freelance
Something Positive
Sore Thumbs
Starshift Crisis
Striptease!
Superosity
The Adventures of Sporkman
The Creatures in My Head
The Devil's Panties
The HB Comic-Blog
The Joy of Tech
The Life of Riley
The Morning Improv
The New Gold Dream
The Order of the Stick
The Pet Professional
The Suburban Jungle
Todd and Penguin
Two Lumps
User Friendly
VG Cats
Vigilante, Ho!
Wapsi Square
White Ninja Comics
Wigu
Yirmumah

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:45 PM | Comments (41)

June 20, 2005

Eric: Because I'm behind schedule, bits of news and life.

It's quarter to three... there's no one in the place....
'cept, you and me...

Another day of adventure and hanging out. Entertaining Action Wednesday is a busy task, and work was somewhat demonic today. I honestly intended to do some snarking during the day, but had no chance. I was barely awake and less than pleasant in the evening, which Weds took care of by smacking me over the head with a mallet and taking me out wine shopping. We picked up some inexpensive but (she assures me, decent) bottles -- a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Shiraz. The latter is for later in the week -- she's back to Boston tomorrow and then I've promised to show her Maine before she goes back. (Not that she hasn't been to Maine before. She's a New Brunswicker born, and no doubt spent as much time day tripping across the border to Houlton, Maine as I did tripping across to Claire, New Brunswick from Fort Kent. Well, I could conceivably walk to Claire from my house in Fort Kent, but still.)

In short, in ways I've been busier these last several days than I was on my own vacation. Thus, the long periods of silence or little to no updates. I've missed a couple of rounds of webcomic drama and everything.

I've also missed announcing that several of the Modern Tales/Graphic Smash WCCA nominees have free archives from now until the end of voting... which means absolutely free and complete archives of both Narbonic and Digger.

Dude! Absolutely free archives of Narbonic and Digger -- two of the single best webcomics in the webcomissary! Go! Go! Read! Reeeeeead!

I also also missed noting the return of Amber "Glych" Greenlee, and with her return the return of No Stereotypes, along with a fantastic new website. And, once again, complete free archives.

This is astoundingly and massively cool stuff, and you should take these opportunities to go steep yourself in some of the best written, funniest, most adventurous and best drawn comic art on the web.

Please note, however, that there is significant nudity in No Stereotypes, especially right now. There is no nudity but significant references to goinking in Narbonic as well, recently. In both cases, these are bonuses, not negatives.

There is no goinking nor explicit nudity in Digger, though it's worth noting the wombat lead character doesn't technically wear pants. Which never stopped Huey, Dewey and Louie, in Carl Barks stories...

Oh. I'm going to be passing through the Somerville area of Massachusetts tomorrow night, dropping Weds off. I am desperately poor at the moment, however, so if anyone wants to get together for a chat in the area (I get in trouble when I don't mention my comings and goings), you're either buying or we're chatting in your local library.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:20 PM | Comments (27)

June 10, 2005

Eric: The Half-Life of Drama

This is, if anything, a snark about the evolution of the Penny Arcade/Documentary/PvP/Scott McCloud/Websnark/Rosenberg/Garza/Barber/et cetera thingy.

It's not going over the core bits again. I said my piece, others have said their piece, the venues have moved on. This snark isn't about that, this time.

But one thing I find interesting -- as other have as well -- is the evolution of the discussion. I mean.. it's June 10th. The Penny Arcade post came on June First. Nine days in Internet Time is the rough equivalent of nine months in normal human time. This thing is swiftly becoming the Webcomics Community version of the O.J. Trial. Only without Jay Leno's crappy sense of humor.

Now, it's largely (possibly entirely) my fault we're still talking about it. My post came at the five day mark. The thing hadn't ended, mind -- comments and Kris Straub's strip came out just before my post. But without a doubt, my post turned the drama dial back up to 9.3 and flared it back up. In effect, it was like we were entering a wholly new drama cycle -- which is unusual. Drama usually has a half life of about a day and a half. So either I dumped a pile of new drama into the core and increased the reaction, or further experimentation is necessary to explain what this means to Internet Physics.

Anyway. It happened. Drama went back up. There was recriminations and yelling in many directions. And, like I said -- Drama half life of a day and a half. Things declined, and declined some more, for several more days.

And then, Scott McCloud's essay came out. If you haven't seen it, there are links to it and to Jerry Holkins's response in the comments thread on my own essay.

And now, we're back at 9.2 on the drama dial again. Which means we're probably looking at Sunday before things quiet down. And then I'm wondering if Monday or Tuesday we'll get a response from the documentary filmmakers that'll ramp it back up again.

Am I decrying the drama? No -- I'm not that much of a hypocrite. But it's interesting to watch the process, and analyze my own part in it. And figuring out what I should do differently next time -- or whether I should do anything differently.

Well, there's one thing I should do differently -- if there's anything in my own essay on the subject I regret, it's a phrase that got called to my attention earlier today. A phrase I used, which wasn't germane to the essay and which, in my opinion, weakens it.

See, a couple of times, I made reference to Krahulik and Holkins "playing videogames for a living."

And that right there? That was bullshit.

Gabe and Tycho are cartoonists for a living. They make art. They get paid for it. That's not easy to do at all.

See what I did, in that essay? It's a pretty common rhetorical technique. I minimized them. In a discussion about art and illustration I made them out to be pretenders. "They play games for a living." I didn't do it consciously, mind. I was angry and in full on rant. I was doing a comparison designed to evoke emotion and make "Gabe" and "Tycho" seem less than they were.

Which, if you get right down to it, is a shitty thing to do. And if you remember, that's the kind of behavior I was saying people should be called on.

So I'm calling myself on it.

I stand by my essay and what I said. But in saying it, I should never have made it seem like Krahulik and Holkins were less than they were and are -- webcartoonists and artists. Ones who have influence not just on the community, but on the evolution of the art form. I won't cut those bits out of that essay -- like I've said before, I don't do that -- but I'll acknowledge the error.

There are important issues at the core of this drama. The question of the relationship between commercial art and experimental art. The question of the suppression of innovative or controversial art by society -- or lack thereof. The question of the balance between satire and bullying. And there are a lot of opinions on both sides every one of those questions being explored.

Those questions deserve to be asked without being obfuscated through cheap shots and minimizing the people we're debating.

As for the latest developments in the drama... I'm taking a bye.

Besides, they hardly need me at this point, do they?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:17 AM | Comments (68)

June 6, 2005

Eric: On pretentiousness, movies, and stuffing kids into metaphorical lockers.

I should have written this snark five days ago.

It's not going to make me any friends, mind. Not on either side of this little debate. But that's no excuse for not having written it then. Still, it's something that needs to be written, because the issue seems to be growing instead of shrinking, and it's time that there be a little bit of reality thrown down for everyone. Or, at the very least, time for me to prove I can be as much of an asshole as anyone.

For the record, several years ago a production company called Top Two Three Films began putting together a documentary on digital comics, examining the crash of print comics in the bust of the 90's, and the rise of digital venues for comics. Obviously, there's a lot of Reinventing Comics thrown in for good measure. And they interviewed tons of people, ranging from Joey Manley to John Byrne, to get their perspectives on... well, what was going on with all this.

They're in post production at this point, and they've released a trailer for the documentary, which is now called Adventures Into Digital Comics. I've watched this trailer, as have many others. If you want to see it for yourself, you can go to their main page and request it.

I should have written this several days ago. I really should have. I'm sorry I didn't. Maybe I kept thinking people would figure out what they were saying... what they were doing... and start doing the right thing. But it didn't work out.

If you watch the trailer, you see a lot of... well, 2001-2002 attitudes towards what was going on with the web. And you see a lot of quotes taken. Out of context, of course -- we haven't seen the movie yet, so we don't know if these are just pull quotes designed to drum up interest or if they're a fair representation of what the movie is about. Someone talks about... well, the infinite canvas, more or less. Someone else talks about the fact that you don't need to be concerned about commercial concerns on the web -- you can honestly make art for its own sake. And others say other things. Scott McCloud makes his requisite appearance. Really, it'd be surprising if he didn't.

And the whole thing is bookended by Cat Garza, of Magic Inkwell. And Garza talks about... well, something that every documentary about art since the invention of the moving picture has talked about -- the barriers to the artist, to experimentation, to innovation in the art world. Doors being shut and the like. I've heard it before. I've heard it all my life. As long as I've had any interest in art of any stripe, there has been the voice of the avant garde saying "we're being held back. The Man fears us. They want the nice, the safe, the things they know we can sell. They hate real art, and we have to take art back from them!"

And, as long as artists have been saying that, it's largely not been true.

Yes, it is true that experimental art often can't find publishers or sponsors. In a lot of ways, this is natural. Publishers and sponsors are generally looking for the innovative, but their impulse is rarely artistic or altruistic. They want the "next big thing." This is why it's important to have a National Endowment of the Arts. This is why it's important to have colleges where art is studied and taught and where artists have a chance to produce. It is important. Art does matter.

And this is the monumental revolution of the World Wide Web. Illustrators and cartoonists, pushing the limits of sequential art, experimenting and finding the next innovation and trend and movement and piece of brilliance, are free to do so at little or no cost.

But don't kid yourself. Innovative and brilliant sequential artists and illustrators and cartoonists are being published. I live in fucking New Hampshire, which is not known for being an artistic mecca. But if I drive to my nearest comic book store and walk in, I can pick up James Kolchalka on the shelf. I can pick up Flight. And for that matter, I can pick up PvP or Knights of the Dinner Table or Nodwick. They have Girl Genius there, and Vertigo titles, and compilations. They have Derek Kirk Kim.

And it's important, at this juncture, to mention Derek Kirk Kim. Because we talk a lot about how our major success stories are PvP and Penny Arcade and Sluggy Freelance and Something Positive. And here's Derek Kirk Kim, who had webcomics, and promoted his webcomics. And then sold his print collections of his webcomics.

And then won the Harvey, the Ignatz and the Eisner Awards. And got written up by Time Fucking Magazine. And who gets grants and who is talked about the way earlier generations talked about Dan Clowes or R. Crumb, and who is no doubt being courted by major publishers at this point.

So yeah. The myth of the Man keeping down artists and closing doors to artists is just that: a myth. It's up there with the myth that the Comics Syndicates don't want funny strips or controversy or good storytelling in lieu of continual retreads of Hagar the Horrible. It's just not true.

But... to take Cat Garza to task for it is patently ridiculous. This attitude, like I said, has been part of art for generations. It's just part of the playing field. It is no surprise that the producers of the documentary would pull this stuff up for the trailer. This stuff plays well among their target audience. This stuff helps sell the film. The kinds of people who'll watch a documentary about online comics are the kind of people who want to believe in the myth of the man keeping down artists out of fear and ignorance and hatred. Trust me on this. I'm a college educated Liberal. I got the memo with my diploma.

Still, there has to be a certain amount of understanding on the part of the dreamers and visionaries that this is pretentious, and it's also... well, not true. And easy to deflate a little. And part of that stems from the fact that Garza's comments are years old. If he were interviewed today, I suspect Garza would talk about different things. I suspect most of the interviewees would. It's been a couple of years -- otherwise known as several lifetimes on the Internet. Things are different. Things have changed.

At the same time, I'm excited for this movie. I'm excited over anything that gives people who don't know the first thing about webcomics some idea that we exist. I'm excited over any mass media treatment that doesn't superimpose BAM, ZAP, BOOM and BIFF! across the screen when talking about sequential art. I'm excited over anything that might help broaden the audience for webcomics, particularly among those people who might not have any interest in all over newspaper comic strips or superhero comic books -- the sort of people the Graphic Novel Review says they're trying to hook -- the mainstream folks who bought gobs and gobs of copies of Maus and went to see Crumb in droves. We want those people checking out online comics -- and to be blunt, those people are more likely to want to read things on Modern Tales or infinite canvas experimentation than they are likely to read Sluggy Freelance or PvP. This is definitely a documentary pitched towards the art appreciation crowd. And getting them to come by the webcomics tent would be a good thing for the development of webcomics as a whole. It honestly would. We have to get something other than geek-fandoms and gamers as our majority sooner or later if more people are going to start making a living at this.

Scott Kurtz weighed in on this and did so moderately well. He elaborated on why he felt the trailer (remember -- no one has seen the movie yet) didn't serve the webcomics community particularly well. You might disagree with him, but at least this time he didn't throw gasoline on the fire. Had Kurtz's comments been the only ones, I wouldn't have had to write this, and I wouldn't feel so badly about waiting.

Shaenon Garrity also weighed in, on the other side of the equation. She talked about how excited she was that the film was coming out, and some of what she hoped from it, and she was overwhelmingly thrilled to announce she was one of the interviewees. She's also not why I needed to write this snark, and why I feel badly.

Checkerboard Nightmare weighed in today too. Dogpiling, to a degree (though at least he was somewhat funny and pointed out the true foible that all the interviews are old). Still, Straub's comments made me realize this wouldn't go away. And I did need to write this snark.

Because at the start of all this, Penny Arcade weighed in, with both a strip, and a rant.

Everyone who's read Websnark for a while knows I like Aaron Sorkin a great deal. And they should know that his Sports Night was a particular favorite of mine. Well, there was one evocative episode I'm thinking of right now, where Jeremy has gone out to produce his first solo remote segment. It's a hunting segment, and they shoot a deer, and Jeremy has a panic attack and has to be hospitalized. Justifying himself, he says the following:

Yeah. Bob and Eddie were using the IR-50 Recon by Bushcomber. It's got a sixteen-inch microgrooved barrel with 30-30 mags, side-scope mount, wire- cutter sheath, quick-release bolt, mag catches and a three pound trigger. So I figured we must be going after a pretty dangerous duck. We shot a deer. [...] There was a special vest they had me wear so that they could distinguish me from things they wanted to shoot, and I was pretty grateful for that. Almost the whole day had gone by, we hadn't gotten anything. Eddie was getting frustrated and Bob Shoemaker was getting embarrassed. My camera guy needed to re-load so I told everybody to take a ten minute break. There was a stream nearby and I walked over with this care-package Natalie made me. I sat down and when I looked up I saw three of them; small, bigger, biggest. Recognizable to any species on the face of the planet as a child, a mother and a father. Now, the trick in shooting deer is you gotta get 'em out in the open. And it's tough with deer, 'cause these are clever, cagey animals with an intuitive sense of danger. You know what you have to do to get a deer out in the open? You hold out a twinkie. That animal clopped up to me like we were at a party. She seemed to be pretty interested in the twinkie, so I gave it to her. Looking back, she'd have been better off if I'd given her the damn vest. And Bob kind of screamed at me in whisper, "Move away!" The camera had been re-loaded and it looked like the day wasn't gonna be a washout after all. So I backed away, a couple of steps at a time, and closed my eyes when I heard the shot. Look, I know these are animals, and they don't play bridge and go to the prom, but you can't tell me that the little one didn't know who his mother was. That's gotta mean something. And later, at the hospital, Bob Shoemaker was telling me about the nobility and tradition of hunting and how it related to the native American Indians. And I nodded and I said that was interesting while I was thinking about what a load of crap it was. Hunting was part of Indian culture. It was food and it was clothes and it was shelter. They sang and danced and offered prayers to the gods for a successful hunt so that they could survive just one more unimaginably brutal winter. The things they had to kill held the highest place of respect for them, and to kill for fun was a sin -- and they knew the gods wouldn't be so generous next time. What we did wasn't food and it wasn't shelter and it sure wasn't sports. It was just mean.

Cat Garza is a good artist. He's one of those rare infinite canvas artists I like and respect, because you can see him honestly trying to push his limits, push the limits of the medium, push something as he works. He really is experimental. He really is trying. You might think it's all bullshit or pretentious or whatever, but he doesn't. He believes it.

And he's not been a success story in webcomics. His output has dropped way down, because he's got bills to pay and a family to feed. He believes, with all his heart, but he doesn't get to play fucking video games for a living. He does this because he loves it, and he believes in it, and in the end it hasn't gone where he wanted, and if you have no empathy for that then you're just a stone cold bastard, whether you believe him or not.

Do you have any idea what Cat Garza must have felt to see that trailer? Do you have any idea what that must have meant to him? He was the centerpiece of a trailer for a movie, talking about a subject that means the world to him. For that one, brief moment it must have all seemed worth it to him. It must have seemed like maybe -- just maybe -- he has had a profound influence on this medium that he loves.

And then comes Penny Arcade to take a gigantic, massive dump on him for it.

It's like Krahulik and Holkins are so desperate to be cool that they're emulating the jocks in high school. It's like they're abusing the people weaker than they are because they know it'll make the cool kids laugh, and prove they're cool. It's like they're abused children, who get big enough so they can abuse children of their own -- their lunch money got taken away and they felt weird and awkward and weak -- Jesus Christ, look at those freaks. They play video games way too much. They're, like, obsessed! Hey, let's go smack them around! Let's go stuff them into lockers! That'll be funny! -- and now they've got hundreds of thousands of people reading them. They've fucking won. They beat the assholes who used to rag on them once and for all, because those assholes are working fucking retail and Krahulik and Holkins get to play video games for a living. And so now they're taking glee in tormenting this guy who's never done a thing to them and who couldn't do a thing to them if he wanted to. They mock how he looks and what he says and they just generally tear him down at the moment when he probably felt the best about himself and his art as he ever had.

That's not funny. That's not a joke. That's not editorializing and it sure as Hell isn't deflating the pretensions of others. It's. Just. Mean.

I should have written this on the day. I should have opened up my web browser, gone to Movable Type, and said in a loud, clear, and utterly clear voice fuck you, you assholes!. I didn't, and I'm ashamed of myself because I didn't.

For the record, I'm fat and goofy looking, with a beard. I wear a lot of polo shirts. There isn't a cool bone in my body. If they want to caricature me and make me look lame and stupid, it'll be easy. And also for the record, there's no chance in Hell they give even the slightest damn what I say about them. I'm nothing to them. Every person who reads Websnark could stop reading Penny Arcade tomorrow, and it'd barely show up as a blip in their page views. Whereas I know from direct and personal experience that parts of their fan base are more than willing to bury people they don't like in negative e-mail.

But that doesn't change the simple, inexorable fact that what they did was pure, unadulterated bullying. It was kicking the weird kids who liked different things than they did. It was mean. They should be ashamed of themselves. How dare they take that pinnacle moment from Cat Garza? How dare they piss on all the people who might -- just might -- have been feeling good about this? Who the fuck are they?

I'm looking forward to this movie. I think it can do some good. I'm also glad that the people involved with it are proud of it. And if I disagree with parts -- if I feel that it's outdated in places and extols artistic myths in others -- I also think that everyone involved was speaking in good faith. I think those folks need to know they came off as pretentious. But I think trashing them for it was a horrible thing to do. And it colors Scott Kurtz's rant, because it makes it seem like Kurtz is piling on, and making Garza even more of a chump. And it colors Straub's comic, because it makes him seem like he's piling on too.

It's all happened, and it's all in the past, and there is nothing at all to be done for it now. And everyone involved should recognize both where they're being deluded and where they're being intolerant. But even though the Penny Arcade guys can't take it back, at the very least someone should tell them that was a shitty thing to do. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

And if that means I get buried again, so fucking be it.

At least I don't have to be ashamed of myself for saying nothing any more.

I'm sorry, Mr. Garza. I'm sorry this happened to you.

And I'm sorry I didn't write this five days ago.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:50 AM | Comments (85)

June 5, 2005

Eric: On the WCCA bandwagon

The 2005 Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards nominations list is out. This is my first year being able to vote, what being a webcomics writer now and all. So, I went over and voted now, because... well, I can't sleep. And besides, I blew nominations. I put in a few placeholders and thoughts and random bits in... and then didn't get back until after nominations were finished. So, rather than put it off until it was too late, I figured it'd be best to just get it done.

For the most part, I agree with the nominations (with the occasional "what the fuck" moment that crops up on any list of nominees). There were several categories that I had to wrestle with -- Outstanding Comedic Comic, for example, had a quarter ton of excellent choices. Picking a winner from it was simply not simple.

I'd tell you my choices, but I'd rather wait until voting closes. If you're a webcartoonist and reading my words, go check the list out, follow links to the unfamiliar strips, weigh your choices and put your votes in. If you're not, go check out the nominee list, and feel free to comment down in the comments section.

Going to take another run at sleep now.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:32 AM | Comments (17)

June 2, 2005

Eric: Where Madison Avenue meets Milholland Drive. *pause* No, I can't believe I made that pun either.

So. Let's talk about advertising. Yes, I'm going to snark actual webcomics today. Yes, I'm going to poke at more Shortbreads today. But for the moment, let's talk about advertising.

There's always a question, before you advertise, over whether or not it will do any good to advertise your webcomic. You know the conventional wisdom about advertising, but the conventional wisdom is often conventionally wrong. Still... I have a webcomic, alongside Soul Brother Number Nine-Fourteen Greg Holkan. You may have heard me mention it before. And while we've had a solid readership -- especially for a brand new webcomic -- obviously we want more. Lots more.

And that means advertising. Among many other things.

Now, to be fair, we had advertisements before. As part of my compensation for writing articles for Comixpedia, I get a certain number of ad banner impressions each month, and as soon as Gossamer Commons existed, I swapped over to that. (I've never felt a need to advertise Websnark. I'm not sure why. I did it -- with the worst banner ad in existence -- when that was the only website I had, but now that I have a webcomic my ad space went to that.)

But, we've had that from the very beginning. And it works. I do in fact get a number of monthly referrals from that ad. But that won't expand my readership, because we've always advertised there. If I were going to try the grand experiment, I needed to figure the best places to put ads for our strip where there were no current ads.

I was holding off on more general advertising strategy until we had a solid archive of strips for people to read through, as well. And I wanted to wait until I felt like we really had our voice. And the last couple of weeks of strips have hit on all cylinders, so this seemed like the time.

This week, we did this. We put a vertical ad banner on Something Positive, and we advertised on Blank Label Comics. For Something Positive, we took out ads on a few days on the sidebar graphic -- Greg put together a fantastic banner ad to meet the Something Positive size requirements. You see that same sidebar advertisement on this post. At Blank Label, we offered up the same horizontal ad banner we use on Comixpedia -- another excellent Greg Holkan design.

(Greg designs the ads, I pay for the advertising. This to me is way more than fair, since if we reverse the equation the ads would drive people away. You don't want to see what it looks like when I draw Sonata.)

There were two solid reasons for advertising on Something Positive. Pragmatically, Randy Milholland's strip is extremely popular -- not just with people in general, but with the sort of people I hope will actually like Gossamer Commons. The demographic seemed a good fit.

The emotional reason for advertising on Something Positive is because without Something Positive, Gossamer Commons wouldn't exist.

See, I knew I wanted to do a webcomic. Very badly. I knew I couldn't draw it, and that I'd have to find someone who could. But beyond that, I needed a solid idea and a solid premise. For a while, I thought it'd be a webcomic about Trudy Glick, kind of somewhere between Bruno and Girls with Slingshots.

The problem was... I couldn't make it work. I'm not a good enough writer, and Trudy as I envisioned her wasn't a strong enough character to support a webcomic by herself. I needed a Mary Richards, and she was one hundred percent Ted Baxter.

Now, years and years ago, when I was actually living in Ithaca, I came up with an idea for a novel. See, I knew the folklore. I didn't make up the whole "if you see a fairy you're marked for death" idea, though I think my implementation is somewhat different. I first heard about it when I was acting in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. So, I came up with an idea that a young man saved a beautiful (very much 'age of consent') fairy whose leg was caught in a trap, and so the Fae court decided they wanted to reward him instead of kill him. The joke in this story would be that they weren't very good at rewarding him. Ultimately, of course, the man married the fairy girl -- like I said, totally not Sonata, who is the fae equivalent of three years old -- and fathered children with her, and then died ironically.

As novel premises went, it was okay. The kind of novel you come up with when you're twenty-two years old and spending a lot of your time writing about crappy super heroes. But I never got around to writing it and stuck it in the back of my head. Something about the premise didn't quite work for me, you see.

So, I was casting around for an idea for a webcomic, trying to find something good. Something I could write. Something that -- while an original idea is next to impossible -- would be at least somewhat different.

And then I was rereading the Something Positive archives one day -- I don't even remember why -- and I came across this strip.

And something between the righteous "anti-cute-fairy" sentiment of the strip, plus the darkness of it, plus the phrase "winged harbinger of death" just absolutely clicked in my brain. My old story cropped back up and I was able to completely recast it in a more modern, less clich»d light. In particular, a sense of utterly dark humor that was missing from my original premise -- which was, after all, romanic comedy -- slid in, all Milholland-like. Certainly, Sonata's design was entirely designed around the kind of cute, cuddly, adorable tinkerbellesque fairy that someone like Anna would probably like to meet sitting on a toadstool, giggling and waving and marking Anna for a horrific death in the process.

So, it went without saying I'd advertise with Something Positive. I owed him, even though he didn't know it, and besides it made sound business sense.

Blank Label, on the other hand, was a happy coincidence. I was looking around for other venues -- things that could fit in my budget, which let out most of the Big Guns of Webcomics (the other advantage to Something Positive is it's affordable). But here's Blank Label, just starting up, but with six extremely established cartoonists working for them and extremely affordable ad rates for webcomics creators. Affordable rates that would put our ad banner on Shortpacked, Checkerboard Nightmare, Greystone Inn, Melonpool, Wapsi Square and Ugly Hill, among others. Solidly established strips, among the top tier, with (once again) compatible senses of humor to mine. It made a lot of sense to advertise with them.

Though I did find it morbidly amusing that this meant I was actually advertising on It's Walky. I'm waiting for David Willis to laugh and laugh and laugh at me. And then possibly do me an injury.

The Blank Label ads cost less, but Something Positive is a full day's sponsorship, which means a lot higher percentage of people seeing it. A good tradeoff.

So. The question... back from the beginning of this snark... was "is it worth it to advertise." I mean, we had a solid readership to begin with. Not huge, but pretty damn good.

Holy crap, dude.

Our page views for the past three days have been in six figures. We did as much bandwidth yesterday as we did in April. We've done more bandwidth since May 31 than in the entire history of our webcomic combined times two. We have a huge number of people coming over. And a good percentage of those people are trawling back through the archives. I've gotten e-mail from new readers. We've gotten a passel of new links elsewhere. This has been huge.

The Something Positive referrals have been higher -- but then, as I said, that's a persistent ad. On the days I've sponsored, it's always there. That's huge. Certainly, we've had a solid response from Blank Label as well.

Now, part of the credit goes to the ad banners themselves. Greg Holkan knocked himself out on them -- look at that sidebar advert again. It's great. Visually it strikes you solidly. Hooks you in. Creates a sense of dissonance that makes the viewer want to resolve. It's the same sort of dissonance -- in a different form -- that he did with the vertical banner.

The next step is to let these advertisements run out, and see how many readers stick around. Once we've done that, then it's time to advertise again, possibly in these venues, but definitely in some others as well. Almost certainly, we'll advertise on Real Life Comics -- Greg Dean actually linked to us in his links list, and we get a decent number of referrals from that, so we owe him to begin with. And again, his audience is a good one to shamelessly beg to. When Modern Tales/Joey Manley's Ad Comics Nation spins up, we'll no doubt participate. And I'll start exploring the costs over at Dayfree and Dumbrella, where applicable.

(Why not Keenspot? I can't afford Keenspot. Q.E.D. It's not because I don't feel love. There is the love! See also PvP and Penny-Arcade and Sluggy etc. Frankly, I'm stunned that I could afford Something Positive. S*P is, for right now, one of the best values in advertising.)

In the meantime, advertising has clearly, solidly worked. Now it's our job to actually keep the new readers.

Because... I find I like having people read this webcomic. Go figure.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:36 AM | Comments (20)

May 24, 2005

Eric: 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)

Eric: 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)

May 17, 2005

Eric: La Escuela de Afilado

Things are trending enough at this point that it's worth at least discussing the role of Keenspot in today's action packed webcomics scene. And, by derivation, the role of the large collectives in general -- since there are certain commonalities whether the collective is run by a fellow with the surname of Crosby or the surname of Manley or anyone else.

If one reads through T Campbell's History of Webcomics, one sees the founding of Keenspot as a watershed, and part of the natural evolution of the form and its conventions. It's natural to assume the form and conventions will continue to evolve, of course. However, I don't think anyone expects Keen and Co. to pack up the tent and leave town. In the same month that a number of 'Spotters have announced their moving on, we also had James Grant, in his Comixpedia interview, saying he "will give free blowjobs to get us on Keenspot." There is still a strong allure to Keenspot. There is still prestige, and opportunity, and crosspromotion, and a broader spectrum of potential growth. And, given that John Troutman took his many and sundry comics back to Keenspot recently, clearly there's still a financial advantage.

For me, I think it goes back to the joke I made a couple of snarks back. I think we need to consider the concept of La Escuela de Afilado.

Keenspot moved its corporate headquarters to a school in South Dakota, as we all should know by now. (I totally think they should have a convention there, by the way -- call it the Keen Pilgrimage or something. I mean, dude.) Metaphorically, however, it's become a school. Someone goes out and creates a strip. They build an audience to a degree, either on 'Space or doing it on their own. They get some recognition. And then they get the opportunity to do the KeenThing, and they head over.

And then they get a chance to learn, to potentially get paid (my understanding is there's a bit of a gulf between the most profitable of Keen strips and the least, but then that makes sense, doesn't it?) and to have a built in community. They get chances to build relationships with their peers, to see the way advertising works, to have a shot at merchandising either in house or one step away.

And, eventually they graduate. They get to the point where they peak in readership. They learn all they can learn. And for a while, they act as the feeders -- the people bringing in the pageviews. The people whose crosspromotion is valued because they're the ones getting fifty thousand pageviews.

It makes sense that there reaches a point where a Howard Tayler or David Willis decides to take it on the road. While some people go on to teach at the school where once they learned, most people don't, after all. And this in turn opens up new slots for new blood -- new people to learn. New strips to get the exposure and advantage that Keenspot can afford them.

And it would stun me if there weren't a block of new strips on Keenspot in the coming weeks. They should be capitalizing on this, after all. (And coopting some of the news cycle.) Two Lumps should be getting a call. The Devil's Panties should be getting a call. Yirmumah should be getting a call. And I'm sure you can think of a block of others. And some of them may decline, but others will accept.

Keenspot should be extending a public thanks to the graduating class of 2005, of course. And all the well wishes in the world. But then, they should be welcoming the Freshmen class at the same time, and building excitement for them -- even as the new independent strips should be getting excitement for their own new move. This kind of shakeup has the potential to transform all sides for the better.

Let's see what everyone's learned, shall we?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:13 PM | Comments (81)

May 13, 2005

Eric: A Websnarkian Holiday

As all good subjects of the Neighborhood of Make Believe know, any time the thirteenth of the month rolls around on a Friday, it is King Friday XIII's birthday, by royal proclamation. It is, by decree, a most excellent and good day, and one of enjoyable things.

As both Wednesday and I were sick on the good King's birthday, Websnark actually took the day off. Between illness and royally mandated frivolity, the doors to Snark Mansion remained shuttered.

I trust the Good King's birthday reflected well on everyone else, however.

(Note -- this is being plugged into 5/13's space, but it was writ on the 14th. Just to be, y'know, honest.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 6:00 AM | Comments (1)

May 12, 2005

Eric: Besides, it's not like he's Aylee.

From Sluggy Freelance.

I don't usually respond to comments on another snark over here in the main body of the page. I just don't. I usually respond right there in the comments, because that's how conversations happen. It's the difference between having a chat after giving a speech and climbing up on stage and using an amplified sound system to respond to someone. Seems unfair, somehow.

But this isn't really a response to a comment so much as it is a comment has inspired a snark. So I hope this doesn't come across as megaphoning an answer so much as forking the conversation into a new one. If not... um... well... dude. Hope you win the lottery!

The comment in question came from Alexis Christoforides, who may have the coolest name I've typed all month (with the possible exception of Darrin Bleuel. It's just fun to type Bleuel. But I digress). Alexis was responding to my Sluggy snark this morning -- not just to the central point of the snark (which is that Sluggy seems to be on an upswing again, or else I've adapted to it and either way it's all good), but to the subject line. I quote:

I still can't understand the hatred for Bun-bun, though, Eric :-) Sure, he's a slightly formulaic 'badass' + 'cute animal' character, but it's not like he hasn't been owned a few times. And I loved 'Holiday Wars'.

I read that, and realized it was a legitimate comment, that deserved a legitimate response. Especially because the following facts are also true:

1. I have been a Bun Bun fan in the past.
2. I also enjoyed Holiday Wars a great deal.
3. Any sign of Bun Bun in current Sluggy fills my soul with a kind of dread one is supposed to reserve for Communism in the late 1950's.

Bun Bun was, for a long time, a fantastic character. Yes, he was essentially a one-joke character ("ooo, look at the cute fuzzy widdle mini-lop, isn't he the cutest widdle bunny in the OH CHRIST MY HAND! THE BASTARD CUT OFF MY HAND! OH JESUS PLEASE NO! NOOOOOOO!!!!!"), but he was used effectively most of the time. He was the deus ex machina, but he was also unreliable (the times he fought on behalf of Torg until it became clear that his self interest wasn't directly involved, so he wandered away -- for example). He was the unreasonable menace that put our heroes on the road. And so on and so forth.

And sometimes, there were actual, effective uses of him in plots and in characterization. His involvement in the Hereticorp/Kiki stuff. The amnesia story. (The amnesia story is among my favorite Sluggy stories, actually.) The yearly jousts with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Becoming the Easter Bunny. And of course, the Holiday Wars.

And the Holiday Wars was special in part because it was a culmination. We didn't just see Bun Bun hold steady -- he grew, he added power, he added menace. He gained an organization. He gained resources. He gained powers. He gained ambition. And in so doing he lost his way -- he wanted to free himself of his Holiday status, originally, but the sheer power involved corrupted in its own way. And he gained certain disadvantages hand in hand with certain advantages -- for example, the dual edged blade that was his Groundhog Shadow. And when he lost and was finally defeated, it was epic.

And, it was final. And Sluggy went on. The other characters developed and grew -- and exceeded themselves. We even got a fresh take on the Bun Bun character when Torg went to the Dimension of Lame -- we had gone so far into the characterization of the cute widdle bunny who's really a psychotic murder machine that having a Bun Bun who really was just a cute minilop actually became cliche-breaking.

And then... we had Oceans Unmoving.

The problems with Bun Bun in Oceans Unmoving are threefold, really. First off, there is Bun Bun's status when he came into view. We didn't see Bun Bun build up his crew and power base. We walked in and Bun Bun -- last seen broken down as far as he had ever gone, bereft of all his new power, and actually, fully and completely defeated -- is back in a position of power and authority. He's back to being essentially unstoppable -- the captain of a pirate ship, more competent than all others around him, essentially perfect at everything. It's like he was right back to having the Black Ops Elves around him. More to the point, we didn't get to see any of the buildup -- it was literally Bun Bun was defeated, and now he's king of the heap again.

Secondly, Bun Bun was back in the position of being the background conflict. Oceans Unmoving wasn't really a Bun Bun story, it was a story about the people around him, and largely dealt with them coping with Bun Bun's entry into their lives (and his essential inability to be stopped). The problem there was that there were a mass of new, unfamiliar characters to get to know... and little reason to do so. We had just come off of a significant, main cast heavy storyline, we had ended on a cliffhanger (Torg leaving, Zo‘ being pushed away, the cast losing their house), and now here we are dealing with... these... things instead.

(Note that a large amount of my earlier dissatisfaction with Something Puny This Way Comes was that the cliffhanger fizzled. Torg's lost his depression and angst offpanel. The major Zo‘ stuff seemed to just be... blah and served to make her seem like a jerk, which is unfair because I don't think she is. And so forth. So there was a sense of being cheated lumped on top of everything else.)

Finally... Bun Bun, as he's appearing now, completely relies on the original joke. He's back to being the cute widdle bunny who's psychotic and mind-bogglingly dangerous. Only... we've done that. We've overdone that. It's nowhere near enough. Even though he largely defined the clich» (Monty Python aside), it is in fact clich» now. It's stagnant. And as a result it feels more like Abrams was bowing to pressure to bring back Bun Bun than it was a natural reemergence of the character into the storyline.

Can Abrams reverse this? Can Abrams make Bun Bun exciting and fun and funny and all that again? Well, yeah. Of course he can. Abrams has made more dramatic turnarounds in the past. And I can think of one scenario off the top of my head that could add a tremendous amount of spice to the inevitable, dreaded Oceans Unmoving sequel.

See, at the very end of the Holiday Wars, we learned that Santa had thrown Bun Bun into the Void of Out-Time before. That raises the possibility that the Bun Bun who's the captain of the Bloody Bun is actually an incarnation of Bun Bun from before he was introduced into Sluggy Freelance -- that this is in fact a prequel. That would forgive the clich» elements, and add a tremendous amount of potential. After all, out-time by definition is timeless... who's to say the "tired and weakened rabbit" from the end of the Holiday Wars won't suddenly land on the deck... who's to say the post-Sluggy Bun Bun doesn't actually lead to the pre-Sluggy Bun Bun escaping from Out-Time and entering continuity. And then, given that he is weakened from the Holiday Wars, who's to say he won't have a fight on his hands to keep the various crewmembers from taking him out?

For that matter, who's to say he isn't working with the Noble Sir John Jacobs. Or might even be a prisoner of his?

Now that? That could be interesting. But I'm scared that things are exactly as they seem, that this is the post-Holiday Wars Bun Bun, and that he's just going to continue to be exactly what he's been forever.

And in either case, I do indeed dread Bun Bun right now, and hope that the good Bunless times continue in Sluggy for a long, long time to come.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:59 AM | Comments (12)

Eric: Stupid Trivia Warning.

So. I posted a Casey and Andy snark last night. One thing I didn't mention was how much I enjoy the character of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. Suffice it to say, the answer to that is "a lot."

Well, being a happy (somewhat) Tiger user now, I have Dashboard, which has widgets on it. And they're a thousand times cooler than I thought they would be. And one of those widgets is a "this day in history" widget. And the top thing on today's is the fact that today is the birthday of Gustav Vasa, a sixteenth century Swedish monarch who among other things introduced Protestantism to Sweden. Gustav Vasa wasn't a forebear of Carl XVI Gustaf's, though -- Carl XVI is a descendent of General Bernadotte, who took the throne after Charles XIII. Which means it's all Napoleon's fault. And Charles XIII was already multiple steps away from the House of Vasa, thanks to the (apparently lesbian, often thought intergendered and certainly cross-dressing ) Christina of Sweden, last of the Vasas, abdicating her throne in 1654 to practice Catholicism in Rome, after receiving assurances that the Catholics would have no problem with her lifestyle. After her death, she was entombed in Vatican City, in St. Peter's Basilica itself.

All of which means two things. 1) Sweden's royal history is cool. 2) I have no idea why I thought any of you would care.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:59 AM | Comments (8)

May 6, 2005

Eric: Does the G rated version have oreos and melba toast?

(From Suburban Jungle and the good folks at Keenspot.)

I'd say "submitted without comment" and do the whole parenthetical thing on this, but honestly, how can I? It's not an in-strip reference. And it's representative, oddly enough, of an appropriate use of Websnark.

Not that there's really an inappropriate use of Websnark, barring quoting out of context. If someone wants to print it off and line birdcages with it, that's really up to them, isn't it? Though it might be a waste of printer ink. But I digress.

I'm impressed, first off, at the Cheese Nips Robey found. That's one Hell of a biscuit tin. I'll bet they're tasty, too. And shortbread is always a good thing.

More than that, though, I'm struck by the implications. When Penny and Aggie invoked Websnark in their Previews solicitation, it stunned me. Having gone through that, I take Keenspot Newsbox references a little more in stride than I might have three months ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm psyched. I have an ego like anyone else (well, save mine is hopped up on steroids and gin), and having a kind of validation related to what we do around here makes a guy pretty happy.

The thing that strikes me the most, however, is that there's no explanation. "Recipient of tasty, tasty biscuits." "Nominated for tasty, tasty shortbread." It doesn't say "Websnark's our bitch! YEEE-HAH!" It assumes the reader already knows that.

I don't know if it's a correct assumption or not, but it struck me. John Robey, at the least, feels the biscuit thing's well known enough that they didn't need to explain it. Whoever edits these things did too. That's a pretty solid compliment to be paid, and I appreciate it greatly.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:35 AM | Comments (17)

May 5, 2005

Eric: Annotations on the Day

It's Cinco de Mayo, which means little to me because I'm not much of a drinker. Oh, I drink, but last I know Cinco de Mayo wasn't set aside for pretentious doinks to stand at the end of a bar drinking single malt and complaining about the state of criticism, so I have to invoke the Penny Arcade Defense on it -- it's not for me.

It's also the Fifth of May, 2005, making today 05/05/05. Which makes me think the world is about to be destroyed, because that's three pentads. But that's neither here nor there.

It's also Webcomics Appreciation Day.

Theoretically.

You remember Webcomics Appreciation Day, I trust. For years now, the fifth of May has been set aside for cartoonists to put up special strips commemorating everything people do for webcomics and the fact that they're (generally) free and the like. It was a good idea -- an idea to help build a community spirit and a sense of pride.

Much like Americans in regards to the British elections, however, this year few if any people seem to care. I would have forgotten it myself, but it got mentioned by Get Outta My Head, writ and drawn by Anne Gibson who is also our regular commentator Kirabug, with a link to the official website.

The official 2004 website.

Maybe there was a memo sent around that I didn't get. I seem to miss a lot of memos these days. Or maybe people gradually decided that the affair was a bit... awkward, at best. I mean, it's disconcertingly like a Public Radio Pledge Drive, even if folks weren't asking for money (and often they were). In the early days, there was huge support. Over the years, User Friendly, Schlock Mercenary, Queen of Wands, Basil Flint, Kevin and Kell, College Roomies from Hell and... well, a lot of others (I want to say Sluggy, but I may be making that up) pitched in, contributing strips or newsposts or both. Even the 2004 hub site is chock full of strips -- including some of the more recognizable names out there.

In doing some research for this snark, I found the Online Comics Day (what they were calling Webcomics Awareness Day, before) discussion on their forum, asserting there would in fact be one. And... well, fourteen replies. And today... well....

So, does that mean this isn't Online Comics Day? Or Webcomics Appreciation Day? Well, of course it is. You don't lose your day just because no one actually notices it. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with taking a few minutes out of the day to think -- really think -- about what this webcomics habit means to you. I mean, I subscribe to a lot of pay stuff at this point, but of the 200-300 webcomics I currently read (I remember when I thought I was reading way too much stuff back when it was 60), 90% or more don't cost me anything but time.

That's astounding. It really is.

Of course, at this point I'm also a creator. And obviously that means I have a stake in the public perception of webcomics. So am I disturbed that this year's event essentially wasn't?

No. Because while there's still a long way to go before we're really broadly regarded artistically, we've also come a long way. We're represented in the Eisners. Megatokyo is in most bookstores, shelved with all the other manga. People are making a living. We're seeing less and less mainstream articles on "gosh! There's comic strips on the web!" and more and more tacit acknowledgment. (When online cartoonists are a sidebar of an article about cartooning in general, that shows greater penetration than articles professing to be astounded that they exist at all.)

PvP just turned 7. User Friendly is also 7. Melonpool just turned 9. Hundreds of thousands (millions? Someone ask the Penny Arcade guys) of people read online comics every single day. People make money off merchandising. People make money off advertising. People make money because they ask their readers to give it to them. Webcomics have really just begun, but they have in fact begun. They're here. Where they go and how they grow, I don't know -- but they're here right now, and they're not going anywhere.

And that's something I for one can appreciate.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:09 PM | Comments (18)

Eric: Keeping one's ear to the ground. (Warning, politics.)

It's a day of tremendous significance to the United States of America, of which I am a citizen in (as far as I know) good standing. A day when the entire geopolitical position we're in may be inexorably altered, with far reaching consequences in every theater of foreign policy we're involved in.

I mention this because it seems to have slipped the attention of... well, everyone. At least, everyone in America.

For those who don't know, today's the day of the General Election over in the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Unlike American elections, people vote parties instead of individuals over there (officially, I mean. We pretty clearly vote parties over here too, only we lie about it), and also unlike American elections, there is at least some slight doubt as to the configuration of the final Parliament as a result. It's possible -- albeit unlikely -- that Labour will fail to hold the House of Commons and the entire British government will change. Even if it doesn't, there's likely to be a shift in the composition both of the majority and the backbench, and there will almost certainly be an alteration of policy corresponding to that shift.

This is of course of major significance to the Britons (do we still call them Britons? I never know), as well as to the European Union. Oh, and Australia. And Eastern Europe. The Pacific Rim is also keeping a close eye on this -- especially Hong Kong, despite the lack of formal ties. And the Mid-East is keeping a very close watch on what's going on. Great Britain, after all, has been the staunchest ally the United States has in the "Coalition of the Willing" up until now. Certainly, they're the strongest power to solidly stand behind the United States in Iraq and elsewhere.

Step away from American politics for the moment and take a look at American interests overall. (Taking the old aphorism "politics stops at the water's edge" as read for a minute, even though it's no longer true.) We strongly need Great Britain's support in what we do. At a time when America's international reputation is at a low ebb, we need as visible a set of allies as we can muster, saying in a clear, certain voice that we don't stand alone -- that for all the discussion of unilateral action, we are in fact a coalition, and we do in fact have allies of significance who agree with our stance. If Great Britain pulls significant support from Iraq, our costs go significantly up alongside the risk, and we lose a tremendous amount of what authority we have left in the region.

And make no mistake -- the United Kingdom's Iraq policy will change as a result of this general election. If Labour retains Parliament, they're not likely to pull out entirely -- but it would not be a surprise if they reduced their presence and role. Certainly, to maintain a significant presence and role, the United States is going to have to give them some reasons -- some stake -- beyond what they have, so far.

Which is why I find it... interesting that so few pundits -- especially online pundits like myself -- seem to care. American Livejournal members have barely acknowledged the elections, as near as I've seen. Instead, we're seeing the highly typical American response -- if it's not happening in America, it somehow doesn't matter. (It goes without saying that a vastly higher percentage of Canadians and Mexicans know who our President is than Americans know who their chief executives are, despite our sharing the continent with them.)

It does matter, though. Those Americans who want our own policies to change should be yearning for a significant Parliamentary shift. Those Americans who want our policies to stay the course should be hoping for Parliament to remain mostly the same. There should be debate about the significance, tracking of results, hopes and fears and doomsaying. It should matter to us, because it does matter to us.

Well, it matters to me. I'm keeping an eye on the elections today. I have my own hopes on how it comes out, and my own hopes for what it will mean for American Foreign Policy, for Iraq, and for our general positioning in the Middle East. More than that, I know that it's going to have an effect, and that it's an effect I have no ability, no matter how cursory, to control.

And through it all, I remember how clearly important the American elections were to British Livejournal users and pundits, and feel just slightly embarrassed on behalf of my nation that we haven't seen fit to return the favor.

Edit: And just after I finished composing this essay, I learned that explosives went off in New York City at three thirty this morning in the same building as the U.K. Consulate. We don't know more than that at this time, or what if any impact they were intended to have. According to CNN, there were no injuries, for which I for one am grateful.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:10 AM | Comments (22)

April 28, 2005

Eric: Culmination and Digestion: the end of Fans.

This entry cheats a bit. I had an exhausting day (literally. I hit the ground running at work, was there past seven, and was called back in. When I made it home, I slept all evening. I'm just awake briefly now) and no time to even consider writing, but we're still going to call this a Thursday post.

I'm digesting Fans. It's going to take some time.

In a way, it ended the only way a story about a science fiction club that saves the world multiple times possibly can; happily ever after, with one of the leads getting two wives, lots of good old fashioned lesbian sex, one of the character getting to be on Star Tr-- er, Tec (and play Mara Jade in a movie, it sounds like), another revolutionizing the world of business, another the world of technology, another a worldwide bestselling author, with the entire world absolutely adoring them to the point that Orlando Bloom wants their autographs.

It's thematic, after all. In a story about SF Fans who really do save the world, you need to go way way way beyond Mary Sue.

I have trouble digesting Fans because I've always had trouble reading Fans. There is a kind of brilliance in it, but sometimes the angst seemed self perpetuating without reason, and sometimes I feel like I'm missing half of what I'm supposed to know. You can't use words like Cerebus or First and Ten with Fans because the story's always been what it's been. There's always been a feeling like you're missing something, here and there, but that too felt like it was intentional. It's the same kind of thing that gave me trouble with the end of It's Walky, really. But it worked out over time.

Of course, so did It's Walky.

There are bits I don't care for. Alisin/Alison/Ally's evolution has always been handled well, but somehow the idea that her identity and persona for the run is something she can sell off piecemeal seems wrong, somehow. But that's minor, and I suppose we all outgrow who we think we are, as we get better. And I never -- ever -- cared for the overly cute renaming of Science Fiction shows and tropes to make them deniable. Star Tec and all the rest sometimes made the exercise feel disingenuous.

In a way, Fans feels like the story that forged both T Campbell and Jason Waltrip. I prefer some of Campbell's other stories to Fans, really -- both Rip and Teri and Penny and Aggie. But I think the reason for that is Campbell explored so many different styles of writing and storytelling in Fans, pushing his limits, that he gained tremendous flexibility.

Jason Waltrip, on the other hand, refined his style over the years but -- despite many, many excellent guest artists -- absolutely defined the iconic style of Fans. David Willis did the last chapter with fantastic skill and flexibility, but I deeply missed Waltrip in the last act. He blended the cartoonish and the exaggerated and made them look like the only choices that could be made.

I'm still digesting Fans because it's been around for years and years and years, and had a backstory that could choke a team of horses and have enough left over to choke a goat and the farmer. So much of the final act echoed back to elements of the series that are years and years back that jumping into it and finishing it is like slamming back a shot of Laiphroig. Sure, you could drink it down so fast you barely taste it, but my God man, why? Savor it. The peatiness assaults your senses at first but over the course of sipping the glorious complexity of flavor comes out. So it is with the end of Fans, and that's going to take time.

So is this my commemoration of one of the first, definitional adventure soap opera web comics?

I dunno. I haven't finished digesting it yet. All I do know is the series culminated well. T Campbell had a story in mind, and in the end he made it happen. That is remarkable, and so very rare. Contrast Fans with another grand soap opera, Avalon. Avalon reached a point of overburden, and Josh Phillips ultimately needed to 'end' it through synopsis. Fans was as grand and vastly broader in scope, and Campbell and Waltrip made it through to the end.

Astounding. Remarkable. Not one in ten writers or artists who conceive of a grand arc see it through to its end. (That includes me). Fans did it. Fans pulled it off.

And its end leaves a void. There's lots else on Graphic Smash and PV Comics (among many many other places) that have vision and scope, but Fans has been around... well, forever, in Internet terms.

And... it's another ending. And there's a sadness that comes with that.

I'm digesting the end of Fans, and it's going to take a while. But that's okay. I'm not really ready to let it go.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:45 AM | Comments (19)

April 27, 2005

Eric: A kind of obsolescence,

Apple has announced a new line of Power Macintosh G5s. Dual 2.7 GHz 64 bit G5 processors, advanced graphics and bus, up to 800 GB of internal storage. Up to eight gigs of DDR RAM. 16X write speed on DVDs. 30" cinema display. This thing's a rocket and gorgeous to boot.

And I've discovered I couldn't possibly care less.

This has to be a sign of growing up. Or at least of growing older. I find myself, more and more, looking at what computers do for me rather than what they are. My Powerbook is pretty and fast, yes. But more to the point, it runs every piece of software I need in day to day life. At home I have a Windows box, and it runs the Windows software I need. I'll be getting a Work WinLaptop for various functions, and I'll probably grab a Tablet PC because I can think of some useful things for it....

...and that's pretty much it. I don't need Apple's new rocket. I don't even want it, really.

And that kind of makes me sad.

I used to salivate over more advanced computers. I'd buy some incredible piece of hardware and I'd obsess about it for weeks -- always keeping my eyes out for that new bit that made it obsolete. Before I switched to powerbooks, I had a Power Mac 8600/300. G3 processor, large amount of RAM for the time.

Within a month, there was better stuff available. And bit by bit I upgraded it. I put in a better G3 processor. Later, I put in a G4 processor. I put in a more advanced video card and went to two monitors. I upped RAM again and again. I put in a USB/Firewire combo PCI card. I fought to keep it as current as possible.

And it worked, for all intents and purposes. I had that machine for close to five years, all told, and it served admirably during that time. It was only after it was clear it couldn't do OS X that it finally went to a new home. (My parents' home, that is -- where it serves as a backup machine and word processor for them.)

But during that time, I envied. I wanted the new shiny machines -- the blue tower, the grey tower, the gleaming metal tower. I used them at work and lusted for their shiny shiny goodness.

Well, these days at work we get XServes, and I have no lust for one of those at home. Except, of course, as a coffee table. And I have a powerbook that's zippy and does photoshop without lag and runs all the software I need open at once without trouble. It's not even maxed out in RAM.

It's a tool. Nothing more.

When you grow up, Christmas becomes more exciting for what you're getting for others than for what you're getting. Your birthday becomes vaguely embarrassing. You walk through toy stores and see more and more things you want to buy because they're ironic, and fewer and fewer things you want to buy because they're cool.

And eventually, your computers become boxes that run your software. When they can't run your software any more, you get a new one. Until then, who needs it?

That's so sad, in a way.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:42 AM | Comments (21)

April 25, 2005

Eric: For one thing, I think Lea Hernandez could kick my ass to Sunday -- you think I want that? No thank you, Mister Man.

So I was reading through the Comixpedia goodness this morning, and I came across a link to an interview with Tom Spurgeon -- the go-too man when it comes to critiquing sequential art, and the man behind the seminal critical website The Comics Reporter. The interview has the unforunate title of "Tom Spurgeon on How to Critique Comics." I say unfortunate because that's not really what Spurgeon is doing -- there's no formula or magic pixie dust he's giving out. Instead, there's some pretty damn good philosophy of criticism.

With the increasing rise of critical blogs devoted to webcomics -- a wholly healthy rise, in my estimation -- it behooves folks to have a look at this interview. It's full of gold not only in terms of how to approach criticizing comics (or, well, criticizing anything in a productive way), but in how to approach critiques and reviews other people have written.

In particular, the following jumped out at me:

How do the creator's feelings play into this?
I'm afraid they don't. If you get off subject or just plain nasty, you deserve to reap the whirlwind when it comes to hurt feelings. For an honest critique, though, you have to try your hardest not to think about those things and hope that you'll be afforded the same generosity of spirit from the artist. If something is put out in public it can be commented upon, and creators just have to deal that someone might do so.

--and--

In the Internet age, it's a lot easier for people to be combative in light of a bad review. How would you sidestep such an issue, or is it an issue at all?
You should consider it a great thing if people are combative in response to something you're written; it's a really high compliment, similar to the compliment you paid to the art in question by choosing to write about it. I would say that you want to get to the point where your reviews speak for themselves, and not get mired in a back-and-forth argument. That's sort of how I feel about the Internet generally, now. There's an assumption online that if someone says something you have to counter it or that other person wins! But they're not filing a brief in court that demands a response; they're just trying to get you into an argument. In most cases, life's too short.

These two things tie directly into one another. A critique shouldn't be a hatchet job -- a review can be, but it's a weapon best used sparingly -- but it also has to have an internal sense of integrity. I remember when I said something critical about a webcomic I actually liked, with writers who had been tremendously supportive about Websnark, for the first time. It was daunting, because I felt like I was shafting my friends.

Only there really isn't room for that. You can have a critical essay, or a fandom essay, but it's hard to do both even if you're a fan. So I did it, and the creators in question took it in absolute stride.

The second is thornier. We all know from Internet Drama. I've been involved in some -- and the only times it's ever been a problem is when I don't simply accept it as part of the critical dialogue. The moment you take a bad reaction to a critical essay personally -- and publicly respond to it -- you endanger the chance that anyone will take your commentary personally.

The temptation is when you see people miss the point -- or seize upon something you didn't say and didn't mean and hold it up to the light and say "there! See! He's wrong! And bad! Wrong and bad!" The temptation is to correct them -- usually using language best suited to dockside bars. "You idiot!" you want to shout. "Can't you fucking read English! I didn't say that and you're stupid!"

The moment you do that, you've lost. Trust me. I've succumbed to the vice before, and it always -- always -- ends badly. Because the people who aren't emotionally involved see that, and the entirety of the discussion then becomes "Teodor vs. Snarky," with the original essay becoming irrelevant.

That way lies Internet Drama, and it can be lots of fun to watch, if you like that sort of thing. But Internet Drama serves absolutely no critical or artistic purpose whatsoever. It cannot be won if you're a critic, because it distracts from the criticism.

Something Meredith Gran said in her Comixpedia interview highlights this point, even though (I think) Gran had her tongue firmly in cheek as she said it:

I'd like to see more webcartoonists fighting with each other. Seriously. I feel like we're catching the same re-runs of PvP vs. Penny Arcade, Kurtz vs. Keenspot, Squidi vs. The Internet, and Crosby vs. Crosby. These classics are old stand-bys, but some fresh and original controversy is in order. I love watching internet drama unfold, and I feel that it really keeps the webcomics community active and thinking outside of the "panel". It's also good publicity for all involved. So I ask that everyone reading this please go out and pick a fight with other webcomics. For the community!

Do I think she's really pushing for fights? No, not really -- though if she is, c'est bien. The point I'm making is, in all of those "dramas," it's been boiled down to the sides, not to what they stand for. Kurtz v. Keenspot. Squidi v. the Internet. Crosby v. Crosby. (PvP v. Penny Arcade seems more like professional wrestling than Internet Drama to me.) We're at the point where the actual points that Kurtz, Squidi and the Crosbys have been trying to make are completely subsumed. "Oh, there goes Scott Kurtz again," the casual reader says. "Oh, there goes Chris Crosby again." "Oh, there goes... what the Hell is Bobby Crosby even saying?"

And so forth.

Can those be entertaining? Sure. But I promise you, several of the people involved honestly want to convince people of something deeply important to them -- but it becomes a brawl instead. It becomes Drama. It stops being argumentative and starts being combative.

It's happened to me. The best contrast I can give is the difference between what happened when I posted about the Friendly Hostility newsbox thing, versus the Comixpedia column I wrote about Girlamatic.

Both engendered a lot of commentary. The former, however, wasn't criticism -- it was a rant, pure and simple. I posted out of emotion. I gave into the dark side, and I fought back with bitterness.

And three things resulted. First, I made some pretty crucial mistakes -- I didn't fact check enough, and I said some inflammatory things that just weren't true. So I had to retract. Secondly, I lost some of the respect I'd built up among a lot of people. And thirdly, any actual point the essay might have had -- any value it could have possessed -- was wholly lost. It was in pretty much every way a failure, from the point of view of someone who wants to write things that make people think.

The column on Girlamatic was also controversial, as it worked out -- more so than I expected it to be. And once (thankfully, only once) I succumbed to the vice of responding to a deliberate misreading of the column. For the most part, I've tried to reiterate my core points, but not debate people who disagree. I've let it be a discussion -- I've let people think I'm full of shit.

In short, like Spurgeon said, I let people be combative, without combating them. I've appreciated the fact that there has been discussion on the subject. I think good discussion.

And as a result, it's not "Websnark vs. Girlamatic" or "Eric Burns vs. Lea Hernandez." I'm not against Girlamatic in any way, shape or form, and I don't think the creators over on that site are against me. Some people agree with my thesis, some people disagree, and a lot of people put some thought into it.

That's a win. An unqualified win. It doesn't matter if I'm "right" or "wrong." What matters is the discussion, no matter where that discussion turns.

I'm not perfect. I lose sight of this more often than I'd like. Sometimes, people saying nasty things gets under your skin. It shouldn't, perhaps, but it does. But for the most part, I try to remember what Spurgeon said, even before I read it: if they care enough to be shouting about you, you've managed to inspire thought. That's a good thing.

And it's something every critic who wants to make points more than enemies should bear in mind.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:14 AM | Comments (15)

April 20, 2005

Eric: A Problem Statement

At my day job, we do things through Problem Statements. These are tools that let us work out exactly where the problems are, define them clearly, and brainstorm solutions. They sometimes mean nothing gets done -- or at least not done in any kind of timely fashion -- but they also mean we can truly identify where the core of an issue is and work on it, instead of ancillary or symptomatic concerns.

So, it's about time I apply the methodology to Websnark, because I'm having a definite problem, and it's not getting any better.

At first, I thought the problem statement would have to deal with the (sometimes vociferous and almost always loud) complaints that I'm not writing the specific things people would want me to write. Snarks on webcomic strips. Snarks on specific webcomics. Snarks on the letter writer's favorite webcomic. Or alternately, that I am writing things people don't want me to write. Snarks about my cat, or my comic strip, or my philosophy, or DC comics, or word processors. And always, the ever present fear that I'm not writing enough. That people will be disappointed. That I'll lose readership. That....

...well, whatever.

But those are symptoms, ultimately. It's taken me a while, but I've come up with a problem statement, finally. And I'd like to share it.

Problem statement: Websnark is not my job, but I feel like I'm being locked into a position of accountability and responsibility for generating the content people want at the rate people want, instead of doing what comes to mind when it comes to mind and -- most of all -- actually enjoying it.

Suggested solutions:

1. Set up a schedule in advance of what I'm going to snark and when, to ensure a mix of the stuff people want to see while maintaining a level of the things I want to write. Rejected, because that's insane. I don't want to do this. So I'm not going to, period.

2. End Websnark. Rejected, because I actually like Websnark, even if there are days I want to remove my brain through an eye socket with a spork because of it. I like all of you. I like having a forum. I like writing.

3. Remember that Websnark's mission is now and always has been "write about what catches my attention, when it catches my attention, and move on," and write what I actually want to write. And if that means that people abandon Websnark in droves, decide that honestly, that's okay.

We're going with 3.

Websnark has never been defined as "a Webcomics blog." Not by me. I talk a lot about webcomics because I like webcomics, and I'm interested in them, and because I think they matter. However, in trying to drive myself to exclusively write about webcomics -- or at least kick the balance so high in the majority that I feel guilty when I write about anything else -- I've been learning to dislike webcomics intensely. And that serves no one.

Does that mean "no more Webcomics coverage?" Of course not. I put a huge amount of each day into reading about them, doing stuff with them, and thinking about them.

But I'm done with trying to come up with artificial reasons to snark them, coupled with finding the energy to write those snarks.

Inevitably, this will produce another flock of letters on how I'm losing folks, or essays on the same. And... well, that's honestly okay. Let's be frank -- there reaches a point of pinnacle on the Web. You're new and interesting and exciting and avant garde, and then you become mainstream, and then you become old hat and someone else is new and exciting.

The likelihood that Websnark will continue to grow, given that, is negligible. The likelihood that it will shrink is almost certain. So, the question is, does this become about stemming that, or do I just write what I want to write, when I want to write it and if I lose readers, that's life?

It has to be the second option. It has to be. If it's not, then this whole exercise is pointless.

Does this mean I'll have an increasing number of public declamations about how I've gone downhill? Probably. That's life. If I devoted myself to doing exactly what those people want, then a different constituency of readers will begin talking about how I've lost my spark and sold out to the lure of readership.

Does this mean I'll lose the respect of the webcomics community? I honestly don't think so, but I could be wrong. On the other hand, if I'm only doing this to get the respect of others, I don't deserve that respect in the first place.

Does this mean I'll continue to open the Movable Type window with a sense of obligation and dread, instead of the excitement and pleasure I've always associated with writing here?

No. I think the moment you declare it doesn't matter if I lose readers, so long as I don't lose myself, you free yourself from the burden of expectation and obligation.

And the thing is, this is not a change in policy. Let me quote from the "About Websnark" bit that's sitting over in the corner of the main window:

What the Hell is all this?
This is Websnark.com, a commentary blog. I comment on... well, stuff. Usually the stuff I find on the web, though not exclusively. Essentially, I write about whatever interests me at the time of writing.

[...]
Why all the webcomics stuff?I like webcomics. A large percentage of the stuff I read online are webcomics. So it's the stuff I'm thinking about, which means in turn it's the stuff I'm writing about. You see? Of course you see.

Wait -- I come here for the webcomics stuff. What's all this about Astronomy or pop culture or fandoms or crap like that? Isn't this a webcomics site?
While webcomics make up the (vast) majority of what I talk about, this isn't a 'webcomics blog' so much as it is a place for me to snark about whatever I want. If that's TV instead, or fandom stuff, or pop culture, or the Astronomy Picture of the Day, that's what it is.

I'm sticking by that. And I'm serving notice I'm sticking by that. What you see come across here is what's going to come across here. If that means I never mention Greystone Inn again, then so be it. (Even if it deserves it, mind. I'm not singling GSI out.) If that means I never actually get around to reading Perry Bible Fellowship, that's what it means.

If that means some of you find other stops on the web to spend your time on, I understand. And I thank you for the time and energy you've put into this, and I hope you've gotten something out of it. I like all of you. I like debate. I like the community that's arisen. I like the Snarkoleptics. I like all of it.

And yeah, it jazzes me to have Scott Kurtz or Maritza Campos or David Wright or Shaenon Garrity acknowledge what I've done. These people are giants to me -- they've given me tremendous amounts of pleasure, and asked nothing in return but that I keep reading. But I can't write Websnark for them, either. I can only write it for me, ultimately.

So no, we're not going to end Websnark (though I've been tempted in the last seventy-two hours), we're not going to end talking about webcomics, and we're not going to start forcing snarks that we think will be popular.

(And by we, I mean me -- I don't speak for Wednesday, here. What she choses to do is always her decision.)

What we -- what I -- will do is write what I want to write, bring as much integrity to it as I can, and as much passion to it as I have, and trust that someone out there will want to read it.

I'll keep showing up. I hope some of you will too. In either case, thank you, both for the past, and for the present, and for the future. We'll see where we go from here.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:02 PM | Comments (43)

April 14, 2005

Eric: The Tao of text creation

So, I've been following the commentary from the Ulysses (and Pages) snarks with a lot of interest, because it says something about the creative mind. Or at least the small sample seen here.

One reader (well, okay, Aeire. Who says I can't name drop?) actively yearns for the screenshot I showed, and wanted a Windows alternative. Any number of folks chimed in with Windows suggestions. Still others brought up LyX, or other such tools, or their own combinations. Some of them talked about the ways they got their value added stuff, or did aftermarket formatting and word counting and the like.

One of them suggested Spell Catcher for my eternal yearning for a thesaurus, and I'm now beta testing it. And yeah, it's fantastic. With it, plus Ulysses, I have exactly what I'm looking for right now. Well, for the days I don't say screw it, fire up Radnor and launch WordPerfect 5.1/DOS.

I'm discovering hidden benefits, too. Because I tend to bounce bits of writing off friends and people, having something that's plain text with some tags is impressively useful. And the project tools are nice and -- more importantly for me -- get the Hell out of my way when I'm not using them.

But I understand the person who'd rather have six emacs windows open. Or the person who uses NotePad or -- when formatting really counts -- WordPad and nothing else. Or the person who swears by BBEdit.

What I find most interesting of all, however, is no one's stepping up to defend Microsoft Word. I don't think that comes from a hatred of Microsoft, either. People aren't extolling Mellel or WordPerfect or even OpenOffice in these threads.

I think it comes down to this -- word processors have been subsumed by office environments, because they had to be. They were too expensive for everyday people to casually buy, so instead they were optimized for newsletters and form letters and mail merges and business reports. In that sense, Pages becomes the ultimate modern word processor -- wholly divorced from the creation of content, wholly focused on the creation of structure. Which is no doubt why it's bundled with a presentation software component in a product called "iWork."

Writing, in the end, is about the words on the page. Or the words on the screen. Or the words in the input box. And it all comes down to the tool a writer uses that will let him get the words he wants in the order he wants most comfortably. I don't see Pages doing that for anyone (though I also didn't think many people would compose in InDesign, and someone chimed in in comments that he did exactly that).

For Office Managers, Word is the product that works more or less the way they want that they know everyone has, so it makes a kind of sense. But it's time that writers realized that Word is a part of Microsoft Office, not Microsoft Studio. Maybe someday, Microsoft or Adobe or somebody will come out with a suite that bundles a program like Sketchbook, a program designed for creative writing, a simple 3D modeler and other simple tools together into a light series of purely creative products. They'll massmarket it heavily to creators, and see if they can't get it on all the notebook computers of young college students in English degree programs. The centerpiece will be software that encourages the creation of words, and nothing else.

And it will fail on so many levels it's not funny. But about the ninth time someone tries it, it'll get it right. In the meantime, it's almost certain I'll try the other eight. That's what I do. I try things.

But in the meantime? I'm buying myself Ulysses and Spell Catcher.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:03 PM | Comments (52)

April 10, 2005

Eric: On the Snarking of Snarking

So, the question has come up more than once of how to save Websnark.

No, there's no danger of it going away. Barring catastrophic server failure or the like Websnark's going to keep chugging along. But the point has been raised more than once that it's not exactly what it was last October. There aren't as many thumbnails, and snarks of individual strips. The pace sometimes drops to almost nil, then spins way back up to frenetic. One person asked if it was about to end -- if Gossamer Commons had consumed me. Another mentioned that it was about to leave their daily trawl, but the April Fools post pulled them back. Still another made mention of my rather... emphatic writing style.

And it's a fair question. See, we passed a milestone last Friday. One by definition I didn't mention, but one that bears mentioning, given some of the recent commentary.

When Wednesday came on board, one of the stated advantages was that I wouldn't necessarily need to write something every day now. She could cover. That's not why she came on board, mind. She came on board for the simple reason that I like to read what she writes. I like her essay style. I like her sense of humor. I like her perspective. I still do. I get excited when a [w] tagged post comes through. And... well, it's my stage, so I get to have someone I like to watch perform perform on it.

But there are advantages. I can go to Ithaca and know that whether or not I make it to a web browser, something will appear here. And yet, despite that safety net, I've still written something every day. Even if it's just a "I don't have a post for today" post. Of the past 672 posts, I've written 630 of them.

Friday, Wednesday posted. A meaty post about Cookie Monster, and the fact that it's not the end of the world that he's advocating healthy eating. It was a response to... well, a lot of livejournal comments and the latest PvP sequence. (And for those who think we here at Websnark never say bad stuff about PvP -- I'm with her on it. I thought Kurtz's strip was funny, but I also think it's an overreaction, and the followup strip broadened that reaction further.)

It was a good post. And it was the only post for Friday. For the first time since August 20 of 2004, I didn't post anything at all on Websnark.

Which is a Hell of a record, if you think about it. Exhausted? I still put up an "I'm exhausted" post. And most days (I know, it's hard to believe it sometimes) I put up something with content in it. I mentioned three quarters of a million words over on post 666, and that's true.

And that's a ton of writing. It really is. That's roughly 3,200 words a day, on average, for two hundred and thirty days. In the old, now mostly outdated formula of "250 words per typewritten page," that's 3000 pages. That's three quarters of the total output I produced for Superguy, back in the day, and it took me eight years to do that.

I'm self conscious about Websnark, it's worth noting. The whole "Eric's Piroing out thing" Weds did kind of stuck in my craw, because... well, I don't think I am. I don't think my writing's terrible or that somehow I'm not a writer because I don't manage to write a home run essay or three every day. I think there are days when I suck, because there are. There are days you suck too. There are all days we suck. And now, a small number of people are saying "hey, wait a minute. He's not writing about webcomics as much as he used to. Where are the snarks on individual strips? Where are the biscuits? What's losing him? This isn't what I signed up for." And so I worry about that. How do I give them what they want?

At the same time, comments have skyrocketed. The Philosophical Snarks category's gotten a workout over the past couple of weeks -- this snark's in that category, too -- and I'm getting a monumental number of comments on those posts. With limited exceptions, those comments have been insightful, turning and debating and discussing. I can't think that Websnark's failing, because we're generating tremendous interest.

And on the other side of all of this is the original purpose of this blog, which is to give me a place to write about what catches my eye, and move on. Does it defeat that purpose if I start scrutinizing the daily trawls to find strips I can snark to meet the expectations of others?

I don't know. I honestly don't know what's the best thing for me to do on here. I know I want to keep doing it. But does that mean altering the directions it's evolved into to meet expectations others have? Or not? Certainly the comments I've heard have had meaty criticisms -- ones worth acknowledging and incorporating. (And clearly I need to put a moratorium on italics for a while.)

And the question has to be asked -- given that it's the philosophical snarks that get the most comments, have I subconsciously started biasing towards them because I crave that feedback, even though people would prefer to see webcomics/individual strip-oriented stuff?

For the record, by the by, in the last twenty-five days I've snarked 20 different strips. It's nowhere near the four a day I was doing when I started out, but it's almost not exactly disappeared, either.

(And it's also worth noting -- after 230 days, it's almost certain that people are going to start writing about how you've lost your way, no matter what you're doing. I'm no longer new, or unique, or shiny. It becomes easier to see the flaws in your car after you've driven it for six months and it no longer feels all 'new car-ish.' You might still like said car, but you're not gushing about it any more.)

I haven't provided links to the offsite essays or identified them. In part, this is because I don't particularly want people going and arguing with the people who made those comments. What I want is for folks to discuss and debate these things right here, separate from the personalities who made the comments. The opinions folks have count, and the direction Websnark goes in should be discussed here, I think.

At the same time, what promises can I make, except to try to keep things in mind as I go along? If I read through a week's worth of strips and nothing jumps out as particularly noteworthy, how can I invent note or worth?

I don't know. But maybe you guys do. So think it over.

In the meantime, the current record for days without missing is 230. That day of just not worrying about it felt nice, though. We're now up to day two of the second run. Place your bets now.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:57 PM | Comments (49)

April 5, 2005

Eric: Infernal Intervention! We are spooky ghosts! And selfish! Really!

If you're going to Infernate, Infernate all the way, I always say. Hello, and welcome to Websnark's Infernal Infervention. We're six hundred and sixty six posts into this thing. That's a lot. Many. More than one by a bunch, as the kids say. We have approached -- I swear this is true -- three quarters of a million words worth of snarkage. Three quarters of a million words. Since August. I mean, holy fuck. Comments are even better. As of this writing, we're up to four thousand, one hundred and five comments. That's a lot of conversation. People seem to like doing the thing of talking. Doing the thing of talking seems to appeal greatly to said people. We've gone from seventeen people and my cat knowing about Websnark to tens of thousands of daily readers. Any way you look at that, that's amazingly cool. Most days, I'd just be humbly pleased at this. I'd IM Wednesday and we'd talk about the utter coolness that comes from having people read us, having some sense of impact, having the sheer fun we have every day with this Blog. But this is the Infernal Intervention, so fuck that. It's selfishness time. We want. What do we want? Plenty, damn it! We're byproducts of Western Civilization, and there's things out there. And what do we expect? What do we expect from you people? Huh? Huh? Well... nothing. I mean, dude, yeah this is the selfishness post and all, but seriously. No one has to get us anything. We do this because we like it and because it quiets the voices. Still, we're going to put out the wishlists, so people know. I mean YES! Yes! Of course! They will know what it is we want! Mu hu ha ha ha! And then... um... ignore it, because dude. Anyway. We'll start with Wednesday, who is probably already skeeved as Hell that I wrote this in white on red, so we'll give her a nice clean sheet of her own: You want my what? My wishlist? Well... all right. Um. Selfish. Yay. Um. Right. Speakers (Altec Lansing iM3) and case (Speck Toughskin, which AFAICT is the only thing which sodding well fits) for my iPod photo. It languishes. And should be more portable. Ah, something else: another Fom pillow! Dammit! A big one! Art supplies: Copic Sketch markers ... and I'm coming up blank on listings for Deleter paper which aren't replete with neko neko wai shite, but I'll take basically anything they make which comes from trees. Sketchbook Pro for OSX ... and a 512 MB stick of whatever DDR memory fits a current eMac. ^^ [EDIT 2005-04-07: Never mind!. --w.] That's... probably way more selfish than I should even remotely consider being. So, yeah! Oh, wait -- glasses! I need new glasses! Get me new glasses and I'll buy my own copy of Sketchbook Pro! Um. Right. Stuff. Is that selfish enough? I'm not sure I quite get the point of-- Hah heh hah! Drink deep of Wednesday White's selfishness! And... um... if any of this is actually something you want to give her -- which I think would shock her, mind -- shoot her e-mail to confirm it, first. I mean, it'd be embarrassing for fifteen copies of Sketchbook Pro to show up at her house, right? (Yeah, that's gonna happen.) And now, there's me. What do I want... when I am being... selfish? Hmmmmmmmmmm? Hm. Actually, that's harder to say that I thought. Hang on, let me jump over to a white "sheet of paper" format too, just to keep everything clear: I'm a sucker for books and e-books, so gift certificates from Amazon and Fictionwise are always good. By the same token, because I'm a hopeless Brent Siennaesque clone, a gift certificate from the iTunes Music Store by definition rocks. I could also seriously use one of the new model Electric Kettles for tea making purposes. And nothing goes with an Electric Kettle quite as good as a tea pot for making the tea, and I have to admit I've been lusting after the Bodum Teabowl. What else? Well, sticking with the kitchen, we have a Grater/Zester of the type Alton Brown likes (good for Nutmeg, too!). Or, if you'd prefer to go with entertainment, I'd be big on Crusade Other than that? Drawings. Me am big on art, yo. Like anyone wants to get any of this stuff for me.... You see? You see? SELFISH! Selfish and demanding! And you! You're going to give in, aren't you? You're going to get us these things that we want, and you are going to like it! Yes! Yes you are! There's nothing you can... do... about.... Oh, who the Hell am I kidding. Can we get this weirdass red thing turned off?

Thanks.

Guys, we're happy as Hell to just be here, and we're happy as Hell just to be telling you that. No, neither Weds nor I want or expect anyone to get us anything, so long as you just keep showing back up.

So why make a big deal out of "selfishness?" Well, it's not so Weds or I can get things sent to us. It's to inaugurate the newest site element here on Websnark: a Paypal Donations Link.

We're not in any danger of shutting down. Yeah, there are costs involved, but I actually have a good job. However... well, this site takes a lot of time to do, and a lot of effort, and some folks have always wondered if there was a way they could show their appreciation. And I've always told them "sure -- keep reading," and I stand by that. But in today's world, there's nothing wrong with putting up a tip jar on the off chance that someone will want to use it.

(And I'm not ruling out doing a fundraiser drive if an expected medical thing doesn't get covered by insurance, but that won't come up until mid to late autumn at the earliest.)

Completely away from everything... thanks, guys. Thanks for being with us through this first seven hundred and fifty thousand words. I'm still having fun, and I hope you are too.

And just be glad we didn't do a special post for post number 69. I mean, dude.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:30 PM | Comments (29)

Eric: On the other hand, I drank the kool-aid. I DRANK THE KOOL-AID!

There's drama in webcomics again, for those who aren't paying attention. This time, it seems to be twofold -- in one direction coming from William G's recent review of Penny Arcade and PvP (and most recently a Something Positive review), and on the other side there's drama at the Daily Grind.

My thinking, for the most part, is to give the latter a bye. Maybe Weds wants to get into it, but I'm backing away slowly. I'm kind of the opinion that if the contest stresses you at all, drop out of it. Either these things are entirely for fun or they're not.

Note I am studiously not saying either side in the debate is right or wrong. If this makes me a wuss, I revel in it. I just don't see why anyone would do this if it makes them all riled up.

On the William G essays... I'm similarly of little opinion. Well, that's not true. I have an opinion about PvP, Something Positive and Penny Arcade (which you can tell by the fact that... well, I talk about them a lot). So does William G. They don't match up, entirely. There are points we disagree on.

This is what we call "the critical dialogue," and it's actually a very good thing. Different critics bring different tools, views and opinions to the table, and do different things with them. Our disagreements form the cosm of the discussion, and the discussion -- in the end -- allows for the improvement of the art form as a whole. That is, in fact, the point. No one should ever expect critics or reviewers or anyone else to always agree with them.

I have to make note of one thing in William G's review of Penny-Arcade and PvP, though, because I think A) it's interpretable many ways and B) I think the discussion might be a worthy one. To whit:

Basically, they're cult works much in the same manner as Rocky Horror Picture Show, or Star Trek, or WWE Raw. If you like this sort of stuff, then you're already part of the cult, so nothing I just wrote means anything to you.

It's easy to typify Rocky Horror or Star Trek or WWE Raw as cults. An extremely small portion of the moviegoing public is into Rocky. The television watching public has very small portions that are seriously into Star Trek or wrestling. Even when those latter two were at their most mainstream, they weren't mainstream.

However, if the medium is "webcomics," we can't possibly refer to Penny Arcade or PvP as cult comics. Not in terms of the medium.

I assume that William G. actually meant that there is a cultish dimension to Gamers, and that may be. (Or may not be -- again, it's its own medium. If we group all of entertainment and leisure time activities into one large morass, then fans of any segment of it are essentially cultists. If gaming or webcomics are media unto themselves, then they form mainstreams and fringe within those media.) However, I have to approach these as webcomics, and consider them from the point of view of that medium and that audience.

And by those lights, both strips not only are mainstream, they define the mainstream.

Last week, Mike Krahulik claimed they got 518,650 unique IPs in one day on a typical Monday. Not hits. Unique IPs. Which means that that's not even counting (say) all the AOL users who happen to be behind a specific IP number via NAT or the like, or people who read it via scraping, or via RSS type stuff. That's not "you get two hits per visitor," either, because those are specifically the visitors. I believe him, too, because when they recently linked me, my own UIPs jumped over two hundred thousand for the day. (Please note, my UIPs are normally "less" than that, much like walking to the store is "less" swift than taking a Porsche with no speed limit.) You can say what you like -- you can't claim they're "fringe."

It's the same with Scott Kurtz -- especially since Kurtz's comic is essentially mainstream in tone. Yes, there are geek references and game references and Mac references and the like. That is the Internet mainstream. However, PvP is essentially a workplace humor strip. It isn't even a wish fulfillment workplace humor strip. The PvP crew isn't building mad scientist inventions and struggling to keep Miranda's future self from taking over the world. They boil down energy drinks and espresso to make dangerously highly caffeinated drinks and can't quite manage to pay their bills on their current readership.

If we're going to critically analyze the medium, we have to understand where the signposts are. We have to understand the community and the audience. And most of all, we have to understand that when we're on the web, the geeks aren't the minority. Half a million readers isn't 'cult' anything. Hell, to my knowledge, that's more than the readership for almost any 'mainstream' comic book. (I'd say any comic these days, but I don't know the current X-numbers, and I'd rather be cautious than wrong on this.) If we want to progress the art form as a whole, we have to recognize where the art form is.

I'm not debating William G's opinion, like I said before. It's his, I think it was considered and I think it was honest, and that's all I ask from a critic -- and exactly what I think all of you expect from me, on my end. But we need to make certain our opinions don't overshadow the fact of what we're criticizing, lest our critiques seem out of touch and therefore dismissible.

Because no one gets any benefit from a dismissed review.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:59 AM | Comments (73)

April 2, 2005

Eric: Heinlein, Card and Webcomics: fans, art, and disappointment

(From The Queen of Wand Director's Cut Commentaries Thingy. Click on the thumbnail for full sized rerun with director's commentary below and special popup easter eggs that don't actually exist but I actually just had no idea what to type here.)

One of the most interesting things in Aeire's commentary-laden reruns of Queen of Wands is getting some idea of her mindset. I mean, that's why we do commentaries like this in the first place, right? Sometimes she goes into the strips, and sometimes into her philosophy of humor, and sometimes into embarrassing stories about her and her sister teaching cousins about hearses only to have them chanting "body body body body body" in loud monotone in Mall parking lots.

And then we have today's entry, which addresses the strip seen in the corner. A strip that covers Orson Scott Card, and makes reference to him in a positive way. An essay that goes into Aeire's feelings about Orson Scott Card, and about what he meant to her growing up, and how his expressed views on the subject of gay marriage came as a shock, a horror... and a betrayal.

Quoting from her essay briefly:

Beyond that and as a result of this, I grew up reading books. A lot of them. And I gleaned what I could from them - books were my parents, my mother and my father, and I learned what I could, keeping the good information close to my heart and making a note of the concepts I didnÌt like - because even though I didnÌt like them, it was in my best interests to try and understand them, or at least understand why someone would feel that way. This is part of what I gathered from Orson Scott CardÌs various works.

I can understand this feeling. I grew up reading voraciously -- several books a week, and rereading over and over again. I didn't read Card's stuff until I was older -- but then, I have about ten years on Aeire, so there's that. I could name dozens of authors, but the one who I kept rereading... my go-to guy... was Heinlein.

I loved Heinlein's novels. I loved his juveniles. I loved his adult books. I read Starship Troopers and Time Enough For Love so many times the books fell apart. I've bought new copies of Heinlein books over the years often enough that I sometimes wonder just how much money I've sent his estate.

It wasn't until I was older, and began to mature in my own feelings, that I saw places I disagreed with Heinlein. Sometimes desperately. That this man who taught me honor and pride and generosity -- always generosity -- was also firmly convinced that TANSTAAFL meant leaving the poor in the ghetto. The superior man would haul himself up by his bootstraps and make something of himself, whereas parasites would just as soon vote themselves bread and circuses and be given to until the country was broke and the Communists had swept in. There were long sections of The Cat Who Walked Through Walls and To Sail Beyond The Sunset that made me just want to cry. This wasn't what I expected from the Lieutenant. I knew he was (at that point in his life) fiscally conservative, but Jesus Christ....

It hurt. A lot. Because even though I had read the precursor essays that led to that, I also read book after book that spoke of casting bread upon the waters, of giving out and getting back tenfold, of paying it forward. And I couldn't reconcile those two thoughts in my head.

And then he died.

My parents remember where they were when Kennedy was shot. I remember where I was when I heard Heinlein had died. I was in a cockroach infested apartment on Commonwealth Avenue in Brighton, sitting in front of a drawing table that belonged to my roommate and listening to NPR playing over the community access channel on our local cable company. All Things Considered was on, and they told me Lieutenant Robert A. Heinlein, U.S.N. (ret.), the Dean of Science Fiction, the original (and at that time the only) Grand Master of Science Fiction as selected by the SFWA, author of Stranger in a Strange Land, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Time Enough For Love and dozens more, had died.

I would never get to meet him.

I would never get to thank him.

I would never get to read another new book of his.

And I had spent years pissed off at him because I felt like one set of opinions held at one point in his life had invalidated everything he had taught me, done for me, and created at so many other times of his life.

And I cried. I'm not ashamed of it. A friend of mine recently asked me if I ever wept, as opposed to just plain old tears. Well, I wept for Robert Heinlein. And over time I reconciled the fact that I didn't agree with everything he said or did. I'm a Liberal. He was... unique. (Fiercely Liberal on some issues, fiercely Conservative on others, unapologetic in both cases.)

Orson Scott Card has a loud voice and he's not afraid to use it. And he says things I hate with it, now. As pissed as I was at the idea that Heinlein wanted to kill off the safety net, I'm a thousand times angrier at Card's sheer, unmitigated bigotry. But then, Card never meant that much to me. I was older when I started reading him. I liked Seventh Son. I liked Hart's Hope. I adored Ender's Game and Speaker For The Dead, felt nonplussed about Xenocide, and generally disliked the rest of that series. I read his book on writing science fiction and fantasy. I respected him. I was a fan. But I wasn't dogmatic. When his views came out, I was perfectly willing to decide "well, he won't get more of my money" and forget about it.

But for many people in the world, he's just as significant -- or moreso -- as Heinlein was for me. And those people saw an unreserved message of tolerance in his work that seems to have been wholly shafted now. And they don't know how to deal with it. They don't know how to cope with it.

From Aeire's essay, once more:

The point here is this - I grew up reading his books. I grew up loving them, and learning from them, and listening to what they had to say. Then I read this essay - itÌs hard to come up with words to describe what that felt like. It was as if that kind, gentle and understanding father figure had casually mentioned over breakfast that today he was going to skin a couple dozen squirrels alive and watch them twitch helplessly on the ground. There isnÌt really any proper way to describe the feeling. I cried, because this person that taught me that understanding was everything, this person that taught me to accept people, to embrace life, to understand - this person was not a person who understood, or accepted, or embraced anything wholeheartedly and without judgement. This was a person who openly mocked tolerance and understanding outside of the realm of a fictional novel. [...] To this day, it horrifies me that an author would write of something and glorify concepts that he doesnÌt hold in his heart to be true. I still have most of his books, and I still go back and read them occasionally, but the magic is gone. The words are empty, hollow, and meaningless now.

I get where Aeire's coming from. Like I said, I've been there.

But I also remember May 8, 1988. I remember being in that squalid apartment. I remember hearing that Heinlein was dead.

It is hard as Hell to be disappointed. It is hard as Hell to learn that the giants of our youth are actually just the same height we are. It is hard as Hell to realize that just because someone said something we absolutely agree with doesn't mean we're going to always agree with them. But we have to take the whole into account, too. Card is still the man who wrote Ender's Game, Speaker For The Dead, Seventh Son, Hart's Hope and all the rest. He's still the one who gave the insights in the first place.

And someday, when he dies, it's going to hurt for thousands of fans who dearly loved his words. And some of those fans are going to be shocked that they hated him for failing in their eyes, and now it's too late.

I don't think Aeire should change how she feels. I don't think anyone should. But I think Randy Milholland's vaguely disguised sequence covering these same events should inform us. In his series, Mike -- who is gradually regenerating his soul and becoming a decent person (there's a reason he's such a good poster child for Dead Inside) -- is excited because "Morgan Adam McKenzie" is coming to town. Only he learns that "McKenzie" has written some vicious anti-gay-marriage screeds, and his friends are strongly divided on what that should mean. In the end, Mike goes to meet him, and is glad he did, even though he still elementally disagrees with his stance.

Sometimes, you need to accept that someone can hold a view you find reprehensible... and still tell you truths you find utterly valuable. This too is a part of growing up.

Not that I'm saying Aeire has to grow up, mind. And not that I'm saying she'll ever "get over this." I fully understand her feelings, and I don't think they need to change.

Still, sometimes you have to let your heroes turn human, which is a stage of maturation, and then you have to find a way to forgive them for it.

For the record? I'm a Heinlein fan. A proud one. A dedicated one. I pay dues to the Heinlein Society. I bought every "lost manuscript" that came out since his death. I own his travel book. I own his Libertarian essay on grassroots campaigning. Grassroots campaigning.

And yet, I still believe in universal health care, a decent welfare and medicare safety net and paying taxes to ensure the best public schools and public infrastructure possible. There's no free lunch, but I'm willing to share my lunch with those who need it.

But that doesn't mean I'm not a Heinlein fan. And maybe someday Aeire and those thousands of disappointed folks can one day be Card fans too.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:23 PM | Comments (58)

March 31, 2005

Eric: Day two of the MT Blackout....

Two days without Narbonic, without No Stereotypes, without Digger, without Ascent (okay, Ascent wouldn't have updated), without Fans, without Rip and Teri, without Lil Mell, without American Elf, without Achewood's extended dance mix, without... without... without....

This isn't a knock on Joey Manley. Not at all. I suspect Mr. Manley's brain is close to exploding right about now, and I feel really badly. But it's also interesting from a Webcomics Anthropology standpoint. When there is a failure among the major providers, the ripple effect is tremendous.

We've known this for a while, of course. There was a time when Keenspace regularly dropped off the net, and it's not immune even today. Keenspot, if I remember correctly, had some significant problems at one point. And one of the publicly stated motivating factors of moving TalkAboutComics off of that selfsame server was because TAC is subject to occasional attacks by assholes, and everyone was sick of that bringing Modern Tales, Girlamatic, Graphic Smash, Serializer.Net, and all the affiliates down as well. Pretty much any situation where everyone lives on one server is asking for a day when everyone goes down at once, and then a big chunk of the webcomics community is just plain AWOL.

Some people, I'm certain, are demanding to know why Manley doesn't have each community on a different server. The answer to that's pretty simple, or so it seems to me (I've never spoken to Manley about this, mind): economics. You always have to take more money in than you lay out, or your business fails.

Do I think Manley needs more redundancy? I'm sure he feels he does, right about now. One thing about systems administration and IT, though -- it's always after something catastrophic happens that you see what you need to do to prevent that catastrophe. I suspect things will change after this. I'm certain Manley will do something both for his subscribers and for the artists he has under contract to help make up for what happened (extensions of subscriptions being the obvious for the former), and things will go on. It's one of those sad things that happens in IT, and by now we should all know it.

One point's been made, though. Right now, the only webcomic residing on a Manley server that's up and running... is Gossamer Commons. Okay, it's not a Manley strip (and so Manley's standards of quality don't necessarily apply -- there's a disadvantage to not having editorial oversight), but still. We're still there.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:13 AM | Comments (30)

March 30, 2005

Eric: A fast addendum to the last snark

A friend contacted me on the ConnectiCon essay I just wrote.

"Don't you think," he said, "that they're just responding to [popular webcartoonist whose name is deleted because dude, that isn't the point]'s publicly stated policy that he'll only guest at cons who cover his expenses?"

"Well, yeah," I said. "Almost certainly."

"So what's wrong with that?"

"Well, [Popular Webcartoonist] isn't the one calling those conventions. He's not ringing people up and saying 'hey, I'm willing to be a guest at your con, but only if you pay my way.' He doesn't go out and do the con thing on his own. It's business for him. And he decided that if someone wants him to be a guest, he needs to recoup expenses."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

To make this clearer, let's pretend our friend the unnamed popular cartoonist (we'll call him "Stu," for the sake of this essay) gets a phone call from ConnectiCon.

"Stu!" the guest relations chair says cheerfully. "Hi there! I'd like to invite you to be a guest!"

"Well, maybe," Stu replies. "I don't mean to be a jerk, but at this point, I pretty much only go to cons where they cover my room and travel expenses."

"Oh. Well, we have a policy for that. Send me some of your logs, so we can verify your traffic. If you exceed fifty thousand unique IPs daily, we'll be glad to cover your expenses."

"...excuse me?"

"Well, you see, we have a tiered rewards system for our webcomics guests--"

"Didn't you call me?"

"Well... yes?"

"Fuck you." And Stu would hang up.

If Stu called them and demanded a handout, they would be perfectly justified in asking him to make it worth their while. But he wouldn't. He's not. And Stu, in his real identity, has had enough of an impact that he would enrich any convention's webcomics presence regardless of his traffic stats.

At the same time, if they didn't ask and verify his stats, then the other webcomics guests would have a legitimate beef over the perceived double standard.

All in all... not a bright thing.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:52 AM | Comments (19)

Eric: Screw art! Get me numbers!

There's been a press release, which I read on Comixpedia and which they got on BuzzBugle, and which might or might not appear on ConnectiCon's website because ConnectiCon has an almost unusable flash interface on their information site for literally no reason I can see (other than to have your computer make hideous sounds and cause other people to glance at you. Yay team.) so I gave up trying to find it.

For convenience's sake, I reproduce it below:

ConnectiCon is pleased to announce its 2005 Web Comics Tier Rewards System.

ConnectiCon is one of the premier web comics conventions hosting over 30 web comics in 2004 and looking do do the same or better in 2005. This year's web comics line-up already includes: Ctrl-Alt-Del, 8-bit Theater, MacHall, AppleGeeks, GUComics, VGCats, Dominic Deegan, Instant Classic, Fallen, Staccato, Dominion, Oscuro Destiny, EXE-World, Noobity, Pihakwa, Mines Bigger and a few others who have yet to fully confirm their attendance.

The Tier Rewards System is as follows:

Your comic must meet or exceed the average number of daily unique IP addresses for 60 consecutive days to qualify for your Tier. All attending web comics will be listed on the convention's website and in the convention program book (provided that a bio, pic, comic description and sample strip are provided).

If your web comics receives:

1,000+ UIP/Day you will receive a free 3-Day membership to ConnectiCon 2005.

5,000+ UIP/Day you will receive a free Artist's Colony Space (includes a 3-Day membership).

10,000+ UIP/Day you will receive a free Artist's Colony Table (includes two 3-Day memberships)

25,000+ UIP/Day you will receive a free Artist's Colony Table, Green Room access and some help with travel expenses (gas, tolls) and depending on available space a place to sleep and shower.

50,000+ UIP/Day you will receive a free Dealer's Room Booth, four 3-Day memberships, Green Room access, all travel expenses and 4-Nights hotel accommodations (Thursday - Sunday)

So.

First off, they're probably going to have a hard time being one of the "premier web comics conventions" when (as T Campbell noted in comments on Comixpedia) they're scheduling at the same time as the San Diego Comic Con. Admittedly, they have Ctrl-Alt-Del, which gets good numbers. Still, I suspect they won't have very many people on the 50,000+ Unique IP list showing up.

For my money, however, this says reams about their priorities. It says that they're really not interested in getting the most interesting webcomics artists -- just the most popular. It's sort of like the Creation Con circuit for Star Trek. It's about pulling in people who plunk money down. Under this system, James Kolchalka or most of Modern Tales (or most of Keenspot, for that matter) would only qualify to have a free table for doing commissions and maybegas money to try and recoup investments.

In other words, what the artist is doing is irrelevant. Just what kind of traffic they're doing.

Which is fine. If that's the priority ConnectiCon has, power to them. But as a webcomics fan, my interest level in that con just dropped to nothing. And the thing is? It's certainly close enough to me to drive down to, and I like conventions.

If you want to interest me in your webcomics offerings at your con? Show that you know something about webcomics and value them. Show you put thought and effort into the people you're recruiting. If you manage to get Scott Kurtz to come, don't make me think the only reason he's showing up is the free ride -- make me think you actually like Scott Kurtz and PvP and get it.

If you need a line item ledger to justify what guests you're going to treat well (Jesus Christ -- no Green Room access for someone who has at least ten thousand daily readers?), you're not fans of the medium, you're fans of the numbers.

The numbers don't interest me much. If Tim Absath were at a convention (and he's one of the confirmed for this con), I'd certainly try to see his panel and hopefully shake his hand, because hey, dude. Tim Absath. If Chris Onstad were a guest, I'd be gassing the car and packing right now. Dude! A chance to meet Chris Onstad!

That's not to knock Tim Absath, by the by. There are plenty of others who would reverse those. The point, simply put, is this. It's not about the UIPs. If you're going to be "premier," convince me you care about your webcomics guests as something more than bait for a hook. Convince me your con committee actually cares about webcomics. Otherwise, I'll just go to San Diego where everyone is just meat, but there's a lot more chance to meet Keenspotters.

And publishing a press release that outlines and trumpets this? Is just crass. At least pretend you're not being hopelessly mercenary about this.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:41 AM | Comments (32)

March 24, 2005

Eric: Personal Taste, Laws of the Universe, and ways they don't mesh.

Early on in the development of this site, I posted a couple of rather dogmatic comments in reviews. In one, I said the following about the movie HERO:

This movie blew what little mind I had, and will stay with me for a long, long time. If you haven't seen it, go see it. If you don't want to go see it, go see it. If you know you're going to hate it, go see it. If you won't go see it, you're stupid. Got it? Good.

Going back even further, if you look at my Night Comics Trawl, you find the following statement about Something Positive:

If you're not reading this, you're an idiot.

I got a few comments about those statements. People didn't much care for being called an idiot because they didn't read a webcomic they perhaps didn't like, or being called stupid because they chose not to go see a movie they didn't find appealing. And I took something from that:

My opinions are not laws of nature.

It's not that I can't sometimes employ hyperbole in a review. I can. I do so unapologetically. However, I specifically have stated that I want debate to be encouraged by Websnark -- I don't want to declaim my opinions from the mount. I want to inspire the critical dialogue. And statements like that run against that goal. There's nowhere to go from "you're an idiot if you don't read Something Positive" except "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!" And that doesn't do anyone any good.

I'm bringing this up because... well, because of the healthy debate being inspired by yesterday's Penny Arcade Snark.

Make no mistake -- I snarked yesterday's Penny Arcade because I found it hysterical. I enjoy dark humor. I enjoy humor where someone who is being an idiot is being tormented by an asshole. There's no reason Gabe can't walk over and buy himself a Cinnabon, except if he does he'll lose his place in line. A line which doesn't actually exist, I would add.

Gabe is in utter anguish in the strip. The Cinnabon guy is being a bastard, but it's entirely because Gabe is being an idiot. There's no victims -- only stupid people! YAY!

I admit it freely. I find that hysterical. I find FLEM hysterical. I loved the Kestrel-car-strike in Something Positive. I subscribe to the Mel Brooks theory of comedy: "Tragedy is when I have a hangnail. Comedy is when you fall into a sewer and die." And other people agree with me.

But others don't. Some people look at the Cinnabon strip, blink a couple of times, and say "um... 'kay?" Others find it mean. And still others can't separate their opinions of Gabe and Tycho from their opinions of the strip.

That's all okay. There's nothing wrong with that. There are certain comic strips I don't read because the writers offend me on some non-strip level, and it gets in the way of my appreciating the strip. (And no, said writers saying critical things about me usually isn't why.) There are certain strips I think are funny but make me uncomfortable, so I don't read them. There are certain strips everyone loves that I just don't think are funny.

And there are strips that are extremely funny in very different ways. Not all fans of Achewood like PvP. Not all fans of PvP like Superosity. Not all fans of Superosity like Greystone Inn. That I happen to like all four just means I like different styles of humor in different ways at different times.

The subjectivity of humor is eternal. We don't all approach humor the same way, we don't all find the same things funny. Some people can stare at the Hamsterdance for hours. Some people love Modern Humor Authority. Some people watch Hee Haw. And all that is fine -- we may disagree, but we can't discount.

The dialogue is important, but never make the mistake of assuming that just because you love/like/don't care about/dislike/hate Penny Arcade or any other strip that anyone else has to agree with you. Express your feelings and express your reasons, but don't try to convert other people. If you express your reasons well enough, maybe you'll sway someone. But if you don't, understand that just because you don't think it's funny doesn't mean it isn't funny. Or the reverse.

This is true in other venues, of course. I know of people who love Broken Saints. I don't. Rather emphatically. But that doesn't change the fact that those people love it. And those people need to come to terms with the fact that I don't, and I'm not going to. Neither opinion outweighs the other. I know people who love Andromeda. I don't. I thought it was pretty crappy the first couple of seasons, and then after Sorbo Herc'ed it up I thought it became unwatchable. That doesn't mean the people who still loved it are wrong and I'm right. It just means we disagree. I know people who hate Babylon 5. I loved it. It's about my favorite SF series of all time. I know other B5 fans who hate Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and vice versa. Me? I loved them both.

Here on this site, you're hearing my opinions. My opinions on webcomics. My opinions on television. On stuff. Sometimes you're going to agree with them, and sometimes you aren't. And I'm not generally going to tag them with "this is just my opinion," because this is an Op-Ed site, for all intents and purposes. It's all my opinion. Coming back with "but that's just your opinion" is like coming back at Star Wars and saying "but your movie has aliens in it!" It's understood and implicit that that's what's going on here, and I'm assuming you're smart enough to know that. And because of the opinion-nature of this site, sometimes people are going to express that agreement or disagreement in comments. I actively encourage that. I yearn for that. The critical dialogue is the whole point. It's why there is a commenting system here. And why I don't delete comments unless they become inflammatory about other people. (Which to date I haven't had to do.)

But be careful -- especially when you're responding to another commenter. Don't mistake your opinion for natural law. In the end, all you can do is make yourself look bad.

I know. I've been there.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:19 PM | Comments (64)

March 21, 2005

Eric: Mean? Moi?

I had an interesting e-mail yesterday. One I've had to turn over in my head (after the initial rush of excitement with launching Gossamer Commons, anyhow. One that needs some attention and thought.

Said e-mail came from an artist -- someone whose strip I haven't snarked yet (though it's just a matter of time, I think) who's been reading me for a moderately short time. Someone who has had some criticism for me -- both positive and negative -- and who seems very intelligent and insightful. And this person asked me why I have a specific listing of the strips that fall under "You Had Me, and You Lost Me" in the sidebar. Paraphrased, he asked if that was really necessary, given that I also have a "You Had Me..." in the category listing. Specifically, he asked if it wasn't just a little... well, mean, to have them over there.

And I have to wonder if he's right.

I stand by those essays -- I think they each contain both what it was that drew me into those strips in the first place, and the elements that made me disenchanted with them. But there's a difference between standing by them and... well, glorifying them in the name of dislike. What's more, I don't have a corresponding "positive" list over there, to reflect biscuits or shortbread winners or anything else. In fact, the only three snarks I have permanently linked on the home page are the three snarks for strips I don't read any more.

At the same time... those are popular essays. Some people agree with them, and some disagree with them, but in all three cases, they're something people are actually writing about or talking about.

I'm actually torn. Would it make sense to cut that entirely, and leave the category link instead? Or perhaps create a "You had me..." portal page, and link to that,, for the people who are specifically interested in those essays. Most of all, is it just plain mean to leave the links (and the names of the strips in question) sitting up like some kind of list of shame in my sidebar?

I think something should change, but the question is what. Suggestions cheerfully solicited.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:59 AM | Comments (54)

March 14, 2005

Eric: The Challenge of Saying Goodbye is Saying Hello.

Even if we ignore the fact that I have an article in this quarter's Webcomics Examiner (ah, vanity), it's a good issue this time out. It has a lot of what I love -- meaty reviews of webcomics I'm sometimes not familiar with, good features and articles (the collaboration debate between Alexander Danner and William G is worth the -- admittedly free -- price of admission all by itself), incredible conversations and interviews and a kickass piece of cover art. The sheer depth of talent involved in this particular issue is daunting. Joe Zabel. Alexander Danner. Shaenon Garrity. The Improvisational Wednesday White (and you have to read Wednesday's traumatized journal detailing her survival of the four disc Broken Saints DVD set. Especially if you haven't seen Broken Saints. And also especially if you have. No, that didn't make sense.), James Kochalka, Bob Stevenson, Steven Withrow, Neal Von Flue, Michael Whitney....

There's so much here, I can't begin to encapsulate it all for you. And it's a kind of voice we simply don't have anywhere else in Webcomics Criticism right now. Comixpedia isn't this kind of magazine, and I doubt it should try to be. The Webcomics Examiner, simply put, is the face of sheer legitimacy in criticism -- by far the most academic voice, without being pretentious. Joe Zabel and his merry band of wanderers have crafted a remarkable and exciting thing.

And it's going away.

The problem with getting webcomics creators to do your Critical Journal is most of them are far more interested in actually creating webcomics than Journal articles. They tried to postpone this day by moving from a grueling monthly schedule to a quarterly schedule, but it was still simply too much.

I had one person e-mail me, by the way, and say "I don't get it. You just posted a snark saying you've written six hundred of these in eight months." Which isn't quite true, since Wednesday posted a bunch too and besides, a good number of those snarks have been "hey guys -- just saying hi and good night." The implication of the e-mail was that somehow the WCE guys were slacking off.

I would have written back to that correspondent, but I was too busy laughing until I fell off my chair, and then curling up and laughing on the floor for a while until someone in the next office over had to come and make certain I didn't have the deadly laughing illness.

It is vastly harder to write a single article of record, with appropriate attribution, research, editorial control and guidance than it is for me to write ten snarks. The essays I write here, with some exceptions (exceptions like the "You Had Me, And You Lost Me" series, for example), are much less formal and have much less rigorous demands put on them. This is a blog, and it plays by blog rules. If I want to, I can write about my cat on here.

The Webcomics Examiner doesn't have any of that flexibility. They're writing for the record and the ages, and that takes work. I know -- I know the work I had to put into the Slugs! column I wrote for them, this month. And I still wondered if it'd be rejected when I sent it.

I can understand their deciding that it's taking too much time away from their own projects. And I deeply appreciate an unwillingness to halfass what has proven to be a superior journal and critical resource. I don't blame them for moving on.

But I'm going to miss them. Very, very much.

And I hope that they inspire others to follow in their footsteps. Neil Von Flue has indicated the desperate need for critics and reviewers who are not themselves webcomics creators to poke at the form with sticks, driving folks to do their best work, and therefore give the critics more grist for their own mill. And Von Flue is very right in that assessment.

(I wonder if he's upset I'm moving to the Creator side of the street too.)

In the end, the burden falls on the rest of us. It falls on me, and it falls on the Podcasters, and it falls on the writers and bloggers of Webcomics.

And it falls on you.

You may not think you're capable of writing to the Webcomics Examiner's standards. Well, you won't know until you try, and if you try, you'll get a chance to practice and build to that level. You may not think anyone will care what you have to say. (I know, because half the time I still think that myself.) Start writing and make people care what you have to say. Click on the different headings and buttons in the masthead, and read through all the articles from the all the issues. Drink it in, digest it, and begin producing.

The critical dialogue between artist and audience has only just barely begun. It's up to us to continue it. It's up to you to continue it.

C'mon. This is your big chance to be at the forefront of an art form. Seize that chance.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:04 PM | Comments (15)

March 11, 2005

Eric: Acknowledgement of error, because that's what we do.

In the previous snark, I asserted that an artist on Keenspot objected to the Friendly Hostility newsbox and pulled it. During that snark, and in my (rather heated) response to it, I asserted that the person pulled the newsbox down without first going to Keenspot. And I found that to be offensive and wrong and any number of other things.

Well, I don't think the newsbox was offensive, in any way. I have a strong difference of opinion with the artist about that.

However, I was clearly wrong about the sequence of events as it happened. The artist did in fact go to Keenspot and state an objection first, looking for internal resolution. When that failed, the artist pulled the newsbox and posted a plain link.

In other words... I was dead wrong, and unfair to that artist.

Do I stick by my contention that finding that newsbox offensive in the first place was wrong? Absolutely I do. But that in the end is a difference of opinion. The core of my vitriol was expressed towards the pulling down of another member of the collective's ads without first giving the collective an opportunity to resolve the issue. This was totally wrong, and as I said, totally unfair to that artist.

I made a promise a long while back that when I blew something, I'd both leave it up (as evidence of my blowing it), and acknowledge I blew it. It's happened before, and it's happened now. And I'm sorry.

I think the discussion that was sparked was a good one, both here and elsewhere. I think there continues to be areas where mistakes were made. I include my own mistake in that.

With luck, there'll be learning on many sides coming from this.

Oh, and if the artist in question wants to call me nasty names (not that said artist has yet, to my knowledge), that's their right.

Sorry, gang. I blew it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:24 PM | Comments (46)

Eric: You know, if one of them had been cutting off the other's head with an axe? That'd have been fine.

EDIT: the following post proceeds from certain errors which have been called to our attention. By stated policy, we don't take down posts we screwed up on, but please see this post for additional information. We apologize for the error.

So, somehow I missed the drama of the week, and that has me sad. I do love the drama of the week. In my defense, I wasn't feeling that well, but still. It's the drama of the week.

If like me, you missed it, have a look at Gav Bleuel's clarification on Keenspot's newsbox policy published earlier today. This clarification came after the weekend, when a Keenspot newsbox advertising Friendly Hostility depicted two men kissing. Apparently, Keenspot failed to send the requisite "promo" newsbox out to the Keenspotters and give them their chance to object and get an appropriate substitution out, so at least one Keenspotter took the newsbox off his front page.

Please note, the newsbox did not depict overt sexuality, or the two men in stereotypical gay bondage outfits or anything. They were just two men kissing. Part of how I know this, by the way, is the fact that I don't remember this newsbox at all. I tend to remember salacious or outrageous newsboxes for quite a while. So, clearly this one just kind of passed through my head. From all descriptions, though, it was just a moment of tenderness between two people. So, the Keenspotter in question objected because it was Gay Positive.

Let me repeat that, with a little extra emphasis.

The Keenspotter in question objected because it was Gay Positive.

This was a situation where someone refused to run an ad for a strip because they felt, in effect, that any positive depiction of homosexuals or homosexuality was objectionable. Any. Which means they might next object, say, to a depiction of Felicity Flint in a newsbox, because she's an open homosexual. Or Girly's next newsbox, because Josh Lesnick has depicted gay positive relationships before. You think that's not likely? I think once someone starts down this path, every successive step becomes easier.

The homosexual relationships in Friendly Hostility are core to the strip. It is disingenuous to expect a lack of gay positive imagery in its advertising. And when you sign on with Keenspot, part of the deal is you're going to advertise the other strips in the lineup. You don't get to decide "this strip sucks, and I hate it, so I'm going to drop the newsbox when it comes up in rotation." You advertise the strip. If there had been violence, or overt sexuality (and a kiss is not overt sexuality by any stretch of the imagination), that would be grounds to object. But to object to it because it is gay positive when the strip is itself gay positive is akin to objecting to a Clan of the Cats newsbox that features Chelsea with fangs because it's about the Occult and you don't agree with Occult depictions in the media. That's not how it works -- if you don't want to support a collective, don't join it. If you do, accept that you're not going to like all the strips advertising on your front page.

I've heard a couple of theories as to which Keenspotter rejected the strip. They've generally theorized it's one of the more right wing or conservative 'Spotters. I actually doubt that's the case -- at least, I doubt either of the two people I've heard mentioned would object in this way. But you know what might be significantly worse than a homophobe dropping the newsbox because "boys kissing == teh icky?" The idea that someone who thinks they aren't biased at all objected because "gosh, we don't want no trouble around here, skeeter. Just move along."

I hate that attitude. I despise that attitude. With a homophobe, you know right up front what you're dealing with. You don't like what they represent, they don't like what you represent. Everyones' cards are on the table. But this chickenshit attitude that you just don't want "the controversy" on your page just earns my disdain. Especially when you can be certain that expressions of violence or a largely naked girl or any given girl and guy kissing would have passed inspection. And the fact that we don't know, officially, who the Keenspotter is means that right wing or conservative Keenspotters who didn't object to the newsbox, even if they didn't agree with it, are getting the weather eye from the public. And that just sucks.

Bleuel's statement didn't thrill me, either. If they were getting a high volume of complaints, I can understand making a statement. I can understand it saying "we felt, based on the terms of service outlined in the contract we have with our artists, that we had to allow the removal to stand, without either condoning or condemning that action. Our artists have the freedom to express their views." But the statement didn't say that. It said, in effect, that they had to abide by the decision, but gosh they didn't agree with it and they think it sucks too, and homophobia is wrong, m'kay?

You don't get to have that opinion when you're a publisher. You don't get to put your support implicitly behind one of your artists and leave the other one out in the cold. You don't get to keep your Liberal cred in an official press release. You either need to explain why you did what you did while explicitly expressing no opinion, pro or anti... or you shouldn't put out the release in the first place. (And to be honest, without that release, this wouldn't be a story in the first place. Almost no one I knew had even heard of it before Bleuel posted and Comixpedia picked up on it.)

And that brings me to the other aspect of the press release/post I didn't like. We know this was about Friendly Hostility, but they elected to protect the name of the person who objected. I think that's unfair to Friendly Hostility, because it puts them out on a limb... and I think that's unfair to us. I deserve to know who it was who pulled that newsbox. If publicity surrounding the "controversial" Gay Positive newsbox can accrue to Fuhr, then equal publicity surrounding the (legitimately) controversial decision to pull the newsbox rather than let it run should accrue to that Keenspotter. It's not fair that it cling to the obvious targets instead, and it's not fair that Fuhr has to bear any negative brunt on her own.

And besides. I want to know who did it, because you know... I'm a Liberal too. I'm Gay-friendly in general. And I raise Gay-positive topics and might snark Gay Positive strips sometime over here on Websnark. And I want to be sensitive to this Keenspotter's desire to not be associated with such things.

You know, by not mentioning that strip on Websnark.

Ever.

Just call me Mister Sensitive.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:38 AM | Comments (105)

March 8, 2005

Eric: Perspective.

My sleep schedule gets screwed up appallingly easily, these days. Give me a day of little sleep and getting up way early, and I'm several days of recovering and evening naps and the like. I went to full out bed early tonight, which of course meant I was called on the phone after ten.

So now, exhausted, I am awake. And I am typing here, because I'm overdue. (Though the Incandescent Wednesday White was good enough to cover me, had I not been awakened. She's a good friend. And apparently fecund. And is the first person to use the phrase "ova-disgorging" in a webcomics essay, to my knowledge.) So here I am, awake for a little bit, and thinking. Largely about Websnark itself.

My perspective is changing.

See, one thing I've tried never to forget is just who I am and what I'm doing here. Underneath everything, I'm a guy with a blog. There are tens of thousands of us, and more every day. I try my best to be entertaining and intelligent. I want people, whether they agree with me or disagree with me, to come away from a given snark thinking. And on the whole I've been successful. Certainly, my readership is vastly better than I ever could have dreamed, and I'm humbled by that. After all, the one thing any writer wants, even more than "money" or "a development deal" is an audience. And over time as Websnark has continued, I've been surprised by that, and by the sense of impact we've had on the webcomics world.

And like I said before, I've tried to pretend that impact has been minimal, or cosmetic, because dude. I'm a guy with a blog. Luckier than most, maybe, but still. I should have a sense of perspective.

Last week, a friend of mine who works in an Alaskan comic book store messaged me. "You're quoted in Comics Preview," he said. "In a solicitation."

I kind of blinked, and checked it out. And he was right. Penny and Aggie's comic book solicitation quoted me. In fact, the whole solicitation was a quote from me. Both here and in print form, from what I'm given to understand.

That kind of stunned me. Well, I got stunned again yesterday, when Keenspot issued a press release on their picking up of Todd and Penguin. Which is astoundingly cool, by the way. But the press release mentioned the Shortbread Todd and Penguin earned, and then David Wright wrote a newspost (sadly not archived, or I'd quote from it) on his site giving Websnark a lot of credit for helping build his audience and get him attention, which led to Keen's interest.

Wow.

It's kind of stunning, really. The idea that you really do have an impact. Tonight, I got another reminder -- A Modest Destiny put out a call wanting to know why I hadn't snarked him -- whether it had to do with the various travails AMD's webcartoonist has had with others in the past or some bias or what. (In what might be a disappointment to Mr. Howard, the answer is "it's never crossed my radar, so I've never read it." But going through three or four strips showed a good command of execution, if that counts?)

Hell, Websnark has a Wikipedia entry, where we're described as a verb. (As a side note -- if anyone wants to expand that article, I'd be appreciative. I'm enjoined from doing so myself, for darn good reasons.)

I can't pretend Websnark doesn't have impact, any more. I can't pretend that when I snark a smaller site, it doesn't generate traffic for that site. I can't pretend that when I put out an opinion on a webcomics trope or method it doesn't get noticed by the people who shape that trope.

That's a little daunting. It's a responsibility. And it's humbling.

And it also makes me about as proud as I've ever been.

Thanks, everyone. Thanks for reading, thanks for caring, thanks for being a part of all this. Without you guys, I really am just a guy with a blog. But together? We seem to make a difference.

And that's just plain wonderful.

Now, to fall blissfully back to sleep.

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

March 6, 2005

Eric: The Fix is In, Tonight on Frienditto!

Frienditto's web site now contains the following:

Frienditto's operating costs have increased dramatically in the past 48 hours due to a massive influx of users wanting to view the site. This increased traffic combined with bandwidth costs is threatening the site's continued operations. Additionally, the Frienditto service is now under severe legal duress due to being named in various actions. We appreciate any support large or small.

I don't buy it.

I can accept their 'operating costs' have gone up. They're currently a meme -- specifically, a meme about how much of a bastard they are. (You'll notice I don't link to them. If you want to seek them out, feel free, but I feel no overpowering urge to provide route markers. And I can understand their setting up a donation drive. When your costs go up on the web, you talk to your fanbase. Bandwidth costs, after all.

But "the Frienditto service is now under severe legal duress due to being named in various actions?"

Nuh-uh. I'm calling bullshit on that one.

I think it unlikely in the extreme that Frienditto would have received any kind of legal action from Six Apart, the company that owns Livejournal. Further, there is no other corporate party directly impacted by Frienditto's 'service.' That leaves individual Livejournal participants suing, probably over violation of copyright.

And make no mistake, Frienditto is violating copyright. They're violating it wholesale. They're taking whole essays and journal entries, storing them on their servers without permission, and publishing them for the world to see. That is, in fact, wholly illegal.

But the cost of taking Frienditto to court would be prohibitive for all but the most affluent of Livejournallers. And to be honest, the users of Livejournal aren't exactly known for keeping their light under a bushel. The very act of having a Livejournal is an act of ego, of declaring to the world that your thoughts are worthy of dissemination far and wide.

I'm familiar with this specific variety of ego. I have it myself. In spades. But people who feel this way and who then launch legal action against the most reviled company to ever have even slight unofficial connection to Livejournal aren't going to keep that fact to themselves. They're going to say in a loud, clear voice "I have instructed my lawyer to send a cease and desist letter and lodged a formal action in civil court for violation of Copyright! I'm going to take those Frienditto bastards down!"

Or, more likely, there would be the drive to organize a class action lawsuit, and call after call for people to join it.

And yet, I've heard nothing. No calls to join in. No requests for donations for legal fees to put Frienditto down once and for all. No self-righteous "I'm doing my part" posts. No bandwagoning.

No, Frienditto probably got the same six e-mails threatening legal action everyone gets when something like this happens, and realized hey, we could get people to send us a lot of money to "fight these battles".

It's not outside the realm of possibility that this is the whole reason Frienditto exists, in fact.

It's wholly unlikely that they would be under Gag Order over a weekend, because I don't believe for one second that a Judge has had time to impose one. They could certainly be trumpeting the cases against them and organizing a counterrevolt, if they were real. But they're almost certainly not real.

This is a scam to get your money. If you're a Frienditto supporter... and I can't for the life of me see why you would be... then donate to help their bandwidth costs if you wish. If you want to help them fight the Man, ask to see records first and make sure you get a receipt.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:31 PM | Comments (3)

Eric: On the nature of Surface and Depth: or why most College Freshmen write terrible plays.

I was talking over instant messenger with a friend. And that friend was talking over e-mail with an artist. And that artist and that friend were debating a piece of art. I won't say which one. I won't say what medium. It's probably not what you would expect. And it honestly doesn't matter.

My friend was asking about characterization, and unrealistic depictions and dimensions in the art. And the artist responded that there was a deeper philosophical truth involved. There was a psychological and theological underpinning which one had to empathize with. If one looked at the surface, they would see nothing but dross. But if one approached the work with an understanding of the underlying metaphor, it had the power to affect deeply, and should be considered on those merits, and my friend was unfortunate in that they could not approach the work that way. It meant they were missing out on the profound message.

I am a critic. I am a critical theorist. I am an art enthusiast. I am a writer.

And the response the artist gave to my friend, while powerful and seductive, is also unmitigated bullshit.

It is possible to create art that is experimental, with no other reason than the experiment. It is possible to create compelling art that way. But if you're going to couch your art in terms of story, in terms of narrative, and in terms of meaning, the art has to 100% work on the surface first. It has to work for everyone who shows up at the table. It has to work for the person who reads it quickly and likes the pretty pictures and the turns of phrase. Only through perfecting the surface can one create an artistic work capable of conveying deeper philosophical meaning. Only through creating a compelling narrative can one make a metaphor that will resonate with an audience. Only through believable characterization can one create a character the reader will empathize with.

"We had a message to tell, and we wanted to tell it. And so we decided to tell it. And if we failed to actually tell a story in the process, that's too bad." That's the semantic reduction of the theory the artist was saying. And it was heartfelt. But it was also wholly wrong. You cannot ever write anything with the idea that your audience has to approach it in a specific way. Audiences won't. Audiences don't. If you try to force the reader to adopt a viewpoint, you end up pissing off the reader, and their reaction isn't comprehension but disdain. And you cannot ever ignore the surface in lieu of the deep.

Heinlein's first novel, unpublished for many years, was For Us, The Living. For a long time Heinlein reader like myself, interested in the Dean of Science Fiction beyond simply enjoying his books, it was a revelation -- a gift. It was a great time.

If I handed For Us, The Living to someone who'd never read Stranger in a Strange Land, or Starship Troopers, or Time for the Stars or Time Enough For Love, they would come away from it convinced that Heinlein was a Utopist Liberal Crank who couldn't tell a story to save his life. It was at best an extended essay on how great life would be if we did things his way. It was, at best, worldbuilding. I wrote an essay on this, actually. It's right here. And it's a positive essay. I enjoyed the book. But it's because I spent so much time with Heinlein's surface that I was ready for a book that failed to provide it. And it's worth noting that this book never got published until long after Heinlein built his bona fides as a writer. And he explicitly acknowledges that later on. Half the essays in Expanded Universe detail Heinlein's hard learned lessons that you bring plot and story and character first. If you fail in that, you fail as a writer -- the reader leaves, unentertained and therefore unenlightened.

Even the seminal philosophical stories of our planet, ancient or modern, were good stories first. King David couldn't open with Psalms. First he had to kill a gigantic bully with a stone and spend a night next to lions with lockjaw. Sampson had to have adventures where he took down his enemies before his hubris and his sin in taking a non-Jewish wife who didn't have his interests at heart failed him, and the lesson could be told. Jesus died on the cross, but first he had adventures and evolution that interested the reader. Check out the Koran or the Book of Mormon. They're good reads even before they're religious testaments. For literally thousands of years, we've told Aesop's Fables to our children, because they teach messages to our children by entertaining them first. Greek Mythology contains the laws and philosophies of the people who created it, but there's a lot of sex, drugs and violence to keep the 11:00 matinee audience interested first. Mark Twain wrote some of the most profound stories of the human condition ever seen, and every one of them entertains on every page. "The Old Man and the Sea" is the most philosophical story you'll ever read, if you think about what you're reading, but every paragraph works as a story first.

If you want to say something profound with your work, I salute you. I really do. But if you're going to do it using narrative and metaphor, your first, most important job is to make it exciting and real for the reader -- to make it work as narrative first. Fail that, and you have a colossal waste of everyone's time, most particularly your own.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:47 PM | Comments (28)

March 4, 2005

Eric: Frienditto and E-mail: the fallacy of privacy on the Internet

"Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead."

--Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard's Almanac

Over on Livejournal, I've seen a cascade of sometimes panicked, sometimes pissed posts regarding a website called Frienditto. This site, for the record, takes your LJ username and password, logs in as you, and slurps down stuff you can see into their own database. If you're a registered user, you can do this in a private archive for your own use. If not, it goes into the public archive -- even if the original Livejournal post was locked to Friends. In other words, if you have a Friend on your Friends List who uses this service, the posts you've locked to your friends that he has access to show up on a public website, as well as a public Livejournal Community.

This, needless to say, has pissed people off. "If you use this service," I've seen from many friends, "you need to tell me right now so I can unfriend you." Others are railing at the monumental stupidity of giving a third party your Livejournal Password.

I understand these reactions. I empathize with these reactions. I think Frienditto is crass at best, and evil at worst.

Guys? Welcome to the Internet.

Livejournal gives us a wonderful sense of false security. "This is private," we say. "I can lock this so that just my friends can see it." Or "I can define a custom friends group, so that only a small group of my friends can see it." And so on down the line.

But every one of these things requires that the people on your friends list actually respect your Friends lock -- that none of them will ever be false or petty or stupid and copy and paste your post and repost it elsewhere -- or use this alleged 'service' because they want to keep a record someplace, without realizing they've put it out for the world to see.

That doesn't even count things like the fact that you don't own the computers or databases these programs are running on, even if you paid. Yes, you have the copyright to your words, but if the FBI shows up at Six Apart with a court order saying "show us all the private posts from user 'dipshit1,' either Six Apart is going to give them access or people will go to jail, the equipment will be seized, and the FBI will scrutinize all of it.

The Internet is not a private medium. The Internet is not designed to be a private medium. Take e-mail. E-mail, if anything, seems private, right? Wrong. It goes out cleartext. Every so often, I have to check my school's spam firewall for clogged legitimate messages. When I'm going through the logs, there's every single e-mail we've received, be they spam or legitimate. I can read any of them I want at any time. It's not, by the way, a sense of privacy or propriety or honor that keeps me from reading them. It's the sheer unmitigated tedium involved in reading other peoples' daily correspondence. The times I've had to do searches of student e-mail accounts (In Loco Parentis means never having to say you're sorry), it's has inevitably been the most soul-crushingly dull process you can imagine.

And it's perfectly legal. At times, it's a requirement of my job and of the school's legal responsibilities for its own equipment. And every ISP in the world reserves the right to read e-mail or anything else on their servers, as part of their efforts to maintain their equipment and prevent scriptkiddies from screwing with things.

So that tearful love letter you sent the married woman? Might well be read by a bored teenaged intern sitting in the ISP's server room at eleven o'clock at night. It's not private. Don't fool yourself that it is.

Do I sent personal things in e-mail? Yes I do. Do I post personal things to my Livejournal? Yes I do. Do I use friendslocks and custom Friends groups? Yes I do.

But I never forget that the stuff I write on Livejournal... or here, for that matter... couldn't show up in places I never anticipated. It's the risk I take, and the faith I have in my friends. And it is an informed risk.

If you're writing something so mind-numbingly personal you can't bear the thought of it getting out into the general world, write it with a pen and paper in a lockable diary, and then keep that diary in your desk drawer. If you're going to be doing this stuff on the internet, remember that you're speaking to an audience... and remember that your control over your content ends when you click "SUBMIT."

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:51 PM | Comments (12)

February 21, 2005

Eric: A slight clarification of policy.

I had a number of people write to me to discuss the current General Protection Fault storyline. Now, I wasn't reading it, because it's on the "You had me, and you lost me" list. But, naturally enough, I checked it out and I've engaged in a number of formal and informal discussions with people about it. Or as discussion as I get when I'm barely answering my e-mail, anyhow.

But an increasing number of the letters wanted to know when I'd discuss the plotline here on Websnark -- give my official opinions on what Darlington is doing.

Well, I've indicated this in a number of responses I made to people, but let me state it for the record, out here.

When you go onto the "You Had Me, and You Lost Me" list, you officially become exempt from critical commentary on this website. I just don't do it.

Yeah, if I find out someone who went on that list did something amazing or significant, I'll mention it. There's nothing keeping me from saying something nice about a strip I've decided to drop. But for general commentary, particularly on contentious issues, I don't think it's fair for me to make a big deal about walking away and then keep going as if nothing had happened.

So, while I might make offhanded general remarks about GPF or Megatokyo or It's Walky, I'm not going to snark them, or harp on them, or point out their foibles or highlight their triumphs, unless a foible is so catastrophic that it would be disingenuous not to speak, or a triumph so phenomenal I can't help but speak.

GPF isn't in either category right now. Some people really like what he's doing. Some don't. And it'd be dirty pool for me to say how I feel on this forum. If you're curious about whether or not he's doing well or poorly, have a glance at it yourself. It's free, after all.

Or check some of the other commentary sites. It's not like people aren't talking about it....

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:38 PM | Comments (8)

February 20, 2005

Eric: In review:

I had a medical thing that -- among other things -- had me mood swinging like a madman, and which still goes on to a degree.

Flint ended.

Queen of Wands looks to be very close to ending.

Hunter S. Thompson shot himself. Which, admittedly, is pretty much how we expected him to go, but still.

I got nothing. Maybe tomorrow.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:54 PM | Comments (5)

February 14, 2005

Eric: Multiple blasts from the past, and other cliches.

As for today? I don't want to talk about it.

However, having had some issues with my old revived Essay Journal -- which I had started writing in for a few months before the arrival of Websnark, which then overwhelmed it -- I finally got around to exporting those eight posts from it and importing them here into Websnark proper.

So, if you want to read something of mine you probably haven't seen, and would rather it not have anything to do with "Infinite Canvases" or the like, have a look at this group of essays. They cover coffee makes and musical tastes and the excitement and fear before major surgery and even a crappy 'meme.'

I'm going to bed.

Hello, My friend, won't you tell me your name?
Playlists and Coffeemakers: Recapturing the Personal
Confessions of a Liberal Heinlein Fan: Worldbuilding and Utopia
The Alchemy of the Slow Cooker
Good Night, Captain
Six Days
On Names and Innovation
Recycling the Meme: On Writing

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:47 PM | Comments (1)

February 2, 2005

Eric: Snarky, know thyself.

It seems to work like this:

If I've had enough sleep, my snarks tend to be positive.

If I haven't had enough sleep, my snarks are more likely to be negative.

I try my best to express my true opinions regardless, but I'm getting to know what kind of stuff I put out in different situations.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:21 PM | Comments (2)

Eric: Update on the day

I remember when sleep came easily. Last evening it came too easily, really. I fell asleep at seven, woke up at one in the morning, and then I was up. I ended up washing dishes and doing crap like that. This evening I'm tired as Hell, but forcing myself to stay awake by traveling down to a cafe and writing.

Mostly, I'm working on the comic strip. I've had some good interest from artists and some kickass character sketches. I think this could work astoundingly well. At the same time... part of me wonders if somehow this would become... I don't know. Like a reverse selling out or something. Do I lose my license to snark as a disinterested party if suddenly I have a strip on the web? Especially if it sucks?

For the record, this is a Story comic, with some Funny thrown in. It's not a Funny comic with Story. Though the In Nomine strip is a Funny comic with Story thrown against the wall to see what sticks, so I'm trying a little of everything. So no, by definition, I won't be going for a Cerberus Syndrome because it'll be opening that way. As for First and Ten... well, that's for other people to say.

Ah well, if it sucks, it sucks. I want to do this. Is there ever a better reason?

This is more babble than snark, philosophical or otherwise. So, from somewhere in central New Hampshire, I remain ever your servant....

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:48 PM | Comments (4)

January 29, 2005

Eric: This week has at last ended...

...and I'm feeling better tonight. I'm in Maine, having seen the family for festivities. My sister and both her daughters are now firm Todd and Penguin fans, to the point where one niece (the one sitting next to me) punctuated several statements with "so... I guess there aren't any cookies then?" I'm working on getting them to read Count Your Sheep.

With a little luck, I'll be far more myself in the upcoming week. Certainly I'd have to be feeling better, which means more concentrated and tons more writing. (I looked back at this week and just kind of shook my head. I'm glad I did the Rabbit Hole thing or else it'd practically be a wash on the writing front. And there aren't many washes on the writing front for me, usually.

Have a lovely tomorrow, all!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:47 PM | Comments (2)

January 27, 2005

Eric: Fan Art (1 of 2), birthdays and rabbit holes

I'm still pretty damn sick. Fevers all through yesterday and last night (without the insulating power of scotch, I'm sorry to say), plus any number of other symptoms. Despite this fact, I did wake up this morning, and it was January 27. Which means that I have successfully cheated death for another year.

The best birthday present I could receive was seriously cool fiction, and that's been heartily available thanks to Down the Rabbit Hole day. See, I share my birthday with Lewis Carroll, and so this fellow called Crisper (fellow being unisex, because hey, how should I know?) suggested that instead of a crappy meme about how many pieces of Halloween Candy you received or something like that, this should be a meme where for 24 hours you write about the strange new world you woke up in, through the looking glass or down the rabbit hole.

I loved the very idea of it. And so I wrote a five part entry myself. If you'd like to have a look, they're here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, and finally Part Five. Feel free to have a look if you want.

If you'd like to see some more primo examples of Down the Rabbit Holery, my good friend Greg Fishbone has been collecting examples of the best he's seen today. If you've been following along on Livejournal and seen one or two that Greg's missed, send them along to him for inclusion.

As it is my birthday, I should mention a couple of gifts I've recently received. Namely, two pieces of art, both coming out of Arisia (which I still owe you a report from -- I've been very sick recently, in my defense). One really needs an entry all to itself, so it'll go up in a bit. This one, however, is an adorable Snarky in the Snow (not exactly Sad Snarky in Snow, either), done by the talented Poinko of Fever Dream. (You know, that comic title is apropos given how I feel...) It's so cute, and Snarky looks so thrilled! Yay!

The other piece of art... heh. You'll see.

Cheers!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:30 PM | Comments (3)

January 25, 2005

Eric: The Irish get parades, drink green beer, and have jokes about vomit on their special day. We Scots read poetry on ours. I think we come out ahead.

For those who have been wondering, I'm sick. I was completely exhausted on Sunday night from the trip back through the snow, I was a walking corpse of fatigue Monday, and then I fell asleep Monday night only to wake back up with stomach pain at 2 am, and stay awake the rest of the night. During the day, I began to develop chest congestion and head congestion, and even more fatigue. Writing was out of the question. I was lucky I could recognize the keyboard.

I fell asleep as soon as I got home, though I tried not to (I didn't even eat dinner). I slept through until a few minutes ago, and woke up more congested, more achy, and slightly fevered. I just put on a humidifier, threw a basic dinner into the microwave, and came here. Because there are things we need to talk about. It is January 25.

It is Burns Night.

Robert Burns is famous for any number of reasons, but somehow he didn't "click" with the American Educational System before college, at least when I was going through it. We all know he wrote Auld Lang Syne, but we didn't talk about his Romanticism, his class warfare, his unique voice in writing in the vernacular of the working classes of his native Scotland, not the poncey language of a Wordsworth or Keats. He lived through the American Revolution, and believed in the spirit of Revolution. He is revered in Europe, and Australia, and Russia. In fact, during the days of the Soviet Union, he was one of the few poets to be heavily studied, because he was felt to be a champion of Communist Ideals without Manifesto. Dogmatic though it may be, this was one of the few strong expressions of Western Civilization into Russia.

He drank too much. He fathered an inordinate number of children, including several bastards (or so they say). Burns itself is a dirt common name in Scotland (it means rivers or brooks, which seems funny to me, since it seems to mean 'Careless with Matches.') He was rude, he was perfectly willing to publish poetry castigating his enemies, and the semantic quality of much of his poetry seems to boil down to "My luv is faire an' tru/an mine is the heart that luvs/an she feels my luv too/but now she's dead and lying in the fucking ground and worms -- worms -- are eating her skin and eyes and CHRIST I need a drink." Which made him both an early Goth and early Emo. It's also felt he was among the first poets to use the pain within his soul to talk otherwise respectable women into having indiscriminate sex.

He was an archivist. Many of his poems -- especially those published in the volumes of his Scots Musical Museum -- were meant to clean up folk poems and folk songs and the native music of the Scottish people and put it into a form where it would never be forgotten. This has been successful: I can sing about nine Burns songs off the top of my head with their original music, up to and including the real tune of Auld Lang Syne. (There are two tunes associated with it. The one you know, and the good one. Just, you know, for the record.)

I'm Scottish American, and my name is Burns, and I love Burns Night. I don't usually have a Haggis and speak the traditional prayer -- the Selkirk Grace -- and I sure as Hell wouldn't put Haggis in my mouth already feeling sick. Still, as I look at microwaved meatloaf, now sitting and waiting for me, I stop and ponder, and at least think, if not say:

Some hae meat and canna eat, And some would eat that want it; But we hae meat, and we can eat, Sae let the Lord be thankit.

And as I eat, I consider Burns's poetry. The songs, the airs, the ode to a mouse whose home was destroyed by a plow. The satirical ode to a bug that crawls on a rich woman's head. Green growing rashes. To the weavers we gin going.

And I remember the words to a song everyone in the Western Hemisphere knows, despite the fact that not twelve of them actually know the lyrics. They are an invocation of good health, for good friends, for those we know now, and for those we have known who are not here today. And I think of all of you.

And I think of all of you as my friends, coming here and reading what I have to say. Which is nuts. I mean, it's totally batshit insane.

But still. You're my friends.

And so although I'm sick, I pour some Dalwhinnie in a glass (I should probably have Laphroig -- that'll kill any disease in me -- but it doesn't seem right), and I drink a toast to my food, and a toast to the beautiful lassies I know. I imagine the toast they make in response. And I eat, and I read, and think of friends and think of a man who died after only 37 years, his heart strained by backbreaking labor in his youth (not to mention all the alcohol). And though I'm coughing to much to sing out loud, inside, I hear the words sung:

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine,
And we'll tak a cup o kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pou'd the gowans fine,
But we've wander'd monie a weary fit,
Sin auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl'd in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin auld lang syne.

And there's a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o thine,
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And though I'm not a religious man, I'm reminded of two prayers right now. The first, I'm told, is modern Wiccan, and they say it at the Renaissance Festival where once I worked, because that's where one says Modern Wiccan Prayers to middle Americans and not get yelled at:

Merry meet, Merry part, And merry meet again.

And the other? Though I'm no more Christian than I am Wiccan, there's only one thing left to say:

God bless you, and God bless Bobbie Burns.

Good night.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:50 PM | Comments (10)

January 16, 2005

Eric: A difficult admission

You see, there's things I want to say, and do. And forms I want to work in. Very, very badly.

Or maybe you don't see. How could you. I did the in media res trick, only that doesn't work in essays, does it? Well, let me pick things up and see where they fall from here.

Back in 2002, I wrote a comic strip. It was called Unfettered by Talent, and it was terrible. It's not the worst strip to ever be written (some of the writing was actually okay), but I can't draw. It's possibly not the worst drawn strip of all time, but it's in the top twenty.

But I would like to work in the webcomics form. I honestly would.

I have a working plan to do so, in one sense. A quiet little strip with a collaborator, on the subject of In Nomine. But while I'm excited to do that strip, because I like In Nomine, I like that artist, and I like jokes about coffee and demons, it is what it is. And there's more I want to say.

So, I have a thought in mind, and I would need to find an artist who would be willing to draw it, at least initially. And perhaps later, other artists could try it out too.

In tone, it would be more story than funny, though there would be funny. Really, it owes more to Modern Tales and the like in concept than anything else. And, because I'm predictable, it's about art, and magic, and muses.

And I'd like to find someone who'd want to do the art for it.

In the best of all possible worlds, this would be a three strip a week comic, and many weeks worth would be completed before it even began to appear on a website. What home it would end up on depends a lot on what's available when we get to that stage, of course.

I'm open to suggestions, or offers, or discussions.

Oh, and the vast likelihood is there would be no money involved. So... yeah.

Anyway. The worst thing that will happen is no one will respond. I can cope with that.

(Oh, and the other strip? The In Nomine one? I'll keep you posted with where that one's headed.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:15 PM | Comments (17)

January 15, 2005

Eric: Twenty four hours without Livejournal

So, a catastrophic failure hit Livejournal yesterday -- a power loss at their entire center, including all UPS systems (systems that they describe as "insanely redundant power and UPS systems"), leading to a total collapse of the organic interwoven server cluster. In restoring it, they discovered many of the machines that they use as backups failed, that other machines reported operations that weren't actually happening. and that they're literally having to recreate the database transactions on some of the restored servers -- like they were trying to compress weeks of posting into hours, one action at a time.

It's also apparently the second time it happened. From that same document detailing their recovery efforts: "now that this has happened to us twice, we realize the first time wasn't a total freak coincidence. C'est la vie." Which blows my mind. Seriously. I think it's hysterical. Your entire company's business is based on this kind of thing, and you have a catastrophic failure, and decide afterward that hey -- it was probably a coincidence. It couldn't possibly happen again. In my Imperial Space stories (including Trigger Man for those of you following along at home), that's called invoking Murphy, and Murphy enjoys these situations way too much.

Setting aside the logistical nightmare the LJ team's piecing their way through (and everything the Six Apart people -- who just bought this company, remember -- have to be wondering about, right now), there's the question of the greater Livejournal community. Several million of them.

And they're going through withdrawal, right about now.

Seriously, thousands of these people stay connected to their online world wholly through Livejournal. Take LJ out of the mix, and suddenly the center of their universe is broken. Hell, I use LJ as my RSS reader -- so I'm not following any of the lists I read through RSS at all today. So, no Boing Boing, no Wil Wheaton, no Neil Gaiman, no RPG design lists. Not to mention not seeing what's happening in the lives of my friends, acquaintances, and the various people I voyeuristically stare at.

And Livejournal isn't that big a deal for me. I can't imagine what the people who base their lives around Livejournal are doing today.

Maybe in the end this is a good thing. A reminder of the fragility of digital communities. A reminder that there's also this outdoors thing. Maybe.

But maybe not. The thing about Livejournal is... it represents millions of people who decided to write for the world to see. That's powerful juju. These are folks who, whether vapid or profound, are expressing themselves with the written word. They're expressing their opinions. They're delinating their hopes and dreams. And yeah, some of them are easy to make fun of, but some aren't. And all of them are trying.

Being without that is shocking, for some people. Suddenly, their tongues have been silenced. Their support groups are gone. Their fanbases are empty. Suddenly, they're being plunged back into 1999, and they don't want to be back in 1999.

It's going to be very interesting to hear what they have to say, when LJ comes back online.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:12 PM | Comments (19)

January 12, 2005

Eric: Some days...

...you just don't have anything to say.

Tomorrow night, I'm making the trek out to the Haymarket Bookstore Cafe in Northampton, Massachusetts, as I mentioned. I'm going to see the Dumbrella soiree, including people with the surnames of Rosenberg, Rowland, Stevens and Allison, and see what they have to say to we the public. I'm told a fellow with the last name of Jacques will also be in attendance, though not perhaps on the dias so much as hanging back and heckling, and there's a couple of Snarkoleptics who have mentioned they may make the trek as well.

Other than that... there were many good strips today, but none said "snark me." I did get some work done on that short story, though -- so it's not a complete wash.

Out of curiosity... in the spirit of such era-defining terms as the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Victorian Age and so forth... what do people think of a future group of historians and lit scholars referring to the main body of the 20th Century as "the Convolution?"

If you like it, the credit goes to my friend Chris Angelini. If you don't, it's my fault.

EDIT: Technically, though I wrote this post on the 12th, I accidentally saved it to draft instead of publish, so it only appeared after midnight. So technically I didn't post on the 12th at all. But I wrote this on the 12th, so damn it, I say it counts.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:41 PM | Comments (7)

January 10, 2005

Eric: I seem to be becoming a professional devil's advocate.

I don't like Garfield.

I said it. It's official. I don't like it. I don't like that it's repetitive and unimaginative. I don't like that it was designed to be innocuous and marketable, not artistic and funny. I don't like that despite that fact, Garfield has potential (proven most clearly by the Garfield and Friends saturday morning cartoon, which was actually funny and clever and imaginative kids' fare) that it steadfastly refuses to exploit. I don't like the lasagna jokes. I don't like the "Jon is a helpless dweeb" jokes. I don't like the "I don't like Mondays" jokes (like a given housecat has any reason to care what day of the week it is). I don't. Like. Garfield.

So, here's a Snark defending Garfield.

See, Garfield is big news in comicdom right at the moment, thanks to the Los Angeles Times dropping the strip to make room for a new one. (My favorite part of that article? The one where the Syndicate representative describes Jim Davis as "hands on" with Garfield. Do you think anyone would ever describe, say, Lynn Johnston as "hands on" with For Better or For Worse?) And, when big news happens in comicdom, I get letters, most of them excited. "Did you hear?" they asked. "When are you going to comment?"

I guess the answer to that was 'Monday.' And yeah, I was glad to see it -- mostly I was glad that there was some actual response from the newspaper community cheering for the move, for artistic reasons. But, it didn't much impact on me, since I don't read the L.A Times and I don't read Garfield. However, it got me to thinking about Garfield... and about the down side to dropping the strip.

First off, this is unreservedly a kid's comic strip. Yes, its creation was cynical, its writing is hackneyed and uninspiring, and it repeats itself constantly. But to be honest, I don't think it's intended to hold readers past, oh, 12. It wants kids -- the ones who've never seen the jokes. The ones who like repetition because they're still having their brains develop (this is why, on Teletubbies, everything is done twice. This is not why there's a giant fucking scary sun baby overlooking them all on Teletubbies, to my knowledge). Kids quickly learn the lay of the land and laugh. They anticipate the joke the moment they see the pan of lasagna, or the moment Garfield thinks "Jon has a date tonight," or the moment Odie is shown sitting on the corner of the table. They get it, and that makes them happy.

And the thing is, that gets the kids reading the funny pages in the newspaper. Something toned to them, that they think is funny, sets a habit. And by the time they outgrow Garfield (when their brains get formed enough to start thinking "Jesus, did they just photocopy this?") the habit's formed and they go back to read stuff that's actually funny.

Secondly... Garfield actually is popular.

I know, I don't get it either.

But it has a readership. For that 1 prominent newspaper who dropped Garfield last year, there's 40 or 50 that picked it up. According to the Syndicate, it's in 2,700 newspapers world wide. Twenty seven hundred newspapers. That doesn't happen today -- not because of issues of quality, but because there's nothing so popular that jumps out of the current information glutted environment. Which means like it or not, Garfield is a part of our collective culture, in a world that increasingly doesn't have a collective culture. There's very few comic strips you can say that about, these days. Even the old (bad) standbys like Hagar and Blondie and B.C. can't claim that -- they might be on almost as many newspaper pages, but if you ask random folks to name Hagar's children or who Mr. Dithers was or any character names from B.C., they're not likely to know. Cathy is lucky people know Cathy's name, and her name is the title of the strip, for Christ's sakes.

But odds are, those people will be able to name "Garfield," "Jon," "Odie," "Veterinarian," and "Lasagna." And maybe even "Nermal." Christ, I can name them all, and I haven't willingly read Garfield in 20 years or more. The only comic strip (not counting Peanuts, which is even bigger in terms of culture, deserves it more, but is in eternal reruns now) in current production that comes close to that level of recognition are Dilbert, and Doonesbury, and neither are really meant for kids, and Doonesbury often as not is on the editorial page anyhow.

There is a value to shared cultural landmarks, even when those landmarks are insipid. There is a value to the shared referent we get from Gilligans Island and The Beverly Hillbillies, even when there were vastly better shows on the air at the same time. (And Married with Children and Baywatch, for that matter.)

And honestly, it's unseemly to despise the popular because it is popular. It's all right to despise Garfield as recycled humor by committee designed to push merchandise instead of art or humor, but it's not all right to despise people for liking it.

There's lots of strips I'd like to see off the comics page, because I don't think they're very good, I think they're taking up space, I think we should try to do better, and I think editors are typically a cowardly and superstitious lot. But when a strip actually is popular, especially with the children we're trying to recruit into the comic strip habit... I guess I give it more than a bye. So yeah, I hate Garfield. I'd give anything for Count Your Sheep to be sitting in its place in those 2,700 newspapers -- it's vastly better, funnier, and just as accessible, I think. But in a world where The Lockhorns and Marmaduke and B.C. Which Means Before Christ Not That You Can Tell In This Fucking Strip and the aptly named Hagar the Horrible are allowed to run free, stinking up the joint and bringing powerfully little in return... the fat cat who likes italian food and has a lame sense of sarcastic humor... and who actually hooks people on comics... gets more of a bye from me.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:53 PM | Comments (4)

January 8, 2005

Eric: A day of rest, light coughing.

This was another day of... well, next to nothing. Clearly, I needed the downtime. Tomorrow is a heavy writing day, both for here and other bits I'm behind on and bringing sobbing down from those who deserve better from me.

But I wanted at least to say hi, and say the unqualified astounding things about Issue 3 on City of Heroes, hand in hand with the Crappy Council (and they're not improving with time, I'm afraid -- their coolest new characters are the "Galaxy" figures... and they look almost exactly like Destro from G.I. Joe, only without his keen fashion sense.

Yes, I'm serious.

However, first off, the new zone, Stigia Island (which I think I just misspelled, but I'm not going to look it up because I'm... well, crap) is the best new zone of the game, so far. It's got all the joys of the Hollows without the impending sense of doom clinging to them. And they have lots and lots of new maps -- especially the cargo ship map, which just rocks.

Secondly... they did an amazing lighting engine upgrade. The sewers have always been somewhat funny -- these well lit sewers where villains like to hang out. Now they're full of shadows with shadow effects as you pass under the light sources. They're creepy, and that's perfect. We did the Dr. Vahzilok mission today -- a mission I've done about nine times before now -- and this is the first time it scared the crap out of me. Ambience is everything, and they've nailed it.

And when you go into the room where the Doctor is hanging around in his meat suit? Oh my Fucking God. Someone deserves bonus pay for this Issue.

So, City of Heroes remains an astoundingly cool game, and this free update remains phenomenal. Except for the Council. Fucking Council.

(You know, if they'd retconned the 5th Column into something cool, I'd have no problem. But they did things like take the Steel Valkyrie drones -- what a great name. The Steel Valkyrie -- and renamed them the "Zenith Hoverbot." The Zenith Fucking Hoverbot. It sounds like a brand of floating television! But I digress.)

On the other hand, the Council does have a Volcano Fortress. And it's amazing. I just wish it weren't being leased by such a pack of lamers.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)

January 5, 2005

Eric: The Twelfth Commandment

All right. This is going into unusual territory for me. It's going into where the religious crosses over into the political, and it's going into a couple of hot button issues. You need to know this going into it. I promise that later on, I'll post something about a comic strip, and if you'd like to wait for that without reading this, I'll be perfectly fine with it.

Still here? Coolness. Let's talk.

I make no bones about my political ethos. I'm a liberal. I'm not an extremist, but I advocate things that moderates don't, so I pretty much have to call myself "liberal" and be done with it. I'm proud of this fact.

You may intuit, from that admission, my opinions and beliefs when it comes to gay and lesbian civil rights, gay marriage, the "gay agenda," and the "religious right agenda." Let's stipulate those before I move forward. I am a liberal. You know how I feel about the above, at least in general. I'm very unlikely to disappoint you.

Further, as I told you back when I was talking about Christmas in schools, I'm not a Christian. That's an important part of this essay too.

Got all that? Good.

In the last few days, I've seen a number of people -- including a number of my friends -- launch into tirades against what they see as the latest horrific tirade from "the Fundamentalists." Namely, the conflation of the Tsunami and all those killed with some kind of divine justice against the Sodomites. They're horrified. "This is why I despise Christianity," some of them say. "This is the kind of ignorant hatred these people spew! How can so many Americans be fooled by this bullshit?"

And I'm here as a cheerful Liberal Non-Christian to say to all of you reacting in this way a simple, pleasant message:

Know your opposition.

Notice I don't say "enemy." Any belief structure that necessitates making millions of Americans my "enemy" isn't one I agree with even slightly. But there are issues I am in fundamental opposition with those Americans over, and there are millions of Americans who agree with me as well.

But the tirades that you despise aren't coming from the Evangelical Christian Community. They're not.

The tirades mostly come from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) of Topeka, Kansas. Their website is the cheerfully named God Hates Fags, if you care to have a look at the bile-filled hatefest for yourself. They describe themselves as a Primitive Baptist Church. However, their belief structure is mostly based on a particularly strict form of Calvinism. God has decided who will be saved and who will not. Those who will be saved will enter into grace and act perfectly before they die -- perfection meaning "agree with the WBC's interpretation of the Bible in all ways and act accordingly" in this case. They will have no choice in this matter -- God will select them and there will be nothing else they can do.

Please note -- this is the polar opposite of Evangelist Christianity. To the Evangelists and Charismatic Christians, it is all about Free Will and choice. Sinners are born Sinners, but can choose to repent, declare their faith in Jesus Christ, and enter into Grace. God Loves Everyone, and Everyone can be Saved, but you have to come to Him -- He doesn't do the work for you.

To the WBC, all things are expressions of the Divine Will. And, as an Apocalyptic Cult, they feel that Divine Will is very unhappy with we the sinners. And when God gets unhappy, he destroys cities and floods the world and kills pretty much everyone and most of them get cast into Hell. And that's a good thing. By definition, because God Wills It. To them, God explicitly does not love everyone. He hates gays and lesbians -- and Jews and Muslims and Catholics and any other church they consider to be apostate. This explicitly includes, but is not limited to, the Episcopalians, the Lutherans, the Catholics, the United Church of Christ, the Assemblies of God, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Southern Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Unitarians, and of course all Jews who don't accept Jesus as the Messiah. They single out Billy Graham in particular as a dangerous heretic and false prophet.

The WBC has offered up loud and public thanks for the Tsunami, because they believe that it killed thousands of Americans and Swedes (they hate Sweden) and is yet another sign of Divine Wrath against the Sodomites and their Sympathizers. They have offered up thanks and praise for the 9/11 attacks for the same reason. They have openly expressed their hope that God destroys the entire North American Continent as punishment for our sinful ways, and they have expressed out and out joy that prominent gays who have died (especially those murdered) are now burning in Hell without release. Their God has no room for Mercy -- there is nothing anyone could have done to prevent this. Had he wanted to save Matthew Shephard's soul (they've been actively trying to raise a monument commemorating Shephard -- who was a teenaged homosexual brutally killed by gaybashers -- as burning in Hell, and they picketed his funeral with God Hates Fags placards) God would have reached out, caused Matthew to renounce homosexuality, and preach the gospel as they see it. They also believe God made Matthew gay, as God made all things, and chose not to save him.

They take joy in God's Hatred and Wrath, joy in the death he spreads (including, explicitly, children -- since they were being raised to do evil anyway), and joy in the coming End Times that will see America and all nations like her destroyed by a vengeful hand. They preach their hate-spewed gospel because the Bible says they must, but they don't believe it will do any good -- God will save those he wants to, and besides, it's too late for us.

So yes, I despise these hateful, tortured bastards. I despise anyone who takes pleasure in the death of one person, much less the death of thousands upon thousands. I wouldn't share a meal with any one of them. And if it turns out they're right and their God is the true one, I'd rather go to Hell. Eternal torment is preferable to a Divinity of Hatred and Selfishness, and I do not accept any deity capable of creating the Heavens and Earth could also be capable of that much bile and intentional, impersonal horror.

But I never, ever confuse these horrible people with Evangelical Christians. The Religious Right has an agenda I can't stand, but their churches don't advocate the destruction of America, joy in the death of tens of thousands, and joy in the torment of sinners. I know more than one Christian who believes in Exclusive Salvation -- the doctrine that only through Christ's grace and the acceptance of Him as your Savior can you enter the Kingdom of Heaven -- and none of them like the thought of their friends and even acquaintences burning in Hell. They would give anything to help you avoid that fate. The WBC will just literally dance on your grave.

So when we the Liberals point to the WBC and say "you see? This is what those bastard Christians want to do to us! This is what they stand for!" the Religious Right -- the real, honest to God Fundamentalist Christians stare at us and say "you honestly have no idea what our religion is about, do you?" They give up on trying to have a meaningful dialogue about the issues dividing this country, because we're not trying to understand -- we're lumping them in with the worst of their breed. It's exactly the same as the days when all left-leaning people were tarred as Stalinists -- not even just Communists, but followers of the Butchers of Budapest. It's exactly the same as when environmentalists are looped in with radical ecoterrorists. It's exactly the same as when the Gay and Lesbian Movement is conflated with NAMBLA.

And it wasn't true in those cases and this isn't true now. And by conflating the Religious Right with Antiamerican Apocalyptic Death Cults, we're ensuring that no decent communication can take place between the left and the right in this country. We're ensuring that Christians fully believe we aren't willing to distinguish between decent people who have different moral values than we do and monsters. And right now? That hurts Liberals more than Christians. Take another look at who won the last election if you don't believe me. And when we go on the offensive against all of Christianity because of the radical, hateful ethos of one tiny splinter of horrible people acting in unChristian ways nominally in the name of Jesus, we put all of Christianity on the defensive. That's just plain stupid.

You should all know the Ten Commandments (even if you're not a believer. This is a part of your civilization). Robert Heinlein informed us that the Eleventh Commandment was "Thou shalt not get caught." Well, I think the Twelfth Commandment is "Know Thy Opposition."

We have fundamental issues before us right now. We have battles that are crucial -- that must be fought. If, like me, you are a Liberal (at least on these issues) or even a Moderate who leans left on civil rights, you have to know what the positions the Right (especially the Religious Right) hold on Abortion, on Gay Rights, on the Separation of Church and State. You have to know the nuances of those issues, and know where the battle lines have to be drawn. And you have to know that your Opponents are not your Enemies -- they are Americans you disagree with on a number of issues.

And we can't do any of that if we're drawn into tarring them all with the WBC's brush. Trust me, the Religious Right doesn't want the WBC on their side of the debate any more than we do. But if we force them to include them, they will... and it will lead to ever worsening conditions for the Left.

And, if you're on the Right in these debates -- if you disagree with my stances... know too the difference between the Liberals and the Extremists. Know the difference between proponents of Choice and Gay Civil Rights and the extreme left nutjobs and proponents of pedophilia. And know that while we oppose many of the things you believe in, we are not your enemy either... and if you cast us as your enemies and lump us all into one great Leftist Horde... it will lead to ever worsening conditions for the Right, as well.

Know thy Opposition, and know thy Battlefield, and don't get distracted by the depraved rantings of a few horrible people. The issues are too important, and America needs us to be at our best in this debate.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:38 PM | Comments (24)

December 29, 2004

Eric: On Unity in Disaster.

The planet has been shifted in its orbit. About an inch, or so they say. We're moving about three millionths of a second a day faster now too. That's how much power was unleashed by the Earthquakes that spawned the tsunamis that have cost over 80,000 people (as of today) their lives, and countless hundreds of thousands their way of life.

Extra, Access Hollywood and several other shows of monumental excess and celebrity worship have been throwing Petra Nemcova's mostly nude body up on television (file footage, of course, not pictures of the terrified, traumatized girl), advertising their shows by promising updates on the condition of the "Tsunami Supermodel" and the search for her missing boyfriend. I feel something in my soul boil up when I see that. I mean, eighty thousand people are known to have died. That's like a meteor destroying four cities the size of Ithaca, New York at once. I don't care how good the girl looked on a beach in a bathing suit. Not compared to this level of horror.

I know there's been some backlash against people writing about this horrible scene. People don't want to think about it. It's too big. It's too horrific. And there isn't even anyone to blame. When there's an attack and thousands die, it galvanizes a response -- we have to beat those bastards back.

But there's no one to blame here. Unless you're religious, I suppose. And I can imagine any number of deities and devils or interpretation of deities and devils have been blamed in the last 96 hours. But for the most part, this is just something that happened one day.

I don't know if there's any tectonic activity in the Atlantic, but it's crossed my mind recently. What would happen if an Earthquake like that generated a tsunami like that off the American coast, I mean. What that would do to Boston, to Portsmouth, to New York City. Manhattan is a fucking Island. Boston is exposed to the ocean.

And there's Portland. And Freeport. Bar Harbor. Lincolnville. Camden. Rockland. Rockport. Searsport. So many places that are a part of my life, part of my past, part of Maine. All along a hungry sea.

These things just happen, sometime.

It's not going to happen, of course. These are astronomically rare events. But there are other disasters out there. Other horrors, that no one causes... that just happen one day. And in the face of those horrors, it falls upon the rest of us to close the gaps and help out. Help others the way we pray we'll be helped if it happens to us.

I'm reprinting something Randy Milholland posted on his website. Aeire reprinted this message in the Queen of Wands Livejournal as well. D.J. Coffman posted a similar message on the Yirmumah forums. I'm reprinting it because I don't think I could say it any better than Milholland did, and I think he'll forgive me:

As many of you know by now, over 22,000 60,000 80,000 people are dead now in Asia after an earthquake, and resulting tsunami, devastated lives in Thailand, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka and Maldvives - among other places. Hundreds of thousands of people are now homeless as a result and need help. Organizations like Unicef, Direct Relief International, World Vision, and American Red Cross are beginning humanitarian efforts in these areas, but need your help.

Both Unicef and World Vision take monetary donations which allow them to meet the food, medical and shelter needs of those affected. Direct Relief International takes monetary and product donations. The American Red Cross is currently only accepting financial donations, but you can donate online or by call 1-800-HELP-NOW.

If you don't have the money to contribute, it's okay. Honestly. If you do, I hope you do. I have, because it's important to me.

Most of all... this is a time to be reminded that the world is much, much larger than we are, and there are times we have to come together as a race and help out.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:27 PM | Comments (10)

December 17, 2004

Eric: On jumping the shark: a fast irrelevant comment

For whatever reason, discussions of the term "Jumping the Shark" are floating around the blogosphere today. Different things are accused of jumping the shark, other essays and comments accuse "jumping the shark" of jumping the shark... it's a chumfest, boyos.

Chum.

It's cut up fish. They use it to bait for sharks.

Look, I'm under medication.

Anyway, I like the term because it does its job. It conveys a concept, quickly and easily. "This is the point where something cool went past its peak and into its decline. This is the point where everyone knows its over." All things jump the shark, eventually.

But I'm thinking back to the Happy Days cliffhanger where the term originated, when the Fonz, to prove how cool he was, learned to water ski and then jumped a shark.

Well... I also remember that it was done cliffhanger style... the Fonz hit the ramp, went into the air, hit his apogee high above the shark holding area... and then the screen froze, with "TO BE CONTINUED" superimposed over it.

I was, like ten years old when that happened. And the thing I clearly remember thinking was "well, duh. He's at the high point of his jump. I saw the first half of it. He's clearly going to make it assuming that a team of Supervillains didn't extend a transparent sheet of glass for him to slam into the way they did in front of the highway Superman and the Flash were racing on, so they could take the place of Our Heroes and fix the ending. Damn villains."

So at ten years old, it wasn't that the concept was lame. As Bobby in Superosity once said, "dude! He jumped a shark. He can do anything he wants!" It was that I had to wait the entire summer to see the back half of a jump that any cretin could see was going to make it, and we had to pretend like there was suspense involved.

Morons.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:05 PM | Comments (14)

December 16, 2004

Eric: A pause, because my brain is full and mushy

Hey all. Not much on the snark front today. I'm tired and worn down, in part because it's been a busy week at work (though the students are leaving! Soon, all will be joy!) and in part because I had an excellent, but late night last night.

I and a couple of friends (and fellow Superguy authors, for those playing along at home who read Randy Milholland's news post on Superguy -- though no, he wasn't at dinner with us) did our "friend's Christmas night out" last night, as they're both driving for home tomorrow, and they wanted a day of recovery between the events.

So, we hit the comic book/game store. Which looks different to me now (I look a lot more at the alternatives than I used to, I have to admit). And, while they both negotiated their purchases (which took a while -- I wasn't buying today but they were) I read Identity Crisis. All seven issues. I'm a fast reader.

It... well, it made me sad. I mean, it was something of a complete waste. They hired a writer of thrillers -- stunt casting, except in the writing world -- and it really showed. The "shocking twist ending" was straight out of the last ten minutes of a melodramatic TV movie, right down to the "smiling, calm, insane discussion." Hack work at best, in my not so humble opinion, and utterly out of place in the world of DC Comics. There were also implications throughout that... well, that are meant to tarnish. Specifically meant to tarnish the Justice League, in fact.

And I put it down, and glanced at the comic. Obviously, there was no Comics Code Authority emblem on it. (Is there even a Comics Code Authority any more?) And that's okay....

...but I realized that it was official. The Justice League just isn't for kids at all any more. Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman aren't being written for 12 year olds any more.

Oh, I know. This is a comic book store. This isn't the newsstand. This wasn't meant for the kiddies (though I don't think I saw a Mature Readers label -- though there may have been). But they're simply not even trying any longer -- this is an event meant to span all their titles (certainly every issue of Batman is going to have to deal with this, as is the Flash, the JLA...) and it was clearly intended for people in their twenties and thirties, not their tens, tweens or teens.

And that's sad. I mean, no one needs to sell me on the idea for comic books for grownups. I'm sold. Whether Fantasy or SF or contemporary or real life, alternative or mainstream... I'm good with this concept.

But that doesn't mean giving up comic books for kids in the process. Especially the core Super Heroes -- especially Superman and Batman, Wonder Woman and the Flash... the heroes who create a sense of wonder, who encourage a sense of justice and honor, and who thrill kids with every minute.

It's just sad. But that was just part of the evening. From there, we did some light shopping, then hit dinner at Uno's, where we traded friendly gifts. (My gifts were largely DVD based, and involved the suggestion that perhaps the Murdering of William was in order. Plus a season of South Park). And then we went to see National Treasure at ten to ten.

It was fun. We did some MSTing of the movie (no one was within four rows of us, so we didn't disturb anyone), but there was also a basic element of the clever throughout. I like Clever. And the ending was not what I expected from a Brukheimer movie, and that's a good thing.

And then home, well after 1 in the morning.

So today, I'm tired. I'm stoked, because my cable modem was installed today (yes, my school's T1 is so oversubscribed it's worth it to me to get outside internet access again), but I'm also blunted. And I don't think the snarking is going to come to me today. Well, beyond this bit here.

Peace, all.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:06 PM | Comments (5)

December 14, 2004

Eric: If this is true, that Snark Auction was desperately overpriced.

According to Froogle, Websnark.com is on sale for $147.50.

I should mention they are in error. I'm always high priced, baby.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:04 PM | Comments (5)

December 11, 2004

Eric: Some fast notes on a good day

So it was a day of meetings and festivities. I'm now slightly liquored up, so I'm feeling cheerful back to the home, while my cat lies on my foot and slowly sands it to the bone with a painful tongue of affection. And now I want to give you all a snapshot of a pleasant day.

First off, I had lunch and saw a popcorn movie with a couple of friends from the world of the Internet. We had good sushi. I'm a fan of good sushi. One of these friends, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, is also the one official, on the record fan of Unfettered by Talent. That's right. My webcomic... actually has a fan. She used to bug me to start writing it again, in fact.

To me, this tells me that there is in fact an audience out there for anyone, if they try their best. Even if they draw like a retarded vole.

Secondly, we went to see Blade: Trinity. I can say without fear of contradiction that this movie succeeded on every level it actually tried to succeed on. Particularly on the level where Wesley Snipes kicks someone's ass while making it look like he's affecting nonchalance, followed by his adjusting his coat and preening. Also, Jessica Biel is even hotter when she's killing things.

The movie also had the most mind bogglingly gratuitous product placement known to man. Apple better have paid them a lot of money.

(By the way... if your encryption routine causes the computer to explode when it completes... why do you have to encrypt in the first place. I'm pretty sure when your computer's hard drive is in tiny burning fragments, no one's going to be pulling data off it.)

This evening was a work-related Christmas party. I had scotch, one of my coworkers is a new grandfather, and I discovered a true thing I will now impart to all of you: any song that causes a white man in his fifties, while dancing, to throw a spin into his dance, should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.

And then, as I was walking home... I stopped to look at the Christmas display at the Dentist's next door. Santa on the lawn, some lights... some kind of light in their lobby... no, wait it's a lamp....

...no wait...

...this was the lamp from A Christmas Story. The Very Special Prize.

I am so getting a teeth cleaning there.

Settling down to Justice League Unlimited. More later.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:28 PM | Comments (4)

December 7, 2004

Eric: When did we become the No Fat Chicks club? I think I need to see the bylaws.

So, I was talking about body shapes in one of my snarks, yesterday. Specifically my Questionable Content snark. And it's inspired some lively debate, which I'm good with. Debate means people are thinking about what was said, and there's literally nothing else an essayist can ask for.

But one of the comments threatened to move away from the point of the snark, and into questions of unrealistic body image, sexism... the usual, in other words. And I suggested that particular snark's comments weren't the right place to discuss those issues, because that wasn't the point of that snark.

But, it also occurred to me that it's a good topic of discussion. Because body image and the choices artists make in webcomics, especially in depicting women, is an area strongly worth discussing. And also because the complaint, when ascribed to Questionable Content, actively surprised me.

I read a lot of webcomics. By now, you've figured that out. (Though at least one webcomic creator of note, when discussing Websnark, has indicated he likes the site but wishes my trawl list wasn't so limited. On the other hand, said creator's strip is one of the ones not on said trawl list, so that might have something to do with it. Or it might not.) And one thing I figured out early on in reading webcomics is the women aren't very realistic. They don't act realistically. They don't look realistic. There's lots and lots of bodysuits and bikinis and miniskirts and catholic/japanese schoolgirl outfits. There's breasts that would give Supergirl a backache as far as the eye can see, and they're copiously on display. Female sexuality becomes implicit, in many, many, many webcomics, including some by artists who would vehemently deny it.

The Unsurpassable Wednesday White examined the "Smoking Hot Geek Girl" phenomenon in detail over in her Comixpedia article on the subject. It happens over and over again. Jade and Miranda in PvP (though Marcy is a solid geek girl without the need to be red hot). Ki in GPF. Miranda in User Friendly. The utterly pneumatic Cecania in Sore Thumbs. The seminal, supergenius, supergorgeous Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet.

If we extend the scope of the discussion beyond geek girls in particular, it goes nuts. Josh Lesnick's Wendy (and to a lesser extent, Girly). Any female who was in Exploitation Now (and most of the ones in Errant Story) by Michael Poe. Almost any science fiction babe. (The fact that we can typify them as science fiction babes, for that matter.) And so on and so on and so on and so on. I can name examples pretty much as quickly as I can type. There are acres of gorgeous girlflesh just a-waitin' for you out there.

On the other side of it... there's a significant dearth of plain girls, or of attractive but overweight girls, or of attractive women who are older (and are depicted as older, rather than looking thirty-one with grey hair). But go on the other side of the aisle and you'll find tons of overweight, balding, bearded, misanthropic men. Sometimes dating the gorgeous women, no less.

Which brings me to why the commenter's complaint over Questionable Content surprised me so much. Said complaint was twofold -- the women were unrealistically attractive, and they were uncomfortably sexual. Well, I grant they're both overtly sexual and overtly attractive -- though I think they're far, far, far from most of the women I mentioned above. The former was a little surprising because... well, this is essentially a sex comedy. The central conflict of the series is "will Marten and Faye get together," and it's clearly not to hold hands and discuss poetry. This is a series based on sexual tension. Which is appropriate for young twenty-somethings who're still pretty flush with hormones (when I was that age, I thought about sex pretty much all the time, which my girlfriend of the time could no doubt attest to). In a comedy, you accentuate the points of tension for comedic intent. In a relationship comedy with a core premise of sexual tension, that's what gets accentuated. Further, the men are neither studly nor homely either. There is equality of attractiveness, which sets more of a theme instead of an inequity. This is Romantic (sex) Comedy, not workplace humor where the gorgeous systems administrator is having regular sex with the male hacker who has no sense of hygiene.

But more to the point, the complaint was about their appearance, and that just floored me. Let's set aside one complaint, which was unreasonable height proportion -- it's cartoon art, and cartoon art is... well, cartoony The same way that we accept Charlie Brown's mammoth skull, we accept that Faye and Marten's heads are larger than normal.

So, taking the cartoony nature of the art as a given, the question is are the women particularly unrealistic. And I have to say that not only aren't they, but that Jacques is actually touching on body image issues far more realistically than I've seen almost anywhere. And that's in the charming little ball of neurosis that is Faye.

Faye is very pretty. There's no denying it. Marten and Steve have both remarked on it. But Faye's little sister grabbed Faye's stomach and made disparaging remarks, which Faye deflected. And then Faye began making remarks about her 'squishiness,' and said the same to Ellen, who she didn't even know. Clearly, Faye is sensitive about her weight, even though she clearly doesn't need to be. And she compares herself to the skinny Dora (who's skinny enough that Ellen described her as "boyish" and put her foot in her mouth over it). And which Dora clearly has some (minor, one hopes) issues about herself.

Yeah, they're all pretty... but they don't know that, it seems. And that's ground that rarely if ever gets covered in webcomics.

Does that make the commenter wrong, in what she (she identified herself as female) said? No, it sodding well doesn't. I might disagree with her opinion, but I understand it. Would I like to see more diversity in feminine archetypes in webcomics? You're damn right I would. Every day, Bruno (the Baldwin version, not the McDonald version) seems lonelier and lonelier out in the webcomics world. Strips like Fans, which takes pains to cover all sides (and shapes) of the SF Fan community, and treat them all as both worthy of attention and attractive in their own right are precious gems, all the more precious because of their sad rarity. And it makes a strip like Lost and Found Investigations, which played with the subjectivity of appearance (Beth gained enough weight that she got dumped by her shallow boyfriend, immediately began seeing herself as much fatter than she really was, but when we saw her from Frank's point of view she was ravishing, because that's how he saw her) intriguing and interesting in the extreme.

But from where I sit, that doesn't mean a strip like Questionable Content (or Scary Go Round, or Diesel Sweeties, or Queen of Wands, or Something Positive, or any other strip that trods the relationship ground) has to fill those gaps. People are going to tell the stories they're going to tell, and there's nothing wrong with using attractive people to do it, if that's what the artists are going to draw.

But at the same time, we need to have an awareness of the issues at hand. And if someone wants to have a sexy, sassy female lead who's also a size 18 instead of a size 6, they'll have a reader in me, at least.

And as for my practicing what I preach? Well, Rhonda, the one female character I drew in Unfettered by Talent, certainly didn't look like the traditional standard of beauty. Of course, that could be because she looked like a sock puppet made by a deranged four year old with a glue gun, but I digress.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:24 PM | Comments (38)

November 30, 2004

Eric: The frightening side of change: why syndicates don't like Scott Kurtz and Keen

So I've been keeping an eye on how the Syndicated Cartoonist Industry is reacting to the slow -- but steady -- encroachment onto their turf by young turks with machetes. Put another way, I've been watching the reaction of the traditional newspaper cartoonists and syndicates to the "syndication" models that Scott Kurtz is trying with PvP and which Keen is trying with KeenSyndicate.

(For those who came in late -- Scott Kurtz is offering a full year, already drawn, of daily PvP to newspapers for free, so long as they have his website's URL. The idea is the exposure to PvP will drive Kurtz's comics sales, drive merchandise sales, and bring traffic to his site which will drive advertising sales. Keen, on the other hand, is offering a full page of newspaper strips twice a week to newspapers so long as they also include Keen's embedded advertising.)

Needless to say, the reaction hasn't been stellar. I've seen a few dismissals of the proposals "on the record" by established syndicate cartoonists. I've seen some "off the record" comments that blister paint off the walls. Let me sum up their position as succinctly as possible:

• You're doomed to failure, because you're not selling your artwork. You're using your artwork to sell something else.
• You're causing damage to newspaper comics as a whole because by giving your strips for free to newspapers, you cause them to undervalue the form
• Any business model that doesn't involve selling the art to someone else directly is somehow less legitimate -- it's not art, it's prostitution (the old "you just want to sell tee-shirts and plush dolls -- you're not an artist" statement
• I hate you.

It's fear.

Pure and simple, it's fear driving this reaction. And this is the only reaction that many (I fear most) syndicated cartoonists are going to have for any model that seriously (or even trivially) challenges the established system.

Look at it from their side.

They went into this with a very specific plan. They learned to draw -- maybe (even probably) going to school for it. They practiced and refined their craft. They did weekly shopper newspaper cartoon placement and drew comics for their friends. If they're post-world wide web maybe they did a small webcomic and maybe they didn't. Most of all, they drew. They came up with new strip ideas and did thirty strips and sent them to syndicates and got rejected, over and over again. They networked. They joined the societies. They joined the mailing lists. They worked and worked and worked to force an opening for themselves. They got rejected a lot and prized every handwritten rejection note they received, both for its advice and as validation that they should keep trying.

And finally they pulled it off. They got a concept together and some editor liked it and suggested changes. They made those changes. They sent in the revised proposal. And the editors liked it more -- they thought it was funny, and it showed the capacity to sustain. So they ink a development contract, with a series of guidelines. The artist puts together another six week window of strips, this time with an eye to the syndicate selling them to newspapers. The editors come back with a series of changes and individual strip rejections. "Don't do this -- we can't sell this to papers in Topeka. Change this. Take this out. Less continuity over here. More continuity over there. A Lesbian joke? Not until you're bigger, pal."

And the artist makes changes. He reluctantly concedes that some of the content changes makes the strips better. He gnashes his teeth over the others, because he thinks they dilute the strip -- but he wants this. He wants this. And after a couple more refinement passes, they have a package to send out. They do... and a few newspapers nibble.

That's it. They've made it. He's getting paychecks now. He's beginning to make headway. He's a cartoonist. He draws and draws and draws, and sends out packages and gets notes back -- change this character. Don't make this one black unless that's the point. Do you really think this is funny? He learns to value the comments his editors make that improve his strip. He learns to hate the comments they make that slash through what he wants to do. A few more papers nibble, and a few drop the strip. But he's getting some momentum. He has a few conversations with publishers about a collection -- only to hear back from the syndicate that they handle collections and publishing and merchandising, and they need to be cut in on everything, and right now they don't feel the circulation warrants a push. Still, he knows that'll come with time and effort and the slow building of a fan base. He starts getting fan mail. He starts getting hate mail. He starts getting comfortable.

And after a few years of this, he's tired. It's not as much fun as he thought it'd be, but he also loves cartooning with all his heart. He's doing everything he ever wanted to, and if the reality isn't as great as the fantasy, that's life. He's becoming established. He's becoming a name. He's beginning to entrench in the community, and giving advice to kids who're just like him.

Only... those kids don't want his advice. It seems that they're publishing their cartoons on the web, and building an audience for them. Not a newspaper circulation, maybe... but....

And they don't have editors changing things, and they own their merchandising rights, and they write and draw whatever the fuck they way -- Jesus Christ, they say Fuck right in the strip -- and they don't seem to want to make the changes and compromises he had to. They don't want to jump through the hoops or go through the crucible. It's like they want to be like those independent and alternative cartoonists who get published in the Stranger in Seattle and the local equivalents all over the country, only there are thousands of them. And some of them totally suck and some of them can't meet deadlines and he feels better, because all of the advantages of an editor standing herd over the artists just aren't there... but some of them post cartoons every day, and they have book collections and merchandising deals... and they seem to think they're professional cartoonists.

And now they're saying "you know what? The syndicate system is a relic of a different era. We make our money in different ways, but newspapers can be a part of our strategy. Here. We'll give your papers comic strips, if you accept our advertising as part of the package, or if you drive traffic to our site. This'll be good advertising for us."

Now... they're not only trying to leapfrog the system, they're saying the system doesn't matter. They're saying they don't need it, or want it. They don't want editors telling them what they can draw -- if a paper doesn't want to run a strip because of content, that's fine. They're not paying for it anyway -- the artist isn't out anything.

They are, in effect, challenging the tenets that the syndicated cartoonist has based his career and his entire life on.

...and some of them are more significant than the syndicated cartoonists in question.

Seriously. Have a look at uComics and Comics.com sometime. The big guns are there. For Better or For Worse. Doonesbury. Beetle Bailey. Those guys aren't sweating because Chris Crosby is offering comic strips to newspapers. I promise you Beetle Bailey has too much traction and cultural significance to disappear tomorrow. If it got dropped from papers, there would be angry letters.

No, it's all the strips you vaguely know the names of on those pages. Or all the strips you've never even heard of on those sites that are mad as Hell over this. Because those strips are at the early stages of the process. They're trying, damnably hard, to get traction in papers and spread through and begin to have an impact on cultural consciousness.

PvP, on the other hand, already has cultural consciousness. Thousands upon thousands of people read it every day. And they're a good demographic of reader -- young men of an age where they blow cash on video games and expensive high tech toys. PvP got a comic book deal from Image. Do you think Cats with Hands could get a comic book deal? Or CEO Dad? Or Heart of the City?

Note -- I'm not setting an agenda or releasing the hounds against those strips. I'm mentioning strips I've never heard of. That's right, after decades of comics page reading, of spending money on comic strip history, on devouring comic strips in almost every form I could get my hands on... these are strips that aren't even blips on my radar. They might be really successful. They might have thousands and thousands of readers. But from where I sit, they haven't had cultural impact. Not yet.

But Penny Arcade has. And so's PvP, and Nukees. You think Nokia would send these people free cell phones with video games built in if they didn't? They want the audience for those strips to buy N-Gages. They want them bad.

So the syndicated cartoonists lash out. This is literally a challenge to the way they've conducted their entire lives -- and a challenge to their capacity to become this Generation's Wizard of Id or Cathy. (We won't even discuss becoming the next Bloom County or Garfield or Peanuts. These days, there's an overwhelming feeling that that boat has left the dock and won't be coming back. And, with the Internet and cable television and information and entertainment bombarding from all sides, they're right, barring a total miracle -- and that miracle could happen to the web as easily as it does to the Boston Globe.)

You bet they're going to lash out. They're going to say hurtful things and trash talk Scott Kurtz and Chris Crosby. They're scared and they're angry. This is intensely personal. If these alternative models succeed -- and if Kurtz and Keen make their money off of alternative models that don't involve getting paid by the newspapers -- they directly impact the syndicate cartoonist's ability to get paid by syndicates to deliver content for newspapers.

Oh, some of their laments are just plain stupid. My personal favorite are the ones who claim Kurtz et al are sellouts. That's right, sellouts. They're trying to sell merchandise, not comic strips. That cheapens the comic strip. No, really. Honest.

(The stupidity of that statement is self-evident, but I'm on a roll here: comic strips aren't in newspapers for artistic reasons. They're in newspapers because newspapers want to increase their circulation, and a majority of newspaper readers flip to the funnies as part of the reading experience. A huge number read the funnies first. A nontrivial number read them before they read anything else. This is why newspapers have comics, period. Trying to sell tee shirts and mugs and advertising isn't selling out -- it's finding a way to draw and print comics that also feeds the family. There's a lot of easier ways to make money, to be blunt. In fact, it could be said that the artist who sells his comic strips to a syndicate for a paycheck is more of a sellout than the artist who retains all rights and offers the strip, making his money off of book and merchandise sales. But that's almost as spurious.)

What does that mean for people like Scott Kurtz and Chris Crosby? Not a lot. Oh, they're not going to like being trashed by other cartoonists, but they're still going to give it a try and they're either going to succeed or fail. And if they do fail, someone else will try something else. The one thing that's certain is the publishing and syndication landscape isn't what it was in 1990 (or 1980 or 1950 or 1900, for that matter), and twenty years from now new cartoonists aren't going to follow the same steps to reach a point of making money and cultural significance as the current crops do.

And like it or not, there is a growing feeling that not only isn't syndication the only game in town... it's not even the most desirable game in town. Frank Cho, when he pulled Liberty Meadows from the syndicates, made that point extremely well. Crosby and Kurtz are making it again. In his own way, so's Joey Manley. And the folks at PV Comics. And Gabe and Tycho. And J. Jacques. And Randy Milholland. And every person who's now putting food on his table by drawing a comic strip but not sending that strip to someone at Universal Press or King or Tribune Media Services.

That's scary as Hell to the guy who spent his life getting into the syndicate, because it makes him question everything. And so he lashes out.

But it doesn't change what's happening, and it doesn't change what's coming. It doesn't change the fact that things are changing.

So I don't get angry when I read these rants. I feel badly. I feel as badly as I would for people who used to work for buggy whip manufacturers. "I got a good job making buggy whips," they said. "These new 'horseless carriages' won't replace the horse. They can't. And the only way to motivate a horse that's been proven and true is with a buggy whip, like the ones I make for Universal Buggy Whip. So when these new things fail -- and they will, because I can't see how they'd succeed -- the guys working on those new assembly lines are going to be out of luck. But not me. I'll be making buggy whips."

It can be a bitch to see.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:18 AM | Comments (26)

November 28, 2004

Eric: It's a donation, asshole. Not a purchase.

So I'm reading Something Positive, and then I go on to read his rant....

And then I just stared for a little while.

You see, someone e-mailed him anonymously bitching about... well, lots of things. And going over and over again to the whole "we donated a year's salary" riff to justify the bitching.

Okay. You all know I have a mantra for people who make this stuff their job. It's a simple mantra. "It's your job, stupid." And I believe it. Once this is the way you put food on your table, you have a responsibility to your audience, what who are feeding you. It's the deal.

But there is a qualitative difference between having a responsibility to your audience, and being your audience's bitch, dancing when they say. And you know what? No one gets to write a trash talking letter to a webcartoonist, period. Because while the artist who makes their living this way owes his best efforts (within reason, asshole) to his audience, he doesn't owe one audience member the confluence of Jack and Shit.

Something Positive updates put near every day. There's a lot of energy put every week into the strip. He knows his responsibilities and he meets it.

Milholland reported that the people who complained end up almost inevitably not to have been the ones who donated in the first place. Well, I donated, long before I had this website. I gave him some of my hard earned cash, because I felt he was worth it.

And I have never, ever regretted it -- or any other money I've donated to webcartoonists, or products I've bought from them.

They don't owe me anything. I owed them some appreciation for what they'd produced. I gave it to them. Everything's square.

If you don't like that kind of transaction, don't donate.

And if you haven't donated, don't fucking speak for those of us who did. Because you know what? You don't fucking speak for those of us who did.

Jesus Christ. What is this, their hobby?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:22 PM | Comments (2)

November 24, 2004

Eric: Sure, I'm late with snarks tonight, but on the other hand, I seem to be bitter. Doesn't that count for something?

This is try two on this snark. Which is indicative of the day.

I can't really talk about my day job. I can't because first off you don't care, and second off because I like my day job and want to continue to do it. However...

Well, let's put it this way. In systems administration, there are certain things that pretty much anyone with any understanding of the Internet would understand treads into grey or black areas morally, ethically and even philosophically. And sometimes, the administration above the systems administrator decides that... well, the janitor is probably morally, ethically and philosophically opposed to murder, but he's still going to mop up the blood when someone gets whacked in the hall.

So, having had to mop up some blood and bits of brain, I was in a fine fettle when I came across something I could get pissed about on here. And so we're going to discuss it, because I can't talk about the other and you wouldn't care anyway.

I buy stuff from Fictionwise.com. I love e-books. I love carrying around my library on my PDA. I love it and I wish there was more available. And because I buy stuff from them, I get their advertising. It's not really spam because I did, in fact, ask for it.

Well, yesterday, I got a notice that there were "Sherwood Anderson classics" available. Sherwood Anderson, in case you slept through American Lit, was the man who gave us Winesburg, Ohio. Which, I would add, was written in 1919 and is available on Fictionwise. And, as this advertisement mentioned, they also have Anderson's Poor White available -- one of Anderson's most celebrated of novels. And you can buy and download it right there, for just two and a half bucks. Forty cents off if you're a club member.

Great, right?

1920.

Which means Poor White is solidly into the Public Domain.

So what. It's available in bookstores too. Amazon.com has it for almost ten bucks. Two fifty-four is a bargain, right?

Guys... another place I turn to for e-books is Blackmask. Blackmask works hand in hand with organizations like Project Gutenberg, adapting public domain works into popular e-book (and HTML) formats.

Poor White is there. For free. In fact, a huge selection of Sherwood Anderson right here. For free. In the same basic formats for e-books, I would add. Including iSilo, which is my book type of choice.

Do I begrudge Fictionwise from making some money from public domain works that you could get for free elsewhere? No. Not really. They're trying to make money. But the idea that they need to charge two dollars and fifty cents, when they could get the text from Gutenberg or Blackmask, process it and slap it up on a server, and then have effectively no costs of production whatsoever, is ludicrous. There's no money going back to publishers. (If there is, someone at Fictionwise needs to be fired.) There's no money going back to the Anderson estate. It's free. I could slap the entire text of Poor White on Websnark if I wanted to.

And it pisses me off that instead of offering that work, and the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, of Charles Dickens, of Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment is three dollars and forty-nine cents to buy from these people! A 19th Century novel that can't cost them two cents in bandwidth for you to download, that they almost certainly didn't have to keyboard or even scan in.) for maybe ten cents apiece, or as freebies if you buy X numbers of current, high cost pieces, they're charging absolutely absurd prices because they figure they'll get a few people thinking they're paying for convenience and that'll be enough.

We live in an era of unprecedented distribution. I have no problem with people making a little bit of money while they do it, but to push the margins so obscenely high on fiction that the public already owns the rights to is just plain ugly. And it pisses me off.

Somewhere, there's a sysadmin coding the engine driving it, and it pisses him off too.

But they just have him mop up the blood and move on.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:06 PM | Comments (7)

November 19, 2004

Eric: When you stare into the chocolate, the chocolate is also staring into you.

I'm not asking for one, but if I had one of these dolls, I'd feel obligated to put it inside a closed box and never, ever take it out. Though occasionally I'd have to push a rose petal in through the cracks.

(These folks also make the Nietzsche Will to Power Bar. The brilliance of this is frightening.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

Eric: Things become clearer with mission statements

After yesterday's Snark on Graphic Novel Review's cover, and the ensuing quasi-debate in the comments, Alexander Danner, the editor of GNR, posted the Mission Statement for GNR in his latest Profundities Forthcoming post. With his permission, I'm reprinting it here:

Many literary readers, having been exposed to one or two or three "crossover" graphic novels every few years, are already interested in exploring the larger context of the form. They want to gain a better understanding of the "scene" from which these outstanding works emerged, and they want to find new graphic novels to read. We provide that context and that understanding. Although we welcome readers from both the artcomix scene and mainstream fandom, we do not expect our audience to have comics at the center of their lives: We are writing for the average reader of contemporary literature who wants to explore the field of graphic novels.

Now, this I can support. If Graphic Novel Review, as a matter of editorial policy and intentional decision, is specifically targeting contemporary readers and not targeting either indy or mainstream comics fans (though of course, they'll be happy to have them too), then I can accept that their emphasis will be on graphic novels that would appeal to those fans.

I don't know if their mission can be successful. I do know it's a worthy one, and if it is will go light years into the promotion of Sequential Art as an art form.

Now, I think they both have to put this online and rewrite their Writer's Guidelines to reflect it more clearly. As it is now, the natural assumption a reader makes when they look at the writer's guidelines is going to either be mine -- which is that they were cutting their nose off to spite their face -- or one of my other readers, who thought it was an intentional shafting of mainstream comics fans. I take Danner at his word that it's neither -- and this makes it explicitly clear that what they're doing just doesn't involve mainstream or indy fans, editorially, and so it'll greatly serve GNR to rephrase things to make that clear to everyone.

And will clear the decks for me to write snarks about pretty covers and well written articles without having to throw in caveats, and that's a good thing. Caveats scare me.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:28 AM | Comments (2)

November 18, 2004

Eric: A link to something nice.

I haven't had a lot to say about Graphic Novel Review since it came out. I posted an opinion on its guidelines before it came out (I felt that taking a hard, though not absolute, editorial bias against mainstream super hero graphic novels was a mistake, ensuring that the very people who most needed exposure to creator owned and independent graphic novels would have no reason to read it. It's an opinion I continue to hold, though I don't know if it's been borne out or not.) I think it's well written, and some people I respect highly are associated with it, editing it, writing for it, or all of the above.

But... well, I'm not steeped in graphic novels anyway, right now. I haven't been to the comic store in months, and while I trek through the graphic novel section of Barnes and Noble whenever I go in there, I don't usually buy anything.

(The same is sadly true of Science Fiction these days, but that's because I'm a lot more likely to buy and download E-books from Fictionwise or Baen to read at my leisure than I am to buy physical books. I carry my Treo 600 with me wherever I go because it's also my cell phone, and I bought a monumentally large SD card so I can carry a library with me. There's nothing quite as satisfying as discovering that you're caught behind a car accident on an interstate, that you've probably got a half hour before any traffic's going to move at all, so you pull out your PDA/phone and start rereading Soothsayer. I just wish Sean Stewart novels came electronically right now.)

But, I do like the articles they write. And right now, I'm going to go suggest you look at this month's cover. Jenn Manley Lee has produced a striking and evocative piece that's just plain pretty.

Once you've seen it, feel free to head inside and see if anything catches your eye. "M." Campos and Kelly J. Cooper have reviews, and that's worth it all by itself. But it's the cover art that really yanked at my eyes this month, and that's worth a mention, don't you think?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:46 AM | Comments (11)

November 14, 2004

Eric: Ruminations between dizziness and excitability

So... I'm at a weird point right now... still too wound up to go to sleep, but feeling the medication effects (my heart rate's still way up and I've got adrenalin in my system still, but my blood pressure is now dropping like a stone thanks to the ACE inhibitors and then the coreg will flog said heart for a bit and force the beat to slow back down, if I understand the mechanisms correctly. All I know is these pills kept me alive a few years back, when a few years before that my only recourse would have been a heart transplant). So, I thought I'd type for a few minutes on one of my unwritten policies for Websnark.

If I make a mistake, or blow something, or post something I later regret... I'll own up to it, but I won't delete it. This is a record of... well, something, at least. Of my thoughts and blatherings, if nothing else. And when I blow it, I'm going to leave it up and own up to it.

I thought about deleting the boing boing post. I think it was a mistake to post it in the first place, because I e-mailed Mark Frauenfelder, and I should have given him a chance to respond.

(Note, by the way, that I'm glad Mark deleted the post in question on Boing Boing. I'm talking about me in this post. If anyone else out there was sensitive to the things I was, Mark did right by them. So, to sum up -- post about me, not him. Thanks. Kisses.)

I left it up, because... well, because I posted it. If you think I overreacted -- or at least was unfair to Boing Boing, you may be right. But I don't go for revisionist history on Websnark.

I decided to modify the entry, making it clear that Boing Boing had responded well, and replacing my own link to their entry with a strikethrough. But I leave it up there. It's the same with comments I or others make on the site. If someone makes a comment I don't like, I won't delete it (with the exception of true harassment of others. If Timmy posts a comment, and Bobby posts something obscene and horrid about Timmy in response, I reserve the right to pull Bobby's response off. If Bobby posts a rant about how I'm a fat loser living in my mother's basement, I'll leave it up. At least one of those assertions is accurate anyhow).

We live in an age where the historical record is easy to alter. We combat that not with technology, but with integrity. When I overreact or blow a call, that mistake becomes a part of this archive. That just seems fair to everyone.

(This may be why I posted a link to the terrible webcomic I used to draw. On the other hand, that may have been more of a preemptive strike.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:16 AM | Comments (0)

November 5, 2004

Eric: I wonder...

...if I should recruit some guest snarkers?

I mean, at least for November. To keep the output up while I write stories about far distant futures where people... well, talk to each other while drinking beverages for hours upon hours.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:48 AM | Comments (7)

November 2, 2004

Eric: On Decorations and Democracy

It's weird. I moved offices at the beginning of the summer (I had changed jobs, so it kind of went without saying I needed to change offices). My last office was 'decorated' somewhat randomly. Bookshelves full of books, a large collection of toys that students and friends gave me over time, piles of kipple... that sort of thing.

When I moved to my new office, for whatever reason I decided to decorate it. I got a "Sacrifice" Demotivator for one wall, right next to a whiteboard and a piece of digital art I produced (one of the few bits of art I've done that I feel really happy with. On the opposite wall I have the famous Picasso "spider painting" of Don Quixote, because my father had that same print in his own office and because Don Quixote just feels right to me. On my bulletin board I have pictures of my sister and my nieces, plus postcards and the like from friends. (And my "Republicans for Voldemort" bumper sticker, which both Democrats and Republicans get a huge kick out of.) Opposite my desk, I have a small framed sheet of the "Comic Strip Classics" postage stamp set from a few years ago.

And finally... I have something I picked up at the Battle of Benneton monument last September -- a "historical documents" set. It only cost four bucks for four different sheets -- a bargain. They're all printed on yellow, rumpled paper designed to look 'old.' It's just ink on distressed paper, but it works.

So, by my desk I have a reproduction of the Declaration of Independence. On the inside of my office door, I have the Bill of Rights. Behind me, on the wall, I have the Constitution of the United States. The fourth 'document,' the Gettysburg Address, didn't interest me as much, so it's tucked into the bookcase right now. I'm a lot more of a Revolutionary War buff, anyhow.

The Revolution was really remarkable, when you think of it. At its core, it was fought for idealistic purposes. Not for monetary ones (oh sure, taxation issues were at the the forefront, as well as deeper issues like the injunction against the colonies developing their own industrial base, but those were symptomatic), but for idealistic ones. Read Common Sense sometime, or any given example of Ben Franklin's editorials from the period. Or John Adams's diaries or letters. They were doing this because they believed, with all their heart, that we have the right and the responsibility to choose our own destiny. We had the right and responsibility to have a voice in our own future. We had the right and responsibility for our own Sovereignty.

Remarkable. Astounding, really.

In the 228 years since the Declaration I've got hanging in my office was signed, we've made a lot of boneheaded moves. We've gotten it wrong a lot of the time. We've lost sight of who we are as a people and what we stand for as a Nation. But so so so much more often we've gotten it right. We've expanded our definitions of liberty, of citizenship, of the very Republic. We've taken a moral stand as a people, and declared our principles as well as our interests. We've grown to be the dominant nation on this planet, at least for now.

I get angry, a lot, at the American political leadership. I get angry when they disagree with me. I get angry when I can see a better way. I get angry at petty corruption and special interests and corporate greed. And sometimes, I even lose heart. And I never lose heart as much as when it seems like my fellow Americans just don't give a rat's ass. When they don't vote, or when they prove they have no idea what the issues are they're voting about.

But I never stop being proud. I'm proud to be an American. I'm proud to be the inheritor of a legacy born of ideals, of liberty and freedom, of rights and responsibilities. I'm proud of my Nation.

That's why I have the closest things we have to national sacred documents up on the walls of my office. And when I'm at my darkest hour, I can look at them and remember that it looked pretty bleak during the Revolution, too. "These are the times that try men's souls" indeed. But they held on, and eventually they won a Nation.

Today, the single most sacred ritual in American Society will be conducted throughout the Nation. Today, we have the right and the responsibility to come together in common caucus and express our opinions and our beliefs. We have the right and the responsibility to set the course for the next four years on the National Level... as well as the next two or six years depending on individual state elections. This ritual is crucial -- not just to America, but to people all over the world. (Which is one reason I don't mind writing about this topic even though my readership is international. What we Americans do today will have an impact on them as well, and they will be watching.)

Today, we vote.

If you truly have no understanding of the issues... if you're truly "undecided" because you just haven't bothered to learn the differences between candidates or if you think it'll be really funny to write in a porn star or cartoon character's name on the ballot... then please, stay home. Let the adults handle this.

If you are decided... or if you're "undecided" because you've learned so much and you're balancing the pros and cons and you're just not sure which way it will break... then please. For me. For your fellow Americans. For the people of the world. For the people of the Revolution who fought and died to give you this sacred right, this sacred responsibility, and this sacred trust... vote.

And if you're a praying person, please, pray that all goes smoothly today and that by, oh, midnight tonight we know who's won. Because if we have to go through another month of this bullshit, I'm going to have to throw myself into a wood chipper. And the Founding Fathers wouldn't like that one bit.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:59 AM | Comments (6)

November 1, 2004

Eric: A Modest Webcomics Proposal, that doesn't involve eating babies. *pause* It's a Jonathan Swift reference. Honest.

More and more, when I need fast information on a topic, I turn to Wikipedia. I like Wikipedia. I like the concept behind Wikipedia. I like the open source methodology of Wikipedia. Me like Wiki.

For those who don't know, Wikipedia is an open-source encyclopedia that anyone -- anyone -- can edit and write for, as easily as they click on hotlinks. As a result, esoteric subject matter can get in-depth coverage thanks to the Web's ability to create support groups for anything, erroneous information can be corrected in a robust way, and obsolescence is fought by the power of dynamic realtime corrections. This is an amazing resource and an amazing tool, and I'm a big big fan of it.

I don't think Wikipedia is a replacement for traditional encyclopedias yet, mind. I've read all the debates and comparisons between Wikipedia and, say, Britannica.com. I know the theories that make Wikipedia stronger than the old school editorially-driven encyclopedia model (as a fast review, the theory is that with many thousands of eyes watching Wikipedia, erroneous information will be corrected much faster and more completely than with the top-down editorial model of a traditional encyclopedia), and I think in the end they'll prove conclusive, but they're not there yet. Like many other people, I tried the "Wikipedia Challenge" that proponents have been shouting at those people who say "but if anyone can edit the entries, they'll throw in a lot of bias or false information." That challenge, in short, is "pick any 1/2/5/10 pages in Wikipedia, insert false information, and see how long it takes for it to be corrected." The subchallenge is "take any three topics and compare the Britannica's entries to Wikipedia's and see what's better and more complete.

Nine times out of ten, the information is corrected in record time... because nine times out of ten, the corrector picks subjects he knows a lot about, which (given the nature of the Web and the sort of person attracted to Wikipedia) tends to be a subject geeks like you or I hold near and dear to our hearts, and therefore receive huge corrections in nothing flat. Thesis proven.

Except, of course, this is the web, and computer geeks/open source proponents/anime fans/the like thrive on it. If you insert errors into entries on Ethernet, Sakura Cardcaptors, Sluggy Freelance and Libertarianism, you're damn right they'll be noticed and corrected in no time. People online live these topics. This also tends to color the subchallenge. A very typical subchallenge was found in a Freedom to Tinker post Edward Felton did, comparing six different entries in the Britannica and in Wikipedia. Wikipedia came out very very well in these entries, which sounds really good until you realize the entries were: Princeton University (which would have a large body of computer literate people interested in it), Princeton Township (which is a legitimate advantage to Wikipedia, IMO), Edward Felton himself (frankly, I don't expect to see an Eric A. Burns entry in either source, but I recognize it'd be a Hell of a lot easier to get into Wiki than the Britiannica. I'll give that a nod, though), Virtual Memory, Public-key Cryptography, and the Microsoft Antitrust Case.

Honestly, the only decent test in the above are the Princeton pieces, and I'll admit freely they did well. But a computer proponent with a web presence, a hardware/software specification, a method of encrypting information particularly over computers, and the war against Microsoft are undoubtedly playing to Wikipedia's strengths. It's like claiming the Catholic Encyclopedia is superior to Funk and Wagnell's because it has better information about the Saints in it.

For my own test, I made a couple of modifications to the entry on Fort Kent, Maine -- my hometown, which I know quite a bit about, and none of the rest of you have ever even heard of. To me, this was a more robust test. Fort Kent is an obscure topic, but has a couple of historical notes that make it possible someone would want information on it (including three tourist attractions, an Olympic Training Center involving the twin Northern Maine passions of guns and snow, a dogsled race, the northernmost terminus of U.S. Route One, and a War we once "fought" with Canada. Yes, we were in a War with Canada. No, no one got hurt). I think Fort Kent is a better test than Princeton because it's much more obscure -- few people have a driving reason to care about it unless they live there or lived there, as I did.

Well, the Britannica Entry was significantly better and more fleshed out than the Wikipedia entry. I did quite a bit to correct that, though, using Wikipedia's innate power to flesh out entries. I put in information about the Historic Landmark in town (the Blockhouse), the Biathlon training center, the Can-Am dogsled race, the University of Maine at Fort Kent, the "Bloodless Aroostook War" (Wikipedia has a good entry on the Aroostook War, I should mention), the textile industry, the potato farming industry, MBNA's recent call center (which essentially saved the town, I should add), and the shipbuilding industry.

Did you see the intentional error put into the above? Here's a hint -- Fort Kent is on the Northernmost Tip of Maine. It's significantly farther away from the ocean than Albany, New York. Hear of any ships being built in Albany, recently?

No, no one caught the error. I waited two weeks, and corrected it myself. Thereby "proving" that Wikipedia isn't perfect yet. The other significant issue it's facing, from where I sit, is the area where two strong opinions, neither of them "wrong," duke it out for supremacy in an entry. The Lyndon LaRouche editorial discussion showed to distinction the ways in which diametrically opposed viewpoints can clash. (Snowspinner, you have my eternal respect, just so you know -- I was following this debate as a lurker before you ever commented on Websnark).

But to be honest, these issues aren't dealbreakers. If you go into Wikipedia with your eyes open, it is one of if not the most powerful, most potentially significant tools being built on the web. It's one of those things that couldn't possibly exist without an Internet, and it's one of those things that not only uses the web's strengths to good advantage, but also doesn't bog down with meaningless kipple. There's no Flash animation or needless frames on Wikipedia -- just information and lots of it, and an easy chance for you to make a difference.

And that brings me, all these words later, to lay this here proposal on you, the Websnark audience. I hope it's a proposal that will spread far beyond these borders, because I think it could be of tremendous benefit to the webcomics community as a whole:

I think every webcomic with more than 100 strips worth of archives on the web should have an entry in Wikipedia, and I think the Webcartoonist should not be the person writing the entry.

The reasons are simple -- Wikipedia is capable of storing and presenting vast amounts of information. That information is of particular benefit to the webusing public. The consumers of webcomics by their definition are the webusing public, and Wikipedia becomes an obvious resource that they could fall back on for information on their strips. There is a clear convergence of population and, leveraged properly, a clear opportunity for both Webartists and for Wikipedia itself.

For the webcartoonist, a Wikipedia entry becomes a convenient location for hard information about the strip, the main characters, and the like. If you need a good example of how this can be effective, have a look at the Megatokyo entry. As you know, one of my issues with Megatokyo is its density of story (what I call the "Megatokyo for Dummies" effect) and its lack of a cast page (despite a very involved cast). Well, both of these are addressed here, along with a good discussion of what Megatokyo is and what it is not, a summary of some of the complaints people have with the webcomic, and a summary of what people truly love about it. A link on Megatokyo's front page to this entry would go a long way to correcting some of the areas it's weaker in, and the effort needed on Gallagher's part would be minimal.

Note, by the way, that someone actually wrote a more in-depth entry on Tohya Miho, which is just plain silly. Unless a character is so universal that it becomes ubiquitous outside of its source work, it doesn't need more than the article itself could provide. On the other hand, that's an opinion on my part.

The Webcartoonist shouldn't write his own entry because he's not going to have the proper distance from his own work to properly describe it for an encyclopedia entry. He may include thematic elements and future revelations that one day might be made clear, but simply aren't in the work as it stands, thereby confusing the issue. By putting out a call to his fandom, however, and finding someone who can spearhead the creation of the entry, the Webcartoonist can get the ball rolling and, with a little work, get his dedicated fanbase working on updating and correcting the entry over time. This is also why I say 100 strips, though one could also limit the entry by amount of time worked on the strip. If you have twelve strips on the internet, and "big big plans" past that, you're not at the point where an encyclopedia entry can do you any good. Wait until you've got enough to talk about before you unleash your fanbase.

Wikipedia benefits by many additional links to the Encyclopedia, of course. The more links in (to articles of interest to the readers), the more likely Wikipedia becomes a first reference for other matters and materials, which in turn means more eyes looking at the content, which leads to more editors, more corrections, more content being generated... it's all good.

Please note, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a collection of fan pages. While there is always bias in an entry, whoever writes a given Webcomic's entry should strive to be as objective as possible. Don't feel you have to be all intellectual, but you should be concise and factual. If enough people are drawn to the entry, the more intellectual stuff will come with time all on its own.

In my perfect world, these entries would have a short description of the premise, a light discussion on technique and classification, a list of the primary characters, a list of the secondary characters, and a very, very short synopsis of major events. The last bit, oddly enough, is the least important -- this isn't Cliff's Notes (or [Webcomic] for Dummies). If someone wants to know what happened in the webcomic, they should read the webcomic. But this would provide a good grounding in who the characters are and what, in general, is going on, with the potential to grow into a detailed critical analysis over time and with effort.

And that can only be to the good.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:53 AM | Comments (8)

October 27, 2004

Eric: On the Nature of Public Speech.

I get asked, every now and then, why I don't talk that much about my life here. After all, they say, this is a blog. I'm supposed to talk about my loneliness, or do memes, or stuff like that. Or, they know something about me, and wonder why I don't talk about those aspects of my life; why I don't discuss the surgery I had in March (I'm fine), or the life threatening condition I had a few years back (I'm fine), or why I don't talk about the time I was a professional actor (I'm fine).

Some people like to answer that question for me, too. "Oh," they say. Or write. Usually write. "You're shy. You're humble. You don't like to talk about yourself."

I'm not sure any writer who puts words out for the world to see every day of his life can really be called 'shy.' And folks who know me know 'humble' isn't exactly the best word to describe me. And as for talking about my self... hey, I'm my own favorite subject. I acknowledge that. I own my arrogance. I'm good at arrogance.

However, I also understand venue. I don't talk about myself here on Websnark because people don't come to Websnark to read about me. They come because they like my insight on something, or they come because they're entertained by my ramblings about outdated sitcoms and fart jokes. And I'm grateful. I love it when people read this stuff. I love having an audience.

But that audience isn't here to hear me talk about myself. For that, I have a Livejournal. And before that -- before these trendy Livejournals and Bloggers and Moveable Type Installations, I had an Online Journal. In those, the subject is me. My politics. My health. My tortured soul. The Memes that catch my eye. You know the drill. You've all read Livejournals.

(I will not be brokenhearted if folks don't decide to visit these things, mind. But I'm also not ashamed of them.)

If Websnark is a lecture hall, where I'm up on a stage dancing and cavorting and trying to entertain you, my Livejournal is like a coffee shop where I'm sitting nearby and reading you poetry. It's more intimate, less preachy. If you wonder why I don't go all fanboy when I get linked by the artists I revere, it's because you don't read my Livejournal and see it happen. If you wonder why I don't go all Emo when I'm down, it's because you don't read my Livejournal and see me act like... well, every other person with a website. It's a different venue, with different purpose.

But there's one thing I never, ever forget. Because I've learned my lesson. My Livejournal... and my Online Journal before it... are not private. They are public. They are just as public as Websnark, even if there's a couple of orders of magnitude difference in readership.

And what I say in them, I'm saying publicly.

I once hurt a friend's feelings. It was stupid, and thoughtless, and I still kick myself over it. Said friend was someone I went to college with, and he told me something personal once. Nothing truly bad, but something that was part of his own life that he shared with me, his close friend. Some years later, I related that event as an anecdote on a Usenet newsgroup. It wasn't a very high traffic newsgroup, and it was easy to imagine that I knew everyone reading it -- that it was private, in its own way. This was in the days when the Web was still spreading, slowly -- when the Internet was still primarily textual. And when a young guy who wants to tell a good story can be pretty fucking blind about what he's doing.

Well, it was over a year later that my friend's brother did a websearch for his brother's name, and had it get flagged on Deja. And he e-mailed my friend.

And it was maybe eight months after that that I found an e-mail address for my friend, and excitedly e-mailed him, asking if this was really him or someone else. You know -- a "If this is you, let's get back in contact!" letter.

The response I got back was nothing less than I deserved. I had hurt him, publicly, and embarrassed him, and seeing an e-mail from me wasn't exactly the high point of his day.

I apologized. And meant it. And because he's a big man, he forgave me. But I've never forgotten. And I've never forgotten the lesson I learned.

The Internet is public, kids. And we have been given the most incredible of gifts -- the capacity to publish our free expression for the whole world to see, for the cost of an internet connection. (Or not even that, if you go to a library and use their equipment). If you take time, and work at it, you can build an audience. If you use Livejournal, you don't have bandwidth costs. Hell, you don't even need to pay them for an account if you don't want to.

It's easy to think "this is mine. This is intimate. This is my diary." But it isn't. It's public. Even if you lock your entries to Friends, unless you know all of your friends well, you're still speaking to an audience.

As many of you know, Livejournal's been in a bit of an uproar today. It seems a young woman, a few days back, wrote a satirical post for her Livejournal. And it seems that in that post, she expressed (I'm not sure of the exact details) a desire to see the President of the United States stop breathing. By force, if need be.

I don't take a political stand on Websnark (that's what my Livejournal is for), but given my attitudes and my stand that "art matters," you can probably intuit my opinions of the current administration.

But I don't want physical harm to come to the President. And chances are likely neither do you. And chances are likely neither did that young woman. She meant it satirically.

But the United States Government, specifically the Department of the Treasury and the Secret Service which works for them, cannot have a sense of humor.

Let me say that again, giving it obnoxious emphasis and a blink tag that will make it look jarring and ugly and all newbieish, because if I ever tell you one true thing that I want you to remember, this is it:

The United States Secret Service cannot have a sense of humor.

They have to take any threat to the President seriously. Any. If you go here, you'll see the justification for this policy, as well as a couple of egregious examples of "no sense of humor" from the Clinton administration. But you can find examples from most modern administrations.

Guys, they've killed four Presidents. And wounded one. And shot at two more. There are people who shoot at Presidents because they want to commit suicide. There are people who shoot at Presidents because they want to impress girls. There are people who shoot at Presidents because they believe they're going to save the world. The President is a world leader, and they've been assassinating World Leaders about as long as we've had a concept of 'world' and 'leadership.'

So. This girl got a visit by the Secret Service. And by her own account they were reasonable and nice, and drank coffee with the girl and her family, and were perfectly satisfied that the girl was not a threat. She was upset, however, that someone turned her in, and she was upset, however, that she now has an FBI file that says she once threatened the President.

For many people who read the Internet, reporting threats to the President isn't optional. It's required. If a Livejournal user who calls himself "Berstanpeniswang" claims he's going to kill President Catgirl because he doesn't like the way she wears pink, and a United States Marine reads that message, he is obligated to report it. If he doesn't, and President Catgirl takes Berstanpeniswang's bullet right between the pink cat ears, that Marine is culpable for allowing the death of the President. "I didn't think he'd do it" is no excuse, when there is a National Tragedy that could have been prevented.

So yeah. The outrage people are expressing is wholly misplaced. No, I don't think that girl meant to threaten anyone. But the Secret Service doesn't assume that. They check things out. And yeah, it goes on your permanent record.

When I ranted about political leaders in the past, on my Livejournal, I did it knowing fully well that someday, someone might use my words to justify not hiring me for a job. Even though at the time, I could count my Friends list on one hand. Because those words are committed to the Internet, and they're never going away. Ever. If I deleted the Journal tomorrow, that just means I've deleted one record of what I wrote. There's still the Internet Wayback machine. There's still backup copies going back Christ knows how long that I have no control over. It's the way that it is. This is a public forum, in a public medium.

My words may offend people, sometimes. I don't get to take them back after I use them. It's come up, here on Websnark. It will come up again. All I can do, whether here or on my Livejournal or on some Forum I comment on or in other peoples' journals I comment on, is be cognizant of the fact that I'm doing this in front of the whole. Fucking. World. And the mike is live. And there are no takebacks.

When you're writing on your journals, and you bare your souls to the world, know that you're in fact baring them to the world.

When you're frothing about the political figures you hate, and you threaten them with violence because it's a funny way to rant, know that in fact you are threatening violence against others and official notice can and will be taken.

When you write about something embarrassing your best friend from college did four years later and you post it on the web, know that you are in fact embarrassing your best friend in front of potentially millions of people. (Don't believe me? Ask the Star Wars Kid.)

And when you invoke the right of Freedom of Speech, don't ever assume that means you aren't responsible for what you have said.

Sorry I didn't write about many webcomics today. Work was a bear and a browser crash killed this essay once, so I had to rewrite it from scratch. And right now I'm watching the ninth inning of the Sox game. They're up by three, so it's going to take some spectacular choking for them to break my heart this time.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:30 PM | Comments (17)

October 9, 2004

Eric: Web congestion embers the baby pony.

So, one thing about being someone who comments on webcomics that seems obvious in retrospect... it's difficult to actually do that commentary when there's heavy lag, especially to Keenspace. It's disturbingly like trying to operate a television remote control by poking its buttons with a yardstick while it sits on the coffee table. Yeah, sooner or later the TV gives you the show you want, but it takes a lot of time and promotes a lot of frustration.

On the other hand, it's Saturday -- so at least I have a cat sleeping on my leg while I do it. Of course, that also means I can't get up. I can just sit here, and watch web sites slooooowly develop content. And always -- always -- the webcomic is the last thing to appear. God knows it couldn't appear before Burstnet's ads do....

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:07 AM | Comments (4)

October 4, 2004

Eric: Do you have any idea...

...how many quality webcomics there are out there?

To every decent, hardworking webcartoonist who creates a strip that I simply haven't gotten to... I'm sorry. You deserve recognition. And whether or not you get recognition, at least on Websnark, is entirely based on my time, whim and dumb luck.

What? At least I'm honest about it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)

October 2, 2004

Eric: Entitlement and the Modern Fandom

I've said before I'm not much of a webcomics forum-participator. I've joined a number of them, and occasionally I read through them, but often the participants on a given strip's forum (or LJ-Community, or what have you) represent the Fandom more than the fans of that strip, and that's generally not how I want to spend my time¹.

The implication in the last paragraph is correct, by the way. There is a difference between the fans of a strip and the Fandom, The fans of the strip are the people who read the strip and like it. Period. It doesn't take much to be a fan.

A strip's Fandom are those people who community-build around their shared appreciation of the strip. In the old days, they made fan clubs. These days, they join forums (Forums? Fora? It feels like there should be some kind of funky plural on that word) and LJs, spread the word, and organize events around the strip.

Let's use as an example the venerable Marmaduke. You remember Marmaduke, don't you? Yes, the one with the dog. A Marmaduke fan (there must be some) likes to read Marmaduke. They find the dog amusing. They might even clip their favorite Marmadukes out of the paper (or print them off the webfeed -- which I just discovered is here. I am now as scared as I have ever been) and tape them up over the ancient and brittle Dilbert cartoons in their cubicle, back from the days when Dilbert was funny.

The Marmaduke fandom, on the other hand, spends a significant amount of time on the Marmaduke forum (the Marmaduchy, let's call it). They have many different discussions on Marmaduke, and on things that have nothing to do with Marmaduke -- to the point that the Marmaduke forum moderators had to create a specific topic for off-topic posts, and have to kick folks there whenever they stray. They trade LJ icons and forum avatars based on Marmaduke art. They collect pithy Marmaduke sayings. They affirm each other and their common love of Marmaduke, and they find close friends through Marmaduke -- friends that mean a lot to them far beyond Marmaduke. This is what the Marmaduke Fandom has given them, and it means everything to them.

The idea, for many of the Marmaducets and duchesses (so clever, those Marmaduke fans -- the guys naming themselves after currency and the girls making a delightful play on Marmaduke's name), is not so much the individual Marmaduke strips themselves, but the zeitgeist of all that is Marmaduke. It's the attitude. It's how Marmaduke makes them feel, and how much they can amplify that feeling in the company of others. It can be terrifically empowering and it can be terrifically satisfying. Right here, in this little community on the internet, Marmaduke is the coolest thing around, and by showing your love for Marmaduke, you're cool too. And as for Marmaduke-creator Brad Anderson? The Marmaduchy provides feedback and, more importantly, validation. It's damn hard to be a cartoonist -- or a creator of any stripe. It takes effort and ego and skill and talent, and you spend a huge amount of time wondering if anyone gives a fuck. The Marmaduchy tells Anderson "yes. Yes, we give a fuck. We give many fucks. In fact, if you want us to, several of us will in fact have sex with you if you want, because you have brought so much pleasure to our lives that we would dearly love to repay you."

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Communities like this are good things, for most of the people in them. They're generally good for the creators as well. They mean something. They mean a lot, really.

I'm in a few Fandoms -- not generally webcomics Fandoms (I spend my time on so many different webcomics it's hard to develop the monofocus necessary to be a good Fandom-member) but other Fandoms. I'm definitely in the In Nomine Fandom, I used to be in the Legion of Super Heroes Fandom (and even quit in verbose disgust when they changed the Legion -- so I'm not claiming any moral superiority here) and I spent time in the Babylon 5 Fandom. I enjoy the SF Fannish subculture, which puts me in kind of that overall metafandom. And I'm occasionally in a fandom for individual creators of webcomics -- I do like reading creator-journals, for example, and I comment a lot more in those than I do in the strip-forums. I'm not wholly immune to fora, either, though I'm a totally arrogant jerk so I spend more of my time in strip-forums seeing if anyone's mentioned Websnark than actually participating in discussions.

But I see Fandoms, all the time. And as I spend more and more time observing them, I also recognize the dark side of Fandom.

Its name is "Entitlement."

The most common lament of Webcartoonists who achieve any kind of following is the overwhelming number of comments they get -- whether in e-mail or on their forums -- demanding things of them. Demanding that picayune mistakes not happen next time. Demanding that characters act the way the fan thinks they should, not the way the cartoonist actually portrays them. Long screeds get published on the forums of how a given plot arc is driving the readers insane and they hate it. And don't get me started on what happens when a webcartoonist actually misses an update. Holy Jesus Christ Without a Spine Curled Up I A Basket, this is a mountain of suck for the cartoonist.

Almost all fandom members feel a certain sense of entitlement. This is normal. This is healthy. This is even slightly legitimate. The overall feeling is "I have invested something of myself into Marmaduke. I evangalize Marmaduke. I spend a portion of my day on Marmadukish things. I affirm Brad Anderson. I deserve some recognition for this." And yeah, they do deserve some recognition. They certainly deserve Brad Anderson saying "guys, thank you so much for supporting Marmaduke. It means a lot to me that you like the strip."

And... well, that's about it. They're already getting Marmaduke for free (or for the cost of their newspaper). They don't get part-ownership of Marmaduke by virtue of liking to read it. And if they offer Brad Anderson sex and he takes it, that just means that Brad Anderson got some. It doesn't mean they get to dictate what Marmaduke would or wouldn't do. The majority of Fandom members get that.

There is a minority, however, that dives into Entitlement, butt naked and way over their heads. They do own Marmaduke, damn it! They've been loyal and they've been true, and Brad Anderson is a total asshole who doesn't really give a fuck about Marmaduke or great danes in general! If he did, he'd do the strip the way we want him to! Dammit! Someone should be able to take Marmaduke away from him, so that Marmaduke could be done right! This can mean anything from Marmaduke doing nothing but cat loving (or cat hating) jokes to redesigning Marmaduke to be female with human breasts, depending on the person in question. This minority is always there, lurking under the Fandom's surface, waiting for prey... and the moment any kind of deviation from the norm happens, they break surface, ready to devour.

The absolute worst examples of this are when they don't like the turn of events in the strip. "You made Marmaduke sad!" they write, truly outraged. "He went to his bowl, and that fucking Pekinese had eaten all his food, so he had no food and he was sad! I don't fucking read Marmaduke to see him sad! He should always be happy!" And then they get into an eighty-post long flamewar with other forum participants on whether or not it was appropriate that Marmaduke was sad.

The problems with the Entitled in a creator's fandom are threefold:

1. Conflict in a webcomic is a good thing. Bad things happen in webcomics because they either set up situations where the Funny can be brought forth or they set up situations where the Story can be moved forward. Without conflict, the webcomic becomes nothing but a barely connected series of pictures without meaning or merit. If you need an example, have a look at the Simpsons episode where Itchy and Scratchy, bowing to pressure from parents' groups, stop being mean to each other and instead give each other lemonade all the time. Sometimes, the characters are going to do stupid things or make bad choices -- that will then feed the strip material to work with for a long time to come. So get over it.


2. The Cartoonist is under no requirement to worry about other peoples' emotional state. If you invest so much of your own sense of well being into a comic strip that anything bad happening to the comic strip characters feels like a personal affront, you officially need to get a fucking hobby away from your computer. If the Cartoonist does his strip as his job, his only obligation is to produce strips on time, and try to make them high quality enough so he doesn't alienate his audience. If the Cartoonist is doing this as a hobby or on the side, he doesn't even have that obligation. In neither case does he owe you or me a good life. He probably doesn't even know us. So get over it!


3. Cry wolf too many times, and those rare times when outrage is warranted it won't be forthcoming. Look, there is an appropriate level of expectation involved in producing art on a regular schedule or basis. If, after 40 years of tenderhearted dog antics, Brad Anderson put in a strip where Dottie is brutally anally raped while Marmaduke is spiked to the floor with railway spikes, you better believe there will be outrage. There should be outrage, in a situation like that. Anderson has given his readers every reason to expect he won't suddenly subject them to a situation like this. But, if Anderson, Anderson's fans, the Marmaduchy Moderators and the support group has gotten accustomed to defending Anderson every time someone has a conniption because the Pekinese ate Marmaduke's food, then as soon as the far-more-justifiable outrage over anal rape and dog torture begins, his support mechanism will out of habit immediately begin defending him, hopelessly muddling the situation.

Just to make everything more difficult, there's also the question of the Creator's relationship to his Fandom. Because despite everything I said above, there's something crucial a creator of any stripe must understand about the Fandom that's grown up around him. The Creator owns his creation, and may do with it whatever he wants, but he doesn't own his Fandom and he doesn't get to dictate to them. Oh, he can try to dictate, all he likes, and the fans who weren't the problem to begin with will happily jump in with both feet. However, the Fandom as a whole is something that the members have invested in, and they do get as much of a say as the creator on how that Fandom is going to go. There are two highly public situations where a creator/owner of a property and that property's fandom came to serious terms, and in neither case was it pretty:

• White Wolf Studio, owner of Vampire: The Masquerade, had given its blessing and official status to a group called the Camarilla (after an organization in the game) which provided an official framework for developing LARP characters who then could move all around the country. Well, there reached a point where White Wolf and the Camarilla couldn't see eye to eye, and acrimony developed. On the one hand, the company had significant investment in their product line and had to be able to influence their "official" fan club's use of their materials. On the other hand, the Camarilla members and leadership had invested tremendous time and energy into the official Chronicle the group ran, as well as the organizational structure. (This is an incredibly simplified take on the situaion. I know there was far more depth to it.) Eventually, there was a messy divorce between the pair, with the license being pulled and ultimately threats of lawsuits. White Wolf owned Vampire, but the group was more than just a Vampire chronicle at that point, and the bad feelings and rift the breakup engendered extended far beyond the actual event, on both sides.
  
• Aaron Sorkin, the creator of The West Wing, began participating in the forums that had grown up around the West Wing on Television Without Pity. He enjoyed greatly the intelligent commentary, the humor, the feeling of community, and the implicit offers of sex he received. And then he started taking heat from one segment of the fanbase. Unlike White Wolf, he had given no official sanction to the group that he could revoke. Instead, he actually put a subplot about insane Internet forums onto the West Wing itself. His intent was to imply the forum participants on TWoP's forums were insane and stupid. His effect was to make pretty much every member of every fandom whether connected to Sorkin or not pissed off. It was one step above making fun of trekkies. Naturally, he did that later on. As a result, even though Sorkin is a brilliant writer who elevated the craft of television writing, there were far fewer tears shed than expected when he lost his job and moved on into... um... well, I assume he spends a lot of time on the Internet himself these days.

In both of the above situations, the Fandoms persisted after the hullabaloo. There is still a Camarilla, and it's still chugging along in Vampire (despite the relaunch of the World of Darkness). And Sorkin's tirade on the West Wing had no effect on the West Wing forums at Television Without Pity at all -- except maybe to remove some of the luster from the show for the participants.

So, in the end it's a two way street. Fandoms are powerful things, good for spreading the word about a community and giving a webcartoonist some much needed positive reinforcement, love, and implicit offers of sex. However, they are their own entities, unto themselves, and will feel some justified entitlement because of the energy they're putting into themselves. Some members of that Fandom will have batshit insane feelings of entitlement, leading them to tirades and demands that no one will think is appropriate, and the webcartoonist might find him or herself hating the very organization that has grown up around the strip in question.

I tend to side with the webcartoonists in these things, by the way. But I understand implicitly that it doesn't matter -- the Fandom will do what the Fandom will do, some asshats will be in the Fandom and will act asshatty, and -- most importantly -- an implicit offer of free sex over the comic strip you create will turn into the most expensive sex you have ever had.

Oh, if you're wondering... Websnark has no Fandom. Critical commentators get to have arguments for free.

¹ The case can be made that the entirety of Websnark.com represents my entry into overall Webcomics Fandom, and that any critical commentary I put into Websnark represents my own embrace of entitlement and all the rest. To anyone making that case, I say: "dude, you're not paying for this. I'll do whatever I want." When it's pointed out that that isn't a denial and that I am in fact calling the kettle black, I respond by beating the crap out of the questioner and running in one direction for one hour. Thank you, Superosity, for refining my debate skills.

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

September 29, 2004

Eric: The decline and fall of Esteem: why the Eagle Awards depress me.

I have three core "favorite comic books of all time." I went through a stage where I read a ton of comics each month (I'm almost completely out of comic books now, I should mention. If it ain't online, it's not likely to hold my attention), but there are three that had me, held me, and to this day I revere to the point of psychopathic obsession.

The first is the Legion of Super Heroes. Which means I'm one of those bitter people who still refuses to buy the 'Legion' they put out now, with the snake wearing Jeckie's powers and the dead "leviathan" and all the rest. The forthcoming rereboot of the Legion has me no happier. My Legion died at the end of the Magic Wars, and my desperate hopes that the corpse would reanimate ended at Zero Hour when they finally put a bullet into the Legion's brain and cut off the head.

The second is the Green Lantern Corps version of Green Lantern (though I dearly love Alan Scott and I think Kyle Rayner could have been handled well. He just wasn't). Maybe it's that part of me that loves Space Opera. Or maybe it's because I desperately want a power ring. But I've just adored the Silver Age Green Lantern, and while I think trying so hard to wipe away the last twelve years and bring Hal Jordan back is just plain stupid, I can hope it means a Corps will rise again. I might even buy that comic.

I loved the above two. But neither of them can claim to be my all time favorite comic. No, there's just room for one at the top, and that one is absolutely clear. The Micronauts.

The Micronauts.

I loved loved loved the Micronauts the way only an eleven year old could love anything. They were grand and majestic -- and yeah they were based on toys, but so what? I owned those toys. And the toys were the leaping off point for the series. They were epic, cosmic space opera. Baron Karza was a kind of evil Doctor Doom only dreamed of. Commander Arcturus Rann was the epitome of heroes, and his embodiment of the mysterious Enigma Force produced the kind of reaction in me that five or six years before fans of Darkseid and Kirby's Fourth World felt when they read his stuff. I was passionately in love with Princess Mari/Marionette, I thought Michael Golden's art was the best stuff ever (and became a dedicated Pat Broderick fan -- an opinion that carried me through his runs on Firestorm and Captain Atom later on -- when he took it over), and as for Bill Mantlo's writing? The man grokked space opera, simple as that.

The Micronauts never got to be rockstars at Marvel, though. They were also rans, after Spider Man and the Avengers (this was all in the years before X-Men hit it big and wiped away the Stan Lee era pretty completely, mind). Eventually, they were one of three "more sophisticated" books to go direct-sales only (along with Moon Knight and Ka-Zar), which proved to be as fatal for them as it was for the New Titans and to a lesser extent to the Legion over at DC (In effect, Marvel tried it with their lower-selling books, and DC tried it with their top selling books. It wasn't until the speculator craze hit that comic book stores took off enough to make direct-only workable.) So, I always felt like the Micronauts weren't getting their due.

And then one day, emblazoned across the top of the cover, just under Marvel Comics Group, was a banner. "WINNER OF THE EAGLE AWARD FOR COMICS EXCELLENCE," it read, or something like that, with the Eagle-in-a-Circle logo of that award.

I was thrilled.

Thrilled.

Someone got it. Someone got that Micronauts was good good stuff. And, because I agreed with the award, I raised the Eagle up to tremendous heights in my estimation.

Well, I haven't heard of the Eagles for years. But now, PvP is up for one. And I was thrilled -- not only were the Eagles still out there, but by God, they were adapting with the times. So I clicked on the link that was in Scott Kurtz's news post on the item, and followed it along to the ballot.

Dear God, what a disappointment.

There are three nominees from each category, chosen by "professionals." These nominees seem typically to be a mainstream fan favorite, an independent/alternative favorite, and something alternately obscure or mainstream-but-borning. Ho-fucking-hum. Take "Favorite Colour (Sic -- this was British, originally) Comicbook." The nominees are Fantastic Four, Planetary and the Ultimates. Is it really possible that Fantastic Four, Planetary and the Ultimates deserve a one in three shot at this award, above all others? Looking back over Dave Van Domelen's reviews, it sure doesn't look like those are the cream of the crop before all others. But I wanted to be sure, so I asked him. And, in his words:

FF is good, but not great. Planetary has its lovely moments, but there's other stuff I like more. Ultimates can bite me. Of the three, Planetary is least out of place. If it came out a little more often, I might even consider it for inclusion in my own top three. But when held up against stuff like Neotopia that comes out on schedule AND is lovely....

Or the Manga selections: Battle Royale, Blade Of The Immortal, and O! My Goddess, which don't strike me as anywhere near the top of the current Manga listings. (Shaenon Garrity might correct me on that, but I sincerely doubt she will.) Or "Favorite Comic Character," which gives us Batman, Hellboy, and Jessica Jones of Alias (mainstream, independent and obscure, respectively).

And then we get to categories I know quite a lot about, these days. In order:

Favourite Newspaper Strip: Maakies, Mutts, Spooner

Okay, first off? I like Spooner. I've always liked Spooner. But Spooner hasn't been in newspapers for well over a year, and last I knew he wasn't drawing new strips for his website (which itself expired on August 31, and seems like he's not that interested in reviving). Maakies -- eh, if you like it, you like it. Mutts, the same....

Those are the three they could come up with for Newspaper Strip? An independent strip, a low-to-moderate circulation King's Features and a retired strip? No Boondocks, no Foxtrot, not even fucking Dilbert? 99% of the newspaper reading public won't even have heard of those three strips. But that's what they get to choose from for their "favorites?"

Internet: Favourite Comics E-Zine: Newsarama, The Pulse, Sequential Tart

A little better. I like all three sites, and if Sequential Tart were up against sites I frequented more often, it'd probably still get my vote. But still, there's a feeling like their "professionals" googled and put up whatever they found....

And then, my favorite....

Favourite Web-Based Comic: Marc Hempell's Naked Brain, Mike Snart, PvP

...what... the... Fuck?

Okay, I like Marc Hempell just fine. But does anyone seriously think he's had an impact of any kind on the Web? I didn't know he had a webstrip. Googling for it turned up a home page but no links to any actual strips. It sure as Hell didn't seem like a webcomic to me. Googling Mike Snart, on the other hand, turned up nothing but notices that Mike Snart was nominated for an Eagle. It didn't turn up any site, any links to a site, any reference to a site -- anything that suggested that maybe, just maybe this thing was somewhere on the Internet. Hell, I still don't even know what it is, and I write a webcomics blog with some obscure tendencies!

Who were the "professionals" they consulted for this piece of crap? I promise you Scott McCloud wouldn't have suggested Naked Brain or Mike Snart. Why in God's name didn't they consult with Chris Crosby, Scott Kurtz, Joey Manley, Wednesday White, Pete Abrams, Gabe and Tycho, the Comixpedia folks, the Sequential Tart folks -- people with some basis of understanding what the Hell webcomics are about? Jesus Christ.

I encourage everyone reading my words to go in and vote. Vote for PvP. It actually deserves consideration for an Eagle in Webcomics. In fact, it deserves to be up there among worthy peers, fighting it out with Sluggy or Narbonic or Penny Arcade. As it is, landslide Kurtz's ass. Send as clear a message as you possibly can that it is unacceptable to put up "nominees" the webcomics community has never fucking heard of, and if they're going to include Webcomics at all, they have to put some fucking effort into it. They have to find professionals in the Webcomics community to do the nominating. If you're going to acknowledge the form, acknowledge it. Otherwise, we webcomics fans don't need you to do us no favors.

Kurtz deserves this award, this year. Overwhelm them with votes for him. And maybe next year they'll actually nominate a full field of creators, including Kurtz. That'll give him an award he can truly be hungry for.

I hate these people for making me wonder if, all those years ago, the Micronauts only won their Eagle because it was the one choice people had heard of in a group of nobodies. I want them to suffer. FLY MY PRETTIES! FLY!

Oh, sorry. I forgot. My name is Mr. Burns. So instead -- release the hounds!

(And if you really want to see me froth about awards, ask me about the Origins, sometime.)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:43 PM | Comments (18)

September 27, 2004

Eric: I wonder how it is....

...that webcartoonists find one another. There's an interesting column on this week's Comixpedia feed on the subject of collaborative webcomics versus single-creator comics. And obviously there's success in the collaborative model. T. Campbell, Shaenon Garrity (who's just as successful in single-creator stuff, of course), Gabe and Tycho and the like all show the strength of having a separate writer and artist. More than a few people who Megatokyo lost credit the time Rodney Caston left and Fred Gallagher took over the writing as well as the art duties as the breaking point for them.

My question is... how the Hell do most writers and artists find each other for collaboration?

In the garage band world, you go down to the local coffee house or guitar shop and tack up a note that you're looking for a bassist for your band. However, I don't know of any place you go and tack up "WANTED: One Writer -- must not suck at dialogue. Gag-a-day preferred but good if you know Nordic Tone Poems too" or "ARTIST WANTED FOR COMIC STRIP: no pay and I want you to stick to my script, but your name will be on it too if you want! Please have some understanding of how large a woman's eyes and mouth are proportioned to her face."

I honestly don't know the magic. Maybe it's because I live in New Hampshire, but I just don't see it happening. The one time I looked to collaborate on a webcomic was after I'd gotten to know an artist well electronically, and she ended up having commitments crop up that no person could possibly work around.

I agree that Collaboration creates powerful comic strips, sometimes. I just don't know how it comes about. Or should we petition eHarmony.com to start an art-matching service?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:53 PM | Comments (7)

September 16, 2004

Eric: Hey, what's time, energy, effort, payment model and site design. I WANT! I WANT SO SCREW YOU!

It's called Comanche, the WebComicServer. It's one of many well written open source alternatives for slurping webcomics from their pages into a nice, convenient place. Or even pulling down entire archives (on the artist's bandwidth) to sit, resident and pristine, on your hard drive.

This has little to do with me. My one foray into webcomics sits on Keenspace, lonely, unloved and crappy. And my own writing (which you're reading now) is under a Creative Commons license for noncommercial purpose. So I have no vested interest in what I'm about to say:

COMANCHE? THE BACK OF MY HAND!

This is beyond offensive and straight into full bore selfishness. These people generally put hours a day, time and effort into creating something. All they ask in return is that you go to their site and see the strip under their model. But why would you want to do that? Why would you want to look at their advertising or see their tip jar or merchandising day after day. You're busy and that makes you feel all guilty and stuff.

I especially love how it'll pull strips down and archive them locally, so those strips who give one strip or 30 strips away for free but require you to pay for deeper archives? Meh. What do you care? Subscriptions shmubscriptions! These people will do the work anyway, so why should I do anything here.

They have a FAQ entry on this site I absolutely love. Here it is:

Q: Don't you rip off the artists when you view the strips, but not the ads?

A: Ad revenue on the web is so low these days, comic artists have already added (or completely switched to) many other support models. And I encourage everybody to make those models work for them. Please buy books or T-shirts, join their clubs, tip them money, do visit their homepages and click on some ads... I do regularly!

Yeah. That's why you have plugins to pull down archives for Doonesbury (which after 30 days you're supposed to pay for access for). And why your tool takes you away not only from the ads the artists put on their site but also their merchandising, their donations, their subscriptions -- in fact, from every possible "support model" they could have.

Also? Guess what. Keenspot makes money on advertising. They make it work. PvP? Makes money on advertising. They make it work. Something Positive? Makes money on advertising. They make it work. Just because you believe that ad revenue on the web doesn't work these days doesn't make it true. We're not in the .com bubble any more, but neither are we in the bust -- and there's a reason ads still exist.

I had to make a decision, when it came to how Websnark was set up. How do I handle excerpting the strips, without dicking over the artists either in bandwidth (which Comanche is happy to use, just not help pay for) or in giving their strips away. I decided to do all-thumbnails (so someone has to go to the site for the full sized strip) with click-to-enlarges that take you to the very page the thumbnail references. You want to see the strip? See it the way the artist wants you to see it, in the model that most supports him.

Some artists probably don't care if you rape their bandwidth and steal their children comic strips to enjoy away from their sites. They don't do this for money any more than I write Websnark for money. But for others? This is their job. This is how they put food on the table. This is their artistic expression -- the whole thing, not just the bits that change from day to day.

This thing takes food out of the mouths of their children, and I have nothing but contempt for it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:13 PM | Comments (10)

Eric: And now, we achieve infrastructure.

Now here's something interesting. Randy Milholland of Something Positive did an interview with the Guardian on online fundraising, cyberbegging, and the difference between them. It's a good piece, and it actually puts Milholland's story out accurately (which is never a certainty in these matters). It's worth a read if you're at all interested in how the web is transforming asking for money.

That being said, it raises a red flag for me. One that goes back to my last snark on the subject. You see, one of bits the article goes into is a new service called Dropcash, which links Typekey (you all know Typekey -- it's the authentication service that Websnark uses to keep people from easily being able to comment, as part of my ongoing effort to spread rage and insanity across the land. So far, it's working) to Paypal and gives a progress bar page to keep track of your progress.

Which means we now have a ready made infrastructure for people who are developing fundraising goals. It is now officially simple to organize a campaign to raise money.

You know, I used to keep an online journal, back before the turn of the century, that did pretty well. I got a couple of thousand readers at its height (I was going through a medical drama then, and pathos=ratings, my friend). This was before Livejournal, before Blogger, before Movable Type. Heck, the first version of the page was before CSS. I coded each new entry page manually, then uploaded it, then changed all the necessary links to it. There was a small community of journallers in those days, so it was relatively easy to keep up with each other, and there was more than a little work to get things going. You had to understand HTML, server configurations -- all kinds of things.

And it got popular, so the folks at Blogger made a tool to make it easier. And then came Livejournal, and all its spinoffs, and Movable Type, and all the rest. And now anyone who wants one can have an online journal, and we all do as a result. And unless you have a specific purpose blog (like, well, the one you're reading now), you're a celebrity of some stripe for some reason, or you're young, pretty, female and uninhibited you probably don't have more than a few dozen readers, if that. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, either -- it's just that in a land of plenty, people graze from the plates that are near them instead of seeking out the tasty cheeses at the front of the room.

It's the same with webcomics. When there were no automated systems for posting, revising, updating and archiving, it was harder to put your comic on the web and less people did. Now, between Keenspace and the Autokeenlite scripts (and, pretty soon, the Webcomicsnation hosting service), it's become dead simple to put an automated webcomic up. And people do. By the truckload.

We've had a few instances of donation drives/membership models working well, but there's been some barriers involved with setting up infrastructure, even with Paypal. Now, it's going to be dead simple to set up a funding drive. Simple enough that everyone will do it. Hell, I might set one up myself, under the title "Eric wouldn't mind owning a high definition television he can mount to his wall." Not that anyone would donate to it, because why the Hell do you care what's hanging on my wall, but it'd be simple enough to do so why not?

Why not indeed.

In the land of plenty, people graze with what's near to hand. When everyone has a fund drive going, they'll each get twelve people donating money to their cause, and no one will actually meet their goals.

I wonder if Amway started like this.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:56 PM | Comments (4)

September 14, 2004

Eric: On supporting webcomics and the survival of the fittest fandoms.

Bang-bang. Two announcements, right in a row, unrelated except thematically. So close together their respective news posts are next to each other in Comixpedia's 24 Hour Pixel People.

Jamie Robertson announced that he would be ending Clan of the Cats in December, without resolving the plotline. Though if enough people subscribe to his new service he'll be able to continue it, he hopes. His reasons are financial -- with his current profession falling out from underneath him (in a way that reminds me, wistfully, of��Derryl Murphy's SF short story The History of Photography) he's looking at finding more work, and more work means taking the time to produce so elaborate a comic would be unfeasible.

Michael Jantze announced that he would be ending The Norm within the next six weeks. Though if enough people subscribe to his new service he'll be able to continue it, he hopes. His reasons are editorial -- after years of battling with the syndicates, he's getting out of the rat race, and as this was his job, he has to find other ways to support his family now, treating this as an ending.

Comixpedia connected the dots between these two strips, R. K. Millholland's successful challenge to his readers to financially support his leaving his job, and Fantagraphics's recent drive to raise money to survive. Robertson's situation is closer to the Fantagraphics situation -- he wants to continue, but doesn't see how he can afford to do so. Jantze's situation is closer to Millholland's -- he's effectively challenging his readers to put their money where their mouth is. Both clearly love cartooning and both have dedicated fandoms, with the question being can enough subscribers be drawn in to justify the decision.

To be honest, I don't know what to tell them. I'm in a weird situation. As you know, I support webcomics. I believe in them. I believe we're moving into a new era of patronage and micropayments and all the Scott McCloudisms you want to hear. I want to be supportive of these artists taking steps to change their circumstances.

And yet... I don't read either strip. So it's hard for me to be passionate, this time. And maybe that's good, because it lets me consider the model at play, here.

I don't read Clan of the Cats because despite its clear skill, it just didn't appeal to me. I tried archive trekking a few times (backwards and forwards, thank you), and the story didn't speak enough to me to make me want to continue. I think it's good, but clearly it's just not for me. I think it's an excellent citizen of the Webcomics community, however -- so I'd be really sad to see it go.

Note, by the way, that I think PvP is an excellent citizen of the Webcomics community too. So clearly, I'm insane -- to hear others say it, anyway.

I don't read the Norm, on the other hand, because I've never even heard of it. It just missed my radar. Go fig. And this doesn't seem like the time to start.

So the pitches being made aren't being made to me. They're being made, in effect, to the fandoms for those strips. I know Clan of the Cats has a vociferous one. I assume The Norm does as well. The question is, are the fandoms broad enough and generous enough to pony up the subscription fees. Unlike Something*Positive, they're not asking for one time donations with a clear goal in mind -- they're looking for a sustainable model. X number of subscriptions at Y amount of money = Z amount of food for the cartoonist and his family, and therefore we can do this thing. But even if they were just doing a straight donation drive (which is how Milholland, Fantagraphics, and even Sluggy Freelance did it), they're looking to their fandom to in effect become their bosses. Publishing, at the lowest order. They get paid to produce, and produce they will.

The question is, how many fandoms is the average webcomic reader a part of, and how many of them can they afford to support. Take me. I'm more nuts than the average person. I spend money on webcomics, and I subscribe to subscription services. But I don't tend to be part of individual fandoms. I don't do more than skim forums and communities (and being vain, it's more to see if Websnark was mentioned if anything). Other than tip jars (which I support when the mood strikes me) and merchandise (which is a whole other deal), when I subscribe to subscription sites it tends to be larger ones with lots of comics on them. The exception is American Elf, and even that's coming in less than Sebo's Kitty Klub and Join The Norm. There's only so much money I have to give. I'm not particularly affluent -- my needs are met and I buy nice toys, including money into cartoonists' pockets -- but I won't be able to subscribe to too many more sites if I want to have spending money for anything other than webcomics. (Not even counting paying my own bandwidth bills for what you're reading now, I would add.)

There has to be another way.

Frankly, I think that Clan of the Cats should eschew Keenspot (though Keen's been a good home to them) and sign on with Graphic Smash. I bet T. Campbell would be glad to have them, and have their extensive archives as a hook to draw people in. I think Robertson should do his Sebo strip, but host that on Modern Tales, so that someone who wants the Daily Funny is drawn to one pay site and someone who wants the Story is drawn to another.

But he might not be able to get enough to live on, doing that. He says he needs 200 subscribers. If they take the more-money-up-front-but-less-expensive-yearly subscription option of $25, that means he needs five thousand dollars a year to produce Clan of the Cats, even at 0 bandwidth costs by sticking with Keenspot. It doesn't seem like that much money, but I bet it's more than a Graphicsmasher gets, right now. (I'd love it if I were wrong.) As for the Norm? They're doing multiple levels of membership (shades of Sluggy, Kevin and Kell, and User Friendly) but also doing the Modern Tales thing of taking the archives away except for subscribers. Their lowest level of membership is $25 but it goes up to $5,000, and will include a magazine. We don't know how many subscribers are needed to "save the Norm."

I hope both of them make it, one way or another. But there's only so many independents who can do this before their fandoms' means will be exceeded by prior commitments.

There has to be a better way.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:08 PM | Comments (14)

September 10, 2004

Eric: This is a commentary site, not a fucking confessional...

...but it's mine, so I'm going to break the rules just once. I'm not going to go into details on my life, because honestly, no one here cares. You're not here for that. I will say, however, that since March 3 of this year (when I had doctors with various frightening implements do things to me while I was unconscious), I have lost 108 lbs. Or, the combined weight of both of my nieces.

And tonight I joined a gym.

HAH! In your face, Death-Before-40! You want me? Hit me with a fucking bus!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:51 AM | Comments (2)

September 7, 2004

Eric: Mornings are too damn early. Also, Dumbrella still seems to be down....

Maybe it's just me, but I can't hit the Dumbrella sites at all this morning. So, no Diesel Sweeties. No Goats. No Scary-Go-Round. And other such things.

Though Wigu? Wigu came right up. And looked good in black and white, no less.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only one who can't reach the other Dumbrella sites. Maybe Old Man Stevens is on his porch with a shotgun full of rock salt, keeping a weather eye out for me, ready to blast a few barrels at me. "G't off my damn property!" he shouts, in a virtual sense, eye narrowing as he sees my pickup approach. "Go down th' damn road! Peddle your sass to Krazy Larry, see if he puts up with it!"

Later that night, I'll climb over the fence into the cornfield he shares with Old Man Rosenberg. I'll climb into their gazebo and drink beer with a couple of my buddies, and we'll try to keep our voices down but we'll be laughing too hard, and Old Man Stevens will come out of his house in his nightshirt, lantern in one hand, Ol' Bessie in the other, shrieking like a banshee. Years from now, when we get together at the 20 year high school reunion, we'll trot the story out and snicker about it, our children embarrassed as Hell. The cornfield will have been paved over for a strip mall by then, of course -- bought out by the Allison twins when the bachelor farmers couldn't make their mortgage payments. Young Sassy Rosenberg will be a teacher at the school then, and she'll be at the other end of the room, quietly seething for her uncle's violated pride. Mr. Rowland, the principal now and still the principal then will put a hand on her shoulder. They'll share that moment together, as my friends and I laugh. And Mr. Rowland will remember with cold pleasure that he still has our permanent records under lock and key, and one day, when the time is right, those records will see the light of day....

It occurs to me that all evidence suggests I'm significantly older than all of the named cartoonists above. It also occurs to me that I'm barely awake because it's too damn early in the morning. These are not necessarily related facts.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:12 AM | Comments (1)

September 6, 2004

Eric: On what to snark, and why to snark.

I get a lot of mail these days, which honestly is very nice. I hear from people who like what I'm doing and I hear from people who don't like what I'm doing. I hear from wonderful people and I hear from Assholes. Some of the mail I get has me staring and saying [Name withheld to prevent lame namedropping] wrote to me? He/she/they/it/other read something I wrote?" Other of the mail has me staring and saying "how does someone with no command of the English language manage to fill out a request for a Yahoo mail account in the first place?" Some mail is insightful, some is sophomoric, and I love all of it.

A nontrivial amount of mail I get are requests to look at comic strips -- either by the creators or by fans of the strip. I really like that. Honestly. I can't swear I'll check these recommendations out quickly or snark on what I find if I do, but the world of webcomics is so tremendously large and involved, and the best way to find fresh goodness is to be led to it.

And then there are the other recommendations. The ones that, more or less, say "hey! You should snark about [name of webcomic withheld to protect the innocent]! It sucks! I love when you tear into crap!"

That, I don't need so much.

See, pretty much any webcomic that I stick with long enough to be able to snark reasonably about it is one I like. If I don't like it, I honestly don't care enough to put in the time and energy to develop an informed opinion. And, if it's not an informed opinion, I don't really want to slap it up here.

Yeah, I know -- it's "websnark." That makes it sound like I'm always going to say nasty things. Except I don't think a snarky sense of humor precludes writing about stuff you like. This isn't a site that reviews webcomics and gives out stars. (The closest thing I do is give out biscuits -- tasty, tasty biscuits -- but I don't give those for whole webcomics. I give those for individual strips that impress me. And they're not that serious as all that.) This is a critical site, but the criticism tradition I'm working in isn't reviews, it's art and literary criticism. I'm making points, and the stuff I comment on either illustrates that point or illustrates the absence of that point. Hopefully in an entertaining fashion.

Sure, I make a lot of references to strips I'm not as enamored about any more. I'm not as happy with User Friendly or It's Walky or Megatokyo as I once was, and I'm unashamed to say why... but I did like all three, terribly much. I invested some of myself into them because they pulled me in. Even if they had me and they lost me, there was a point where they had me, and that's why I care.

A good number of folks are following the stuff I snark to strips they haven't tried before. And that's fantastic. If you follow a link to a strip and enjoy it, I've done a good thing. Even if it's a strip I've lost my smile over. If I have to be a reviewer, I'd rather be a reviewer in the style of that Simpsons episode when Homer became a food critic. He loved food, he loved restaurants, he burbled happily about every place he went into, and all of Springfield prospered -- restaurants did a boom business and all of Springfield happily gained weight. It was only when the other critics pressured him to write only bad things that everything went south.

I respect reviewers. I respect bad reviews, but that's not my thing. If you want to read entertaining snarks about really bad popular culture, read Television Without Pity. It's hysterical and sarcastic and mean as Hell to shows they can't stand. And they pay their contributors, which is I expect why those contributors are willing to continue to watch television they loathe.

Me? I don't get paid for Websnark. In fact, I've spent a nontrivial amount of money to produce it, and I expect to spend more. I never expect to make more money than it costs, and I'm okay with that.

But I'm not okay with spending a large amount of time reading stuff I just don't enjoy. I won't swear I'll never do it -- if it illustrates a point I want to make, I'll use it -- but for the most part, I'd rather celebrate the stuff I enjoy.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:12 PM | Comments (1)

September 1, 2004

Eric: Meh.

I just wrote a long, in depth snark, which I then lost because I made a stupid mistake. I'm a computer professional. I really ought to be able to use the damn things, ought'n I?

Meh,

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2004

Eric: It's raining in Maine...

...and I have far to drive before I get home. I'm back to work tomorrow (which means probably more Snarks through the day than you saw over the weekend from me).

My folks say hi. My Mom has no idea what you people see in me.

While here, I was officially given our copy of The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, by Bill Blackbeard and Martin Williams. This 11x17 coffee table book (clocking in at 336 pages) fueled my love of comic strips from a very young age. Not only does it cover the evolution of the form, it has context and deep archives -- including an entire adventure of Thimble Theater -- the comic strip Segar wrote and drew, that brought Popeye and Olive Oyl to the world (and didn't have much of a spinach fixation -- other than the fact that Popeye ascribed his toughness to eating right). The adventure is "Plunder Island," and features the Sea Hag.

That's right. Back in 1977, lying on the floor of our living room, I was going through the archives of Story strips from the 30's. Story strips that brought the Funny.

It marked me. And now I get to revisit this tremendous book.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:41 PM | Comments (0)

Eric: FAQ: Cast Page

So, I've received more than one note from folks that while it's all well and good for me to campaign for webcomic cast pages, I don't have one of my own here on Websnark.com.

"But..." I said in reply. "This isn't a webcomic."

"Put up or shut up," they replied.

So. Here's the cast page. Enjoy.

Eric Alfred Burns is one of the heroes of our story. Like all good English majors, he makes his living as a systems administrator. He also has a bad habit of writing. Born in a very small town in the very far north of Maine, Eric has lived in different places in Maine, in New Hampshire, in Ithaca and Syracuse, New York, and in Seattle, Washington. He currently lives in New Hampshire, but is wondering if his roots are beginning to get a touch long and therefore need uprooting.

While systems administration puts food on his table, Eric lists his occupation as writer. In addition to Websnark.com, Eric has written and published short fiction and poetry. He has also written for and designed Role Playing Games, including work for Decipher and Steve Jackson Games. He was one of the primary authors on the ENnie nominated Sidewinder: Wild West Adventures, and the subsequent Sidewinder: Recoiled won the Gold ENnie for best Electronic Game (non-free). He's listed as a contributing author on Recoiled, and would be much prouder if the sum total of his 'contributions' wasn't stuff from the first edition of the game which they rewrote parts of to make it sound less like the somewhat urbane Bat Masterson and more like Festus from Gunsmoke. But Hell, they got the gold with it, so why should he complain?

In the webcomics world, Eric writes a monthly column called "Feeding Snarky" and occasional features and reviews for Comixpedia, where they have learned to curse his procastinating name.

In addition, Eric has the unfortunate distinction of being an amateur novelist, but is deep into work on a novel that will hopefully change his professional standings. He has tried his hand at webcartooning himself, and epitomizes the old saw "those who can't draw, snark." He has learned from this mistake and is now hard at work at writing webcomics instead. He is hard at work on Gossamer Commons, as drawn by Greg Holkan and Peter Venables.

Eric has a cat named Sarah, which is short for Seraphim Kyriotate. He has yet to notice angelic behavior from her.

Wednesday White is, at most, a cameo in all things. An uneducated boor, she used to sneak onto university newspapers' staff because the high school papers wouldn't let her in. Every few years, it occurs to her to write something. This time, it landed her in webcomics. "If I write about it for a little while, I'll learn how to do my own sensibly." You see where that gets you.

This way lay contributing to Comixpedia then throwing stuff at The Webcomics Examiner. She's worked as a free-floating associate editor for Comixpedia, and handles site maintenance and script editing tasks for Gossamer Commons.

She loves trashy religious pop culture (all religions; she's not fussy), Canadian public radio, and sorting through artistic trainwrecks.

The pair can be reached at "websnark" "at" "gmail" "dot" "com." It's like a reverse rebus, isn't it?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:19 PM | Comments (14)

August 26, 2004

Eric: On the philosophy of snarking

Someone over on PvPForums asked if the PvP Update Pool was a joke or not. I'd have answered over there, but they have a 12 hour "cooling off" period between registering for their forums and being able to post replies or threads (which on balance is likely a good idea -- much like there's a waiting period for guns. Before you can buy a gun in a rage and run into a gun club where everyone has guns and a willingness to shoot you, they make you sleep on whether or not you want to shoot that fool thing).

But still, it's a fair question. And deserves an answer.

Of course it's a joke. All of Websnark is a joke, from its name to its posts. Yeah, there's plenty of opinion here. It's an opinion site. But in the grand scheme of things, if something like PvP or Penny-Arcade are Network, I'm at best Basic Cable Entertainment and very likely Cable Access -- shooting for Daily Show, settling for XPlay, dreading ending up as Unscrewed.

Scott Kurtz ain't gonna sweat me or my snarking about his inability to set a time for updates. And, as someone (quite legitimately) points out on his forum, Kurtz does typically manage an update every day, at some point in the day. What I find funny is the broad range of times that might be, and so that ends up fuel for the snark.

Like I said in the original post -- and, for that matter, in PvP's entry in the Daily Comics Trawl -- PvP is Damn Good. Sooner or later one of the daily strips will be snarked, and it's highly likely said snark will be on all the ways Kurtz gets it right. As said before:

And Kurtz deserves his success -- he can sometimes piss me the Hell off, but his strip is one of the most consistent I read -- it brings the Funny, each and every day, and evolves without bogging down. It's just. Plain. Good.

So why pick on it at all? Its update wonkiness doesn't begin to touch Megatokyo's, for example. This is true -- but then, Megatokyo's update wonkiness was part of why I dropped that strip entirely. I'm not about to drop PvP. I am, though, going to mock what I find mockable.

And, like I've said many times before, it makes a difference between whether a cartoonist's strip is their job or their hobby. I dropped Hound's Home in large part because I got sick of having it sit, unupdated, in my trawl for months at a time. If I ever do a "You Had Me, And You Lost Me" on Hound's Home, I'll mention that as part of the reasons. But I won't snark about updates on Hound's Home because Ryan Duchane doesn't succeed or fail at eating daily by the success and failure of Hound's Home. He doesn't owe his audience anything, because he's not asking them for anything. Someone who does their strip as their job gets held to a higher standard, because the risks are higher. Kurtz, Abrams, Milholland, Gabe and Tycho and the like use their strips as the foundations for keeping themselves, their significant others, their children and their basset hounds fed.

By the same token, that puts responsibility on me, in my humble opinion. I'm one of those guys who contributes to tip jars. I buy stuff. I buy memberships. I'm in Defenders of the Nifty. I sent cash to Randy Millholland. I buy the PvP comic book. I bought a Skull Plushie. (Sidenote -- the Skull Plushies are brilliant. I can't wait for mine. I'll snark in depth when it comes in.) I go to strip advertisers. It's just what I do, when I like a strip. Hell, I sent Kurtz money for a Macintosh, even though I couldn't care less if he uses a Mac or not.

And, if I like a strip and I continue to read about it, I snark about it. And go for humor, while expressing an opinion. Which was the point of the PvP Update Pool, to answer his forum-goers. And in writing snarkish stuff, I feel I owe the people who read me, now and into the future, my best efforts to be funny and my opinion as I see it. And some expectation of guidelines, which I'm trying to flesh out as we go along.

How much do I think Scott Kurtz should care about my mockery? Why, that's "not at all," Wink. Scott Kurtz doesn't sweat me, and he certainly knows his reputation when it comes to update times. (He's even mentioned it in his strip -- usually in strips where his father is threatening to kick him in the ass if he doesn't put the strip up earlier.) If anything, I hope he snrked a bit when he read "PvP Update Pool." And when I snark opinion stuff about his strip, I hope he finds something useful in that opinion.

But I don't expect it of him. He doesn't owe me the combination of Jack and Shit.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:54 AM | Comments (2)

July 2, 2004

Eric: On Names and Innovation

As many if not most of the people reading this (generally neglected) essay site knows, Apple has just announced the latest version of their operating system: Mac OS X 10.4, codenamed Tiger. Tiger follows in the footsteps of its predecessors Jaguar (which signed a lot of checks) and Panther (the most successful of their OSs to date, which managed to cash most of the checks Jaguar signed). In what may be the best sign of Mac OS X's maturity, the announcement covered mostly a pack of features few if anyone asked for, and almost no core improvements to the OS. (A major exception to this is in Tiger's improved developer tools -- but that's something for developers and codemongers to be excited about, not end users).

Believe it or not, this is excellent news for Apple. When you reach the point where you start Microsofting (a verb I have just coined that means 'to add superfluous features in an effort to get people with a perfectly usable version of your software to buy a new version they don't really need) your OS, your OS is pretty rock solid. And as a hearty Panther user, I can attest to this. Panther works exceptionally well in all its core areas, and its own superfluous features, while spotty, can be ignored with impunity. (Anyone out there use Filevault? Anyone? I didn't think so.)

However, that leaves us with a glaring issue on Apple's part. They have to continue to appear innovative. They have to continue to seem not only cutting edge, but bleeding edge. Their stock in trade, and their core business -- the sale of computers -- relies entirely on the cachet of using Apples, and that relies on consistently being the kids with the coolest toys in town; the things that make you say "ooooooooooooo..." when you hear about them are what keeps Apple alive.

(This, by the way, is different from Microsoft's stock in trade. Microsoft makes its money on sales of its software and its Operating System. It needs to sell new versions of Windows in massive numbers to keep the dream alive. Apple doesn't sell OS X as anything more than a secondary revenue stream -- they need to keep the Macintosh at the top of the heap, so that they continue selling truckloads of computers. It's an entirely different business model, which is why Microsoft isn't really working to kill Apple off these days. Microsoft likes having Apple around, because Mac users buy Microsoft software.)

The problem with needing to innovate within the Operating System, however, is the complete and utter lack of need to innovate within the operating system. Once your OS is stable and fast, that's pretty much the ballgame, in terms of functionality. This is why the king of Operating Systems is Unix and its derivatives. The world runs on Unix, despite Unix's 'core innovations' being decades old, because Unix is rock solid and fast. Period.

Well, Darwin is pretty damn rock solid now, and the Aqua window and file manager running on top of it has reached a zenith in Panther. Panther is bloody easy to use, it's pretty damn solid, it's fast and it has all the features people expect in an Operating System. Which means innovation is damn hard for Apple now.

Well, if 'To Microsoft' means to add superfluous features to a product to get people to buy it, then the adjective 'Microsoftish' means 'to adopt the veneer of other peoples' innovations in an effort to improve your own product and eliminate competition.' And, following a clear trend started by Sherlock 3 (vs. Watson), Apple has wholly embraced Microsoftish coding practices this year, with the announcement of the most 'innovative' of their new features: Dashboard. A product that on the surface resembles a third party product called Konfabulator.

I say 'on the surface' because their engines are entirely different. Dashboard uses the webcore engine that Apple's developed for Safari, while Konfabulator uses a homegrown engine driven by Javascript. But, when you look at the proposed screenshot for Dashboard and the actual screenshots of Konfabulator, they appear functionally identical.

And... they call their subprograms by the same name: Widgets.

And therein lies the problem.

The idea of small programs that handle tiny tasks is as old as the Macintosh itself. "Desk Accessories" were a part of the original Macintosh, and were the clear spiritual predecessor of widgets. So, no one could legitimately complain that Apple 'stole' these subprograms from Konfabulator. They could argue that Apple is undercutting the innovation from third party developers (and have shown a habit of doing this, by the vastly clearer wholesale theft of Watson's functionality for Sherlock 3, the year after they honored Watson as one of the most innovative products of the year). They could argue that producing something with such a close look and feel was crass at best. But theft? Nah. Doesn't wash.

Unless, of course, Apple were stupid enough to steal Konfabulator's terminology. And 'Widget' is an idiosyncratic term at best -- I doubt I've used that term more than twelve times in my life, except when referring to Konfabulator. It's not an accepted term for a subprogram. American Heritage defines it as:

1. A small mechanical device or control; a gadget.
2. An unnamed or hypothetical manufactured article.

Software isn't hardware -- you might write a controlling program, but that doesn't make it a 'mechanical device.' And I'm sorry, but nothing in Dashboard constitutes a manufactured article. You can hold a manufactured article in your hand without it being enclosed by a computer screen.

So. Language evolves. That's fine and dandy. But when someone uses a term in a new way as an integral part of their software product, you don't get to take a product that does exactly the same thing, use the modified term in exactly the same way, and duck charges of intellectual theft. It doesn't matter when you started developing your product. It doesn't matter what engine you use to produce it. You can't take someone's terminology as your own and then claim you're not copying them.

Especially when you were already accused of doing it once.

This is a stupid move on Apple's part. Had they called Dashboard's components 'gauges' (which fits the dashboard model) or 'gadgets' or 'gizmos' or 'thingamajigs' or 'instruments' or anything like that, people would be sullen about Konfabulator but wouldn't have a real leg to stand on. If they'd called them 'desk accessories,' they could have both trumpeted the return of a classic Macintosh function and clearly demonstrated prior art. But they didn't. They called them 'widgets.'

And so branded Dashboard as a wholly stolen product, now and forever. And sent notice to third party developers that Sherlock 3 wasn't a fluke -- if you want to be sure Apple won't steal your ideas, better patent all of them or (more likely) better not write them for the Apple. Besides, there are more Windows users anyway, right?

And that, if it spreads far enough, kills Apple far more completely than failing to innovate ever would.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:27 PM | Comments (4)

January 23, 2004

Eric: Good Night, Captain

Mister Green Jeans. Mister Moose. Bunny Rabbit. Miss Frog. Slim Goodbody. Dennis the Apprentice. Grandfather Clock. Picture Pages. Miss Worm. Mister Bainter the Painter. The Professor. Ping Pong Balls. Carrots. The Treasure House. The Captain's Place. Dancing Bear. Picture Pages. Mr. Baxter the Math Teacher. Debbie. The Toothbrush Family. Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings.

These are touchstones to a time on television when a major network could allow for gentleness, goodness, and warmth without panicking or selling toys. This was an era of thirty straight years, when a show for preschool children could rule the morning, and the most important lessons it taught were about reading and wonder. This was a time when we had a friend, and his name was Captain Kangaroo.

Bob Keeshan brought the Captain to life, as part of a rich legacy of characters and children's television which he truly pioneered. How much of a pioneer was he? Bob Keeshan was a member of the first nationwide true television program for children, Howdy Doody, starting all the way back in 1947. In fact, he was the silent clown Clarabell, who honked a horn to communicate. He disliked Howdy Doody's frenetic style, however, and pushed for a gentler kind of children's show -- one where kids would find learning a source of delight and wonder. One that didn't pander to kids and didn't preach to them. And against all odds, he found it with Captain Kangaroo. At one point even after the start of Captain Kangaroo he created Mr. Mayor, for Saturday mornings. After the end of Captain Kangaroo, he went on to continue promoting reading with CBS Storybreak. He promoted musical education for children, releasing albums that would introduce kids to jazz and classical music. He used to tour with Pops orchestras, drawing children to come out and see him introduce classical works, and inculcate a love of music in them. In a world where so many media figures fought to promote themselves or their sponsors, Bob Keeshan promoted children.

Most famously of all, he promoted reading. On every episode of Captain Kangaroo he read a book, his voice comforting and lulling, even as he provided the sound effects for sirens or cars or cows or what have you. And what books they were. Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel. Caps for Sale. Make Way for Ducklings. So many, many more. Books that told a story and usually had engaging pictures, but also encouraged thought... and encouraged a love of reading. Captain Kangaroo didn't have to convince us books were special -- he made them special. He believed it, and he passed that belief onto us.

The sketches were funny. The puppets were allowed to trick the Captain, who was generally the butt of the jokes. Bunny Rabbit found a way to get carrots from the Captain. Mr. Moose found a way to get the Captain to say 'Ping Pong balls,' and drop a load of balls on the Captain's head, time and time again. Nickelodeon might have refined the art of dumping disgusting things on actors, but the Captain pioneered the art and didn't even need gooey slime to do it.

Bob Keeshan died last Friday. He was 76 years old. He hadn't been on television for several years. Back in 1985, CBS decided that they wanted to compete with the Today Show and Good Morning America, and so they cancelled Captain Kangaroo while Keeshan was in the hospital, recovering from a heart attack. This had been after several years of changing what time he was on and reducing the length of his show, all for the news. Saturday Night Live satirized the moment perfectly, running a sketch where the Captain and Tom Snyder -- recently thrown out of his traditional timeslot for a then-once-failed David letterman -- were forced to work for Ted Turner. The Captain (in the sketch) told the story, Captain Kangaroo style, of his being a beloved figure to children, an icon of America, and then he had a heart attack and had to be rushed to the hospital -- rrrrrRRRRrrrraaaaaaaaarrrrrr -- and while he had tubes in him and was trying to get better, 'some sleazeball from the network' showed up and told him he was fired because they wanted more time for the news.

Keeshan would never have said such a thing in public, of course, though of course SNL was right. That many, many different iterations of the CBS Morning News/CBS This Morning/The Early Show have all failed in their time slot, over and over again seems to highlight the sheer hubris of cancelling the distinctive, beautiful, gentle children's program. Keeshan brought his program to PBS for a time, then retired after Hugh 'Lumpy' Brannum, who played Mr. Green Jeans, Mr. Bainter the Painter and so many others passed away. In later years, he worked to return to television as the character he embodied, but he didn't own the rights, so "The All New Captain Kangaroo" didn't include the one person who made it all work, and failed. (From all accounts, this new Captain Kangaroo sacrificed honesty and wonder for political correctness and talking down to the children -- things Keeshan never did nor would do.) However, he kept busy. He wrote children's books of his own. He helped produce videos of the Captain and of other worthy subject. He was an advocate for children's issues and for children's right. He was an advocate for the control of advertising to children and controlling tobacco advertising. In a world where children's performers were often disgruntled actors who yearned to 'make it' and escape their signature roles, Bob Keeshan walked the walk. He was the real deal.

It's sad. We all know that. And we're going to miss him terribly. We know that too.

But as with Mr. Rogers last year -- a man who was Bob Keeshan's close friend -- we know that we carry the Captain with us where we go. He is a part of who we are. He is a friend. And, so long as we remember him, he will be there, ready to set sail or perform some magic or introduce a cartoon where dreams come true with the scribbling of chalk.

Good night, Captain.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:26 PM | Comments (2)

January 22, 2004

Eric: The Alchemy of the Slow Cooker

I used to say that I was culinarily impaired. "I need special ramps to use the toaster," I would say. That would get a chuckle, and then I'd tell the regretfully true story of how once I toasted a plate, while leaving the bread on the kitchen counter. This was when I was a teenager. The counter was orange. The plate was quite small. It was four in the morning, so perhaps there is some slack that can be had.

I don't tell those stories now. Instead, I have begun, slowly, to learn the arts arcane. The alchemy of the kitchen is rich and warm, and raw foods combine to make the most remarkable creations. Set free by the wild magic of approximation and experimentation, any two edible things can together make something new. New and often better than the components.

Last night I prepared for tonight's dinner. As with all good spells, it began with a cauldron. This one was black and ceramic, however, fitting in a metal sheath with a low and high setting. Crock. Pot. One fits within the other. Its scientific name is 'slow cooker,' but no matter what magicks I learn from Alton Brown and no matter what scientific names he ascribes to it, cooking is not science. Perhaps one day, for me, it will be art, but for now it is a craft. It is construction paper cut apart and pasted together with Elmer's, for my own pleasure. If I do it well, my mother may hang it on the refrigerator.

This is my best alchemy. It starts with chuck roast, steak cut so the muscle fibers are short. But that sits in the fridge. I need it to begin, but it is the last to be added to the slow cauldron.

Onion is first. It would be best to have fresh, they say, but onion's purpose in this pot is to change and almost vanish, to impart flavor to the broth and become texture without form. To make the parts that aren't meat all the grander. So I take the frozen chopped and slide some in. White crystal chunks of onion spread out over the black ceramic of the pot's bottom.

The first is potato. I have potatoes now. Real ones, that wait for peeling. But this was late and I was not prepared to play with knives, no matter how grand my Christmas knives are. So out come cans. A can of whole potatoes that turns out to have two tiny potatoes and one giant one, so I drain and dump within and, with freshly washed hands, I reach down and break the large one apart. Chunks of potato in my hands. I then add a second can, this time sliced, and there is potato enough. I do not need to touch the sliced potato with my hand.

I have carrots too, sitting in the bottom of my fridge, but pot roast is not a time for slicing. Tonight, when the dregs of one meal becomes the base of another, I will slice fresh potato and fresh carrot and add them, but for today, another can gives up orange goodness, mixing with the white of onion and the gold of potato. A blend of colors.

And then comes spice.

The modern alchemist has his own tools and accoutrements. Gone are the days of beaker and crucible, for the most part. Only the most arcane and well rounded enchanters use mortar and pestle. And for all too many, the open flame is disposed of in lieu of the glowing red electrical coil or the microwave.

The microwave itself is a wonderful, terrible device. It allows for the heating of food made elsewhere, the application of heat without cooking. For years, I 'cooked' with it, a panorama of premade meals and prepared things. The closest I came to cooking was pasta, and that rarely.

Then, I started making what I termed "Bachelor Casseroles." I learned a good method of making rice in the microwave, then added frozen vegetables, sometimes some kind of meat and some kind of sauce base -- golden cream of mushroom soup being the traditional -- mixed and microwaved again until hot. If there was cheese to be had, it would top it to make a crust. Not as good as a baked casserole, perhaps, but a casserole nonetheless, and with appropriate Mrs. Dash or Garlic or other simple spicing, something cooked. Something made. Something which, by virtue of its very randomness had never existed before in quite that form.

Then came the George Foreman Grill. This is a sandwich style grill, heating top and bottom at once, as no doubt you know. And sandwiches was its first result, of course. It took roast beef or turkey and cheese and vegetable and resulted in panini, the bread grilled flat and the foods combined. And the fear and surety of my non-cooking ability began to fade.

Then came the steamer. The steamer which turned eggs into perfectly hard cooked eggs, made a different quality of rice than the microwave, made vegetables glorious.

And then the Crock Pot. The Slow Cooker. Magical thing, that took ingredients and, unattended, made glorious things from them. And then I was cooking not just pot roast but stews and soups and dishes. Now I was truly cooking. Now the craft came easy, and fear was banished. Even a failed beef stew did not ruin it for me.

And make no doubt, I was learning new arts. Alton Brown and cooking shows and books and experimentation began to teach me the black sorcery of the kitchen. Oh, I was a hedge wizard at best, unsuitable for court and perhaps not able to call down rain, but I was learning which spices to use when, and what herbs were best on what vegetables, and how to coax what I wanted from my tools and -- if need be -- from my oven or stove.

Most recently, George Foreman brought his Rotisserie into my home. Now comes simple oven roasting. I am still learning this magic, but it goes well. Pork is now a glorious thing, and I have seen the black spice glaze of roast beef form before my eyes.

There are other tools -- a juicer, a bread maker, a cuisinart -- but these see little use, comparatively. For now. Given time, who can tell how often I might use this.

In the meantime, we have gained utensils. Good knives. A zester. A peeler. Spoons and ladles.

Slowly we learn.

For the spicing, I chose a bold blend. Old Bay, unknown to me until now but as familiar to Alton Brown as his beloved Kosher salt, made its first appearance. A pinch of said kosher salt -- a pinch more than my mother would use, but hardly much added sodium. Black pepper. Garlic powder. All over the potatoes and carrots and onions.

Then, the liquid. I usually use broth, but today beef consommé takes its place. A can of Campbell's, and then a can of water.

And then the meat comes out, and out of its package. It is deep red, somewhat marbled but not too badly. With this cut of meat, it looks almost like a too-thick steak, and perhaps that is apropos.

I start with the kosher salt again. Just the tiniest bit. Kosher salt is thick -- flakes and chunks, rather than grains -- and settles across the meat visibly. It is visceral. Then, I dust with garlic powder, then Old Bay, then Black Pepper. The same blend as before.

My hands freshly washed, I press the spice into the meat. Perhaps this is silly, but perhaps not. It connects me to the meat, to the food. I am part of this process. I am part of the cooking.

And then the meat is turned over, and the spicing is repeated. Both sides needed. Balance must be achieved. Both sides rubbed.

I lay the meat across the spiced vegetables and consommé, sitting atop it all. I add the lid, and lift the crock out of the pot, putting it in the fridge where it will lie in wait. I wash my hands of spice, and set a timer to remind me of dinner in the morning. I let it sit. I walk away.

Comes the dawn, just before seven, the timer will go off. At 6:58 I will lift the crock out, and set it in its chrome enclosure. I will turn the dial to 'low,' and I will again walk away. The magic, prepared hours before, will begin to flow. The alchemy will begin to occur.

By 7:40 the meat has changed color, and steam has collected on the top of the heavy glass lid. I leave it to work. All the day long, it will change and alter and percolate and cook. All the day long, it will become. And when I return home, sometime after five, its smell will have filled the apartment and the transformation will be near to complete. I will sit and chat with my cat, and then I will eat. Good food, made from base components. Hot and tasty and wholly unlike any other pot roast that came before or will come since. Gold from lead. Health from cans and packages.

Food.

I am no chef, but I can cook. I am no artist, but I have craft.

The remaining juices and consomme, blended together in the pot after I have eaten and packaged the leftover pot roast, will become the stock for beef stew. This will be where fresh carrots and potatoes are added, along with yet more frozen onions and some other frozen vegetables. This is where stew meat and flour will come to thicken and hearten. Thyme and cumin and basil and onion powder will join the spices already within. From this, food. Days worth of pot roast, days worth of stew.

And then? I have a yen to make Beef Bourgogne. I have all the ingredients. I have rice to serve it over, and two ways to cook it, not counting the stove.

Magic.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:33 AM | Comments (3)

January 11, 2004

Eric: Confessions of a Liberal Heinlein Fan: Worldbuilding and Utopia

My friend Bruce pointed me to a discussion he thought I'd be interested in. (He thought that, by the way, because he is right. He is often right when it comes to what I'm interested in.) Later, I also found that discussion referenced on Boing Boing, which, besides being one of the online homes of Cory Doctorow contains tons of links to cool things.

The discussion in question was on Electrolite, Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden's weblog, and contains many extremely interesting layers of discussion around the common themes of Robert Heinlein, Heinlein's 'new' book For Us, The Living: A Comedy of Customs, and John Clute's Excessive Candour column reviewing For Us, The Living. The discussion is fascinating because of the sheer plethora of authorities contributing to it. Scientists, futurists, fans, literary critics -- there's something of everything in it, and the content of the discussion is unusually high for the web.

Which isn't really what I'm going to talk about here. Though interestingly enough, I'd already seen the Clute review. In fact, the Clute interview was what told me the book was now available. I knew the book was going to be published, because I'm a member of The Heinlein Society. Somehow, however, I'd missed the publication announcement, so it came as a surprise to find a post-publication review.

I was home in Maine when this happened, over Christmas break. This was a wonderful time, mind, and my first real vacation in a very long time. I was relaxed, going through electronic things, chatting with my folks, hanging out with my cat (Sarah) and their two dogs (Buddy and Teddy). And I found the review in question, and read it.

I imagine it was pretty startling both for parents and animals when I started bouncing on the couch going "EEEEEEEE!"

They say that the Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12. I think it may have been a couple of years before that for me. But, I can remember it very clearly -- the moment when I became an SF fan. And it involved Robert Heinlein.

We were in New York City. We did that a couple of times when I was growing up. And we were in a bookstore. I'm certain it was a bookstore and not some kind of game store. Besides, this was before I got into gaming. Before Dungeons and Dragons and all the rest. But I remember clearly walking through the bookstore and looking at different things, and I remember turning and seeing a game.

It was purple and blue and lurid red, and golden armored men were in the process of falling from the sky. Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers it declared itself. Man vs. Monster. Interstellar Warfare in the Twenty-Second Century.

I was in love. I don't know why. I don't know why my father decided to buy it when I asked, either, but he did. And he even played it with me a couple of times. Looking back, I'm a little surprised we ever played it at all. It was a pretty complicated wargame for someone as young as I was.

But even if I rarely played it, I read through the rules over and over again. Especially the rules on the different scenarios. Especially the 'in character' descriptions of those scenarios. I loved them. I loved the descriptions of Rasczak's Roughnecks and the tremendous esprit de corps of the Mobile Infantry.

And then I found out there was a book. I don't even know how. But I bought it. And read it. Many, many times. Most recently I reread it last May, actually.

From there, I worked my way through every Heinlein novel. Every one of them. I anxiously awaited any new one. I bought books by writers Heinlein referenced, eagerly. From there I bought other SF books. I bought Fantasy novels. I read glorious works and crap, alike.

But always I read Heinlein.

He shaped my early political and sociological opinions. This meant I went through the Libertarian phase almost every Heinlein fan passes through (and a good number never come out of, and there's nothing wrong with that). It also meant that my concepts of personal honor, of liberty coupled with responsibility, of duty, of sin and of love were shaped in part by Heinlein's writings. As I later entered a moderate and then liberal phase of my thoughts, I still found much of who I was shaped by Heinlein and his own evolving beliefs.

I was in the theater alone (one of the rare times I went to a movie by myself) to see Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters. I went with my friend Russ to see Starship Troopers, and had a great B movie time while decrying the loss of opportunity to make an actual movie out of the book. I know where I was when I heard (on NPR) that Heinlein had died. I remember that moment like the generations before mine remember where they heard that Kennedy was dead.

After his death, I bought each 'new' book as it came out. I bought Grumbles from the Grave and devoured it. I bought and cherished Tramp Royale. I read Requiem and cried at the parts that all the other fans cried at. I bought the "uncut" Stranger in a Strange Land. I bought the 'sad ending' Podkayne of Mars.

When I was at Baycon last year, I went to some of the Heinlein panels, and discovered that regardless of my current ethos, Heinlein's children are my people, and I'm proud to be among them. I joined the Heinlein Society after that convention, and discovered I still had plenty to learn about a man whose writing I can now put into a proper perspective -- but which will always have tremendous personal significance to me.

Imagine what it is like, for one of Heinlein's children to learn that an unpublished manuscript had been found. Imagine what it is like to learn that a Heinlein novel -- in fact, his lost first novel -- had been found. And then to learn that apparently when he wasn't looking, that book had been published.

Tremendous.

I called ahead to Borders. They had one copy left. Sales, I was told, had been brisk. I asked them to hold it.

My parents and I drove down. I got the book, along with Cory Doctorow's short story collection and the second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel. I started reading on the way home.

By the time my vacation was over, I'd read the new Heinlein twice, straight through.

Clute's review of For Us, The Living is excellent. He has a truly valuable understanding of what this book is and what it isn't. And as much as I loved the book, I do understand what it isn't.

For example, it's not a novel. It's barely a story. But more on that in a bit.

Clute also recognizes the value of Dr. Robert James's afterward. Dr. James is an excellent scholar and researcher -- and clearly a very cool person. I had the pleasure of meeting him at Baycon, and am hopeful he'll be at Arisia in a couple of weeks. Clute is less charitable toward Spider Robinson's introduction, and I admit Spider does come across as a little silly. But, I'm inclined to cut him a lot of slack -- during a period when the SF establishment couldn't find anything good to say about Heinlein (an attitude which is fading but still clings here and there) Robinson went loudly and on the record in support of the Dean of Science Fiction. And may have had his career suffer as a result. As a result, he gets to be as silly as he likes, for my money.

(All right, I think the idea that somehow Virginia Heinlein's influence on her husband extends clearly into this work, written several years before they'd even met while he was married to a different woman entirely, is as silly as Harold Bloom's contention that Shakespeare influenced Chaucer. Still, having written an unapologetically sappy reunion story after Mrs. Heinlein passed on, I'm not about to cast stones at Mr. Robinson's reverence for the lady.)

Clute goes on to discuss the remarkable points of the work -- particularly Heinlein's advocacy of liberal issues and attitudes, born of his reverence of the time with Upton Sinclair, who he knew and under whose theories Heinlein ran for public office (unsuccessfully) -- in great detail. And certainly, those who have decided Heinlein was an ultraconservative will be more than a little surprised by his love of fiat money, social credit and government control in this story. However, before one decides Heinlein's views were wholly different later they need to see all the myriad ways his most famous opinions are echoed in this first major work. Most significantly, Heinlein's lifelong commitment to personal privacy is echoed in the constitution of his Utopia:

Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act, which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person. No act shall constitute a violation of a law valid under this provision unless there is such damage, or immediate present danger of such damage resulting from that act.

That paragraph would fit in perfectly in works from Beyond this Horizon through Starship Troopers and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress all the way up to To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Heinlein may have been a fiat money advocate in For Us, The Living and a hard currency advocate in Time Enough for Love, but the banking conversation Lazarus Long has in Time Enough's "The Tale of the Adopted Daughter" finds its roots in the extensive economics lessons in For Us, The Living. Heinlein's advocacy of homosexual rights, womens' rights, and racial rights can be found in For Us, The Living and are echoed throughout the rest of his work. And as Liberal as Heinlein seems to be in For Us, The Living, he still clearly sees the military as both honorable and necessary. And even the service-franchise of Starship Troopers is presaged in a Constitutional amendment in For Us, The Living: in this future time, any time the United States Congress or the President wants to go to war without the United States first being attacked, a referendum is called -- and only those people eligible to be drafted for that war are allowed to vote. If the vote carries, those who voted for the war are the first to be conscripted into service, the very next day, automatically. The next group pulled into service are those eligible soldiers who didn't vote. Those who opposed the war are called up last.

(Don't you wonder how the last two years would have been different if the Invasion of Iraq had to be voted on and approved by those required to register for Selective Service before it could have begun? Heaven knows I do.)

It's a fascinating view of Heinlein's work, and made all the more fascinating by the hints of Heinlein's later content. Quite apart from the political and economic themes, echoes of Heinlein's future writing appear again and again. Elements that would appear in the Future History, in Beyond this Horizon, in "If This Goes On..." and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, in Friday and Job: A Comedy of Justice and many, many other stories -- right down to some of the conflicts in The Number of the Beast and To Sail Beyond the Sunset appear in this book. Clute and Robinson and James alike note these elements and similarities.

And also note that as a novel, it's not much of a novel. It doesn't have much plot. Its story elements are, in Robinson's words, a sexy but thin negligee the book wants you to tear off, so that it can seduce you with its long essays on Utopia. And make no mistake -- this is a Utopic Work. This is more an essay than anything else, they say. They even point out Heinlein's use of footnotes (rather pretentiously attributed to "the Author" but clearly written from within the fourth wall, not through it.)

They're right about this not really being a novel. But they're wrong about it being an essay, really.

I recognize this form, you see. And I'll bet everyone else in my own profession does too.

This isn't a novel, and this isn't an essay. This is Heinlein's notebook for his Role Playing Game and campaign.

I'm quite serious. I've seen this any number of times. Hell, I've written it more than once. The same way my 2nd Edition AD&D game 'house rules' broke 200,000 words and had 230 footnotes, this is an extended work of Worldbuilding on Heinlein's part. He puts in huge pieces about how they got there, he follows them up with all the ways this world is different than we might expect, and despite a token effort, there's really no conflict to be found anywhere within. At the end of the book I expected to find hyperlinks to his game logs and to system mechanics.

Naturally, Heinlein wasn't a roleplayer, but the RPG Worldbuilder's phenomenon is also the budding SF writer's Worldbuilder's phenomenon. Before anyone can become a writer, they have to learn a core lesson -- setting is not story, and no matter how fascinating your fictional world is, until you put real people into it and give them problems, no one's going to care. Eventually, writers evolve out of the habit and, if they're smart, mine the huge backstory they've so painstakingly worked out (believing they're preparing to write, but really doing it for their own sake) and use it where appropriate for their later works.

As Heinlein himself does, it's worth noting. His decline and fall of the United States into Theocracy under Nehemiah Scudder, the fate of a United Europe that descends into 40 Years War (and predicts the European Union pretty amazingly, in ways), the rolling roads, the Crazy Years, Coventry and its rules, the essential "An it harm none, do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" nature of the Constitution, the Privacy Customs, the pneumatic tube internet... all of these things, mutated and changed somewhat, found their way into later Heinlein works, almost always as elements of backstory instead of the lead element.

The book's tone reminds me the most of Beyond this Horizon, all told. And anyone who enjoyed that book will enjoy this one. Anyone who read more than a couple of Heinleins will also enjoy this, and if you read more than five Heinleins this book approaches a must-buy, sheerly for the insight into the development as Heinlein, the writer. As a standalone work, it's weak, and as a Utopia it's passable. But no matter what this does to my New Critic credentials, the value of For Us, The Living is contextual, and from that standpoint this work couldn't be more important.

Hey, I read it through twice in three days. And I'm going to read it again. What more do I need to say?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:33 PM | Comments (4)

January 8, 2004

Eric: Playlists and Coffeemakers: Recapturing the Personal

It takes a good amount of time to come to terms with iTunes.

Our music collections have always been quasi-public affairs. We showed off our record collection to friends. We pointed with pride to the racks and racks of CDs we have. We kept huge boxes of tapes in the back seat of our cars, ready to be popped in at a moment's notice. We built careful mix tapes both for ourselves and for the people we liked. Having a large music collection showed good taste, good breeding, and an appreciation of the artistic. And when we managed to talk an attractive member of our preferred sex into our room, we had a huge range of mood music we could put on and hopefully help said person out of their underwear.

But, the problem with being quasi-public is... well, just anyone can end up seeing your music collection. The snotty girlfriend of your best friend can show up and snark about how much she hates the Bay City Rollers. The Music Geek Wannabe can snort when they see your prized collection of 45's, talking about how crap Foreigner was. So you shrink back, argue, or otherwise get put on the defensive. And the next time you look through your albums, you see that piece of music, make a face, and never listen to it again.

Do you have any idea how stupid that is? I mean, who gives a damn if you like Anne Murray? Well, besides Anne Murray herself. Is there anything as personal as what collections of sound you find appealing? Is there any reason what we like should be dictated by what other people like? I'm in my mid-thirties, not high school.

The worst I ever got with this comes from the mid-nineties, when I was living in Seattle with Bill, Dominic and T. While we were sitting around one day, I made some innocuous reference to Billy Joel.

"Oh, Christ," Dominic said. "I hate Billy Joel."

"Me too," Bill said. "Ugh."

Now, here I am. I'm an admitted geek. I'm living with geeks and nonconformists and men with Travolta hair. I'm (at that point) in my late twenties, and I'm an intelligent person.

"Oh Jesus," I thought to myself. "I didn't know Billy Joel sucked!" So I stopped listening to Billy Joel.

See, all three of my roommates at that time have musical tastes that appeal to me. They introduced me to hardcore Elvis Costello, to Bare Naked Ladies, to Kirsty Macall, to They Might Be Giants, to Bad Religion, to Oingo Boingo, to Stan Ridgway, to Tom Waits, to Warren Zevon, to the Jazz Butcher and that's just off the top of my head. About the only heavy music influences from my time in Seattle -- one of the music capitals of the world -- not from Bill or Dominic or T was jazz, and that's just because we had KPLU, which has to be the best jazz Public Radio station on Earth.

So, while I had always been a huge Billy Joel fan, I suddenly had doubts. And make no mistake, I was a huge fan. I went to his Bridge tour. I had all his albums. I listened to his greatest hits collection on shuffle.

Flash forward five years. I'm living in New Hampshire. I'm getting my CDs out of storage. I'm revisiting old favorites. I'm revelling a little. And I come across Glass Houses.

"Oh, that," I think. "Forget it. Billy Joel sucks."

Five years. Five years after an offhanded comment from a couple of guys who didn't like Billy Joel, and I was still marked. It was another year and a half before I started listening to him, and later still when I realized that what Bill and Dominic think of Billy Joel couldn't possibly matter less to my current life. Especially since I know almost all the friends I see on a regular basis like Billy Joel. Or love Billy Joel. Or want to bear children by Billy Joel.

(All right, I admit freely I think the 'Classical Composer William Joel' needs a good hearty punch to the stomach, but that has nothing to do with his music.)

Now... let's move to today. And to the iTunes Music Store.

Holy Mother Juggs and Speed.

Forget Kazaa and the original Napster and Grokster and all the rest. iTunes is phenomenal. You hear a song you like on TV, and one buck later it's yours. You remember an album you like, or a new one comes out, and ten bucks later you're listening to it. It's addictive and it's beautiful and it just plain works. iTunes is just plain fantastic.

And it's entirely personal.

No one is going to be walking through my apartment and chancing upon my iTunes playlist. If I walk into my office and see someone scrolling through something on my computer without asking, I'm going to make him wish he'd never been born. When it syncs to the iPod, it's syncing to my personal music machine, and no one else matters.

And one day, it hits you that you're free. You're free to indulge your musical tastes, no matter how unpopular they may be. Hell, you're free to indulge your musical tastes, no matter how popular they may be. Music Snobbery can no longer touch you.

So yes, I have reams of quirky, brilliant, indie and alternative music. Yes, I have collections of folks men in dark suits without ties, short haircuts and hornrimmed glasses will nod their approval on. Yes, I have music I can play at any party and not have anyone make a face.

But I also have Billy Joel. And some Pat Benatar. Hell, I have some Neil Diamond.

Neil Diamond. I forgot how cool a song "I Am, I Said" is.

And I have "Crazy in Love" by Beyoncé -- absolutely pop, absolutely currently popular, and no doubt hated as trash by most right thinking Music Geeks over the age of 30. But I like it, so I have it.

That's what iTunes has given us. That's what MP3s and AACs and OGGs have given us. That is the freedom we have. We have the power to create the soundtrack of our own lives, and the power to do it without censure from everyone around us. We can have the Beatles and the Monkees and the Flash Girls and Madness on the same playlist. We can indulge our love of blues and our love of cheesy 70's overproduced easy listening. We can listen to Sinatra and Tony Orlando and 50 Cent in a row, and it doesn't matter to anyone but you.

That's cool. That's power. That's just plain neat.

It's damnably cold right now. It was -3 plus 30-40 MPH winds this morning. Last night it was cold enough that they decided not to have the kids walk from their dorms to the academic building to study, lest they get flash-frostbitten. Winter has officially arrived in New Hampshire, in all its windtunnel glory.

I'm coping well enough with the cold. I have the coolest coffeemaker on Earth. It's a Keurig single cup, and it just. Plain. Works. You fill it with water every few days. You get a hankering for coffee. You put a cup down. You select what coffee you want (I'm big on Hazelnut or French Vanilla.) You drop the little tub -- still sealed -- inside. You push the button. Thirty seconds later you sip the hot, fresh, well perked, good cup of coffee. It just plain works.

This is huge. This is major. This is tremendous. You have to understand -- I hate making a full pot of coffee. Not only can't I ever get the proportions quite right for what I want, I inevitably don't want more than one or two cups. This thing just makes what I want, and it makes it as good coffee. Every time.

The Catholic Church should look into the possible theological implications. I'm relatively certain the Keurig would count as one of the three miracles needed for canonization. I know, I know. I'm mister gadget. But aside from the Tivo, I don't know of a single gadget I've ever had that I use each and every day without fail. Except this one.

Every day.

I haven't had a caffeine headache in three months.

(Yes, I know. Long time readers want to know why I'm drinking coffee instead of tea. Tea is special. Tea is a ritual. Tea is a calming. Tea takes time and effort. Coffee is a caffeine delivery system. You see the distinction? Knew you would.)

So, in walking to school and trying hard not to freeze to death, having a full travel mug of hot coffee is an amazingly nice thing. In fact, the winter should be pretty good, all told.

Or so we hope.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:53 AM | Comments (6)

January 6, 2004

Eric: Hello my friend, won't you tell me your name?

Do we really need a new incarnation of my journal?

It's a fair question. Yes, I certainly enjoyed writing in my full online journal before (from April 18, 1999 to June 4, 2001), but do I have more to say, now? And do I need to say it in the full Online Journal format? I mean, I do have a Livejournal, and don't keep that nearly up to date enough. Why add to my discontent by reviving something that hasn't been active for so long?

Why indeed.

The world is not the same place it was back in April of 1999. This is true both online and in real life. I shudder to think the moments of horror we have all had to endure in the last five years, and the systematic challenges to our way of life, to our essential freedoms, to our Constitution and to our community have come from bombers and terrorists and the highest officials in our own government. We have had ample reason to know fear and lose hope. And yet, we have as a people endured and moved on. We have remembered who we are and why we are, and fought back against both the assault on our nation and the assault on our Constitution.

In the last five years, online journals have also given rise to the phenomenon of Weblogging. Blogs and Livejournals are everywhere now. Everyone has them, it seems. Weblogging was considered the strategic key to Howard Dean's ascent to the front of the Democratic pack in the upcoming primary season. Wil Wheaton, TV's lovable Wesley Crusher, went from a mostly despised afterthought from the 80's and 90's incarnation of Star Trek to a mostly beloved fellow geek and traveller through life, thanks to the power of his blog. Iraqis blogged from the heart of Iraq during the war. Journalists blogged from the heart of the troops during the war. And tens of thousands of 19 year olds wail into the night in their Livejournals. The weblog has both come of age and supplanted the Online Journal utterly, and today Online Journalling of any stripe is not seen as revolutionary or even exhibitionist, but average and normal. It's a part of what folks do when they're online. A part of who they are.

So why should I pick my own journal back up? It's nigh impossible that I'll get the thousands of daily readers I once had back -- there's plenty for them to read out there now, and a substantial portion of it is written by hot young things who like to post pictures of themselves in ragged clothing. How does a fat guy in New Hampshire compete with that?

And does he have to?

I'm reminded of an entry I wrote on April 18, 2000. It was the one year anniversary of Some Days in the Life, and I was waxing philosophical. And I reminisced about all that had happened in the previous year... and how much of it I would never have thought about again without a journal like this one to follow. As I said then:

Without this journal, I'd think back over the past year and, but for my Cardiomyopathy, I'd figured very little has changed. With this journal, I realize everything has changed. The changes are all right here, in electrons and HTML.

That remains true. The last few years are more of a haze, even with Livejournal entries to follow. And the Livejournal isn't nearly as good for essay writing as a true journal is. Livejournal entries are more immediate, somehow. More focused. Less objective. No matter how personal a journal entry is, it seems somehow less like short correspondence and more like serious writing. Like something someone does to actually produce instead of just to ramble.

That means something. That feels good.

The tools are almost entirely different, now. In the old days of journalling, we created and worked on websites and built each new journal page by hand. These days, I'm driving creation with Movable Type, which does all the crosslinking. And I've got an RSS feed for Livejournal, so folks can see when I write new entries. It's all very automatic and magical now. I suppose that makes me a little sad. There is something to be said for handcrafting, even when the hands are really just typing. Mostly, it's more convenient, and that's a very good thing.

So, maybe it's time for a whole new volume of this journal. Maybe it's time to go back to basics. After all, I didn't start this with the idea of getting much of an audience, last time. As I said in my original 'first post:'

It started with Bill Dickson. Bill's a friend of mine from my Relay days (ah, Relay, we hardly knew ye), my days in Ithaca, New York and my days in Seattle. Bill has an online journal which gets addicting to read. There are two reactions to something like this. One is to anxiously await his next entry and follow his links to other journals to ease the pain. I suspect this is what people who aren't colossally arrogant do.

The other is to start your own. Which is what people who don't meet the above requirement do. Guess which camp I'm in.

Arrogance is a part of writing. It's a big part, actually. It's that part that says "I am so good at this that you will want to read it because I'm good enough for that. It's like that in poetry, especially. There are three types of poet in the world. Two are poseurs, and one is a poet. They break down like this:

Poseur sub A

A poet who truly believes that his tortured soul can't withstand the pain any longer. He needs to express himself. So he writes poetry. Reams of it. Enough poetry to make Sir Philip Sydney take up plumbing as a profession. And he never shows it to anyone -- it's too personal. It's too intense. It would be like a woman unbuttoning her blouse on the bus -- most women don't want you to know she's wearing a wonderbra. This is fortunate, as most Poseur sub A's poetry is extended masturbation where they didn't have the decency to clean up after themselves.

Poseur sub B: The Artiste

They talk about poetry. A lot. They talk about the specialized, internal, highly personal world of the poetry. They often wear tweed and smoke pipes or clove cigarettes. Notable because they haven't actually written more than three lines of poetry. In it for the lifestyle and in the hopes they'll get groupies.

Poet

Irritating fellow who writes poetry and then tries to force you to read it. These are the folks who go to poetry slams and scream out "shut the fuck up!" at the top of their lungs to try to get you to listen to their eight hundred line prose poem on breakfast. Carry chapbooks in the trunk of their car.

The third type -- the actual poet -- is arrogance personified. It extends into all media. The person who reads every newsgroup specifically to find idiots to flame because their idiots is a form of usenet artist, striving for a voice and recognition from someone. The person who writes fiction and leaves it under your windshield wiper for you to find coming out of the grocery store. The person who publishes an online journal. Arrogance and a belief that the things they say will be interesting to someone fuels them.

Without these people, we would only have Morality plays and Viking Sagas for entertainment, and those get repetitive after a while.

So, in summary, I'm writing this because I liked Bill's, and am arrogant enough to want to write one.

These are all still true. I still like Bill's Journal -- which, as intermittent as it is, is still being written all these years later, so Bill wins the prize. And I still believe in the artist who simply has to create, who simply has to say something, who simply has to be let it be known, because they're arrogant enough to think someone, someday will want to know it.

That's still me, five years later. I'm a lot more battered, and in a lot of ways more cynical, but in the end I still like Bill's journal, and I'm still arrogant enough to want to write one of my own.

I won't give up my Livejournal. It serves a wholly different function now -- it's the quick fix, the 'oh by the way,' the place where I bitch about Health Insurance bastards and point out online comics I think are funny. This journal's for something else. For something where I want to write for long periods of time. For when I have something to say that's more relevant than 'man I feel like shit.'

In short -- for when I want to get my Opinion on.

So. Here we are again. You and I. Hi there. It's been a while. My name is Eric. I'm a writer. I work as an I.T. Manager at a private school in New Hampshire. I have a cat, a car, health problems and a tendency to think.

Let's see what happens.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:06 AM | Comments (8)