Websnark

February 18, 2009

Eric: Be helpful to someone in need. No, not me.

I know there's few people out there these days, and that's reasonable enough, but if you're one of them please head over to Karen Ellis's comic Planet Karen. Mlle. Ellis lost much if not most of her stuff in a building fire that took out her apartment as collateral damage and she could use donations or a helping hand.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:35 PM | Comments (3)

February 4, 2009

Eric: What the Hell. If I'm going to lurch out of the grave, I might as well do something like analysis.

(From Least I Could Do! Click on the thumbnail for full sized pre-employment sexual harassment suit!)

Set aside the tit joke before we talk about this. The tit joke was a given. This is Least I Can Do. You either like the tit joke or you don't.

This extended subplot's been interesting to me for a number of reasons. One because it brings Issa back as a significant cast member. She's been on the shelf way too long, and she's too interesting to be on the shelf. But the other is the parallel between Rayne and Issa and their career trajectories.

Rayne is a wish-fulfillment fantasy, at his heart. He's handsome, can nail dozens of chicks a week with little to no consequences despite -- let's be honest -- not being nice about it. He's got a bitching car. He's got a great group of friends. He has wild adventures. He's... well, he's the male equivalent of the Hot Geek Amazon -- the perfect woman who's gorgeous and can quote Lord of the Rings trivia with the best of them.

And, much like Issa, he's never really had to grow up. In part because everything comes easily to him. Women come easily to him. Success comes easily to him. When he writes a bad time travel novel is goes into a bidding war between major publishers. He lives the Life of Riley, for those who remember what the Hell the Life of Riley is.

And, a few years back... he got a job at IDS industries.

One he wasn't qualified for, which he got by falsifying his references, and which put later cast member Nancy at risk of her job. All to sleep with Marcy McKean, the CEO. Which he sort of did later, but by then he was ensconced in his job.

To do so, he took a leave of absence from his newspaper, where he was writing a column. Note that he didn't quit, at that point. He took a leave. Because he was just going to sleep with Marcy and then quit. Only somewhere along the way he forgot to leave. And apparently he turned out to be pretty good at his job.

Now, Issa needs a job. And she's been pushing Rayne to get her one, because her entire adult life she's worked at a gas station convenience store. She has no job skills. She has nothing but an impressive rack. She doesn't live the Life of Riley. And Rayne has been resistant to help her -- in part because he feel she needs to grow up (and Rayne is stunningly judgmental about his friends), and in part because it would be highly irresponsible to give her a job at his company when she wasn't qualified for it. (Including, I would point out, a data entry job. Which is, to be blunt, entry level.)

In other words... she's exactly in the same position he was. Unqualified to even be in the room. The only difference was confidence and intention. Rayne's intention was to have sex with a hot chick and then leave. Issa legitimately wants a job that will give her practical skills and experience and help her start her real life.

Between that and Rayne's missing the writer's lifestyle, I have to wonder if we're finally going to shoot that gun on the mantlepiece. (Chekov's Law states that if you threaten a secretary's job if she gets fooled by a sleazeball who's faking his references to have sex with a hot CEO in the first act, you must fire her in the third). After all, sooner or later the truth has to come out. Rayne has enemies at IDS, and even if he's good at his job, falsifying his resume to get it is the sort of thing they fire you for regardless of the results.

And if he gets Issa a job... someone who knows Rayne had no qualifications for his job will be working there. Accidents happen.

Where this goes should be interesting. Though don't expect a resolution next week. Sohmer takes his time with these things. He lets them perk and build. Which might be surprising if all you've noticed so far were the tit jokes.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:06 AM | Comments (22)

Eric: Another lurch from the grave

(From XKCD. Click on the thumbnail for full sized analysis!

I'm still dead. Especially today -- I've been sick as a dog all weekend. It's funny, really. The medical regimen I'm on is working really, really well -- my heart is in fantastic shape, which is good news for anyone who nearly died of congestive heart failure at the start of the Bush administration. But between the cocktail of pills I take every day and residual effects of the cardiomyopathy my immune system doesn't work all that well. I get sick often, and when I do I get it bad.

None of which is why I'm here. I'm just here to say this should totally be a tee-shirt or other marketed design. "I'm your statistically significant other" should be a Facebook relationship option, damn it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:41 AM | Comments (1)

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 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 (78)

September 1, 2008

Eric: I promise you, we don't get up that early on a Sunday.

(From Least I Could Do! Click on the thumbnail for full sized homily!)

It's been demonstrated in the last that Lar deSouza likes to throw in stealth cameos into the strip. (I assume it's deSouza who does it, since he does the drawings and all.) My favorite to date has been when Rayne hit on Jamie and Hazel in a supermarket, trying to talk them into a threesome.

Now, it's well known that Wednesday and I can appreciate... well, what we term "recreational Christianity." We enjoy watching Christian entertainment on an MST3K level -- and sometimes on its own merits. Since becoming involved with Weds, I've seen most of Bibleman, a fair number of the Charlton Heston introduced Greatest Heroes And Legends Of The Bible, the horrifically cheesy and generally (though not exclusively) bad Left Behind movies, a metric ton of Davey and Goliath, and most recently I've been infected with The Flying House, which is a frighteningly well made cartoon regardless of its subject matter. Oh, and lots of Jack Chick tracts, as long time readers well know.

Which leads us to the above Least I Could Do.

It's by no means certain that the two horrified people sitting in front of Noel and Mick in panel four are supposed to be Wednesday and Eric Burns-White, but it's also by no means uncertain. Granted, if it were the two of us, in the mythical panel five, our looks of shock would have been punctuated by a "...duuuuuuude."

On the other hand, it might simply be coincidence. Weds is usually depicted with more chestnut or auburn hair, for example. In which case, they may just be... well, someone else.

So if they're not supposed to be us, please, enjoy the message. Don't be a bitch, man.

And if they are?

Well then, submitted without comment.

(Yay! We've hit for the 2004-5 cycle!)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:10 PM | Comments (4)

August 29, 2008

Eric: Also, I kind of miss the Volvo. But I'm weird.

(From Real Life Comics! Click on the thumbnail for full sized CLANG!)

I continue to follow Real Life Comics, generally happily so. However, there's a certain dynamic energy that it's been lacking of late. I've sometimes tried to figure out what it could be, mind -- it's not that Real Life Comics is bad, it's just not....

Oh God, here comes that phrase. That horrible, horrible phrase.

...it's just not what it was.

The phrase is horrible because it is both unreasonable and inevitable. No comic can remain what it was. None. Garfield today is not the same comic as Garfield in 1977. Blondie is massively different from when it started. The first days of Sheldon have a different feel than the most recent days of Sheldon. Webcomic, newspaper comic, pamphlet comic, or other -- time forces evolution of some kind.

It's unreasonable because it belies entitlement of the worst sort. "Oh. Well, I liked the strip before... so they should stay like that. Now it's different. It's just not what it was." It's the passive-aggressive variation on "you suck."

Which, you know, Real Life Comics... doesn't. It doesn't suck. It's pretty good. It's got good art and it's generally funny. I have no complaints. It's just... not what it was, you know? I couldn't get my brain around the concept better than that. I couldn't point to anything and say "this is what's changed." It was just there.

Which is one reason I haven't written about it much, lately. You remember E. Burns-White's Principle on Discourse from the last post, right? "Anytime you think something is self-evident? It's not." I couldn't write about Real Life Comics without asserting it's differences without demonstrating them. Which is high-falutin' for saying i couldn't back my words up.

And today, with Tony coming back in, I can. Suddenly, my thoughts have crystalized. I can write this post. Because today has the dynamic energy that it generally doesn't have, and I can put it to words.

For quite a while now, Real Life Comics has been too close to real life.

The joke of the comic's premise has always been that these are just 'real life comics.' Greg Dean is just documenting his daily routine. Nothing to see here. But of course, said real life included dimensional doors, sentient computers, time machines, death rays, and a universe where the Dreamcast was a successful gaming platform. There was a certain undercurrent of absurdity to everything. If Greg ate a whole box of Krispy Kreme donuts, he could gain superpowers. When new computers were constructed, sometimes they needed cooling towers. It wasn't just fantasy, it was absurdly unreal.

Now, that element hasn't completely disappeared. For several strips, Dean's been telling us about how drinking an energy shot has accidentally made him a supergenius. That's within the ballpark. However, things are generally more settled now. More grounded. Greg and Liz are married. They have jobs. They go out to movies. They point out the truly absurd aspects of life. And there is a sense that things are just... there. Settled. In a routine. Like most college students who's moved out into the world (with almost ten years' passage of time), the characters have gone into routine.

Today, though... today's a glimpse of that old energy. The frying pan to the back of Greg's head as "cure" harkens back to the truly absurd. It's not one step away from reality -- it's a full on lurch.

And I've missed that. Greg Dean (the cartoonist) has such a great sense of imagination -- such a grasp of the crazy -- that it's sad to see it gone from the strip most of the time. I'd love to see some full on adventures come back center stage. I'd love to see Greg and Liz accidentally fall through time to somewhen else and have to try and deal with it. I'd love to see the incarnate totality of X-Box Live gain sentience in their living room and call them infantile names.

Hell, you know what would be fun? Have some horrific experiment of Dave's send today's Greg back to 2000, and send that Greg to today. Just for a couple weeks, mind -- but if there's going to be contrast, revel in it.

Like I said above, Real Life Comics will never be what it was -- because it can't be. None of us can go back to what we were. (Says the man who's blogging the way he did four years ago and seeing how long it sticks.) But maybe what it was... can inform what it becomes.

Either way, I enjoyed that frying pan disproportionately much.

(Apropos of nothing -- the Real Life Support Group is being called upon by Greg and Liz, what for to help preserve Liz's education in the wake of the current economic climate. It's on their front page right now, down towards the bottom. Fly! Liz is cool people!)

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:21 PM | Comments (31)

August 28, 2008

Eric: Next, I fully expect we'll be introduced to an irish anthropomorphic fish with sleep inducing powers dressed as a 1920's Chicago Gangster.

(From Evil, Inc. Click on the thumbnail for full sized flashback!)

For the record, I smirked.

Also for the record, one doesn't go to Brad Guigar in the first place if they're not prepared for the occasional pun.

However, I put it to you, the assemblage. How far is too far when setting up said pun?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:26 AM | Comments (14)

August 27, 2008

Eric: It is worth noting I often hear Oompa music when I read XKCD. I have no idea why.

(From Sarah Zero! Click on the update for full sized riddlin'!)

The thing about Sarah Zero is the soundtrack.

I can't describe it -- not really. There's only one language to articulate the music in your head, and while I can read music and I can imagine music, I can't write music. I don't have the theory, the understanding of the relationships. I can't take the music in my head and put it down on paper.

But reading Sarah Zero, I can hear it. So very, very clearly. I can hear the angry base, the distortion on the guitars. I can hear Randy Bachman fighting it out with Flea. Every panel, every page of Sarah Zero gets louder and angrier and sometimes quieter and sadder. Music evokes. Music entices. Music enflames. And music destroys.

What is it about Sarah Zero?

One of the things that happens in webcomics is graphic design. To be a webcartoonist you must create imagery, but to present imagery on a page you have to design that page. It may be web design or page design or print design but at its core it is graphic design, and a good number of fantastic artists make for terrible graphic designers. Despite everything, they are two different skillsets, and while some of that is language -- sometimes, the artist can see the web site in their head but they lack the XHTML and CSS to put it on the page -- a lot of it is a different sense of understanding. An understanding of whitespace, of navigation, of leading the eye. It's not just panel arrangement, it's comprehension.

In the old days, essays were called compositions. It's why we still take "English Composition" in college. And in the end, graphic design is to sequential art as composition is to writing. It is the framework, that presents the thesis. It is the structure that tells the story. It is the gateway into the brain.

We compose.

Just like the composer penning notes in 3/4 time, arranging measures and considering individual instruments. Each musician in the piece will be playing music, but if they all come together -- if they all play at exactly the right moments -- the whole weaves together into a tapestry vastly greater than any one piccolo player can produce.

One of the things about the artist? (The artist who identifies as both Stef and Ace Plughead, so takes your choice.) The artist is a graphic designer. This site is entirely devoted to the presentation of content. It doesn't use Flash or any weird barriers. It slams the visuals full size right into your brain, getting out of the way while remaining accessible.

So too there are the panels themselves. Each panel is self contained -- a statement that stands alone. The juxtaposition of text, image and concept. There aren't word balloons here. You're never sure if the voice you hear is literally or internally speaking. And there is no detail that seems to small not to work in. Have a look at page 264 -- two panel spread, but within the two panel spread you have a secondary layout; a grid format working in whitespace easily recognizable to a desktop publisher in 1992 and just as recognizable to a web developer today. Every word works into the grid, and at the same time every link and icon is its own angry satire. Panel 2 becomes almost Russian Realism as done for the MTV generation. Less defined, more defiant.

I burned through the whole archives. They lend themselves to that. And through it all, I heard the music.

I'll be honest -- part of me wonders if I should put Sarah Zero aside until it's finished. It's got such a strong sense of connection -- such a strong sense of one page building from the last, that reading a new page in near isolation doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me. I'd forget too much of what I'd seen. I'd have to start anew every time. Possibly it's better to wait until the whole is done, and experience the composition in its entirety.

Either way, this is a Hell of a way to start a morning.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:39 AM | Comments (9)

August 26, 2008

Eric: The Surgeon General has generally recommended pregnant women or women who are nursing avoid Potions of Heroism. Consult your Healer with questions or to see if Potions of Heroism are right for you.

(From The Order of the Stick! Click on the thumbnail for full sized stereotypical cravings!)

With the end of the last major storyline, Rich Burlew took the opportunity to divide his cast while putting the Order's leader -- action Roy Greenhilt -- out of contact through death. While this greatly increased his storytelling abilities -- letting him progress to a certain point on one side, then moving to the other where enough has happened to put things into a whole new in media res situation -- the other advantage this has granted is an increased secondary cast. Each subgroup of the Order of the Stick has its own supporting cast, its own antagonists, and its own situations to work through. Where once the strip was essentially the primary adventurers and their primary antagonists, now Burlew has a device that lets him develop his world and the people who live in it.

These two -- Kazumi Kato and her husband Daigo (last name withheld in case of emergency as an anti Redshirt function) -- are probably my favorite of these new supporting character. Two soldiers who have become adventurers, the pair has developed a relationship on the periphery of the Order's activities, culminating in their marriage and Kazumi's pregnancy. On the one hand, the pair have become yet another example of the various d20 jokes and roleplaying convention parodies that populate the strip. On the other, they're just a nice example of a couple of budding heroes who have essentially no angst in them no matter what's happening around them. Sure, their city's been invaded and occupied, their liege is on the run for his life, and there's always the danger of Ninja Attack, but on the other hand they're gaining levels and they have each other, and they're pretty happy.

That may be about to change, with Daigo unconscious and Kazumi fighting for her life while many months pregnant... but with today's strip, I can't say I'm seeing any down side. Frankly, this made me laugh for fifty-two minutes straight, and even now I find myself muttering "why should I care how many people I have to kill? I can just make more in my TUMMY!" and giggling all over again.

In a way, this is the fantasy equivalent of one of my favorite Super Stupor strips. In lots of fiction, the most kick-ass of women becomes little more than a helpless plot device, unable to do anything to save herself when someone shows up to kill her -- at least until some (male) hero comes and saves her helpless pregnant body.

Not so here. Burlew put Daigo down fast, and let the "helpless" Kazumi to herself. And, flush with hormones and righteous anger, she has proceeded to slaughter all in her way. It's not like she's endangering her unborn child more than helplessly waiting to be stabbed, after all. And she is, in the end, a hero, and the idea that a pack of low level ninja assassins are going to take her down just because -- in her words -- "her egg's perimeter was breached" is just plain ridiculous.

Power to her. Win or lose, triumph or tragedy, this was downright kick-ass.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:20 PM | Comments (13)

August 22, 2008

Eric: Wednesday is also getting good at programming the GPS and having her iPod stocked with music so I don't have to use mine. I'm not sure how I didn't die in a flaming car wreck two years before I met her.

(From Shortpacked! Click on the thumbnail for full sized earworm!)

Shortpacked's been going great guns of late. Willis learned the magic of plot and humor in delicious frappacino style blends early on in Shortpacked's run -- which is one reason I think Shortpacked is the best of the many comics he's done. Plus, you know, there are antics, but I digress.

Today's strip is a one-off. And it's one that makes me laugh because I've been there. I've been That Guy. And the depressing thing is, I didn't used to be.

See, my phone of several years broke, about six months ago. It was a RAZR -- mighty and sliver and all around... telephonic. What do you want from me, here? Anyway, the RAZR died after excellent service, and was retired with military honors. (No, I didn't flush it down the toilet. I don't care how flashy they've become -- cell phones aren't budgies, God damn it!) And, because I like to take setbacks as opportunities, I elected to make my next phone the RAZR2.

Yeah, not my best move. It's not as robust, it's not as reliable, it loses my settings distressingly often, it's way too easy to accidentally turn earpiece almost all the way down -- it's just not as good a phone as its predecessor. I keep hoping I'll have a catastrophic wheat thresher accident that will necessitate me getting a different phone, so I can just get another RAZR and be done with it.

But one thing the RAZR2 does do... is song identification.

You remember the Verizon commercials, I trust. Hot young thing strides down the street, when she hears a cool song blaring out of a store's unfeasibly large outdoor speakers. She pauses, and realizes that the song is kicking and rad and tubular and whatever young people call music today -- leave me alone, I'm 40. But tragically, she doesn't know what the song is and therefore can't buy it from a Verizon approved source for both playback and ringtones. But wait! she has a cell phone, so she whips it out, flips it open, and thrusts it defiantly at the speaker. And LO -- it identifies the song and gives her convenient cell-phone-use-only purchasing options! Easter is saved! "Be a song detective!" the announcer cheerfully said.

I saw that commercial, and I had two immediate thoughts. "Huh, that would be kind of cool, once or twice" was the first. "That would be the stupidest reason to by a telephone in the history of stupid reasons to buy a telephone. Including the sneaker phone Sports Illustrated used to give out -- I mean, at least then you got softcore porn magazines about sports to go with it."

Well, I have a RAZR2. It's got that alleged feature. And once, I was sitting in Starbucks, and I heard a song, and for maybe the third time in my life I thought "huh -- I wonder who's singing that." And somehow managed to remember my phone identified songs, so I tried it.

My understanding is, heroin addiction generally starts with a single use, because what would the harm be?

Watching my phone digest ten seconds of music and regurgitate the singer, song and album information was like mainlining crack into the geek portion of my brain. Suddenly, any music anywhere became a horrible horrible mystery. I had to know the answer. I had to learn. Whether I liked the music or not, there was song identifying to be done!

Wednesday has become skilled at operating the Song ID feature, so that if we're driving while listening to the radio I don't kill us both in a desperate push to ID a third tier song from 1987.

Now, the nice thing about a cell phone is you always have it with you. That's one reason the phones started getting weird features like cameras in the first place. The iPhone is one step closer to the mythical convergence device that will give us unlimited access and functionality to all cool things at all times without needing to carry more than one thing. I fully expect cell phones to replace our car keys by 2014. The damn thing can already locate you for the police, identify local attractions and give you directions to them, automatically receive news updates and let you assign "Dude Looks Like A Lady" as a ringtone for that friend of yours who looks like a lady. How much farther do they have to go before we just call them Tricorders and be done with it?

But sometimes... sometimes you don't actually have your cell phone with you. Maybe you forgot to charge it. Maybe it's sitting on the kitchen table because you were in a rush this morning. Maybe you're in a hospital, and cell phone use might kill a nun on life support. For whatever reason, sometimes you don't have that magical machine holstered like a pistol on your belt.

And so sometimes, I'll be out and about, and I'll hear a song. And I won't know that song. And I'll reach for my RAZR2... and it won't be there.

Despair, thy name is "who the hell's singing that?"

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:29 AM | Comments (15)

August 21, 2008

Eric: All I know is, Sweetheart's allegedly Canadian but has never eaten Kraft Dinner or even *mentioned* Poutine. What kind of monster has science wrought?

(From Skin Horse. Click on the thumbnail for full sized skritchies!)

One thing I have yet to discuss directly here on the ol' blog is Skin Horse. Skin Horse, for those who don't know, is Shaenon Garrity's new six day a week webcomic (with bonus material of various sorts on Sundays), co-written by Jeffery Wells. While not technically a sequel to Garrity's most famous and celebrated work -- Narbonic, naturally -- Skin Horse is a thematic sequel. We're back into the world of mad science or mad occultry, ancient powers and worldwide conspiracies.

Only this time, it's the government. Project Skin Horse is an underfunded overworked government agency dedicated to serving America's nonhuman and transhuman citizens and residents. It's led by a sentient swarm of bees. Its receptionist is a spring powered steampunk era thinking machine who hasn't quite kept up on 'current events' like Theodore Roosevelt's death. Its field team consists of a crossdressing psychologist, a cheerful and psychotic science zombie, and a Canadian golden retriever. It has existential talking lions and adorable toddler cobras and front desk security men who get mindwiped several times a day, and is just plain fun.

Today's a good sample strip to get you going. See, Sweetheart (the golden retriever) finally got around to having her Rampage -- an important rite of passage for any godless abomination of science. Her ravage took the form of spilling a cup of coffee on someone's lawn, whereupon she was picked up by the humane society.

Then, a talking bear and a grunting panda in overcoats show up -- they're representatives of the Chimeric Anti-Defamation League. They're there to censure Sweetheart, who had been an upstanding member, for her wanted destruction, disregard for property, and setting back of human/chimeric relations.

Yes, over spilling the coffee.

Then, the zombie broke in with a pickaxe. The panda tore her arm off. She started to beat him with it. All the humane society animals were set free. You know. The way it happens. And finally, the fire department arrives. And of course, meet a talking bear in an overcoat. First, they panic, then....

Well, it's a talking bear. In a hat and an overcoat. Naturally, a fireman's thoughts, once he knows he won't be killed, turn to belly skritching.

To me, that's the essence of Skin Horse. There is overreaction, in part because the transgenic entities are generally all too human. Then the government steps in, and everything gets much worse. Finally, humanity succumbs to death or the cute -- and there is some issue as to which is considered more important.

It's good to have this Shaenon Garrity back, and Jeffrey Wells adds zest to the mix. While they sometimes go a bit... long with their storylines... the journey is a hell of a lot of fun.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:09 AM | Comments (19)

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 (26)

Eric: You know, those rivets on Cutter's eyepatch must have really hurt. Kind of makes labriet piercing look wussy, doesn't it?

(From Starslip Crisis. Click on the thumbnail for full sized alcohol induced psychosis!)

I haven't really said it enough, but I fucking love Starslip Crisis. It's one of my favorite heavy story strips. (Unlike some of Straub's fans, I don't prefer Extra to basic Starslip. Extra's funny, but the story's what keeps me coming back so obsessively in this case.) I was a fan of Checkerboard Nightmare back in the day, but Starslip Crisis is really where Kris Straub came into his own as an artist and writer alike. When I get back to the State of the Webcartoonist stuff, I really need to push Straub to the top.

But this strip just jumped out at me with the third and fourth panel bridge. The teleportation/time jump effect was subtle but well conveyed. Having Cutter finish his word in the future location helped to convey the abruptness.

The thing that really sets it off, though, is the fact that the word balloon sits below the panel borders. I think most artists, especially if they were using computer magic to make their word balloons, would have the balloon sitting over the panel borders. It would be more legible, among other things, and it would be clear it's one word being said in two places. However, the actual physical break created by the panel border creates a sense of separation. Having the word unbroken between the two panels would create too much sense of continuity. It would be hard to immediately realize that Cutter's been brought into the future. Having the panel border shear the word in two creates the clear impression that Cutter isn't where he was. This is just reinforced by body language -- in panel three he's sitting in his Captain's Chair -- confident and strong. In panel four, he's fallen to his knees, helpless.

It's a little tiny thing, really. But when you have just four panels to work with, the tiny things are all you have. Anyway, I thought it was cool.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:02 AM | Comments (6)

August 19, 2008

Eric: Man, now I hope the Téodor tracts show up on the Fanflow premium service

(From Achewood -- click on the thumbnail for full sized condiment of SIN!)

Look, everyone knows I like Achewood. Well, anyone who's read this thing for a while and remembers that I like Achewood knows I like Achewood. Really, if we take the sum total of humanity and express all of this as a percentage, no one actually knows I like Achewood. Comparatively. Jesus, people, it's just an introduction.

Regardless, here we have Achewood... and here we have Jack Chick. And here we have Téodor -- a character who is essentially incapable of being successful at anything -- drawing his own tracts.

You remember the Penny Arcade defense -- when something isn't for you? If this comic were any more for me, it would have to be served with tea that was made by a superhero.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:10 PM | Comments (8)

June 2, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(Cartoonist): Ryan North

The Webcartoonist: Ryan North

Current Webcomics: Dinosaur Comics, Whispered Apologies

You May Remember Him From Such Webcomics Related Technologies As: Project Wonderful, Oh No Robot, RSSpect, God knows what else....

Enthusiasm: Why Do I Read This Webcomic Again

How Frequently Read: Regularly Checked

Some of these are a little weird to write. For example, this one.

Ryan North is brilliant. He really is. I've read at least one of his theses and it was amazing. He is probably one of the top two best friends Webcomics have ever had -- certainly, he has done as much or more to value add to other peoples' webcomics as anyone I can think of. He's been the major force (though not the solo force, always) behind two innovations that quite honestly make webcomics in general better: Ohnorobot.com, which is an embeddable search engine for webcomics which creators can either use themselves to make dialogue searchable, or something they can let their fanbase take point on in getting dialogue in place; and Project Wonderful, which absolutely takes website advertising and makes it simple for both webmasters and advertisers. You'll notice I use Project Wonderful myself -- it has garnered me significantly more coin than Google ads ever did (by a significant factor), and while my ad rates aren't anywhere near the top tier, Project Wonderful is way better than being slapped in the face by fish. Right up until gasoline prices went pear-shaped, Project Wonderful could generally fund of the full tanks of gas I needed to get to Ottawa to see the woman I'm going to marry in a couple of weeks.

Okay, that's fun to type, even if it has nothing to do with Ryan North.

North's brilliance was further brought forth -- and initially spread among our community -- through the award winning Dinosaur Comics, once called Daily Dinosaur Comics. For those who aren't familiar, Dinosaur Comics has taken a moderately simple and rough looking clip art comic strip featuring a few dinosaurs, one of whom stomps on buildings and people, and made it downright sublime through static art comics. A static art comic, as the name implies, is a comic strip where the art doesn't ever change. It's the same clip art every day, and only the words change. This was done a few times before North -- most (in)famously by director David Lynch in his comic strip The Angriest Dog in the World, which ran in various newspapers from 1983 to 1992. (North tipped his pen to Lynch in a strip that encapsulated the entire run of The Angriest Dog in the World into Dinosaur Comics). And Dinosaur Comics, through its fresh, inventive (and most of all funny) writing burned through our consciousness like a wildfire, devastating the infrastructure and calling out the National Guard. FOR FUN!

It's also worth noting that North didn't just embrace static art comics -- he also raised the bar on them. Lynch did nine years of static art strips, but he didn't dive into multiple characters, continuity, or for the most part even relevance. Most of the off-panel comments were near non-sequitors. Very few if any had anything to do with the dog in question. Folks who've jumped into static art since then have either varied what static panel they use from day to day (more properly making them the broader realm of constrained comics), or don't have multiple characters -- aping Lynch more than North. I know from what I speak -- for a while I did my own static art strip in conscious emulation of North. It was the Adventures of Brigadier General John Stark, and it was about a possessed statue who bitched about Ethan Allen and his wife, made breast jokes about Peggy Shippen, had adroit commentary on the politics of his time and ours, and had a total man-crush on Ice Cube. But as my strip was, by definition, a monologue, I was free to expound however I wished. (And it's worth noting, said strip didn't last nearly as long).

But Ryan North has multiple characters. He has interaction, and a supporting cast, and he has continuity from one strip to the next. North isn't just doing a static art comic strip -- he's doing a static art comic strip, with an expanding (and increasingly off-panel) cast of divinities and disturbing mammals. He has T-Rex, Utahraptor, and all the rest interacting and expounding, trying to mostly match the recurrent art. And he's done vastly better with it than anyone could have expected. It's got a strong readership of devoted fans. It gets referenced. (For a couple of years, David Willis referenced it in the Shortpacked April Fools Day strips, which I can't link to because of catastrophic failures of their electrical infrastructure. Man, they're not having a good weekend.) North's significance and influence is clear and broad.

And, if you look at the last few Daily Dinosaur comics, they continue to be wacky fun. T-Rex continues to be somewhat innocent with the selfishness of innocence. Utahraptor is a good friend though sometimes he has to be the wiser counsel. Dromiceiomius is still... um... occasionally speaking in the third panel. God talks every so often. It's fun!

Fun!

Fun.

Yeah.

Okay, here's the dirty truth. The big problem with static comics? Are they're static. And Ryan North has pushed his comic in incredible directions given that. But... North has written 1,234 (hey! 1-2-3-4!) comics as of this writing. Honestly, they're not blowing my mind any more. They seem... really... the same. Day in, and day out. It's not that there hasn't been evolution -- there has. But there's just so far that North can go in any direction, because tomorrow Utahraptor and Dromiceiomius are still showing up in a few panels and T-Rex is still stomping on that building, and there's no way to focus on another character for a while. It's got to be T-Rex. He's in all the panels!

Look, I like Dinosaur Comics. I really do. Heck, I did a Reader Art strip for it once. North is funny and smart, and may be conquering North America. Heck, he already got it named after him -- like in a merger! But... it's....

I've seen it. Not just the art, but the strip. The patter. The rhythm. All too often the joke.

It's... well, getting kinda dull.

This reminds me a little bit of my comments on Perry Bible Fellowship -- it's much the same reaction, really. It's not that North has lost some of his skills. It's that we've done this often enough that the impact has become dilute.

I have this on "Why Do I Read This Webcomic Again" not because I dislike it, mind. I do like it. It's just... when I ask myself that question, I don't really have an answer. Why do I read Dinosaur Comics? If I end up having to ponder it and not really coming up with an answer, it's pretty much got to go in this category.

At the same time, I don't really plan on stopping reading it, so it might better belong in the Hoi Polloi instead. I dunno.

Right. Let's do the metrics before I become a mass of wish crossed to wash.

Strengths

North is consistent. The writing tends to be solid, the characters are well defined and well distinguished, the updates happen with the regularity one would hope they do, and the layout of the web page is clear.

I mentioned how far North has pushed the boundaries of Static Art. That's not nothing, to use a Sorkinesque construction. He really has done amazing things with the static art form. He tries his best to change up the formula and disrupt our expectations. The fact that he's gone so far with the number of posted strips is a testament to that.

The breadth of topic that the strip addresses and expounds upon are amazing, as are his carefully considered positions.

In other words, North is, in fact, a good writer.

Weaknesses

As said before, we're pushing 1,300 strips and he's running out of wiggle room. All too often, we can often predict where things are going to go. With no real room to move other cast members forward, there's no way to give T-Rex a rest for a while without compromising the basic device being used. I mean, even Hagar the Horrible doesn't have Hagar in every strip doing most of the talking. That's not an enviable position for anyone.

On the Whole

Ryan North is a mad scientist who has mostly used his powers for good. He is clever and wise and very creative, and I like his comic strip very much. But... it may be time to consider something radical... like a new page of clip art -- maybe something that can be alternated or switched between. Otherwise, fatigue is going to slowly weed out readers.

Of course, by then he'll have built a new content distribution system, found a way to project force beams from CRTs, compiled a natural language parser for search engines that doesn't suck and found a way to make hydrogen cell cars affordable. He's like that.

Sorry this took a bit, I got sidetracked with about half a rememberance which then had stuff I need to look out. Also work and eBay auctions, which are going great. More stuff up soon, for people who want to buy! With luck, the next one of these tomorrow... which might be an interesting one to do.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:06 PM | Comments (22)

May 27, 2008

Eric: State of the (Web)Cartoonist: J.D. "Illiad" Frazer

The Webcartoonist: J.D. "Illiad" Frazer

Current Webcomics: User Friendly

Enthusiasm: Why Do I Read This Webcomic Again?

How Frequently Read: When I Remember To Check

This is not the essay I expected or intended to write when I first worked out that J.D. Frazer was next on the list.

You know how it goes. You have an opinion form over the course of a decade or more. It grows firm, and then crystalizes, and then becomes barnacle-encrusted and rusted into place. You know what you know about a given subject, and when you have to sit down and actually codify that knowledge, it is the catalyst that finally forces the supersaturated solution into a crystalline mass that is the essay you have waited years to write.

And I was ready to write that essay. And that Essay was going to be my triumphant return to the old standby, "You had me and you lost me." I was ready to launch into all the points I've had simmering in the back of my head since the day I started this here blog, and finally say "look, I gave it every chance in the world to keep me, but..." and then write all the rest.

Those points, by the by, will be familiar to almost everyone -- not from me (or not just from me), but from lots of places on the web. User Friendly is tired. It has no character development. Absolutely nothing ever happens. The art hasn't evolved even the tiniest bit and was never great shakes to begin with. It's staid. It's got an agenda that it sacrifices humor to fuel. It's dull. It's boring. It has a 1997 view of a 2008 world. It has "nag" strips and....

You know. Blah blah blah.

And I sat down to write it, and I considered options for gathering supporting evidence. That's essay writing 101. (Which, technically, is "English Composition," but I digress.) You state your thesis, you support the thesis with evidence, you sum up, you wait for grading. (Or in blog terms, comments.) And when I did it, I realized I hadn't actually read User Friendly in well over a year.

Understand, it's still on my list. It's still in the Firefox Tabs. I visit the site every day, but my eyes had been sliding off the actual comic for so long I didn't remember any of the characters' names. Not even "Dust Puppy."

Now, it can be argued that this just reinforces the point. The drab sameness had soaked in so much that the strip itself became teflon. However, the abject lack of reader response, while evidence of a sort, does not itself constitute a response. In order to address the weaknesses of the strip -- especially if I was going to post an essay swearing off User Friendly and publicly announcing that it had "lost" me, I had to address what User Friendly was, right now. Not my parasite covered frozen in rust opinion of it based upon... well not reading it. In order to fairly discuss User Friendly, I first had to read User Friendly.

So. I decided that I was going to give it the best benefit of the doubt I could. I decided that I would actually start reading from the August 20, 2004 strip. For those playing along at home, August 20, 2004 is the day I started this here blog. Which means, first off, that we've been doing this for almost four years, which means we've gotten a good two years worth of posts done here. Yay us! But it also means that if I could just force myself to read through four solid years of archive, I would have every possible justification and bit of evidence I would need for my essay.

So I did. Over the course of the weekend, in and around things like Speed Racer (which I really, really loved, so there), going out with Wednesday, eating food, sleeping and the occasional watching of stuff on the television, I clicked on "Next Strip" after "Next Strip," slowly and inexorably, making my way through hundreds of strips.

And let's not kid ourselves. There were hundreds of strips. There's many things you can claim about User Friendly and J.D. Frazer, but sloth isn't one of them. As near as I can tell, he's never missed an update in almost 11 years of strips. Seven days a week. That's downright stunning.

By the end of it, I was fully soaked in User Friendly once more. My brain was releasing details and information from the seven years previous to my archive trawl as well -- I've been reading this strip since the days when there was less than one year of archives to go through. At the time, we called that the User Friendly Productivity Virus, reflecting the hours of the (work) day that were consumed by reading the archives. In those days, of course, there wasn't much on the web like User Friendly. It was, if anything, Dilbert done right, done pure, done I.T. joyous. Users were dumbasses who asked about cupholders that slid out of their computers, marketing executives were perverse and stupid and deserved humiliation, bosses were clueless and often naively cruel, and I.T. workers were somewhat shortsighted and misguided, but the last bastion of human reason. As a systems administrator/M.I.T. type in the late nineties, User Friendly was a panacea -- a comic strip (on the web of all places) that understood my life and lifestyle.

But that was then. Now, it's 2008, and I'd just read (or reread) nearly 4 years of strips. And now, now I was ready to write my essay about Frazer and User Friendly.

Here it is.

User Friendly is a damn good comic strip.

I know, it surprised me too.

Here's the thing. Most of those complaints, up above, have a certain validity to them. User Friendly hasn't actually evolved in the last several years. It's exactly the same strip, with the same characters, the same humor, the same punchlines, the same punching bags as before. In fact, this was reinforced to me by an accident. See, if you go to any given archive page, you'll see that the navigation bar (cleverly looking like a pencil) has all the usual elements. A Previous Cartoon button, a Search Button, a Next Button, an E-Mail this Cartoon button....

...and a Random Button. Right next to the Next Cartoon button. In fact, I selected my "any given archive page" link by hitting that random button.

When I was in the late 2005 strips, I accidentally clicked "Random" instead of "Next." The next cartoon I read, as a result, was from 2001. And it was about twenty strips later before I realized I'd actually gone backwards in the archive more than four years. Everything was so similar, with so little change in everything from art to character design to font choice and layout to actual humor that it was essentially seamless. If Frazer uses copy and paste to put his characters in, he's been using the same clip art for the entire 21st century. If you go back further, into the 20th, you can see some evidence that he redrew the core art at some point, used a different font -- stuff like that, but when he got settled down into his routine, he stayed there.

And yes, the characters don't evolve. Stef has never learned a lesson, even when he temporarily becomes a geek. The Smiling Man has no salient qualities other than his smiling and his evil (and almost never appears). Pearl has indiscriminate sex. Sid is an Old Geek from the Old Guard. (Something that, honestly, every other geek at Columbia Internet could claim, should someone current actually go to work there. They can all remember the days of Windows NT, Usenet predominance in the forum sphere, IRC and all the rest. MySpace and Facebook and YouTube and Livejournal and Flickr and Google all the rest of the tools of day to day internet life all essentially postdate when we picked up the lives of Our Heroes).

And yes, the strip is unremittingly pro-geek -- meaning old school Open Source/Unix Hacker/sysadmin/Tech Support/LED-flashing-light-attracted geek, rather than today's more general 'person who thinks he or she is a geek and identifies as such.' Every time we see Greg working, it's to deal with yet another annoying, self-important clueless user who hasn't gotten his brain around the digital world and doesn't know that the cupholder that comes out of his computer is actually a CD tray. (Honestly. We still get cupholder and any key humor in these strips, which implies that Columbia Internet's customers are mostly in the Northwest Territories or deeply rural Alberta or something, because the civilized parts of Canada (and no jokes, already) have had computers for decades now and no one's that mystified by them any more.

(I mean, for Christ's sake. My mom doesn't call me because she can't find the Any Key on her keyboard, she calls me because her POP3 settings have become corrupt and she's having some trouble getting the streaming video feed from the Met. And no, my Mom is not an atypically savvy computer user for her generation.)

I remember when I first got into Help Desk, one of the things I found so refreshing about it was its subversion of the basic User Friendly tropes. The lead character was tech support, just like User Friendly, only the users were the reasonable ones and the tech was the one spreading disinformation and pain, or just plain not knowing what to do next. And yes, Ubersoft was a Microsoft riff and of course Microsoft is and was the enemy in both strips, but there was still a real palate cleansing involved in the affair.

So yeah. The art never changes and was never that great to begin with. The characters never evolve -- even when things happen to them (like Miranda and A.J. finally... um... well, we know they kiss and they sort of make noises about buying presents for each other so I guess we'll call it a relationship) it doesn't really impact their basic characters. It's tech/geek centered humor where the users and the corporations are almost always wrong and the geeks are almost always right. All these things are true. All these complaints we've had have validity.

The question is... so what? The strip is funny.

You might not agree. You might read a hundred strips in a row (amateur) and not laugh at any of them. But if you don't, barring a lack of sense of humor or a full on dislike of four panel gag-a-day style comedy (in which case, quite honestly, it's unreasonable to expect User Friendly to entertain you), the chances are likely you've never worked I.T. And even if you've never worked I.T. and you have no more computer expertise than my aforementioned mother, chances are likely you found something in that hundred strips amusing. If you are in I.T., you probably found most of it funny -- even if you disagree with parts of it.

And that may well be where the core of the problem is. Due to the circumstances of User Friendly's birth, people have mistaken it for a general webcomic for years, when in fact it was and has always been a targeted audience webcomic.

A few moments definition is in order. Most webcomics have an audience they're targeting. That's the nature of the beast. A lot of those aim for very broad categories: "geek," "Internet Enthusiast," "Anime Fan," "Fan of Pornography," "Male," "Female," "Human" or the like. Others aim for very specific audiences: Penny Arcade aims at gamers. +EV aims at online poker players, Unshelved aims at Librarians, and so forth. There are ways that the strategy of defining an audience have been really effective and even innovative in reasonable years. +EV and Unshelved are both massively successful even though they have little to no penetration outside their niches -- a lot of their strips aren't universal, which makes it harder to secure a casual fanbase. Penny Arcade broadened their own scope some time ago to "general geek humor," along with lots of flights of fancy and weirdness along the way, but their core niche is one they continue to support and give love to -- the fact that there are millions of gamers just means they hit the niche jackpot, not that their niche isn't... you know, a niche. Shortpacked has a lot of David Willis fans following it, and a lot of 80's culture fans, and a lot of general goofy humor fans, but its core niche is toy enthusiasts and collectors, and he's good enough at it that he gets paid to do a version of the strip for a toy website. And so on and so forth.

In 1997, a disproportionate number of internet users -- especially those with the free time to waste hours of the day on the net, and the at the time still expensive at-home internet connections -- were in the I.T. Industry. When User Friendly began gathering momentum, there wasn't just little to nothing like it on the web -- it appealed and spoke to a much larger percentage of the internet reading audience than mainstream society would support outside of that filter. It wasn't as universally true as, say, in 1991 -- when if you were on the internet you were a college student, rich, using a college student's account or really good at tricking PSINet -- but it hadn't reached the point where most American teenagers spent a portion of their weeks online, much less the point where instant messaging and texting became a core component of life.

So, people recommended User Friendly to all their friends. And they linked to strips or reposted strips. They talked it up. They loved that damn strip. And in the waning years of the 20th Century, it was a safe bet that if someone had an internet connection in the first place, they'd find User Friendly funny.

But with each year came another wave of users. Younger and younger users. Users with less and less interest in the meat of the internet. Users who think 'perl' is a knitting term and emacs were that educational computer that Apple came out with how long ago? Or simply have no idea what you're talking about. And so the universality of User Friendly declined. Strips became less commonly linked -- especially when fewer of the people you sent the links to got the joke or found it particularly funny.

It is perhaps natural that long time fans would become upset at this -- they were used to User Friendly being a touchstone -- a common denominator. It bothered them that unlike, say, PvP or even Penny Arcade, User Friendly wasn't evolving. It wasn't trying to broaden its appeal, reach out to more people, throw in more general humor or create more engaging storylines. They started to describe it as being in a rut. In being just the same-old same-old.

The thing is? That's not Frazer's fault. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Frazer continuing to write and draw the same comic strip he started doing in 1997, targeting the same audience. Whether or not the wider Internet audience has ballooned, Frazer writes his comics aimed squarely at the Open Source/Unix/IT crowd. That has always been his intended audience, and he has clearly had no desire to change that. And there's no reason he should have to. We don't complain that the often brilliant Unshelved spends all that time focusing on -- and marketing to -- librarians. We expect that. It's a strip about a library.

Well, User Friendly is a strip about an Internet Service Provider. It targets Open Source advocates, I.T. workers, systems administrators, Unix Grognards, command line jockeys, people who remember (or still use) Usenet and Linus Torvalds. The geeks at Columbia Internet are, in fact, geeks, so they do touch on some stuff that more general geeks appreciate, but it's often just in passing. The Columbia gang aren't addicted to World of Warcraft, they still mostly play Quake or Counterstrike derivatives. The one designated hardcore gamer on staff might get thrilled or frustrated by the release of Doom III, but we're going to have a lot more jokes about Nethack or Civilization or even Zork. They don't explain grue jokes, either. They expect that if you're reading this strip, you already know about twisty passages that all look alike, the dangers of losing your brass lantern, and the dining habits of the darkness.

And if you don't? Hey, they're just as happy for you to find the strips funny. Frazer is a good writer, especially of humor. No one minds if you come along for the ride. But they're not going to change things to meet your needs. It's the Penny Arcade Defense all over again -- it's not for you.

As for the lack of evolution in either the characters or the art... well, that too is fine, if one remembers what it is Frazer is doing. He's doing a gag-a-day comic strip, and he's taking an open source/unix hacker approach to it. He has built his tools and his library, and that toolset and library produces the product he's shooting for. There is no good reason to upgrade them when they actually work, and right now Frazer can easily tell the jokes and create the strips he wants to. Changing for change's sake makes no more sense than upgrading your copy of Microsoft Office to the latest version because there's a notebook feature in it now. If what you want to do is write letters, you might as well stick to VI. Or emacs. Depending on the user.

And further, it's a scurrilous lie to say that the site hasn't evolved. The strip has stayed the same, but the bits around it change and push forward -- and reinforce once again the target that Frazer is aiming at. Userfriendly.org has developed as a website and as a business model as time as gone on. There are front page links of general interest, book reviews and the like -- culminating in the almost infamous Link of the Day (which at its height was as effective as killing sites as Slashdotting). There have been advertisement upgrades, and new services, and most of all community building. UFies are a discrete entity at this point with a site of their own. For quite some time, Iambe, the "Garden Variety Goddess," also contributed daily content for the fans to follow at her own page on the site. She also put together a Geek Dating Service. Frazer and his cohorts developed a strategic partnership with the Register 4 Less domain registrar service. They developed a Geek/IT Specific Job Search service. And, in the ultimate sign of community building (and community-buy-in), a key component of the business model are User Friendly sponsorships, letting readers support User Friendly and Frazer directly, and getting a few perks for their trouble. Heck, the somewhat infamous "nag strips" (animated gifs that are an advertisement for 30 seconds, then shift to the actual strip in question) generally either advertise Register 4 Less or the sponsorship level -- and come across like nothing less than the click through nag dialog boxes on shareware.

But the most prevalent and obvious example of community building can be found on every archive page (assuming you don't select "no comments"). Look at a strip, and below it you'll see user comments. Those comments aren't active discussions of the strip in question -- oh, there's usually an obligatory threat on the comic strip itself -- scroll down, it's generally buried quite a ways down. Most of the comments are on the news of the day, or geek topics, or whatever people feel like doing. They use the comments block as a forum, as a chatroom, as a place for any kind of geek debate they feel like. Each and every new strip becomes a meeting place -- rather than using the strip as water cooler conversation fodder, Frazer has managed to repurpose his comic strip into the damn water cooler itself. And a strong majority of the commenters have jobs in I.T. and disposable incomes to use on GeekStuff.

Now that's a business model.

So, you may have noticed way up above that despite a long litany of praise, I've got User Friendly listed as "why do I read this webcomic again." That's the thing -- I can recognize, having pushed myself into actually reading the strip for years' worth of archive, that this strip actually accomplishes what it's setting out to do, and more importantly is actually funny. That doesn't mean, despite my day job in I.T., that I'm in that aforementioned target audience. I'm a Mac user who mostly likes his computer to get out of his way, and I generally enjoy helping my users. Sure, I can feel kinship with Greg's frustration, but we're (mostly) past the any key issues where I work. (Okay, the time I went up and patiently explained to a Dean that no, the network wasn't down -- they just needed to plug the blue wire into the port in the wall and the port on their computer and then the pictures will flow was close, but that was some time ago. Really.) And that remains my central point. Would I recommend User Friendly? That depends on who you are. You might get it, and if so you'll probably find most of it funny. But you might not, too.

There's a part of me, having just posted one of these for Scott Kurtz, which finds the juxtaposition interesting. Kurtz reinvents his style and intention rather often. He pushes for broader audiences -- be that the print/Image audience or 'other.' His art evolves. He tries new tools and new experiments. He does new kinds of storytelling. Kurtz evolves. And whenever he does it, it pisses a chunk of his readers off. To this day, he gets complaints that he's not just doing gag-a-day gamer humor now. Well, now here's J.D. Frazer, and his strip is exactly the same today as it was in 1998.

And it pisses people off.

People are funny that way.

Strengths

Frazer is so rock-steady you could time atomic decay to his posting schedule.

User Friendly is consistently funny. The characters' very broadness gives Frazer ample room to build jokes with a minimum of setup needed -- he is an expert at the execution of the four panel strip. Given that 99% of Frazer's strips are based on words instead of visual language, his style not only suits his humor well -- getting the art out of the way except for reaction shots -- but is actually more elaborate than straight talking heads would require.

Frazer's knowledge of Unix culture and geek reference is significant, and he executes that knowledge well. You might not get the joke at all, mind, but if you do there's a good chance you're going to find it hysterical and be a little amazed that he made a reference to a thing you were sure no one knew but you. And Frazer's cynicism, geek rage and satirical edge haven't dulled even slightly -- when he posts a Microsoft strip today, the hatred flows as freely as it did at the turn of the century.

Finally, Frazer leverages that community he's built around his work really well. These are people who are having a great time, mostly entertaining themselves and each other, and crediting Frazer and the other User Friendly folks for it. Say what you like -- that is a sweet position to be in.

Weaknesses

We've hit the high points, but let's go through them just for kicks. Frazer's art isn't good. His women in particular look like vaguely misshapen men. While I understand why he's show little to no improvement in eleven years, that doesn't mean I'm not stunned he's shown little to no improvement in eleven years.

One strength from above is also a (related) weakness. This is a talking heads comic. Essentially, this is Dilbert, only actually funny and Frazer didn't start phoning it in early on. Which is to say "not Dilbert at all," but still -- he could stand to greatly upgrade his use of visual language and composition. As it is, he's really really really good at using the couple of tools he has, but he's very limited in what direction he can go.

Given that this is Gag-a-Day, he could do way better at making the strip accessible to new readers. He desperately needs a primer to get people into things: User Friendly For Dummies would be a very very good thing for this strip. A cast list would be a monumental start, and given Frazer's habit of dropping a new character into the strip, not picking them back up for a year and a half, and then having them walk back in without explanations, the omission of a cast list is downright stupid. Hell, this is one of those areas that powerful, invested community would come in handy. Have someone build a wiki on UFies.org, then let them populate it with background and links to strips for all the characters. I'd lay odds that if there was a call to action, someone would have a hand-rolled wiki up and running within three days, and by this time next week it would be so exhaustively complete as to put all other efforts to shame. This was made for the UFies community.

If nothing else, they'd explain why Cthulhu was wearing a business suit, and just who Crud Puppy is. That's not bad information to have.

The times Frazer has drifted into actual continuity in his comic (not counting, say, a week and a half of related strips -- you can have a storyline without it becoming continuity per se), he hasn't done it terribly well. He can do tactical pacing between strips. If the gang goes to Antarctica for a couple of weeks he can build that storyline well, have every strip be funny, and wrap it all back up. But if we have Pitr nip off to Google for a year (or until he's fired) or have A.J. and Miranda flirt with a relationship, there tends to be far too little trackable process to make it worth the time and effort.

Also, sometimes the jokes wear way too thin. Yes, I know that Steve Ballmer once (allegedly) threw a chair at Mark Lucovsky while ranting that he would bury Google, but that was three years ago and most of us have forgotten about the incident. There's plenty of things to rag on Ballmer for -- chair throwing pales in comparison to calling Linux a cancer, if you get right down to it. And jeez, they pelted the man with eggs! Let's go on to that long running joke instead, shall we?

On the Whole

I don't know if I'm going to keep reading this strip or not, to be honest. I'm on something of a wave with it right now -- four years of archives will do that to a person -- but in the end it may just not be able to hold me. At the same time, I'm no longer comfortable with the thought of a "You Had Me and You Lost Me" essay for it. It's unfair, I think, to tell a strip that they had me and then lost me when they're delivering exactly the same thing, at the same level of quality, as when they hooked me in the first place. If I'm the one who's changed, then my giving a laundry list of complaints before I leave is at best entitlement -- Frazer's never claimed to be anything other than he is, and he does a damn good job doing the very specific thing he does, for the very specific target audience he's going for.

If he reaches the point that he wants to broaden that target audience, mind, then he's going to have some work to do. But that day might never come.

And having knocked the rust and barnacles off my opinion, and actually formed an intelligent opinion instead of an assumption... I can't say that day has to come. In the end, Frazer's hitting the target he's aiming at, and that really is all we can ask.

EDIT: Something was making the RSS feed unhappy. We'll see if this fixed it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:27 PM | Comments (25)

May 22, 2008

Eric: State of the (Web)Cartoonist: Scott Kurtz

The Webcartoonist: Scott Kurtz

Current Webcomics: PvP: Player vs. Player, Ding

You Might Remember Him From Such Comics Projects As: Wedlock; Samwise; Truth, Justin and the American Way

Enthusiasm: PvP: Happily Reading; Ding: The Hoi Polloi

How Frequently Read: PvP: Regularly Checked; Ding: When I Remember to Check

First and Foremost, it seems ma.gnolia has done some changes to how it collects lists, which has broken my links to my lists. I will be fixing them later today (which includes fixing them in all the different entries. Mrph).

Secondly, we seem to be doing this. I am excited, though we are just shy of graduation here. However, having gotten Weds into the apartment (finally) life is significantly different now, and it hasn't finished changing, so we're just going to have to see where all of this goes from here.

And so, since there are a lot of changes in the ol' Burns-White household, it makes sense that we're touching on Scott Kurtz today, since change is kind of his byword at the moment.

Essay-wise, Kurtz is one of the bigs ones. In a lot of ways, Scott Kurtz is the reason any of you who are still reading this found it in the first place. He's the one of the first major links I got. Due diligence requires I mention that I consider him a friend these days -- albeit one I have little contact with. Certainly, an essay comparing Miranda and Jade and highlighting his character development ranks among my better early efforts, almost four years ago. Which is itself weird to type.

Which means in ways, PvP is one of those strips I've been following most closely for the longest. I've been reading since the days of four panel gag-a-day zing and abrupt art style changes. So on the one hand I've been down close, at ground zero, watching this strip develop. On the other hand, PvP has been going for ten years now, Kurtz started PvP just days after I started working at my current employer's, and we've gone through two and a half cycles of Freshman-to-Graduation classes since then. An eternity, in Internet Years.

And there are some who feel that's a little too long. More and more, I hear comments from friends or acquaintences that PvP's sell-by date has passed. He's become stale, they say -- too reliant on the same tropes over and over again. Others, amusingly, say he's too different. The tone's shifted. I get mail asking if with the recent wedding storylines Scott's done hit the Cerebus Syndrome once and for all. Over on the Snarkoleptics LJ Community, a friend of mine has actually aped my "you had me and you lost me" style, while ducking the Cerebus Syndrome call and instead saying Scott has hit a "Cerebus Lapse." It's good reading, both in the places I agree with him, and in the places I don't agree with him.

Not that there's anything radically new about these calls. As long as I've been reading PvP, there have been people who talk the strip down -- it's cut-and-paste, they said. It's talking-heads, they said. It's too sitcommy. It's too gamer-oriented. It's not gamer-oriented enough. It's too pop-culture. It's too 80's. It's too...

...well, you get the point.

One thing is certain. PvP is not Player vs. Player, the strip Kurtz started back in '98. Indeed, every few years, whether drastically or slowly, Kurtz seems to regenerate PvP all Doctor-Who-Timelord style, the result having recognizable elements from what came before. He changes art styles. He changes storytelling styles. He changes pacing and execution. And for the last several months, we've been seeing him prepare for one of these state changes.

I won't say he's always been effective at it. If we look back 3-4 years ago, Kurtz hit almost every ball lobbed at him. These days, he does more swinging and missing than he used to. The recent paintball story arc, for instance, had me excited when it went into place -- in part because it seemed like it could build, conceptually, on some of the coolest elements of the earlier LARP arc he had done. (To jump back to that linked essay, above, in the LARP storyline we saw Jade-the-RP-geek and Miranda-the-not-RPer in sharp contrast. Well, Miranda is a paintball veteran and Jade isn't, and Miranda showed up in full cosplay gear where Jade didn't. I had been hoping to see their different styles contrasted in Miranda's world instead of Jade's. I also wanted to see just how much both Jade and Miranda had grown over the last few years put into perspective.) Instead, it felt like a lot of setup followed by an emergency ejection.

And, like a lot of folks, I'm entirely okay with not seeing Shecky again. I don't hate him as some people do, but I also don't particularly like him .

Still, there was a sense of marking time -- the occasional whiff of staleness, of one too many Panda joke, of one too many reference back to the General Lee or the ambulance pulling away or of Scratch Fury being evil or... you know, stuff.

Now, we have the wedding storyline. The one teased for years. And PvP has regenerated again. It's not quite the same strip today as it was on April 20. We have closed the twin circles of the Jade/Brent breakup and reconciliation and the Jade pregnancy scare storylines. Brent's taken off his sunglasses. And Skull has walked out of the strip, forced to go because the little boy he was assigned to shepherd has finally grown up.

In that earlier linked Snarkoleptics post, Sean punched out -- in part because he knows that Skull's coming back. This is a ridiculous exercise, as far as he's concerned. And he's right. Skull will be back -- not just because he's the franchise, but because Kurtz finishes the stories he starts. But I'm okay with knowing that. Conflict, as I have said more times than I can count, is a good thing. And though this capstone to the wedding storyline echoes any number of movies or afterschool specials or Pete's Fucking Dragon, right down to the "I need to go, because there's another little boy out there that needs a special friend, Brent. I'll always love you, but you don't need me any more" speech.

Only, and this is a significant only, Brent called Bullshit on that. Skull liked it at PvP. He might have been Brent's Special Friend, but he had his own plotlines, his own keys, his own place. Hell, he had a girlfriend. He had a life. And PvP loved Skull, not just Brent. When Jade finds out that Skull is leaving, she reacts with horror and pain too. And in the current strip as of this writing, Cole promises that they will get Skull back, somehow.

That's not a series exit. That's setup. That helps to set the tone and the conflict moving forward, and that is a good thing. That is a hopeful thing. Skull will, I believe, return to the strip. The question is not the destination -- it's the ride we're going to take to get there. And I have hope for that ride.

I'm not as enthusiastic for PvP as I used to be, I'll admit. It's a comfortable strip -- an old friend. And as Brent gets older and wiser and his relationship with Jade evolves, I find myself identifying with him more and more. (But then, I'm a Starbucks fan who has used Macs for years, I have a degree in English Literature and I am pretentiously superior. I am Brent.) Even as his career at PvP started along with the strip almost at the same time I started in my current job, so too is his wedding frighteningly close to my own. As Jade grows as a character, she becomes more well rounded, and more recognizable to me as well. That's all to the good.

I haven't touched on Ding! much here. Um... yeah. There's a strip called Ding! It's World of Warcraft humor. It's more or less the PvP crew playing WoW. Um... it seems pretty good. I dunno. I'm a City of Heroes player.

Oh, and he did the whole 'PvP animated' thing, and I actually liked it quite a lot. At this point, I hear Brent, Jade, Francis and Skull when I read their dialogue, and they sound like the series in my mind's ear.

Right. Lest I run out of steam, let's do the metrics.

Strengths

Let's talk art, right off the bat. Kurtz has been bringing his A game with art for some time now. He's clearly pushing himself and his boundaries. And, thanks to his recent video-casting of his strip work, you can actually follow along and see his screen as he works on it. Seriously, look at this one. It's absolutely beautiful, and it's clear that he wants to keep improving instead of resting on his laurels.

Secondly, the Brent character arc has been very strong all along, and now that it's peaking it's engaging. We have every reason in the world to care about Brent and what's happening. He has grown and matured, and as the series protagonist (more about that below) his evolution drives the series forward.

Third, a lot of the characters, particularly among the secondary cast, are really well developed and have just incredible potential. Reggie, Miranda, Robbie, Butler, Brent's parents and Jade's mother all add great depth and breadth to the strip.

Fourth, Kurtz isn't afraid to let his characters be the bastards in a situation. I once said that Max Powers is the hero of the piece, and that much is true. Cole, Brent, Jade and the rest are as motivated by pettiness and selfishness as anything else, and that's refreshing and cool.

Finally? There is Marcy. Marcy is the best character in the strip. Really, Marcy is the best example of a gamer girl geek in webcomics today. She is realistic, well motivated, well designed, and pretty close to note perfect whenever she appears. She is the antithesis of Helen the Sweetheart of the Internet and all her Supermodel Unix Goddess Gamer Amazon ilk, and that is a good thing.

Weaknesses

There is hope in the regeneration/reboot/launching of the new season/whatever we call the end of the wedding arc, and thank Christ because there's been lots of days leading up to it where it all felt phoned in. Hey hey, panda. Hey hey, Scratch Fury. Hey hey, Shecky. Bring us the Story or Bring us the Funny or Bring us Both, I don't care, but Bring us Something.

Update wise, Kurtz -- who for years was rock steady at least on the daily side -- has been less so in recent months. From things he's said on the blog, it sounds like his father had it out with him in part on that, and there is a clear commitment on Kurtz's part to be steady and regular -- and, he says, to build a buffer to have at hand should things arise. That's a good thing, because as he goes into more detailed and emotional story arcs, the pacing of strips gets all the more important and gaps in updates can disproportionately frustrate the reader. Yes, I know. I'm calling the kettle black here.

Also, I mentioned a plethora of characters up above, all of whom are really well developed. That's all well and good, but the problem is the primary cast, looking here, is Cole, Brent, Jade, Francis, Skull and Scratch Fury. And of that group, the real standout in characterization is Brent. After that comes Jade. Cole seems more and more like an afterthought: in the midst of many other things in the past year, Cole's marriage began to fall apart. We've seen Cole move in briefly with Brent. Then Brent's father found him living in his office. And he was ordered to go home and talk to his wife and he did. And since then nothing. The entirety wasn't Cole's marriage falling apart, it was Brent and his cast reacting to Cole's marriage breaking up, and that's dull. The Reggie/Miranda relationship storyline got a thousand times more attention than this lead character's life falling apart.

So it was too with Cole being able to buy out Max's share of the magazine. This deal with the passive-aggressive devil had been beautifully set up, but its resolution was so remote and sudden it lacked emotional resonance.

So too do we have Francis. Francis gets slightly more stories (at least so it seems) than Cole does, but Francis is more and more of a cypher all the time. Part of the problem is, Francis is an eternal student, but with Brent growing older, having a multiyear relationship including a breakup and a pregnancy scare and then ultimately getting married, it seems like Francis should at least be a Senior in high school -- and more likely a college student -- by now, even with the slow aging of cartoon characters. Like I said up above -- the students who were freshmen at my school the year PvP launched are now two years out of college. I actually work with one of my former students, and he has a wife and children now. While it's a mug's game to ascribe that kind of aging and evolution to a comic strip, you can't have one side of the strip get older while the other side stays the same.

Besides, as Kurtz gets older, he also gets farther away from teenagers. Francis looked very typical gamer when he launched. Now he seems stereotypical instead of typical, and that can be an issue.

Finally, I mentioned Marcy, and what a great character she is. She is utterly underutilized. I'd love, in the next year, to see Marcy and Francis start researching colleges and career aspirations. But these days, the protagonist of PvP, de facto if not stated, is Brent, and the teenagers are falling out of his orbit fast.

On the Whole

A year ago, PvP would have topped my rabidly following list. These days, I'm happily reading it, but it's not the must-see as soon as possible thing it used to be. Kurtz may not be as note-perfect as he used to be, on the other hand, but he's still got strong writing and if anything the best art of his career going, and with the shift of gears and plotlines following the wedding we may be going into an absolutely kickass year. There's a lot to be hopeful.

One dangling point I opened above but haven't closed is Cerebus Syndrome. For those who are new to this, it's explained in depth in the Lexicon, but the short form is this: when a comic or comic strip goes from light, funny, gag-a-day stuff to deeper, richer characterization, layering in story and drama into the comedy, it is trying to work through Cerebus Syndrome. It is very rare that it's successful, and a failure brings a price in suck.

From the sheerest definition of the term, I think PvP did the Cerebus Syndrome shuffle years ago. It mostly works in Funny, mind, but the pregnancy storyline, the breakup/reconciliation of Brent and Jade, this wedding storyline -- especially the bits with Jade's mom, the growing isolation of Robbie (and the disappearance of Jase) -- have been working the dramatic elements for years. The better Cerebus Syndrome attempts are the subtle ones, and Kurtz handled this as well as could be expected.

Which still upsets the people who just want geek culture humor and gaming jokes, and that's fine too. Whenever you make changes, you lose some folks and hopefully gain some more. We'll have to see what the future brings.

Which also applies to here. I'm going to try to have stuff for weekdays for right now -- at least until my own wedding eats my brain. Thanks as always, and please enjoy the shrimp plate.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:13 PM | Comments (16)

March 14, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): Bill Holbrook

The Webcartoonist: Bill Holbrook

Current Webcomics: Kevin and Kell

You Might Remember Him From Such Nationally Syndicated Newspaper Comic Strips As: On the Fastrack, Safe Havens

Enthusiasm: Why Do I Read This Webcomic Again?

How Frequently Read: When I Remember to Check

For some of these strips, it's easy enough to be cavalier. It's a little bit like selecting a lobster for dinner. "That one," you say with the disinterested air of a sociopath. "It looks like it has fight -- perhaps might be considering rebellion. That one. Boil it until its skin turns red and then I shall consume whatever I find when I crack the shell."

It is worth noting I am from Maine, a state that used to have lobsters on their license plates. A state where we actually have turned lobster, which is generally $22.50 for a relatively poor one on the plates of New York restaurants, into fast food. Seriously. We scoop out the meat, mix it with mayonnaise, slap it into a hot dog roll, and grill it. McDonalds sells lobster rolls around here during the summer.

It is also worth noting I hate lobster. It tastes like rubber dipped in butter. This is one reason I cannot live in my home state, but must forever live across its border, staring mournfully back from New Hampshire, yearning to be one of the special. I do not like lobster. I do not claim to like lobster. And when I describe lobster, I compare eating it to psychosis.

Once, in Camden, I saw children being entertained at a dockside restaurant by a chef who plucked out lobsters and teased them. They laughed, and then the lobsters got thrown into boiling water so their parents could eat them. The children laughed some more. As did many others. I am not a vegetarian. I am a classic omnivore, and I do enjoy meat. Still, I was creeped right the hell out that day and stuck to salad for about a week. Laugh, children, laugh.

Still, there are strips I can be that jaded about. Sooner or later, User Friendly is going to come up on the random rolls, after all, and whatever emotional connection I had to that strip suffocated sometime after the missile silo storyline.

This isn't one of those strips. Bill Holbrook isn't one of those cartoonists. I have immeasurable respect for Bill Holbrook, and I think his webcomic, Kevin and Kell, is one of the most significant in the history of webcomics. It legitimized the form from an early start. Heck, Holbrook has intimated in the past that he continues to produce his two nationally syndicated comic strips so that he can afford to keep Kevin and Kell going. And he did this years before anybody made a living at being an online cartoonist.

It is also worth noting those nationally syndicated strips are high quality, with good jokes, good art, excellent writing and continuing storylines full of strangeness and mirth the likes of which we haven't seen since Pogo. And Kevin and Kell is the strip that he does for love as much as money, and it turns all of the above up to 11.

And God help me, I'm falling out of love with it. Have fallen out of love with it, really, but I can't quite let it go and I'm not sure I ever can.

Kevin and Kell was one of the earliest online comics I read, just after the aforementioned User Friendly. (Which also wasn't the first, but this is not the venue to discuss Slugs! except to say I'd like it to come back, please.) It was a webcomic that featured good humor, a good situation, excellent geek jokes, good art, and social relevance all wrapped up with an ethernet cord chewed by a half-wolf/half-rabbit baby who was busy spitting up full elk skeletons. Which was a testament to Holbrook -- Kevin and Kell is, after all, an anthropomorphic comic. A furry strip, in other words. And 'furry' has baggage these days, deserved or not.But in Holbrook's world of Domain, the gruesome side of society is presented with as much cheer as the suburban side. Predators and prey both live and work together, but it's well known and understood that the predators eat the prey, and we see evidence of that all the time. Casual jokes about the slaughter of innocent sentient beings so that other sentients may live. A carnivorous baby who sometimes kills and eats the antagonist of a given series of strips as a resolution to a given plot. Seriously. And then the followup isn't "our nonverbal daughter in diapers just consumed a living being with hopes and dreams, solving some of my problems in a horrific but brutally final way," but "boy, I hope this doesn't screw with Coney's toilet training."

This is not the only time the day has been saved by Coney eating the antagonist. I seem to recall a sequence where a feline Human Resources manager discovers Kell is domesticated and is going to ruin her life, but the baby doesn't just eat him, she mounts his stuffed head on the wall as a trophy. But I can't find it and honestly, absent Oh No Robot access it's too hard to track down for the purposes of writing this.

As a side note, even back at the time I found the consuming of a living being perfectly acceptable, but fishing in a toilet made me a little ill. Ah, situational ethics.

The thing is? The strip was about racism. Or anti-semitism. Or gay marriage or homophobia. Or anything else you want to talk about where one person hates other people because they're not like he is. Kevin (Heaven) is a rabbit. Kell (Hell) is a wolf. They met in an online chatroom, they fell in love, and then they discovered that she was a predator and he was prey. And they decided "well, what the heck," both having had bad experiences before -- Kell's first husband was trampled to death trying to impress people by bringing down too-large prey. Kevin's first wife, though a rabbit, was a bitch who ditched him for a skunk, then got ditched by the skunk after adopting his large number of skunk children. Later still she would be ejected from Rabbitdom and downgraded to "rodent," which she cheerfully accepted, had surgery to make herself resemble a rat, and married a predator herself.

The point is, the tension point of the strip -- the situation of the situation comedy -- is "here's a couple that's supposed to avoid each other. The wolf eats the rabbit. This is how the world works. You don't go against the order. Only they love each other, and they've had a baby, and they have children from their earlier marriages, and now they have to make it work."

And it did work -- as a marriage and as a strip. It worked for a long, long, long time, Jesus, this thing's been running since 1995. There are people reading this right now who weren't alive when this strip started. (And if you're one of them, talk to your parents about whether or not you should be reading this site. I use bad language, talk about art, and am a liberal. I just don't want you to get into trouble.)

So, why am I falling out of (fallen out of) love with this strip? It's clearly great, right?

Well... yeah. Yeah it is.

But I mentioned the tension point above. The interfactional marriage. (Interspecies marriage seems to be such a common occurrence that the taboo is clearly predator/prey.) Kevin and Kell trying to be accepted by their society, trying to hold a sometimes resentful family together, and trying to have a decent life despite being different. That's the cornerstone of the series -- the prime motivating factor behind the story and the funny.

And... well... it's been thirteen years, almost. Society's pretty well adapted. In fact, they've had several storylines to prove it. (Not the least of which was when the entire neighbor came out with mirrors to reflect sunlight onto the Dewclaws' tree -- it had lost its access to sunlight -- so that it wouldn't die and force them to move.) Heck, Kevin and Kell saved the world from the Y2K bug by fixing the code and "infusing it with their tolerant personalities." These days, when someone reacts negatively to the predator/prey relationship, it seems almost quaint and ridiculous. Jeez, man. This is yesterday's news.

Not to mention there have been lots of other interfactional marriages since then.

To compensate, Holbrook has put in other analogues. Bruno, Rudy's best friend, started the comic as a "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," ostensibly as a hunting technique, but in actuality he was wearing his sheep girlfriend on his back the whole time (kinnnnnky....) After she was revealed (and later revealed to be half-wolf, and Ralph Dewclaw's daughter, making her Rudy's cousin and Kell's niece and -- yeah, there's a Hell of a lot of this kind of thing going on), he went back to his sheepskin disguise in part to make the character look right, but also to be reminded of Corrie (said half-sheep/half-wolf). And after that it became an analogue to crossdressing/transgendering/transsexuality when Bruno gets three extra stomachs put in so he can become a herbivore. This leads to arguments and friction and prejudice and "will Bruno be allowed to stay on the Hunting team" and Rudy and Bruno having a fistfight and...

Or how about Domestication, the homosexuality of Domain. Kell develops spontaneous domestication, which she's passed on to her son genetically, and they have to disguise the signs and compensate for it so Kell doesn't lose her job and be downgraded to Prey, et al. Later, several other people (including R.L., the Alpha Male destructive force of a wolf who owns and runs Herdthinners, Inc.) And then there's lots of ways Domestication proves to be an advantage (at least, Fiona, Rudy's girlfriend, is willing to take advantage of it).

Oh, Fiona. Half-fennec fox with rabbitlike ears that she hates at first, as her father generally does, but later accepts. Fennecs are actually African foxes and we go through a Fennec pride storyline and she wears modified "traditional Fennec dress" and are you getting the subtle point here?

Oh, and Lindesfarne, who was a herbivore in the registry because she was adopted as a porcupine but as it turns out she's really an English Hedgehog so she becomes an insectivore overnight, only she and her insectivore bat boyfriend Fenton are best friends with a firefly and a moth--

Oh, did I mention that Kell hated cats until she became best friends with Aby, who's a feline car mechanic who teaches her the feline language and Kell learns to--

Oh, and now we have Kevin's mother entering the strip, and she hates carnivores with a passion and tries very hard to convince Coney to be a herbivore exclusively only she and Kell's mother who despise each other really don't and learn to--

...are you seeing a pattern here?

Without the societal tension implicit in the situation, the strip loses cohesion. Holbrook is a pro (oh man is he ever) and knows this, so he has to reintroduce tense situations. Only at this point they go straight into formula, because everyone involved has huge amounts of practice. And we see a lot of repeating as a result. And yeah, every so often someone gets eaten to boot (though not "name" characters, though Holbrook used to tease it.)

The next issue is the sheer complexity of the strip. At this point, the FAQ for the strip is seventeen thousand words long, and a huge amount of that FAQ comes down to answering who all these secondary characters are. Which is a godsend and good on everyone involved, but it denotes something -- Holbrook is very creative and very careful with his continuity, and has been doing this for thirteen years. Of equal value is the Comixpedia writeup, which is very long and very complete and an excellent synopsis and oh my God there's a lot going on here, and that's not even counting the Birds.

It gets exhausting. And not unlike the Simpsons, more and more of the strips deal with the extended cast instead of the primary cast because honestly, the primary cast has done so freaking much it's hard to give them new situations.

And though he's slowly begun aging his cast (Lindesfarne was finally allowed to graduate and go to college, while Coney finally became a Toddler, for example), there are ways that aging isn't fast enough. Lindesfarne won't get married until she graduates from college, which might not take long (she is, after all, a supergenius), but if it happens before Rudy graduates from high school that would be difficult, only Rudy and Fiona moving into college would take the strip further from its roots in one sense... and in another give us another situation to set up....

And that doesn't even touch on the phrase that drives me the most insane. The phrase that for long as I've been reading this comic has knocked me right out of the moment. The phrase that doesn't happen all the time but recurs just often enough that I want to pound my head into brick walls when I see it.

"We canines use our tails to communicate--"

"We felines use our tales to indicate displeasure--"

"We bats use echolocution as--"

"We rabbits have a complicated strategy of--"

Gah.

Every time I see a character say "We [whatever] do [a thing]," my brain is thrown back into the bad side of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. "As you know, Bob, the gravity reductionist device has enabled us to fly our ships without regard to inertia!" "Why yes, Steve, and as you'll recall our oxygen comes from the O2ameter here in the corner...." I know. I know Holbrook has to get us information on the way an entire civilization from the Whales to the insects are intelligent manages to operate without thermonuclear genocide, but for God's sake we know she's a cat. We can see she's a cat. Aby doesn't have to tell us she's a cat when describing cat behavior! SHE'S A CAT!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry. I got frothy there for a second.

Look, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that Kevin and Kell is bad. It isn't. It's very, very good. That Holbrook still manages to make nine strips out of ten funny in the fourth panel even to a new reader is a testament to his sheer competence in this arena. But at this point, after all these years, I no longer think anything will really go wrong for these people. Society's pretty well adjusted. They adjust to each new wrinkle. Problems get solved, usually within a couple of weeks. The years of long extended metastory are well and truly behind us. We are left with domestic comedy, and we've heard the jokes a bunch of times.

It's not a hate. It's not even aggravation (outside of the phrase mentioned above, but we critics fixate on language and recurrence, as you know, Steve).

But it's hard to feel the love. It's hard to care. Rudy's not going to flunk out. Fiona's not going to cheat on him (again). And she's certainly not going to end up pregnant or anything. The family's going to make it through whatever comes up, and so are the secondary characters. Mom Kindle's got her new boyfriend and his criminal record? No big deal. Mom Kindle and Mom Dewclaw will spar as they both work at Aby's garage, but the wolf won't turn, seize the rabbit in her jaws and shake until the rabbit lies dead, waiting to be devoured. The only speaking characters who end up devoured are bad people, and it'll probably be Coney who eats them.

Laugh, children, laugh.

I'm not giving up on the strip. I've loved it too much and I don't hate it enough to try and kill the inertia. I go two or three weeks and I catch up, and usually that gets me through a conflict or two, and I enjoy Holbrook's clear skill.

But I'm falling out of love with it. Have fallen out of love with it. I'm just sticking with it because I don't actually dislike it, and that's a little sad for me.

Anyway, 2800 words in and we'll get to the metrics.

Strengths

As stated at length, Holbrook is a consummate professional. He's rock steady on updates. His strips are perfectly executed from panel one to panel four. The art is distinctive and clean and lovely. The characters are well written. The jokes are funny. It's hard to say anything bad about someone who's so good. And the FAQ and other website elements (on the several websites where Kevin and Kell appear) are well done and easy to work with.

Weaknesses

Beyond the malaise I mention in the body of the essay, the biggest issues are actually pretty trivial. The tag lines added to the strips can sometimes spoil them if you don't train yourself not to read them before looking at the strip. Though it would be a monumental task for the fanbase, incorporating Oh No Robot would be a very cool thing and helpful to boot. And while there may not be anything to be done for it, the cast really is unfeasibly large at this point, and it might behoove Holbrook to do some series surgery to narrow things down.

On the Whole

Kevin and Kell is still a damn good comic. Better than most, really.

It's like in any relationship. You want to say how they've let you down, but really sometimes the magic just fades.

It's not you, it's me.

And that's a sad thing to write.

Right-o. We roll the dice for the next one of these -- hopefully not so complex, so I can get it out in a more timely fashion....

Oh! Cool. Right. See you then.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:07 PM | Comments (23)

March 12, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): Jennie Breeden

The Webcartoonist: Jennie Breeden

Current Webcomics: The Devil's Panties, Geebas on Parade

Enthusiasm: The Devil's Panties: The Hoi Polloi, Geebas on Parade: Happily Reading

How Frequently Read: When I Remember to Check

It's interesting to me, writing these, to hit a cartoonist who's doing multiple strips. It's certainly reasonable that my enthusiasm might be different for two or more strips done by a given artist -- after all, if the two strips are so identical that my reactions are identical, it raises the question of whether or not multiple strips are really called for. After all, it's nice to see a webcartoonist stretch -- even if they're following paths they've gone down before, working in multiple areas and with multiple intentions keeps the writing and drawing muscles supple.

Jennie Breeden interests me, having said this, because my reactions are actually pretty atypical for me, looking at her current stuff, in two ways. One, while the subject matter of her two ongoing strips are significantly different, there is a real core similarity between them. Both star, for lack of a better word, her. Both are humorous elaborations and exaggerations on aspects of her own life. The Devil's Panties is at its heart a journal comic, even if it takes creative liberties with what's happening in Breeden's life for the sake of the punchline, if nothing else. Geebas on Parade details the goofy and funny side of Breeden's long years of playing SOLAR. The art style is virtually identical between the two strips, some characters appear in both strips, the humor is very similar between the two strips and most importantly -- though we call her "Jennie" in one and "Talia" in the other, Breeden is the same in both.

And yet, my reactions to the two strips are really quite different. And even more unusually, the strip I'm indifferent to is her primary strip, while her secondary, specialist strip is the one I actively look forward to. And that's very unusual, in my experience.

It's worth noting I didn't always feel this way about The Devil's Panties. I used to be very into it. It's over the past year to year and a half that it's just sort of faded into the background -- not quite 'why do I read this webcomic again' but I can see it's house from where we're camped out. Geebas, on the other hand, almost never fails to make me laugh.

And that kind of mystifies me. Why does "Talia finds the half naked gypsy boys appealing and is unafraid to show it" make me laugh, and "Jennie finds the half naked boys at the charity auction appealing and is unafraid to show" kind of meh? The jokes are largely the same, the circumstances aren't dissimilar, the art is almost identical, and it's not like Breeden isn't good at executing a four panel gag comic -- she is, and very well.

It took me a while, but finally I figured it out.

Breeden has settled down.

Let me explain through the lens of someone else's life -- my own.

I used to write an online journal, back in the days before 'blogs,' and in its own way it was popular, and when I discovered I was looking at dying off thanks to my heart expanding like Jiffy Pop Popcorn and my kidneys deciding I must be dehydrated and drowning me in my own fluids (I'm much better now, thanks) it got very popular -- for an online journal, anyway. And that's part of the key right there, but let me talk about my later writing career -- when I started up a cultural commentary blog and named it Websnark. And if I look over several years of records, I see that some of the most popular stuff I've written for websnark are details of my life. If you look at the Evergreen section over in the sidebar of the main page, you'll see them -- Spider Webs and Shadows, and the Purgatory of New Hampshire Malls in Summer, Views of the Q List: The Dumbrella Meet and Greet, Dead Dogs and others. And some folks want to know why I don't write more of those. They like them, and they think it's the sort of thing I do well, and they wants it, their precious.

The answer can be found in that old Online Journal -- when I wasn't, you know, dying, having chemicals put in me to keep me alive, and generally trying to get better -- which was great for ratings because it was interesting -- my life was boring. Boring boring boring. Once in a few months I have an experience that makes for a good nonfiction story, and I try to do well by those stories when they come up, but if I tried to make a decent blog out of "worked until 6ish tonight, then got some food at the cafe, went home, talked to my cat and watched Iron Chef America," there would only be so long I could make that entertaining. Back in the days when I was living hand to mouth, surviving on temp salaries, rarely acting and ekeing out an existence on the streets of Boston or Ithaca or Seattle, there was a lot more grist for the mill -- that would have made great journal or blog fodder. But in New Hampshire, with a steady job I'm good at and comparatively few changes in my day to day life?

And this is the crux of The Devil's Panties and why it's not as enthralling as once it was. Once, Breeden's life was very random -- there were changes day to day. She was trying to get by. She was trying to keep sane. And she was really, really good at making those experiences funny.

And now... she's home a lot, with her boyfriend, who is cool. She sometimes goes out to clubs, but it's rare. And she goes to a lot of conventions because that's a big part of how she makes her money as an artist.

And the eighteenth or nineteenth time she does that, it's really hard to fall over laughing. We've seen it. Her life has become routine. It may be a much different routine than one you or I know, but it is still routine. There's very little chance something so new is going to happen to her at a con that it will knock me off my perch and call me Susan.

It's not that the strips are bad. They aren't. They're still Jennie Breeden. It's that they're familiar, and not in the sense of "oh, I've done that." In the sense of "is this a rerun? Check the TV Guide, honey!

At the same time, that's not the case with Geebas on Parade. Now, though I am a gamer, I'm not by nature a LARPer. I was a Renn Fest geek which is not unlike LARP, only without combat, magic, the chance to be a monster or naked fairy chicks as played by large men (at least, not at my old festival), so it's not the laughter of the other kind of familiar. However, even though the premise is locked down as much or more than The Devil's Panties, there are new spins to be found all the time. Even retreads feel fresher, somehow. This isn't a journal comic -- not really. Breeden is free to cherry pick the Funny, refine it and toss it to we the ravenous readers. It's just plain fun. And it gives us a sense of what it's really like to play one of these games -- the joys and the pains of it. And, it's taught me that if I ever take up SOLAR, I should make sure to get a Women Lore skill tag, but that's really not here or there.

In other words, The Devil's Panties is a humorous journal comic, and Breeden's settled into a life routine that reduces her chances for distinctiveness, while Geebas on Parade is a situation comedy, and she's far from mining out its comedy vein.

And every so often, something does happen that inspires The Devil's Panties to its former greatness -- and I generally feel kind of badly because it usually mean Breeden's had a nasty personal experience -- and is strong enough to share those experiences with the group. I'm reminded of a sequence when Breeden's car was stolen -- a painful and traumatic experience for anyone, and it turned into a bunch of funny strips. This puts us in the awkward position of rooting for something terrible to happen to Breeden for our pleasure, and I'm pretty sure that's the kind of attitude that led to Rome falling. I'd rather just enjoy Geebas and have Breeden have a happy life.

Strengths

I love Jennie Breeden's art. It's stylized, and dynamic -- she's great at conveying exactly what she wants to have happen on the panel. And Geebas is almost always just darn funny -- well written, well voiced, a good blend of mockery and gentle kidding -- her affection for her subject comes out.

And, because I live dangerously, I'm going to talk about Breeden's spelling. But I am not here to condemn it. (Breeden is dyslexic and often spells phonetically, and woe betide anyone stupid enough to take her to task for it.) Well, I'm not taking her to task for it: I think it's great.

Seriously.

Breeden's spelling adds something to the strip. It contributes to the overall aesthetic. It creates a slight sense of the surreal and the whimsical. I'm not saying this to talk bravely about the brave girl who overcomes blah blah blah. I'm saying both strips are improved by Breeden's word usage and phonetic renderings. It's like reading Pogo, only with the edge of reality. The effect is only enhanced by her lettering -- when Breeden hand-letters, the result is beautiful and fits the art perfectly.

And, while Breeden's life might not be inspiring new strips, Breeden is perfectly good at executing that four panels from setup to punch, and it's hard to knock someone when they get the fundamentals down so solidly.

Weaknesses

Stepping away from the above, I'll mention the slow rise of computer lettering, particularly in Geebas. I'm sure this is meant as a timesaver, but I do think it takes something away, given how cool Breeden's lettering chops are.

Also, the avatar/sprites can sometimes be overused a touch.

On the Whole

As I've tried to make clear, I think Breeden's a great cartoonist. I'm not sure what can be done to fire my interest in Devil's Panties, absent a really funny tragedy happening to her, and I'd rather just pass on that. On the other hand, Geebas showcases her strengths so well it''s hardly a surprise I'm always so psyched when we get new episodes.

Daylight Savings Time continues to kick my ass, and I continue to track the post-Gygax gaming world. I may have a few things to say sometime soon, and I hope not to bore folks when I do. In the meantime, let me do the die roll for the next one of these....

Aha. A "why do I read this webcomic again" strip. This one ought to be interesting... well, we'll see you then!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:43 AM | Comments (9)

March 11, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): Brad Guigar

The Webcartoonist: Brad Guigar

Current Webcomics: Evil Inc., Courting Disaster, Phables

You May Remember Him From Such Projects As: Greystone Inn, Halfpixel,

Enthusiasm: Evil Inc: Rabidly Following, Courting Disaster and Phables: Happily Reading

How Frequently Read: Evil Inc: Regularly Checked, Courting Disaster and Phables: Occasionally Checked

I told you we would return on Tuesday. I never said which Tuesday. Regardless, we should now be back.

Some webcartoonists -- especially the ones who've been around since Valentine's Day of 2000 -- get stale. It's not that they become bad. It's just... you've seen what they have to offer, and they've kind of peaked, and they're slowly descending. They're not bad, but they're just... not as good as they were. If you think about it, you can come up with a list of your own.

But don't put Brad Guigar on that list, because he's awesome. In fact, Brad Guigar's pushed to a whole new level in the past couple of years. Brad is better now than he's ever been.

In fact... and I'll say this quietly... Brad Guigar is the best webcartoonist at Halfpixel, for my money. And Halfpixel ain't pikers, kids.

The last couple of years have been good to Guigar, it's worth noting. First, he made the leap along with several others to be a founding member of Blank Label Comics, who went on to have as good a collective relaunch as any of the guilds. And while Guigar had a successful webcomic in Greystone Inn, he did a soft reboot of his strip, sliding carefully out of the Greystone Inn premise and into the Evil Inc premise, so that by the time he officially ended the one strip and launched the next, he'd been running Evil Inc strips for weeks. It gave his fans a chance to acclimate, and gave him a good foundation to build -- despite the fact that the new strip premise was incompatible with the old strip premise.

Seriously -- the old strip premise postulated that comics were acted out, and that comic strip and comic book characters were real, but still explicitly comic characters. Yes, Lightning Lady was a superpowered hot chick in a bustier, but it was clear she was actually a comic book supervillain, not... you know, an actual supervillain. Put her outside of her comic world, and she had to go and get a real job.

On the other hand, Evil Inc. is a full on superheroic world. Good vs. evil is so entrenched that it's become codified, and one of the greatest supervillains of all time decided that it made more sense to get rich selling gear to other villains instead. Had he gone with a "Lightning Lady gets a job on a new comic strip" direction, it would have fit the old Greystone Inn fine -- but he didn't, and in fact we've had significant crossover and references between the two strips. (The panel I selected above features Samantha Bruce -- former Public Relations director at Creative Contract studios, where Greystone Inn was produced, and now Public Relations director for Evil, Incorporated itself. Argus, the lead at Greystone Inn, has turned up as the celebrity figurehead for a charity, and so forth.)

This is not a complaint about discontinuities, mind. This is kudos -- because he made it work. I suspect a good number of readers never noticed the shift between core assumptions from one strip to the next. Guigar is deft and skilled. Which came across beautifully over the last couple of years, as he built up a storyline one four panel gag at a time, leading to an epic struggle of ethics versus morals, good versus evil, the right thing to do and the wrong thing -- with some confusion over what those might be -- intentional torts and office cosplay sex. He built it to a well paced climax, blew the roof off the joint (literally), and surged mightily into the next story arc, with some things back to normal, and others very much not. Good stuff, all around.

And, it's worth noting, very versatile. Which brings us to Guigar's other two strips. And both of which being very different than Evil Inc. Courting Disaster is a single panel gag strip (generally single panel, anyway), in color. It's meant as part of a sex advice website, where people write in with problems and readers submit advice. And, generally, Guigar does a strip sending up the situation being written about. Which is about one hundred and seventy two degrees away from Phables, Guigar's award winning (and Eisner nominated) strip about life in Philadelphia. Phables comes across somewhere between Carol Lay and James Kolchalka, and those aren't names I toss around willy nilly. The stories may be funny or may be poignant or may just make you smile, but they have a rhythm and a feel almost poetic -- like it was as inevitable as the Philadelphia Spectrum.

Which they're considering tearing down to build a hotel. So, maybe that's a bad example.

The thing that strikes me is... Phables isn't anything like Evil Inc or Courting Disaster (or Greystone Inn, for that matter). The art style is similar, of course, but the tone is very different -- which isn't an easy thing to do.

But then, Guigar's good at doing difficult things. When he does a topic he does it all the way. When his high concept was "behind the scenes at a comic strip," he sent up both entertainment and the comics (and his humor centered on things like the Rat Pack -- remade into actual rats from a 60's comic -- and Steve Martin, not to mention the time Mutt and freaking Jeff cameoed. Now that is oldschool). When doing comic book villainy, Guigar commits all the way. (And as someone who can appreciate comic book villainy, let me say that Guigar's understanding and appreciation of comic book tropes is second to none. And that doesn't even factor in that the day I met him in person, the man was wearing a blue tee shirt with an original Fantastic Four logo on it.) He's amiable, he's committed, and when he writes about something he knows his subject cold.

And that's just plain cool.

I mentioned before that he's the best at Halfpixel right now. That's a dangerous statement to make, but I think it's borne out. In a room full of creative, talented people, Guigar just quietly brings his A game, and that's a very, very cool thing.

On to the usuals.

Strengths

Guigar's art style is evocative and distinctive, but clean. It shows off action really well. His writing style is well executed regardless of whether he's writing single panel, four panels or twenty panels, and adapts to his space rather than belaboring it. When writing Evil Inc., he manages to bring the (often convoluted) Story but always has the Funny worked in too -- he can do a long, involved overplot and still manage to be accessible to new readers.

And he draws hot chicks in spandex. And at least one of those hot chicks in spandex is held up as one of the paragons of Teh Sexxors while wearing a full body suit. (Actually, the superhero and villain costuming in Evil Inc is excellent, right down to Captain Heroic's little unitard with shorts.)

Weaknesses

Evil Inc recently went full color, thanks to Ed Ryzowski of Geek Tragedy. Ryowski is a skilled colorist, but the style -- subdued tones and shading -- detracts from the old school comic aesthetic in my estimation. I'd rather see brighter tones -- anything from silver age up through 80's flexographic would jump out and reinforce the whole comic book thing.

Also, to love Brad Guigar's work is to read a lot of puns. I mean, a lot of puns. Yeah. Puns.

On the Whole

Guigar is in ascendence, and people should know it. He's in newspapers, he cowrote a book, he's got collections, and his three current strips are all cool. And that's pretty old awesome. Please, enjoy the man and his mad cartooning skills.

Right. Roll the dice and take a spin, and tomorrow....

Oh ho ho. Coolness.

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

February 29, 2008

Eric: The State Back on Tuesday!

Right! Way too much prep work tonight, leading to little time to sit down and do a decent job of things. And as I've nodded off twice at the keyboard, it won't be before I actually sleep. Since, you know, I'm driving and doing a border crossing and spending many hours not (we hope) falling asleep and dying.

If something quick comes up, I might ping in, but this is, essentially, valentine's day for us, and you know, the computer isn't really my first resort then.

Thanks, all!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:32 AM | Comments (0)

February 28, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): John Allison

The Webcartoonist: John Allison

Current Webcomic: Scary Go Round

You May Remember Him From Such Webcomics As: Scareodeleria, Bobbins

Enthusiasm: The Hoi Polloi

How Frequently Read: Occasionally Checked

Sometimes, life ain't all that easy to understand, you know? Take Scary Go Round. It's too good a webcomic and I like it far too much to be this apathetic about it, but there we are. I'll have to try to explain.

John Allison is one of the old school. He's been doing this since 1998 on the web, but he started playing with the characters who would ultimately become the Bobbins and Scary Go Round cast in 1994, when he was wee. He went through a period where he wrote and drew Cat Flap, a protostrip not on the web, but bits and pieces show the sensibilities (and cast) that would define the strip ahead. He took a side tour through a supernatural comic (with cameos and bits with some of his later Bobbins cast, prefiguring Scary Go Round), and then finally began his full on webcomic career with Bobbins, which was one of my favorite comics during its run.

When he ended it in 2002, and began the sequel Scary Go Round, he did something I thought was very smart at the time: he focused on a new cast, and to cement the deal, he killed off Shelley, his most popular Bobbins alumna, in the second chapter. It was a bold move, making it clear that Scary Go Round wasn't Bobbins -- it was a new strip, with new people and new happenings.

Only that's not where it went. Shelley was revived as a zombie, and then revived as a real living person, and became the protagonist. The two new leads, Rachel and Tessa, went bad and went on to suffer multiple bad ends. And many, many great stories followed, the ever evolving mythology of Tackleford growing with them.

Thus is the glory of Scary Go Round, and thus is its curse. Scary Go Round is a dense webcomic. Even if we discount the preweb years, these are characters, settings, and mythology with roots going back about ten years, each and every day, storyline after storyline after storyline. And if you read any one of those storylines, you'll find several things in common -- smart, snappy dialogue, good humor, a coherent plot that moves forward, a cast of engaging characters, and oddities that endear rather than put off. How many? Just counting Scary Go Round we're on chapter forty-two right now. (And as a side note, the Chapters page may be one of the nicest storyline selectors I've seen on a website.)

And after enough years, it all becomes a bit overwhelming. We launch into a new story with fire and vigor, but after a week or two our energy is dissipated, and like The Boy we revert to callow youth and poke at things with sticks.

Which is why I've found myself doing the "occasionally checked" shuffle with Scary Go Round these days. If I go a few weeks, there's a healthy chunk of British fire waiting and I can devour it like brisket, fighting off a vague sense of confusion though sheer gusto and an appreciation for pluck. With luck, by the end I feel the satisfaction of good reading and appreciation, without quite noticing that I'm not sure who some of the characters are because two of them were added new for the story and three others are callbacks to storylines from the late teens I can't remember at the moment. Part of the problem there is the former look like the latter, and I've been known to reread seven years of comic strips trying to find when a newly created character "first appeared." Honestly, the third or fourth time that happened you'd elect to be apathetic too.

Which is hardly Allison's fault, mind. He does his job and he does it damnably well. This is a stylish, fun comic full of good things that he puts together well. But, well, I'm old now, and I get tired, and sometimes I don't remember so well. I drink tea and I play with my magical E-Ink book reader designed to take the most sophisticated technology ever turned to the literary arts and make it as close to a $5.99 mass market paperback as the Sony Corporation can get it, rereading stories and occasionally writing a thing or three and wondering when my hair got this white and these students I work with got so young, and then boom it's time for medication and the old thump-chest and....

...I seem to have completely lost my train of thought. Sorry.

Anyway, I should probably move on to the usuals, before I start talking about when I was your age and Ithaca or Seattle or something.

Strengths

Dialogue dialogue dialogue dialogue dialogue. While Allison can fall into the "all these characters sound the same" trap, the repartee he writes is spot on and downright crackling. I love reading friends and enemies alike chat and cut into each other with verbal jabs.

Which can be expanded to writing. Like I said, Allison's great at building storylines -- and the fact that officially this is a horror/humor comic means he's not constrained in them. He doesn't have to have things work out in the end. Sometimes, Shelley gets killed or her sister Erin gets dragged into Hell and everyone forgets her or, worse still, Tim is exiled to Wales forever. Allison can have terrible things happen to his characters, and he's not afraid to let those things change the story, possibly permanently.

Artistically, I've always been a fan, but when Allison went back to hand drawing instead of Illustrator tricks and the like, the art went up a level or three. His artistic vision is highly stylized and made out of concentrated awesome.

His site is great, his cast list is up to date and detailed, his navigational tools and archives are strong, he has good value ads, and he sells limited edition tea towels. What isn't to like? Huh? Huh?

Weaknesses

As stated, the sheer, daunting depth of the developed backstory can make for confusion. Allison's strengths don't include contextual clues on cast members -- he throws you into the deep end, letting you get to know new characters as you go along (usually) and letting you remember old ones -- or not -- on your own. While the cast list helps keep them straight, it can still make for difficulty and confusion.

The ever present danger of a bad ending adds spice to each chapter, but there's a danger there too. Erin Winters is a case in point -- Shelley's younger sister had a crush, only to see him fall in with a mysterious and blossoming goth girl. She then drank an unstable formula, making her an amazon and giving her rages. Then she was hypnotized and enthralled by a demonic school principal, who she then married while under his spell. And then she was dragged to Hell in trying to save said Principal, whereupon her family and friends all forgot her entirely.

While it's possible -- nay, likely -- that Erin will return later on... if you get right down to it she didn't really deserve any of that. This is a story where bad things can happen to nice people, sometimes in chains, and lead to... well, lead to all of this. And if it happens often enough you learn to not empathize too much with these folks -- bad things can and will happen to them. And that's a distance that can be dangerous for a story.

On the Whole

Scary Go Round is a great comic that I often really enjoy when I'm reading it but which can just wear me out if I'm not careful. The man brings the story and the funny in good measure, but right now it's best served -- for my purposes and its purposes -- with the occasional catchup than checking in every day.

And to this day I regret not having bought the first edition tea towel. But that's hardly anyone's fault but my own.

Tomorrow I'm off to Ottawa, but I'll try to have an essay waiting for you here and another on Monday while I'm driving back. Casting the bones we see...

Ooooo, Cool. That list needs some padding out. See you then!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (10)

Eric: The gang of four becomes the gang of... what, one?

Very briefly... Keenspot announced today that Crosby Comics -- the personal business arm of Chris and Teri Crosby, though I don't know how it's set up) has purchased the entirety of Keenspot from former partners Darren "Action" Bleuel (Codename 'Gav') and Nate "Passion" Stone (Codename 'Nate Stone'). Bleuel and Stone will continue to provide technical support and maintenance until they've trained their successors, which seems to now be coordinated by Dan "Shank" Shive (Codename 'Barbershop'), the new Chief Technical Officer.

What does this mean for Keenspot and Webcomics in general?

I have no Earthly idea. I'm just having trouble sleeping and I happened to hit the Keenspot main page and there was the story, big as fish. It will be interesting to see how Keenspot changes moving forward. I'm also interested to see what happens to Nukees -- does it become a standard Keenspot strip, does it move elsewhere, does Gav stop producing it or 'other?' (I hope the answer isn't that he stops producing it. I've always been a Nukees fan. But the man is a nuclear engineer and scientist, and he might have other calls on his time.)

Very interesting stuff, regardless.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:01 AM | Comments (5)

February 27, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): James Grant and Mel Hynes

The Webcartoonists: James Grant and Mel Hynes

Current Webcomic: Two Lumps

You May Remember Them From Such Projects As: FLEM Comics, On The Banks of Lethe, Pedestrian Wolves, Timmy Kat, Your Fucking Nightmares!

Enthusiasm: Happily Reading

How Frequently Read: Sporadically Checked

James Grant is going to kick my ass if we ever meet. I have this as an article of faith.

Understand, I don't want him to kick my ass. Asskickings hurt, and I'm old and frail. And I don't think I've actually given him reason to kick my ass -- our dealings in the past have been cordial, helped I'm sure by the fact that I've liked pretty much anything he's been part of. And he's not an unreasonable person.

No, James Grant is going to kick my ass sheerly because he is that cool, and because my ass is there to be kicked. He'll apologize afterward, assuming I don't mewl.

Mel Hynes will not kick my ass unless I give her a reason. But if I give her a reason she will destroy me. She will reduce me to corpuscles. James Grant kicks asses because that's what he does. Mel Hynes is a force of nature.

They do a comic strip about cats.

Two Lumps is not FLEM Comics. It isn't horrifying the way a snake is. Two Lumps is not Timmy Kat, which is one of my favorite one-shot comics of all time. Two Lumps is not Pedestrian Wolves or On The Banks of Lethe, Grant's two books, at least one of which gave me disturbing dreams for weeks. Two Lumps is a comic strip about cats.

But man, it's sure as Hell not Garfield either.

On one level, Two Lumps is mostly family friendly. It's about a smart, evil cat and a stupid, loving cat. Also, there is vodka and occasionally sex. It's largely gag-a-day with some forays into continuity when they feel like it. Also, occasionally one farts on the other.

Which gives us, ultimately, some sense of where to put it on the cosm of media about animals. See, almost all stories, TV shows, movies, cartoons, comic books, comic strips, cave drawings or other representations actually about animals anthropomorphizes them to some degree. (Note we're not actually discussing anthropomorphic comics here -- from the Funny Animals through to Furry Comics et al. We're talking about actual animals, not animals with opposable thumbs.) And these representations follow a continuum -- anywhere from Clifford The Big Red Dog, who is after all very big and red, and while he is a dog his dog nature is subsumed by cute, through Garfield, who is an utterly unrealistic cat but not very big or red, all the way to Watership Down, where animals act like animals, are in no way cute, and sometimes rabbits set up repressive police states that must be overthrown while rabbit priests dream horrible dreams of blood and rivers.

Ebenezer and Snooch aren't Watership Down, but they're sure not Clifford. While their thought processes aren't realistic, the core behaviors and troubles they get into are. They're selfish (even Snooch), and while Eben might be brilliant, he doesn't really understand the world as we do and he doesn't care to. You get the feeling that for all their reverence for "Mom," they'd sell her in a New York second for a heap of food. They eat things they shouldn't. They get into liquor and candy that'll kill them. They freak the Hell out and go into blinding rages of pain and destruction when they go to the vet. They stare at birds "they would lick for hours and hours."

In short, rather than acting cute and cuddly and the way we'd like cats to act, they act like cats, and sometimes that's cute and sometimes that's horrid. And sometimes it involves smells that no decent being would admit to. I know this. I own a cat. And I love my cat. But my cat, for all my love and affection, has a brain the size of a walnut. She has no true cognitive skills. She doesn't understand my words. She understands things that make her feel good, things that make her feel bad, and things she wants to stalk and kill. She will gladly wolf down any cheese or turkey I have, even if it's too fast and it makes her vomit, then immediately walk back over and ask for more. This is not the act of an reasoning creature.

Garfield may love lasagna, but he's not at the core a dumbass cat. Eben and Snooch, no matter how smart they are in the strip, are grounded in being cats. And you can totally see Snooch eating to the point of throwing up just everywhere, horrifying all who see, then walking over and asking for more food. And if he doesn't get it he'll go and eat what he just vomited, because hey.

Disgusting? Yes. But very Cat.

This has been the hallmark of the Grant/Hynes partnership/marriage. Before Mel Hynes, Grant was a crazy fucker. FLEM Comics remains one of my personal high water marks of online comics reading, and it horrified me as much as it entertained me. Hynes hasn't reformed Grant and she hasn't tamed him, but she's channeled him. Two Lumps (and, for that matter, Timmy Kat) contain all the potential for horror as FLEM, but it's been redirected (and the actual horrific things take place just off panel) and given a veneer of respectability. And, as the masters know, showing gore makes for a visceral film, but implying it makes for a terrifying one.

Or, in this case, a really funny one.

Strengths

As stated, Grant and Hynes are really great at comic strip execution. They can touch on (or wallow in) disgusting or pleasant subjects with either facility, without ever having the strip fade into "Not Safe For Work." Hynes is a solid writer and scripter who has a solid grasp of who and what cats are without romanticizing them. Which is a hard skill -- she clearly likes cats and likes having cats without needing to hide from their essential animal nature. And Grant's art really comes into its own on this strip -- his style fits the cat world perfectly, he's great at both the body language of a pissed off cat and a variety of cartoonish facial expression, and he goes into all the detail a given strip requires while keeping the balance in place.

Weaknesses

I won't claim every strip is a winner. Though this is a strip I greatly enjoy, you'll note I have it under sporadically checked. As with FLEM before it (FLEM still lurches out new strips now and again, but they're rare), I think the best way to read Two Lumps is in two week chunks -- this way, strips that are more serviceable than brilliant are swept up in the tide. Further, reading it every day can make the strip seem repetitive, where taking it in two week chunks highlight the differing elements.

Also, when they move into longer storylines -- a rare occurance, mind -- they don't always work so well. This is a gag-a-day strip at heart, and it's where its strength is. We're in a longer storyline right now that's going pretty nicely, but there's always the danger it will begin to drag without a solid way of resolving.

On the Whole

Two Lumps knows its business. It does it well. And Grant -- always brilliant, in my estimation -- has been refined by Hynes, and that's to the good. Really, you can see it in his prose writing as well. On The Banks of Lethe is a better book than Pedestrian Wolves was -- more refined, better paced and executed, and while some of that is experience some of it's also Hynes's influence. My comic reading life is enhanced by their presence.

Which doesn't change the fact that James Grant will kick my ass if we ever meet. But then, nothing could.

So, as for tomorrow, the one armed bandit spins....

Hrm. Cherry... Pirate... and the white space between two bars and what looks like a fish. Mrph. Y'okay. We can do this one. We'll see you then.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:50 AM | Comments (3)

February 26, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): R. Stevens

The Webcartoonist: R. Stevens

Current Webcomics: Diesel Sweeties (in both original webcomic and extra crispy newspaper forms!)

Enthusiasm: The Hoi Polloi

How Frequently Read: Regularly Checked

You know, when I sat down to write this essay, I figured it wouldn't be very hard. Richard Stevens Model 3 is a mainstay, after all, and his work is solid -- so solid he ultimately ended up on the physical newspaper page. I know. I've seen him there. In ink. At the time the deal was announced, it was groundbreaking. Stevens would retain ownership and the ability to do the web version of his comic, plus he would retain merchandising and print collection control. In other words, United Feature Syndicate had agreed to license his webcomic for paper inclusion, though Stevens agreed to create custom content for them.

Very 21st century. Very Web 2.0. And it seemed like it was the harbinger of a new age of newspaper comics -- an age where the newspapers recognized the evolving nature of the marketplace and sought out content without the contracts. A golden age, where the Von Trapp family wouldn't need to be put to death for singing on mountainsides.

As it turns out? Not so much. Since this deal, things have more or less chugged along as they had before. But hey, it worked out pretty well for Stevens, didn't it? And that's a cool thing.

So I figured this would be an easy essay to write. Of course, that's before I actually started to write it. Staring at the blank editing window, I realized this wasn't going to be so simple after all. Because the things Stevens does well, Stevens does very well. He nails it pretty much every time out of the gate.

And the things he doesn't do well? He doesn't do at all.

Diesel Sweeties is a Pixel Comic, which is a weird thing to say when you consider every comic on the web is made up entirely of pixels. In the case of Diesel Sweeties, it's designed to look like something eight bit from the mid-nineties. Which isn't to say it's easy. Stevens clearly has spent a lot of time and energy honing his craft, getting his figures to look exactly the way that he wants them to look. He has variations to reflect hair changes, beards, levels of inebriation -- what have you.

But with all the effort he's put into the comics, they still come down, almost entirely, to talking heads comics. A couple of characters face off, they lob banter back and forth. Sometimes someone gets angry. Sometimes a large red robot will be declaring someone's death is about to occur. Regardless, however, what we will see is the scene immediately before things happen, or the scene immediately after things happen.

Which, by the by, is one reason Diesel Sweeties works so well as a newspaper comic. Stevens doesn't need a huge amount or space to make distinctive looking characters who he dialogues well. This is one reason why the newspapers have tended towards talking heads as comic strip size has reduced.

As stated above, the things Stevens does he does exceptionally well. I mentioned the art design, which honestly is great (and that isn't necessarily easy when one is working in an eight bit form). I also mentioned the dialogue, which really comes down to the writing. Stevens is an excellent dialogue writer, and his sense of humor is excellent. Pretty much every strip is going to be a grin, and plenty of those strips will be chuckles and there's even laughs. And if that sounds like faint praise, I would remind you that it's rare that any comic strip will actually cause audible results on a regular basis. To actually produce regular laughter, you need an audience who's sitting together feeding one another triggers in response to the jokes, like a comedian or a Presidential debate.

So. It's well written. And the art design is good. And it makes me smile. Which begs the question of why its Hoi Polloi instead of one of the more enthusiastic ratings.

Well, one reason comes back to Stevens's very success. I read two Diesel Sweeties strips each and every day. The web one might be a little more visually interesting (and often it's a bit saltier, to use a term Cary Grant might have used), but the humor is very similar and the execution surprisingly so -- the extra panels in the web-only version might contain more jokes but it doesn't marginally restructure those jokes.

Further, for all the effort, skill and aesthetic intention Stevens puts into his pixelated creations, in the end he doesn't significantly use body or figure language along with the dialogue. (Though there are exceptions.) He's mostly constrained to facial expression and occasional tricks of color. On occasion that can be very effective, mind, and it's not like this has made Diesel Sweeties a bad comic strip. On the contrary, it's a very good, very solidly written strip. However, it does mean we see fewer tools and techniques employed, and that in turn leads to a certain sameness of strips. And that's the kind of thing that can have a well written strip become less anticipated -- or even taken for granted.

The areas where Stevens has combatted that -- the monumental shakeups (Clango's head comes off, Clango's memory is erased and Indy Rock Pete destroys his backup disk, Maura gets drunk and nails Electron Pete Mike, anyone gets drunk and nails Indy Rock Pete) -- have always served to keep things interesting. Stevens doesn't rest upon a status quo. On the other hand, they're relatively few and far between, which makes them very, very interesting or even shocking when they happen, but it also means a few months of banter go by between them, and that can make the strip fade into the background.

Which leads us to the metrics. It's like rubrics, only you have more of a sense of what the word means, even if you're wrong.

Strengths

As stated above, Stevens is a solid dialogue writer. His characters are both funny and witty, which aren't the same thing. His pacing between strips is well managed, his plot and character evolution is solid, and while he mostly eschews body language, he's great at constructing facial expressions within the pixel medium to convey mood. And the art style is very distinctive and well rendered -- even in the world of pixel art you can usually pick a Richard Stevens piece out at twenty yards.

Both comics update on a rock solid schedule (not that he would have a choice on the newspaper version, mind, but the newspaper comic hasn't been an excuse to let the web version slack, and that's very very cool.

Site design on Stevens's own site is solid. The newspaper version has the basic Comics.com site design, which isn't my favorite but it gets the job done.

Weaknesses

If you look at the above essay, you'll find a huge amount of energy has gone to describing technique. The writing, the art, the visual language, the banter -- stuff like that. I don't go into the themes of the strip, the characters, the interactions, or the actual content of the strip. That derives from that sense of sameness I mention above. A sense which can cross over into the characters themselves, I would add. While the characters aren't precisely cookie-cutter, if you took out all the pictures and just saw the word balloons, it would be hard to distinguish who was talking. You might be able to ID Clango (and Red Robot is something of a gimme), but on any given day Maura, Li'l Sis, Pale Suzy, Indy Rock Pete, Charles, Metal Steve or the like might be making the same jokes said in the same voice with the same crushing sense of disinterested regret. How Stevens does what he does can therefore be more interesting than what Stevens does.

On the Whole

Both versions of this comic are good -- sometimes really good. The comic is distinctive in the marketplace, the humor is spot on, the characters are well developed (even if they all can share a voice), the narrative is shaken up enough to keep things from getting stale. Eight years into the Diesel Sweeties world things remain fresh and fun, and that's a very difficult thing to do. At the same time, the sheer consistency of the comic -- even though the quality of that consistency is high -- means it can settle into the background of the comic reading day; never bad, but rarely leaping out at you.

Of course, Indy Rock Pete would claim he liked it better before it sold out. But then, he's like that.

Wheel of morality, turn turn turn, what is the lesson we should learn... oh! Cool! Tomorrow's column should be fun to write. I like fun. It's fun.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (19)

February 25, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonists): Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza

The Webcartoonists: Ryan Sohmer and Lar deSouza

Current Webcomics: Least I Could Do, Looking for Group

You May Remember Them From Such Online Projects As: Blind Ferret Entertainment, Ctrl+Alt+Del The Series, PvP the Series

Enthusiasm: (Least I Could Do): Happily Reading, (Looking for Group): The Hoi Polloi

How Frequently Read: (Least I Could Do): Regularly Checked, (Looking For Group): Occasionally Checked

Once upon a time, I described Least I Could Do as Guy Humor. I stick with that definition, because... well, because that's what it is, but there's more to be said here than that. I think I've gotten my brain fully around just what Least I Could Do is, in a way that makes the most sense to me, and so I'll pass it along to you.

Least I Could Do is a sitcom named after its lead actor.

You know the ones I mean. The Dick Van Dyke Show. The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The Bob Newhart Show. Stuff like that, including one or two that weren't produced by MtM productions or involved Mary Tyler Moore in any way. (Though Seinfeld doesn't count for these purposes. I'll try to remember to touch on why later on.)

Now, some of you are staring at me like I'm nuts. Least I Could Do has a logo with a condom. Comparing that to Mary Tyler Moore, arguably one of the most nuanced and best written sitcoms in television history would seem disingenuous at best. But you're focusing on the wrong aspect of my statement. In the world of television, you have sitcoms that are very story driven, and some that are very humor driven, but in almost every case they're driven by the internal logic of the series. Family Ties might have made Michael J. Fox a star, but it put Alex P. Keaton at the center, along with his family. Cheers centered on Sam, Diane, Norm, Cliff, Carla, et al -- not Ted. Shelley, George, John and Rhea. (Which is one reason Ted Danson and Shelley Long, to take a couple of examples, have had trouble establishing their post-Cheers careers at the same level. People didn't bring their affection for Cheers to their new projects.)

However, when you have a show named after its star, you aren't centering that show around internal logic. Not first and foremost. You're centering it around the personality of its lead, and the expectations people bring to the table before they ever see the show. Bob Newhart was a well established comedian before he was on The Bob Newhart Show, and people who were familiar with his act figured they knew what to expect from his show. And they were right. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was groundbreaking television, but it was trading as much on Laura Petrie and what people expected of Mary Tyler Moore as anything else. And as deep and nuanced as that show became, it also didn't disappoint in that regard. Mary Richards was as sweet and nice and attractive as Laura Petrie would be had she dumped her husband and fed her son into a woodchipper, then moved to Minneapolis and thrown her hat despite the cold weather.

As a side note -- when the lead character shares a first name or a variation of their whole name with the lead actor portraying him? You're in the territory I'm discussing. The producers of the show want you to think of the actor and his personality, so they stick really close to his name so you don't have to deal with the change. "Mary Richards" or "Bob Hartley" are meant to stick close to "Mary Tyler Moore" or "Bob Newhart" for a reason. (As a side note, Bob Newhart did this successfully twice, with The Bob Newhart Show and Newhart, and it's a testament to the vision of putting Bob Newhart front and center and letting his personality shine through -- despite his not being named Bob -- that on the last episode of Newhart they could credibly claim the whole series was a nightmare Bob Hartley had.)

Seinfeld doesn't really count, for the record, because while the core of the show does rest upon audience expectation, Jerry Seinfeld was playing a satirical version of himself for the show -- in effect subverting the trope. Which is possibly why it's the most successful sitcom of all time.

Anyway, getting back on track... if Least I Could Do were a television sitcom, by rights it should be called The Ryan Sohmer Show. It would star Ryan Sohmer as "Rayne Summers" (thus, we have the variation of the lead's name option), a young, funny guy who's obsessed with sex, as much a boy as a man. Various foils and straight men would surround him, from the unbelievably hot girl he doesn't have sex with to one of the two best friends he has in the strip to the brunt of his jokes. It would be mostly a surface show, and you would know exactly what you were getting into with it, because hey -- it's The Ryan Sohmer Show!

As further proof, I give you a youtube video -- the opening credits to the upcoming Least I Could Do animated series (Blind Ferret -- probably the most successful webcomics-to-web-animation studio on the web -- was cofounded by Sohmer. That both of Sohmer and deSouza's webcomics have had animation built around them is unsurprising to say the least).

Now, thanks to Wednesday, I have a massive love for Great Big Sea -- the band that plays "Consequence Free," which is used as the theme music here (and if they actually have permission to use it, I'm jealous). But the video is interesting, I think -- because while it's a travelogue of the characters, it's perfectly clear that Rayne is the centerpiece. When we say "least I can do," the 'I' is Summers, period. The rare strips that focus on other characters tend to do so through the filter of Rayne.

The opening credits also highlight one of the side issues with Least I Can Do, though. Midway through, they run one of the running jokes of the series past us -- a prostitute (who, if her caricatured face is any indicator, is perhaps not so bright or potentially even developmentally disabled) who charges inexpensive prices for oral gratification. She is affectionately known as the "Suck for a Buck" chick. And that's sometimes the issue with Least I Can Do as a whole -- let me 'splain.

See, I really enjoy Least I Can Do. It's a sex romp, but it's fun and almost always perfectly harmless. But every so often we edge close to uncomfortable areas. And sometimes, edging into the uncomfortable is exactly the job that a comedian is supposed to do -- the jester is the one who can tell the Emperor he has no clothes. But it's a fine line sometimes and sometimes they move over it. Having the Suck for a Buck chick in the animation makes me feel a little dirty linking it, like I'm not sure that it's right or appropriate that I'm pointing people to the video.

Which is a strange thing for what is, after all, a centerpiece video not only for Least I Could Do but the whole animation studio itself.

Now, the last I talked about Least I Could Do at any length, I had actual fans of the strip complain that I spent way too long thinking about it -- which makes some sense. It's a surface strip. They're not going for depth, they're going for fast gag-a-day gag. But in the last block of time they've challenged that a little bit. There was an extended sequence where Rayne, having had a Red Bull induced heart attack, does the whole Christmas Carol thing. Hand in hand with that, there was a strip last year where they officially declared the cast members would age, which was followed by one of the finest For Better or For Worse parodies I've seen. Things have been a little less madcap on the edges since then, but still. Pretty well gag o'the day.

I understand why the cast had to stop being eternally 24, by the by. I just recently hit forty. Now, a lot of my stories used to deal with 25-30 year old protagonists. These days, they seem to be at least 33 and sometimes as old as 45. When you actually get older, the appeal of 24 in your wish fulfillment lessens.

Before we get on to the metrics, I should make mention of their other webcomic, Looking for Group. It's a different sort of project for Sohmer and deSouza (of whom I have said tragically little, so far) -- a webcomic made in echo of games like World of Warcraft, though it's not set in any truly existing universe. It's a fantasy webcomic that brings the story more than, say, Least I Could Do, and it's... well, way more PG-13. (I can't think of any sex jokes up until now, though there have been a few fabulous babes).

Looking For Group is well done, though it doesn't have the same consistency of voice or tone as their other work. It's a high fantasy, but it isn't quite sure if it's a light but essentially straight high fantasy or if it's a satirical and comedic high fantasy with serious overtones. Certainly, the early days were entirely more devoted to humor, which may have been the pair finding their voice. In more recent times the innocence of the strip (and the lead) have passed, leading to drama and sometimes even horror or tragedy. On the other hand, so long as Richard is a member of the cast, it won't be entirely serious.

(That's not why it gets ranked lower than Least I Could Do, for the record. Looking for Group is a good strip, but it hasn't 100% found its voice, and it lacks the sheer force of character that some strips like that use to hook you. When it settles a bit more, it will likely draw more closely.)

Right. On to the metrics. It's just a little more than a quart, people:

Strengths

Sohmer has a sense of humor, and deSouza's very good at rendering it. Least I Could Do manages to (mostly) stay true to its sitcom roots, which in this case is a good thing. The art is very clean and visually appealing. Looking For Group also shows that while Sohmer and deSouza don't have the same polish over there yet, they are capable of doing longform story and PG (or, well, PG-13 in places) humor, which gets better all the time.

Their sites are well laid out and chock full of value-adds, including desktops, full on animation (they've taken to doing music videos), a good archive system, a solidly up to date calendar and storyline archive, and a robust community which sometimes posts photographs of attractive women in its boards. So, you know. Win-win.

I also want to highlight some of the character evolution we've seen. The introduction of Rayne's half-sister and (most particularly) his niece Ashley were welcome moments, and some of the best strips have involved Unca and his niece. While it has stayed close to its original form throughout, there are nuances that keep the strip from getting stale.

Weaknesses

Jesus Christ, I know it's wish fulfillment, but tone it down, okay? Yes, Rayne is amazingly handsome, does ridiculous and actionable things all day long and not only doesn't get fired eight times a week but actually makes his company money. Yes, he can expose himself to his secretary and get oral sex from his boss and no one lodges a lawsuit. But honestly, just how ridiculously eternally successful are you going to make this guy?

Put another way? Conflict is a good thing. Conflict is your friend. And while we can grin and high-five when Rayne succeeds, we're much more likely to laugh when he fails. And that's a side of Rayne we don't see very often these days, and that's a sad thing. (In part, because it's really funny to see Rayne underneath his blanket, whimpering to his mother.)

There's lots of little plot points that got intro'd a while back and never paid off. Issa's almost a nonentity these days because the core tension points -- will they have sex? Is she really into Rayne even though she claims otherwise? Why are her boyfriends so close to Rayne in appearance? -- just sort of went away. Now that we've brought John back into the strip, it might be nice to reform Issa at the same time.

deSouza's art is great, but I have to admit, even all this time later I miss Chad Wm. Porter. Porter's art conveyed action better, where deSouza's art looks more like posed set pieces. Also, Porter was more of a cartoonist and less given to caricature. However, I have to admit the classic deSouza shot of Rayne looking into the camera with that shit-eating grin captures the character perfectly. (And thanks to the above piece of animation, whenever I see it I hear Great Big Sea sing "nah nah nah nahnanayah nah nah", so it can't possibly be really bad.)

Finally, while they haven't gone overboard with the serious moments -- we're in no danger of a Cerebus attempt or a First and Ten here -- they can be disruptive to the rhythm, and should be very carefully managed.

Oh, and as a postscript after the "finally," the Suck for a Buck chick? Yeah, either retire her or make her look less like she's got some kind of cognitive disability. Because, you know, kinda creepy.

On the Whole

The Ryan Sohmer Show probably wouldn't win any Emmys. At the same time, they'd almost certainly have the lead actor present an award and write his own material for it. In the end, Sohmer and deSouza hit the mark they're aiming for almost every time, and the strip's a lot of fun as a result. And sometimes "a lot of fun" is more than enough for a comic.

I honestly do hit the random number generator at the end of these essays, so it's always interesting to see what comes up next. That roll comes... now!

Oh.

I don't know if this is going to be trouble or not. So let's assume not! Yay! Easter is saved!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (14)

February 22, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonists): Elanor Cooper and J.J. Nääs

The Webcartoonists: Elanor Cooper and J.J. Nääs

Current Webcomics: The Broken Mirror

You May Remember Them From Such Webcomics As: Desert Rocks and Between Two Worlds

Enthusiasm: Why Do I Read This Webcomic Again?

How Frequently Read: When I Remember To Check

Well, here we are, you and I, and we're checking off the last two 'lists' I have on this here magic carpet ride. And sadly, they're the two lists lowest at the chain. Under enthusiasm, we have "why do I read this webcomic again?" which implies I'm still here out of either hope or inertia... and under frequency we have "when I remember to check," which means one better hope I'm still here out of hope, because inertia doesn't seem to have a strong hold on me.

And it's weird, you know? Because yeah, 'hope' is as good a reason for why I'm still reading The Broken Mirror as anything else. Because...

Well, here's the thing. Cooper and Nääs do so much that's right, that it's almost heartbreaking to decide to drop the comic. And therein lies a tale.

Elanor Cooper, the writer of The Broken Mirror, describes the project as "her futuristic, dystopian romance novel," and so far that makes as much sense as anything I've heard. Is it a romance novel? Not so far but the night is young. Is it futuristic and dystopia? Absolutely. We're clearly a few years in the future -- there are cyberpunk trappings only there isn't really much in the way of 'punk.' Further, unlike a lot of Cyberpunkish stuff I've read over the years, the immersive VR system postulated makes sense to me. It's not the future of the net, it's not where cybernauts run the edges and manipulate computers with their brains to unlock black ice and stick it to the man.

It's a game.

It's an escape.

And if there ever is truly immersive Virtual Reality, that will be why. IBM and Microsoft won't pioneer the Virtual World. EA Games will. Or they'll buy Linden Lab, which is their version of 'pioneering.'

It is a world that very much needs escaping from. Not because it's oppressive -- there are hints that there's something of a police state going on, but for the most part people just live their lives. But those lives are... well, essentially hopeless. Shit rains down from the heavens on our characters, and joy is rather systemically crushed out of their lives. Eventually, Domino -- the virtual world, the game, the escape -- becomes a whole new option.

Eventually.

It's a good setting for a novel, graphic or otherwise. And Cooper and Nääs are both good at their jobs. Cooper's dialogue is spot-on, with most characters having distinctive voices. Nääs is a more than capable artist, and the pages are beautiful -- beautifully drawn, beautifully composed, beautifully laid out. By any reasonable definition every component for an absolutely top notch webcomic or even print graphic novel is in place.

Sadly, they haven't come together into a top notch webcomic, and the reason for that is pacing.

Pacing, when I use the term here on the Websnark, refers to the evolution of the narrative, from one day to the next. (This differentiates it from execution, which is how a specific strip executes from the first panel to the last). A strongly story-based comic like The Broken Mirror is paced more as a graphic novel then a comic strip, so it might take several pages to accomplish a goal that, say, Shortpacked would do in two or three strips. And you have to make certain allowances for the form in those cases. You don't expect Digger to have a last panel payoff each and every day (though Ursula Vernon's got serious game in this regard), and it's not fair to compare it to a strip like Starslip Crisis, where the basic unit is a four panel strip.

However, there's only so many allowances you can give. And to be blunt (I know, too late), The Broken Mirror takes forever to get where it's going. And it's because they don't have a strong editor over them.

I know, it's webcomics. Editors are bad and repressive. Get over it -- this is an object lesson in why editors are a positive thing in the universe. Let's take as our example Galen Gray, one of the leads.

Galen Gray has had a terrible life, suffering abuse both horrible and physical, tragedy of pretty much every kind, the grinding down of his hopes and dreams, the loss of all the relationships that mean anything to him -- in short, he has nothing left to lose. And so he turns to Domino, both because he has no reason not to and because he has nothing left to hold him to the real world.

The problem is, we've seen all of the above. In great, heaping gobs of detail. We saw Galen as a child, suffering under the anger of his parents. We saw Galen get shafted and used by a loved one. We saw Galen's professional life go to shit. We saw Galen get harassed in his everyday life. We saw...

Well, the point is we saw all of it. In detail. And it was well drawn and well written detail, and the sum total of all of it was to get us to "Galen Gray has had a terrible life, suffering abuse both horrible and physical, tragedy of pretty much every kind, the grinding down of his hopes and dreams, the loss of all the relationships that mean anything to him -- in short, he has nothing left to lose. And so he turns to Domino, both because he has no reason not to and because he has nothing left to hold him to the real world."

An editor would look at the outline, say "this is great stuff, but it's backstory. You don't need sixty pages for this. Do it in four." And that editor would be right.

I mentioned that Aeire and Chris Daily were doing a novel, over in Punch an' Pie. And I also mentioned that the essence of the novel, in many if not most cases, is "establish the norm at the open. The novel begins when there is a change from the norm." It's a rule of thumb but a good one. Well, The Broken Mirror is now moving into Chapter Eight, and we are just hitting the change from the norm. Establishment should have been done in the first chapter, and the move into Domino should have closed the chapter. Then, all the lush details that Cooper and Nääs have worked out for their characters could be brought into the light over the course of the actual story, as required by the plot.

It's an easy mistake to make -- science fiction authors often make that mistake when it comes to worldbuilding. They come up with lovingly detailed systems of economics, science, engineering and governance, and they want to show it off. Well, the worldbuilding is amazingly useful in creating a consistent universe, but not one detail in ten actually needs to make it into the book at the end, and not one detail in the book out of twenty needs to be explained. What's less well known is the character-developed side of all this. Cooper and Nääs have created deep, rich backstories for their characters, and they can see tremendous significance in those backstories, and so they want to establish them "on camera." They want us to know Galen, Xara, Aidi and the rest as well as they do. To really understand why they make the choices they make.

But we don't want to know this stuff. We don't need to know this stuff. They're spending so much time developing the characters they're forgetting to actually tell the story, and this is a story-driven comic.

And so it begs the question: why am I reading this webcomic, again?

Well, they do so much so well, I keep hoping... I keep believing we'll get to the point where events take center stage, where they'll start doing, and that it will all gel and become a story. But it's possible that the only way to get there is to wait for the second draft, when they go through, excise a huge amount of stuff, reorder others (flashbacks here and there for when things become relevant) -- in other words, when they're ready to make it into a strong story instead of just a pretty one.

So far, I'm still here, though. And there's hope, still. So we'll see. We'll just see.

Now on Marketplace, let's do the numbers.

Strengths

As stated above, the art, words and layout are all beautiful. Cooper and Nääs can write and draw, respectively, and any given page is going to have something going for it. Their website is also well laid out, with solid navigation, a good cast page, and good value adds. I haven't mentioned color, but color's beautiful in this work, and acts nicely as a counterpoint.

Weaknesses

Beyond the editing and story issues above, there's a telling omission on the site -- there's an "about the story" submenu under "about." But unlike Creators or Characters, it just says "This section will be updated gradually as the story progresses." I'm pretty sure the reason it hasn't been updated yet is because nothing's actually happened yet, and when you're in Chapter Eight, that's kind of unfortunate.

The other thing is... in part because of the setup issues above, the comic has been unremittingly depressing up until now. It's hard to read, sometimes, because they write the characters well enough that you do have empathy for them as their lives continually get ground down into the dirt and made hopeless and bleak, and after a while you decide to do something more positive and uplifting. Like listening to Morrissey albums. Or heroin.

Finally, you'll remember the webcomic is tagged "when I remember to check it?" That's because... well, look. I don't personally believe anyone owes us webcomic updates on any kind of schedule. I really don't. But the more erratic the schedule, the less likely I'm going to check a site with regularity, and (probably wisely, given how detailed the artwork is) this comic doesn't have any consistency in updates. So, sometimes I'll go back after a few weeks and it'll be the same page it was the last time I was there, and sometimes three quarters of a chapter will have posted. And that makes it hard to hold an audience.

I'm not one to read these things via RSS, as I mentioned back in the Gurewitch essay, but this wouldn't be an option here either, as as near as I can tell they don't have an RSS option, and with this irregular a posting schedule they really should.

On the Whole

Man, this is a pretty webcomic. Man, these are well considered characters. Man, I don't know how much longer I can hold on.

But I am. One more day, and maybe it'll all come together. They're actually in Domino now. Maybe now....

...maybe now, at a hundred and thirty pages in, the story is actually about to start.

Right! One week down! Our next essay's on the docket for Monday -- I figure five of these a week, for as long as I can sustain the output, should be sufficient for anyone's needs. And we roll the dice and--

Oh. Huh. Well, that should be a fun one to write. Cool! If something non-State-Of comes up, I'll post it, but otherwise we'll see you in the new week!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (18)

February 21, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): David Morgan-Mar

The Webcartoonist: David Morgan-Mar

Current Webcomics: Irregular Webcomic, Darths and Droids

Enthusiasm: The Hoi Polloi

How Frequently Read: Sporadically Checked

When I tagged Perry Bible Fellowship as 'Hoi Polloi,' I was highlighting one kind of strip from the commons -- a strip that was occasionally brilliant but often missed the mark. Well, we're back to Hoi Polloi, but oddly enough my feelings towards David Morgan-Mar are quite different. It's not that there isn't occasional brilliance or occasional lameness in Irregular Webcomic. However, what seemed almost defensive in the Gurewitch essay is far more... just plain solid here.

And that, to me, is Irregular Webcomic in a nutshell. It's solid. A solid performer. I don't usually get up with an anxious twitch in my leg, desperate to check it, but it's pretty much always a smile or a pleasant stopover for me.

This is also the first of these to be tagged as "Sporadically Checked." (Which applies, all told, to Darths and Droids too, which I'll also get into below.) Sporadically checked, in this case, means "checked on a regular basis, but not anywhere near as regularly as, say, Morgan-Mar updates." Which is true. I tend to read Irregular Webcomic on Saturdays or Sundays, depending on the weekend, and I'll catch up with the week's updates at that time. I read Darths and Droids at the same time. This differentiates from "Occasional checking," which is haphazard but somewhat often, or "when I think of it" checking, which is... well, just what it sounds like. All clear? Aces.

David Morgan-Mar must have an interesting reaction to xkcd.

Seriously. He was around years before. He has what on the surface seems like an easy means of producing a webcomic -- lego figures or miniatures (and more about why this 'easy' method isn't easy below) which show a sense of whimsy, a significant amount of geek love, and a tendency towards physics, math and science in great, heaping gobs. Like Randall Munroe, Morgan-Mar has a degree in Physics -- only unlike Munroe Morgan-Mar's degree is a Ph.D. in Astrophysics, and he's worked in his degree in many different ways for many different years, including teaching at the University of Sydney. He enjoys scientific and mathematical puns.

Which isn't to equate Irregular Webcomic with xkcd. They're very different animals. But you have to wonder if sometimes Doctor Morgan-Mar sits back in his Australian Observatory of Doom, steeple his fingers, and ponder the stick figure comic.

Morgan-Mar is also something of an interesting case for me to write about, because my connections to him predate webcomics by a good many years. He and I are both in the fraternity of RPG writers, specifically those writers who've been paid by Steve Jackson. As we've both got some GURPS credits (mine by the back door, thanks to GURPS In Nomine stats being mandated in my last couple of In Nomine pieces) we're connected that way too, and we crossed paths here or there on Pyramid, both as contributors and as forum hacks. But that was years ago and alas the wench is dead. Certainly, Morgan-Mar has been more successful toiling in Warehouse 23's subbasements than I have.

And that's really where Irregular Webcomic came from, and that highlights one of the areas where it really is brilliant: its navigational engine.

Back in the day, I would be asked about innovations in webcomics, new and exciting techniques in webcomics -- all kinds of stuff about things. And what the interviewer inevitably meant was "what new and exciting kinds of comics will we see now that we're... on the web?" And there would be expectations that the discussion would be on Flash or the Tarquin Engine or Infinite Canvas or animated gifs or something. And the first few times I was interviewed I didn't have good answers, but later on I got better, because I knew what the real revolutions were about. Distribution. The mere fact that a comic didn't need a middleman was huge. The drop in storage and bandwidth was huge too. These days, for Websnark alone, not counting other projects I coordinate, we do about sixty gigabytes of bandwidth a month -- a drop from the glory days, but still a nice hefty chunk. In 1999 or 2000, a sixty gig a month bandwidth bill would have been hundreds of dollars a month, and I'd be struggling to stay online. These days, my bandwidth allocation is expressed in terabytes and my monthly bill doesn't even crack double digits. And that doesn't even count the reams of crap I've stored online, the e-mail stuff, Banter Latte, the corpse of Gossamer Commons, and all the rest. If you're producing a webcomic, you need to be doing really massive numbers before bandwidth becomes a dealbreaker. And if you're doing really massive numbers, you're already ahead of the game in so many ways.

That's the revolution. And hand in hand with distribution is site usability and navigation. I think one of the true seminal innovations in webcomics -- one of the things that really pushed Webcomics forward -- was the development and release of Gav Bleuel's Autokeen Lite. Here was a system, moderately easy to set up and configure, by which you could automate the release of a backlog of comic strips, the archiving of those strips, and the navigation from strip to strip in a convenient and intuitive way. While there's a lot of other ways to do that kind of thing today (the Comicpress addons for Wordpress seem to be some of the most popular) as well as sites like Webcomicsnation or Comic Genesis that'll do it for you, that doesn't detract from the sheer significance of that early content management system for webcomics.

Well, Morgan-Mar's got an engine and a half on his website. You see, Irregular Webcomic actually has seventeen different themes (counting the "Me" theme) around the very, very loose idea that Morgan-Mar is running a series of role playing games and we're seeing the in-character perspective of them. Many, like the Cliffhangers, Espionage, Imperial Rome or Supers themes very clearly are based on GURPS (with lots of cheerful pop culture references thrown in -- Espionage may be based on GURPS, but the whole of the theme has been a parody of the James Bond movie Doctor No, starring James Stud. (Well, the last two strips were the very start of From Russia With Love, but still) And, in researching this essay, I could easily read just the Espionage themed strips, or read them five at a time if I prefer. Or I could read the strips that came out in the order they came out, regardless of theme. Underneath every strip are the usual "first, previous, next, last" navigational elements, along with "first five, previous five, next five, last five," but to them they add these same breakdowns for that day's theme. And on days when two themes cross over, you have navigational elements for both themes.

If that sounds confusing, let me put it this way -- Irregular Webcomic will let you either read the webcomic, straight up, reading each strip as it comes out regardless of what story it's set in, or any of seventeen separate stories without any distraction, from start to finish, all with the navigation tools that are sitting right there.

Engine wise, it's brilliant. It allows for story branching and interweaving and yet lets all the bits you don't want right now just get out of your way.

Now, Morgan-Mar could do a lot of work to set that up manually, but one look at one of his URLs shows that no, he's built the specific database engine that lets him do this. Looking at the Shakespeare theme for a moment (the Shakespeare theme not being GURPS based, but instead assuming that William Shakespeare is alive today and working as a technical writer who writes Harry Potter self-insert fan-fiction in his spare time, which may be the most fun I've ever had describing a high concept in my life), I went to the most current strip in the Shakespeare theme, and then clicked "previous five in the Shakespeare theme." Obviously, I got a top-down list of the five strips, but let's look at the actual URL that the engine returned:

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/comic.php?current=1837&theme=14&dir=prev5

Doing a little sentence diagramming (yes, Virginia, the Internet has a Grammar. Now shut up. Daddy's talking.) we see that the comic.php script has a variable setting the current comic (1837, the most current Shakespeare themed comic). We then wanted the previous five strips specifically in theme 14 (Shakespeare) to be delivered. So, however Morgan-Mar uploads his comic strips, he just has to tag it with what theme the strip is in and the engine does all the other work.

The engine, by the by, also lets you decide if you want annotations or not. If you do, you get Morgan-Mar's notes on each strip -- convenient for the strips that are obscure math puns or if you enjoy reading Morgan-Mar's observations, which I for one do. If not, they're gone and you just get the strips. However, the engine renders it pretty much transparently depending on what you have set.

You're very likely sitting there thinking "yeah? So what?" Unless, of course, you're a database programmer, a website designer, a PHP jockey or the like, in which case you're staring at the screen saying "that's brilliant. That's fucking brilliant." And then you sit back and start figuring out how you'd do the same thing with the database of your choice. And probably coming up with a good answer -- the hard part having been conceptualizing it in the first place.

Right there? That's innovation in webcomics. Randy Milholland might want to steal something like this for his own site, given the plethora of strips he's working in. I can think of whole storytelling techniques that can come out of this infrastructure. (I came up with one, once, and actually got some artists interested and excited to be a part of it, including my old collaborator, the brilliant Greg Holkan, and the downright visionary Neal Von Flue. I then completely flaked on them. There are things in this world I regret, and that's one of them.)

As for how he produces Irregular Webcomic? For the most part, that's deceptively simple. He sets up either miniatures or (more often_ LEGO figures on sets he constructs, photographs them, photoshops the digital pictures, adds dialogue and updates. (The exception is Supers, where he has other people actually draw the strip. Supers is one of the least common themes, it's worth noting.) Now, on one level that sounds really easy. Much like "I'm going to write a novel" sounds really easy, if you've never done it, really. Only Morgan-Mar's hardcore. He builds sets (and takes notes so he can reconstruct them later as needed). He photoshops heavily, adding in background elements (everything from putting actual computer screens on some of the LEGO computers to taking a grey Lego stand and extending it to the horizon to make 'an infinite plain of grey.' Heck, look at the picture at the top of the screen. That's Morgan-Mar himself, having been murdered in his own comic, sitting in a chair on the infinite plain of grey, arguing with the Head Death (a LEGO figure). And damn it, that's pretty good Photoshop work, any way you look at it.

On the other side, he also produces (apparently with help) Darths and Droids, which is a conscious emulation of the rabidly popular, now ended DM of the Rings. Morgan-Mar et al have elected to go with the Star Wars movies starting with the first, and while it is, indeed, trodding ground DM did, Morgan-Mar is unafraid to take it in a different direction. Where DM of the Rings detailed the ultimate railroading DM who loved his background so much that he forced his players to follow his plot come Hell or high water, the Darths and Droids gamemaster just wants his players to be happy -- including the little kid sister of one of the players, who to keep quiet they let make up a character, who turned out to be Jar Jar Binks, and the entire campaign is a wild digression run entirely by the seat of the gamemaster's pants when his players refuse to do anything that he has preplanned. In recent events, they've had a side trip to some desert world because the players want to buy lots of cool weapons and armor for their ship, and despite his out and out demanding that they ignore the punk kid in the office, they're convinced he's important and have the NPC Padme chick flirting with him even though he's like nine years old.

Honestly? It's a heap of fun. And the idea that the whole Gungan race exists because a six year old girl asserted it and they didn't want her to cry because that would end the game real fast just feels good.

She also asserted that the Naboo queen is wise, kind and fourteen years old. And was elected. Admit it, it makes sense for the first time.

So, you're saying -- he's innovative and solid. Fine and dandy. Why then is he in "the Hoi Polloi" instead of "Rabidly Followed" or "Happily Reading?"

Well... the thing is... Morgan-Mar's defining characteristic is clever.

Seriously.

His engine? Clever. His site design? Clever. His techniques? Clever. His puns? Clever.

And there's nothing wrong with clever.

But it is actually pretty rare that 'clever' and 'fall down funny' cross paths. It's not impossible, but it's rare. Really, Darths and Droids has more of a chance to hit consistently fall down funny than Irregular Webcomic does, but it's probably always going to be overshadowed by DM of the Rings, sheerly by virtue of DM having come out first. Even if Darths and Droids ends up being funnier (which is certainly possible) that's a hard stigma to heal up and wash off.

So, you know. I'm always glad to see it, but it's not something I anticipate. I know it'll be a smile, and that's more than enough.

So, let's break this puppy down and head for home:

Strengths

The aforementioned engine is a big one. Morgan-Mar is also good at making every four panels of Irregular Webcomic hold together -- even if you don't know what's going on you're likely to smile at any given strip. The storytelling possibilities are awesome, and Morgan-Mar is a craftsman and his dedication shows.

He also has a really, really big LEGO collection, and he's not afraid to mess around with it for an effect.

And... you know. He's clever. That's not a bad thing.

And his update schedule is rock solid, and that's a very good thing.

Weaknesses

As much potential as I see in his engine, his UI and site design could use some work. It's very minimalist right now -- which might describe Morgan-Mar to a T -- but that means that the innovative navigational markers are in the middle of a block of text. And it's lack of fall down funny means it's not often copied and shown around on Livejournal or Facebook or the like, which makes it harder for it to grow. (Though it has a dedicated fanbase of its own, as does Morgan-Mar himself. Actually, I recruited Morgan-Mar for Modern Tales during my brief time there, in part because of how solid and dependable the comic is, and in part because I wanted to try to lure that very not Modern Tales audience over to some of our other offerings. I haven't discussed any of this with Morgan-Mar or Shaenon Garrity since I left, but I note that the last Modern Tales Irregular Webcomic was 1545 back in April of 2007, while as of this writing he's up to 1849 on his own site. Ah well, blame it on me.

On the Whole

Morgan-Mar is part of the foundation of modern webcomics. Not a lot of people think of him or his comics first, but when they read them they enjoy them, and if some of the things he does both in his comics (some of those photoshoppings are brilliant) and as part of his engine were to get some wider use and implementation, we could see some real leaps forward in storytelling online in those ways that the web is capable of and paper is not. And that's always a good thing, in my big ass book.

Next up, I roll the dice (the Custom Random Number Generator is my... er... custom random number generator of choice) and see where we end up....

...oh. There.

Well, that should tick off the last two Ma.gnolia lists all right.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (12)

February 20, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): Danielle Corsetto

The Webcartoonist: Danielle Corsetto

Current Webcomics: Girls with Slingshots

You May Remember Her From Such Webcomics As: Hazelnuts and The New Adventures of Bat Boy

Enthusiasm: Rabidly Following

How Frequently Read: Regularly Checked

Thanks to the healing power of random numbers, Danielle Corsetto's next up on the list. And that's cool with me, because Girls with Slingshots is one of my favorite webcomics currently being produced. It's the first of the "Rabidly Following" strips, reserved for those strips I can't wait to see the next installment.

As I've had someone ask, I should go a little more into depth on the whole 'random numbers' thing before we begin. They're not sure why I would let the power of the dice (or in this case a computerized random number generator) decide what essay I would write when, instead of picking and choosing from the list.

Simply put, the answer is 'favoritism.'

Consider if you will what we once called "the webcomics community." This is a group of affiliated (sometimes loosely affiliated, mind) fandoms that have grown around some of the most exciting, most creative web sites on this web we call world wide. Each fandom is made up between (roughly) one and seven point five million individuals who think that their given favorite webcomic is pretty damn spiffy, and other people should agree with them.

And if there's one thing we should all know about the internet, it's that every individual believes his or her opinion is privileged over everyone else.

Oh, not everyone acts like that. "We all have our own tastes," some people say. "Some people like strawberry, others like chocolate, others like strawberry and even some like Neapolitan." But in their heart, when they see what they know is an undeserving website or unenlightened opinion hit a given blog, their first reaction tends to be "idiot. That's not how I would have done it."

I have my favorite strips. Perhaps because I'm not terribly bright, I'm actually telling you the reading public just what those favorite strips are. Girls With Slingshots is actually on that list -- I love this strip seven ways from Sunday. And people are (generally) going to be cool with what strips I have as favorites, versus what ones I really like, versus what ones I like just fine, versus what ones I'm pretty sure I don't like but I haven't worked up the will to drop yet. I might be an idiot and stupid, but I'll show my work and at least try to be honest, right?

But the order I post these things? That's an unconscious value judgement. That's making a statement about relative worth that has absolutely nothing to do with any of my fine justifications in the essays proper. And that right there is trouble. Trust me on this. I've been burned before.

So. I'm doing the only thing I can in that situation. I'm taking the order completely out of my own hands. Penny Arcade will come up when Penny Arcade comes up. Skin Horse will come when Skin Horse comes up.

Today, the magic number came up Girls With Slingshots, so let's get to it, shall we?

Corsetto is one of the rarities -- she started Girls with Slingshots up in 2004, having done precursor strips through school and college, and then proceeded to live up to her potential. Who knew?

Well, The Comic Reader for one. This was a magazine -- later an online magazine -- on the fine art of the four panel comic, back at the turn of the century. They weren't devoted to online comics, though Scott McCloud was a contributor at the time he was most talking up the "comics on the web" thing. And at the time, they actually paid Corsetto to put her strip on the web. That was Hazelnuts, for the record, a precursor strip to Girls with Slingshots. A strip she began in High School. To put this in perspective for folks around here, imagine Ian Jones-Quartey graduating from college and launching an all new RPG World sequel which he turned into his daily living.

(And if that sounds really cool and exciting and you're thinking about e-mailing Jones-Quartey and begging... get over it. The man works as an animation director on Venture Bros. for Christ's sake. But I digress.)

At the time, Corsetto was just coming off having another strip in local newspapers. She was doing the small press rounds. In fact, she used her leads as cute sketchbook art at cons -- a couple of winged girls with slingshots -- and started the strip mostly because people kept asking when she was going to start a comic strip starting them.

Simply put, Corsetto had the goods, and people knew it, all the way back in 2004. And the only reason it's remarkable that she's making a living cartooning in 2008 with that comic strip (and, admittedly, the coolest gig in paid comics helping) is because a lot of proteges and wonder kids and "watch out for this one -- she's goin' places" type people tend to vanish inside of a year.

But Corsetto didn't vanish, and Girls With Slingshots is going strong.

Girls With Slingshots is probably my favorite purely character driven comic right now. (At least, until I write the next essay about a favorite character driven comic.) Even more than Something Positive or Questionable Content, which are strongly character driven as well, this is a strip that started off putting the characters into a core situation and then letting them naturally evolve over the course of the next four years. There is a sense of awkwardness in the strip, and a sense of expectancy in the lives of the characters. The leads are a writer (who's a lush), a florist (who's less of a lush but still a lush and also, y'know, breasts), a taxi driver, a barista, a Porn Store clerk, a blogger--

In other words, it's a group of people in the transitional world of the 20's. The sort of people I was back when I lived in Seattle or Ithaca. They're adults, but they haven't fully shifted from the world of childhood up through college into the real world yet. They're growing careers (in Hazel's case, accidentally or drunkenly or both), still caught between "just trying to get by" and "taking over the world." In the meantime they hook up, have fun, party, and meet anthropomorphic cacti.

One of the coolest things about character driven strips -- especially ensembleish strips like this one -- is the fact that things change. It's not situation comedy where things have to remain more or less static. Characters can and do make choices, both good and bad, have good and bad days, succeed and falter, climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every byway 'till they find their--

I seem to have lost my rhetorical focus. My apologies.

The point is, character driven strips can be gold because they're not locked in. You don't need to keep relationships on a certain level to ensure you have jokes next week. You don't have to keep everyone working at the coffee shop lest you lose your focus and audience. You can just let them do whatever it is they're going to do. If that happens to be Strip Scrabble, so be it. You get engaged with these folks and their lives, and you find yourself sticking with because you can't bear to not know what happens next.

So, let's move onto the normals, just to make all this official:

Strengths

Hrm.

I suppose it's cheating to say "the writing, the art, the site design and the update schedule," but it's hard to know how better to pin it down. Corsetto, for all intents and purposes, doesn't do anything wrong. She updates rock-steadily (she has a rolling donations system going -- if she gets X amount of money in donations in a given month, the following month has a five day a week update schedule. Otherwise, she drops down to three updates a week -- a nice carrot, but not a bludgeon). Her artwork shows the polish and professionalism you'd expect from someone who's been doing this since the 90's, studying it, and making it her life as much as she can -- which is to say she's awesome. Her characters are distinctive (excepting Maureen and Clarice, whose similarity in appearance ultimately led to a Corsetto self-mocking Halloween storyline, and Corsetto fixed the problem by changing Clarice's glasses so they didn't look so much like Maureen's. It's the little things, folks.)

It comes down to this: Corsetto does just about everything right. Heck, it's not hard for new people to jump right in, even. You don't (usually) need a lot of backstory to get up to speed, and Corsetto's good at providing in-strip context without making it sound like she's providing in-strip context.

Weaknesses

Man, Hazel sure do drink, don' she? And man, she don' have a man, do she?

There's a danger in resolving tension points, but one hits a stage where it can be repetitive. Hazel's the primary lead (I'm not sure Jamie could be called supporting instead of a co-protagonist, but most of the plotlines are Hazel's, or so it seems), and while we're not yet at the point where the things she yearns for but does not have constitute a character rut? We can see its house from here.

Though the current plotline gives me some hope in that regard -- it's entirely possible we're about to see either a really good choice on Hazel's part, which will make for a nice resolution and set up new potentials for trouble, or we're about to see a really bad choice on Hazel's part, and that's comedy gold, kids.

And, for the record, it's a good thing Corsetto changed Clarice's glasses. For the first two years of the strip, I honestly thought the Blog-Girl also worked at the Porn Store.

On the Whole

What more can I say. I really love this strip, for all the best reasons. It's just good.

Right! So far we've got a ma.gnolia lists for Rabidly Following, Happily Reading, and the Hoi Polloi, and we've got Regularly Checked and Occasionally Checked. So, we just need Sporadically Checked, When I Remember, and Why Do I Read This Webcomic, Again, and we'll have at least one strip in each and every category. So, let's roll the dice for tomorrow's strip....

Hrm. Well, I'll check one new list off at least.

Toodles!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (10)

February 19, 2008

Eric: State of the Web(cartoonist): Nicholas Gurewitch

From The Perry Bible Fellowship.

The Webcartoonist: Nicholas Gurewitch

Current Webcomics: The Perry Bible Fellowship

Enthusiasm: The Hoi Polloi

How Frequently Read: Occasionally Checked

There's no real rhyme nor reason to how I do these things. I decided I didn't want to just launch into the rabid favorites and then work my way down to "why on Earth do I still read this thing," but at the same time I didn't want to start with "why on Earth" and work up to "God I Love This Strip." So, like all good veterans of the Tabletop Roleplaying wars, I randomly rolled and got my next topic.

Which might be problematic, because right here on the second summation we're going against conventional wisdom. Well, you know, it's been some months since I got hate mail, and that seems all wrong to me somehow.

Anyway, today's topic is Nicholas Gurewitch, the webcartoonist behind The Perry Bible Fellowship.

Before I go on, I should indulge in definition. I know, I know. I'm nothing if not a definer, but this is a little different. See, a lot of people have only heard "the Hoi Polloi" contextually. It's fallen out of common use, and while I'm all for making people hit dictionary.com, it also deserves to be talked about.

The Hoi Polloi, for the record, refers to the Common Masses. Just Plain Folks. Everybody Else. As I tag lists, I have the stuff I'm really excited about, the stuff that makes me just plain old happy, the journeymen strips -- good enough to keep me going, but not really mind blowing, and the stuff I'm at best on the fence about. The Hoi Polloi are the journeymen. They're perfectly good webcomics. They're fine.

But they don't set a bomb off under my chair. Oh, there's the occasional brilliant strip, and the occasional dud, but for the most part they're just there. An entertaining diversion on the way to the grave, as Achewood says.

And that's where we are with The Perry Bible Fellowship.

It's worth noting I came to the Fellowship pretty late, and for the worst possible reasons. Back in the heydey of Websnark, I would get recommendations. I still do, now and again, generally from people who haven't figured out the heydey of Websnark is somewhere behind us, not in front.

Well, this one guy recommended Perry Bible Fellowship.

Several times a week.

Sometimes several times a day.

Seriously. A new strip would come out and there would be three e-mails. "Dude! I know you don't read PBF but just look at today's! It's awesome! You should totally snark about it because it's fantastic! I know I write a lot but I don't understand how you can avoid being a part of such an incredibly good thing! It's awesome!"

And so on. Repeat until blue in face.

Needless to say, I decided it would be a cold day in Hell before I would read the Perry Bible Fellowship.

Eventually, the correspondent dropped off. Note this was a good few months after I sent him a note or three saying "dude, stop it." Which is one reason I don't feel badly about writing this now. And quite some time after that, I finally began to read the Perry Bible Fellowship.

And, like everyone else, I thought it was brilliant. Creative, well designed, beautifully drawn and with a great sensibility. It was, in all ways, a David Lynchian sense of wonder brought to the page, and that is not a bad thing.

Well, it's been some time since then, and let's see where we are.

Perry Bible Fellowship is a comic that works in subversion humor. Note, this isn't subversive humor. Not always, anyway. This is the humor of building expectations in panels 1-3 and skewing them in panel 4. And Gurewitch is a master at it. Take one of the better ones, in my estimation: Billy the Bunny.

Everyone check the link? And you're back now with me? Excellent.

We have three different styles going here. The style of the actual picture book, the style of the woman and her son hating on Mean Old Farmer Ben, and the very realistic style of the last panel. And there's nothing funny in any of these four panels. The first two set up an unhappy picturebook situation, the third shows a mother and her child, well to do and affluent, reacting the way the book's author intended. Certainly there's no mirth there, though one expects that Mean old Farmer Ben will have his comeuppance one day. And of course, the fourth panel is stark, the sign of the family in starvation, the home falling apart, the man -- the provider -- having failed. And even his wife, clearly comforting him, has no joy in her bearing. It is a brutal fourth panel. There is nothing funny here.

Take all four together, and I laughed my ass off. Fucking Billy. The subversion of intention made the innocent into the horrible, and it made the whole thing funny even though no part of it was funny.

Like I said, this is Gurewitch's bread and butter, and there's no one better at it.

The problem is, this is a well that's way too easy to drain dry. Twenty or thirty times, you'll get a horrified laugh. Then, people will expect it. Finally, it will have no impact. It's just what Perry Bible Fellowship does. It's like watching the parody of M. Night Shyamalan on Robot Chicken shouting "WHAT A TWIST!" When you're expecting the twist, the twist has to be awesome. And every time, it has to be more awesome than the last. Otherwise, it just becomes mundane. O. Henry wrote 400 short stories, but we don't bother reading most of them today -- the 390th twist ending just reduces the impact that The Gift of the Magi or The Ransom of Red Chief have on us.

As an interesting side note, the Perry Bible Fellowship strips that don't have a twist, gruesome or otherwise, end up being some of my favorites. For example, there's a quiet little strip called Christmas Surgery that I really like. No twist, but somehow it just works.

Anyway, none of this should be taken to mean Perry Bible Fellowship is bad. It's not. Not at all. It's just... you know. There.

Thus, the Hoi Polloi.

Right. On to the usuals:

Strengths

Gruewitch has a great imagination and an ability to see connections that others might miss. In playing to his strengths, he reinforces just how good at them he is. Added to that is his artistic style, which is really great and highlights his skill base. And when he's on his A game, it's hard to think of anyone who's better in webcomics -- particularly in four panel gag-a-day.

Further, Gruewitch might lack a certain thematic variety, but his variety in detail is astounding. He's great at creating an unexpected view of a subject. And there really isn't anything else like The Perry Bible Fellowship on the giant mass of internetworked nodes, and that's very much to Gruewitch's credit.

I mentioned it above, but let me throw in again -- this has some absolutely beautiful art. It really does. There are people in this world who halfass the art in their comics, but Gruewitch is their antonym.

Weaknesses

Beyond the one-note nature of a lot of his strips, as mentioned above, we have to point out Perry Bible Fellowship's site design. I suspect there are some folks who like a design like this one, but for my money it's user hostile at best. It's unintuitive -- you keep thinking there should be a way to bring the 'most current strip' up, but there really isn't. The graphical elements in his masthead don't actually do anything, so they can actually confuse a new reader for some time. Even the center column of actual strips has "Random" above the most current strip, so it doesn't even draw the eye.

This, by the by, is one reason I list this as "Occasionally Checked." Sporadically Checked means there's some pattern to my checking, but lacking a page to just hit the most current strip means that I'm I only actually check Perry Bible Fellowship, while surfing the Safari Tabs, when I happen to notice that I don't recognize the top strip's title.

This is made more difficult, in its own way, by its update schedule, which is sporadic at best. Which is entirely Gurewitch's right -- he's gone on the record as saying it's infrequent because of the effort he takes on each strip, which shows in the gorgeous art -- but which makes it harder to actually keep track of when a new strip has come out. It's entirely possible that the only good way to follow Perry Bible Fellowship is by subscribing to its RSS feed. RSS -- it's the friend of the occasional webcomic.

However, I don't happen to like using RSS for my webcomics trawling, so there we are.

On the Whole

Gurewitch is one of the most celebrated of those webcartoonists currently stripping, and it's easy to see why. He swept through the WCCAs for a couple of years, he's hit mainstream awards hither and yon, and recently he took an Ignatz. And it's all deservedly so. At the same time, I have to wonder if each new crop of awards reflects a new crop of readers coming upon his work, in a new venue, while the people who have been reading for some time let his strip slip lower in their consciousness. It is said that familiarity breeds contempt, and that is an unfortunate thing. But, when one's stock in trade is the skew, sooner or later there seems little to be done for it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (13)

January 24, 2008

Eric: The post wherein I plug a thing for a guy.

Believe it or not, this isn't a post on Marvel Comics. I know, it's shocking, isn't it?

I've been on this here net some time, and over the course of the past... yeesh, twenty-three years or so... I've made a lot of friends. One of them is named Chris Meadows, and he's been carving a niche out for himself on Talkshoe.

Talkshoe, for those who don't know, is a call in radio technology for internet radio, essentially. This is a system that lets people host their own discussions and interviews and get calls in from the listening public live on the... hm. We can't say 'live on the air,' since it's not broadcast media. I guess 'live on the wire' works.

Chris -- in his long standing identity as "Robotech Master" -- kind of made his Talkshoe reputation on Space Station Liberty, a Robotech program where he's interviewed writers, translators, voice actors, and all kinds of cool folks. However, he's also put together a number of other programs, including The Biblio File, an arts and literature show where he's covered a lot of topics particularly of interest to the online reading community.

So, you know, the kinds of people who might read this.

The Biblio File hit a high point some time ago with a multi-part interview with Mercedes Lackey and Steve Libby. And it's poised to hit another high point this coming weekend -- Sunday, Sunday Sunday! -- when he's going to interview Phil and Kaja Foglio, the highly cool people behind Buck Godot: Zapgun for Hire, What's New with Phil and Dixie, XXXenophile and, most currently and in ways most famously, the brilliant Girl Genius. This interview goes down Live on the Wire on Sunday, January 27 at 4 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Pacific/10 p.m. Universal (GMT)!

Look, in the thing he sent me about this, he included the Greenwich Mean Time. People all over the world have Internet access, you know. It's not all Hoboken and Idaho. Jesus, get some perspective. But I digress.

Anyhow, you can listen to the show via an audio stream or you can use one of many different ways of connecting to Talkshoe and actually ask the Foglios questions if you like. Chris has a connection method fact sheet for people who want to call in, via VoIP, SIP, or a good old fashioned telephone call. Or, you can just listen to the stream. Or you can e-mail your questions to Chris ahead of time. Look, it's not up to me to tell you how to live your life.

I, sadly, won't have a chance to tune in myself. I'm going to be in Ottawa busily turning 40 on the 27th. But I plan on catching the show in archives afterward, and I'd encourage you all to listen live if you have a chance or listen later if you don't. The Foglios are cool people, Chris has a lot of those interviews under his belt (hey, the guy interviewed Chase Masterson once and Kevin Siembieda twice, and to my knowledge hasn't ever been slapped or sued, so....)

Anyway. Check it on out.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:38 AM | Comments (3)

December 5, 2007

Eric: You know, I can only hope that Seth and Ann will get hit by a car in Something Positive next week.

(From Home on the Strange. Click on the thumbnail for full sized all seen, all done.)

On January 23rd, in 2006, Websnark was running somewhere close to the height of its popularity. I think the "glory year" was probably 2005, but 2006 was still doing darn nicely. At the same time, I was at that point a creature of habit. There are things that I did, and things I didn't do, and very little breaking up of them.

Which is the nature of a thing like Websnark. When you begin, you're throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. Sooner or later, you get a sense of what sticks and then... well, you stick with it. You become formalized. You become ritualized. You become expected and perhaps complacent. And for a while, you run high on that formula, because it really is what people want to see, and you really are pretty good at it, and it's all pretty fun.

Eventually, of course, things run their course. There is shift, and breakdown. You lose your enthusiasm. Daily posting becomes weekly posting, and then monthly posting. People might still read, but things shift from water cooler talk to "oh yeah, he's on X again," to nodding and moving on. You become part of the landscape, and eventually you become yesterday.

That is not a complaint, mind. It's what we predicted from day one -- there is a life cycle to these kinds of things. And no, Websnark isn't going away. Er, more than it already has, what since it's at best getting handfuls of posts. Regardless, I'm always happy when people come back to see what's going on.

But I look back at January 23rd, 2006, for a reason. Because that was a day I broke formula. That was a day I posted a snark on a webcomic that was just starting -- that literally just had one strip up.

As a matter of course, I don't do that. (I know, as a matter of course, I don't do anything any more. I mean that at the time I didn't do that. Meh.) I like to let a strip get a rhythm and actually build some momentum -- see where it's going -- before I start to talk about it.

There was also, of course, a fear of looking stupid. At the time, writing about a webcomic -- particularly a relatively unknown one -- on this here blog meant that strip's numbers would spike. I won't pretend that wasn't fun. But that also meant that a significant number of people would go and look at something I talked about, and so there was always the chance that 'something' would turn out to suck. No one likes to look like an idiot, especially when they're being so goddammed pretentious about everything trying hard to come across as an 'expert.'

But this one, I had faith in from the beginning. And so I linked it on day one, and I talked about Veronica Pare and Ferrett Steinmetz. I had faith because I liked both of their work in other media. Roni's RPG art and other projects had really impressed me. Ferrett's always been a great writer. And so I had faith that these two different people -- who at the time I didn't know at all -- would fuse like Firestorm into one kickass nuclear hermaphrodite.

Okay, that went in a direction I didn't expect. Moving on....

It's now been six hundred and eighty two days since I wrote that essay. And as of today, barring a potential holiday special, Home on the Strange is closing shop. During that time they produced almost three hundred strips, several storylines, a good amount of pathos, a good amount of debate, collected a rabid pack of fans, showed up every day they said they were going to, and in general kicked a lot of ass.

They have said that there were "creative differences" that led to the strip ending on this plotline. If so, they didn't often -- if ever -- transfer to the strip itself. I won't say every strip worked note-perfect, but they were all in the right key and more often than not they did their job. And the cumulative effect has been tremendous. We care about these characters and their wildly dysfunctional -- and very funny -- relationships. We laugh at the funny, we worry at the story, and we are wowed at the way both are conveyed with both word and line.

Which is a side note -- this is a comic strip where neither Roni nor Ferrett could be swapped out. They've made it clear that plotting is shared and that strip decisions are as well, but more importantly the visual language that Roni brings to the table -- the dynamic motion and appearance of the characters -- conveys as much information as Ferrett's words. These folks speak with their whole bodies, and any change there would be like all the characters suddenly speaking with british idioms and accents. It might still be nice, but it wouldn't be Karla, Tom, Andy, Izzy, Branch, Seth, Mincemeat and all the rest. So it would be with a different artist.

Which, to be honest, I appreciate. I like it when comics out of necessity need to be a pairing. It doesn't always happen -- most of the time, in fact, it doesn't happen. A lot of cartoons out there can shift writers, artists or even both and just keep on chugging along, at least recognizable if not perfectly meshing. Not so this gang.

Six hundred and eighty two days, and my relationship to these guys has changed along with. At the time, I didn't know either of them even indirectly, though I knew both of their work. I was a regular reader of Ferrett's. I owned things with Roni's art. Roni was a friend of friends of mine. Stuff like that. Now, I've had discussions -- sometimes extensive ones -- with both of them. Roni is one of those folks who I've kept meaning to go have a drink with, since we're not that far off from each other, but it's not quite happened, but we've certainly passed mail and comments back and forth to each other, and she's in that nebulous area that people get into on the internet. You know the one.

Ferrett, on the other hand, I have had 30's drinks with in a hotel bar where we had to explain the gimlet to the bartender. Ferrett's wife is my lawyer. And Ferrett was two seats down at ground zero on the day I proposed to Wednesday. Grinning his fool head off, I would add. Later, he ate cheesecake with us and was cheerfully abused by Mara, a force of nature Weds and I like a lot.

Their strip ends unexpectedly. They let us know midway through this storyline. And it's clear it wasn't an easy decision for them -- the storyline in question was, if anything, clearly setting up the coming year's plots and conflicts. Instead, it was the end-note. And like all unexpected things, there's stuff hanging out there. Branch was mentioned -- there's actually a donation drive going (via their Paypal button) to try and raise five hundred by Christmas. If it works out that way, then they'll put up a Christmas Special that will close out Branch's story.

But that's just Branch's story. We've had new stories opened, new potentials brought up, and old ones left fallow. We haven't ended Seth's story, for example. Mincemeat's story was kind of shoehorned into completion but really it still has cards on the table. In short, this is not the ending that I think either would have wanted to have, at least without a lot more buildup.

And of course, Tom and Karla and Seth and Izzy's story hasn't ended either. There's way too much potential conflict there. Way too many trainwrecks where the engines haven't yet slammed into brick walls. Way too many things that will potentially destroy these relationships... only in the end they don't.

A while ago, I said that the operative question wasn't 'when will they get together' in this strip. It's 'when will they break up.' But even at the time I didn't think they actually would. The conflict of the strip was rife, and the personalities were volatile, but this is comedy, not tragedy, and even if the day got dark, it would be bright in the end, or so it seemed. Well, a lot of that tension never had a chance to break open, with the brightly wrapped candies of comedy and angst pouring out for us to scoop up greedily. And at this stage, it won't. But as unexpected endings go, this one's not bad at all. It gives us good chances to laugh, it gives us a sense of where these people are going, and it gives us a chance to wave goodbye. And know in our hearts that their story will go on, even if no one's telling it to us.

In the end, I'm going to miss this strip. There are ways it scratched my Queen of Wands itch more than Punch and Pie has, even. And I'm going to keep my eye on both of them -- see where they go and what they do from here, because we know it's going to be good. They've proven that much.

But today, I'm looking back those six hundred and eighty two days. Back to who I was back then, and back to what I was saying in that essay. On that day when I broke one of my own rules and rolled the dice, and said, and I quote:

...I have faith in his writing and her art, and think that maybe, just maybe, this will be one of the best strips of the year.

And you actually have a chance to get in on the ground floor of it. This is day one, people. How often do you get a chance to say "hey -- I was reading on the first day."

This is day 682. They've now ended. And I get to say "I was right, god damn it!"

And how often do you get to do that in life?

Peace, Ferrett and Roni. Thanks for everything.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 4:01 PM | Comments (7)

October 24, 2007

Eric: Banter Latte: Just Because, dang it!

Right! Some posts for you! Because you deserve something to read, and as it works out I wrote this.

• The October Myth Call: For those who want to add things to the Mythology of the Modern World, this is the place to do it! You've seen myth calls before, but this one is in... October.
• Mythology of the Modern World: Why are there Suburbs?: A pretty well received myth, all told, with some good characterization here, some bittersweetness, and one side of a Dickish duality, really. Also, there is mass transit.
• Justice Wing: Prologue: As it sounds, this is a prologue for the new Justice Wing continuing series. This sets the stage, and it gives us a view of some of the bigger names in the settings -- both 'then' and (sort of) 'now.' Very well received, which gives me a little hope the Leather magic will rub off.
• Justice Wing: Vilify 5 Part One: And now, "Vilify 5," the next Justice Wing serial. Kind of the opposite end of the supervillain spectrum from "Interviewing Leather." I hope folks like it.
• Mythology of the Modern World: Why do people check the time on mobile phones instead of watches?: The second in our Dickish duality. I'm playing a bit with storytelling technique here, and I think it went okay.
• From the Vault: America the Beautiful: A fragment -- half a chapter of a book that won't get written. A dystopia of fairness, and a setup. It seems to have found some favor, though I doubt it will ever go anywhere.
• Justice Wing: Vilify 5 Part Two: Unsurprisingly, it's the second part of "Vilify 5." As with the last, I just hope folks enjoy it.

We also got some joy and a solid boost this week from Home on the Strange. And I can take more than a little pride in the fact that there's a permanent link to Banter Latte and some nice comments from Ferrett sitting right alongside the words "Lead Crotch-Shield." It's always amazing to have a dream come true.

I will do my level best to write something nonfiction over here. In my defense, I'm not very bright.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:29 AM | Comments (2)

October 4, 2007

Eric: State of the Banter Latte address

The following is a repost of a bit from Banter Latte, explaining the new fall schedule and other junk! Before that, as promised, is a quick recap of the few posts since the last recap. Regardless, I hope you enjoy the writings and stuff.

Here's the recap!

Wednesday: From Sinister Bedfellows: Anthology. My story contributed to Sinister Bedfellows: Anthology, inspired and edited by Snarkoleptic Number One-Alpha mckenzee, which you should all go and buy because it's cool.
Thursday: The Home Front: Homecoming Part Three. The third part in this pretty well received story of transitions. Also, there's a bazooka. How can you go wrong with a bazooka.
Tuesday: Interviewing Leather Part Fourteen. The end of the story! Very well received, by many people, some of whom have their own automobiles and personal computers. Seriously, I'm happy with how this story turned out and I hope you like it.
Thursday: Adventures in Writing! The New Fall Schedule: A post that details where the site is going, what's happening next, and -- it's worth noting -- is entirely replicated under this recap. Which honestly makes me wonder why you would click this link instead of just continuing to read, but what the Hell? You're going to make your own decisions in life, and it would be a mistake for me to try and argue you out of them.

There won't be a recap next week, as we're starting fresh on Monday, and in case you haven't noticed we've recapped everything that would come up before then (except for the October Myth Call, which is scheduled for Saturday. But we can cover that the following week, I figure).

Thanks as always. Here's the repost.

***

Right, we're going to call this week, excepting the end of "Interviewing Leather," a vacation week. Which makes a little sense. I've done a lot of writing since June, and between that and the start of school, it's probably at least a little lucky my brain hasn't exploded from the heat.

Next week, we'll launch back into things. Call it the new fall season, hot off the heels of a successful midseason replacement. However, I'm going to tweak things a little bit here and there, and this post will tell you exactly how I'm doing that.

First off, you'll notice that posts now have tags underneath them (though I haven't finished going through the archives and tagging things. I guess that's what I'm doing for the rest of the week). At Wednesday's suggestion, I've upgraded to Wordpress 2.3, and I'm reorganizing the way I'm doing things. See, the category system is good for general things, but when you drill down to actual titles and storylines, you end up with way too many categories.

So, here's how it's going to go. I'll continue to categorize things by general category. I'll also tag them, and be pretty liberal with the tags. For serials and continuing stories, one of the tags will always be the title of the story -- you can click on the tag and get links to all chapters of a given story.

As an example? I give you the Interviewing Leather page, automatically arranged by the eudaemons of network management and database schemae: http://banter-latte.annotations.com/tag/interviewing-leather/. It does about ten posts a page, so make use of the "previous entries" link at the bottom of the page to get the whole story.

At the same time, I'm going to be liberal about tagging -- part of the point of the tags is the ability to make bizarre connections, and unlike Categories they're very freeform. So you'll see some tags like "coffee" show up, where I'd never do a category like that. Mostly I'll try to have fun with it.

Secondly, we have our new Schedule of posts!

Why a new schedule? Because I was getting close to a brain hemorrhage before. The idea was I would do three major posts a week, before. Then, when I wasn't looking, Leather and Chapman exploded.

So, here's the schedule as it now stands:

Mondays will continue to be Myth days, and will return next week. As one of the two most popular things on here, it's not about to go away. Besides, I like writing it.

Wednesdays are now going to be Justice Wing days. Yeah, the limited series did well so now we're picking up a commitment. I have a master plan for it that I'd like to flesh out. There's a number of longer stories I want to do, and some shorter ones, and "this" and "that." My current plan is to take some of the longer stories I have planned in the pipeline -- like The Death of Paragon and Crossing the Rubicon -- and break them up into shorter "chapters" which themselves will then be broken up into weekly chunks about the size of the individual Leather posts. So, we might do a six part chapter of The Death of Paragon, then do a 1-3 part short story, then do a five part chapter of Crossing the Rubicon, then... well, you get the point. It's an experiment. And by the end of it, I should have several books' worth of stories actually more or less done.

As a side note, there are about three different plans being pursued right now for a dead trees version of "Interviewing Leather," involving some nice value-adds. One of which actually involves an interested small press publishing company. Which blows my mind when you figure part one started with me saying "I have no idea where I could publish this."

Fridays are now the Storytelling day. These are going to be short stories and multi-part serials in a variety of genres and fictional universes. For example, Homecoming will finish up on Fridays to begin with (under the Mythic Heroes tag, naturally). While there will be some superheroing, this is mostly going to be where science fiction, fantasy, horror, contemporary fiction, magic realism, surrealism -- you know, stuff goes.

Weekends are going to be the new home for Protected Novel Chapters. It's like a bonus premium you get in your cereal box. I can't swear there will be a chapter every week -- it's actually significantly harder to write a chapter of Theftworld than it is to write a chapter of "Interviewing Leather" -- but the whole point of this exercise was to get me to write a novel chapter a week, and I'm going to at least try to accomplish that.

There will also be the monthly Myth Calls on the first weekend of each month. Just because I enjoy those and people seem to like them.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are getting way scaled back. The idea originally was that these were random and optional, and we're going back to that. No more continuing stories on those days, for example. If I decide to post more bits and pieces of my writing past, this is where it will go. Ditto poetry or vignettes that come to me. I may give Mason Kramer's Kayble form a try one of these Tuesdays or Thursday, for example.

And there may be essays about writing, or about the backstory and/or structure of my other stories. Discussions of the myths or the like. Annotations and notes. Some of those -- like this post -- will be crossposted to Websnark because that's the Nonfiction hangout. Though I'm not entirely sure anyone over there would be that interested in this stuff. Who can tell? Not me, that's for sure.

Finally, I'm beginning to ponder merchandising. Beyond the potential Dead Tree Leather, mind. I've never been overly enamored of the Cafepress tee shirts but some of their other stuff is cool. Their coffee mugs are primo, for example. (I've had some of them for years, now.) If you have any thoughts on what you might want to see on a tchotchke, chime in in the comments if you will.

And finally, thank you for reading. Seriously. It makes all the difference in the world to have someone on the other side of these things.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:29 AM | Comments (1)

October 2, 2007

Eric: Otherwise, the Metalocalypse episode was a little disappointing.

(From Home on the Strange! Click on the thumbnail for full sized Jesus, that drink would taste horrid.)

We're putting off the Banter Latte update until tomorrow -- the end of September wasn't great to writing, and I want to be sure you get your money's worth out of the updates. Though it does include the end of what's probably the most popular thing on B-L so far, so, you know. There's that.

But in the meantime, I need to call attention to something Steinmetz and Pare did over on the magical land of Home on the Strange. Because it's something that seems easy and isn't: they executed the full on, hardcore, one hundred percent dick move.

The dick move does not refer to genitalia, for the record. It refers to a move in fiction or in life that takes one or more people, regardless of their status previously, and moves them firmly into the category of dick. This past weekend, Metalocalypse covered this territory briefly, as Murderface gave several other band members lessons in the art of being a full on dick. (The best quote on the process? "See, I'm not angry, but he is angry. That's being a dick.")

Tanner is, ostensibly, Karla and Tom's friend. But he knows that he needs to get the two of them "out of the way" until "Izzy was ready." Whatever that means. Karla and Tom, in the meantime, knew that Tanner -- whenever he has one of these parties -- ends up having a monumental meltdown, and so they were sticking close to Tanner to try and prevent the horror. (The horror.)

Tom was distracted by the prospect of infused vodka. Hell, dissolving a peep in vodka might as well be Tom's kryptonite. And then he sent in his new friend -- the one he's thrown Tom over for -- to "distract" Karla. By playing a Buffy trivia contest with her. And Rayvyn beat her in the one area Karla truly believed she wouldn't ever lose in. Only not really, because they cheated to do it.

Now, Tanner's clearly worried here. This is supposed to be some kind of special night for he and Izzy -- a night that... I dunno. A night. And now one of his allegedly closest friends has been drunk into absolute submission in a game where they cheated. Which is pretty crappy to do to someone, any way you look at it.

That's not the dick move.

The dick move is in the first panel. From the transcript:

TANNER: Rayvyn, what the hell did you do? You were supposed to distract Karla until Izzy was ready, not destroy her!

KARLA: WHa? Distragt? Izzeh?

RAYVYN: I bested her in the drinking game. But she's apparently no Marion Ravenwood?.

Stop and consider this. Rayvyn "bested her in the drinking game." Only he didn't really, because he flagrantly cheated. And Tanner was the guy who helped him cheat.

Cheating and getting a person absolutely blotto in the process? That's mean and being a jerk. Then bragging about it and describing it as "besting" them? That's a rarified kind of jerk. But doing it to the guy who knows you didn't do jack shit?

The only possible response is "wow. What a dick." And really, Tanner moves into the same column, because he doesn't respond with "dude, you didn't beat her in anything. We cheated to distract her -- what are you proud of this?"

Honestly, whatever mind-bogglingly horrid thing happens to Tanner and Izzy after this -- and it will -- is nothing less than Tanner deserves. And you have to imagine Izzy will be pissed. I mean, Karla's one of her closest friends -- her Work Geek Friend -- and this was supposed to be some kind of special night for Izzy, and now Karla's totally trashed for it, and you know it's going to come out what Tanner's role in it was.

Mmm. Conflict. It's that delicious kind of sweet and salty that comes from making candy out of tears. And the great thing is, when it all crashes and burns, I don't need to feel badly for Tanner.

Because that guy? He's a dick.

Nicely done, guys.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:50 AM | Comments (14)

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)

July 23, 2007

Eric: Mondays. Banter Latte does well on Mondays. Gosh, I wonder why.

I'm both healthier than I was and back in the land of Make Bel-- er, New Hampshire. While the latter is depressing, the former means I should have more output over here than I've had. As should the latter, really, since I don't have a fiancée who insists on being way cool and fun to be with distracting me.

Damn it.

Anyway! It's Monday, and we have a happy block of Banter Latte to point you at. (Much of which comes from the days before I was traveling at all. I like the BL setup quite a lot, I can tell you what. So, if you want some reading and you haven't been there already, then here it is. Enjoy! Or don't. I don't dictate how you live your life.

• Tuesday: Random: Interviewing Leather Part Four. Possibly the most popular thing (though the Mythology of the Modern World is giving it a run for its money) I've got going. I'm vaguely considering re-christening Tuesdays as "Serial day," but I'm not sure that would be good in the long run. Better to leave myself the out of not having to do anything at all if I don't want.
• Wednesday: Storytelling: Shal Mari Après Vie: or this ain?t Bat Country. A reprinting of my In-Nominish remembrance of Hunter S. Thompson. In Hell. Because that's what made the most sense to me. Because I liked him.
• Thursday: Random: Poetry: Pippo Spano. I was sick, and I don't need to do Thursdays at all, but Weds was at work so I figured I might as well toss something up. This was actually the first poem I ever published. So. Um. Hooray for me.
• Friday: Protected (request the password): Theftworld Chapter Five. The latest chapter in the Science Fiction... um... novel. I ran out of things to say.
• Weekend: Influential! An open mike on the folks who influence your creative (or other) life! At least, as far as you can remember right now. Sound off!
• Monday: Mythology of the Modern World: What's the real deal with gasoline prices? Hey, it's fun to create your very own nymphs!

This is what it is. Please enjoy. And do not set fire to anything.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:24 PM | Comments (0)

July 19, 2007

Eric: Achewood rocked today too, but who really needs me to say that these days?

I am in Canada.

I am also quite sick.

The whole world seems blurry.

It all started when a Target in Syracuse, NY tried to kill me.

I am not convinced it didn't succeed.

That is a story for another day.

As for today?

This would be an excellent time to start reading Girly.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:09 PM | Comments (6)

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 5, 2007

Eric: It scares me how much I loved today's strip.

(From Achewood! Click on the thumbnail for full sized he wants to taste the fucking curb!

You know I love to wax eloquent about shit. It's what I do. When I see someone do something absolutely right, I want to tell you why I feel that way, in the hopes that more people will do it.

Well, this may be among my top four favorite Achewood strips of all time, and I can't even tell you why. I fucking loved this strip.

I don't hate Comic Sans, mind. Jesus, it's a font. What, I care that much? Well, I do, but not in theory. So it's not that.

I don't know what it is. The surreality? The almost pathetic attempt to escape? The fact that even Lyle is so completely outraged? The fact there's no question in anybody's mind but that this is a time to kick the shit out of someone?

No clue. Yes. No. Maybe. I dunno.

But I still look at this and laugh my ass off.

Onsted gets a biscuit. A tasty, tasty biscuit.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:23 PM | Comments (22)

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)

June 26, 2007

Eric: Now that I've written this, they'll hit a reset button on the laptop or something and we'll be right back to Gregor Mendel, you just watch

(From Goats! Click on the thumbnail for full sized... crispy fries?)

There are ways in which we can pretend that Goats will go back to what it was someday. That this is all just one really long plotline. Don't get me wrong -- I don't want it to revert, but there is always this sense that the bar in Manhattan-3 is still there and when our heroes save the universe it'll be waiting, with a glass for Fish to live in and wives and girlfriends for our greyscale heroes and junk.

Today really, really tears the scab off that little denial tree. And Rosenberg knows it. He's giggling, somewhere back there. He's giggling like a schoolgirl. Who giggles. Which doesn't describe all schoolgirls. Okay, where's that diversity handbook again....

Anyway. Today hurt. It was a soft kind of hurt, but it hurt nonetheless. "I know," Bob says, confronted with the incipient death of Neil. There's nothing he can do. He'd do something different if he could, but you know he could be strapped to that thing next and he knows it it too. Toothgnip has never really given a shit about anyone but himself, but now he's the Kwisatz Haderach and that means bad shit for everyone involved.

Of course, in the previous sequence, he was mind controlling Farmella into having sex with him. Which might not be materially worse than when he used the Panties of Potency to induce women to have sex with him, but it feels different. Or maybe it's just because we were confronted with the direct reality of it.

The sadness that clings to this scene -- the sense that here's these two guys who've mostly been comic relief in the past, and now they're doomed and there's not much to be done but be resigned to it... well, that's profound.

And there's no going back from it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 8:00 AM | Comments (3)

June 25, 2007

Eric: Also, sitting in Mail clicking 'download' over and over and over and over....

(From xkcd! Click on the thumbnail for full sized oh man I've been there.

Things are still... well, more or less as they were at the end of last week. I actually have a new iron in the fire to help stimulate more writing across the board, though that's in beta/being piloted right now, and I'll let you all know when it's ready for more than that.

In the meantime, the best way to build momentum again is to... you know, write shit. At least when it's me. Other people are different, and I respect their differences. I am an inclusive person.

Which brings us to today's xkcd.

Now, this isn't a strip I often snark, mostly because it's a strip I would snark every damn day if I let myself. Seriously. I love this thing. I love its sense of humor. I love its sensibilities. And I love how it's got its fingers jammed right up into the carotid artery of geek life. But today's really leapt out at me, because it's true.

I don't mean it's an exaggeration that highlights a truth. I mean it's true. I've done this. For like two hours.

And so have my friends. I was chatting with friends earlier today, and one of them said "man, did you see xkcd? When did he start reading my mind."

I don't know if this is truly universal or not, but for a big percentage of the people I know, this describes our behavior perfectly. And yet it doesn't belabor the point of it.

And that's xkcd in a nutshell.

Yeah. Look, getting my rhythm back will take a little time. They can't all be home runs.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:08 PM | Comments (18)

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 3, 2007

Eric: Apropos of nothing, I'd kind of like one of those turtles.

(From Goats! Click on the detail for full sized bitching about Hippies!)

There's a number of techniques you can employ in your heavily story based comic to keep flow going well and keep a sense of movement and action even when there... well, isn't really that much movement or action to keep going. On the one side, you have something like Amber Greenlee's No Stereotypes -- a masterpiece of decompressed storytelling, with each new day's installment another piece of choreography. It's beautiful to read and follow, and the cumulative effect is phenomenal.

But on the other side, there is Goats. And Goats has a different means to its end.

Taking a step back, let's consider what Jon Rosenberg is doing. Ever since the soft relaunch of the series, Goats has followed an epic storyline between dimensions, with moderately absurd but always internally consistent mythology being woven into the story at all sides. It is a monumentally complex story, with several concurrent plotlines and -- more often than not -- a lot of exposition.

That could be a recipe for disaster. Or worse, for tedium. But Rosenberg manages to avoid both through judicious use of points of convergence. Convergence usually means a bunch of different things -- the tendency of the eyes to angle towards each other to maintain binocular vision when things are close, the mathematical tendency of an infinite series towards a finite limit, the nature of distant points on the horizon to seem to be touching -- all sorts of things, really.

However, what I mean by the term is somewhat different. I'm describing the rest states in Rosenberg's storyline, where the cast comes together in different combinations and tells us what's happened next.

Consider the different plotlines running through the strip. We have Fish, Fineas and Diablo actively trying to save the multiverse, having met Woody Allen and seen the laptop the universe is currently running on. In many ways, they're fighting against Oliver to do this. We have Philip as the prophesied Programmer being pursued by the Topekans and rescued by his young Knack-endowed cornfed girlfriend (don't tell his wife) so he can fulfill the prophecy of hacking into God's laptop and -- once again -- saving the universe. We have the Topekans apparently using Philip's weasel harvested sperm (man, there's a sentence I hope I never have to type again) to make a new programmer (we assume, which will take some doing since the universe ends in five years). We have Oliver running roughshod over the multiverse just blowin' everything up that he can while his highjacked body of Khan Junior is protected by Carl and Roger. And we have Toothgnip, Neil and Bo... um... Toothgnip and Neil seeking Oliver and the matchbox full of demonic fire matchsticks that scarred and altered Toothgnip. And everything I can't remember.

That's a lot of stuff. That's a lot of things happening. And thats a mind-numbing amount of backstory that needs to be disseminated.

The way Rosenberg manages to keep the story moving and dynamic is the reassembly of the cast into different groupings. It's like he's built a flowchart of storylines, and every so often two storylines touch each other, connecting and bridging. At those points where different parts of the cast touch we have a point of convergence. Those points of convergence give new opportunities to explain what's going on, fill out bits of backstory we don't already know, and set new elements of the plot in motion. And because he keeps the combinations dynamic (and distracts us with pretty colors) Rosenberg manages to conceal the fact that nineteen out of twenty strips are just people standing around and talking.

Seriously. Philip gets kidnapped by the Topekans, who stand around and tell him about the legends of the Almanac. He then stands around a cow he's programming to repair the damaged code of the multiverse, and he and his assistants talk for a while. Then a resistance movement kidnaps him (with a few brief moments of action) and everyone stands around and talks about that. There is a daring raid which turns into a capture, and then there is standing around and talking (and weasel sperm harvesting) until it becomes clear they're being rescued by Farmella. They then end up in the ruins of the Axis Pub where there is significant standing around and talking for a bit, whereupon they are transported to Pinktopia. There is riding of corndogs to Peppermint Springs, and then everyone climbs into a rock monster's mouth and they -- you guessed it -- stand around and talk. When they're returned to a decidedly non-pink world, they find Neil and Toothgnip, and Philip runs inside and stands around and talks for a bit.

And that's just one plotline. Jon's plot is almost infinitely weirder, with even stranger standing around and talking. Including with a Lizard Bluesman.

It's not that nothing happens -- things clearly happen all the time. But the moments of activity lead inexorably to a point of convergence, where exposition and plot movement take place. They then springboard to new and exciting points The points of convergence are the resting points between frenetic activity, but each one builds a new kind of tension and triggers a new release towards yet more points of convergence.

Take the last point of convergence. Jon and the Middle Pangeans, the demons of the Mayan Underworld, Fish, Diablo, Carl and Roger and Strawberry Shortcake all end up in the Axis Pub alongside Alfred. There is a forty (subjective) year long Mexican Standoff. Jon melts Strawberry Shortcake. And all relaxes and we get into the exposition. We start by learning that Jon, in killing himself to transport to the Axis Pub, has activated the EULA he signed giving the Mayan demons his soul. They then let him know everything he does is now their will, and he's given an expense account and an iPhone. There is significant exposition about his all powerful turtle, which Phineas then uses to export both himself and Fish into separate beings, killing the original Fish. We learn Carl and Roger's backstory, and the reasons behind their oath to protect Khan Junior's (deceased and decapitated) body. There is more exposition, and then Jon melts Carl and Roger, who are exported and recreated 'wherever Oliver is.' They then decide to seek out Philip to continue their quest to... you know, save the universe from destruction.

That's plenty of events. Surrounded by plenty of exposition around them. Lots of standing around and talking, but in an exciting way where people are sometimes horribly melted. Also, the Lizard guy died. I think. I get confused.

I liked the Lizard guy.

It's not an easy technique -- that Rosenberg makes it look easy is a reflection of his skill as a storyteller. Done properly, a story skips along almost frenetically, despite little actually happening in it. Done improperly, the story bogs down in endless words and no payoff. Rosenberg does it so well that Goats could serve as a master class in the technique.

In the next few (days, weeks, however long) the current group will be going off to find Philip. Maybe they'll track him down and maybe they won't, but either way we're going to almost certainly end up in a new group of characters. And there will be standing around. And there will be talking and exposition. And God damn it -- we're going to like it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:17 AM | Comments (18)

March 28, 2007

Eric: Then again, I'm not *entirely* sure Silas was ever real, either. Even if he did go to Ferret Dook Dook Hell.

(From Something Positive! Click on the thumbnail for full sized hello new friend!)

What I find most interesting about the current Something Positive plotline is what we don't know.

There's a lot of meat to this plotline. There really is. For one thing, Milholland has managed to actually make Kharisma a sympathetic character. I honestly wasn't sure it could happen, but it has. Maybe it was the introduction of Sarah, a person who reached out to help Kharisma when no one else would. Maybe it was the guilt and sadness Kharisma felt over Sarah's injuries. Maybe it was the knowledge that the Warden actually was trying to take Kharisma out as revenge for Avagadro Pompey's death.

I don't know about any of those things. Not really. It shows good storytelling, but that's not what I find most interesting.

What I find most interesting is that we still don't know if the blue thing is real or not.

See, the suspicion now is it's real. I mean, it's been established that Kharisma couldn't have left her cell the night before. And it was certainly strongly implied that the blue thing, who looked pissed off in the March 22nd strip, actually went to do the asswhupping.

So, that means it must be real, right?

Only... if so, why would there be evidence to suggest Kharisma's wig at the scene.

But if that is evidence to suggest Kharisma's wig, why doesn't her wig seem to be missing a few patches now?

I dunno. But we don't have all the facts yet.

Let's assume the blue thing is just Kharisma's fractured psyche expressing itself. Is it truly harder to believe that somehow Kharisma, in a psychotic fugue, could find a way to avoid the cameras and administer a truly savage and unexpected beatdown to her enemy than it would be to believe that instead a magical spirit of annoying congoers that only Kharisma can see did it? I mean, I know we have some magical realist touches in Something Positive (Choo Choo Bear's pliable nature, Twitchy-Hug's shifting fur color, Canadian Trapdoor Alligators and the like), but this goes beyond that and into full force magic -- this would be a spirit or demon or creature from beyond acting on Kharisma's behalf, and that's a step further than Milholland has ever taken us before.

There is also the possibility of coincidence. I mean, Sarah is apparently a good soul in the prison. (In what variety or capacity I couldn't say.) Is it hard to believe that some other red haired woman might have befriended her, been pissed off that Huddleston injured Sarah, and took her out entirely unrelatedly to Kharisma or the blue thing.

Or someone else took out Huddleston and left the red patches of hair to deflect suspicion away from themselves.

My point is, we don't know what's going on here. There are simple explanations and there are not so simple explanations.

At the bottom of the March 22nd strip referenced above, Milholland claimed he himself didn't know if the blue thing was real or not. I'm taking him at his word on that.

And that's cool.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:32 PM | Comments (20)

March 22, 2007

Eric: Not a real conversation. Results may vary. (And dude. Some spoilers ahead.)

(From Order of the Stick! Click on the thumbnail for full sized "ooooo, buuuuurn.")

So. How's your year been?

Really? Good, good. No, I'm doing okay. Yeah, money. Heh. Me and everyone else, right? But what's going on with--

Oh, you started a webcomic?

Hey, no, that's cool. I'm looking forward to seeing it. You should--

Excuse me?

Hold onto my hat?

Why do you think I should hold onto my hat.

Oh. Your 'plot is in high gear.' Things are happening like firecrackers. No, I get it. I'm sure they are....

No, I'm not being dubious. It's just... well, I've got a high standard for 'plot in high gear now.' Do you read Order of the Stick?

Oh -- you lost track around the end of last year. Oh. Heh. Yeah, you missed a few things.

What things? You want to be spoiled? Well... Okay. In brief?

Elan broke free from prison with the help of Thog dressed in a Leprechaun outfit, whereupon he took a level or two in a third party swashbucking prestige class called the Dashing Swordsman--

What?

No, I'm not making this up. Look, we've got a lot to get through.

Of course. Anyway. That gave Elan the skills to finally defeat Nale once and for all (with the help of the rest of the Order of the Stick, who also took down the Linear guild). In the process, Haley broke her speech impediment block when she admitted that she loved Elan. This made her nervous, but as it works out, Elan was okay with it.

Still with me? Good. Because we're just getting started. See, with essentially all the subplots resolved it seemed like our heroes had things good. And they got Lord Shojo to agree to keep the Linear Guild in antimagic cells for at least the next two months. During this time, Shojo monologued about the whole Roy Show Trial thing from the last couple plotlines... and his nephew Hinjo and Stick-up-her-butt Paladin Miko heard the whole thing. Hinjo was mad. Miko freaked out. And was convinced she was entirely right, and no other interpretation could possibly be correct.

As it turns out, she was wrong. And Oh My God it was seven thousand kinds of awesome. Seriously, if you distilled Awesome in some kind of Awesome distillery, it would look just like that one comic. #407, I think. But I digress.

Anyway, Hinjo and Roy gave Miko the beatdown we all wanted her to get from her first appearance. (And somewhere in there an obscure joke about Treasure Type letters had me laughing by god damned ass off.) Of course, Xykon's army is coming to attack the city, which they now know all about, and that means that Hinjo needs to recruit our heroes to help fight in the battle. They agree, preparations are made -- which are problematic, as a number of powerful men leave the city with their soldiers, but preparations are still indeed made.

This includes unlikely recruitment processes, it's worth noting. And it's also worth noting that apparently the Linear Guild is free again. But that's as may be. Because it's just about combat time, and in the process Elan, Vaarsuvius, Vaarsuvius again, and Haley all get character moments of pure awesome. And the battle hasn't even started yet.

I mean, you see what I'm saying? In a couple of months Rich Burlew's blown this whole thing on its ear. It's stunning how good it's been, with major awesome following major awesome and new things that blow your mind and throw you for a loop in such rapid succession -- well, it's next to impossible to even quantify them all

So... you know. You tell me your webcomic's been action packed lately, I'm gonna believe you -- but bear in mind the standard that statement's being judged--

What?

Oh. Well, whenever you do want me to have a look, let me know. I'm sure it's just great.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:34 PM | Comments (28)

March 21, 2007

Eric: Also, I priced chocolate fountains and they're surprisingly affordable.

(From Questionable Content! Click on the thumbnail for full sized smug satisfaction!)

This is a strip from a few days ago. Life, you know. Long life. Long, long... long life.

But that's not important right now.

What is important is something cool in Questionable Content.

We're used to cool things from Questionable Content, for the record. Of all the strips in my trawls, it's pretty much the only one I start hitting "refresh" on at 11 at night, in hopes Jeph Jacques will get the next day's strip out early. (It's a pretty good bet. Most nights the new strip is up early. And that's cool. Of course, the downside is, on a day when it updates 'on time' you end up acting mentally like it's late, even though it's not late. Jacques is just consistently early. But I digress.)

But I'm talking about this strip in particular because it is really cool, and because it shows something I find is remarkable.

You see, the question of Faye coping with Marten and Dora's relationship has been one of the central conflicts in Questionable Content for quite some time. This is because, as we mentioned a long while back, the Marten/Faye relationship was the central conflict of Questionable Content.

As yet another digression, in that post I just referenced above, I made casual note of the fact that I had a hidden desire to have "Anyway You Want It" by Journey as a wedding recessional. Of course, at that point I wasn't engaged. I now am. Obviously, there is now going to need to be an active discussion. With Weds. And with Weds's friend Mara. And Mara will take your face off with the casualness of breathing and a smile if you cross her. Trust me. If you don't believe me, ask Ferrett.

On the other hand, she might think it is awesome.

But back to the point of the essay. In the earlier snark, I made mention of Questionable Content as a romantic comedy, starring two leads -- Faye and Marten. And that the resolution of their relationship would bring with it... well, here:

Questionable Content is a romantic comedy. As with 84.5% (by volume) of all romantic comedies, the tension and conflict of the strip comes from the question of the two leads hooking up, bumping uglies, doing the nasty, falling in love, ripping the bodices, taking the skin boat to tuna town, riding the baloney pony, tethering the blimp, shaking hands with Abraham Lincoln, kissing God Damn it. And so on. If the strip follows the formula (and that's not a guarantee), then in the last minutes of the picture Faye and Marten kiss, and then they walk out of the frame to a Journey song in the background.

Which, you see, is where the wedding recessional bit comes in. It is not impossible I consider my own life to be romantic comedy.

Well. Here it is, about a year and a quarter later. And what we're seeing in the referenced strip is the full on migration that Jacques has made in his comic strip, away from the formula I mentioned above.

A lot has happened in that year and a quarter. Faye finally broke down and talked about why she couldn't date Marten. Dora, once it was clear that Faye wasn't going to date Marten, made her move. Marten accepted. Faye went back home to try and begin the process of dealing with the trauma of her life. Hannalore slept on Marten's couch very often. Penelope came to work at Coffee of Doom and might or might not be Pizza Girl. Some people got smacked around. Dora's brother had wacky hijinks. Oh, and at one point a purple haired chick in a german stormtrooper helmet attacked Marten and Steve on a transforming combat vespa-robot.

I swear I would be wholly incapable of making this up. I am in awe of Jeph Jacques's ability to do so.

And, in the background of it all -- with occasional forays into the foreground -- there has been Marten and Dora's developing relationship, and the constant sense that they are walking in a minefield of Faye's emotional issues with it.

This strip comes down to a Sorkin Relationship Moment. Which is, God help me, a newly coined term for the lexicon. A Sorkin Relationship Moment is a moment where one person -- generally the unwilling object of affection in one of the defined unconsummated relationships of the show -- gets fed up and demands that the pursuer just stop it, already. This is just too much. It is uncomfortable. It is unpleasant, and it is unfair. Dana had this moment with Casey in the first season of Sports Night. Casey had this moment with Dana in the second season of Sports Night. Natalie and Jeremy passed the moment back and forth. Josh had this moment with about three different girlfriends in The West Wing, generally on the receiving end. C.J. had it with Danny Concannon. Over on Studio 60, Danny and Jordan have had a few here and there, and Matt and Harriet have had it... um... I think twice an episode. I think. I don't have numbers but it sure feels like twice an episode.

The Sorkin Relationship Moment doesn't have to be romantic. It is, however, an attempt to resolve a tense situation through direct confrontation -- shouting, in effect, stop it from one person to the next. And this is what we have here. Dora has been freaking out about stepping on Faye's insecurities and emotional landmines so severely that the net effect has been stepping on Faye's insecurities and emotional landmines. And Faye has hit the Sorkin moment. Stop it. Of course you two are having sex. There is no chance you weren't having sex. And by trying so hard to not rub my nose in it you're rubbing my nose in it.

Or, in Faye's parlance:

If you want things to be not-weird between you and Marty and I, stop actin' weird about them! Be normal!

It is a good moment, and a seminal moment, and a moment that allows for one phase of conflict to end and the next to begin. It keeps the strip fresh, and it's a funny comic to boot.

And, it has built into it two different results.

First off, I still maintain that the Faye/Marten relationship is at the emotional heart of the strip. I think that whenever Jacques ends the strip, the way these two end their dynamic will be the climactic moment of it. However, Jacques has very carefully gone off-formula. While it is not impossible that the pair will have the Journey music kiss/walk out/credits ending, it is no longer better than even odds they will. In fact, it seems to me that Dora/Marten ending up staying together is actually on the table now, and I wouldn't have given that any chance at all a year and a quarter ago. Jacques has managed to successfully transition this romantic comedy into new territory, broadening its scope and potential and making it a better story in the process.

The second result is this: the Sorkin Relationship Moment, on essentially every Sorkin show, defuses the tension but it doesn't resolve the conflict. It lets air out of the balloon before it bursts, but the balloon stays attached to the nozzle and the inflation starts over again... um... yeah. Metaphor ran out on me there.

It's just this. Faye has demanded Dora (and by proxy Marten) simply drop the weirdness and be a normal couple around Faye, since there's no way she can acclimate to their being a couple if they don't. However, this in no way means Faye has actually acclimated to their being a couple, and it in no way means this plot arc is finished.

On the other hand, it's possible that Marten ends up with Penelope, and they spawn Hannalore, who comes back in time through a process that drives her into O.C.D., and that's why she sleeps on Marten's couch -- it reminds her of home and Marten is her father, after all. On the other-other hand Dora's mentioned in the past that her hair is naturally platinum blonde, only she dyes it black, and Hannalore came back in time to ensure Marten and Faye don't end up together so she'll be born -- and don't look at me like that. It's a magical realism comic strip. Anything's possible.

Even the Journey ending.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:03 PM | Comments (18)

March 13, 2007

Eric: I called my Dad to check my facts for this.

(From Crimson Dark! Click on the thumbnail for today's full sized exciting adventures in polygonal SPACE!)

It is worth noting I missed Sunday and Monday. This was because... well, there were things. To do. In the background. Big heap things. So, yeah. Such is life.

I'm a relatively recent devotee to Crimson Dark, David C. Simon's star spanning comic strip. It's rapidly become one of my favorites, though. For one thing, I like well done 3D comics. I really do. And I think this counts as one. God knows Simon's insane when it comes to developing the pages. And the attention to detail and quality really, really shows.

(As a side note, he doesn't like this comic being called a "Poser" comic, which I can understand. For one thing, he uses Poser to do just that -- pose the figure -- but for the most part he works in other programs placing the figures, adjusting angles and lighting, importing the whole thing into Photoshop or illustrator to draw things like the costuming... seriously. The man is insane.

But it's the little details that stand out in a strip like this one. As we see by looking at one of these here StarSkippers. It's a cute enough ship, and it looks like it makes rational, logical sense as a designed ship -- consistent with other ship technology we've seen in the series so far, and very utilitarian.

But what I love are the red and green lights.

People who sail -- as my parents do -- know that you put a green light on the starboard side of your ship and a red light on the port side. These are the running lights, and they tell other boats and ships important things -- like what direction your boat is probably going in, and how large it is. Airplanes have maintained the running light tradition -- if you see a low flying jet overhead at night, you can sometimes make out the red and green running lights.

Other Science Fiction projects have played with this before, of course. The U.S.S. Enterprise-D very clearly has red and green running lights where they should be. But I'm still always tickled when I see it done. And it somehow fits perfectly in Crimson Dark. The starports and ships are very, very starship and spaceship like, but there is a sense of the traditions of the sea buried underneath them. It makes sense those come out in running lights which, to be honest, can't serve much of a practical purpose to begin with, but which are certainly what you'd expect human beings would put on one of their ships.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 5:07 PM | Comments (18)

March 10, 2007

Eric: Given this is a sex-comedy webcomic, why are my favorite strips the nonsexual ones starring his niece?

(From Least I Could Do! Click on the thumbnail for full sized niece based revenge!)

I have no deep analysis here. I will keep this brief.

My name is Eric.

From the first day I attended Nursery School at Auntie Francis's just across the bridge into Claire, New Brunswick, Canada, until the day I graduated high school, someone -- generally quite a few people -- called me "Rick." I think it mostly had to do with the Acadian dialect not being terribly fond of the "Er" sound at the front of a name. Or, possibly, it might have been that I went to nursery, grade, junior high and high school with a certain number of assholes.

So, I would empathize with Eric here, though he is something of a jerk.

However. Ashley is Eric's niece.

In addition to be an Eric, I am also an uncle. And, once upon a time, I was a nephew.

Specifically, I was a nephew to my Uncle Richard Burns, a lifelong educator and all around good man, who was popular with his various nieces and nephews because he was enthusiastic and funny. We called him Uncle Dick, which as an adult suggests any number of jokes to me, but as children meant we called him "Uncle Duck."

This drove him nuts (albeit enhanced for our amusement, I'm sure). He would insist that his name was Dick, not Duck. This ensured that I have to fight the urge to call him Uncle Duck even today, late into my thirties.

My own nieces may call me whatever they like. I understand the rules.

Eric Summers does not know the rules. And he therefore deserves whatever he gets.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:07 PM | Comments (9)

March 9, 2007

Eric: I will admit some temptation to make a joke about "having the nuts" here.

(From +EV!. Click on the thumbnail for full sized Flop!)

One thing that webcomics has demonstrated, for my money, is the value of niches.

See, there's a fuckton of webcomics these days about college age kids who drink coffee and bitch. Just like there's a ton of webcomics making jokes about video games or a ton of webcomics about surreal humor or... well, you know what I mean. And some of those do really well, but it's hard to get an audience fast with most of them, these days. There's just so much to choose from.

Bobby Crosby -- not the least controversial figure in webcomics, mind -- decided that his next webcomics project would be about poker. Specifically, about online poker.

I remember when I read that announcement -- probably on Superosity, the flagship webcomic of Bobby's brother Chris Crosby. And I snorted a little bit and thought "well, I hope that works out for him." Because seriously -- a webcomic about online poker.

So, if anyone out there wonders if I ever feel really stupid? Yeah, I do. Because +EV -- which means "positive expected value" is not only a solid webcomic... it's clearly a successful one. The evidence suggests that Crosby's readership is in the thousands to tens of thousands.

And... and this is the key... those\ readers aren't generally reading any other webcomics. They're not the increasingly mythical "webcomics community" that... well, that's my bread, butter and full gas tanks to Ottawa to see my beautiful fiancee. I'll bet the majority of people reading my words here have never even heard of +EV. Crosby's fans are poker fans. And he's got them essentially to himself.

That's big. That's huge. If and when he starts merchandising, he's got a block of readers who aren't spending their money on other webcomics. When word of mouth happens for +EV, it happens in communities where they're not talking about Questionable Content or Something Positive or even Penny Arcade.

Think about that. I'm willing to put my own money down that a substantial number of Crosby's regular readers have never heard of Penny Arcade.

Now, it's not enough to target a niche. Your comic has to be good, too. And +EV is, in fact, good. The jokes are solid. They're grounded. The art (done by a "Tiger Claw" who seems a hell of a lot like David Willis in style) is solid and expressive and fun. And even though the jokes are being written for a specialist audience, they're clearly written and so a total poker dunce like me can still enjoy the strip, at least most of the time. The characters aren't simply joke machines. They are characters, and that makes a huge difference.

But it's still the niche that Crosby is going for. One recent strip featured a new character, who was oversized and had a visual impairment. He was called "Big Blind." That was the joke. And if you know nothing about poker, you would sit there and say "what in God's name is this? Is that supposed to be funny?" But a poker fan would at least crack a smile at the pun.

That's gold.

Crosby's hardly the only example of this, of course. Unshelved is a really fun webcomic by Bill Barnes that also has tens of thousands of readers and which a lot of you have likely never heard of, because it's targeted to Librarians. It's a Librarian in-joke web comic, which seems silly on one level. And it would be silly if it weren't a staggeringly brilliant idea. Librarians have stressful jobs and internet access, and that combination turns into heavy readerships for a daily webcomic that's self-supporting with collections and merchandise. Hell, you go to their website, and you see they have no less than fourteen personal appearances booked across the country this year and next. People are paying for them to fly out and talk to them. They're getting the kind of attention that 'mainstream' webcartoonists don't get until they hit the big leagues. And the reason they get that attention is they are in the big leagues... they're just in different big leagues than we're currently talking about.

For that matter, Questionable Content is certainly a webcomic with mainstream appeal. But Jeph Jacques, right from the beginning, targeted Indy Rock and music fans with his advertising and the like. And if you look at his website, you'll generally see music or indy culture advertisements across the top. These are folks who aren't advertising on "webcomics." They're advertising on Questionable Content. They know QC. And they know their fans know QC. Jacques got where he is by having a really good webcomic, but he built his popularity by finding people who weren't reading Scarygoround or Something Positive and making them regular readers.

Hell, User Friendly is essentially a niche webcomic. The reason it hit monumentally big was because at the time it was coming out its niche was a huge percentage of the internet population (giving it heavy crossover talk) and there were few major webcomics to compete with in those days. Looking at it today, you see jokes that appeal to what is now a small segment of the overall internet population... but that small segment is made up of rabid fans of the strip.

There's lots more examples, but it comes down to this: Bobby Crosby found success. And he found by doing things right: he has a well written, well drawn webcomic that targets an audience not currently reading webcomics.

That's a lesson well worth learning across the board.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:59 AM | Comments (24)

March 8, 2007

Eric: This may be the first review of a non-magic webcomic to invoke a White Wolf Role Playing Game *and* 1984.

(From The Broken Mirror. Click on the thumbnail for full sized well colored shades of grey.)

One of the side effects of Project Wonderful is the sudden block of strips I haven't heard of or haven't gotten around to suddenly being brought to my attention. Which I'm a little uncomfortable saying, because I don't want people to think that advertising here on the 'Snark is the fast track to getting an essay written about them. And of course, I don't want there to be a conflict of interest in anything I write.

But of course I go to the strips that advertise with me. Of course I do. It would be rude not to. And so I went to The Broken Mirror, by Elanor Cooper and J.J. Nääs. I went there earlier today. I read through the archives.

And, to be honest, I'm still trying to dissect how I feel about this work.

Let me open by saying this is brilliant. The writing is astounding. The artwork is amazing. And the two blend together into one of the most beautiful examples of graphic storytelling I've ever, ever seen on the web. Cooper and Nääs are very very good.

But, halfway through the first chapter, I posted the following to my Livejournal:

....beautiful artwork. Superior storytelling. Extraordinarily talented.

Depressing as fuck. Man, I think I'd need Zoloft to read this regularly.

Well, I persevered, and I'm glad I did. The story is elegantly told. There is a long section of kids at play, making sandcastles on the beach. And that could be cliched but it isn't -- instead, the kids feel like children. With all the flights of fantasy and one-upmanship and casual callousness and desperate love that children have. You buy it. You believe it.

But through it all there is darkness. While the subsequent chapters aren't the jackboot stomping on the face of hope that the first chapter is, there is still an echo between melancholy and despair throughout the work. This is a gorgeous comic, but it's a very difficult one to push through.

I have the serious feeling it will all be worth it. I have the serious feeling this will be one of the most important and significant webcomics that develop -- that it will go from the web into collected form and win Eisners and Harveys and influence the next generation of writers and artists (at least, the next generation of indies). It's amazing, and I cannot praise it enough. I literally didn't see a single thing wrong with this story, in pacing, execution, writing or artwork. It is very, very close to perfect.

But getting through to today's strip, I feel....

Hm.

Weirdly, I have to invoke a RPGism. Specifically, Changeling: the Dreaming. This was a role playing game about faeries and magic in a mundane world -- specifically, about holding onto that sense of wonder and magic that makes the fae the fae, in a world that would make them banal and ordinary and mundane, crushing magic and wonder alike and leaving the world cold and real and terrible and mundane, forever.

Some of the agents of this change are called the Autumn People. They are the ones who cut you down to size, who mock you or talk to you or drug you to make you conform. They are the ones who force you to wake up and deal with the pain of reality, so quit your damn dreaming.

I was never a major Changeling fan. It depressed me, which wasn't what I looked for in my role playing games. (I had friends, it's worth noting, who were and are passionate fans of Changeling, so do not take this as an indictment of the game.) But the concept of the Autumn People stuck with me. I know Autumn People. I see them. I understand where the concept comes from.

Well. Cooper and Nääs aren't Autumn People. They hold magic in their hands. Beautiful, terrible magic. But The Broken Mirror is a story about Autumn People -- about the victims of Autumn People. It is a story about the end of wonder and the end of magic. Of the coldness and harshness of the world. Which they acknowledge. From their FAQ page:

What inspired you to write this morbid and bitter tale?
In short, deep and terrible cynicism... ^^

But I don't know that I believe them. Maybe at the end of the story we can see if they're cynical or not. They're clearly building to something. But as we travel this path they're laying for us, we step into bear traps, fall into pits and have our wallets stolen. This story is hard to read.

It is hard to read in part because they're so good. You care about these characters. You care deeply for Galen, in the first chapter. You care because you recognize some of yourself in him. You believe him. You believe this story. And when horrific things happen you believe them too. You feel viscerally about them. You want to shield the eyes of others reading them, because this is going to fucking hurt.

So.

I don't know how I feel about this strip. I can't help but extol its brilliance. These two understand their medium desperately well. But I'm not sure my own fragile ego can take reading it on a regular basis. I might not be strong enough.

But I'll try. Because it's that damn good. Maybe the secret is to wait until another ten or fifteen pages have updated. Or maybe that's the worst possible way to do it. Maybe you need to read it slowly, each and every day, and hope for the best. I don't know. I really don't. I'll experiment a bit.

And maybe... just maybe... there will one day be some sense of hope for these characters.

Or maybe I need to face reality, grow up and put away such childish things.

We'll see which lesson they teach, in the end.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 1:14 PM | Comments (7)

Eric: Also, that's a kickass rucksack she's got on her back.

(From Punch N' Pie! Click on the thumbnail for full sized not Ted! Noooooo!)

As with many readers -- most particularly, those readers who really liked Queen of Wands -- I've been reading Punch n' Pie, and to a degree I've been withholding judgement. I haven't been sure what Aerie and Daily were planning, and the art style -- which was different than either Aerie's original Queen of Wands style and Daily's Striptease style -- would take some getting used to. (Also, there was a question of... well, backgrounds.)

I'm still on the withholding judgement phase, and likely will be for a while. I'm reading and I'm going to keep reading, but the strip hasn't fully "gelled" for me yet. However, today's (well, yesterday's, but I wrote this the day it came out) strip was a good one... and this half-toned strip, complete with moires and gritty dialogue... well, it nailed me. Good art, good style, good writing, good God, people!

So, here it is. You should look at it.

Ted would have wanted it that way.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:02 AM | Comments (5)

Eric: Also, she has an invisible blimp! An *invisible* *blimp.*

(From The Non-Adventures of Wonderella! Click on the thumbnail for full sized girl who can jump HELLA high!)

Are you following Wonderella? Are you? Punk?

If not, I envy you, because you get to go back to the first strip and read forward to the end -- which at this point is only like thirty strips, so it won't take you long. You get to learn what happens in the down times of Dana Price. You get to meet Hitlerella and Wonderita and the Golden Age Wonderella and the stifling and confining nature of Arson Night.

Justin Pierce has, in relatively short order, created one of the best things to hit webcomics in a while. Wonderella is unremittingly hilarious, invoking the absurd underside of comic books (especially but hardly limited to Wonder Woman) with exactly the right touch of joyousness. And as it's one of the Graphic Smash comics to come in after the advent of Totally Free Graphic Smash comics, it's something you can read beginning to end without impediment.

As for why this is such joy... well, it's a little of everything. The writing is totally awesome. But it's perfectly complemented by its art style. And through everything there's an overall sense of joy (even savage, hideous joy sometimes) coupled with an attention to detail that borders on the psychotic.

Seriously. This is the really good crack. Smoke it well, my friends. Smoke it well.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 7:59 AM | Comments (19)

March 7, 2007

Eric: A quick bit of news -- though we are not news central

Morning, everybody!

I had the following e-mail come in yesterday. It's from Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary. Now M. Tayler is one of the members of the Dudes Who Got Eric Engaged, so when he sends me e-mail, I read it quickly. You would too, if he helped get you engaged.

Well, here's what he had to say:

Quick bit of news -- I'm looking for guest artists for the next Schlock book. The book will have all the comics from June 12, 2000 through Nov 11, 2001, which means that MY contributions to the book will be artistically underwhelming at best.

I know that lots of webtoonists might be interested in this opportunity. I make no promises about inclusion, obviously. Still, the way I count it there is room for at least 20 guest pieces, including a full-page piece or two (assuming something worthy shows up.) The details are here: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/2007/03/06/open-auditions-fan-art-for-print/

Now, this to me is an exciting prospect for folks. Schlock is a popular webcomic, to say the least, and the Schlock print collections are among some of the best looking webcomics collections I've ever seen. Seriously -- the Schlock books look significantly better than most of the Calvin and Hobbes collections I've seen out there. They're on glossy stock, full color, with someone having significant L337 page layout skills working on them. I've got one sitting next to me, and I'm just stunned at how good it looks.

Plus, you know, the strips in the collection are great. If, you know, content means anything to you.

My point is this. This is the kind of collection which, if you have it in your hands and page through to your guest art piece in it, will make your heart race. "Holy crap," you'll think. "I am an artist." And that would be really, really cool.

Plus, M. Tayler's one of those webcartoonists whose book collections sell in the thousands, not the hundreds. That means exposure.

Plus plus, going all the way back to the original point, this is a chance for fans of Schlock Mercenary to represent in a way that will endure on bookshelves.

Any way you look at it, this is a nice opportunity. And I'm glad to pass it along to you, the scribbling public.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 9:26 AM | Comments (0)

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 13, 2007

Eric: Submitted Without Comment: The Most Important Post I Will Ever Make

As most of you know, the "submitted without comment" posts I do are generally me uploading some reference to a strip where Websnark is referenced (directly or not) or Weds and I appear, or something like that. So it is with today.

The joke -- and I use the term as loosely as I possibly can -- is that I always comment extensively on those posts. Parenthetically.

Well, I'm commenting on this one, and I'm doing it directly. There is a full comic strip behind the cut at the bottom. (Why is there a cut? The strip is seventeen panels long. I don't hate everyone reading this.

Said comic strip has been produced by something of a supergroup of webcomics professionals. It's like Abba, that way. And it's also available -- for those who might be interested in sound and music and effects -- as a complete Quicktime MP4 file. An MP4 which, at the specific time this post automatically appears in queue, will be being presented at my Arisia panel "The Best Webcomics You're Not Reading."

A panel, it's worth noting, Wednesday is also at. This is important, which you will see momentarily.

As a side note, my thanks to the Arisia programming staff, and to fellow panelists Rob Balder of Partially Clips, Ferrett Steinmetz of Home on the Strange, and Kelly J. Cooper of Comixpedia, who helped set this whole kurfluffle up.

I also need to thank Ursula Vernon, Scott Kurtz, Greg Holkan, David Willis, Rich Burlew, Peter Venables, Josh Lesnick, Chris Crosby, Howard Tayler, Kristofer Straub, Frank "Damonk" Cormier, Brad Guigar, Darren "Gav" Bleuel, Jon Rosenberg, Shaenon Garrity, Meaghan Quinn, and the master of funk himself, Randy Milholland.

Also, my thanks to Bill Mallonee (formerly of Vigilantes of Love) for his permission to use his song on the MP4.

So. Behind the cut....

Submitted Without (Further) Comment.

(Wow.)

GAH! Corrected Rich Burlew's entry! It is now on there.

Oh. By the by?

She said yes.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 3:01 PM | Comments (149)

January 11, 2007

Eric: Making up the missing days: The Malfunction Junction snark

(From Malfunction Junction! Click on the thumbnail for full sized customer appreciation day!)

This is a necromantic post, traveling back through time from the bright, cheerful vantage point of January 18. As promised at the top of the year, there's a conscious choice to 'make up' missed posts, because... well, because. And this then would be the first of them for today.

Because it's being written seven days after the fact, it becomes entirely possible that time itself will become unravelled and the universe will be devastated by vortices. I've read science fiction. I know how all this works. And the evidence of that would seem to be 'today's' Malfunction Junction snark, which is about Matt Milby's January 13 entry, even though this snark is officially from January 11. You see? Space and time are becoming unravelled and all is horror!

But enough of that.

I've been a fan of Matt Milby's since Gin and the Devil -- one of my favorite strips from its era. It wasn't, sadly, one of Milby's favorites. He didn't want to continue down the continuity path. At the same time, his style of humor isn't exactly "gag-a-day." So he decided to write what we'd have to term a journal comic, based upon his own life and his own experiences. This is less the Overcompensating method of flights of fancy built around Jeff Rowland's life, and more a sharply grounded in reality exercise in unmitigated sarcasm and bile. And it's fantastic. You honestly believe that this is Milby's view of his world -- the most banal experiences become fuel for the most biting comedy.

The epitome of this process resulted in the now-infamous October 24th strip from last year. This was one of the worst moments of Milby's life, alchemized into... well, a really kickass comic strip. It was absolutely note-perfect, and even today I read it, grin, stop, and think Jesus Christ. That really happened.

'Today's strip' isn't quite the same thing, but it represents a solid example of the Milby form. Here's something that happened. Here's Milby dealing with that something through drawing a comic strip. Here is an absolutely savage breakdown of the core stupidity of the moment. And here's me laughing my ass off at it. I absolutely believe this strip happened exactly as Milby described it.

It's possible these strips are a kind of therapy for Milby. It's also possible these strips are just a way of putting Milby's life into sharp relief. Or maybe he just does them because they make him laugh. I dunno. All I know is he does them, and that's pretty cool.

On... to January 12!

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:01 AM | Comments (10)

January 8, 2007

Eric: Sadly, even after all this time I always think of "Digg'um" the frog from Sugar Smacks.

(From Digger! Click on the thumbnail for full sized most current episode for free!)

I find Digger fascinating.

On the one hand, Ursula Vernon's art has always blown me away. It's always worth remembering that Vernon didn't come to comics via comics, but instead was a fine artist and illustrator who kind of segued into comics. It shows in her style, which is perhaps the most beautiful pen and ink work on the web. Vernon knows how to take black and negative space and make them into astounding pieces. There are days I swear the woman makes woodcuts which she then presses onto the internet through some kind of woodcut-internet-pressing process.

But as pretty as Digger can be, it's the story that keeps bringing me back. And the Shadowchild's story in particular is fascinating and robust, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

The Shadowchild, you see, is an innocent. No one knows what he is or where he came from. Some think he's some kind of demon. Others don't know what to think. All Digger seems to be able to figure out is the Shadowchild means no harm and is a nice enough fellow when you get to know him, but he's major trouble because in his innocence, he can wreak havoc.

Recently, he had been causing trouble for the local tribe of hyenas. You see, the hyenas had tried to eat Digger. They failed in this, and later Digger made amends by saving the life of their chieftain. However, the shadowchild had wanted to know why eating Digger was a bad thing, but eating other animals wasn't. The extremely rule of thumb explanation was that "you don't eat things that talk."

So the shadowchild has taken to asking all the wild game if it could talk before the Hyenas could attack. Thus the Hyenas couldn't successfully hunt. Ever. The game was being scared away by an inky black hellish thing that was worried about its health and communication skills.

So how does one explain to an innocent that it's okay to trust that deer don't talk. Especially when the innocent responds "but what if just one can talk?"

As said in the strip referenced above, being good is hard. And it is, because what's good in one situation might not be good in another. The strip itself is done in pure black and white ink, but if there's one truism that's carried through, it's that the world Digger lives in is made up of shades of grey. The hyenas had attacked the temple guards (the veiled), but they also made peace with Digger. The leader of the guards, Captain Jhalm, is at best an antagonist, but he also saved the life of Murai.

It's hard to be good.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 11:47 AM | Comments (15)

Eric: I wonder if it was like the chip we stick in our cats....

(From A Softer World. Click on the thumbnail for full sized adorable dystopia!)

There's lots to like about A Softer World. I like it's koan like invocations. I like its composition. I like its sense of aesthetics. I like its use of color (or grayscale) as a stylistic choice. I like its sense of humor. I like its sense of life. I like its sense of horror.

This edition, however, is interesting by how much is conveys in so little. Snarkoleptic Soul Brother Number One Mckenzee once described strips like A Softer World and his own Sinister Bedfellows as haiku-like, and that's a good description. The language here is simple and brief, but absolutely laden with imagery.

This installment frames a dark future, but it gives it a very human face. And at the same time, it makes you laugh. That's a hard hat trick to pull off, but they manage it.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:08 AM | Comments (4)

January 5, 2007

Eric: Interestingly, these *are* powers you can have in City of Heroes.

(From Girls with Slingshots! Click on the thumbnail for full sized Superpowers!)

I shouid really post this sometime after three in the morning, my time, so it comes up as today's post instead of yesterday's. However, we're testing some new scheduled post stuff, and I don't want to stay up that late. I'll rework the time tomorrow. Damnable Pacific Time!!!

Secondly, this is a relatively short post, but a cheerful one. I don't have anything deep to say about Danielle Corosetto's latest Girls with Slingshots. It just makes me laugh. I think in part because it's well executed, and in part because I know girls like Jamie. Girls who have it. Girls who work it. Girls who never buy... well, anything.

Hell, I used to work at Renaissance Festivals. As near as I can tell, breasts are the one universal currency accepted at all Renn Fests. I remember every so often a directive would come down that we had to tone down the sex and tone up the morbidity, so they could claim it was all "family entertainment." Which worked great for three minutes after the opening of the gate, when half naked biker babes and hot chicks in chainmail bikinis would buy tickets, walk onto the grounds, and pay for absolutely nothing through the day.

None of which has anything to do with this strip, but dagnabbit, it's fun to remember.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:14 PM | Comments (9)

Eric: Of course, if Clango had just gone to Doc for his memory purge in the first place, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?

(From Diesel Sweeties! Click on the thumbnail for full sized seven year old callbacks!)

Say what you like about Mr. R. Stevens, he is not afraid to shake up the status quo.

I made reference to this two years ago, when Clango dumped Maura after she got drunk and cheated on him. And can you honestly believe it's been two years (from last December) since Clango dumped Maura after she got drunk and cheated with him? Jesus Christ I'm getting old. But I digress. And now, we've had a significant move in the opposite direction. Indy Rock Pete took a left turn into full on evil (which will backfire on him, because Pete is too stupid not to take credit for things he should just shut up about. I predict this to be true) by destroying Clango's backup disk when Clango reset his brain to null to wipe out events that Clango's current girlfriend, Pale Suzie, found suspicious. In effect, Pete decided to kill Clango (though as Collin said, the unliving can't truly be said to die) so he could hook back up with Pale Suzie.

Absent a normal backup, Clango needs to be reconstituted from the most recent backup they have -- namely, an old backup disk that Maura had from back before they broke up. A backup disk which, if today's strip is to be believed, dates back to 2000. Which it is worth noting, is when Diesel Sweeties first began.

Got that? As of this moment, one of the leads in Diesel Sweeties has essentially been reset all the way back to the first strip. All the adventures, character development, and stuff that's happened since then is just plain gone. As far as Clango is concerned, he and Maura are still an item, he doesn't even know who Pale Suzie is, and for that matter, he doesn't know what kissing is.

It's possible that Stevens is resetting things in the strip to the point that he can synchronize situations with the new newspaper syndicated version of the Sweeties. And that's perfectly fine. It's all right to push the magic reset button if you justify it, and this particular plotline is a perfect justification. For newcomers (especially those out in the world of newsprint and paper), the situation is going to be less complicated than it would be for us. At the same time, we still have a continuity of events that makes sense and works for us.

And, as we know the web strips and the newspaper strips aren't going to be the same, we now have a rich and full and almost certainly drunk and embittered expanded cast that Stevens can play with on the web that won't need to cross back over into newspaper comic events. And that is a very good thing for both populations of readers. I only hope that the Newspaper Sweeties will be showing up on the web as well, so I can keep up with everything regardless of whether my local paper picks it up or not.

The best compliment you can give a daily comic strip is to say you can't wait to see what happens tomorrow. Diesel Sweeties is there right now, and that's monumentally cool.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:18 AM | Comments (14)

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 5, 2006

Eric: At least once in this essay, I wrote 'Weir" as "Weird." I'm certain no one has ever done that before in Andy Weir's life.

(From Cheshire Crossing!)

"I'm sorry... did you say you killed someone?"

"She was trying to kill me!"

"Why?"

"Um... I kind of killed her sister."

"It's inappropriate for a young lady to kill people."

"They were accidents!"

"Accidentally killing one person is misfortune. Accidentally killing two is just sheer carelessness!"

The thing about Cheshire Crossing's current update schedule is a new update is an event.

We're a little spoiled, over in the world of Webcomics. Most of the time, we see new comics posted on a daily or weekly basis, getting small dribbles and droplets of the story at a time (in story based comics, anyhow). This is one reason some of the most successful (at least, in an aesthetic and artistic sense) webcomics are those that master the art of execution. The pacing of a series of strips is vitally important, of course, but the strips that encapsulate their purpose in one day's strip can be picked up and run with with little or no difficulty.

So, the question is, how does one deal with a comic they want to produce against the idea of longform, not short form? What if the single strip or the single page just isn't how the story should be told.

It's a significant issue, really. Of my original block of "They had me and you lost me" essays, two out of three partially involved a failure of the daily strips to sufficiently invest or engage me. They only solidly worked (when they did) when you read a whole block of strips at a time. Even Goats, which is nowhere near losing me and which does bring a solid daily strip to the table, simply works better when you read thirty strips in a sitting instead of one strip a day.

With a comic like Megatokyo, the answer is (supposedly) simple: the comics are being optimized for book publication. The "webcomic" is more of a slow preview of the finished book. And so far it's worked out for Gallagher, so who are we to say he's not doing it right? But what interests me is how different creators manage the feat on the web.

Which makes Cheshire Crossing of particular interest to me.

"Even Alice came to help. I'm shocked!"

"You saved my life earlier. I owed you."

"I never knew you were so honor-driven."

"I may be bitchy, but I'm still English."

As we've mentioned before, Cheshire Crossing is the new webcomic of Andy Weir, late of Casey and Andy. It's entirely web only, with entirely new character models (the characters are almost puppetlike, but with Weir's typical expressiveness and anarchic movements -- the Mad Hatter's glee in charging into battle at one point highlighting the latter as well as anything I've seen. And, like others before him, Weir has decided that since he wants to produce full comic book sized comics, he would release the entire issue only when it was entirely finished. Otherwise, he does teaser images and keeps updating as to his progress.

Like I said, that means that the release of Cheshire Crossing #2 an event. It's been some time since we last saw the adventures of Wendy, Alice and Dorothy, and as Casey and Andy went on hiatus during the production of issue 2, that also means it's been some time since we've seen Weir's offbeat sense of humor. As with issue one, that humor is leavened with much more of a sense of adventure than Weir's earlier strip -- Casey and Andy had forays into daily story and continuity, but for the most part it was gag-a-day. Cheshire Crossing is chock full of funny, but it's an accent note to the overall story. And so far, that story's fascinating.

The first issue of Cheshire Crossing was fun, but a hint jarring, as I mentioned when issue one came out. My brain expected more Casey and Andy style art and humor, but instead it got something wholly new. And, as generally happens with issue one of any series, much of the issue was devoted to context: who are our protagonists? Where are they? Why are they here? What's the basic conflict? And so on and so forth. Issue two, on the other hand, has established all of this, and as a result it's meaty and robust: we see moments in Cheshire Crossing, Oz, Wonderland and Neverland alike. There's several fight sequences. There are alliances across worlds. We break the concepts of the stories and cross-pollinate them. And far from jarring, Weir's execution of the issue seems confident and smooth, the humor accenting the action and the action causing the plot to evolve.

Had this been a page a day webcomic coming out three times a week, we wouldn't be as far along as we already are -- and the whole thing would have come across as glacial. Released as an issue at a time, the pace is breakneck -- things happen and happen fast. It's absolutely clear that Weir's instinct was right: this is a webcomic that is meant to be read an issue at a time.

"Tsk. Such drama."

"A talking cat!?"

"Yes. Focus on the talking cat. It's not like there's anything else odd in the room."

The question that rises out of all this, of course, is how successful (or unsuccessful) Cheshire Crossing is as a result. Weir has a mailing list that lets people know when new issues come out. He should also have an RSS feed that will throw the existence of new issues in the faces of the readers -- and perhaps something like a blog for teaser images and other ways of keeping people engaged in the material over the long months between issues (the first issue came out in midsummer, which suggests Cheshire Crossing is going to be quarterly at the fastest). We know Weir cares about the success (or failure) of Cheshire Crossing... well, because he's told us he is. And for Weir, success and failure has nothing to do with quitting his day job, merchandising or publishing his work. He doesn't even run Google Ads on it. This is all about creating a good comic and finding an audience for it.

Though it's worth noting that as Modern Tales gets Longplay back up and running fully, Cheshire Crossing should be on their radar. And other webcartoonists should be paying attention to what Weir tries to do to find and keep an audience with this model -- since he's not trying to make money off the comic, the comic becomes an interesting experiment in its own right -- can someone with a popular webcomic make a longform comic, irregularly published as specific, complete units and retain that audience (or even grow a new one?) If the answer becomes "yes," it's possible that other webcartoonists -- the ones that do want to make money at this -- can adapt the technique for their purposes.

Regardless, Cheshire Crossing #2 is an event for me, because I like Cheshire Crossing. And that's good enough reason for me.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:18 AM | Comments (28)

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)

November 22, 2006

Eric: Alcohol, Wigu and Pointed Ears

(From Wigu! Click on the thumbnail for full sized dreams made real!)

As we speak, I am drunk.

I am specifically drunk with Wednesday, whose birthday it technically was yesterday but we haven't slept so it is today, and Meaghan Quinn, whose birthday is not today or yesterday that I know of, but she rocks in every conceivable way. We are specifically drunk on Cranberry Ponies, which is a drink that Weds created earlier tonight, consisting of:

2 shots of Pama Pomegranate liquor.
1 shot plus of Tequila
1 shot of Triple Sec
1/2 ice cube tray
Cranberry juice to cover.
Shake and pour.

We are officially plastered. Megs also has pointed ears. I swear to Christ. I include photographic evidence. Which is I believe the first photo of a webcartoonist to ever make it in Websnark.

But I digress.

We are really drunk. We have conceived a brilliant plan to translate Megatokyo into Latin, because dude, why not.

You don't care, because Wigu is back.

Wigu was brilliant, and wonderful, and the brainchild of Jeffrey Rowland. It was the thing he was best known for before Overcompensating. It was fantastic.

And now it's back.

And you should read it, because it's starting over like today, so this is your time to begin.

Yay.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 12:41 AM | Comments (21)

November 1, 2006

Eric: We remember the Frohman... we travel quickly... in the other direction....

(From Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman. Click on the thumbnail for full sized fade to black!)

There are two philosophies you can adopt, when doing a creative project.

Well, okay, there's actually several thousand philosophies you can adopt when you're doing a creative project, but come on. Work with me, here. Let's focus this down specifically to webcomics, since after all that's what we're discussing today.

One philosophy is the Open Ended Approach. You might have a specific beginning, middle and end in mind for your webcomic, but you're not so concerned with outlining down to the thousandth decimal place. You have any number of side-roads (or side quests) you can take the strip on in the process, and for the most part you're thinking in terms of years to get things accomplished. At its ultimate expression, the Open Ended Approach is just that: open ended, going forward for all eternity.

The other philosophy is the Project Approach. You have one project you want to accomplish. When you're done with that project, you move on to other -- generally unrelated -- things.

Obviously, the two have overlap, but for the most part webcomics fit in the first philosophy. Yes, something like Narbonic might have a six year plan, but there is breadth and freedom during those six years. Garrity can do whatever she wants, with only those hooks she feels necessary to keep the over-arching plot churning along.

Christopher Livingston, on the other hand, was solidly in the Project Approach with Concerned: The Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman.

Concerned was meant to be a parody of Half-Life 2. There would be some nods to Half-Life and to the extended Half-Life culture within it (including a couple of brilliant Counterstrike parodies), but for the most part Concerned would lock itself down to the events in Half-Life 2, period. Each "chapter" of Half-Life 2 had a corresponding chapter in Concerned. In many ways, Concerned set itself up as a prequel to the game, setting up the various (often implausible) situations the game itself deals with.

And of course, there is Gordon Frohman.

Gordon Freeman, for those who came in late, is a brilliant action-adventurer scientist who operates almost out of a Doc Savage vein. He is the hero of Half-Life and its sequels, played by the player in first person mode. He never speaks, and over the course of many years of alien occupation he has become a legendary figure.

Gordon Frohman, on the other hand, is a moron who won't shut up.

For two hundred and four strips, we have followed the "adventures" of Gordon Frohman as he systematically makes the world he lives in worse. In the wake of Gordon Frohman, peaceful communities become overrun by nightmarish zombies, docile antlions begin attacking every creature that comes near them, and pretty much everyone who isn't necessary to the actual plot of Half-Life 2 dies a horrible death thanks to Frohman.

The strip was meticulously produced via machinima -- the process of taking video games and other extant virtual tools and using them to stage and shoot comics or videos. Livingston is an expert at the process, posing and adjusting his models' positions, facial expressions and situations with the exactness of a sculptor. (In a lot of ways, machinima is a kind of digital sculpture anyhow -- you take your elements, shape and adjust them, then photograph the results). Further, Livingston's writing is absolutely spot on -- he knows how to execute comedy and do it well. Further, between his writing and a series of excellent annotations, he's able to take someone who neither plays Half-Life 2 nor wants to play Half-Life 2 -- like me -- and still keep me giggling the entire time. This is a downright good strip.

And now, it's done.

It wouldn't have to be done, of course. Gordon Freeman's adventures have already continued on into Half Life 2: Episode One, a shorter sequel designed as a rolling release into Half-Life 3 (by the time all the "Episodes" are released, they will fit together into the whole of Half-Life 3, or so Valve says). But Livingston decided right from the beginning he was going to parody Half-Life 2's events and that would be that. The subtitle of the series was "the Half-Life and Death of Gordon Frohman," and by God he was going to stick to that.

And so, here we are, at the end. Fade to black. The Frohman is dead.

It is a credit to Livingston that I don't want that to be true. I want Gordon to bounce back up, full of nimwitted cheer, and say "hah! Just kidding!" only to discover that while he was playing dead, some kind of mutant thing had started eating his leg or something. For one thing, Frohman was a brilliant character -- a really stupid person written really intelligently -- and you could accept almost any boneheaded thing he might do. At the same time, you liked Frohman. There was something deeply endearing about an alien oppressor's fanboy who never quite understood any of the situations he was in.

Plenty of other people have e-mailed Livingston, telling him how much they like Frohman and Concerned. Plenty have asked that Gordon find some way to make it, to get to the sequels, to keep annoying and screwing up the world that everyone lives in.

But, Livingston refused. He had his project. He did it. It's over. He's moving on. He's ending on a high note as well. And I have a hard time faulting that.

But even as the Frohman dies, his legacy will live on. Whenever a cluster of explosive barrels is stacked up next a bridge, Gordon Frohman will be there. Whenever a gravity gun is used to lift a toilet seat, Gordon Frohman will be there. Whenever a headcrab starves to death or a strider scrapes a dead guy off its tripod leg? Gordon Frohman will be there.

God help us, we're all doomed, aren't we?

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 2:50 PM | Comments (19)

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 24, 2006

Eric: Perfectly consistently characterized doormat

(From Questionable Content. Click on the thumbnail for full sized grand pussing out, there, Marten.)

It is not outside the realm of possibility that Marten is just plain spineless. Or, what once was called a milquetoast.

Seriously, a milquetoast. It came from a comic strip that ran from the twenties to the fifties called "His Timid Soul," by the seminal American cartoonist Harold Webster. Webster's strips were sneaky -- they seemed very mild and gentle, but they were inevitably downright brutal, especially to the lead character, Caspar Milquetoast, who was a meek little doormat who was more than happy to capitulate rather than make a fuss, even if it meant he got beat down.

And here we are, eighty years later. Hi Marten. Meet Caspar. You two have a lot in common.

Ellen has moved to a new role in the pantheon of Jeph Jacques characters: the full on bitch. Which likely stems from her youth and inexperience compared to the rest of the cast, mind. If you came in late, Ellen broke up with Steve, Marten's friend, rather callously. Not long after that, the Vespavenger showed up to exact violent vengeance against Steve -- only to be disturbed to discover that Ellen had in fact broken up with Steve, and not the other way around. And now, the next day, we see that Ellen (who if the timeline is as I think it is, from above, made her date the same day she dumped Steve. When she was called on this, she equated it to the laborious Faye/Marten/Dora situation -- Faye told Marten she would not be going out with him, so Marten went with Dora -- and called Marten a hypocrite.

And Marten agreed.

Because he is a milquetoast.

It goes almost without saying that the situations are nothing alike -- it's not Apples and Oranges, even. We're talking Apples and Formica here. Marten didn't dump Faye. If anything, he had his heart broken and moved into the rebound. He then discussed it with Faye. And then Dora discussed it with Faye. And then Faye went home, and Marten and Dora talked for days while she dealt with things back there, and then she came back, entered therapy, and there was lots more discussing of the situation on all sides. Not only wasn't Marten callous to Faye, he treated her so gently in the situation that he practically encased her in a plastic germ free bubble.

Now, Ellen's vastly less mature than the other cast members. We saw it before, when she got so clingy with Steve she was naming children. We see it here now. And it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn Ellen intentionally called upon the Vespavenger for some imagined slight.

As a side note? This is why vigilanteism doesn't work. Especially when it's two-stroke engine powered.

The problem isn't Ellen being a bitch, however. The problem is, Marten just curled up and took it. He was so ready to be in the wrong and feel guilty that he totally folded his hand and slunk off. And has the audacity to call her smug self-justification 'uncomfortable-truth-jitsu.'

Well, sorry. This ain't truth-jitsu. This was Ellen making random gestures she saw on a Jackie Chan movie and Marten mistaking her for a ninja. More to the point, this is Marten so ready and willing to be wrong that he'll fold not just on himself but on Steve, on Dora, and even on this new guy Chris, who's no doubt going to end up in the same kind of crap Steve was.

Is this a knock on Jacques? Not in the least. It's actually pretty hard to write a character who in one sense is a pretty cool dude and in another sense is a total milquetoast. Marten's being perfectly consistently characterized here. So's Ellen for that matter.

You know. He's just a perfectly consistently characterized doormat.

Harold Webster would be into this.

Posted by Eric Burns-White at 10:30 PM | Comments (29)

September 5, 2006

Eric: The Revolution will be Pixilated

(From Diesel Sweeties)

Diesel Sweeties, like pretty much all of Dumbrella, does everything essentially right. I always feel badly that I don't bring up Overcompensating, Goats, Scary go Round and the rest more often than I do, because they're all so freaking brilliant that I want to point at them and scream "see? THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE!" to people who do webcomics.

I include myself in that assessment. On my best day, I never came close to any of Dumbrella's cheerful people. And a couple of years back, before Blank Label came out and got lots of people talking about their bold new movement and revolutionary attitudes, Dumbrella was doing... well, all the same stuff, and quietly doing