Results matching “sports night”

Long time readers (and really, who's left around here these days) know I love Aaron Sorkin. I love his dialogue, which takes the art of broadcast (or theatrical) dialogue back to the heydey of Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. I love his plots, which excel at taking the glorious and reducing it to the mundane -- and taking the mundane and exalting it into the glorious. (That's what made his tenure on The West Wing so good -- first off, he humanized the administration of the White House. You got a real sense of the everyday knocks and pressures the leaders of the Free World went under. And then, he managed to get you to care passionately about Farm subsidies and payroll deductions. The little day to day issues that are of paramount importance to actually running a nation like this were the real conflicts of the show. The big ticket stuff was just backdrop. Until he was forced out.)

Hell, the only Tom Cruise movie I've seen more than once is A Few Good Men. Sorkin's writing is solid enough that I can get over a near-pathological hatred for Tom Cruise. That's saying something.

Beyond actually loving Sorkin's work, I've also loved what Sorkin represents. In an era where, in Futurama's words, writing is essentially one of the minor technical awards at the Oscars -- in an era where what big name star you attach is paramount, what director you secure is key, but who actually writes the thing is irrelevant because it doesn't chart at the box office -- Aaron Sorkin became a significant and major presence because of his writing. His was the name to emerge from Sports Night. His was the name to cling to The West Wing. His departure from The West Wing is regarded by many as the shark-jumping moment of that series. Sorkin was like a megaphone shouting down into the well of American entertainment: the writer matters. What the writer says and does matters. And more to the point, absent the writer, none of the rest of it matters. The only way a kickass actor or director or producer can save a trainwreck of a script is if they essentially rewrite it. And that's not enough, in the long run -- there's a reason the phrase you can't polish a turd exists.

Needless to say, I watch Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

It's funny. NBC/Universal sort of owns me, right now. A year and a half ago, I'd have said that was impossible, but here we are. Of my top four slots on my Tivo's season pass list, three are taken up by NBC/Universal shows. Two of those are on NBC itself, on Monday Nights (Studio 60 and Heroes). The third is over on wholly owned subsidiary SciFi (come on -- you knew I watched Battlestar Galactica, right?). The fourth... well, I'm an old school Legion fan, and they have honest to God Interlac on that cartoon. Of course I watch it. But I digress.

Studio 60 is on one of those top four slots, like I said. But it's not number one. Nor is it second. Of the top four shows I will not miss recording at this stage of the game? Studio 60 is fourth.

And I'm not sure how solidly it's going to stay there.

On last week's show, Danny (played by ex-West Wing alumnus Bradley Whitford) looked up at the skybox in the theater -- the box reserved for the top brass at the fictional NBS television network -- and noticed that for the first time since he and fellow wunderkind Matt Albie (played by Matthew Perry) took over the venerable live late night comedy show Studio 60, the network president (Jordan McDeere, played by Amanda Peet) hasn't shown up to watch the show. Which is a laborious way to get to the quote I want to quote: "You think she fell out of love with us? It happens. People change."

Which is true enough.

Of course, Jordan hasn't fallen out of love with Studio 60. She's just out there fighting the good fight for quality broadcasting over mindless but popular schlock. But it's an interesting quote nonetheless. And it makes me wonder -- am I falling out of love with Aaron Sorkin? It happens, you know. People do change.

Only, I think it's Sorkin who's changing. Not me. Because in the old days? Sorkin was pretty good at concealing his jabs, his backbiting, and his thefts from his own life -- he certainly didn't let them interfere with his work. These days, the whole affair is All About Sorkin, and frankly it comes across as lame.

Let's start with the entire premise of the show. Four years prior to the pilot, NBS forces pioneering television producer Wes Mendell (played commandingly, passionately and all too briefly by Judd Hirsch) to fire hotshot superstar writer Matt Albie after Albie publicly supports Bill Maher after Maher's controversial post-9/11 statements blew up. Albie's BFF Danny Tripp walks when Albie walks, and the two go off to make movies, where they become so hot they're nuclear, baby -- living good is the best revenge. Flash forward four years, and the show is a shell of its former self, as Mendell's lack of backbone over Albie has translated into a complete loss of power across the board. Now his show is being written by total talentless hacks, standards and practices dictates what he can and can't do, and his life continues to be an ever descending spiral into irrelevance. Finally, after he tries to get an actually funny sketch on the show, both to inject humor into the show and as an act of penance (the sketch was one written by Matt Albie years before), only to have it shot down because it might offend Christians (the sketch was called "Crazy Christians" -- go figure), Mendell snaps on live national telvision. He goes on a rant so reminiscent of 1976's Network that the show name checks Network no less than twelve times through the rest of the show. The fallout is monumental, Mendell is fired, and in the process of damage control brand new NBS president Jordan McDeere says the core problem is people will think Mendell was right, and by firing him they just proved his point. To usher in a new era of courageous, quality television, they rehire Albie and Tripp to take over the show -- able to get them because Tripp, a recovering drug addict, fell off the wagon and failed a drug test, so for two years he can't get bonded to direct a movie. So, the pair comes onto the show to reverse its fortunes even as McDeere reverses the fortunes of the network as a whole, while contending with interpersonal issues ranging from a hack-laden writing room to Albie's ex-lover, Christian comedian Harriet Hayes (played by Sarah Paulson) distracting Albie by being all hot and sexy and stuff, while still... you know, being all Christian, too.

Got all that? Good.

A solid enough premise for a show? Sure. You have an automatic built in conflict right at the top -- every week they have to produce ninety minutes of cutting edge comedy to be performed live in front of America. You have tons of potential subplots. You have many quality actors playing many interesting characters. With quality. Granted, it's a television show about television, lacking even the underdoggish qualities that helped make Sports Night so endearing in the first place. Sure, Sports Night was about a television show -- but it was about a show that struggled hard to make third place among late night cable sports roundups. In part it was compelling because the stakes were so small. Studio 60 is a network's flagship show -- meant to be a solid competitor for comedic mindshare with Saturday Night Live itself, which is innately less interesting. But that's surmountable. In the end, we have a lot of characters, many of whom are sympathetic, and we have a lot of opportunities for that cracking Sorkin Dialogue being delivered at fast pace while the character stride through the set. And that's what we look for.

The problem is, Aaron Sorkin isn't writing the show I just described. Instead, he's writing Studio Sorkin on the Aaron Sorkin Strip Starring People Portraying Aaron Sorkin's Life, and as I said above, it's just lame.

Let's start with the whole situation. Take "Wes Mendell" and replace it with "John Wells," the executive producer who worked with Sorkin on The West Wing and who stayed on the West Wing after Sorkin was ridden out on a rail, and you have the situation Sorkin was in with NBC when he became controversial and was forced out. And you better believe he's making NBC pay for that now -- those gutless, spineless cowards who got rid of Sorkin when the going got tough are going to pay now that he's back.

Only, well, Sorkin wasn't fired for political comments. He was fired because he got arrested for drug possession years after he cleaned up his act in the first place, plus he was constantly late on the scripts he insisted on writing himself (and late in a network production means people sitting around doing nothing while being paid unimaginable salaries and overtime, which greatly upped the cost of doing business for The West Wing), in a time when the ratings were beginning to slip. But that's okay, he covers the drug issue with Danny Tripp (who mostly stands for Thomas Schlamme -- the director Sorkin works the most often with. Sorkin and Schlamme are pretty transparently represented by Albie and Tripp, though their qualities are intermingled between the pair) who then admits to the (secret) failed drug test on national television because that's courage (and thus subverts the whole point of bringing the pair in. Honestly, in the real world Albie and Tripp would be shown the door right then, because the entire point of bringing them on the show was to rehabilitate it, and they can't do that if Tripp's own drug woes become the story).

So. Matt Albie and Harriet Hayes are ex-lovers, driven apart because she's a Christian who actually recorded a Christian album and promoted it on the 700 club, and he's an agnostic Jew who thinks that Pat Robertson is evil and hypocritical. (Which she agrees with, but she still appeared on the show). Which would be a great point of romantic tension on the show, if we could ignore the fact that Aaron Sorkin used to go out with West Wing alumna Kristin Chenoweth, a self described liberal Christian comedian, television and broadway star who recorded an album of Christian music which she promoted on the 700 Club. I guess the best way to win an argument with your ex-girlfriend is to make it a subplot on your multimillion dollar television show and clearly paint you in the right and she in the wrong. Oh, wait, I don't mean 'best way to win an argument.' I mean 'most self-indulgent and moderately creepy way to perpetuate an argument.' My mistake.

Which isn't quite as unctuous as one of the faceoffs that Danny Tripp has with Jordan McDeere. McDeere has had an old arrest for drunk driving surface. Because we are meant to think that McDeere is spunky and pert and perfect in most every way (Sorkin actually quotes the famous exchange between Lou Grant and Mary Tyler Moore about McDeere: "You got spunk, Mary. I hate spunk." It is always a mistake to remind people of truly groundbreaking television on your show about television that isn't actually all that groundbreaking), it is the most bloodless "drunk driving conviction" we can possibly imagine -- McDeere pulled over herself, went to ask the cop directions, the cop had her blow in a breathalyzer, found she was over the legal limit, arrested her, and then the Judge literally expunged the arrest from her record. But, that doesn't stop Tripp from sermonizing to her about the differences between their vices:

Jordan: I'm sorry for the stupid thing I said in your office -- about the drugs.

Danny: Thirty thousand people died in car fatalities last year. Seventeen thousand of them weren't wearing seat belts.

Jordan: ...what does that have to do with anything?

Danny: No, it's just... you read it all the time. Two guys in a car. One wearing a seat belt, the other one isn't... they're doing sixty down [Mullholland Drive], they blow into a telephone pole. The guy wearing the seat belt's got two bruised ribs, a cut on his forehead and the guy without the seat belt gets decapitated.

Jordan: I was wearing a seat belt.

Danny: I'm sure you were. I'm just not as sure that everyone else on the Long Island Expressway was. When... I put a life in danger, it's my own.

Now, beyond the fact that we're talking about a drunk driving situation where the woman pulled over to ask a police officer directions and got caught over the legal limit, we're also discussing a drunk driving situation that apparently happened like twelve years before the episode. Danny, a known drug addict, was caught by a drug test two weeks before, and as a result has had his career capsized. So the argument is specious since all accounts are Jordan McDeere doesn't drink and drive. But beyond all of that....

Well, you know, I'm going to quote the master snark-meisters at Television Without Pity -- specifically, "Joe R," who says it as well as can be said:

They banter awkwardly for a moment, and then Jordan apologizes for "the stupid thing [she] said earlier, about the drugs." That's kind of her, and more than he deserves. Danny doesn't quite see it that way, however, and proceeds to, I swear to Christ, lecture Jordan about how when he does coke it's a victimless crime, because he's only harming himself, but when Jordan has a drink and then chooses to get behind the wheel, she's putting all sorts of people -- especially the seatbelt-less! -- in danger. Gee, thanks, DAD. When I first saw this scene, I almost couldn't believe they had Danny go there, and not even temper it by having Jordan call him a dick, because: oh my God, seriously. I'm sorry, Aaron Sorkin, that everyone made jokes about you smoking crack. They really should have taken a look at the gin and tonic in their hand before mocking the crack pipe in yours. Now can you please go back to making a TV show instead of telling everyone else what assholes they've been for criticizing you? Sometime before NBC cancels your low-rated ass?

Joe gets it in one.

In a later episode, the network is pitched a "sure fire hit reality show" by an extremely transparent pastiche on Mark Burnett, which all the networks are chomping at the bit at, but Jordan passes on it, and has to fight the Chairman of the network who goes to the owner of their parent organization to overrule her. She actually quotes Aaron Sorkin from an interview he had, likening Reality Television to "bad crack in the schoolyard" and goes on to say that if they stick to highbrow programming, they'll make money. Which is very Aaron Sorkin (one of the most egregious pre-Studio 60 inserts Sorkin did was a jab at ABC back on Sports Night, when he had the new corporate owner of the Continental Broadcasting Corporation say "anyone who can't make money off of Sports Night should get out of the moneymaking business") but also downright stupid. First off, reality programming is just like any other programming. There's bottom feeders and there's less so. Hell, PBS has reality shows where people try to live the way their ancestors did, and the reason The Amazing Race keeps winning Emmys is because it's actually good television. It especially amused me as the quote came out in the same week that NBC made it clear their new strategy was to program the weeknight "family hour" -- eight to nine PM -- with game shows and reality shows, from The Apprentice to Deal or No Deal, because... and I can't help this argument never got made on Studio 60... reality programming is vastly less expensive than scripted television. So, during a time when NBC is rehabilitating their last place stance with really solid programming like Heroes and (so I've been told) Friday Night Lights, they're managing to pay for it by giving over the least lucrative hour of television to the cheapest venues for television. This is how grownups do this kind of thing, you see. Grownups who understand that the television market is shrinking and ad buys don't go as far as they used to, and wishing doesn't make it any different.

But Sorkin is all about wishing. Still smarting after all this time over his Internet experiences, he throws a snarky bit into the mouth of one of his actors decrying blogging (gosh, why did that attract my attention) as being credential-less, and wishing the New York Times would go back to being the Media Elite instead of paying attention to some woman with "a freezer full of Jenny Craig and five cats." Now, I'll admit I'm not unbiased, but that's just stupid. This isn't journalism we're discussing -- this is criticism. The blogger in question was writing an opinion piece, and that kind of thing requires no more credentials than the trifecta of argumentative essay writing: a well written thesis, concrete support for one's thesis, and an audience to read it.

And then there's Darren Wells.

Darren Wells is a professional baseball player who is now casually dating Harriet Hayes. This makes him a foil for Matt Albie, who after all broke up with Harriet Hayes not long ago. She gave him a baseball bat that Wells signed -- one that as it turns out had his phone number on it. "You gave me a used cocktail napkin, basically," Albie snarks to Hayes in what was, admittedly, a fun exchange and one of the better moments of the show. Since then, we see Albie carrying the bat around, in reference and echo to Aaron Sorkin himself, who reputedly carries a baseball bat around with him as well.

But, Albie goes on long tears about Wells -- especially the fact that he gave Hayes a bat when he's a pitcher -- that he couldn't get a hit if his life depended on it -- and you know what? He's not all that great a pitcher either, damn it! And he's taller than Albie and bigger and stronger and younger, and and and and....

...and I'm sitting here going "wait a minute. His name is Darren Wells?"

Remember back above? Remember John Wells -- the producer of ER, the guy who was co-exec of The West Wing. The one who didn't leave when Sorkin got curbed? The one who took it over?

Yeah.

He's a pitcher, not a slugger. He couldn't get a hit if his life depended on it.

Pitching concepts to network executives, hit television shows. Oh, that Mister Sorkin is a clever one.

Only... ER predated The West Wing. It's still on now. And its ratings are significantly better than Studio 60's. Not only is it a pretty crass jab at someone who didn't stand by Sorkin when Sorkin was screwing up, it's a fluffed one.

And that brings us to the core conceit -- the biggest problem Studio 60 and Aaron Sorkin have: the core principle is "really good, highly literate television will work. The problem is, networks are shoveling out garbage so that's all people have to eat." And there's something to be said for that.

Only Studio 60 is operating way, way below expectations. Some people say it's too "inside," and that's true. Honestly, no one gives a damn about the high pressure world of Saturday Night Live except the people actually inside that world -- they just want to laugh on Saturday nights. All the topics on Studio 60 are fascinating, I'm sure, to the entertainment industry, but we need a lot more of that beautiful Sorkin dialogue and characters we really, really care about for anyone else to actually enjoy this stuff. And there's way too little of that right now.

Part of the problem is we lack one of the staples of the Sorkin ensemble cast. Generally, there's always a mentor figure, above the plucky heroine and snarky (Jewish) writer, who acts as a moral compass, a foundation, who lends gravitas to the proceedings. On Sports Night, it was Robert Guillaume, playing Isaac Jaffe. On The West Wing, it was the incomparable John Spencer as Leo McGarrey. And on Studio 60, it's clearly Judd Hirsch's Wes Mendell, only Wes doesn't make it fifteen minutes into the pilot before he's ejected from the building. It's like that point on Sports Night when Isaac has had a stroke (prompted by Guillaume's own stroke) and is hospitalized and far away from the proceedings -- there is a gap. An absence. A definite wrongness about everything. Only it started on Studio 60 on day one. They're all plucky upstarts or hacks or greedy network executives. We don't have that one person who can calm everyone down and get them all to talk to each other.

(It's possible the currently underutilized Cal, as played by Sorkin alumnus Timothy Busfield, is meant to settle into that role. However, on the pilot he was put in danger of losing his job and he hasn't actually settled into a firm sense of position in the cast since.)

As it is, we have morality tales and moralizers and pluck and wit and some beautiful performances. I'm serious -- I was never a fan of Friends and even within that cosm I didn't like Matthew Perry, but Matt Albie is a great character and Perry acts the Hell out of him. We also have a lot of glimpses of sketches which, to be honest, aren't that funny (to Sorkin's credit, they're unfunny in exactly the way that Saturday Night Live is generally unfunny, these days), though it makes it dissonant to hear how brilliant these sketches are. And there's some downright strange decisions. (I happen to like Sting, and I happen to like the Lute, and I thought the traditional lute piece and the cover of his own "Fields of Gold" that Sting did on the last episode were both beautiful, and I spent the whole time thinking "wow, this has totally derailed the show. Why am I watching Sting play the lute? What the Hell, people?")

But mostly, we have a show which comes across as Aaron Sorkin taking out his personal grudges against the world. And if he were doing it in a way that had us applauding and coming back for more, that'd be fine. But he's not. He's alienating people. He's boring others. He's confusing still others. And he's managed to not only not win Mondays, he's managed to be completely upstaged by the higher rated, far more compelling Heroes. In fact, he's managing to lose the audience Heroes leads in.

And each week, fewer viewers come back to watch Studio 60.

And I keep thinking "come on, Sorkin. This is you. You can pull this out. You can make it work."

But maybe he can't.

People change.

And people fall out of love.

We'll see what happens.

Two shows, radically different and yet in weird ways similar, had their finales this weekend. They're both shows on my list of favorites. I'm going to miss them both, in very different ways, and both have 'sequels' in the pipelines, even though neither sequel is direct.

And that has me wistful.

The first, of course, is The West Wing, which ended its seven year run last night. The second, of course, is Justice League Unlimited, which ended its five year run (if we count Justice League before it) and closed out the DC Animated Universe as envisioned by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini.

There will be spoilers for both shows. I invite you not to read on if you've a problem with that, because... well, because. That's the way of things.

Justice League Unlimited, on one level, was almost a disappointment. We had a full season of shows building up to the climactic confrontation between the Justice League and a revitalized Secret Society of Supervillains, initially created by Gorilla Grodd and then subverted by Lex Luthor, in a clear pastiche on the old Challenge of the Superfriends series that pitted the Super Friends against the Legion of Doom. The Society's swamp headquarters was clearly an updated Hall of Doom for example, and the new Justice League Metro Tower's base was clearly evocative of the Hall of Justice.

Well, we never actually got that confrontation. We built to it, but at the literal last second, when it looked like Luthor would regain Brainiac and ascend to near Godhood with a full army equal in power and numbers to the expanded Justice League... we suddenly had a war against Darkseid, who was coming to shatter Earth, and the League and Society ended up needing to join forces to beat them back. And in the end, it wasn't the League but Lex Luthor who defeated Darkseid. What's up with that?

Well, I figured it out. Justice League Unlimited actually ended last year.

No, seriously. We had the JLU finale last year. The show built around the conflict with Cadmus, came to a beautifully orchestrated end after a fantastic two year run, and paid off both the general leaguers and the Power Seven of the original League. It was then followed by a coda that closed out the entire Timm/Dini 'verse. It was glorious.

And people went nuts for it. For all intents and purposes we were standing on our chairs, clapping and wooting and waving lighters. There was a last minute reprieve -- the show was renewed.

Guys, this fifth season of JLU? Was an encore. This was the band coming out and playing one last set of their hits. This was the extended curtain call. And looked at that way, it was brilliant. Over the course of the season, we had some loose ends tied up, and others left to dangle. We had groundwork laid and other groundwork paid off. And this last show, the series finale, was one long, extended geekfest. This was an episode designed to make fans go squee, over and over and over again. And it did that very well.

Setting aside the Significant Moments for our major characters (though Superman finally truly being Superman for one brief shining moment was wonderful), there were all the little touches. The little homages. Especially the two Marvel nods. (Commander Steel -- a character who I think never even had lines in the show -- was the most patriotically costumed character except for Stargirl. And he had a chance to grab a circular parademon shield and hurl it, knocking aside two parademons who threatened Hawkgirl, in an absolute and clear nod to Captain America. And even more than that, Fire and Ice had a truly great double-fan service moment. On the one hand, they were in bikinis, so. You know. Fan service. But on the other, Ice sealed herself in a block of ice to get into costume, and Fire tossed her hair and costumed up in a halo of flame... exactly the way that Iceman and Firestar used to get into costume on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends).

And, in my absolutely favorite moment, we saw an old, distinctive (and, to a certain type of comic book fan, recognizable) heavy set man walk up to parademons and batter them about, so well that Wonder Woman herself was stunned. ("Hera," she murmured, staring. It was great.) Now, it turned out to be J'onn J'onzz, and that's cool enough on its own level. They didn't telegraph the reveal at all.

But that doesn't change the fact that for one moment, Jack Kirby was punching 4th World parademons. I mean, dude.

The final moments featured a pastiche on the opening of Challenge of the Superfriends, with the heroes descending from the Hall of Justice Metrotower and leaping through the screen. But that pastiche was itself a fantastic nod to the true fans and to the seventy year history of DC Comics and a superteam we called the Justice League in this series. For the record, we opened with B'Wana Beast, Metamorpho and the Creeper, along with Steel -- slightly eclectic, but three of them (all but Steel) were backup features in The Brave and the Bold. This was followed by the Question, Hawk and Dove and Captain Atom, who along with the Creeper were all created by Steve Ditko. (Which was the only creator nod in the final curtain call, but as it gave them an excuse to have the Question -- undoubtedly the breakout star from relative obscurity of JLU -- I'll take it.) Followed by the Crimson Avenger, the Shining Knight, Vigilante and Stargirl and STRIPE, who were (versions of) the Seven Soldiers of Victory (minus Green Arrow and Speedy, admittedly). They were followed by Wildcat, Doctor Mid-Nite, Doctor Fate and Hourman -- modern versions, perhaps, but still the four characters most directly tied back to the original version of the League, the Justice Society of America. Followed then by Commander Steel, Vibe, Gypsy and Vixen, who were the 1980's version of the Justice League of America (an era often forgotten, so that they were remembers and Vixen even had a major character arc in the series is wonderful, to my mind). Followed then by Booster Gold, Fire, Ice and the Elongated Man -- seminal members of the 90's version of the Justice League International. (They could have put Crimson Fox in there too, and gotten a Justice League Europe nod, but I'll take it.) Followed then by Zatanna, Red Tornado, Black Canary and Green Arrow -- core members of the 70's version of the Justice League of America. Spaced out, I would add, so that Green Arrow and Black Canary had almost a solo bow run through the screen, which is appropriate given how significant Green Arrow was to the development of the series.

And finally, of course, we had the Flash, the Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Hawkgirl, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The stars of our show. The Justice League. Ending on a shot of Batman, who launched the Timm/Diniverse so many years ago.

We got a full season as a curtain call, and then they had their moment. And now we close the curtain. Next up, their "sequel" is a series that is dear to my heart: The Legion of Super Heroes. But, even though JLU set the series up, they've gone with all new, very un-Bruce Timm designs (sort of troglodyteish, really). They have intentionally said it's meant to break away from the past and move forward, so it's not the next edition of the DC Animated Universe. Not really. It's something new, and we just... move on, in the end.

Which brings us to The West Wing. Which was a finale.

If JLU seemed like a disappointment that turned out to be a celebration and curtain call... The West Wing came across as a celebration and curtain call that ended up as a disappointment. We knew it would be something of a downer -- they had to convey the essence of life moving on, of the President we've had for seven seasons leaving office and a new President coming in. And they did that, and it was effective. The quiet scene where we hear Santos taking the oath of office in the background while the White House Head Usher's staff sweeps into the Oval Office, packs everything up in a whirlwind, leaving the place bare for the new President's things to come in, and the photograph of Bartlet is taken down in the outer office and replaced with Santos was astoundingly effective.

But, one of the hallmarks of transitions like this is a sense of anticlimax. The new President set to governing immediately, and three of our cast members -- Charlie, Will and Kate -- are standing in the entryway to the West Wing. "Hey," Charlie says. "Wanna go see a movie?" "It's two p.m.," Will says. "You got something better to do?"

And of course, they don't. Oh, Charlie's heading to law school, Kate will no doubt reenter public service in some capacity (she's career military. She'll have a job, though she was denied the National Security Advisor position she wanted). And Will Bailey we know from the beginning of the season is destined to become a United States Congressman in two years. But for now, they got nothing to do. They're done.

And so it was with all our heroes. They're leaving. Their service is done. Of our major cast, only Josh and a returning Sam still work for the President. Donna -- in a plot arc almost as unrealistic as the White House Press Secretary with no previous Washington experience being tapped to replace Leo McGarry as Chief of Staff, no matter how asskicking Allison Janney is) -- has risen from being a cubicle dwelling secretary in only her third real job after dropping out of college to being the First Lady's Chief of Staff, which makes Josh and Donna one Hell of a Power Couple. And whatsername with the mind numbingly abrasive voice is now the First Lady's communications director.

Everyone else is out. Gone.

The loss of John Spencer -- the man who played Leo McGarry -- was keenly felt in this episode. They showed the pilot of the West Wing in the hour before this finale, reminding all of us that Leo was the first character seen on screen, walking into work in the White House in the morning. In Sorkin's original pitch, the President would barely be seen -- instead, the ensemble lead would really be Leo. (Rob Lowe's ego notwithstanding). And thematically, this last show should have ended not with Bartlet in Air Force One flying home to New Hampshire, but Leo walking out of the White House for the last time (I'm convinced that thematically, had Spencer not had his untimely death, Vinick would have won. Things the producers have said seem to bear that out.) Instead, we had C.J. do that walk, followed by the new President and Josh saying "what's next" in a clear echo to the end of that first episode of the West Wing, followed by Bartlet flying out of public service once and for all.

And... well, maybe it was (somewhat) realistic, as the succession takes place. But it in the end was sad, more than anything else. There was no sense of triumph -- of eight solid, good years and a torch being passed. There was instead a sense that there was more to do. Too much left by the wayside.

Which I think was intentional. Right at the beginning, the first lady said "Jed -- you did a lot of good. You did a lot of good," to a President who is staring out a window in the Residence, clearly seeing all the good he never got around to.

The one arc of real substance left to this last episode was the fate of Toby Zeigler, exiled in disgrace after he outed National Security secrets to save the lives of several astronauts. The question right up until the end was whether or not Bartlet would use one of those infamous 11th hour pardons to pardon him. Now, we knew from that same first episode of the season where we saw Will Bailey was a Congressman, at the opening of the Bartlet Presidential Library, that Toby was not in jail. He was at Columbia. But that could have been a deal or an early release or who knows what.

But yes, Bartlet pardoned him, as we knew he would from the moment that we learned he was considering it. And in what I think was the worst omission of the show, Richard Schiff didn't even appear on this final episode. Leo couldn't be there, because John Spencer died. Toby should have at least been shown at home, watching the Inauguration he could no longer attend.

In short, and in the end, life goes on. The West Wing is over. The "sequel" to it doesn't have anything to do with it, except a couple of actors in common (most notably Bradley Whitford). However, the show -- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip -- marks the return of West Wing and Sports Night creator Aaron Sorkin to television. Sorkin was forced out of the West Wing due to a drug scandal and softening ratings (and the abandonment of Lowe over what amounts to a hissy fit because he wasn't at the center of everything, leading to a staggering series of professional failures on Lowe's part). The show never really recovered from Sorkin's loss, as it went from being policy porn to ER style shocking moments of the week (in the Sorkin years, we could be made to feel the emotions behind farm subsidies and the movement to abolish the penny. In the post-Sorkin era, there were wars, explosions, peace in the Middle East, heart attacks and lots of Gigantic Moments, minus the dialogue that made us care in the first place). Sorkin returning with a show that is bar none the most anticipated thing on NBC's schedule while the West Wing limps to an end is no doubt the sweetest kind of revenge for him, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

But it's not the same, any more than The West Wing really replaced Sports Night.

So. Two shows I always looked forward to, both gone. One an anticlimactic climax that turned out to be a startlingly effective celebration and curtain call, the other a celebration and curtain call that turned out anticlimactic and bittersweet. Two sequels that aren't really sequels, to give me some hope for next year. Endings, and beginnings.

Life goes on.

It was a late evening. There had been good things and bad. And then there was Denny's food, packed to the gills by hipsters and punks, in four different groups of more than twelve each. Clearly, a show had let out.

But then, that's what Denny's in the late evening is supposed to be like. Hipsters, packing to the gills. And the music was good. The night before, we had been in a small sub shop, and it had been playing the music you hear in movies, when those movies are trying to be nostalgic. "The TIme of Our Life," and the like.

But the Denny's was playing the music you were legitimately nostalgic for. It was the actual experience. Surf guitar played at one point. Then Cheese from the Eighties. Then something in between.

The food was bad, and therefore excellent. They had sugar free syrup. This is a kindness.

But that wasn't the epochal moment of the evening. Nor was finding the seven dollar classic Winnie the Pooh bear -- not the Pooh bear of the cartoons and the Disney era. The original design, rough in fur, without a mouth, and with eyes that seem soulful, rather than 'cheery.' A real Pooh. An honest Pooh.

Nor was it the curiosity if we would run out of gas between Alton and Wolfeboro. Nor the fall on ice, and the things needed to recover from it. Nor the Apple Store, nor Target.

The epochal moment came long after midnight. We had stopped at a convenience store, because I was sore from the fall, and tired, and it was very foggy. I was nervous. I wanted to walk a moment, and I wanted coffee.

This was in Concord, mind, at the first of two convenience stores. The first was Mister Mike's, and had a built in Dunkin Donuts. The other was a Hess.

We wandered inside, and looked at things. And were disturbed to discover that at a 24 hour convenience store just off a major highway... there was no coffee.

None.

Apparently, the only coffee pots were in the Dunkin Donuts section, and that section had closed for the night.

"Well," Weds said, "we could go to the Hess station."

"Yeah," I said. "That makes sense." And I looked across the store, and saw a display of gloves. "But hang on. I need a pair of gloves."

This, by the by, was true. I did in fact need a pair of gloves. We had discussed it earlier.

We walked to the display, and I looked at gloves.

Next to me, Wednesday froze.

"What?" I asked.

"There are titles above the coolers," she said, pointing to the coolers. I looked. She was right. BEER. SODA. MILK.

"Okay?" I asked.

"It says 'new age' over the sports drinks."

I paused.

I looked.

Rows of Red Bull, Sobe, and three or four different Mountain Dew varieties. And overhead? NEW AGE.

"I'm not buying gloves from them," I said.

"No," Weds said. "You're not."

And we left.

New Age. Jesus Christ.

I should have written this snark five days ago.

It's not going to make me any friends, mind. Not on either side of this little debate. But that's no excuse for not having written it then. Still, it's something that needs to be written, because the issue seems to be growing instead of shrinking, and it's time that there be a little bit of reality thrown down for everyone. Or, at the very least, time for me to prove I can be as much of an asshole as anyone.

For the record, several years ago a production company called Top Two Three Films began putting together a documentary on digital comics, examining the crash of print comics in the bust of the 90's, and the rise of digital venues for comics. Obviously, there's a lot of Reinventing Comics thrown in for good measure. And they interviewed tons of people, ranging from Joey Manley to John Byrne, to get their perspectives on... well, what was going on with all this.

They're in post production at this point, and they've released a trailer for the documentary, which is now called Adventures Into Digital Comics. I've watched this trailer, as have many others. If you want to see it for yourself, you can go to their main page and request it.

I should have written this several days ago. I really should have. I'm sorry I didn't. Maybe I kept thinking people would figure out what they were saying... what they were doing... and start doing the right thing. But it didn't work out.

If you watch the trailer, you see a lot of... well, 2001-2002 attitudes towards what was going on with the web. And you see a lot of quotes taken. Out of context, of course -- we haven't seen the movie yet, so we don't know if these are just pull quotes designed to drum up interest or if they're a fair representation of what the movie is about. Someone talks about... well, the infinite canvas, more or less. Someone else talks about the fact that you don't need to be concerned about commercial concerns on the web -- you can honestly make art for its own sake. And others say other things. Scott McCloud makes his requisite appearance. Really, it'd be surprising if he didn't.

And the whole thing is bookended by Cat Garza, of Magic Inkwell. And Garza talks about... well, something that every documentary about art since the invention of the moving picture has talked about -- the barriers to the artist, to experimentation, to innovation in the art world. Doors being shut and the like. I've heard it before. I've heard it all my life. As long as I've had any interest in art of any stripe, there has been the voice of the avant garde saying "we're being held back. The Man fears us. They want the nice, the safe, the things they know we can sell. They hate real art, and we have to take art back from them!"

And, as long as artists have been saying that, it's largely not been true.

Yes, it is true that experimental art often can't find publishers or sponsors. In a lot of ways, this is natural. Publishers and sponsors are generally looking for the innovative, but their impulse is rarely artistic or altruistic. They want the "next big thing." This is why it's important to have a National Endowment of the Arts. This is why it's important to have colleges where art is studied and taught and where artists have a chance to produce. It is important. Art does matter.

And this is the monumental revolution of the World Wide Web. Illustrators and cartoonists, pushing the limits of sequential art, experimenting and finding the next innovation and trend and movement and piece of brilliance, are free to do so at little or no cost.

But don't kid yourself. Innovative and brilliant sequential artists and illustrators and cartoonists are being published. I live in fucking New Hampshire, which is not known for being an artistic mecca. But if I drive to my nearest comic book store and walk in, I can pick up James Kolchalka on the shelf. I can pick up Flight. And for that matter, I can pick up PvP or Knights of the Dinner Table or Nodwick. They have Girl Genius there, and Vertigo titles, and compilations. They have Derek Kirk Kim.

And it's important, at this juncture, to mention Derek Kirk Kim. Because we talk a lot about how our major success stories are PvP and Penny Arcade and Sluggy Freelance and Something Positive. And here's Derek Kirk Kim, who had webcomics, and promoted his webcomics. And then sold his print collections of his webcomics.

And then won the Harvey, the Ignatz and the Eisner Awards. And got written up by Time Fucking Magazine. And who gets grants and who is talked about the way earlier generations talked about Dan Clowes or R. Crumb, and who is no doubt being courted by major publishers at this point.

So yeah. The myth of the Man keeping down artists and closing doors to artists is just that: a myth. It's up there with the myth that the Comics Syndicates don't want funny strips or controversy or good storytelling in lieu of continual retreads of Hagar the Horrible. It's just not true.

But... to take Cat Garza to task for it is patently ridiculous. This attitude, like I said, has been part of art for generations. It's just part of the playing field. It is no surprise that the producers of the documentary would pull this stuff up for the trailer. This stuff plays well among their target audience. This stuff helps sell the film. The kinds of people who'll watch a documentary about online comics are the kind of people who want to believe in the myth of the man keeping down artists out of fear and ignorance and hatred. Trust me on this. I'm a college educated Liberal. I got the memo with my diploma.

Still, there has to be a certain amount of understanding on the part of the dreamers and visionaries that this is pretentious, and it's also... well, not true. And easy to deflate a little. And part of that stems from the fact that Garza's comments are years old. If he were interviewed today, I suspect Garza would talk about different things. I suspect most of the interviewees would. It's been a couple of years -- otherwise known as several lifetimes on the Internet. Things are different. Things have changed.

At the same time, I'm excited for this movie. I'm excited over anything that gives people who don't know the first thing about webcomics some idea that we exist. I'm excited over any mass media treatment that doesn't superimpose BAM, ZAP, BOOM and BIFF! across the screen when talking about sequential art. I'm excited over anything that might help broaden the audience for webcomics, particularly among those people who might not have any interest in all over newspaper comic strips or superhero comic books -- the sort of people the Graphic Novel Review says they're trying to hook -- the mainstream folks who bought gobs and gobs of copies of Maus and went to see Crumb in droves. We want those people checking out online comics -- and to be blunt, those people are more likely to want to read things on Modern Tales or infinite canvas experimentation than they are likely to read Sluggy Freelance or PvP. This is definitely a documentary pitched towards the art appreciation crowd. And getting them to come by the webcomics tent would be a good thing for the development of webcomics as a whole. It honestly would. We have to get something other than geek-fandoms and gamers as our majority sooner or later if more people are going to start making a living at this.

Scott Kurtz weighed in on this and did so moderately well. He elaborated on why he felt the trailer (remember -- no one has seen the movie yet) didn't serve the webcomics community particularly well. You might disagree with him, but at least this time he didn't throw gasoline on the fire. Had Kurtz's comments been the only ones, I wouldn't have had to write this, and I wouldn't feel so badly about waiting.

Shaenon Garrity also weighed in, on the other side of the equation. She talked about how excited she was that the film was coming out, and some of what she hoped from it, and she was overwhelmingly thrilled to announce she was one of the interviewees. She's also not why I needed to write this snark, and why I feel badly.

Checkerboard Nightmare weighed in today too. Dogpiling, to a degree (though at least he was somewhat funny and pointed out the true foible that all the interviews are old). Still, Straub's comments made me realize this wouldn't go away. And I did need to write this snark.

Because at the start of all this, Penny Arcade weighed in, with both a strip, and a rant.

Everyone who's read Websnark for a while knows I like Aaron Sorkin a great deal. And they should know that his Sports Night was a particular favorite of mine. Well, there was one evocative episode I'm thinking of right now, where Jeremy has gone out to produce his first solo remote segment. It's a hunting segment, and they shoot a deer, and Jeremy has a panic attack and has to be hospitalized. Justifying himself, he says the following:

Yeah. Bob and Eddie were using the IR-50 Recon by Bushcomber. It's got a sixteen-inch microgrooved barrel with 30-30 mags, side-scope mount, wire- cutter sheath, quick-release bolt, mag catches and a three pound trigger. So I figured we must be going after a pretty dangerous duck. We shot a deer. [...] There was a special vest they had me wear so that they could distinguish me from things they wanted to shoot, and I was pretty grateful for that. Almost the whole day had gone by, we hadn't gotten anything. Eddie was getting frustrated and Bob Shoemaker was getting embarrassed. My camera guy needed to re-load so I told everybody to take a ten minute break. There was a stream nearby and I walked over with this care-package Natalie made me. I sat down and when I looked up I saw three of them; small, bigger, biggest. Recognizable to any species on the face of the planet as a child, a mother and a father. Now, the trick in shooting deer is you gotta get 'em out in the open. And it's tough with deer, 'cause these are clever, cagey animals with an intuitive sense of danger. You know what you have to do to get a deer out in the open? You hold out a twinkie. That animal clopped up to me like we were at a party. She seemed to be pretty interested in the twinkie, so I gave it to her. Looking back, she'd have been better off if I'd given her the damn vest. And Bob kind of screamed at me in whisper, "Move away!" The camera had been re-loaded and it looked like the day wasn't gonna be a washout after all. So I backed away, a couple of steps at a time, and closed my eyes when I heard the shot. Look, I know these are animals, and they don't play bridge and go to the prom, but you can't tell me that the little one didn't know who his mother was. That's gotta mean something. And later, at the hospital, Bob Shoemaker was telling me about the nobility and tradition of hunting and how it related to the native American Indians. And I nodded and I said that was interesting while I was thinking about what a load of crap it was. Hunting was part of Indian culture. It was food and it was clothes and it was shelter. They sang and danced and offered prayers to the gods for a successful hunt so that they could survive just one more unimaginably brutal winter. The things they had to kill held the highest place of respect for them, and to kill for fun was a sin -- and they knew the gods wouldn't be so generous next time. What we did wasn't food and it wasn't shelter and it sure wasn't sports. It was just mean.

Cat Garza is a good artist. He's one of those rare infinite canvas artists I like and respect, because you can see him honestly trying to push his limits, push the limits of the medium, push something as he works. He really is experimental. He really is trying. You might think it's all bullshit or pretentious or whatever, but he doesn't. He believes it.

And he's not been a success story in webcomics. His output has dropped way down, because he's got bills to pay and a family to feed. He believes, with all his heart, but he doesn't get to play fucking video games for a living. He does this because he loves it, and he believes in it, and in the end it hasn't gone where he wanted, and if you have no empathy for that then you're just a stone cold bastard, whether you believe him or not.

Do you have any idea what Cat Garza must have felt to see that trailer? Do you have any idea what that must have meant to him? He was the centerpiece of a trailer for a movie, talking about a subject that means the world to him. For that one, brief moment it must have all seemed worth it to him. It must have seemed like maybe -- just maybe -- he has had a profound influence on this medium that he loves.

And then comes Penny Arcade to take a gigantic, massive dump on him for it.

It's like Krahulik and Holkins are so desperate to be cool that they're emulating the jocks in high school. It's like they're abusing the people weaker than they are because they know it'll make the cool kids laugh, and prove they're cool. It's like they're abused children, who get big enough so they can abuse children of their own -- their lunch money got taken away and they felt weird and awkward and weak -- Jesus Christ, look at those freaks. They play video games way too much. They're, like, obsessed! Hey, let's go smack them around! Let's go stuff them into lockers! That'll be funny! -- and now they've got hundreds of thousands of people reading them. They've fucking won. They beat the assholes who used to rag on them once and for all, because those assholes are working fucking retail and Krahulik and Holkins get to play video games for a living. And so now they're taking glee in tormenting this guy who's never done a thing to them and who couldn't do a thing to them if he wanted to. They mock how he looks and what he says and they just generally tear him down at the moment when he probably felt the best about himself and his art as he ever had.

That's not funny. That's not a joke. That's not editorializing and it sure as Hell isn't deflating the pretensions of others. It's. Just. Mean.

I should have written this on the day. I should have opened up my web browser, gone to Movable Type, and said in a loud, clear, and utterly clear voice fuck you, you assholes!. I didn't, and I'm ashamed of myself because I didn't.

For the record, I'm fat and goofy looking, with a beard. I wear a lot of polo shirts. There isn't a cool bone in my body. If they want to caricature me and make me look lame and stupid, it'll be easy. And also for the record, there's no chance in Hell they give even the slightest damn what I say about them. I'm nothing to them. Every person who reads Websnark could stop reading Penny Arcade tomorrow, and it'd barely show up as a blip in their page views. Whereas I know from direct and personal experience that parts of their fan base are more than willing to bury people they don't like in negative e-mail.

But that doesn't change the simple, inexorable fact that what they did was pure, unadulterated bullying. It was kicking the weird kids who liked different things than they did. It was mean. They should be ashamed of themselves. How dare they take that pinnacle moment from Cat Garza? How dare they piss on all the people who might -- just might -- have been feeling good about this? Who the fuck are they?

I'm looking forward to this movie. I think it can do some good. I'm also glad that the people involved with it are proud of it. And if I disagree with parts -- if I feel that it's outdated in places and extols artistic myths in others -- I also think that everyone involved was speaking in good faith. I think those folks need to know they came off as pretentious. But I think trashing them for it was a horrible thing to do. And it colors Scott Kurtz's rant, because it makes it seem like Kurtz is piling on, and making Garza even more of a chump. And it colors Straub's comic, because it makes him seem like he's piling on too.

It's all happened, and it's all in the past, and there is nothing at all to be done for it now. And everyone involved should recognize both where they're being deluded and where they're being intolerant. But even though the Penny Arcade guys can't take it back, at the very least someone should tell them that was a shitty thing to do. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

And if that means I get buried again, so fucking be it.

At least I don't have to be ashamed of myself for saying nothing any more.

I'm sorry, Mr. Garza. I'm sorry this happened to you.

And I'm sorry I didn't write this five days ago.

Some note has been made of the number of posts I've managed to bang out. It's amazing what kind of output you can get when you combine enthusiasm with living in New Hampshire and therefore having little to do with your time. Also, it's been very hot recently.

However, a kind of technical language has developed in this strip, and because there are so many posts, it's being kind of spread out. As readers have pointed out to me. And pointed out that a cast page is less important to this kind of project than a simple glossary would be.

So, this is the first of our FAQ pages, and it features a lexicon of terms.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: LEXICON

Biscuit, Tasty Tasty

When I think a particular individual strip really nails something -- be it a joke, an artistic device, a storyline point, a cliffhanger, or whatever -- I extol it. It's more than just saying "this is cool." It's saying "this is how it's done." It's a chance for others to learn. And I want to reward that webcartoonist who did this great thing. And it reminds me of something David Letterman once did on Late Night, back before the CBS Move. You see, he was doing Viewer Mail, and someone said "hey, Letterman -- you do this late night show, and it's funny! So what do you want -- a biscuit?" And Letterman said "yeah. I kind of do want a biscuit." So, the monumental NBC machine went into motion to fly the very finest of British Digestive Biscuits from London to New York, then run it up by courier to Letterman's desk. Since then, my mother and I always used "biscuit" as a reward for a job well done -- much like you would do with a dog. As for the tasty, tasty bit... well, the first time I used the biscuit thing, I followed it up by qualifying that it was tasty. And I happened to do it the second time as well, quite unconsciously. And when I realized that, I went with it. Besides, wouldn't you like to have a biscuit right now? A tasty, tasty biscuit?

Bringing the [whatever]

As an aficionado of Aaron Sorkin's writing, I have adopted some of his mannerisms. Yes, it annoys my friends and family too. One of those adopted phrases is 'bringing the' whatever we're talking about. On Websnark, this refers to the Webcartoonist bringing one of the core elements of a strip. For example, a webcartoonist can bring the Funny, meaning that there is a quality of humor that resonates with the reader. (Well, with me, anyway.) He can bring the Story, meaning that continuity and characterization are handled deftly and the reader wants to see what happens next. He can bring the Toolset, meaning he is bringing expertise in his craft. And so on.

Cast Page

One of the most important elements of a webcomic is its cast list. This can be a succinct list of characters and a short description, or it can be elaborate, updated in near-real time. However, it is absolutely necessary, because it provides the new reader with a fast roadmap so he can jump right in, and provides the long time reader with a quick reference to refresh his memory if need be.
That so many webcomics don't have a cast page mystifies we at Websnark. That some webcomics have a link or other site design for a cast page but don't actually have one can drive Websnark into a froth the likes of which few have seen and fewer survived. Few things like a nonfunctional Cast Page link can pull the word "dumbass" out of Websnark.

Cerebus Syndrome

The effort to create character development by adding layer upon layer of depth to their characters, taking a character of limited dimension (or meant to be a joke character) and making them fuller and richer. The idea is to take what was fun on one level and showing the reality beneath it. 'Cerebus Syndrome' refers to Dave Sim's epic, sometimes tragically flawed magnum opus, Cerebus the Aardvark. Cerebus started life as a parody of Conan the Barbarian starring an Earth-Pig born. Over time, it grew extremely complex, philosophical, and in many ways much much funnier. Then, Dave Sim went batshit crazy and Cerebus went straight to Hell, but that's for another day. People saw how Cerebus's humble roots could lead to glorious heights, and as cartoonists get bored with what they're doing, they decided to pull a Cerebus of their own.

Boredom is generally the key to a Cerebus Syndrome attempt. After a while, even a successful webcartoonist gets tired of fart jokes and sight gags and wants to make these characters more than they've been.

It is extremely hard to take a light, joke a day strip and push it through a successful Cerebus Syndrome. Dave Sim did it in stages, and at least in the early days of the transformation brought massive amounts of Funny to cover it over. Done perfectly, one only realizes in hindsight that the strip has turned out to be quite different than it used to be. Done sloppily, the Cerebus Syndrome fails, and the webcomic enters First and Ten Syndrome. Unfortunately, a failed Cerebus Syndrome is an excruciating process for the webcomic's fans to endure.

Please note that one can continue to bring the Funny while going for Cerebus Syndrome -- and in fact, probably should. It is far more common to drop the Funny, which increases geometrically the chance to fall into First and Ten. Note also that not all strips that bring heavy Story, mix humorous and serious elements, and have bad things happen to their characters are undergoing Cerebus Syndrome (or First and Ten Syndrome, for that matter). It's only those strips that began on a very light, even limited dimension level and then transform into something different that really shoot for the Cerebus Syndrome. So, Sluggy Freelance, which started out mostly humorous and now has a healthy dose of the Funny and the Story (with occasional forays into sequences like "Fire and Rain") is that rarity of rarities -- a successful Cerebus Syndrome. Digger and For Better or for Worse, on the other hand, had complex characterization from day one, and cannot be said to be in Cerebus or First and Ten. Got it? Good. There will be a quiz.

Daily Webcomics Trawl

Those comic strips I read every day, or at least every time they come out. Usually a combination of my personal enjoyment and a moderately regular update schedule combines to put a strip on the Daily Webcomics Trawl. The strips on the Daily Webcomics Trawl are the ones most likely to be snarked at any given time.

Execution

Contasted with Pacing. Execution is the way an individual strip does everything -- brings the Funny, brings the Story, sets up the joke, delivers the punchline, impacts us with seriousness, or whatever. Execution is local -- each strip is a separate execution.

First and Ten Syndrome

First and Ten was one of the earliest "made for HBO" television series, and bears about as much resemblance to The Sopranos as American Pie bears to American Beauty. It was a tits-n-ass fest with football player stereotypes and the always 'fun' plot of having a woman own the team. Because women? And football? Gosh, that could never happen. It was light, frothy and fun, in an exploitive way for a couple of seasons. And then, they decided to make it serious. The stereotypical coach became a browbeater who emotionally abused his assistant coach because he suspected the coach would leave. There were teen runaways and drug abuse and sexual abuse and darkness at all turns. It tried to become dramatic -- in part because it's felt drama is easier to pull off than humor.

Well, I admit it's hard to find the Funny if you don't know what you're doing, but losing the Funny in exchange for 'character development' leaves pure schlock, untouched by new viewers who weren't interested in the comedy series, but alienating the existing fanbase. When the E True Hollywood Story is produced 20 years later, inevitably the "change of direction" is touted as the reason for the inevitable decline and failure.

A strip falls into First and Ten Syndrome when they take a shot at Cerebus Syndrome and miss. Rather than be a mix of the Funny and the Story with much better developed characters and more of a sense of reality, the strips fall into a suckfest of angst and misery, with bad things happening to characters we like and all sense of fun beaten out with a stick. While webcomics that fall into First and Ten can continue to have good -- even great -- moments, it's an exercise in masochism to find them. The seminal First and Ten Syndrome comic was the original Roomies, which veered away from silliness into angst so deep that ultimately, Willis had to end the strip and start It's Walky. Note that Willis may have very different views on this transition.

The Funny

Born of Aaron Sorkin and Sports Night, the Funny is one of the core elements ascribed to webcomics by Websnark. The Funny is not so much humor than attitude. A strip can be said to bring the Funny when its overall tone is meant to appeal to a reader's sense of humor, sense of the weird or both. The Funny does not have to mean jokes, and jokes do not necessarily bring the Funny. Whether or not a given strip brings the Funny is a subjective decision -- for some, Superosity brings the Funny every day. For others, it doesn't bring it at all. When I snark about a strip bringing the Funny, it's always in my opinion. Of course, so's everything else on this site. It's an opinion site. You see how that works? Of course you do.

Please note, a strip can bring the funny, lowercase, without bringing the Funny. In other words, putting out a bunch of lame jokes does not the Funny create.

The nature of the Funny is that lapses in other elements of the webcomic -- the Story, the Action, the Execution, the Pacing, and so forth can be forgiven in the presence of the Funny. The Funny is the only attribute of a webcomic that can keep people coming back day after day if everything else fails. Which is not to say that strips with no interest in the Funny are doomed to fail -- they can be the best strips on the planet. But they have their work cut out for them.

The Funny, I should reiterate, does not mean rolling on the floor howling with laughter until bladder control is lost. To be honest, I rarely laugh vocally at any comic strip. I might smile a bit or, for a particularly humorous bit, snort, but the Funny doesn't require that. It requires a sense of humor to be present in the strip that appeals to my sense of what the Funny is. And mine and yours, like I said before, may differ. So don't bitch at me about it.

For the record? Foxtrot brings the Funny. Garfield does not. All clear?

Pacing

The development of a webcomic over several strips -- contrasted with execution, which is individual. Generally, Story strips need pacing more than Gag-a-day strips, though gag-a-day still sets a tone which can be considered pacing. Pacing is generally a reflection of the tradition that a given webcartoonist is operating in. A strip heavily influenced by manga is often slower-paced, letting the situation develop slowly. A strip heavily influenced by traditional four panel newspaper comic strips is generally much faster paced. Story-heavy strips, like adventure strips, can have slow or fast pacing depending on the nature of the story. Too fast a pacing can make a strip seem frenetic and unfun. Too slow a pacing can cause your readers to blow their own heads off in frustration. Combining slow pacing and irregular updating is a good way to get death threats, which seems like an overreaction. I mean, it's not like we're curing cancer or making pound cake, here. Mmm. Sweet sweet pound cake.

Premise

The conceit of the webcomic. A comic's premise is the short description of what the comic is about -- and what differentiates it from all the other comics about a couple of mismatched college roommates out there. Note that the more complex a strip's premise (ie -- the more that needs to be said about it to describe it concisely), the more labored the strip will seem. The more of the strip's trappings that can be cut away without inexorably changing the strip, the better. Superosity's premise, for example, is "an innocent man-child, the supergenius sentient board he lives with and the man-child's horrible little brother muddle through life, love and abusive friends and family." If time travel, nanotech suits, overly commercial movies and cat poop were all cut out of the strip, it would still be Superosity. If, on the other hand, Chris grows up (as he did once, though it didn't last) or Boardy goes away it stops being Superosity. Contrast this with College Roomies from Hell, which is "Three college roommates -- a cynical manipulator, a decent fellow, and a flake -- deal with romance, anger and the fight against evil with their counterparts -- a hard edged warrior, a beautiful woman who can't cook or deal with reality and a manipulative blond who has killed off her inner, better self -- while Satan plans to use them in different, terrible ways." CRFH needs all of the above elements to continue to be CRFH, which makes it harder (though hardly impossible) to support the premise. Story strips tend to have more elaborate premises than Funny strips, though this is hardly a law.

Safari Tabs

The way I trawl through my daily webcomics, on a daily basis, is to open a block of webcomics all at once in Safari (I am indeed a Mac user) and bookmark all of them at once as a series of tabs. So, when I click on "Day Comics" in my button bar first thing in the morning, something like twenty three tabs open up, all at once. While I read the first several strips, the rest download. As a result, it takes me very little time to read a whole bunch of strips each day. Which is how I can do this and not lose my job.

Snark

Snark, according to Dictionary.com, refers to Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and to unexpected computer disasters. And that's a nice pedigree, honestly. However, common usage in recent years has made "snark" into a verb, usually meaning "complaining about something in a sarcastic manner."

I'll be honest. When I was first putting this site together, I had a laundry list of things to call it, because I expected all the simple names to be gone. The leader, I'm sorry to say, was "stripping-the-web," off of Bloom County's term for cartoonist: stripper. I knew I'd get traffic I didn't want, but I assumed it would be available. When I finally sat down to register the site, on a whim I plugged 'websnark' in first, thinking that it would perfectly describe what I did -- a computer disaster on the web, often with sarcasm -- but that there was no chance in Hell it would be available. Which shows what I know, and here we are.

I don't review here. I don't do number ratings or critiques or recommendations. I pretty much just blather on about whatever's caught my attention, express my opinions, and move on. So when I use 'snarking,' I mean 'posting about stuff that interests me.' An individual snark is therefore an individual post on something that interests me.

Why not just use "post" then? Because "snark" gives people some preconception of what I'm doing -- and if they read the site, they know that they're not going to agree with everything. But that it's possible it'll entertain them.

Besides, I like the word. Snark-snarkity-snark snark snark.

Sporadically Checked

There are some webcomics -- including some I truly enjoy, like Men in Hats and FLEM Comics, that either because of incredibly sporadic updating or just personal preference I prefer to go and check every once in a while, reading all the strips I need to read to catch up. Certain Story strips, like General Protection Fault can end up on here when a story has bogged down a bit and would be better served read from beginning of the plotline to end. However, it's hard to ever get back onto the Daily Webcomics Trawl after this happens, and it's a short step from there to "You Had Me But You Lost Me."

The Story

Derived from 'the Funny,' the Story is another of the core elements ascribed to webcomics by Websnark. Encompassing continuity, plot and character development, the Story describes any strip where what happens now develops inexorably from what has come before. This can be comedic or dark, soap opera or adventure strip. Strips like Sluggy Freelance heavily rely on the Story, where strips like Men in Hats don't use it at all.

Strips that don't bring the Funny typically bring the Story, if they're going to truly be a webcomic as opposed to an online art sketchbook. Not that there's any problem with online art sketchbooks, but they usually have a problem keeping repeat readers. Unless, of course, the sketches are of naked ladies, but that's not important to this lexicon.

Toolset

The tools a webcartoonist brings to his trade. These can be artistic or textual, plot or humor oriented. Each creator brings different tools to his trade. Recognizing what toolset a webcartoonist possesses and works with is an essential step to properly bitching about assessing his work in a fair and honest way.

Webcomic

Some form of sequential art that is available via the web. Period.

Honestly, that's it.

No, I don't care if a comic strip also appears in newspapers. It's still a webcomic. I don't care if you have to pay to read it. It's still a webcomic. I don't care if it's full pages of a graphic novel being developed. It's still a webcomic. If it's sequential art, and it's on the web, it's a webcomic. Honestly, why is this so hard a concept?

[Webcomic] For Dummies

This refers to those strips (often with overly elaborate premises or extremely slow pacing) that desperately need third party sites to fill the gap for confused new (and even existing) readers. As the plotlines for these comics descend into a self-referential pit requiring deep commitment on the part of readers to keep straight, a webcomic can either document things simply (generally on a cast page or some kind of synopsis) themselves, or rely on their fanbase to produce some of their own. Megatokyo is one of the worst offenders in this regard, and several fan Megatokyo for Dummies sites have appeared in answer to the need.

Why Do I Read This Webcomic, Again?

A list of webcomics that, whether because of changes to the strip or a lack of changes to a strip (no one said this stuff was easy) has become more of a chore than a pleasure. It remains on the Daily Webcomics Trawl, but it's far more likely to get a cynical snark out of me than a happy one, and it can fall off the list and onto "You Had Me But You Lost Me" all too easily. User Friendly is a strip on "Why Do I Read This Webcomic, Again." It's Walky recently dropped off it onto the "You Had Me But You Lost Me" list, and General Protection Fault and Real Life Comics are rallying to emerge back into the good graces of the Daily Webcomics Trawl.

You Had Me But You Lost Me

Sometimes a strip that I liked or even loved just... drifts apart from me. We start doing more and more things alone. I don't call as often. Look, baby. You know you deserve better, but... it's not you. It's me. Okay? I think I need to read other webcomics, and you need to spend time with a different audience. Let's still be friends, okay? Oh, I'm gonna need my records back.

Still to come

Penny Arcade Defense