Drive-By Notes, Part 4

I'm still not totally sure what sprites are, but I'm really liking this personality test at Roby's Sprites. Both the questions (complete with typos) and the answers are pretty accurate.

So let's see what the Webcomics List has to offer, haven't done these in a while.

1-600. I'm not sure what to say about this. The drawings are cute, but the speech bubbles kind of fill the small panels, and it looks crowded. It might work better with bigger panels. The meerkat arc doesn't make much sense to me, so maybe I'll flip back a few strips... No, I don't really see the arc emerging. Slightly confusing to jump into. I really think there should be more and/or bigger panels, this reads too much like a newspaper strip, and the format doesn't do the drawings justice. The art is actually pretty good.

At Wit's End shocks me with the completely black silhouette characters. Why is it shocking? It looks like a simple enough pun strip, but the characters look somehow scary, like they're meant to represent dead people.  It could be a cool original art thing, but the panel division - again, small newspaper-strip esque panels - and puns are far from ambitious. I closed the tab when I came to this one: "That's why they call me 'The Too Fat to Ever Be Loved' Tie Guy". The character is not fat; it's a horrible thing to say even if he was; and I just arghhh whatever. Stop knocking fat people for no reason, random webcomic artists. Moving on.

Buni has some refreshing originality to offer. Very cute drawings with very dark stories and no dialogue whatsoever. It's reminiscent of some silent Perry Bible Fellowship strips, which is always a good sign. I will visit this strip again. (Here, too, bigger panels wouldn't hurt, but it doesn't bug me as much when the content is less newspaper-strip-y.)

Does Not Play Well With Others: nice title, but I always lose interest if there's that much text in small panels. It takes away from the art, which again is cute. Trying to read the text, I'm running into "[reference to this and that character], [gaming] and [possibly character-driven pun I don't quite get]". So it's also a comic that requires a bit of reading to get into. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'm drive-bying right now.

Frankentoast. Loved the title, but the strip is - a sick child asking, "Am I gonna see God, Mommy? Am I gonna die?" Is this supposed to be funny? I... don't get it. Flipped back a couple of strips and I still don't. get. any. of. these. Is it me or is it the comic? It seems like it could be creative; it's a one-panel strip, which I usually like; but the humor just doesn't compute. Weird.

Flakeday. This one's really interesting. There's a unique perspective going on here that I like. It's sort of like a diary strip, but half-imaginary. The art is simple, but skilful, and the color scheme seems to be sepia, which fits well. I like this a lot. Favorite line: "I think we've been neglecting our cat. He's put on some weight and started talking too." :D

Slices of Life and Other Issues o' the Week

This week in Questionable Content: Marten realizes he must be... a townie. I'm not sure why that matters, and I came to ponder on how often QC actually does strips where Marten says he's not something and the others say he sure is.

If Jacques wanted to do something fun and new, why not go meta? The kids love meta these days. Watch an episode of Community and learn! Make fun of why Marten goes out for coffee every day. Make him question the need for such a routine. Have him pick up some new hangout and be all "Hmm, this doesn't really fit this strip". It's the lack of taking this sort of risk that makes the strip boring to me.

Edit: revising this post, I realized the strip kind of went meta with introducing the "bizarro coffee shop". Not only do the employees look like the regular cast, they also act the same. So Jacques kind of is making fun of his own concept. It was fun - for one strip. But making them regulars, which seems to be happening, kind of kills the joke.

Edit 2: flipping back through the strips to find the first bizarro coffee shop one - I realize many, many strips start with the word "so". As in, "so you really lived on a space station", "so I think Cosette will move in with me". It kind of suggests this constant stream of dialogue and events, but I suspect Jacques uses it to remind his readers of story strings he hasn't addressed in the last few months.

Slice of life must be hard, because picking the slices to present is the biggest problem. Which brings us to  American Elf: Uh, yeah, people have dreams about other people's genitals. It's just a little creepy if you dream of your kid's penis and then tell the whole world. Or is it? Kochalka seems to have this childlike innocence about genitalia, poop, and various other things that grown ups generally don't talk about. I love his childlikeness, but I guess I draw the line at these taboo topics. Should I? Am I being a prude? Why do I always question myself when I criticize Kochalka? He's not a god. Please don't show your kids' genitals in your strip, people. I know it's not meant sexually, but eww, and what if some kids from his school read it? Moving on.

After such deep and disturbing pondering, Buttersafe gives us more Robot Cat, and I really don't have more to say than - hee, so cute! He looks just like my kittywitty! *coos* (Is being a pet owner mushing up my critiquing skills?)

Marc Johns gives us 100 % natural arm hair. I... :D Johns' talent is, above all, relating random things to each other in a funny way. Not a lot of comic artists know how to do this. It must mean his brain is a little weird and jumps into weird places all of a sudden. I love that.

..while Sinfest's strength is making fun of cultural phenomena and people's silly beliefs. "I'm back. And I'm buff." is so perfect.

At Abstruse Goose, we have a very sad bee story. I love the level of detail their language has.

Question Duck finds his match: Answer Chick! Awesome. Ah, I see this is in fact a guest strip by the author of Roby's Sprites! I realize I don't know what sprites are. I'm such a comics noob. I should look into this and make a separate post. Maybe the sprite-related Question Duck gives some clue.

QC Rant O' the.. Month

(I'm sorry I haven't been posting much. I got a new job this month. Will resume posting again now. I think. No promises.)

Hey, remember Pizza Girl? She was in QC, like, two or three years ago! She delivered pizza and had a mask on. And Faye has this theory that Penelope is Pizza Girl! Apparently lots of people are writing Jeph to bring her back. And now she's back! For one strip! Which doesn't bring anything new to her character at all.

Also, Tai invites Marten to a party, but Dora is also coming. Instead of just showing us the effing party, we're given awkward dialogue about how it may be awkward that Dora and Marten are at the same party after their breakup. Weak punchline at the end is like a dot on the I. I know it's slice of life, but some slices are not worth showing.

I just realized I haven't read QC all week. I only checked all strips today. Does this mean I'm finally getting rid of my "must read even if I hate it" issues?

The Tale of Scott Adams and the Very Sensitive Readers

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has been trolling online forums in the guise of his own biggest fan. An example of his messages:

It's fair to say you disagree with Adams. But you can't rule out the hypothesis that you're too dumb to understand what he's saying.
And he's a certified genius. Just sayin'.

This is deliciously lame and pathetic. Why does Adams feel the need to defend himself and his supposed geniusness on websites? Can't he take a little criticism? Is he really this much of a narcissist? Apparently, he is.

Moreover, he put his foot in his mouth about women's rights in a post he already deleted (but luckily many others did not.

You don't argue with a four-year old about why he shouldn't eat candy for dinner. You don't punch a mentally handicapped guy even if he punches you first. And you don't argue when a women tells you she's only making 80 cents to your dollar. It's the path of least resistance. You save your energy for more important battles. 

A feminist takedown of his comments here at comicsalliance. I won't write a long feminist response, because many people already have. I'm kind of glad to see his real colors, though. Somehow I'm not all that surprised.

The thing is, I used to love Dilbert. I still think the early strips were creative and original, before the strip became super popular and turned into "don't you just hate your boss?" Obviously, the character of Dilbert isn't all that original (a socially awkward nerd who wears glasses and has a dull office job). There were things, though, that were truly imaginative. There were inventions and adventures. Some schemes Dogbert got up to were really funny. Dinosaurs showed up at Dilbert's house. The strip was coming alive with ideas, new characters, developments. But after it became everyone's favorite workplace comic, forget about any developments. The strips have gotten pretty dull and mediocre, and the Dilbert empire will probably keep churning out merchandise and comics - that come second after merchandise at this point - til kingdom come, just like Garfield.

One thing that hasn't changed is Adams' attitude on mocking people. Whether it's women, minorities, or "ugly" people, he's always been into stereotypical jokes. And he's always been defensive about it.

I give you some quotes from his "Seven Years of Highly Defective People", an anniversary book with his picks from over the years and some notes. It was published in 1997. (Note that it wasn't even a ten-year anniversary; Dilbert was already being published in big books, little books, and books with basically three strips in them, so maybe the time was ripe.) I own this book, because, like I said, I used to love the strip.

In the notes, Adams takes a lot of time to dissect people's complaints at his work. Firstly, all of the complaints he got are, of course, silly and indicative only of people's crazy attitudes.
"Yes, I did get complaints from the vertically challenged." (p 33)  Next to a comic about a short guy called "Les" who insists you mustn't say his name like "less". So you know, short guys have low self esteem and always think you're hating on them! That's funny!

Another example of people misunderstanding him: "I took a lot of heat for this cartoon. I meant it to be about a woman who was gigantic in general, but it comes off as a fat joke." (p. 65). Wow, that's so weird, considering that the woman is clearly drawn fat; Dogbert makes subtle jokes like "the sherpas have made a camp at her feet" and calls her "Jabba the Hut"; and in the end, the woman tells Dilbert he "looks delicious tonight". So she's just a - gigantic cannibal? Because that's so random and surreal and funny?

(He also did a series of strips about Dilbert blind-dating a half-canine woman who had corrective surgery to become a dog. This is clearly aimed at transgendered people, but apparently he got no complaints, or at least not many enough to mention it. Sigh.)

But look at this long apologetic rant about "Tina the brittle tech writer." (pp. 179-180) Sorry, did I say apologetic? I meant entitled and asshatty.

"Do you know anyone who takes personal offense at everything you say, even if you're talking about the weather? I do. That's why I created Tina - to vent some of my frustration at people like that. I labeled her "brittle" as a shorthand for her tendency to be easily offended.  

I wanted some gender balance in the strip so I made Tina female." 

Let's stop here for a minute. So you wanted gender balance, and therefore you made the only brittle, easily offended character female. That's not balance, until you have at least as many non-brittle female characters.

So his "e-mail turned into a river of flame". Men and women alike were offended by the character! "I knew I had a winner here." Adams is so much smarter than all of us put together, he can look beyond our childish gender equality squabbles. He just wants to raise discussion, because he never gets offended by stuff and nor should you.

"I was fascinated by the accusations that Tina was a 'too stereotypical' female character. It raises a couple of interesting questions:
1. Who says 'brittle' is a female stereotype?
2. Is it possible to create a nonstereotypical character?  

Apparently there is a list of stereotypes somewhere and under the female column is the word 'brittle'. I was unaware of this list. I can't say it squares with my own observations." 

1. Apparently lots of people, hence the hate mail.
2. Maybe not. But that doesn't mean people can't dissect stereotypes and discuss them.

There's something very wrong with how he's arguing here. Stereotypes are cultural phenomena. They don't need to be specified in a list of items. Lots of people see them because they've done their research. You obviously haven't. The idea of the list - albeit sarcastic - shows how he thinks about political correctness. You don't wanna offend people, because that's so much work to sort out. So you don't say anything blatantly sexist or offensive, like "women belong in the kitchen" or other 50's wisdoms. As long as you keep away from those, people should be OK with you. That is, unless you're a tightass feminist who sees offense everywhere. Those people should have their hypocrisy blown in their faces.

Adams thinks he is doing just that by describing his mother who was non-brittle. She rode a motorcycle! She shot deer and bunnies! She played baseball! "So what is this 'brittle' thing I keep hearing about?"

Well, I don't know what he reads into the word "brittle", but isn't it possible for a woman to be athletic, a cyclist, a hunter and easily offended? I'm not sure I see the connection here.

This whole response kind of proves the complainers' point: Adams thinks women are a bunch of easily offended, annoying whiners. There's no winning with them! They just keep hating on you because you're a man! If he respected women and our views, he would have attempted to make his characters more diverse.

"Just to stir up trouble, I created Antina (the ANtidote to TINA). Antina didn't dress like a stereotypical woman, didn't talk like a stereotypical woman, didn't have a body like a stereotypical woman, and didn't have stereotypical female interests. 

My e-mail caught on fire again. This time I was accused of making fun of lesbians. Obviously there was no safe ground in this game." 

Just to stir up trouble! (Like, say, a troll at an online forum?) Not to appease your readers, or address their concerns. Just to show them how wrong they are in complaining. Also note "in this game". It's not a game for the people who wrote in. It's not fun to be offended by someone's comic. It feels infuriating and frustrating, especially if you get mockery in return.

The kind of person who gets off on such conflict is a bully. The same qualities that drove him to troll at message boards are showing clearly here, fourteen years earlier. He likes to stir up trouble. He likes it when people get mad. Why does he like it? Maybe just because it gives him attention. It makes him feel superior when others are mad and he isn't. This shows a pretty frightening lack of empathy.

I don't think Antina is necessarily a lesbian stereotype, more like the opposite of all female stereotypes Adams could think of. But here's the problem: Dilbert is threatened by Antina. He's scared because she took apart a coffee machine just for fun. His tie flattens (it's always curled up). So a tall, muscular woman with no hair, who loves math and taking machines apart - is a threat to men and a total freak show. See what monster you've created, readers! This oughta show them I don't hate women!

Adams promises to bring new sides to Tina over time: "That's the only antidote to accusations of stereotyping, but it takes a while to get there." Does it? Because you could have introduced her from the start as a character with relatable issues, a past, some positive traits, etc. At the very least, you could have done it when the hate mails started pouring in. Instead, you wasted time on making a character just to bug your readers.

It makes me mad that I didn't see this as a teenager. I thought it was all funny. I thought people complaining about a comic strip was funny. Surely Adams wasn't sexist because no men really were, feminists were just blowing things out of proportion. Oh those wacky feminists. Oh those wacky Americans.

You can't change your past self and demand money back for a bunch of faded, crumpled comic books, but I will do the next best thing and throw this book into the recycling bin. I'd rather support artists who care about their readers' feelings.

Ye Olde Favorites: a Rundown

I think there's a fine line between "amusing but inappropriate sidekick" and "dirty little sidekick who brings nothing at all to the strip", but Pintsize in Questionable Content has managed to frequently cross that line. See also: today's strip. How would Marten fuck him? How would that even... what... eww. Why is Pintsize's only role in the strip to provide even more dumb sex jokes? I don't get it. I hope this storyline ends with him leaving the strip, but I'm not holding my breath.

The "bros shooting hoops" storyline in Sinfest fails to engage me. Maybe it's because I'm not a bro, but it's just not very original. I'm not saying every strip has to be all about religious thematics, but I guess it's why I read Sinfest, because I tend to be bored by the more down to earth strips. (Except for the pet strips, which I love.)

T-Rex creates a new language. I love how Ryan North takes something everybody (well, every nerd) has thought of sometime, and t-rexes it into something deliciously herpy-derpy.

Buttersafe is being awesome and original in Tuesday's strip: veiny origins. I cannot tell you how much I adore Veiny Dog. It's just so RANDOM. Which makes it brilliant? Well, not necessarily, but come on. It totally is. I also love how there are human-like creatures and then - the dog, the highest step of evolution. Awesome.

A very cool math strip at Abstruse Goose. It actually reminds me of Röyksopp's video "Remind Me", with all the graphs depicting a typical day of work for a British woman. Anything in life can be shown in math form. That's both cool and a little sad.

Therapy with the Vampire: A Biased Review

Disclaimer: I fucking adore Robyn E. Kenealy, both as a friend and an author. I will now attempt to write about her new comic calmly and without over-gushing. I may not succeed, but I will at least describe in detail WHY I'm gushing.

Robyn E. Kenealy excels at writing fan fiction, although the term hardly does her work justice. Her Roddy McDowall fandom inspired Roddy's Film Companion (which I attempted to review earlier), and the Battlestar Galactica fandom brought on the brilliant Emissary from Another World, written in character as Gaius Baltar (a very difficult task, as the character is so layered). Her latest work, Therapy with the Vampire, delves into the pscyhological underpinnings of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. The first part can be found here on DeviantArt. For some reason, you must click on "Prev" to get forward.

Ms Kenealy writes slice-of-life. I don't mean the Questionable Content type slice of life where nothing happens and the characters just sit around being witty. Ms Kenealy's writing is like an episode of Mad Men or the Sopranos: every word contains meanings and emotions, the whole history of the characters comes out in the way they interact with each other. Deep issues with humanity and the characters are explored in small moments. It's not really about what happens, per se, or what changes (very little, I'd imagine, it's Lestat and Louis after all). It's what is bubbling under the surface, what is implied. Life itself becomes the plot.

What I love about this kind of writing is that it makes you think. It makes you ask important questions. Like who is Lestat? Why is he the way he is? What general human issues does he embody? What about Louis? What's under Louis' angst? Is Lestat in fact angstier but just tries to hide it? What about me?

Life and humanity for these characters is particularly painful, because they must live forever with all of their issues and problems. They are not intact to self esteem issues, jealousy, anxiety or even guilt. There is nothing glamorous about being a vampire, in this comic; it is the pain of humanity multiplied, and one that goes on forever.

A lot of this is probably present in the books already. I have read none of them, but this does not stop me from enjoying the comic. The history these characters share can be read from just the expressions and dialogue. There's clearly a very fucked up couple here, and it's beautiful. Kenealy gives time to the first scene, letting the characters slowly build up to the fireworks of emotion between them. The first panels are just Louis and a lot of night sky; it takes a while for him to notice Lestat, so it takes a while for the reader too. The buildup is slow and calm, Lestat's appearance almost ghostlike after the serenity of the stars and black sky. Throughout the comic, the night sky remains the backdrop, and it's both beautiful and fitting.

There's something delicious about their constant tug-of-war, Lestat trying to be suggestive or seductive and Louis bringing it back to reality and their issues (see especially this page). This is supported particularly well by Kenealy's drawing style, which is sketch-esque in other details, but utterly precise in the expressions. Lestat's luscious leer is perfect. So is the sulky silence between them in many panels. It's like the conversation keeps starting up and then coming to a halt, over and over again, because Louis refuses to take Lestat's crap. This can prove unbearable for Lestat, whose rage is clearly always just beneath the surface. Louis remains composed and unstartled by it.

It is hard to tell how much of this is Ms Kenealy's brilliance and how much is Anne Rice's. In great fanfic, the border between author and fan is blurred. The fan might have insights the author never had. (This might be why Ms Rice has publicly renounced fan fiction, which hasn't stopped fans from writing it.) Kenealy has a specific talent for peeling the layers of a character and writing them so that every layer becomes visible, every bit of the character's history is always there. This is the thing that is often missing from fan fiction (and let's be honest, even from book and TV sequels).

I also particularly like the dog and his expressions. It's a nice visual detail in an otherwise minimalist comic. You'd think a dog is a bad companion for a creature living for all eternity, though. Also, Lestat's flirtation with the waitress. "It's French, darling - it's French FOR darling". As if no one could help but find him adorable when he speaks French and asks like a charming little boy. (Which might be why Louis calls him The Brat Prince.)

I'm very curious to see how the therapy is going to develop, and how deep Louis can cut into Lestat's onion of self-denial and self-indulgence. The therapist is, at least, not scared of asking personal questions. (Do they even have sex?)

I'm not sure if this was already too much gush and too little substance, but read it for yourselves. A must-read for a Vampire Chronicles fan, and highly recommended for everyone who loves psychological drama.

Drive-By Notes, Part 3

Brought to you by the Webcomics List. 

"Absolute Hot Sister". This doesn't sound very promising. In fact, it sounds just like another male-gaze-hot-chicks comic. And judging by the last five or so strips - it is. Thanks, but no thanks.

Slimfigures - "a webcomic of science, satire and dark thoughts". This, on the other hand, sounds really interesting. But the latest strip baffles me. Some of the letters seem to be underlined, which might mean there's a secret message here, but what I get is "b-e-e-n-o-s-h-t". Is it supposed to be an anagram? been shot? no bees? The noseb? At least it got me thinking, so I give points for that. I have to ask my boyfriend about this comic, because he's more of a nerd than I am, but it looks interesting and original. The author's obviously playing with graphs and math a bit.

Beyond the Black Stump. The comic of the day promises bad things, namely "character A delivers punchline while character B stares at the reader with ennui". This is a pretty standard trope for newspaper comics. Interestingly, you can find comics by topic, so let's pick one at random and see what we get. "Philosophy". However, looking at some of these, they're not very philosophical.
Pun related to political topic. 
Bible reference with bad punchline.  (also, some pretty empty-looking panels.)
Meditation/fart joke.
Is this a newspaper strip? Because it really seems like one. In other words: nothing new, moving on.

Glutton for Pun-ishment. Uh oh. But it's not puns I see, it's... I'm not sure what. Is this a story? It's very confusing. When you go back, you see... I just don't know. Personally, this doesn't beckon me to read further, because I just feel really lost. The Webcomics List can be problematic in this way, because if you're dropped in the middle of a story, you have to be really drawn in to want to read more.

Ball With Hat proved to be the most amusing new find. It's a bit Marc Johns-esque, with just drawings of a ball with a hat and various things. My favorite: ball with cliffhanger and hat. LOL!

Least I Could Do: I dunno. Why does the male character look like CAD's Lucas? Why do most comic men seem to have that spiky hairdo? Why is the joke in this comic so vague? I don't get it. Quick verdict: easy reading, nothing special.

After a couple of these, they all start to look the same again. Time for a break.