A Roll of the Dice
Over at Commissioned, they announced the advent of a new comics collective, Gamers Pair of Dice. As someone who recognizes that webcomic collectives are generally a good thing, and being a gamer myself, I dutifully went browsing through several of the strips.
I was… well, I did find myself grinning at some of them. But I’m sad to say that the majority of them left me underwhelmed.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call them Penny Arcade rip-offs. They are simply exploring the same field and making jokes on much the same subject matter, and that is perfectly fine.
But even if I don’t make the accusation, the comparison is inevitable. Penny Arcade mastered that genre of strips before most of them began, and as such, it is hard for them to stand out. The mere presence of the webcomics juggernaut, in some ways, stifles those trying to follow in its footsteps.
On another note entirely, one of the strips – a guest strip, even – left its mark on me. More specifically, it set Gato’s little song running through my head over and over again! I spoke yesterday about my poor memory, and I haven’t played the game for years, but I’ll be damned if simply seeing a virtual screenshot didn’t send the song rampaging through my mind on repeat!
Choose Your Own Crap
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal is one of those horrifyingly funny gag comics that you can easily snicker about with your friends. It is great for providing one-liner inside jokes that will puzzle those who haven’t read the comic, but cause your friends to keel over with laughter. (I can make puppies appear anywhere!)
So I was beating myself up when I noticed that the author did several other web-comics as well.
Then I made the mistake of reading them. Oh, I can tolerate Chason, and I have a tendency to avoid journal comics as a whole, so that wasn’t really his fault.
The real problem was with the third strip, Zach Your Own Adventure. Wherein I realized that there seemed to be a trend for ‘choose your own adventure’ style comics to often be absymally bad.
I recall a similar sequence at Punks and Nerds, that seemed to go much the same way.
There, like here, the entire sequence was a bunch of stupid random crap. There wasn’t any real jokes other than, well, the shocking chaos of what was happening. The highlight was the choice itself – the fact that the strip was chosen by the audience.
Which, well, its a cool idea. But if it doesn’t produce material actually worth looking at, what’s the point?
The problem is, the audience is composed of a bunch of random blokes who don’t know – or don’t agree on – how to tell a good joke, or a good story. You can’t just throw a bunch of topics at them and expect for it to result in anything interesting. They may be engaged in the process of making the choose, and enthused if their choice wins out – but the content itself becomes meaningless.
The other issue with these strips? Because the main point of it is to let the reader choose, the author doesn’t have to put any thought into the options at hand. It doesn’t matter if they are funny or not, it doesn’t matter if they would use them on their own if they were writing the strip. All the user cares about is the choice, so as long as they present choices, the quality of those options is irrelevant.
Now, it can be done well.
[Insert Title Here], which sadly appears to be on hiatus, is a fully fan-written strip that actually has promise.
The key is that they don’t let the entire audience choose a random topic for the author to interpret. Nah. They actually have people submit scripts for each page, and choose the best one to go with.
Clever, still interactive, and producing actually decent material. I like it.
Another comic that has pulled it off well is Goblins. It has a rather extensive feature about a goblin named Tempts Fate, and the bad situations he seems to wind up in. The reader’s donations (and occasional poll) determines whether he lives or dies, how well he does, and occasional other information.
But that doesn’t mean the man behind the comic slacks about it. He puts together pretty damn sizable pages with genuinely interesting results having been influenced by the readers. The final product is actually readable.
Again, I like that.
The lesson here is that if you are going to have these sort of drives or randomly reader-driven strips… don’t settle for that being the whole of them. Sure, even if you don’t put any effort into it, it will still stir up some excitement while its running. But once the moment of the gimmick is over, it’s useless – it is some random crap sitting on the site for people to read. That doesn’t impress anyone.
I like the idea of reader input. I think the way the web works allows for interesting events like this, for an interactivity between the creator and the audience.
Which makes it all the more depressing to see the potential in those sort of interactions thoroughly wasted.
Tales of a Wandering Blogger
I have of late been enthralled in quite a lot of reading that takes place – gasp – outside of the internet.
Foremost among these has been the Rurouni Kenshin manga.
First I should explain my history with Kenshin – I started watching the anime series some four years ago, in the midst of college. I got my friends into the series, and we made the mistake of getting too many people interested in watching it.
We got through the second season – the Kyoto arc, the real highlight of the series – in a reasonable amount of time. But the rest of the series… well, we had heard it wasn’t as great as what had come before. And it’s true, most certainly – it isn’t that it was bad, but that it was simply not great.
But we wanted to watch it anyway. To finish the series. We knew going into it that it was nothing more than fun little filler, but as long as we knew that, we wouldn’t be let down.
Unfortunately, we had some friends graduating. Others growing busy with various jobs, schoolwork, and other concerns. The long and short of it?
It took two and a half years to finish watching the series – to finish that one final season.
But we did it. A couple months ago we gathered back together, arranging a break from our jobs and our lives, and watched the final episodes, and it was a good feeling to complete that experience in the company of friends.
But for myself, that wasn’t quite the end of the Kenshin saga. The manga, you see, was being released in English.
While watching the Kenshin series had been a communal thing, reading the manga was, predictably, a bit more solitary. I was impressed by how closely the series mirrored the comic (at least for the first two seasons). I was more impressed by the fact that, unlike a lot of manga I had read before, I was able to easily follow the artwork, the story, and pretty much everything going on.
And, damn, but it was a good story – and when it diverged from the series, and continued its own plot, it only got better.
But like all things, it came to an end. The last volumes were released, purchased and read. It was a powerful conclusion to an excellent series.
And, like any time that a work of fiction I was embroiled in came to an end, the end was bittersweet. As fitting as the conclusion might be, as necessary as the ending might be, it is still hard to let go of well-loved characters.
So this is my shout-out to Kenshin. An awesome anime, an awesome manga, an awesome story. It might be old news to folks in the community, but that doesn’t make it any less great.
A mysterious case of the Mondays?
Man, it appears to be one of those days where I’ve got way too much to talk about, and not nearly enough time to do so.
I laughed at Megatokyo today. Man, I miss that.
Sinfest is back, and has a new website! Once upon a time, I thought Sinfest was one of the most solidly updating comics out there. These days, it has its share of occasional absences, but always returns in the end. It has had some very good storylines over the last year, without losing its normal brand of humor. And now seeing the newest comic doesn’t requiring scrolling down the page ten times!
DnDorks has been getting back to its original cast of characters. This is cool and all, but I still find myself inexplicably confused by the previous arc, despite still thinking the story was awesome. However, things seem to indicate we’ll get some explanation for stuff. Maybe. I dunno. Eh, whatever. It’s a cool comic and captures the gaming experience well. That’s pretty much all I care about.
Man, my posts today seem faintly bitter, and I’m not sure why – I was actually really happy about all these comics today.
Let’s try some focusing here. On a completely upbeat note, Girly has been rocking out of late, and the upcoming storyline looks to have something to do with Policeguy, one of my favorite characters. So that’s awesome.
Anyway, time to get back to work! Tune in tomorrow, when I don’t talk about webcomics at all. Oooo, mysterious.
Ok, maybe not so much.
Learn 2 Cope
One might not think a comic almost exclusively about third-graders would have any level of sophistication.
One might, however, be wrong.
There is a tendency to dismiss young children as unintelligent. As unable to operate on the same level as adults.
Sometimes this is true. But I myself remember being young, and still being a thinking, feeling being. A different one then I am now, but a distinct one nonetheless.
I think a lot of people resonate with that. And a lot of people like having characters that can both recall the innocence of childhood while still retaining a sense of identity, awareness, and personality. I used Count Your Sheep as an example yesterday – you can’t see Katie without feeling an overwhelming onslaught of cute. But she is her own person, and for all her childish outlook, someone the reader can emphatize and agree with.
On the Playground runs along the same lines. The cast and crew are kids. And there are plenty of times when they do act like kids. But these are often in stark contrast to when Lizzie is philosophizing or the strip itself is making a point.
Now, this isn’t the first comic to tackle the concepts of growing up, or characters comic to grip with the realities of the world around them. It isn’t even the first one to do so from the perspective of youth.
But it does so, and it does so well. It makes you laugh and it makes you think, and those are the hallmarks of a good comic. It isn’t heavy on the story or the drama – it doesn’t need to be. But it lives up to that tradition of juxtaposing youth and experience. And sometimes the characters themselves don’t even realize their own irony.
It’s a good comic. It’s back online, updating Mondays and Fridays, with a sizable buffer.
That’s a good thing, in my book.
Speaking of back again…
I’ve noticed a handful of webcomics have returned from the lands beyond while I was gone.
This pleases me greatly.
These days, I find it safer to assume that a comic on hiatus will never more see the light of day. This isn’t to say I don’t check back with them time and time again – but this way, if they do resume, the return is all the sweeter.
Anyway, on to the show:
NeverNever has seen its share of troubles. It has had no less than three long breaks, each of them close to two years in length. Since its inception, it has had more time in absentia than actually updating.
But… it keeps coming back.
Given how many setbacks it has had, the fact that it returns time and time again (much like its primary villain, the Black Knight himself) is pretty damn impressive.
It’s a nice comic. I’m glad to see it back. For the most part, it isn’t anything heartbreaking or award-winning – just a classy little comic with cute characters, a fun story, and its fair share of silly jokes.
The new artist is looking like an absolutely perfect fit for the style, to be sure. So I’m all the more eager to see where it is going from here.
In any case, it’s likely this isn’t news to you – NeverNever’s return has been pretty heavily hyped, just as it has in the past. (As a matter of fact, I think one of its previous rebounds was when I first was introduced to it.)
There is another comic whose return, on the other hand, may have fallen a bit more under the radar: On the Playground.
I plan to give some more in-depth chatter on that bad boy tomorrow, but thought I should make sure to spread the word as soon as possible. This is a fantastic comic – filled with a lot of the cuteness that has made Count Your Sheep into such a star, though it tends to bring out its sharper edge more often than not. Of course, sometimes childhood wins out too.
In any case, some great comics that I’m glad to see back on the funny pages… so to speak.
Snapshots in Time
It may not come as a surprise that I am avid fan of print comics as well as webcomics.
Print comics were my first love with the genre, and I still remain attached to them in this day and age. Some of what I read has changed – I have ditched all the original Marvel works, though I do read the Ultimate versions. I am still also quite the fan of DC, though my focus is much more heavily on the bat clan than Superman and friends.
As such, I can sympathize all too well with the concerns of Anne, part of the creative team over at the Wotch.
See, two characters from the DC universe – Stephanie Brown, the Spoiler, and Cassandra Cain, Batgirl – have been poorly treated of late.
I won’t get into specifics – Anne has a post at the Wotch that covers the details.
There is a danger in print comics, one that is much less likely to rear its ugly head on the web. You see, the characters of DC, of Marvel… they are part of the company. They are not one individual person’s work, and writers can – and will – change.
Which means the characters change, as well. Sometimes for the better – and sometimes the writers throw out everything that has come before, have their new test subjects completely break character, and have some ‘dramatic plot point’ happen just for the sake of something shocking.
It’s infuriating.
I still like my print comics. Even as things change, sometimes those changes are well done. Sometimes I can see heroes die, or fade away, and accept it as the conclusion of a well-written story.
And sometimes it is meaningless, and serves only to incense.
Anne said it well, and drew a scene that captured well who these heroes once were. And I think all those who were true fans of the characters appreciate her for it.
Whatever happened to Sam?
I’ve been surprised that I haven’t seen more discussion on the recent events in Sam and Fuzzy.
So. Half a year ago, Sam and Fuzzy wrapped up one hell of a storyline. And then the dynamic duo took the last bus out of town, and drove off into parts unknown.
Since then, well… stuff has happened. What I’ve really been grooving on are the little vignettes with the blank mask ninja – a rather likeable character – tracing the path they took, prepared to hunt them down for… well, vengeance, death, etc, presumably.
The rest of our time has been occupied by the band Noosehead, which has added a whole pile of new characters to the show. They’ve engaged in hijinks and drama – often instigated by our good friend Fuzzy, who seems to have joined their crew.
And it’s good stuff. I mean, I don’t think Sam Logan could make a bad comic if he tried. The strip still brings the funny, the strip still brings the story.
But still…. somewhere, in the back of our minds, we’re wondering – Where’s Sam?
Well, guess he’s been right under our noses all this time.
The last few strips have hinted at, and then outright revealed, the truth: Aaron, one of the random roadies we’ve been introduced to, turns out to be Sam in disguise.
And it works. I mean, once you know what to look for, you can see Sam underneath. Looking back through the archives, you can see some of the signs. Heck, maybe everyone else figured this out months ago, and it was only a surprise to me.
Anyway. Sam’s back. Sam is back!
Where does that leave us?
Sam has the right of it – all the mafia ninjas may have wandered on their merry way, but one still remains, tracking him down. We don’t know much about him, but it seems clear that we’re building up to a showdown.
From there? I suspect we’ll be bidding Noosehead goodbye for a while. While there is still conflict within the band itself, I don’t think it will stay that way forever.
Of course, things are nice and peaceful back in the world Sam left behind, too.
(Also, anyone notice that the person ‘Aaron’ really looks like is Lance?)
Anyway, I can’t really tell where Sam and Fuzzy will be heading in the long run. But I sure as hell am glad that Sam is back in one form or another, and suspect the upcoming showdown will live up to the caliber of story that Logan has been recently cranking out.
So welcome back, Sam. Ninjas and all.
Damn Good Comics 