This post doesn’t really cover any new ground.
I’ve spent the day catching up on comics from the last few days, and being pleasantly surprised by a number of things:
1) Something*Positive is running a halloween story on “Operation: Terror for Jesus!” Apparently Christian “Hell Houses” are very, very real.
I’ll be honest – this storyline is probably going to make me laugh. A lot.
2) Loserz is back! I can’t blame the guy for taking a break, given the others things keeping him busy, but it went on hiatus at quite the cliff-hanger, and I’ve been rather eagerly waiting it’s return.
3) I found the new website for My Nemesis! I continue to like this comic a lot, even if I can never tell if it is taking itself too seriously or consciously riffing on itself.
4) The recent run of Rob and Eliot guest strips has been phenomenal.
5) I’ve been liking Questionable Content more lately than I have in… well, probably ever. The comic was pretty much teetering on the same love-triangle/unresolved-tension for the longest time, and resolving that (at least for now) has allowed Jeph to start moving the comic through some pretty damn good new storylines.
I actually thought he’d have trouble keeping me on after the sheer awesome insanity of a few weeks back, but no, I keep going back for more.
Graphic SMASH!
I continue to be impressed with Tim Demeter’s work as the new editor of Graphic Smash. Even aside from the quantity of work now available on the site – I count 10 updates today, and believe there was over a dozen this Monday – the strips being added are distinctly quality.
Just last week I waxed eloquent on the glory of Wonderella, which it seems will be joining the fold. Today’s pick, though, is Brat-Halla – the adventures of Thor! (and friends)… when he was a boy.
I’m not sure if we’ve seen the last of the new line-up, or if GS will just keep on growing until it devours the entirety of the internet. So check some of the new stuff out – it will be a great way to placate our future lord and master!
This sentence is a lie.
Filthy Lies is a webcomic by Enigma (the webcomic artist formerly known as Scrubbo).
Enigma is currently asking for help from his readers. The more success the drive has, the more days a week he plans to update his comic.
The catch? He isn’t asking for money. He’s just asking for more readers.
More comics in return for nothing more than spreading the word? That’s a pretty good deal, I’d say.
So hey – if you already read the comic, why not go and mention it to a friend or two, and see what they think?
And if you don’t already read the comic – well, now’s a damn good time to go and check it out.
(Wait, you say, shouldn’t I actually talk about the comic before sending people to look at it? Maybe point out that its crudeness and irreverance might turn some readers away, but qualify that by saying that its lively antics can win over the coldest heart? Well maybe so, but this is my blog, and if I feel like sending readers off blindly, and letting their experiences speak for themselves, I can damn well do so!)
Madness
Hey guys and gals – been a while, hasn’t it?
I’ve been a bit distracted by addictive writing, food poisoning, and skirmishing on the high seas. Not necessarily in that order.
Anyway. More to come tomorrow, in detail, on a variety of things.
For today, there is simply this:
Now, this event is very, very important. But I’m not going to start layering on the predictions and surmisings just yet – Garrity could still take the plot any which way. It’s still too early to start discussing conclusions – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth taking note.
So note: The pool was filled. Let’s see exactly what that means from here.
Cereals and Serials
So I made the mistake of picking up George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire.
(Which I only just now, in looking up the title, realize is incomplete. Double damn.)
In any case, I’ve found the books exceptional, thrilling, and highly addictive… and thus, have had trouble putting them down and doing other things. So a quick post on some of my recent thoughts:
As October comes upon us, I’ve seen all the classic Halloween breakfast cereals hit the shelves – Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry. And, of course, I had to by them, inspired by numerous webcomic references in recent years that have helped bring back that nostalgia for mostly tasteless sugary foods.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember which webcomics were the culprits! Oh No Robot was sadly no help, though a google/Wikipedia search was able to confirm Something Positive as one of the guilty parties. I’m positive (no pun intended) that at least one or two other popular webcomics have references the cereals, but I can’t remember which ones!
(This will be the thing that slowly drives me insane.)
In more important news, Adventurers! has come to an end. It’s been building up to it in true RPG style, with final boss battle after final boss battle, and an elaborate epilogue that covers everyone from the main cast and crew to fellows that most readers have long since forgotten. It leaves the desire to reread back through the entire story, and that is certainly one mark of a good ending.
It was a good story, Mark Shallow, and ended well.
Thanks.
From Humble Beginnings
So I noticed that SMBC has recently trimmed the archive down to only include the most recent 120 comics, presumably to avoid having his earlier, less refined work evaluated by potential publishers.
I imagine that dealing with the change in one’s quality is a debate for many, many artists out there. Some ignore it, some fix up the most obvious offenses and leave the rest, some fully redo their strips one by one, and some restart their comic entirely.
Simply… removing the offending comic isn’t done quite as often, though I have seen some artists occasionally treat the older work as a seperate strip, and having it available but disconnected from their current projects.
But I guess the advantage of a gag strip is that one can cut out the past without disrupting continuity.
Is it worth it? I mentioned the other day that my first impression of xkcd was a bit weakened by his early work in the archives, so I can certainly see the benefit of ‘pulling a Lucas’, one way or another. But even with that, you might be losing good stuff along with the old – and how exactly do you draw the final line?
Change and Stasis
Not much to report today:
–Abstract Gender has a new artist. It’s fourth one, in fact. While normally that heavy turnover is a sign that a strip may be giving up the ghost, in this case it seems to bode nothing but success – dozens of artists tried out for the new position, and the strip seems to have a pretty heavy readership for something that has been around for under a year and a half.
–Mac Hall is setting aside what it has been up until now, and will be returning in a new form in October. This seems to be a change that has been coming for quite a while, and I am certainly interested to see what new shape they have in mind.
–Sam and Fuzzy is brilliantly evil, and likes cliffhangers. I hates him so.
–Scary Go Round is brilliantly evil, and likes cliffhangers. I HATES HIM SO!
Second Verse, Same as the First
Even when other members of the Modern Tales collective were running low on strips, Graphic Smash still had the quality and quantity to keep me reading nonstop.
Despite this, they’ve gone ahead and, like their brethren, added a nice little collection of new comics.
Which means they now officially have a metric fuckton of strips updating every day.
I mean, I’m counting ten strips updating today, along with an announcement of another five strips joining the roster. Almost all of which looking damn awesome. So that’s impressive – but not actually what I wanted to talk about.
One of the strips is Johnny Saturn, which was previously part of Graphic Smash. Which, previously, left and joined Komikwerks, and began rereleasing the strips thus far there. And, of course, the next arc in its epic saga has it rejoining the fold with Graphic Smash – and re-rereleasing its strips again, from the start.
Quite a few strips have done this, of late, as they’ve been joining these conglomerates. Usually they release their stored strips at an exceedingly souped-up pace, thus both impressing new readers with a substantial stock of story, while also giving themselves time to build up a larger buffer. Occasionally the strips have been touched up with spiffier colors and cleaner lines.
Now, I am not going to say that this is a bad practice. It can, in some ways, be wearing on your current audience, who is eager – even desperate – for new advancement. (Does a hiatus by any other name smell as sweet?) But it provides a sense of continuation even with the temporary break, and certainly works well to bring in new readership.
I know that while it may be jarring to have strips I am currently reading take this tactic, I’ve been delighted to find it in new strips. In the case of Girl Genius I willingly deprive myself of the newer material, gleefully proceeding at a calm, leisurely pace through the older works. I’m not sure why I haven’t bought the rest of the trades to catch myself up, or borrowed them from friends that I know for a fact have them – but in this case, I enjoy the anticipation of more to come, and the ability to engage in mass consumption of the works on the day the backlog catches up to the more recent comics.
I’ve wandered a bit off-topic. My apologies. I additionally appear to have avoided arriving at a point at all, aside from to say that rereleasing content could be good or bad, I guess, depending on the state of the reader at the time of the transition. You know, maybe.
In the end, I’m a fan of almost anything other than sheer hiatus. I like the artist going that extra length to say “Hey, I didn’t forget about you.” If whatever filler is provided is not to my liking, then I shrug and treat it like a normal hiatus, and come back when it starts back up. (Yes, even with shirt guy Dom. In time, I can forgive even that.)
And if the filler is to my liking – if the rereleased content has, indeed, been remastered artfully – then I guess I win. What do I win? Well, some additional hours of entertainment from a resource that has already provided amusement.
I know that replay value is a valuable thing in many games, and I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the same holds true elsewhere.
A Few Observations
I’ve noticed that Penny Arcade has returned to early morning updates. It isn’t anything I feel entitled to demand from a free strip, of course, but it feels good nonetheless. Bonus: Wii drama ensues!
I failed to notice that the new PvP site had gone live, due to my bookmark not redirecting me (forgivable, given he’s come down ill). In any case, to my shame, I didn’t even notice a day or two had passed without updates, until some other site mentioned the new look. Bonus: Kurtz outlaws handshakes!
Now that I’ve told you a bunch of things everyone already knows about webcomics everyone already reads, let’s switch gears to point out information people need to know. (Cue ominous echo sounds here.)
Within the last few weeks, both Kittens! The Comic (which is about kittens) (or, at least, about a kitten) and Puppies!! (which is not about kittens) (or, for that matter, about puppies) have both begun. I sense a conspiracy. (I also sense that I have used far too many parenthesis in the last few sentences.)
(That is all.)
Starting things back up…
So yeah, I guess that thing about my return was… a blatant lie. My apologies.
Anyway! Modern Tales and Girlamatic have been rolling out a few new stars! (This is probably not news to anyone.) I’ve been pretty impressed with some of the additions to the rosters, and one over at Girlamatic has especially caught my eye – Shrub Monkeys.
It is a generally cute, down-to-earth comic, so makes for an easy and entertaining read. It has it’s share of in-jokes and random nonsensical moments.
The real kicker, though, was some strips that at first look like more randomness, but left me profoundly disturbed for several minutes after reading.
I’m serious – giant monster aliens, skeletal horrors, and all that just isn’t scary. Something like this, however – that is terrifying. You want to frighten someone, give them something based in reality, that seems almost impossible, but still has just enough of a grounding in fact to leave it stuck in their mind.
And that is what this strip does well – blends the ordinary and the whimsically surreal. It’s harder than it looks, but Shrub Monkeys pulls it off without missing a beat.
Damn Good Comics 