Monthly Archives: July 2012

Critical Miss

Posted on July 31, 2012 by | 8 Comments

Before I start, I need to apologize in advance as I’m going to be suspending, this once, my policy concerning cursing on my site (though it seems like kids these days often know more swears than I do at 42).

That said… what the fuck was up with the latest Critical Miss? While I can understand poking fun at the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic male fan-base (Bronies), I can’t help but feel the latest update was a smack in the face for a very real problem at conventions: the sexual harassment of female cosplayers (including some who are barely teenagers). Hell, the last few anime and comic book conventions I’ve attended have included specific messages warning against sexual harassment of people at the cons, and admitted that previous complaints from women were brushed off and ignored. While it could be claimed that what Cory Rydell and Grey Carter did was satire, this is a subject that should not be satirized.

Seriously, what the fuck were Rydell and Carter thinking in pulling this shit? And to go on and claim that Bronies are subject to harassment by women in your written bit below? That was insult to injury. And lest people claim I’m just white-knighting here, I’ve been on both sides of the coin, and was accused once of sexual harassment for staring at a female coworker in a previous job… and been harassed by a 17-year-old student while a substitute teacher (and no, it’s not “fun” when that 17-year-old has the power to claim you were the instigator and then get you banned from teaching forever if she so desires). In short, this was a sophomoric and shitty attempt at humor, and Rydell and Carter should apologize. There are some lines that should not be crossed at this point in time.

Addendum note: I did do a web-search and did not encounter any blogs or the like citing men being sexually harassed by women just because they like MLP:FIM, just in case anyone is going to try and claim this comic was legit.

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Girl Genius

Posted on July 30, 2012 by | 2 Comments

I’ve waxed elegant (and not so elegant) several times about Phil and Kaja Foglio’s superb use of secondary and tertiary characters in their gaslamp fantasy webcomic Girl Genius over the years, so I decided to cut short my inevitable discussion on the love triangle between Moloch von Zizner (who continues to struggle in a vain attempt to escape his destiny as Agatha Heterodyne’s minion) and his fellow female minions Sanaa (sister of Othar Tryggvassen: Gentleman Adventurer!) and Snaug (minion of Professor… just what is his name anyway? It’s getting confusing). What I do want to point out is the Professor’s comment, after von Zizner manages to charm Snaug off her feet, was twenty levels of awesome. Because yes, minion he may be… but von Zizner is a dangerous one… and has easily grown as much as Agatha.

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Oglaf.com

Posted on July 26, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Warning: This comic contains nudity, foul language, sexual situations, and magical dentistry. Reader discretion is advised.

After wrapping up what must be its the longest storyline yet, the not-safe-for-work and totally-hilarious fantasy webcomic Oglaf took a brief break to indulge in some classic silliness. And for all that I’m one of those despicable people who hates fun and enjoyment and would be standing in line to slay the Fun Beast from the previous storyline, I must admit I found this latest update to be delightfully absurd. I mean, it does make sense that in a world of magic and adventure that more… mundane duties would be taken up by wizards. So a dental wizard does make some sense. But to have the rampaging beast suffering from an impacted molar which the wizard can fix? That’s comedy gold.

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Magellan

Posted on July 25, 2012 by | 1 Comment

While I’m not exactly a big fan of superhero comics these days (I blame Marvel and DC for that; back in the ’90s I first got into comics… but with the advent of Image, focus shifted from effective storytelling to pretty art, and I got burned out on them during that time), there are a couple of good superhero webcomics out there. Of them, Magellan is probably my favorite, due in part to two factors that help it stand out from its peers. First, Magellan tends to focus more on character interactions and relations than fighting, which gives readers a better chance to know (and feel for) the characters. Second would be the comic’s setting, in a massive island school for training superheroes.

To be honest, the concept of a superhero school does boggle the mind. I’ve admittedly never played any of the superhero MMORPGs (such as City of Heros or Champions Online), but it does seem odd that there’d be so much crime in the world that you’d need tens of thousands of heroes to deal with it all (assuming of course that the heroes aren’t just killed off in the line of duty), but despite such minor quibbles, it does provide for an interesting setting for disparate characters to interact. What’s more, Stephen Crowley has even created a sense of history with Magellan with older heroes retiring and training their younger brethren.

While the comic is nominally about Kaycee, a young “normal” human who managed to get into Magellan Academy through physical prowness (in essence being a “Batgirl”), many of the other characters get their chance to shine in the sun. One of the more interesting side stories focuses on Gola Beh, who after having many of her memories lost to her (due to a story which prominently featured Kaycee) and being de-aged, reentered Magellan Academy as her “niece” Olga Beh. This has presented cartoonist Stephen Crowley with an interesting means of bringing the older characters more fully into the existing story, while also examining the problems Olga is facing as she tries to cope with her new lease on life… including decades of lost memories and coping with her former teammates while keeping the truth of her identity a secret.

It also presents an interesting take on some of the downsides of the whole “Fountain of Youth” scenario (though Olga’s de-aging was due to an attack, and can’t be replicated). Her friends and comrades are now old people. She’s lost many memories of working with them, and in essence half her life was stolen from her. And she undoubtedly still has enemies out there who’d gleefully try to kill her now that she’s more vulnerable, if they knew who she was. While it might be nice to no longer suffer the aches and pains of old age, she’s going to watch everyone she knows die of old age. Undoubtedly in the back of her head she must also wonder if something could reverse the process as well, resulting in her losing her new lease on life after she’s grown to adjust to it.

The one thing that hasn’t happened yet is for Olga to be more integrated into the school as a whole. While Olga is a year behind Kaycee and her teammates, the friendship she’s starting to form with Brelvis (who never did manage to get run over by a car – no, I never did get over my initial annoyance with him) should provide the necessary catalyst for her introduction to Kayce and her own classmates, and provide Crowley with the opportunity to more fully integrate the varied aspects of his comic.

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Bardsworth

Posted on July 24, 2012 by | Leave a comment

One of the problems inherent in any form of storytelling is the depiction of language within the story. It can be easy for American writers to forget (or gloss over) the fact that humanity is a disparate people with a multitude of languages. This language blindness holds true for much of fantasy literature as well; often elves will speak but one language, dwarves but one other, and humans a “common” tongue everyone else knows. But even within the U.S., there is a wide variety of languages (both from immigrants and from native Americans) found underneath the English common tongue, even as Europe is rich with a wide variety of languages in turn.

Thus I was a bit amused to see this touched upon in Pete Tarkulich’s fantasy comic Bardsworth with the revelation that his protagonist, Mike, was able to speak to and understand other people due to a spell that the comic’s semi-antagonist Rayner put on Mike. Admittedly, “a wizard did it” may be a fairly old trope in this regard, but in a fantasy setting it actually works; what’s more, it’s fairly logical given that we’ve confirmation that Rayner is behind Mike finding his way into the world of Bardsworth (though the reasons behind that still remain vague). The only real issue lies with the method Tarkulich used in his reveal, and what this hints at with his world.

When professor Aleana Merrit confronted Rayner over enchantments placed on Mike, each piece was laid down with care… but ultimately was a series of “talking head” information dumps. Indeed, the very reveal itself was a one-panel summary that could easily have been broken into multiple panels. But there was another path entirely to this road: if one of Mike’s fellow students had noticed the effect. We have elves going to the magic and bardic college that Mike is attending… and yet not one noticed that Mike’s speaking Elvish. This suggests then that the elves lack their own language (or that humanity borrowed theirs).

Would it not have been more interesting to watch Mike and his compatriots realize that there’s something amiss with his comprehension of them (and their comprehension of him)? This would have allowed for a more introspective glimpse of Mike and his fellow students (which may still eventually have shifted to the final scene with Merrit and Rayner having tea while discussing the spell) and allowed this reveal to have been more about Mike, and less about Rayner and his manipulations. The story may have taken longer to unfold, but it would have allowed for Mike to gain a greater awareness of the world around him, and slowly disseminated the information Rayner just dumped on Merrit’s lap.

As we are, the current revelation has left us with a monolinguistic society. Any attempt to insert additional languages runs into a multitude of plot potholes that can’t easily be hand-waved away. If, for instance, elves speak elvish and humans a common tongue, then why wouldn’t they comment on Mike talking to them in elvish, or even just respond in elvish (which would then lead to someone wondering why the elves are talking to Mike in elvish instead of the common tongue). While the monolinguistic aspect of Bardsworth works… I can’t help but think that Tarkulich missed out on an opportunity here to build a richer, more diverse world with a multitude of languages and cultures. All for want of a simple spell.

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The Wotch

Posted on July 23, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Perhaps it’s a tad cruel of me to be amused by the teen relationship angst currently playing out over at the contemporary fantasy webcomic The Wotch, but I have to admit I’ve enjoyed watching the gradual growth of webcartoonist Anne Onymous’ namesake character. To be honest, it’s been a long time in coming; while much of the primary and secondary cast of The Wotch have grown over time, Anne herself has remained trapped in amber, loved and admired by her friends while causing the storyteller in me to cringe and insist she be allowed to grow up. I hesitate in saying Anne was a Mary Sue character as the term is rife with abuse, but in all honesty she did embody several Sue-like traits. Fortunately Anne appears to be outgrowing this as Onymous has focused more on the storytelling aspects of the comic, and allowed cartoonist Ian Samson focus on the artistic aspects of the comic.

That said, I’ve noticed a couple of areas where I’m unsure as to how integrated the story and art have become. While it can be difficult wearing the cartoonist and the writer’s hats at the same time, doing so does provide the cartoonist with considerable freedom; if the cartoonist possesses the talent to depict what he or she is envisioning, then the art often does a fine job of integrating the details lost in translation from prose to art. Yes, a picture may be worth a thousand words, but well-crafted prose can often present far greater detail than most art, especially when it comes to facial features and determining just what a character is feeling or thinking at a specific moment. Not every artist can pull this off, of course, and I suspect artistic limitations is a major cause for hiatus (it was with me at least).

The reason I’m bringing this up is due to Onymous’ latest plot twist, with Jason asking Anne to a high-school dance. It was unexpected (to me at least); while it’s been a number of years since readers have the djinn Angelique, it’s only been a couple months for Jason and his feelings haven’t appeared to wane. Despite his feelings for Angelique, he does care for Anne as a friend… and he’s watched with concern over Anne’s growing realization that she feels more than friendship for Robin. But in viewing Samson’s depiction of Anne’s response to Jason’s offer to go to the dance (even if she was the one who did the asking), I’m unsure as to what she’s feeling. Is Anne playfully teasing Jason in asking him to the dance? Or is there something else here that my subconscious is drawing my attention to?

And thus I’m left to wonder how Onymous would have depicted this scene (and that second-to-last panel), either in prose or in art. I realize this is inherently unfair to Samson; he’s managed to capture a number of the elements that make The Wotch so enjoyable. And let’s face it, it’s nice to actually have the comic updating once more, rather than stuck in the midst of hiatus. (Another thing to consider is the input that Robin Ericson has in this, seeing he’s the comic’s colorist. No doubt he’d raise any alarms if he felt the scene had failings as well.) Given that The Wotch is not alone in the cartoonist handing off the baton for artistic duties, these are questions that would likely be raised with any new cartoonist for an existing work. Nor are there any easy answers as to how to allay the concerns of fans and critics alike.

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Namesake

Posted on July 19, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Sometimes I suspect the writers and cartoonists who craft the worlds their readerships delve into deliberately plot out moments to draw out the inner romantics of their fans. This definitely seems to be the case with Isabelle Melançon’s and Megan Lavey’s contemporary fantasy comic Namesake, as Melançon and Lavey crafted a delightful moment of intimacy in a flashback between a young Warrick and Ozma that manages to serve a dual purpose and helped set a scene that works both as a cliffhanger and as a catalyst to engage the hopes of romantics wanting the comic’s protagonist, Emma, to be paired with the fan-favorite character, Warrick.

The scene was actually set a couple updates ago when Warrick throwing himself in harm’s way to protect Emma from a monster akin to that which had slain his mother… and was responsible for the disappearance of Ozma herself. While it could be said that he’s protecting his uncle as well as Emma, his words in the previous update saying “That’s not my uncle!” as a black-and-red miasma poured from the Scarecrow’s head suggest that his throwing himself on top of Emma (along with his declaration of “Not again!”) is meant more for this strange girl who insists she’s not a Dorothy than for his uncle.

Of course, there’s also the question as to just what that thing is, and why it threatens Oz. Is it related to the ghost lurking within Emma who so desperately wants Emma to surrender to its control? Or is this some greater antagonist that may prove a threat to realms beyond Oz… and which the other Namesakes may have faced in the past? Given that Namesake has a wider scope than just Oz (as the frequent flashbacks to the original Alice and her problems coping after her trip through the mirror have shown), it’s entirely possible that for all of the story already told, Emma’s journey in Oz is but the preamble to a far greater adventure, and one that she very well may take with some of the characters she’s met to date, which would undoubtedly thrill the romantics busy pairing Emma and Warrick.

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