Sunday, October 29, 2017

Forgotten Characters: Broomie's Girls

While doing research on the subject of my last post, I accidentally came upon some unintended interesting comics - well, interesting only to me, I guess.

Broom Hilda spends so much time with her mainly male friends and is generally so man-crazy that her range of acquaintance outside her limited field of interest would be rather narrow.  However, for a week, we got introduced to a trio of witches just as wretched as her.

You'd think that having some female friends who she'd be open to sharing her personal thoughts and secrets to someone who'd understand what it'd be like living hundreds of years without finding potential suiters, and not feel pressured to keep up the facade of her masculine attitude (which is her default setting).

Of course, this is still a broad comic written by a man, so any instances of feminine vulnerability is going to be misplaced.

Sadly, their presence is in the vein of a Sexy Lamp Test.  If you can replace a woman with a lamp, and the movie still works without their input, then it has failed in making female representation.  Only, in this instance, that sex appeal falls by the wayside for making ugly jokes.

Fun fact - this storyline actually started on Tuesday, and concluded on Monday, Halloween Night.

As we can see, these women appeared once in a rather forgettable holiday celebration, and then were never seen again.  So why did I bother posting this week of inconsequential events?  Simply because there were two Sunday comic that showed their reappearance, with a fourth member joining their ranks.  For years, I wondered who these complete strangers were, having had no context for their appearance.

You'd think the tall one was left out because she wouldn't have been able to fit in the smaller comic.  But if you look above, you'll see she was there.  The newest addition is actually the jowly man-faced one.  After that, the very next comic reduces their number to just three again, but eliminates the tall one completely.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Homeless Unfunnies

This week, during the For Better or For Worse rerun, we got a comic that wasn't included in their collection:

On the FoobJournal, it was speculated that this comic might've been aimed at Lynn Johnson's kids.  Oftentimes, the only way for the family members to get an idea of what was bugging their mother was to read the strips in advance, otherwise, they'd be hit by the themes six weeks after the fact.  In this instance, this moralistic message of "Appreciate what you have, since others have it worse" was actually another collaborative approach with Cartoonists to devote attention to the Homeless problem.  This happened on October 25, 1988, a year after the last Famine effort failed to attract larger numbers.

As usual, we'll start with the better-known works, and work our way through obscurer titles.







Its sad to think that the above comic still remains relevant, back when politicians were less corrupt and more competent than the are now.

Of the multiple comics shown so far, only Doonesbury managed to keep a running cast of actual Homeless people, Alice and Elmont.  The former was physically similar to elderly politician Lacey Davenport that a later storyline was done having the then-Alzheimer suffering Republican mistaking the homeless lady for her sister, indulging in a brief Prince & Pauper role switching.  I only bring this up, because of another character who shares some physical similarities.

Most serial stories didn't bother to shoehorn the Homeless factor in, but the few that did, did so in a way that didn't fully detract from their story arc.  The most notable being Tom Batiuk's Crankshaft and Funky Winkerbean.



Some comics put their spin on the issue through their cynical worldview.



Jeff Martin's Mr. Boffo has had countless examples of Homeless people comics, so I didn't feel compelled to save the one I saw in Microfiche, but found one of his other comics, reproduced below.  Someday, I may go back and fine the missing Boffo comic. 
Even wild animals who roam the woods & countryside had a word or two to say about the subject.




Henry just basically puts a band-aid on the problem - by making a birdhouse, since people are more likely to support dumb animals than actual human beings.



Fun fact - this Sally Forth comic actually came a day earlier on Monday, but I included it, since it thematically fits.

Friday, October 20, 2017

Disturbing Personal Project: THIS IS THEY

Frequent visitors may have noticed that I haven’t exactly been updating my blog as much as I would’ve liked to.  This isn’t from a lack of subject material - indeed, I have TOO MANY potential comics to choose from, and finding the proper comics is somewhat of an uphill struggle.

But another potential reason (other than being involved with Real Life stuff and marathoning several TV series) is that I’ve been preoccupied with a personal project of mine, a WebNovel that I just recently started; THIS IS THEY.  Fitting that this should happen during the month of Nanowrimo where people take the challenge to submit a writing project of fifty thousand words to motivate them into jumpstarting the writing process.

The act of writing a whole novel from the base up can seem like a daunting task for those not used to the craft, but there’s a simple way out of this - simply start writing anything - ANYTHING, no matter how bad it is.  Get into the habit of writing so it'll be easier as it goes along, and get the bad stuff out of the way.  Deliberately creating bad writing out of the hopes that something good might come from the ashes.  Just keep writing and writing until the sheer amount of material overwhelms what you have.  Write until you can’t write any more.  Write crap to get the crap out of the way, so you can focus on the good stuff.  Failing that, write crap intentionally so that it’ll be so bad that it’ll ironically be good.  Since I mostly deal with humour, this kind of rationale comes easily to me.

Of course, that’s not exactly my method.  I prefer to think things through, and like to know where I’m going.  As long as I’ve got a rough outline of my story, and can see the potential plot threads tying together, I can write whatever comes to mind.  The trick is putting all those thoughts in a coherent manner that makes sense.

I’d been wanting to share my stories for some time, but had no knowledge of a reputable site that would allow chapters to be read in chronological order.  Eventually, I decided on WordPress after seeing another WebNovel there, but the site is remarkably user unfriendly, and as such I only have an index, and chapters, which are the same thing.  For the time being, you can access the next chapters by clicking the "Next Post" links near the bottom of the page, but I'd like those to be higher up.  Until someone helps me format the site to my liking, it’s gonna remain in Beta stage for now.

I’d been wanting to do this since my first foray into creating a quasi-history of Anime in America by it’s reluctance to be accepted, and portray various Anime characters as caricatures of Pokemon, since that was the Anime that caused the Japanese import to explode in popularity, and would result in mainstream acceptance of thinking that ALL Anime was Pokemon.

My intent was to have the artistic style start out as American, in 9-panel Watchmen format, which would be completely blown apart during the instances that Otakus - people who’d been possessed by Fansubs - would have to be exorcised via a secret organization devoted to keeping Anime from getting popular, run by their mysterious shadowy founders, The Rabbit & The Mouse, who would constantly bicker over their seating.
“By all rights, my chair should be higher!”
“Your ears are at the same height as mine.”
Once the Possessed Otaku would be taken care of, the panels would go “back to normal”, but slightly and subtly changed every time throughout the years 1990-1999, becoming more angular, allowing for bleeds and experimentation.  My intent was to show that despite wanting to remain original, we become more influenced by our surroundings than we care to admit.

Sadly, I had to shelve this ambitious project, since I had no way of sharing my ideas with anyone on a similar wavelength to mine.  Even after doing a Prequel and a Sequel to the main story.  The main story would be inspired by American comics, the Prequel Shojo Manga and the Sequel Shonen Manga, but I hit writer’s block after being unable to do proper research on the mostly oral history of Anime in the 70's, which was before my time.  Also, the mass Xenophobia aimed towards Anime had largely passed over in rise to the latest generation being unaware of the biases toward the medium.  Someday, I might post samples of what I had planned if anyone’s interested.  (Hint hint!)

Getting back to my main topic...

My WebNovel inspiration comes from the numerous Isekai Manga, where some hapless schulub gets reincarnated or summoned into a Fantasy World where they become Overpowered Author Avatars in an RPG Fantasy setting gaining more powers and an ever-growing harem, the most famous of which is Re:Monster, which while enjoyable for its world-building, has its fair share of problematic issues regarding treatment of women, very much in the same vein as Paladin of Shadows, which prompted a reviewer to mention the numerous quotes of “John Ringo, NO.

Most of these Isekai Manga first took the form of WebNovels, one of my favorites that spurred me on was Kumo desu ga, nani ka? (So I’m a Spider, So What) a series that I tended to compulsively reread.  And I’m notoriously finicky, so this was something that greatly appealed to me.

My inspiration for doing so was from Berkley Breathed’s creative process that led to the birth of Bill the Cat - an unashamed abomination of Garfield that was intended to be a major turn-off that wound up being the opposite outcome.  I figured that the best way to find success was NOT to rehash whatever media was wildly currently popular (Vampires, Wizards, Ninjas), but to venture into realms that hadn’t been explored because no one ever dared try.  Also, it was borne from the frustration of not finding enough reading material that appealed to me.  There’s an old saying that if something you want to read hasn’t been written yet, go ahead and write it.  After this, some people may want to rethink that particular inspirational quote.

Basically, I wanted to create something that would be considered utterly unmarketable.  A cross between LoveCraft and Kafka.  LoveKafka, if you will.  I figured that the surest way to commercial suicide was to combine the traits of two highly regarded literary giants into one comprehensive package.  People may praise their contributions, but when it comes to actually buying their works, their sales numbers are remarkably low, save for stylish snobs and record-keepers.  I’d combine the Alienation of LoveCraftian lore with the darkly humourous workings of Kafka.

The stories I do aren't considered normal stories, by any stretch, though they take a lot of inspiration from multiple sources.  People do all kinds of darker material compared to the lighter stuff, which appeals to some audiences down where their tales don't get told because there's no perceived market for them, and are considered too dark and/or depressing.  My WebNovel also took inspiration from Dirk Manning's Nightmare World, an Anthology collection where the stories are loosely connected.  Though at this point, it’s still in its early stages, and will take a while before the connections become obvious.  I’d always been more in love with the IDEA of The Twilight Zone than it’s actual execution.  My stories probably slant slightly towards The Outer Limits, but with a stronger humourous bent and better writing.  Updates will sadly be slow in coming given my high quality control, and my tendency to write notes for future chapters not fully fleshed out yet, and notes strewn all over the place.

I'm still not crazy about the layout, and Wordpress isn't as intuitive as blogspot is.  I only used it, because another WebNovel, ParaHumans, had the chapters in its sidebar, as well as having everything in Chronological order.  I've yet to figure out how to format it the way I want to.

Ironically enough, my impetus for doing this was inspired back when Obama was still in office, and the world had yet to encounter the stigma of continuous impending doom.  Instead of instilling an ever-encroaching sense of increasing stats and new abilities, I wanted to convey the sense of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming power.  Instead of exploring a futuristic world that would just as likely become false within several generations, I wanted to take the opposite tack, and explore Universal themes that would still be relevant far into the future.  Keen-eyed readers will recognize that my inspiration for the first story in my WebNovel is actually borne from an early issue of Transmetropolitan.

At this point, you may be wondering just what THIS IS THEY is actually about.  Well, that's difficult to describe without spoiling anything.  If you haven't been successfully scared off yet, here's the link to the first chapter again.  Future chapter updates (and influences) will be noted in due time.
I actually wanted to use the font from below on top, but was unable to figure out how.

Monday, October 9, 2017

Vacation Vocation

Things haven't exactly been easy for my family recently.  For starters, my sister, her husband AND her baby have all fallen sick.  On top of which, OUR parents have just come down with whatever bug's been going around lately.  The only one who's remained unscathed from all this virus file-sharing is yours truly, possibly because I'm not as sociable as they are, spreading their germs everywhere and whatnot.

So when the time came that they were looking for a little downtime, fostering the runt of the singular litter off on my parents in the hopes of getting some well-deserved down time, it naturally reminded me of a comic.

But that was just a quick and easy response in place of a longer narrative.  There was a storyline where Adam had the option of taking a vacation, and opted not to take it if it meant taking the kids along with him, since the definition of a vacation is to get away from whatever's stressing you, and you don't want to be carrying along extra baggage along the way.






Of the strips that were included in the book collection, more than half were left out.  On the one hand, the book collections were a good way to refresh the reader's memories, but people who weren't around when they were first published would have no frame of reference for some of the things that happened or why.  This arc which started in late May wouldn't resume again until mid-July when further Vacation plans were further fleshed out for both parties.










Someday, I should really post that miniarc about the Cigar Card Game.


And then, the day finally comes...



As any long-time reader probably figured out by now, something would've happen to upend Adam's carefully-laid sloppy plans.  A constant reoccurring theme in Adam comics is that Adam is somewhat of a perpetual loser.  Even though he's rather lazy, it's hard not to feel sorry for the guy.










There were a few more epilogue strips detailing the family's reaction to returning from their vacation, but none of them are as perfect as this note to end on.