I woke up today for my usual trip through the world of web comics. Juice in one hand and mouse in the other, as soon as I clicked the first bookmark I realized Ah crap it’s the 4th of July, no one is going to be updating.
I was pleasantly surprised though. Even though there were quite a few strips on hiatus, most were updated as normal. A little reading of blog posts, and I was reminded of something I already knew but had sort of forgotten: The Internet covers the whole world.
Have you ever had somebody tell you they would do something, like give you a job, marry you or do decently in the World Cup, only to have them fall through? If you haven’t, let me fill you in, it sucks.
For the same reasons, although to a much lesser extent, it sucks when you favorite web comic doesn’t update when you’d like it to. I know a lot of you think I’m about to proceed to beat a dead horse but I think I may have something new this time.
As I’ve made my way across China, I’ve been reading Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, both by Orson Scott Card. If you haven’t read these books, I highly recommend them both, especially because you won’t understand a lot of what I’m talking about. It turns out that there’s a movie in the works. I thought about that for a while and I’ve decided that Ender’s Game was not made for the big screen. The book depends too much on the Battle Room, which would be hard to replicate, and a lot of the best dialogue takes place in characters’ heads. None of these are contusive to a good film.
I’m back. Well not really, in a geographical sense I’m still gone. But I’m settled down for a bit and have a dialup connection and I’m sick of sitting on the sidelines so in a limited way, I’m back and happy to be so.
Because I only have dialup, I haven’t been able to follow all my usual strips for the last month. Today I finally decided to check and see what Dork Tower was up to these days. As it turns out, not much. Apparently John Kovalic has had his hands full of late and has been able update his strip as much as he (and his fans) would like.
I’m a torn and twisted man. I have a serious medical condition where I am easily addicted to stuff but I have the patience of a seven-year-old on his birthday. I get hooked on any form of serial entertainment and then I go crazy waiting for the next installment. I can’t go into work until I see the next X-men movie. I’m serious; I have a doctor’s note.
I know myself though; I understand my weaknesses and live my life accordingly. While I love the idea of a web comic telling a long, drawn-out story, I’ve never had the desire to keep coming back every update just to read a few more words of the story. The delivery option just doesn’t work for a 21st century digital boy like me.
When ever people tell me all syndicated strips suck, I usually warn them about making blanket statements and point them to a few offerings from the syndicates who I believe are in top form and should still be read by everyone, even if you have to do it online. Two of these strips, Pearls Before Swine and Get Fuzzy have been on a collision course all this last week and yesterday’s strip had me thinking all day.
For those who don’t read both strips, Darby Conley of Fuzzy has been placing his characters into the strips from Stephan Pastis of Pearls. It’s been pretty funny in my book. Continue reading
Have you ever had a brain fart so big it hurts? I was looking through Daku’s post and thought I’d check the Chameleon Collective, because I like both web comics and lizards. I came across a strip by the name of The Sordid Affairs.
The Sordid Affairs is a twice-weekly strip put together from photos of various foods and condiments with dialogue added. I read through the archive at work and because I wasn’t able to completely focus I was blown away by the originality of this strip. I’m mean photos and food no one’s done that before. As I was walking home it hit me that not only are there a lot of other photo strips out there, there are a lot of photo strips that I enjoy and read on a regular basis.
There are some days I that I scare myself with my reliance on technology. My Firefox got rabid and ate itself a few days ago and took with it all of my book marks. I remember sitting down at the computer for the daily journey through my favorite web comics and I ended up staring at an empty bookmarks folder. I’ll admit panicked a bit; I hadn’t typed in a comic’s url for months. I had no idea what to do next.
Fortunately, after I dried my eyes, I was able to remember a few addresses and from the links pages I was able to start reestablishing my bookmarks. Thanks to every creator with a big old links page containing 20+ strips linked to it. You made my life a lot easier. It’s been a very cleansing experience for me. I’ve been able to renew my love with some strips that I missed a few updates of and best of all, finding new strips to read everyday. It’s also been a period of reevaluation. There were several strips that I was about to mark again and then I realized that they weren’t really that good. I ended up cutting loose a lot of dead weight strips that I book marked in a moment of weakness As big of a pain in the butt the whole ordeal was, I’m glad it happened. I may do it again in six months or so. I’m going to recommend all of you do it yourselves too. You’ll feel 10 pounds lighter.
Hello all you happy web comic reading people.
If any of you haven’t yet, I highly suggest taking a listen to the Penny Arcade podcast. I know Penny Arcade is hugely popular (and should be) but they really haven’t made a big deal out of the show and you kind of have to scroll down to find it, so I’m sure some folks don’t know about it yet.
Rather than an organized or planned presentation, the Penny Arcade podcasts is just Gabe and Tycho talking as they go through the process of writing that days strip. Continue reading
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Xerexes over at Comixpedia mentioned today that there is a general lack of coverage of web comics outside of dedicated sites such as theirs. It’s true, there’s not an abundance of web cartoonists appearing on Entertainment Tonight.
I’m sure there are many reasons that lead to this. Most of which are entirely out of our control as fans. But not all. There is something we can do.
I think I’ve done my part to promote the world of web comics. I work for a college paper and I write a (usually) weekly Continue reading