Greetings, Madballs!

Holy crap.

I’m sure those of you who own one of the “fat” PS3 systems (like me) became quite acquainted with the issue that occurred last Sunday on the right and straight on ‘til Monday.

In short, the non-slim PS3s all took a huge dump.

In a major snafu that most-assuredly gave Xbox 360 owners plenty of ammo in the “Which system is better?” war, a simple glitch with the internal clock ended up wreaking havoc for about twenty-four hours.  For some weird reason, the older PS3 models tried (unsuccessfully, I might add) to turn over from February 28^th to February 29^th, 2010 on Sunday night.  Of course, the system that only does everything (including ride the short bus) did not get the memo that 2010 is not, in fact, a leap year.  The side effect of that?  February still remains short-stacked against her fuller siblings (I’ve always thought of February as a woman – she sure flirts like one).

So, when that internal clock rolled over to the obviously illegal date, those “fat” PS3s immediately wet the bed, making online connection impossible.  Also affected?  Trophy data was either corrupted or non-existent and almost all PS3 games were completely non-playable.

Sony’s response was amusing, yet horrifying at the same time – “Stay off your PS3!”  Sounding like an septuagenarian who just confiscated your Frisbee (do people even play with Frisbees anymore?), the company that uses the same font for Playstation and the Spider-Man movies admitted that they were at a loss, but that the problem was bad enough to warrant treating your system like a red-headed step child (what a sad moniker – I happen to like gingers).

So, like the stalwart troopers that they are, Sony set their tech experts (who obviously have no concept of the Gregorian calendar or this wouldn’t have happened in the first place) to task to find and fix the problem.  Meanwhile, Xbox folks were laughing at our misfortunes right up to the moment when their 360s got their fifth or sixth “Red Ring of Death”, at which point they swore profusely and immediately throw themselves onto some jagged rocks.

At the same time, I was going through a steady decline as withdrawals started to kick in.  It wasn’t noticeable Sunday night, as the problem didn’t occur until after I had already signed off for the evening.  But by the time I got home from work Monday afternoon?  Well, let’s just say that I never realized just how much I use my PS3 until I found out the hard way that about two-thirds of my couch time in the living room requires the use of the third generation Playstation.  I couldn’t play any video games.  I couldn’t watch any movies.  Every time my instincts automatically queued up my arms to reach for the power button on my system I had to stop myself.  In the end, I was forced to “channel surf” – a past time that I’m pretty sure became obsolete right around the same time that Frisbees stopped being something cool that you did in parks and backyards.

Fortunately for me, the Winter Olympics were just over enough to return one of my 8 PM viewing staples to its proper time slot.  After watching the show I bought a Subway sandwich to keep on the air, “Chuck” returned the favor and kept me distracted long enough for Sony to figure out how time is actually kept track of in modern society.  By 9 PM I hesitantly fired up ol’ Bessie based on some positive rumblings I had read in one of the forums I frequent.  Sure enough, my sleek-black beauty was fine and dandy.  She was a little disoriented, still thinking that it was Sunday, February 28^th, but after a gentle correction I was able to play Fallout 3 with only my usual operational glitches and irritations.  All was now right in the world once again.

At least, until all game systems everywhere instantly self destruct while trying to reconcile December 21^st, 2012.

The Don survived the PS3 Blackout of February 29^th, 2010.  He didn’t even get a lousy T-shirt.

…hooboy!  Look at the time!  Sorry, lads and lasses.  There will not be a full “Office” install this week.  Partly because I’m in the process of backing everything up so I can do a full install of Windows 7 on my lappy (See what I did there?  Tied it all together with cleverity!).

I also had another project come up that needed done ASAP.  And in another clever, M. Night Shamalamadingdong twist, I can use this moment to shill that project to all you fellow Spwugnerians in this space:

I’m currently working for my film friends at Darkstone Entertainment writing episode blurbs for director John Johnson’s new Choose-Your-Own Adventure web series called “Spade”.  Episodes air every other Thursday, with the first episode airing two weeks ago.

That means the second episode is online now!  At the end of each episode, viewers are given a choice as to how they want the plot and/or characters to proceed.  All they have to do is make with the clicky on the choices that are presented.  Then, two weeks later, the option that won the most votes will appear as the next episode.

I give you your first taste with episode 1:

And here’s the newest episode!  Vote and choose what you would like to see happen next!

See you next week with a regular installment!

So I hear there was a sacred ritual in America this weekend. Supposedly it consisted of humans gathering in big groups with large amounts of fried food and chips, watching sweaty, muscled meatsacks ripping the flesh from a large hog, then tossing the resulting oblong wad back and forth. It is supposed to confirm masculinity, and geeks like me (particularly rather NON-masculine geeks like me) are generally not welcome at such events. Somehow, though, I found myself attending one this past Sunday, partly to satisfy my morbid curiosity.

You’d think, having lived here all my life, that I’d be more familiar with this religious ceremony. Instead, I spent the evening staring at the proceedings with a kind of horrified fascination.

I’d been invited by friends. These are people I see on a fairly regular basis. We’ve known one another for years. I know their hobbies, their likes, dislikes, their dreams, their fears…but I did not recognize the people I sat with during this game of feet and balls as the friends I’ve known so long and well.

“We’re having the party more to watch the commercials than the game. Most of us aren’t big football fans,” they said. So I attended expecting food, camaraderie, and boisterous conversation. What I got?

Oh, there was food. Plates piled high with offerings to the gods of feet and balls–chips, barbeque wieners, pretzels, sodas. But the camaraderie and boisterous conversation? I began to worry I’d stepped into a cult gathering. There was no punch bowl, luckily. When the “game” started, my lively, entertaining friends became fixated on the TV, jaws hanging open, possibly with little streams of drool running out. I don’t know. I kept my distance. When they spoke, it was to yell obscenities at the screen. Anyone making a comment unrelated to the happenings on the television was largely ignored.

I avoided looking at the screen which had turned my friends into grunting shells of humans. Something wasn’t right here.

Then the twisted ritual of men dogpiling onto each other and patting each other on the buttocks (”But we’re not gay, no, even though we grope each other and shower together and sleep together and live together on the road, why won’t you BELIEVE us?!”) was interrupted by advertisements for OTHER arcane, evil rituals. That was when things got really scary.

As soon as the ads started, my once-friendly comrades started angrily shushing the few brave souls who’d tried to engage in the “boisterous conversation” I’d come to this party specifically to experience. The vehemence made no sense to me; the DVR was recording the game. If you missed a few seconds, couldn’t you just pause during the brief conversations and then rewind so everyone who wanted to could see? (And they did rewind for particularly amusing ads people wanted to see again. Frequently.) I had been pretty quiet since the game began, unsettled by the rapt attention my pals were giving the talky box and not to one another. I made a silent note not to speak for the rest of the evening, fearing for my safety.

And what was happening on the screen wasn’t holding my attention at all. Even the famous “Super Bowl ads” were more annoying than entertaining–and what was up with the steady theme of emasculation in them this year, anyways? Maybe I was immune to the spell that hypnotized the rest of the room. I wasn’t going to give it a chance to seize me, either. About forty-five minutes into the satanic ritual, I quietly snuck my roomie’s PSP out of my bag, found a mercifully open outlet for the adapter, and began to play the Second Quest of The Legend of Zelda. (If the PSP serves any use beyond playing old Nintendo-console games, I haven’t found it.)

The ceremony continued. The angry comments at the screen continued. The impolite shushing of conversation for Commercial Time continued. After an hour or two, someone remarked that I must be bored because I wasn’t watching the game. I froze, taking a hit from an Ironknuckle in the process. Caught! I wondered if I would leave this place whole, or even alive. I quickly mumbled some lie about pausing the game to watch the ads, and this seemed to satisfy the others. Or maybe they were so deep under the TV’s spell that they couldn’t bear to look away for long. Either way, they left me alone then. I gave a discreet sigh and continued playing, only mildly annoyed that I now had to go looking for Hearts to get my sword-laser back.

And so it went. When my friends weren’t shouting vulgarities at the screen, they were hissing venom at each other for commercials. I finished one dungeon, then a second, and began looking for the White Sword and the Blue Ring.

Then several people behind the couch began having a conversation during the game. Was the spell breaking? One of them asked me a question while the others kept talking. Cautiously, I started to answer–unfortunately, just as commercials started. “SHHHHHHHHH! Shut up! Commercials!” someone at the far end of the room hissed rather pissily. I wasn’t sure if they were talking to the others, who were sitting right next to him, or to me across the room.

But I was getting pretty angry myself. I had had enough of this satanic event turning my friends into angry d-bags, when I’d come for a party. And if they were talking to me, who was that, to tell a supposed friend to shut up when they’re trying to be polite and answer a question? I shot an obscene phrase at him under my breath just in case he was addressing me, something I won’t repeat here, but which rhymed with “Ducking dock writer.” Luckily for my life and limb, everyone else had been enraptured by the TV again and didn’t hear. I muttered angrily, and started to go back to my much more important NES game–only to realize that I had just been as ferocious as everyone around me. Cold fear stabbed through me. Was the TV’s spell reaching out to me as well now?

There was only one way to resist–I buried myself in the magical Land of Hyrule and didn’t look up for the rest of the evening. By the time I had finished the third dungeon and acquired several hidden items in the Overworld, the evil game on TV was over, and I was safe. I cheered along with the others, but for different reasons.

And now the spell was broken. My friends were acting like friends again!–for the five minutes it took them to gather their coats and leftover food and exit out the door. Ah, well. At least they were all safe and whole again, and perhaps more amazingly, *I* was safe and whole.

I was happy. I said my goodnights and goodbyes and hurried out to the car. Once inside, I realized I had finally, truly escaped the wicked spell of the Super Bowl…until next year, that is. I would have to prepare intensely between now and then in order to better resist Super Bowl 2011’s occult charms.

I don’t know if I’ll be strong enough. 2011 may be the end of me.

At least I finished three dungeons in Zelda.

(P.S. This was a work of humourous fiction. The party and people in this post should not be mistaken for the party and people that I actually rocked out at/with. But writing an epic tale of struggle and betrayal and redemption is far more interesting than writing “I went to a Bowl party, it was fun, Betty White is hardcore, we ate too much, I played Zelda, and then we all went home!”)

It’s that time again, and I bring good news! I’ll get back to the appointed task of webcomic reviews soon. No, I still don’t have the notes for future articles which are sitting on my deceased computer. But I have been assembling NEW notes during the past month and reading new(-to-me) webcomics. I’m happy to say I’m tearing through Aaron Williams’ stellar but recently-halted Backward Compatible (it’s hosted on the sinking ship CrispyGamer.com, so its future is uncertain). I’m also a year and a half’s worth of archives away from having caught up on Ryan Sohmer’s and Lar DeSouza’s Least I Could Do.

So, yeah. Webcomic reviews later. Video game downloadable content reviews now!

Rants about imperfect video games are nothing new to me. Nowadays, in this era of patches, you’re not buying a complete game anymore when you shell out your $65 or so at the cash register. You’re buying the IDEA of a complete game, the POTENTIAL that all the glitches, bugs, and other oversights will someday be fixed by the development team and render the game as playable as it should have been the moment you bought the disc or download.

Sadly, this is all too often not the case. There are far too many instances where developers seem to think, “Well, we’ve made enough money on that title now; we don’t have to fix it anymore. Let’s start on the sequel!”….Which definitely pushes my rage buttons that gamers are doling out big bucks for flawed products. Let’s take a look at a specific title, the incredibly fun, but irritatingly flawed Borderlands.

The game overall is a work of genius. Fun weapons and shields, and there are ways to modify them and make them even more fun. Unique enemies (ever want to shoot psychopathic axe-wielding midgets? Well, now you can!) Humourous dialogue and so many geek references (everything from Bruce Campbell to Joss Whedon’s Firefly) that you know the makers don’t see a lot of sunlight, and you’re extremely grateful for this. Games that are heavy on the FPS aspects don’t usually catch my attention, but I’ve spent far too many hours seeing this game in action that I should have spent working!

Vanilla Borderlands actually runs as it should–most of the time. The downloadable content, however, is another story, and one that continues to light up fan forums.

“The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned”

Nice mustache! I didn’t know you could grow them OUTSIDE the surgical mask like that. Unlike his twin brother(?) Dr. Zed, Dr. Ned is definitely a man of mystery….

I love zombies. Do you love zombies? I also love shooting them in funny settings, where you’re given quests with names like “Brains” and its follow-up quests “Braaains”, “Braaaaains”, “Braaaaaaaaaaaains”, and “Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains” (can you guess what you’re collecting?) I also love parody quests like “Here We Go Again” in which you discover the planet Pandora’s versions of Scooby-Doo’s Shaggy and Scooby…Harry and Skaggy–Skags being the vicious alien dogs of Pandora with rather suggestively-shaped maws. Zoiks!

What I DON’T love are glitches, particularly glitches that never get fixed. If I buy your DLC, developers, I expect it to WORK, and if it doesn’t, you’re supposed to make good on it!

In this Zombie Island DLC, you find and repair a vending machine belonging to the weapons manufacturer Jakobs, where presumably you stand a good chance of buying hard-to-get weapons. Fans cheered this move–a unique vending machine that could help you score some of those rare and powerful weapons we’ve all heard so much about! This was much-needed because most items and their stats are randomly generated. You’re never guaranteed to find a butt-kickin’ gun in normal gameplay, so having a high-end weapons vendor that you can visit any time was a big relief.

….Except that the Jakobs machine stops working if you “turn in” the repair mission for your reward or leave the area for any reason. Once you turn in the quest or return to the machine from another area, it’s once again defunct, and you’re left with those crappy weak guns the enemies always seem to want to drop when they die. The Zombie Island DLC has been out since fall 2009. It’s now winter 2010. WHERE’S OUR BUGFIX, GEARBOX SOFTWARE?! We paid for a fully-functional add-on, not one that’s hobbled in one of its major selling points!

“Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot”

So many people bottle up their emotions, it’s nice to see someone who wears her heart on her…uhhhh…never mind.

This one seems like more of an extremely stupid oversight than an outright glitch. In the Mad Moxxi DLC, you fight arena matches against enemies and bosses from the game. There are different levels of challenges, and the greater challenges are twenty rounds long. This doesn’t seem so bad, until you realize that there five “waves” per round in which you battle multiple enemies during each wave, and a different boss every fifth wave.

How long does it take to complete twenty rounds, totaling one hundred waves? If you weren’t lucky enough to find very powerful weapons and shields during normal gameplay, you can realistically spend your entire day in the arena. My housemate took six and a half hours to get from round one to round ten, only halfway done. And this wouldn’t be that bad–a nice long challenge would be FUN, if you could put it down and pick it back up whenever you wanted.

….Except, the developers didn’t include any way to save your game during or between rounds. If your system crashes and needs a restart, or you decide to quit and come back, you have to start all over again. At round one of twenty. Apparently, Gearbox didn’t realize that most people have to work for a living and don’t have unlimited amounts of time to spend trying to complete arena challenges. And let me tell you, those challenges get really, really old after a few hours, knowing you can’t quit without losing all your progress. And here I thought games were supposed to be FUN! Silly me.

So, how about it, game developers? Here’s a little tip from the gamers of the world: we don’t want to pay for faulty, rushed products. We’d rather wait for a thoroughly playtested and bugfixed product that works from the get-go. If you’re going to take our money, at least make sure we get what we paid for.

Thank you, and good night.

By now, you may be sick of hearing about Haiti. If that’s the case, you’re pretty darn lucky right now to be well off enough that disasters don’t affect you. Haiti’s a good cause, if you’re of the donating mind. There are many good links and resources being widely advertised, and that’s why this article is not about Haiti, but about the equally-important yet lesser-known cause of putting a stop to human trafficking and slavery.

Yeah, I thought we were living in the 21st century too. Apparently some people didn’t get the memo. Here’s the situation, as written on the site I’m about to link you to:

There are currently 27 million enslaved people worldwide- more than double the number of enslaved Africans during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children every year are sold into slavery, most of it sexual. The US Department of Justice estimates 16,000 victims of human trafficking are brought into the United States every year.

A lot of wonderful webcomics have banded together and formed the Comic Creator’s Alliance. The recent donation drive they held ended January 24th, but the organizations they were trying to benefit can still be reached (and donated to) from the main page of the Alliance’s site!

There’s really not a whole lot I can say about this. Not a whole lot to BE said, really. Slavery is a Very Bad Thing which must be stopped. End of story.

I just want to give the participants their well-deserved kudos. And if you want to see who took part in the Comic Creator’s Alliance this year, drop by the listing! (And maybe drop by their webpages and give them some love on your way back from donating some coin to save humanity.) These people are fighting the good fight, doing what must be done, and all those other clichés that boil down to just being awesome people.

The more you know, amIright?

This post is coming to you in the midst of “technical difficulties.” By which I mean, my computer has currently forgotten how to boot up, and while praying the backups of my three seven-year-old hard drives are mostly up to date, I’m trying to figure out how to navigate my significant other’s non-ergonomic keyboard and smaller monitor. Please report any typos or other errors to 1-800-EAT-CRAP, okay? Thanks!

Not having access to my own files, I’m having to write this without any notes. Which, let’s be honest, I was gonna do anyways. But now I have an excuse!

This past Saturday, I got to experience my first art/fan jam, for fans of the webcomic The Draconia Chronicles. Now, I know Donnie Sturges (writer) and Danny Valentini (artist) outside of the comic. We’re all buds; we hang, we be chillin’. I know where they live and I watch them sleep. So it was pretty much a normal Saturday of hanging out for me, just with a few extra strangers present. About a dozen of us artists, friends, and fans assembled at a local restaurant, where we talked shop and drew pictures until the dirty looks of the restaurant staff could no longer be ignored (I kid–they knew in advance we’d be there all evening). Donnie and Danny even gave us a sneak peek at the next couple of pages in the comic and dropped a few hints about future events…niftin’, eh?

Normally when I’m in the company of other webcomic fans, it’s as an audience member at a panel during some convention or other. We don’t really interact with one another. We’re too busy asking questions of the artists. Once the panel’s done, we all go our separate ways and don’t really ever get to know one another. This was the first time I’d ever been able to associate with my fellow fans in such an open setting. Instead of quietly listening to the artists talk for the hour or two most panels run, we were all speaking to each other (and usually all at the same time). I saw fans that I typically see at Draconia panels, such as the Überfan who has every page of Draconia printed out and saved in a folder (complete with the comic’s title and credits on the cover, written in the Daedric runes from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion). But this time–and for the first time–it was one another we were interacting with, rather than just the artists.

More than one person commented that this fan jam was better than a convention panel. We had food, new friends, and none of the embarrassment of raising your voice in a busy panel room and asking a question that had just been answered five minutes before. Plus, ya gotta love not having to buy a convention pass in order to mingle!

I’ve seen jams hosted by other artists, and now I can totally see the appeal. If you’re looking for a good way to interact with your fanbase that doesn’t involve packing up your car and driving fifteen hours to an overpriced hotel, and doesn’t involve fighting with convention staff to respond to your emails as to whether or not you have a confirmed panel room…yeah, definitely consider looking into a local meet-up. They’re low stress (at least for us fans!) and a heckuva lotta casual fun.

Tune in next time, when I may or may not have tossed my computer into a ravine.

Warning: rant doesn’t know when to quit.

Yeah, I know Internet quizzes are too easy when it comes to rant topics. But this the first time I’ve found occasion to do it, so cut me some slack, eh?

This chunk o’ venting applies all across the board of creative arts. And it opens with a plea: creators of all kinds, STOP TAKING THOSE MARY SUE LITMUS TESTS.

Does it seem like an odd thing to write about? I’m sure it does, but I’ve run into this topic six freakin’ times in the past month, and my patience with stupidity only goes so far. Which is to say, not far at all. I’m annoyed with people who make these tests, as well as the people who actually take them in the slightest bit seriously. I mean it. I’m going to smack some heads if I see one more message from someone who’s upset that “the Internet” told them their character sucks unto Sue-ness on some ridiculous quiz just because she has four colours dyed in her hair.

If you’ve spent much time reading online, you’re almost certainly familiar with the Mary Sue/Gary Stu. They go far beyond simple “insert” characters, which are based upon a creator of the work they appear in, but aren’t necessarily Sues/Stus themselves if well-designed. Mary Sues/Gary Stus are characters who are too perfect for the world of the story they’re in, or are so stricken with bad luck despite being “perfect” that you’re supposed to just want to hug them (but often you end up only wanting them to walk off a cliff). They’re always the smart one with knowledge beyond the ken of their peers, the pretty one, and/or the hero. Every other character either wants to sex ‘em or kill ‘em, past the bounds of believability. No matter how badly they behave, other characters easily forgive them–unless those guys are the ones unnaturally obsessed with killing the character. The eyes of the story world’s other characters are always upon the Sue/Stu. The rules of the story’s reality get bent or flat-out broken in order to make a Sue/Stu look better, in both the “Sue/Stu is a shining star” way and the “Sue/Stu is deserving of ultimate sympathy” way. (Look, I’ma just call them all the traditional “Sues” from now on. If Johnny Cash can have “A Boy Named Sue”…then so can I, dammit.)

Unfortunately, as always happens with time and the Internet, the original definition gets warped. People forget how to really define the thing anymore. And suddenly, the definition is incorrectly made so broad that pretty much ANY character can be called a Sue. That’s where the Mary Sue Litmus Tests come in. If you take those quizzes, I estimate there’s a 90% chance your character will be branded a Sue by the test results. I’ll be adding my “research” (if you can call it that) here to prove my point, don’t worry.

For some reason, variations on the “Original Mary Sue Litmus Test” (if such a thing even exists anymore) plague the Internet like a bedbug infestation. For an even more unfathomable reason, budding artists take these tests for their original characters, and take the results seriously, to look at the number of feedback comments wailing “I worked so hard on making my character believable, but this test says she’s just a Sue!” Look, people–as a general rule, Internet quizzes are not written by learned experts. They’re made by bored teens in high school, by college nerds slacking off term papers, and by adult nerds after a long shift behind the cash register at work. I shouldn’t even have to say this, but I will anyways….If you take an Internet quiz–hell, even a random non-quiz website as a valid source of feedback for your creative designs, you’re not just asking for failure. You’re begging for it. Those quizzes and other non-scholarly sources will always steer you in the wrong direction.

What really screws up these tests’ Sue-definitions is that the quizzes use incorrect guidelines to determine Sue-ness. Instead of going by the believability of personality, “perfectness”, and how much the rules are bent for a character, these tests tend to focus on a character’s physical appearance, hobbies, and even their name. I plunked “Mary Sue Litmus Test” into Google and got…well…FAR more results than I wanted to see, given my obvious dislike of this quiz. No, I won’t link to them. I’m giving them too much attention just mentioning them here, really. I took the first six tests that didn’t try to spam me with pop-ups or demand my email address to get my results, and here’s my haul.

Pretty Much Everyone Is A Mary Sue according to these tests, as proven by not just using fictional characters, but also real people, yers truly included. Most of these tests, being near-clones of one another, use similar or identical scoring systems, rating your character from 0 to whatever on the Sue scale (I averaged my scores as best I could).

I took these six quizzes for three characters (two mine from two different canons, third from a video game), two real-life friends of mine, and myself. (And good gods, did that ever take forever. The things I do for you guys….) The results? Five out of those six characters/people were classed as “High Mary Sues.” The only exception was a personal character who’s a talking plant and was classed “Not a Sue”–most of the questions just don’t apply to flora. I tried to answer the questions a second time as if the plant was human, and got a “You’re a Sue!”-type score, though still lower than for us other five human(oid)s. Answers only vary so much when the character changes species. But still, I think your tests are a bit broken, guys. And I’m not the only one–the roleplayers on this LiveJournal community post voiced their own problems with how the quiz they tried was lacking (warning: link contains no-no words). Says LiveJournal user harlecerule: “Basically, the test says ‘Is your character interesting? Okay, they’re a Sue.’ without enough sections for flaws/provisos that turn a ‘Sue trait’ into ‘oh, okay’ to potentially lower the score.” Llamrei replies, “Yeah, that was kind of my impression. Basically their definition of someone who isn’t a Sue is someone who is not out of the ordinary in any way whatsoever.” Browse the 160 comments tot that post, and you’ll see the vast majority of characters tested were high Sues, regardless of how well-designed they were outside of their unique traits.

It gets better, though–the three fictional characters got a LOWER Sue score than the three real people. Yet we were all still High Mary Sues who are completely unbelievable as characters, according to this quiz. My ex-military friend who’s travelled extensively with the forces, learned all about armed combat, has several visible scars from injuries received during training, and earned numerous awards? Totally unbelievable Sue, even though his experience is pretty normal for military personnel. My friend who’s generally considered quite attractive, is multilingual, hotheaded, and very active in conservation groups? Totally unbelievable Sue, even though, again, she’s not that unusual a person in this evolving and competitive world. Me, with an unusual first and last name, frequently mistaken for being a teenager half my age, and left-handed? Totally unbelievable Sue. Apparently having any sort of unique name and DNA that’s been good to me makes me unbelievable as a character. Huh. Who knew. (Of course, I’m not writing up EVERYTHING that affected our Sue-scores…just referencing some of the more ridiculous questions on these quizzes.)

I think it’s the name questions that are some of the most ridiculous. “Does the character’s name mean something?” Unless you made up a name comprised of syllables you like the sound of, EVERYONE’S name means something in some old language. Even common names like John (Hebrew, “God’s grace”) and Margaret (Greek, “pearl”) mean something. Oh, and don’t think you’re off the hook if you just made up a name that has no meaning; unique names ALSO get you Sue points. Being named after anything in nature, such as an animal or meteorological phenomenon, nets you Sue points as well. This is where the test really screwed me, since my parents made up one of my names, and, being of Native American descent, one of my last names is an animal. Which reminds me, having a Native American character puts you in Sue territory in half the quizzes I took. I suppose I should be offended. Apparently, realistic characters don’t have names like Maria TallChief or Peter Blue Cloud. (Go ahead, Google them. I’ll wait.) Really, if you whittle the quizzes down to their bare elements, just having a name puts you in Sue territory, the way some of these tests are rigged. And gods forbid you actually put any imagination into your character’s names! Can’t have creativity when we’re creating, now, can we? That said, you’re toeing the line of Sue-ness when you name your prophesied hero “Destiny” or give names that describe characters’ traits even though no one could have predicted them at birth, like “Oak” for a strong man who’s built like a tree, or “Melody” for a character who loves singing. You can perhaps pull it off if the babies were named based upon some old fortune-teller’s vision of their future at birth, but it’s really a crapshoot.

That’s not even getting into the ways these quizzes repeatedly contradict themselves. Scars appear to be a sore point for whoever writes these things, because I saw two related questions repeated in nearly every test. “Does your character have any visible scarring from battle?” Sue points! “Does your character have no scars despite being in battle?” Sue points! The problem is that these quizzes TRY to be thorough, but they don’t ask enough questions to provide provisos, and also don’t ask the right questions. Just leaving it at “you get Sue points whether or not your character is scarred” is just sloppy writing. Why would you take a quiz about creating art that’s sloppily compiled? As another example, here’re two more contradicting questions that repeat in each of the tests. “Is your character much older than they appear?” Sue points! “Is your character much younger than they appear?” Sue points! It seems that everyone in the History Of Ever must look EXACTLY within their age range. Well, dang. I guess I’ll go punish my naughty genes now.

Additionally, these tests mistake self-insert characters (GOOD if well-written) for Sues (generally always BAD). “Does the character share your beliefs?” “Is the character’s name based off your own?” Dammit, people, how many times must I go into this? Self-inserts are NOT exclusively Sues! And when I was growing up, I was taught that you’re supposed to write what you know. Writing what you know typically does mean that you, the creator, may share a few traits with your characters. But not too much, or you can cross the line into BAD self-insert. Which is largely indistinguishable from a Sue, if a character has many of your good traits and is very skilled, but has few of your faults. I know it’s a very confusing fine line. Which brings me to the final section of this rant-and-a-half….

Basically, physical traits, names, and interests don’t make a character a Sue by default. You can have a Sue who isn’t gorgeous or doesn’t have godlike powers. Conversely, you can have a well-balanced, well-written character who IS beautiful and powerful. While many Sues DO have superior looks, hobbies, intelligence, and/or abilities, those traits do not a Sue make. What makes a Sue is the lack of balance in your character and story design. In order to have them be believable as a character, they must also be believable as a real, flesh-and-blood person. They must make mistakes and bad decisions. They can’t always have the answers. They must have flaws, and they must pay for exercising those flaws–and I mean personality flaws, like occasional cowardice or flying into rages over trivial matters. Being clumsy or missing a finger doesn’t make your character well-rounded. Those are just physical quirks.

If they have extreme power, there still must be limits on that power so they’re not ALWAYS the saviour of everyone around. For example: “Yes, I could destroy the enemy castle with my mind, but the backlash of the power would put me in a coma if it didn’t just kill me, and I’d be totally useless to you guys then.” Or “Yes, I could destroy the enemy castle with my mind, but I can’t control my powers, and it’s not worth the risk that I’d just end up killing all of us by accident instead of the enemies!”

Everyone can’t be in love with or befriend your character. Everyone is not your friend in real life, after all. Not everyone thinks you’re special, and so it must be for your characters. Everyone can’t be talking about your character when they’re not around, or following your character’s every move. Trust me, no one gives a crap about much of the stuff you (all of us) do here in the real world, and the same must hold true in your created worlds if you want balance. It’s just not that interesting for other people to sit around listening to your character explain how they were the sole saviour of the people trapped in the enemy castle by destroying it with their mind. Any rules that you create for your world must also apply to your character. I don’t care if you’ve got a Jedi with a lightsaber in medieval France. That Jedi is still going to need rules and limits on what he can and can’t do, or you’re going to have a very boring character. Your audience wants to see what makes your character sympathetic and human (regardless of actual species). If you don’t give them that, then you won’t have an audience.

So forget about those Internet quizzes, you who took them. Trust them, and you’ll end up with a pile of bland flour instead of an interesting character. Focus on making your creations well-rounded and balanced. Examine the world around you to see how people really behave, and make sure it comes through in your works. Don’t be afraid to get creative! You’ll know you’ve done a good job when you notice your audience steadily increasing and the feedback is overwhelmingly positive. (Exceptions to this include Stephenie Meyer, who is essentially paid to write Sues. But that’s another rant for another time.)

And don’t waste your breath trying to tell me how X character is obviously a Sue because they’re pretty/descended from angels/a great singer, rather than because they never do anything wrong and all the main characters have a crush on them. You need to re-read this article from the beginning if you STILL think crap which isn’t related to character personality development makes a Sue.

Yeah, I think that’s enough from me for now. I’ll be seein’ you all next time…whether you like it or not!

Greetings, Kandarian Demons!

As I am sure you are all already well aware, Fox has cancelled “Dollhouse”.  And with that, another Joss Whedon creation meets an unfair and premature demise.

It’s unfortunate, really.  Joss has proven time and again that he has some damn good skills when it comes to making stuff up and putting it out there for the masses.  “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” were both extremely popular and well-written shows, each of which managed to last at least five seasons.  Then there’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog – a whimsical internet sensation crafted by Whedon during the WGA writers’ strike back in 2008.  It ended up winning multiple awards, including an emmy.

So, it’s obvious that Joss makes good product.  That being the case, why is it that his last two returns to the small widescreen have each met with failure?  Let’s look at what both shows have in common:

Fox… and Fox.

The first show Joss brought to the 20^th Century jag-offs was that ingenious little sci-fi/western show called “Firefly”.  What made that show work was not just Whedon’s typical mastery of character and dialogue, but also his ability to deftly handle combining two widely different genres into one entertaining show.

Sadly, Fox mishandled this one from the beginning.  First pre-empting it several times with their coverage of the World Series, “Firefly” was stuck on Friday nights – the place where shows go to die.  And to add insult to injury, Fox didn’t even show the episodes in order.  Skipping the two-hour pilot that would have introduced all of the characters, as well as get viewers properly acquainted with Joss’ new universe, the nutwork instead went with the second episode.  This caused a lot of viewers, including me, to scratch my head as I tried to figure out who everyone was and why things were the way they were.  Fox continued to show the episodes out of order until they finally made the decision to pull the plug, refusing to even show the last couple of episodes.  The salt – airing the full two-hour pilot after the cancellation was announced.  That’s showing them, Fox!

And now we have history practically repeating itself.  Once again, Joss Whedon has the plug pulled on a show that had the potential to be great.  Now, I know that he first season of “Dollhouse” wasn’t quite as brilliant as his previous bodies of work.  In fact, the first half of season one was kind of dull, with characters that were difficult to invest in.  Joss’ signature repartee was there, but it felt forced and ill-fitting with this cast of players.  Part of the problem stemmed from the fact that none of these characters seemed to embody that balance of dour and humor.  They were mostly dark.

The blame for this doesn’t rest solely on Whedon’s shoulders, if it lies with him at all.  Once again, the Fawkes network stepped in and did their usual meddling.  First, they made Joss rewrite and/or reshoot several episodes.  Joss has admitted in interviews that the first half of season one was different than what he wanted.  This would explain why the second half seemed to improve.  Then the “Dollhouse” was put where the last Whedonshow died a miserable death – on Friday nights.  Ratings remained abysmal even when the better half of the show aired.

But then, something incredible happened.  Despite bad ratings, “Dollhouse” was renewed for a second season.  Could it be that Fox was finally realizing how badly it kept screwing over the guy who created Captain Tightpants?

Nope.  Sorry.  Just a slight ray of hope only to be extinguished as the network that didn’t understand “Herman’s Head” put “Dollhouse right back on Friday nights.  From there, things continued to go downhill for the show, until Fox made it official a few weeks ago that they were canceling it.  Oh, I know – the official announcement was only made last week.  But Fox made it clear by their actions first – through TV spots announcing that new episodes would not be airing until December, filling their slot with repeats of “House”.  And further, they made it known that they would burn off the rest of the episodes in December.  That’s pretty much preparing the rope for the gallows.

So, here we are… another Joss Whedon show has been canceled.  It’s unfortunate, as the second season was really starting to amp things up.  I stuck with the show through the muck and mire and found myself really starting to like it by the time I got to the most recent new episode.  But once again, Whedon and his fans find themselves back to the drawing board.  As we wait to see what genius he can pull of next and where it might turn up, Joss bides his time until he can put something new out there for everyone to enjoy.  Question is, where will it turn up?

I think he should go back to the web.  His craft seems to work better there.  His fans have unlimited access to his work, and his art seems to thrive in that environment.  There is money and success to be had there if you know how to approach it correctly, and I think Joss has already proven that he knows how to do that.

He certainly seems to have a better grasp on it than Fox.

The Don needs his handler.

Greetings, Banana Splits!

There comes a time in every child’s life when they must put away childish things and become an adult…

…or they can say “To Hell with that” and continue to have fun by going to conventions like Nekocon.

Guess which one I did this past weekend?

To be fair, I was there in an official capacity, as my partner-in-crime Danny Valentini and I were invited to the convention again this year to be guests.  Supposedly, we do this web comic together called “The Draconia Chronicles” that grows in popularity every year.  Now, I would just chalk this up to rumor for now, because everyone knows that there are no such things as web comics.  That’s just a story parents tell their children at night to scare them so that they won’t grow up to get online degrees.

You should know the drill by now – I do a quick recap of my weekend at a convention, you skim over it feeling unfulfilled, then we both reluctantly agree that we need to see other people as we give back all the items we borrowed or gave to each other.

I’m still waiting to get back my copy of the “The White Album.”

As con Fridays go, this year’s Neko offered pretty much the standard fare – I show up at the convention center about two hours before the Opening Ceremonies.  Heading up to the “Con-Ops” room, I procure my Guest badge.  After some spirited conversation about topics I have no recollection of discussing, I make a dotted bee-line for our table in the Artists Alley.  I say dotted because one can never just go to where they are going at a convention.  Invariably, there will be many stops and restarts as you run into old friends for a quick chat, pose for pictures, stop to take pictures, notice something shiny, pause to ponder the secrets of the universe, stop because you’re chewing gum, or hesitate because the all-powerful con gods sent a messenger to you with a gift consisting of this confection called “Pocky”.  And no, I don’t mean the owner of Spwug.

As I survey the landscape of the cavernous region known as the Artists Alley, I catch up with more fellow AA (not Alcoholics Anonymous) commoners as I wait for my cohort to arrive.  I also wait for time to slowly transport me into the future, for that is where the Opening Ceremonies await me.

When the Hour of Trying to Fool People Into Thinking You Are Someone Important in Front of a Medium-Sized Crowd is finally at hand, my recently arrived partner-in-crime and I make our way into the even more cavernous region where the Ceremonies are to take place.  After a series of horrible attempts at humor that are the reason my parents gave me up for adoption, Danny and I – fully convinced that no one knew who the heck we were – remove ourselves and head back over to “Con-Ops”, where we trade our silly old Guest badges for shinier and cooler “Neko Bazaar” badges.  With renewed vigor, we return to the first cavernous area of which I had already mentioned previously.  From there, we set up our table, and begin the attempt to peddle our wares for the rest of the evening.  And that, little Christopher, is how babies are born.

Saturday finds us arriving early, long before noon’s rising sun can greet us.  We have a panel to host and candy tied to strings so that we can lure entice the con masses to our little panel room.  We are able to capture accrue a respectable number of individuals despite our outlandish buffoonery on display.  In fact, I do believe that a couple of them even stop screaming long enough to ask us questions about our web comic.  I call that a success.  Then again, I call not getting maced in the face when I ask a woman the time a success.

From there, we return to our temporary abode in the Artists Alley for more shilling, more debauchery, more talky-talky…blah blah blah…  You’re already asleep, so we’ll skip ahead…

Two in the afternoon!  We have another panel!  But our princess is in another castle!  Dejected from finding yet another one of those stupid Toadstool weirdoes (where do they all come from?  Do they multiply like rabbits?), we make our way back to the same room our last panel was in.  In a strange case of déjà vu, the room looks exactly the same as the last time we were in it.  In fact, maybe this really is the first time we are in it, and the first time really wasn’t the first time, but instead a strange message from the future telling us what lie in store for our fates.

Nope, same room, different panel.

This time we are joined by real artists and writers as we try our best to sound like we know as much as they do about making web comics.  I think we have them fooled right up to the point where I mention something about the right amount of tension needed on a loom when interweaving the threads of a web comic.  I’m not sure where the audience got the pitch forks and torches, but it makes for an exciting conclusion to what I think was a successful panel.

As my counterpart and I make our escape back to the Caverns of AA, we easily slip back into our respective roles – he’s the DJ and I’m the rapper.  Sales seem to be going well on our new “Men of the Quadratic Equation” calendar, as well as a few other items we have somehow managed to fool the commonfolk into believing have magical powers – mainly some Shamwow!s, as well as a few pounds of Mighty Putty.  Throughout the afternoon and evening we get several con-goers who stop by claiming to be fans of our web comic.  But, I know the truth.  After being visited by them as often as I am, you tend to recognize evil spirits when they show up to haunt you and ask you for favors.

It is at this point that I also have a vision that my wife is in an 80s glam-pop band.  I shiver from the delusion, then down a couple burgers that are really cookies.  My life is strange.

The greatest highlight of Saturday has to be in the evening when we go to dinner.  It isn’t often when an evil spirit actually tries to get you drunk so that they can take advantage of you.  Joke’s on him, though.  I would have said yes sober.

Sunday seems to be a blur.  No, I mean every Sunday seems to be a blur.  I think my brain just hates living in my cranial cavity so much that it just decides to shut down every seventh day as a middle finger to me and my ancestors.  I can’t fathom why.  I mean, it isn’t my fault that the Waltons aren’t real.

Now that I think about it, I do seem to recall some events took place on Neko’s Day of Sun.  We have a final panel wherein we are usurped by dark forces who yank the proverbial rug out from under us by yanking the actual rug out from under us.  I think we still manage to do a fairly adequate job of teaching the wailing masses how not to create or develop characters.  At least, I pray to Bill Cosby that we did.

A few more hours of trying to prove to the con folk that we are not wax statues and the con is officially over.  As my main squeeze who is not my wife but is really the artist who draws the web comic I scribble words for and I break down and cry our set-up at the table in the AA Caverns, we say our goodbyes to a few of the fellow artists who were crazy enough to talk to us.  We make our way to the bar in the hotel that is across the way from the convention center.  I remark as we head over that a way looks an awful lot like grass and asphalt.  Once inside the bar, a friend buys me an apple pie – except that this pie is really liquid and I have to drink it instead of eat it.  But hey, in today’s economy everyone has to make sacrifices – even our American icons.  I heard that baseball is currently just gardening in order to save money.

With the evening now upon us, we make our way to Olive Garden.  There, a free meal awaits all of us who were sneaky enough to convince the staff that we were Guests Neko Bazaar attendees.  But first we stand outside the restaurant to play a game called “Parking Lot-to”.  The object of the game is to stand out in the parking lot until the number of people in your party matches the number called.  Our group makes it to the bonus round, where we win some fabulous prizes – including our meals, as well as a copy of the home game.  I can’t speak for those who are still in the parking lot after we are seated, though I’m told that “manicotti formaggio” is Italian for “convention stragglers”.

I’m glad I ordered the chicken alfredo.

The Don would like to give his heartfelt thanks to everyone at Nekocon for their gracious generosity and hopes to be invited back next year!

Some were expecting me to write a nice long rant about Jeph Jacques’s* recent blog post on the “State of the Webcomics Union”, part of which read:

The idea of critical analysis of webcomics has largely died out. Sure, people still blog about webcomics and “review” them and stuff, but it’s become a tiny, tiny niche sector. I think this is mainly because there’s not a whole lot of point to reviewing something anybody can go look at for free and make up their own mind about! Is this a good thing? I have no idea.

*The creator of the terrific webcomic Questionable Content, reviewed by yers truly here.

I’m not going to write a nice long rant on this rather controversial view because, well, just look at that statement. I shouldn’t have to point out the irony of someone saying that talking about the world of webcomics is becoming obsolete in a heavily-read blog post that is talking about the world of webcomics. Also, even though the majority of my current articles aren’t about webcomics, most of the traffic I get here on Spwug comes from people who are looking for more information about them. So, you know. Suck on that for a bit. You can split hairs about what you think was actually being said on ye olde LiveJournal, but I’m here to write about something more positive this week.

Instead of complaining about geek divisions, I’m here to talk about geek love, and how it penetrates (huh huh, I said “penetrates”) webcomics, even through other genres of nerdism.

Tonight, I watched the supremeariffic (it’s a word now) parody movie The Gamers: Dorkness Rising. As anyone who’s seen it knows, it relies heavily on making funny commentary about dice gamers. But it went beyond that, oh, yes. Within the first few minutes, the character Nodwick was introduced–a henchman NPC (not to be confused with Dungeons & Dragons’ hireling NPC’s), whose primary role is to lug the adventuring party’s crap and do all the little odd jobs the player characters just don’t want to do–like guarding treasure–as it would distract them from seducing tavern wenches and priestesses.

Hey, wait, this Nodwick guy sounds familiar…and I don’t just mean in the context of Dungeons & Dragons parody. Why is that….Oh, I know! The webcomic Nodwick, which is itself a nod to tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons. A gaming movie nod to a webcomic that’s a gaming nodwick?

META BLACK HOLE. MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF SCARS.

For much of the movie, the gamemaster wears a shirt featuring switchblade-toting rabbit Bun-bun, from the webcomic Sluggy Freelance. While not a gaming parody webcomic (Sluggy pokes fun at pretty much everything), it wasn’t any less “nifty” a nod, as the Sluggites would say. It gives me a fuzzy tingle to think of the movie crew, largely geeks in real life as well, leaving the dice and the set to go home and possibly read webcomics.

Maybe we don’t have hundreds of thousands of webcomic-reviewing blogs right now, like we do for celebrity scandals and politics (both MASSIVELY more well-known topics than online comics; let’s be honest here). But it’s not like discussion of the digital-comic world is going away, despite what Jacques wrote. If anything, the discussions are growing in number, as webcomics themselves become less limited to the dark corners of the Internet and start penetrating (heeeeee) the general online realm, and the world outside our computers as well. More people read webcomics; thus, more people discuss webcomics. (How many movies would have featured webcomics fifteen years ago, hmmm?) You no longer have to perform arcane rituals in order to find a webcomic review, and these reviews are no longer limited to randomly-updating personal blogs. Now, you can talk about your favourite online comics at convention panels, while hanging out with friends, or even with total strangers who recognize your Bun-bun shirt on the street. Online, you can find reviews of webcomics on almost any site that appeals to the general nerd, in the comments as well as the posts. Opinions are EV’-RY-WHERE! To say that expressing opinions about one single topic is dying out is not that much less absurd than saying that expressing opinions in general is dying out. You know what they say about opinions and arseholes, after all….

And this was mine. Opinion, I mean. You don’t get to see the other thing.

Well. I guess I did rant a little after all. Therapeutic! I’ll see ya all next time, yo.