Sententia 2.0

Another old favorite of mine, though unlike "Something Positive", the shine's starting to come off a bit. The issue I have with "Dominic Deegan" is its manga-esque tendency to swerve from emotional extreme to emotional extreme; things are either bizarrely optimstic or morosely depressing, and the author has never really found middle ground, so to speak. A relatively light-hearted story about a crime wave being foiled ended with slit throats and lots of blood before curving back to optimism again (good guys win, best friends part amicably, blah blah blah). Jacob Deegan's past appearance involved the attempted murder of his younger brothers, and when he turned up a few weeks ago it was all puns and giggles. Very abrupt, very jarring.

Of course, I can't discount my own experience when evaluating this series: when I first discovered "Dominic Deegan", it was building up to "The Storm of Souls", a very intense and kinetic storyline centered around a climactic confrontation between good and evil. The storyline before that had Nurse Pam being assaulted by a bunch of jocks; prior to that, Dominic and Luna were caught up in a treacherous scheme involving demonic possession, orgies, serial killings and a psychotic Infernomancer. In other words, my initial expectations of the series were founded on the belief that it was transitioning from comedy to drama, from light to dark, and that the series was "growing up" in a sense. Now, several storylines later, it's starting to look like that transition wasn't as complete as I thought; indeed, it's altogether possible there was never any deliberate shift in the first place, that I mistook coincidental arc placement for deliberate progression.

That realization stems primarily from Mookie's (the author's) aversion to taking risks with his cast - if you run a whole storyline about a cataclysmic war in Hell, and the only casualty is an obnoxious third-stringer who was designed to be hated, you might be holding on a bit too tightly. Even the villains keep coming back again and again. Fake-outs (where you think a character's been killed, only to discover they miraculously survived the next day) have been used so often at this point that it's hard to be genuinely invested in any storyline that suggests a real threat to the protagonists and their relationship; this just isn't the kind of comic where such threats could even come close to fulfillment.

That said, "Dominic Deegan" has a lot going for it: the art is cute without being cloying, the puns are always fun to groan at, and Mookie never finds himself at a loss for a new angle. And if it's not as mature as it could be, and if the shifting tone can get a bit erratic at times, it's still worth reading in the long run.

After being stuck in a bit of a holding pattern, I've decided to dive back into the wonderful world of webcomics. I'd like to start this (tentative) series off with some strips I'd found before and am still following:

R.K. Milholland's Something Positive is a perfect example of how imperceptible change can be until you step back and take in the big picture. Looking at the series as a whole, it seems that "Something Positive" has drastically changed its tone over the last year or so, but if you've been reading it regularly, you probably haven't noticed - it's been a very slow and gradual shift.

What originally drew me to "Something Positive" was Milholland's fantastic use of black humor, but that's been tapering off lately; these days, storylines tend to alternate between drama and comedy rather than conflate the two. The easiest point of comparison is the recent "Last Hours" storyline, a morbid depiction of Scotty Harris' suicide, and "This Is How We Say Goodbye", the original iteration of that storyline.

See the difference? S*P used to have a punchline for any event, no matter how inappropriate. But I don't think there's any funny to be found in Scotty's demise or Kharisma's nadir.

Which isn't to say that the strip's worse off, really. It's just adopted a different tone, and the narrative structure's changed now that the main characters have split up; in earlier years, most storylines linked back to at least one member of the core group (ie: each stage of Mike's development intersects with either Davan or Peejee), and these days the ongoing storylines lose a bit of cohesion because we're constantly moving back and forth between Boston and Bedford.

But the humor's still there in some form, and every now and then Milholland proves that he's as twisted as ever, so at the end of the day, it's all good.

The pool was refilled...

"Alice in Wonderland" set Dave off...

That beautiful "dream gallery" at the end, and Dave's childbearing predictions actually coming true...

Shaenon Garrity, I salute you. I am in awe of you. I am so very, very glad to have read "Narbonic".

Or: "The Journey of a Thousand Strips Begins With Bloody Eyes"

(New thread: the old one got a bit messed-up during a recent edit.)

My progress report thus far:

( The List )

Some reviews - though I won't be covering everything I've read:

UPDATED:

"Boy Meets Hero" (http://www.boymeetshero.com/): This could have worked. The most popular superhero in Golden Bay City is living a triple life - he's Blue Comet, defender of the people; he's Derek Maxwell, unassuming civilian; and he's Derek Maxwell, homosexual. But his closeted status is threatened when he falls in love with Justin Summers, an ordinary guy with a bit of a hero worship complex. So far so good, but the dialogue is simply atrocious. It reads like an especially corny romance comic from the '50s - "I can't believe I'm dating a superhero! He's so strong and muscular! I'm so lucky! I wuv you! No, I wuv you!" Gag me with a red-hot spoon.

"Home on the Strange" (http://www.homeonthestrange.com/): You know, the first thing that came to mind while reading this was Aerie's "Queen of Wands". It has a very similar style of humor, with the pop culture references and the gentle satire of geek culture, and the characters are entertaining both on their own and in their group dynamics. It's relatively new, so there's still plenty of room to see where it's going, but so far I like it a lot.

"Tom Sparks, Atomic Detective" (http://www.atomicdetective.com/): This is a perfect example of one thing I simply adore about webcomics - the willingness to experiment with genres and forms. "Tom Sparks", for example, combines noir murder mystery, superheroics and B-movie sci-fi to create an intriguing story that smoothly merges its various inspirations into a cohesive whole.

( The Reviews )

It's one of the first things a new reader will discover about comics: All Their Base Are Belong To Superhero.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with the superhero genre - quite the contrary, it's as valid a storytelling vehicle as any other. It's given birth to its fair share of masterpieces, from Morrison's "Zenith" to Moore's "Watchmen" to Robinson's "Starman" and more.

The problem, insofar as the Big Two are concerned, isn't with the genre but with the companies' near-total commitment to said genre. For over four decades, superhero stories have dominated the genre in a rather vicious cycle: they sell, so Marvel and DC make more superheroes and hype them as being even bigger, everyone makes more money, repeat ad nauseum. These days, the superhero genre has become so bloated that it dominates the market, squeezing out anything that steps outside the box, that challenges generic limitations. I suppose that, from a marketing perspective, it's a fact of business: there are only so many spotlights, and you're not going to hype "Sentinel" over "Civil War". Consequently, books that deviate too much from the superhero formula don't sell, get cancelled, and everyone clucks their tongues wishing the market was more hospitable.

DC is slightly better at this - they have the resources to establish imprints like "Vertigo", which has produced more than its fair share of excellent non-superhero stories. However, this also means that the DCU proper is even more congested with superheroes than the Marvel universe, by virtue of having somewhere to shunt those non-spandex concepts. Of course, this hardly bodes well for books that are neither DCU nor Vertigo, such as Gerber's "Hard Time" or Pfeifer's "H-E-R-O".

It's a very frustrating situation, because generic conformity is rarely an indication of actual quality. On the creative spectrum, it's simply inconceivable that "New Avengers" does better than "Runaways", or that "Superman/Batman" outsells "Fables". But the market - and the greater readership, I suppose - seem to regard quality as secondary to fulfilling very, very specific roles and traits.

Incidentally, this is precisely why I stay away from printed indie comics, or even companies like Image - for all that they allow themselves greater freedom in trying new things, they're still subject to commercial considerations, and I feel they're untrustworthy for this reason: writers like Jason Rand will have the fortitude to try something different with "Small Gods", and it will work on every level save the one that keeps it on the shelves.

With webcomics, I see a symbiotic effect reminiscient of fanfiction, or rather the rationale behind fanfiction: namely, the idea of an alternative which addresses a lack. Just as fanfic allows writers and readers to explore concepts that can't or won't play out in the canon, webcomics seem to hold up a mirror to its printed sibling, exploring all the areas neglected by the latter. From what I've seen, superhero webcomics are rather rare - if they're there at all, there's usually some postmodern or parodic spin (ie: "Evil Inc.").

The most common webcomic genre seems to be the down-to-earth "slice of life" - in many ways the antithesis of the flashy, high-action world of the superhero. Series like "Something Positive" and "Boy Meets Boy" are largely about ordinary people in ordinary situations, and it would be mundane if not for the fact that they're interesting people. This, I think, points to a glaring flaw in the traditional superhero scheme: if you take away the powers and the adventures, the heroes themselves aren't very engaging characters. There's a monotony to Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker, a static aspect to their depictions where they go through the motions of aging and changing and progressing and learning, but it never sticks and it's never particularly profound. After all, the story requires the hero to save the day, and that's what makes the story - as Bendis' run on "Daredevil" proved, many people simply aren't interested in reading a series about Matt Murdock, rather than the red-clad Man Without Fear.

Of course, it's important to note that genres can be broken up into sub-genres: you've got superhero comedies, superhero detective stories, superhero tragedies and superhero dramas in comics. But while the same division can be found in slice-of-life webcomics, webcomics in general seem to allow a range of generic experimentation miles beyond the Big Two. Epic fantasies, fairy tales, surreal horror... and that's without looking at the sprite sub-genre, which is a whole other box of matza. They're not all slice-of-life in the way the majority of comic sub-genres are still superhero stories. Personally, I attribute this to the fact that webcomic authors have no mandate and no higher authority than themselves - no matter how fresh the blood on a Superman book, it will still be a Superman book at the end of the day. So, at least on the level of genre representation, webcomics certainly have an advantage.

This dovetails nicely into next time's post, where I'll be discussing the commercial/creative schism and how it affects the playing fields. Is it really all about the money? How might the different sets of priorities affect the creators?

Well... where do I begin? This is an introduction to a series of commentary posts I'll be making regarding a dilemma I'm facing: namely, which is the better medium to follow, the printed comics of Marvel and DC or webcomics? I'll be looking at the question from several perspectives: limitations of the medium, common genres, creative potential and so on.

It's no secret that I've been very disappointed in the directions taken by the Big Two of comics in recent years: DC with its impenetrable crossovers and incessant preoccupation with times and stories past, Marvel with its shallow stunts and creatively bankrupt endeavors. Before anyone asks, yes, I'm aware of indie comics, or even secondary companies like Image and Dark Horse, but they don't interest me for reasons I'll get into later.

While my interest in comics has been waning, I've been exploring the field of webcomics, and it's been a very different and very interesting experience. Not all good, of course, but I can't deny that webcomics have emerged as a very strong rival for my entertainment to comics.

I should emphasize here that I'm focusing on writing and story, as I've never been one to evaluate art - it's also not really relevant to the discussion, since webcomic creators obviously don't have the resources available to comic companies to polish their artwork.

The question is: since I'm not happy with the status of the comics industry as it stands, and there's no indication anything is going to change in the coming months, should I just abandon comics altogether? Should I move onto what may be greener pastures? It's a tempting prospect, since there's finally a viable alternative in sight. I've been thinking about this for some time, and I haven't come to any concrete conclusions: these posts will basically be me throwing things out and trying to put my thoughts in order.

(http://www.questionablecontent.net)

The problem with "Questionable Content" is that it is, by definition, a "will they/won't they" story - the focus is almost entirely on Faye and Marten and their ambiguous feelings towards each other. Sure, there are secondary characters like Steve and Dora around, but they don't have any independent existence outside their connections to the protagonists.

Now, on a purely technical level there's nothing wrong with the "will they/won't they" model, aside from the limited scope: the automatic assumption is that "they will" sooner or later, because that's the only way the story can move forward. The denial of romance is only meant to create obstacles for the characters that will inevitably be overcome. Of course, once the lovers get together, the story's over because the question has been answered: try to stretch it any further and you end up with something like "Dawson's Creek".

What Jeph Jacques does is... to be honest, I'm not entirely sure. He's either saying "They won't" and building his entire series around sexual tension that won't come to fruition (which is a nice, if pointless, way of deflecting expectations), or he's saying "They will, eventually" and decompressing on a beyond-Bendisian scale. Because there's no sense of progress, however minimal. We know there's a reason Faye can't let herself love Marten, but that reason only becomes clear during a storyline that kicks off in the series' 500th strip.

That bears reiterating. Jacques spends 499 strips making fun of the tension, acknowledging its existence, but refusing to do anything with it. Faye gets drunk, makes an ambiguous pass at Marten, blacks out, wakes up and punches him, repeat ad nausem. And on the 500th strip he finally gets around to establishing the primary obstacle to the relationship. Not resolving it, not even beginning to deal with it. He simply tells the readers that it's there.

There is such a thing as waiting too long, IMO.

It wouldn't be so bad if there was something else going on, if the Faye/Marten story was simmering in the background while other subplots took the lead. But we don't have any real reason to care about Steve's dating problems or Dora's identity crisis, because they're not complete characters in their own right. Their stories are completely entangled in those of the protagonists'.

The end result is that "Questionable Content" is a mortifyingly slow read - the humorous aspects work well enough, specifically anything to do with Pintsize, but they're not as dominant in the story as they should be. Everything else is given over to Faye and Marten, who develop so minimally (if at all) that I just completely lost interest.

First strip here: http://boymeetsboy.keenspot.com/d/20000926.html
Archive here: http://boymeetsboy.keenspot.com/calendar.html

This one really impressed me. As the title suggests, it's predominantly based on a love story between two guys - in case of homophobia, the exit is in the upper-right corner of your browser.

There's a lot to say about this strip in terms of what it delivers, but I want to look at the process of its creation. As I understand it, it started with K. Sandra Fuhr's first series, "Utopia", a sci-fi comedy that featured a vampire threesome: Mikhael, Harley and Tybalt. While developing these secondary characters, Fuhr decided to spin them off into their own series, "This Is Home", making them the protagonists of the story. "Utopia", as far as I know, was removed and is currently undergoing a drastic revision.

"This Is Home", described by the author herself as the product of teenage high school angst, was a bit typical of "fangirl excess a la Anne Rice" - a lot of blood, rape, brutality, pain and horror, not necessarily done for purely artistic reasons. Ultimately, Fuhr felt (rightly so) that it didn't really work, and abandoned "This Is Home" (going so far as to remove it from the Internet altogether), transplanting Mikhael and Harley (eventually followed by other supporting cast members from both prior series) into a realistic setting, and a different genre altogether. This was the birth of "Boy Meets Boy", and it's not hard to see why it became so popular during its run - having removed the unnecessary trappings, Fuhr let the characters make the story; they became accessible and believable as people.

This process of development is interesting because, while BMB stands on its own, it's intriguing to see where and how Fuhr reconfigures her own mythos and characters when making the cross-genre transition. You can't get away with a legitimate threesome in a romantic comedy, the way you might if you were writing a pseudo-Gothic fantasy, so the relationships have to be recontextualized.

BMB itself can also be seen as an ongoing development, in that it's clear Fuhr didn't have every detail planned out when she launched the series (ie: Abby was introduced as a major player, only to summarily vanish when Aurora came in). But where this would trip up the overall narrative of lesser writers, Fuhr takes advantage of the unpredictable angles by working them into the series on a thematic level. Mik and Harley aside, no one in this series ends up where you think they will - it's both the result of changed plans and a comment on the unpredictability of life, circumstance and growth.

So what is "Boy Meets Boy"? It's a very sweet, simple love story laced with humor that ranges from wacky (Tabitha's supernatural hijinks) to irreverent (the "Whee! I'm naked!" running gag) to just plain funny (the "Girl Meets Girl" parody). The series initially centers around the romance of Mikhael and Harley, but once the secondary characters are established it becomes a wider tapestry of interpersonal relationships. There's a very manga-esque sensibility about it: big eyes, a bit of androgyny, odd hairstyles and a general optimism that never allows the story to sink too far into melodrama or tragedy. Sex plays a major role, but it's barely risque - if you can watch "Brokeback Mountain" without flinching, you'll have no problem here.

Most of the characters are gay or at least bisexual - even Cyanide, the token heterosexual guy, has "impure thoughts" about his best friend. It would be a bit monotonous in a "Queer as Folk" way if being gay was an issue, but it isn't. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see characters who don't succumb to stereotypes - or if they do, there's more to them than just the stereotypes. Orientation isn't a selling point here, the way it was for characters like Northstar or Midnighter and Apollo. Fuhr's characters are who they are, and there's never any qualification or justification given to Mikhael and Harley: they're in love, and they're no different from anyone else. I can only think of one or two storylines where the fact that they're gay is actually brought up as an explicit plot point, but even then, it's a long, long way from the kind of self-hating tripe you'd get in a Kevin Williamson story or a Marvel/DC "OMG GAY!!!" type of thing.

There are moments of saccharine fangirlishness, of the type that made me wince and would probably go over much worse with male readers... but those moments are few and far between, and easily forgiven. Mikhael in particular starts off as this ridiculously overblown romantic archetype (his pickup line is "We are now as one"), but it becomes clear as the story proceeds that this is the whole point of his character: he's so socially inept that he looks to Pablo Neruda as a guide to flirtation. It's also a bit of an in-joke, because while characters in the realistic mode wouldn't talk like this, Master Vampire Mikhael of "This Is Home" probably would.

One of the things I love most about this strip is, as I mentioned before, its unpredictability. Protagonists nonwithstanding, almost every other character's journey takes a 90-degree turn sooner or later. You really get the sense that these people are changing and evolving as time goes by - some (Skids) more than others (Tabitha). I also like that some things aren't resolved: Fuhr never gave Cyanide closure, even though she could have in the name of fanservice. But she stuck to her guns for the story's sake, and wrapped the series up with a string of new beginnings. Friends drift apart, babies are conceived, new relationships start... and we'll never know what happens next. It's the lesson Neil Gaiman taught us in "Sandman": endings always lead to new beginnings, but the story has to stop somewhere.

In point of fact, when Fuhr launched "Friendly Hostility" (a spin-off from BMB focusing on Fox and Collin, introduced midway through the series but originating in "Utopia" - see what I mean about the development process?), she made it very clear that we'd never see other BMB characters in this new series. Not as guest-stars, not in cameos, not even in the background. Because that story is over.

It's almost a mirror image of "Something Positive" in a way. Fuhr tells the story of a group of friends who eventually split apart and find their own paths, whereas Milholland starts his story after the break, focusing on a handful of people who were once part of a larger group. And we never see that group. There was one storyline when PeeJee flashes back to those old friends, but nobody shares her nostalgia; even Davan, who spends most of his life stuck in the past, tells her it's a waste of time to think about the people who were part of their lives once and aren't anymore.

I recommend this webcomic with one reservation only: it may appeal more to women than men. I'd be very interested to hear the straight male perspective on this series, to see if the author's gender influences the way the story is told and if that, in turn, influences the opinions of women vs. men as readers.

Randy K. Milholland's "Something Positive" (http://www.somethingpositive.net) is the jewel in the crown of webcomics.

I don't profess to be an expert in webcomics. I doubt I've covered a tenth of what's going on out there. But I very much doubt I'll find anything as funny, as poignant, as real as this masterpiece. It's so easy to see Davan, PeeJee, Aubrey and their friends as people; so easy to miss cast members who walk away; so easy to care, despite the girls' propensity for mindless violence and Davan's endless supply of snark. It's unconventional. It's unpredictable. It's fun. It's fucking brilliant. And while it favors comedy over drama, there are moments that hurt, and Milholland always knows when to pull away, and exactly how much we need to see without going overboard.

I can't recommend this webcomic strongly enough.