So, remember back on March 30th when I was tingling with joy at the prospect of Spring arriving with 70+ degree weather? Well, that didn't last. Now, it's 35 outside and today I had to walk through tons of fluffy, cold slush falling from the sky to get lunch. Great big gobs of slush. In late April. That's a crime. Daylight Savings Time + Snow is like one those thought puzzles that makes your brain hurt.
In other news, I'm totally ready for Summer Break (which is 1/3rd in Spring, ever notice that?...Schools bend reality to fit their needs). I can't wait to get home and blast my tunes in my own room on my nice hifi stuff.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Alas, Megatokyo
I love webcomics. They're practically the reason I get out of bed in the morning. I've never really gotten into comic books (aside from some Star Trek comics years ago) and newspaper "funnies" are not a big part of my existance, but web comics bring me such joy. Penny Arcade, PvP, Real Life, the hillariously awesome Questionable Content, Queen of Wands, Todd and Penguin, Mac Hall, Diesel Sweeties, Perry Bible Fellowship, Wigu/Overcompensating, and others make it clear to me that we have witnessed the birth of something special here.
A few years ago, Megatokyo would have been on that list. Megatokyo, after Penny Arcade, was one of the first webcomics I really got into. PA, demonstrated the potential of the medium. Megatokyo introduced the potential for plot. Back then, I loved it. It was constantly funny, basking in gamer and anime culture while simultaenously mocking both of them. The first two years were brilliant. And then, as they say, everything changed.
Honestly, the last time I enjoyed a Megatokyo strip was October 24th, 2004. I know because I blogged about it. That's kinda sad. Not only has it sucked since then, but the reason I blogged about it is because for one brief, shining moment, it stopped the streak of sucking that it had been on for such a long time. What a loss. A few years ago, I was a huge MT fan. I still have, and often sleep under, the MT Sad Kimiko blanket.
It's pretty clear that this descent from greatness started with the departure of Rodney "Largo" Caston (which, like all things is detailed at Wikipedia). In the beginning, MT was funny, it moved fast (they got drunk and mistakenly get stuck in Tokyo in the space of what, two, three strips?), and it had an energy and a vibrance to it. Then Caston left. Today, the strip is a shell of what it was in 2002. Basically, in the 2.5 to 3 years since that time, nothing has happened plot wise in the strip. It's become this long meandering narrative that goes nowhere. Whoop-de-do Kimiko's finally on the radio. Didn't Piro show a sketch of that somewhere like, years ago? Something (I'm not sure what) finally happened with Largo and Erika. This took years.
Let me put this into perspective: Babylon 5, which has an immensly complicated plot, took five years. Megatokyo has been around five years. If B5 moved at the speed that MT did, the pilot episode would still be going. How do you go five years with so little plot development!?!?!? Truly, this astounds me. How far has Piro and Kimiko's relationship come since she spilled coffee on him in October, 2000. Almost nothing. A date perhaps? Nah. Some sort of relationship? Nah. We finally found out that Miho had met Piro and Largo in a game online, and was cheating or something. Come to think of it, that's all we know about her. That, and she has some illness. We've basically learned nothing. The whole point of a mysterious character is to remove the mystery. Back when Yuki had Piro's sketchbook, that was cool...She was the only character in the strip, besides Seraphim, that could really see into Piro's head. Now, all we get of her is Piro constantly missing his drawing lesson with her. Seriously how much longer can that stupid plot go on for? Honestly, glaciers move faster than this.
This didn't happen overnight. After Caston left, there was still Great Teacher Largo. There were still the hillarious catoons with Makoto, the server, being kidnapped. The whole disaster squad thing was funny. Ed and Dom were funny. Ping and her various oddities was great. But slowly, all of that faded away. I think Piro, working on his own, lost the point of his own strip. He's caught between the all-consuming urge to have this relationship angle take over the strip, while at the same time he keeps the characters set in ice, never changing or evolving. That does not work in a plot. The author has to let go and let the characters evolve, else things become boring and tedious, as MT has.
Monday's Penny Arcade demonstrates what it would be like if Tycho banished Gabe and turned PA into his own creation. The results are pretty horrendous. What you see there is the author's personality, ever nuance of his subconcious amplified to Disaster Area proportions, and that's why it's funny. I don't know if this was supposed to be a commentary on Megatokyo, but it perfectly explains what Megatokyo has become: A Fred Gallagher ego trip. The heart and soul of that comic are gone. It's no longer remotely interesting. The dialog has become totally incomprhensable. The plot seems totally lost.
The magic is gone.
A few years ago, Megatokyo would have been on that list. Megatokyo, after Penny Arcade, was one of the first webcomics I really got into. PA, demonstrated the potential of the medium. Megatokyo introduced the potential for plot. Back then, I loved it. It was constantly funny, basking in gamer and anime culture while simultaenously mocking both of them. The first two years were brilliant. And then, as they say, everything changed.
Honestly, the last time I enjoyed a Megatokyo strip was October 24th, 2004. I know because I blogged about it. That's kinda sad. Not only has it sucked since then, but the reason I blogged about it is because for one brief, shining moment, it stopped the streak of sucking that it had been on for such a long time. What a loss. A few years ago, I was a huge MT fan. I still have, and often sleep under, the MT Sad Kimiko blanket.
It's pretty clear that this descent from greatness started with the departure of Rodney "Largo" Caston (which, like all things is detailed at Wikipedia). In the beginning, MT was funny, it moved fast (they got drunk and mistakenly get stuck in Tokyo in the space of what, two, three strips?), and it had an energy and a vibrance to it. Then Caston left. Today, the strip is a shell of what it was in 2002. Basically, in the 2.5 to 3 years since that time, nothing has happened plot wise in the strip. It's become this long meandering narrative that goes nowhere. Whoop-de-do Kimiko's finally on the radio. Didn't Piro show a sketch of that somewhere like, years ago? Something (I'm not sure what) finally happened with Largo and Erika. This took years.
Let me put this into perspective: Babylon 5, which has an immensly complicated plot, took five years. Megatokyo has been around five years. If B5 moved at the speed that MT did, the pilot episode would still be going. How do you go five years with so little plot development!?!?!? Truly, this astounds me. How far has Piro and Kimiko's relationship come since she spilled coffee on him in October, 2000. Almost nothing. A date perhaps? Nah. Some sort of relationship? Nah. We finally found out that Miho had met Piro and Largo in a game online, and was cheating or something. Come to think of it, that's all we know about her. That, and she has some illness. We've basically learned nothing. The whole point of a mysterious character is to remove the mystery. Back when Yuki had Piro's sketchbook, that was cool...She was the only character in the strip, besides Seraphim, that could really see into Piro's head. Now, all we get of her is Piro constantly missing his drawing lesson with her. Seriously how much longer can that stupid plot go on for? Honestly, glaciers move faster than this.
This didn't happen overnight. After Caston left, there was still Great Teacher Largo. There were still the hillarious catoons with Makoto, the server, being kidnapped. The whole disaster squad thing was funny. Ed and Dom were funny. Ping and her various oddities was great. But slowly, all of that faded away. I think Piro, working on his own, lost the point of his own strip. He's caught between the all-consuming urge to have this relationship angle take over the strip, while at the same time he keeps the characters set in ice, never changing or evolving. That does not work in a plot. The author has to let go and let the characters evolve, else things become boring and tedious, as MT has.
Monday's Penny Arcade demonstrates what it would be like if Tycho banished Gabe and turned PA into his own creation. The results are pretty horrendous. What you see there is the author's personality, ever nuance of his subconcious amplified to Disaster Area proportions, and that's why it's funny. I don't know if this was supposed to be a commentary on Megatokyo, but it perfectly explains what Megatokyo has become: A Fred Gallagher ego trip. The heart and soul of that comic are gone. It's no longer remotely interesting. The dialog has become totally incomprhensable. The plot seems totally lost.
The magic is gone.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Friday, April 01, 2005
Report on the Horowitz Visit
As promised, my thoughts on the David Horowitz visit last night...
I went with a right-leaning friend of mine who was curious what Horowitz had to say. I mainly went just to say I was there, and because I had a hunch there would be a circus. As we walked into Olscamp, we came upon a clown brigade of communists chanting that Horowitz was a "Christian Fascist", handing out information about the writings of "Chairman" Bob Avakian. I brushed off their presence, since they ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow, but it was a taste of things to come.
Once inside Olscamp 101, I sat behind a group of people who seemed to be from the Ethnic Studies department. Daniel Boudreau, of all people was sitting in front of me amongst a group of what I assumed were activist types.
Strictly speaking, Horowitz's speech, taken by itself, was pretty poor. He clearly wasn't prepared, did not know the actual name an affiliation of the University (he thought we were a campus of Ohio State), and on one occasion totally lost his train of thought. In terms of the lecturn banging, fire and brimstone kind of material one expects from a firebrand like Horowitz, it was pretty dissapointing. Only on a few occasions (such as when he proclaimed that "100% of the problems of the inner city are the fault of the Democrats" and when he discussed Howard Zinn) did he really get fired up. Just going by the content of his speech, his case for his "Academic Bill of Rights" was pretty thin.
But what made it all worthwhile for the College Republicans was the stupid heckling from the liberal portion of the crowd, many of whom just showed up just to make noise. I sympathize with these people, really I do. Horowitz, as I have said is undoubtedly a douchebag. We all know this. It's been documented.
But think about it. Horowitz is claiming that there is a liberal bias on campuses and so to try to fight him you show up to his speech and heckle him? Doesn't that support his point? Here is a man that has made a career out of half-truths and apocryphal stories and make his myths come to life for him? Gee, just hand him a story, that'll make things better...Ugh.
The Q&A session at the end was especially bad. While some questioners attempted to keep a bit of respectability up, four or five people lined up to ask a question simply to scream at Horowitz. I think, and I may be wrong here, that the gentleman that got into a shouting match with Horowitz over Howard Zinn, was Denis Mueller, a filmmaker and doctoral student. He appeared to be shaking with anger and appeared to have some words with the campus police officer that was there. That row, and another involving an older woman near the end of the evening, I think was demonstrative of the level of anger, angst, and hate in that room. The vileness on both sides was pretty shocking.
And let's not absolve the College Republicans here. Their "Republican Week" occured during the same week as "Rainbow Dayz". That can't be a coincidence. That, in itself was pretty immature. Even more immature was the "People Eating Tasty Animals" table in the Union handing out jerky. That's beyond lame. it's not remotely funny and only adds to the level of bullshit that whole day saw laid upon it. And heck, maybe if they had more than a handful of their own people at Horowitz's speech it wouldn't have been quite the madhouse it became. Seriously, there were only three rows full of freeper-wannabees and over a dozen rows left for everyone else. If you're going to invite someone to speak, at least have an audience here for him to speak to.
I went with a right-leaning friend of mine who was curious what Horowitz had to say. I mainly went just to say I was there, and because I had a hunch there would be a circus. As we walked into Olscamp, we came upon a clown brigade of communists chanting that Horowitz was a "Christian Fascist", handing out information about the writings of "Chairman" Bob Avakian. I brushed off their presence, since they ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow, but it was a taste of things to come.
Once inside Olscamp 101, I sat behind a group of people who seemed to be from the Ethnic Studies department. Daniel Boudreau, of all people was sitting in front of me amongst a group of what I assumed were activist types.
Strictly speaking, Horowitz's speech, taken by itself, was pretty poor. He clearly wasn't prepared, did not know the actual name an affiliation of the University (he thought we were a campus of Ohio State), and on one occasion totally lost his train of thought. In terms of the lecturn banging, fire and brimstone kind of material one expects from a firebrand like Horowitz, it was pretty dissapointing. Only on a few occasions (such as when he proclaimed that "100% of the problems of the inner city are the fault of the Democrats" and when he discussed Howard Zinn) did he really get fired up. Just going by the content of his speech, his case for his "Academic Bill of Rights" was pretty thin.
But what made it all worthwhile for the College Republicans was the stupid heckling from the liberal portion of the crowd, many of whom just showed up just to make noise. I sympathize with these people, really I do. Horowitz, as I have said is undoubtedly a douchebag. We all know this. It's been documented.
But think about it. Horowitz is claiming that there is a liberal bias on campuses and so to try to fight him you show up to his speech and heckle him? Doesn't that support his point? Here is a man that has made a career out of half-truths and apocryphal stories and make his myths come to life for him? Gee, just hand him a story, that'll make things better...Ugh.
The Q&A session at the end was especially bad. While some questioners attempted to keep a bit of respectability up, four or five people lined up to ask a question simply to scream at Horowitz. I think, and I may be wrong here, that the gentleman that got into a shouting match with Horowitz over Howard Zinn, was Denis Mueller, a filmmaker and doctoral student. He appeared to be shaking with anger and appeared to have some words with the campus police officer that was there. That row, and another involving an older woman near the end of the evening, I think was demonstrative of the level of anger, angst, and hate in that room. The vileness on both sides was pretty shocking.
And let's not absolve the College Republicans here. Their "Republican Week" occured during the same week as "Rainbow Dayz". That can't be a coincidence. That, in itself was pretty immature. Even more immature was the "People Eating Tasty Animals" table in the Union handing out jerky. That's beyond lame. it's not remotely funny and only adds to the level of bullshit that whole day saw laid upon it. And heck, maybe if they had more than a handful of their own people at Horowitz's speech it wouldn't have been quite the madhouse it became. Seriously, there were only three rows full of freeper-wannabees and over a dozen rows left for everyone else. If you're going to invite someone to speak, at least have an audience here for him to speak to.
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