Vyonafield Commentary

In a way, this chapter represents the perils of doing a comic with an ongoing story arc. This is a chapter I’ve been wanting to do for a while. It’s been running around in my head ever since I saw Cloverfield in theaters a couple of years ago. However, at that point (I believe I was in the midst of chapter 6 or 7), I had already planned out the rest of book one, and could not work a Cloverfield parody into it. So I set it on the shelf for a while, and worked it into book two. The downside to this was that Cloverfield has gotten stale by now. But if I didn’t let that stop me from making a Casino Royale parody, I certainly wasn’t going to let it stop this.

Part of the reason I wanted to do this arc was because Cloverfield and other movies that use first person perspective intrigue me. Even The Blair Witch Project’s style of storytelling was interesting to me, though the movie itself was a turd. It’s also a much older practice than people think with Lady in the Lake (1947) being the first example I can think of (or at least the earliest that I’ve personally seen). I wanted to try to replicate this in comic form, and a Cloverfield parody seemed like a good excuse to do it. It was a fun challenge, but I know I didn’t entirely succeed. Although I’m getting better at perspective drawings and drawing my characters at odd angles, I know there’s some times in this chapter they looked off model. There were also some camera angles (particularly in both scenes Cartoon Billy shows up) that the person holding the camera could not possibly have gotten.

I think the experiment would have worked better as an animation, and I in fact did consider animating it briefly, but time constraints and the future inability to put the chapter in books prevented this. The advantage that film in first person has over comics in first person is that motion and sound can be used to show what’s going on, whereas with a comic, all I had to work with were visuals. As a result, I sometimes had to pick clarity of image over a realistic camera angle so the audience would know what was happening. And conversations that took place off camera were incredibly difficult. Not only did I have to make it clear who was talking to who, but I had to make sure their word balloons didn’t obscure what the camera was focusing on, which was usually important. I do wish I had looked for some comics done in first person, instead of depending solely on movies. That would have really helped.

The story, I think, went slightly better. I feel this is one of the better parodies I’ve done in a while, and I think I did a good job of paying homage to Cloverfield while also mocking some of its more questionable moments. I chose Vyona to be the monster because, as I said at the start of the chapter, she hasn’t gotten to do much since she became a main character. Also, in most cartoons where a character becomes a giant, unless the character’s evil (which isn’t a direction I wanted to go with this parody), the character has to be dim, naïve, and/or clumsy in order to pose an actual threat. The destruction they cause is either by accident, or because they think the city’s a toy, or something like that. The only other characters that really fit this were Booker (who I didn’t use because it’d be too much like that crappy Honey I Blew Up the Kid movie) or Bobbes (who just had his own chapter). So it became obvious pretty quickly that this was going to be Vyona’s role, as she’s just ditzy and clumsy enough to create some havoc.

My biggest regret with the story was the hormone excuse. Originally, that was going to be Vyona’s reason for going nuts and destroying the town, but I realized, pretty quickly, that this was kind of sexist. Then I remembered that Vyona’s brainwashed to attack Connor on sight, and decided to use that as her excuse instead, which I think makes great foreshadowing for some events I have planned later. Unfortunately, I didn’t come up with that until the page explaining the growth hormone thing had already gone online, so I was stuck. Nobody’s complained, though, so perhaps I worried too much.

Finally, a note on the ending, which hasn’t gone online at the time I’m writing this, but that I’m sure will irritate at least some people. Let me say this now: I hate it when any form of fiction uses time travel as an easy reset button. And tough as it is to believe, that’s not what I did here. Clyde’s time remote solution is eventually going to come back and bite the characters in the ass. Just not for a while, as I have other stories I want to tell. Also, and this again goes back to the foibles of an ongoing story arc, I didn’t want the city being destroyed and Vyona getting attacked by the National Guard to stick. That would just add too much baggage to what is already shaping up to be a complicated next few chapters.

So anyway, Vyonafield was a huge experiment on my part. Parts of it succeeded, but overall, I think it could have gone much better. But, like all of my mistakes in cartooning, I learned from it, and I like to think I’ll be a better artist for it.

An Open Letter to My Own Computer

Dear Compy, (yes, I call my computer Compy)

I know you're reading this, because I'm using you to type it right now. You've been my faithful friend since 2006. I've used you to make hundreds of comics during this time, and even with three years under your belt, you still run the newest games as good as a new machine. So believe me when I say that this isn't personal.

Over the last six months, you have died on four separate, unrelated occasions, forcing me to defragment your hard drive (and in one case, buy you a brand new one) and reinstall everything each time. Compy... what the hell?

Now, I will grant you that the third time was significantly more my fault than yours. After all, I forgot to install any sort of virus protection that time. Let's not kid ourselves; with my internet surfing habits, that's the equivalent of going to Amsterdam without a condom. However, for all the other times, there's no excuse! It's getting irritating! And now, I'm unable to work on the comic for the next two days, because it'll take me that long to recover my files that I didn't have backed up (Carbonite, while a Godsend if your files are deleted unexpectedly, takes forever to recover things), not to mention the time it'll take to pir... er... install the Adobe Master Suite again.

Fortunately, I have a week and a half of buffer (hooray for Vyonafield's simple panel layouts) or this would be even worse. Nonetheless, I think it's time for an ultimatum.

Compy, I love you as much as a man can love a machine without it getting creepy, but this is the last straw. If you die again this year, I'm not resuscitating you. No, instead, I'm giving you a viking funeral.

In case you're not up on your Norse mythology, that means I'm SETTING YOU ON FIRE.

Then I'm going to take the ashes, mix them with what may or may not be my own feces, and mail them to Norton.

I'd put in a photoshopped picture of you on fire to further illustrate my point, but I DON'T HAVE PHOTOSHOP RIGHT NOW!

Real blog entry next week. Too angry to do one now.

THIN ICE, COMPY!

An Analysis of the Mushroom Kingdom through Mario Kart: Despots, Princesses, and Blue Shells

So, I’ve been playing a lot of Mario Kart for the Wii lately. Now, I know this game’s been around for months, and pretty much everyone with a website and an eye for videogames has talked about it, but hey, it’s my turn. Besides, reviewing this game is only something I’m doing out of necessity. The real purpose of this rant is to use that review as a springboard to talk about the Mario universe in general, because I’ve discovered something here that I think makes the games a bit more interesting. So hey, let’s get to it!

From a control standpoint, it’s a very, VERY good thing that the game allows you to use Gamecube controllers like in Smash Brothers Brawl, because the wheel is nigh-useless for multiplayer. In single player, and in online play where you’re the only racer using your console, the wheel works fine, and is actually kind of fun. Same with two player. But in three or four player races, where the split screen gets smaller to accommodate everyone, the wheel seems to get a lot more sensitive, and it becomes impossible not to drive into walls or off cliffs. But, like most Wii games, there’s lots of ways you can control the game, and most of them work just fine, so this isn’t really worth harping on.

One thing that lots of reviewers have commented on is the difficulty of the AI. Some of this is quite valid, but some of it is, from my experience playing the game recently, exaggerated. Now, before I say anything, it’s true. The AI controlled drivers are a bunch of assholes. They’re aggressive and uncannily accurate with their green shells and banana peels, and that’s on the easier difficulties. On the harder difficulties, they’re like level 9 characters in Smash Brothers, only there’s eleven of them, and they’re driving cars. They have super human reflexes and they go out of their way to screw over the human player even when it’s not in their best interest. In that vein, I’m tempted to compare them to the Borg from Star Trek, but I feel that falls flat. The Borg, from what I recall, have a certain sophistication that these machines lack. A more accurate comparison would be that the human racer is Carrie, and every race is prom night. They build you up, make you think you’re going to get first place right up until you’re a second away from the finish line, then BOOM! On comes the onslaught of shells, pow-blocks, and pig’s blood.






Only you don’t get psychic powers with which to get your revenge. You just get impotent cursing.

The bit of the reviews bashing the AI that I find exaggerated, however, is that the AI is also favored by the item roulette. Many of the people complaining about this game found that, while computer players consistently got the best items when near last place (bullet bills, lightning, etc.), the human player consistently gets terrible ones (mushrooms, that friggin thunder cloud, Bloopers that have no effect on the AI at all). Now maybe these are exaggerations, or maybe I got a later version where they fixed this (I did get it several months after everyone else, after all), but I haven’t had that problem. There hasn’t been a single time I can think of where I’ve been in last place and haven’t gotten a Bullet Bill, and I’ve seen that Carrie scenario described above done to a computer player in first place about as often as it’s happened to me; thus allowing me to pass him and get first place myself. Yes, there is an element of luck, but the game itself doesn’t seem stacked against me, and that makes it a lot more bearable.

Besides, all told, the AI being mean isn’t a huge detriment. Yes, it makes the one player 150cc and Mirror Mode courses an exercise in frustration, but as any true red blooded Mario kart player will tell you, the Multiplayer mode is where it’s at. And unlocking the courses in multiplayer isn’t hard at all. You just have to place. Now granted, getting first in grand prix mode, and getting star rankings, will unlock new characters and cars. However, since Wario and his bike from the Warioware series were both available from the beginning, I couldn’t possibly give less of a crap about this. Quite frankly, unlocking minor characters from the Mario universe is the equivalent of getting a toy from a box of crappy cereal. It’s bright and colorful, but ultimately kind of lame and not worth what you had to do to yourself to get it. In fact, there are some characters I have managed to unlock over the course of the game that I wish I hadn’t, because now I have to listen to their voices whenever I race them.

For example:

So anyway, that’s the review portion of this blog entry. For those of you that just clicked here to see what I think of Mario kart Wii, here’s my opinion summed up: Multiplayer’s fun as hell, the wheel is useful in single player mode but otherwise overrated, single player mode is an exercise in frustration on the higher difficulties, but ultimately unnecessary to concern yourself with unless you just HAVE to have Dry Bowser, or Baby Luigi, or Toadette, or any of the other lame extraneous Mario characters that I haven’t unlocked yet.

Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what I’ve come to realize about the Mario universe thanks to Mario Kart. The Moonview Highway course is what started this train of thought for me.

Sorry, that’s the best picture I could find. For those unfamiliar with the course, it’s basically a huge sprawling city with cars, giant bombs on wheels, and huge pictures of Princess Peach everywhere. Given the presence of those pictures, I can only assume that Moonview Highway takes the racers through downtown Mushroom Kingdom. We never see this in the games, and it has made me realize something: the cartoony and barren landscapes we see in other Mario games (specifically the platformers and RPGs) are not all there is to the Mushroom Kingdom. It’s actually a thriving metropolis. And that means Peach isn’t just a traditional Saturday morning cartoon princess that rules all the cute little mushroom headed people in their villages. She is actually the leader of a country with a clear, well developed infrastructure.

And, looking at the events of the games with this new knowledge in mind, she’s kind of a vicious one.

When Mario’s travels take him to new locales, like those countries in Super Mario Brothers 3, or Isle Delfino, or even, God forbid, the far reaches of space, Peach is using him to scout territories. Yes, Mario’s saving these places from Bowser, or his kids, or Smithy, or the Purple People Eater, or whatever villain’s menacing him that week, but Peach is using this to her advantage to get the Mushroom Kingdom new territory.

“Oh dear, Bowser’s attacked you. That’s a shame. He does that, you know, he’s such a meanie. But Mario just saved your country! Isn’t that great? But I should warn you, Mario’s quite a busy plumber. If Bowser comes back, there’s no guarantee Mario will too. If only you were part of the Mushroom Kingdom, then I could use my power to… oh, you wish for us to annex you? Are you sure? I mean, you’ll become second-class citizens to my little mushroom people, and I’ll get all your money, but I’m okay with it if you are? Really? Splendid!”

Think I’m wrong? Well, here’s some proof: pretty much every locale Mario has visited, from Dinosaur Land and Sarasaland to Luigi’s Mansion and Isle Delfino, has been a course in Mario Kart, or Mario Golf, or any other of the Mario sports games that have come about over the years. Do you really think the people and things that live here would go to the trouble of setting this up if the Mushroom Kingdom didn’t own their asses? And as a specific example, let’s look at the ever-annoying Princess Daisy. She’s allegedly the ruler of Sarasaland, but ever since Mario saved it, all she does is hang out with Peach and dig through Luigi’s trash looking for things to build a shrine with. Clearly, she’s been outsourced. Whether or not this is a good thing is a separate discussion that I’m not geeky enough to get into.

In short, Peach has, over the course of the games, become a blonde, pink, passive-aggressive Napoleon. She now owns several countries, and cannot be considered the ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom so much as the ruler of the Mushroom Empire.

You may be wondering where the other Mario characters fit into this. I’ve already discussed Daisy, but what about the ones people care about? Mario and Luigi, I think, actually take all this at face value. They really are about saving the Princess from Bowser or whatever else is attacking, and either ignore or are unaware of what happens afterward. They are legitimately heroes. Just apathetic or stupid ones.

Bowser’s a bit more complicated, as there are two possible roles for him. One, he’s in on it, and is Peach’s silent partner in expanding her territory; he attacks other countries, Mario stops him, Peach cleans up afterward. This would explain why Bowser participates in their sporting events, and why he opens up his castle for kart races like the conquered territories do. The other, more tragic possibility, is that Bowser is legitimately trying to resist the Mushroom Kingdom, and may in fact be the only one who is (Wario really only cares about maintaining his gaming company and treasure hunting, and not about international politics). Each time he kidnaps Peach or invades a country, he’s trying to stop the Mushroom Kingdom from expanding. But he’s ultimately doomed to failure. He lets Mario (and by extension, Peach) win because, as the RPG’s have taught us, he’s in love with the princess. This also explains why he opens up his castle for racing and sports tournaments, but it’s much, much sadder.

On a final note, bringing us back to Mario Kart Wii, what’s the deal with Koopa Cape?

Don’t get me wrong. It’s my favorite track in the game, but why is there an ominous aquatic tunnel with laser beams halfway through the course? Are the koopas trying to build Rapture from Bioshock? If so, why hasn’t that been in a real game yet? I think it’d be interesting.

Get on it, Nintendo.

Chapter 17: Bobbes's Big Day Commentary

Not to pat myself on the back too much, but overall, I think this chapter was a pretty big success.

I was nervous about this chapter for a lot of reasons. First of all, it was the first chapter to prominently feature Zaffod and the Grogians as villains ever since the much maligned “Cats and Grogs” storyline in the old comic (which I’ve always considered to be its low point). The next reason was that it’s also the first chapter to prominently feature Connor, who we’ve only seen briefly in the comic before now, and I was afraid her debut, so to speak, would fall flat. Most of all I was nervous because Bobbes seems to be the most popular character in the comic. I didn’t want a chapter starring him to be disappointing to the readers.

By far, the most difficult part was writing the Grogians. Zaffod himself was more or less set in stone. He’s a sarcastic alien prince that hates humans. All I have to do when writing his dialogue is channel Invader Zim and make it more vulgar. Breeble, on the other hand, was created more or less on the spot when I started writing.

In the planning stages, I was just planning to bring back Lieutenant Box and the intern from the old comic, but this was shaping up to be a really bad idea. The intern, as far as his character went, was basically just Bobbes as a Grogian, which really became apparent when I tried to write scenes with them together. I’ve also already used the evil intern shtick recently in Eve, the evil jailbait intern working with Carl, so I didn’t want to repeat myself. As for Lieutenant Box, I noticed in the old comic that he didn’t really have a personality until after Zaffod died and he was put in charge. I also hate his design; I’m not sure what I was thinking there. So, I took elements from the two, came up with a completely new look for a Grogian character, and named him Breeble, who is just as dumb as the intern from the old comic, but has a personality quirk (in this case, talking like an eighties stoner) that separates him from Bobbes.

Connor’s dialogue in this chapter was very fun for me to write. Much like Chris and Steve, she tends to straddle the line between anti-hero and straight up villain, and I think this shows pretty well in how she talks to the characters. Along with the “awesome scheme of kickassery” line, which I’m sure will make its way into merchandise someday, her threatening the Grogians (to say nothing of blowing one of them up) and her witty rapport with Steve during their fight showcased her dark, edgy side fairly well.

Part of my goal for this chapter plot-wise, along with adding to the mystery of just what Bobbes is and where he came from, was to establish Bobbes as sort of a morality pet for Connor, which I accomplished by having him talk her into saving Chris and Steve. Connor, as some of you may have guessed, isn’t exactly a good person. By the end of Volume II of Moron County, she will do some pretty rotten things. How this will affect her friendship with everyone’s favorite blue rabbit might make for some interesting stories later.

The K-Labs Crew plays Monopoly

I've been focusing pretty much all my writing efforts this week on the comic itself. Bobbes's Big Day has the potential to be one of the funniest chapters in Moron County's history, and I want to make sure it meets that potential. So, today, I'm giving you another classic Buzz Comix story, wherein Clyde, Bobbes, Fred, and Francis play a game of Monopoly. It takes place sometime before the Saint Sancho's arc. Enjoy!

(Clyde, Bobbes, Fred, and Francis are all playing a board game.)

BOBBES: G… Eight…

CLYDE: Bobbes, we’re playing Monopoly.

FRANCIS: Okay, my turn. (rolls a dice). Seven. (moves his piece). Ooh! Chance! (Picks up a card). You win a beauty contest and… get AIDS?! Trade your racecar for Fred’s thimble, or die a painful death. What the…?

FRED: Oooh. Better do what it says! If you die you lose your money. Also, I think there’s a rule on the back of the box that says I can kick you in the nuts.

CLYDE: Give me that.

(Clyde swipes the card from Francis.)

CLYDE: This card has clearly been vandalized with a permanent marker.

FRED: Lies! Lies and slander!

CLYDE: Let me see the rest of these.

(Clyde picks up the cards and starts going through them.)

CLYDE: You are being booked on tax evasion. Give all your money to Fred for safekeeping. Uncle Moneybags touched you inappropriately. Automatically forfeit your turn to Fred. When did you do this?!

FRED: Oh, right. Like I break into your house at night and tamper with all your board games so I’ll have a better chance of winning when we play them. What kind of pathetic loser do you take me for?!

BOBBES: Yahtzee!

(Everyone looks at Bobbes.)

FRANCIS: He’s just in his own little world, isn’t he?

CLYDE: Okay… this one’s just creepy. Take off your clothes and dance for Fred?!

FRED: Hey! Someone like Jessica Alba, or Liv Tyler, or your brother’s hot fiancé might play Monopoly with me one day. I am now prepared for that eventuality.

FRANCIS: Fred? Do you honestly think about the things you say? Or is it all just a big game of improvisational madlibs you play in your head?

FRED: You know what? Screw this. It’s my turn now.

(Fred rolls a twenty-sided die from Dungeons and Dragons).

FRED: Ha! Nineteen! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! JUMP! I landed on the “Fred wins instantly” space!

CLYDE: You’re in jail!

FRED (pulls out a permanent marker and starts scribbling on the board): FRED… WINS… INSTANTLY…

(Bobbes rolls some dice.)

BOBBES: Yes! Triple word score!

(Bobbes pulls out a scrabble bag and starts throwing letters on the board.)

CLYDE: Bobbes, for the last time, this is Monopoly! (Clyde frantically tries to keep the various hotels and houses in place despite the chaos).

FRANCIS: Oh, just let him have his fun. This game’s pretty much shot to hell anyway.

FRED: You know, this wouldn’t have happened if we had played Risk like I wanted.

CLYDE: Fred, the last time we played Risk, you screamed “Napoleon shall rise again,” knocked all the pieces off the board, and ran off.

FRED: I’m just sayin’, is all…

Game Review: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal

Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. It’s a funny, well written game, but the game play itself is boring and needlessly convoluted. Given Telltale’s track record, however, it’s still worth checking out, if only because the rest of the series will surely improve on it.

Telltale Games, for those that don’t know, is a gaming company founded by a bunch of guys from Lucas Arts from back in the good old days when they didn’t just make Star Wars games. Lucas Arts used to be one of the most prolific contributors of the adventure game genre, and brought us games such as Sam and Max Hit the Road, the Monkey Island series, and Day of the Tentacle. Telltale Games has, in the last three years or so, tried to pick up the mantle, and has produced several episodic adventure games (essentially 1 or 2 hour games that cost a small amount of money, and add up to make a series. Kind of like the Half-Life episodes, only they didn’t give up after the second one). I was a fan of these games both in my youth and now. The Sam and Max games Telltale makes nowadays are funny as hell, and Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People captured the humor of the Homestar Runner-verse almost perfectly. So, when I found out they were making a new Monkey Island series, I jumped on it.

The Monkey Island series stars a pirate named Guybrush Threepwood, who, depending on player’s choices throughout the game, is like a cross between Jack Sparrow, Bugs Bunny, and Homer Simpson. Most of the games task him with saving his wife (and usually much more competent pirate) Elaine from his undead pirate rival, LeChuck. If the game sounds childish… well, it is. It’s like an interactive Saturday morning cartoon. It’s still very well written and funny, however, and that makes it okay.

The first game in the series, Launch of the Screaming Narwhal, starts with Guybrush facing LeChuck in a final showdown in the middle of a stormy sea. This first section serves as the tutorial, and already the game runs into its first problem: movement.

Note that I’ve played the PC version. Allegedly, it’s also on consoles (either Wii or Xbox 360, I can’t remember which and can’t be assed enough to look it up), and I really can’t speak for how good or bad the controls are on it. On the PC the control is unpleasant. You move Guybrush by holding the mouse button. This causes a weird joystick thing to appear onscreen, which you rotate by moving the mouse. This, in turn, moves Guybrush. Now, before I had to do this, I didn’t realize it was possible for something to be slow and unwieldy at the same time… but now I do. Make no mistake, Guybrush will walk into every obstacle and wall in your path, and he will do so at a snail’s pace. Fortunately, this is an adventure and puzzle game, not a platformer, so this doesn’t make the game unplayable. After all, there are no enemies to dodge, you can’t fall off platforms, and the few timed puzzles in the game are generous enough that if you know what you’re doing, the slow movement rate won’t be an issue. But it’s still a pain, especially considering how well Telltale handles movement in its other games, where you click where you want to go and the character goes there automatically. Also, if you double click, the character runs. I have no idea why Monkey Island couldn’t do the same thing.

Anyway, after the tutorial, a series of terrible things happen, and Guybrush is stranded on Flotsam Island with a possessed hand that punches him and others, gives rude gestures at inopportune moments, and is just generally a dick. For a while now, the game proceeds in typical awesome Telltale fashion. You meet pirates and banter wittily with them, you start a bar fight, and you repeatedly try and fail to board a ship in frequently humorous ways. Eventually, however, your travels take you to the epitome of the game’s shortcomings: the jungle.

Telltale does not do wide open spaces well. This was established in the first episode of Strong Bad’s Cool Game, and it’s even more apparent here, where you must navigate more than a dozen similar jungle screens using the aforementioned crappy controls. For most of the jungle puzzles, you have to follow either animal sounds or the wind, kind of similar to the Lost Forest in Ocarina of Time. If the only speed you can move is a slow walking speed, these kinds of puzzles are a living hell. It takes forever to get from screen to screen, and if you screw up… oh, GOD HELP YOU if you screw up, then you have to start the whole thing over again.

There is a map screen that tries to alleviate the jungle levels a bit. If you find a specific landmark important to the game, you can use the map screen to travel there automatically. But it’s also irritating. The only way to activate the map screen is to arrive at the jungle entrance, and the map is not clearly marked. You see a bunch of trees, with random buildings and ruins sticking out of them. These ruins are not what you click on. No, what you have to do is pixel hunt through the trees, until you find the very specific, often very tiny, part you click on to get where you need to go. The only cue that you’ve found the right place is that the name will appear when you hover over it with the cursor, and if you blink, you’ll usually miss it.

Now, it probably feels like I just ripped this game a new one. After all, I just spent several paragraphs detailing how bad the game play is, and I didn’t even get into how esoteric some of the puzzles are (mostly the one with the cheese and all the creepy pedestals). But I’m actually willing to give this game a bit of a pass. The writing and jokes were good, and that’s really what Telltale Games is about. Also, this was the very first Monkey Island episode Telltale has attempted, and it always takes a little while for them to find the mark on a new series. After all, the first Strong Bad’s Cool Game was just as bad as this if not worse, but the rest of the series turned out to be great. And Sam and Max, inarguably Telltale’s most successful series to date, didn’t really find its stride until “Abe Lincoln Must Die”, which was the FOURTH episode.

So I’m willing to give Monkey Island another chance when the next game comes out. If the second game doesn’t improve on the first, I’ll write it off. But if the rest of Telltale’s games are any indication, I’m sure it will.

F***ed up Friday Commentary

F’ed Up Friday, much like Full Contact Golf, is a chapter I hadn’t planned to do until a couple of weeks before I did it. However, unlike Full Contact Golf, I improvised pretty much the entire thing on the spot.

Much like Full Contact Golf’s scene where Nina uses Clyde as a human shield, I had a specific gag in mind that I built the rest of the chapter around. In this case, it was Nina trying to light a cigarette. Funny as this was, it had to be prefaced by this conversation, which was pretty difficult to write. I’ve never smoked enough to have an actual nicotine addiction, so I had to guess what one feels like based on descriptions from people I know that do. It’s probably inaccurate, but I figured without first-hand knowledge, I might as well err on the side of a boob joke. Since this is comedy, I figured such a minor transgression would be forgivable.

This chapter was hard for me because, like most male writers, I sometimes have a difficult time writing female characters. I try to get around this by basing them on real people I know (various girls I met in school) and imagining how they’d react to a given situation. However, the situation Biff and Nina find themselves in during this chapter is completely bizarre, and I was drawing a blank using this tactic. I tried doing research on how body-switching type stories are handled in other fiction. Unfortunately, material I found was useless for a variety of reasons. The original Freaky Friday film involved switching between a mother and daughter, which was too different from what I was doing to be helpful, and most stories I could find that were between two people of different gender were either downright obscene (which I don’t want Moron County to be), or had a romantic subplot between the two characters. Since I don’t write romance very well, and don’t want Biff and Nina openly interested in each other this early in the comic’s run anyway, that was out. As a side note, an intriguing story I found during my research was a guest comic in Sluggy Freelance where Torg and Zoe were switched for a week but, due to the nature of the technology, can’t remember it, and the story is told via flashbacks as they try to find out what happened. I briefly considered doing that, but decided not to because:

a.) I wouldn’t be able to without pretty much ripping off the Sluggy Freelance story entirely, and
b.) There is another chapter I’m going to do in the near future that’ll be told via a series of flashbacks, and I don’t want to overuse that gimmick.

What I ended up doing was simply having the body switching be a background element, and the chapter’s main focus turning out to be something else, in this case, the Vandesdelca project. This was another last minute decision. Up until a week before the Vandesdelca project was revealed, Fred and Bobbes were originally going to make their way to the giant robot wing. They’d accidentally activate one of the experimental ones, it would chase them outside, find Cartoon Billy’s drill, immediately fall in love with it, and start humping it vigorously, much to Billy’s terror and dismay. Then Clyde would have fixed the toaster. While I admit the robot bit would have been pretty funny, the chapter would have become pure filler, with no real purpose to the overall story other than reminding the audience that Cartoon Billy exists. This is important because I plan for him to be the main villain of the next major story arc, but it shouldn’t be the only reason for the chapter to exist. So, I decided to reveal a little bit about the big mysterious project Connor’s looking for. Not a lot; just enough for it to serve as a deus ex machina that raises more questions than answers.

The Biff Show

You might be able to tell this is another old Buzz Comix vote thing. Either you've read it before, or you know that public access television doesn't exist anymore (in all fairness, it may not have existed when I wrote this either; I just don't like doing research for these things). Either way, enjoy The Biff Show, and I'll see you next week.

(Biff sitting in the living room, in a tuxedo. There is obvious fake applause in the background.)

BIFF: Hey, everybody! I’m Biff, and welcome to…

(The camera follows a bee flying around the room.)

BOBBES: Bumblebee! Bumblebee!

BIFF: Bobbes! Focus on me! Over here!

(The camera quickly moves back to Biff.)

BOBBES: Sorry…

BIFF: Welcome to the show. I am joined today, as always, by my lovely assistant Nina.

(Nina walks in.)

NINA: Biff, what’s with the camera? Oh, god… please don’t tell me you’re doing this again…

BIFF: On today’s episode…

NINA: Oh god damn it…

BIFF: I’m going to show you how to perform a vital civil service: namely, how best to warn friends, family, and even complete strangers that a child in your neighborhood or school… is ugly.

(Cut to a montage of various normal looking children that Biff, for some reason or another, considers ugly.)

BIFF: Yes… ugly children are a plague on our nation’s moral health. By allowing these poor heathens to exist without ridicule, we are endangering the very fabric of society by making these children think that being ugly is okay.

NINA: There is something wrong with you…

BIFF: Exactly, Nina. So, when you see an ugly child, don’t keep it to yourself! Let the world around you know, loudly and with as much coarse laughter as you deem necessary, “Hey, everyone! I am looking at an ugly child!”

(Montage fades back to Biff and Nina. Nina looks disgusted, but Biff is oblivious.)

BIFF: But sometimes, you encounter a child so ugly, you need to take drastic measures to warn the entire world.

(Biff holds up a picture of a perfectly normal little girl.)

BIFF: Take Clara Marshal, who attends preschool with my little brother Booker…

NINA: Biff, stop this. Now.

BIFF: Clara is incredibly ugly.

NINA: She’s not ugly! She’s adorable! What’s wrong with you?!

BIFF: She’s so ugly, in fact, that drastic action must be taken. That is why yesterday I purchased ad space on a billboard out on the interstate, so that her ugliness will immediately be made apparent to passing motorists.

(Cut to a billboard with Clara’s picture on it, including the caption “This is an ugly little girl.” After a few seconds, cut back to Biff and Nina.)

NINA: Biff… that girl’s parents yelled at you for a very long time…

BIFF: That’s all the time we have for now. After the commercial break, stay tuned for the panel discussion between myself, Clyde Alperson, Fred Mudhart, and Francis the Robot on why fat women should be treated as second class citizens, followed by a celebrity interview with a hobo that thinks I’m Tracy McGrady. It’s all here on the Biff Show, part of Moron County public access!

NINA: I swear I’m going to burn that camera…

The Finch-Lechter Debates

So, I had a blog posting on censorship planned for this week (a question from a reader got me thinking about the subject), but it's a bit more difficult than I thought to get my thoughts together on it. I did promise to update this blog once a week, though, so I want to provide you all with something.

A while back, when I still did vote incentives, I'd occasionally post short stories and scripts. One of my favorites was a short script where Biff and Nina argued about who would win in a fight between Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mocking Bird and Hannibal Lechter.

Since it's currently not available anywhere else online right now, and a fair number of you probably haven't seen it, here it is in all its glory.

NINA: I’m sorry, Biff, but there’s no contest. It wouldn’t happen.

BIFF: But he’s a lot smarter than his southern accent would lead you to believe. Plus he’s an expert marksman! What if he had a gun?

NINA: Biff, seriously. There’s no way Atticus Finch could beat Hannibal Lechter in a fight. It’s just not possible.

BIFF: Sure he could! He’s one of the greatest literary heroes of all time!

NINA: Yes, because of his morality. Morality would be a weakness against someone like Hannibal. Atticus would be so horribly shocked by Hannibal’s deeds and mannerisms that it would give Hannibal an advantage.

BIFF: I think you’re underestimating Atticus’s resolve. He stared down an entire angry mob, after all.

NINA: Biff, maintaining your moral high ground in the face of a bunch of racist idiots isn’t nearly on the same level as staying toe-to-toe in a fight with a cannibalistic serial killer. Besides, even if Atticus could handle Lechter on an emotional level, he’d still stick to some code of honor when fighting him. He probably wouldn’t even USE his gun. Hannibal would still win.

BIFF: Hannibal has a code of honor too. He left Clarice Starling alone after he escaped from the mental facility.

NINA: Not in the sequel.

BIFF: The sequel sucked!

NINA: That’s not the point. The point is, even if Hannibal has a moral code, which he doesn’t, it is significantly more flexible than Atticus’s. He would have no reason or inclination to engage Atticus on anything even remotely resembling a level playing field.

BIFF: Well, what if there was something at stake more important that Atticus’s honor? What if Hannibal were holding his kids hostage? He’d use his gun then for sure.

NINA: Well yeah, then it could go either way. But that’s not really fair. You’re just making up conditions now to give your side an unfair advantage.

BIFF: It’s a legitimate concern! Hannibal would definitely go after Atticus’s kids first. He’s all sinister and crazy like that.

NINA: Probably, but that’s not the issue here. Look, Biff, I want the good guy to win just as much as you do, okay? But in a straight fight, Hannibal Lechter would completely destroy Atticus Finch without even breaking a sweat.

BIFF: Oh yeah? Well, since we’re considering information from sequels to be fair game here, what about Atticus from “To Kill a Mocking Bird II: Boo Radley’s Revenge?”

NINA: …What?!

BIFF: You know, when Atticus turned into a fifty foot radioactive mutant that shot lasers out his eyes.

NINA: That movie never existed.

BIFF: You sure?

NINA: Yes. I’m sure. I’m sure because no just and loving god would ever allow that movie to come into being.

BIFF: So… Scout never grew up into a hot lesbian that dressed like Tank Girl? I just dreamed that entire film?!

NINA: Okay, this discussion is over.

BIFF: Well, what if he was also working with the kid from Clockwork Orange…

NINA: OVER!

Hobos, Onions, and Futurama

Coming up with stuff to write about is difficult for me. Writing itself isn’t inherently difficult; it’s just that all of my creative writing talent tends to get directed towards Moron County. I had a couple of ideas rolling around, but dismissed them all just as quickly, as they involved research, and I’m not really in the mood to do that this week. So, I did what I always do in situations like this, and asked one of my friends to give me a writing prompt. Specifically, I asked my former college roommate Mr. Spiffy (real name unnecessary for the purposes of this article). He gave me this little gem to work with:

“So, last night I went on my first date in six months, and the first in even longer that the girl was actually attractive. It took a little while for the conversation to get rolling, and once it did, a hobo wearing three necklaces and a sleeveless turtleneck - in June - walks up complaining that he's "lost his onion," and derails the conversation while capturing her attention for 20 minutes. And he was drinking water - at a bar. Dirty, smelly hobo hippie.

Okay, maybe it wasn't 20 minutes. Maybe it was only 2 or 3. But it's the principle of the matter, you know?”

Then, before he answered, I remembered that Futurama was coming back, and I could do a blog post about that. So I will. But I wanted to include this story because I thought it was funny.

So, Futurama’s coming back. Comedy Central renewed it for 26 episodes, to air sometime in 2010.

Believe it or not, I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, ever since its premature cancellation in 2003, I have always been under the impression that any Futurama is better than no Futurama. This attitude came to a head when I actually rented the horrible Futurama videogame, which was about as good as most licensed games (which is to say, it was a festering turd). Then the Simpsons, which had admittedly been on a slow decline in quality that I was intentionally oblivious to since high school, started getting noticeably bad. Then Family Guy got uncancelled, and it is, in my opinion, one of the worst things on television (American Dad is okay, though).

Then it was announced that there were Futurama movies coming out. I was excited and terrified at the same time. But that terror was unfounded. Bender’s Big Score was everything the show was and more (and I’m still looking for an mp3 of the “Trinity going to war” song, so if someone can hook me up in the comments, that’d be sweet). Then Beast with a Billion Backs was alright. Then Bender’s Game was… well, flawed, but still better than most stuff on television these days. Then Into the Wild Green Yonder was excellent and, in my opinion, wrapped up the series perfectly. Yes, the entire cast were wanted fugitives at the end, but I think that’s a perfectly suitable ending for a Matt Groening cartoon.

But now that it’s back, I’m not sure. My reasons for this are many.

As newspaper comics, the Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy illustrate, fictional media has an inherent best-by date where, if it doesn’t end, it starts to go bad. Granted, a lot of these examples can be explained away by reasons that have nothing to do with longevity. Most newspaper comics that suck are not drawn by their original creators, and are in fact done by a committee of octogenarians that understand newspaper censorship standards more than real life (except for Garfield, whose creator is just out of ideas, and Marvin, which is created by the souls of the damned). And South Park and Family Guy have just become highly transparent soap boxes for the libertarian Matt Stone and Trey Parker and the hyper-leftist-atheist Seth MacFarlane respectively, which I’d have no problem with if it weren’t at the expense of humor.

Simpsons, however, has gotten bad in the sense that Garfield has. It’s out of ideas, and is now just an empty shell of its former self. The characters are now buffoonish, one-dimensional caricatures of themselves (due to a process TV Tropes refers to as “Flanderization”). In fact, Simpsons has gotten so bad in its later years that it’s starting to undermine what it’s already accomplished. Plots are getting rehashed (a Simpson has become a co-owner of Moe’s Tavern more times than I’d care to count), and every episode for the past twelve years has had a special guest star. It’s beginning to reach the point where voicing a character (or yourself) on the Simpsons is the equivalent of getting a tattoo in the celebrity world. It’s what all the cool kids are doing, and in a few years it’ll make you look like a jackass.

My fear is that Futurama will become just like this. There’s also the fear of political leanings trumping comedy, but Futurama has shown itself resistant to that in the past. Sure, there’s an environmentalist message here and there (“Crimes of the Hot,” Al Gore’s appearances in “Bender’s Big Score,” “Into the Wild Green Yonder” and its entirety), but the show kept its humor through all of those. No, the bigger concern is that it’ll become like the Simpsons. However, there’s hope.

Futurama has an established continuity. Things change from episode to episode. Sure, episodes are self-contained, but there’s a storyline that holds things together. Simpsons lacks this, which means that unlike Futurama, everything is ret-conned at the end of every episode. This prevents character development, which leads to characters getting Flanderized. American Dad also has elements of this, which makes it suck less than Family Guy (the fact that Seth MacFarlane has ironically moved his politics from American Dad to Family Guy helps too).

So, I believe there’s hope for Futurama. I’m trying to be optimistic about it. Problem is, I was also optimistic about Family Guy when it came back. So you can see where I’m concerned.

An Introduction

My original idea for this blog post was to discuss the GIFT theory first proposed by Penny Arcade, and relate it to my desire to write this blog under my own name. I wrote the first paragraph, thought about it for a few days, and decided it was pretentious and self-serving; almost as much so as using the words “pretentious” or “self-serving,” or using semi-colons in a sentence. So I won’t be doing that. Instead, I’m going to introduce myself straight-up.

My name’s Grady Phillips.

This is what I look like:

Not the best picture, perhaps, but just the right mix of badassery and drunk-looking fat guy that you have an idea of who you’re dealing with. Note that when I represent myself on internet forums, I use this picture:

A little dishonest, I guess, but it showcases my artistic talent, limited though it may be. People ask where the picture came from, and that gives me an excuse to talk up my webcomic, which is my pride and joy in the creative sense. Speaking of which:

Moron County

You probably found this blog through it, but if not, go check it out. I’ll wait.

And that’s about as much anonymity as I’m giving up. This is the internet, after all. I’m not stupid.

I’m starting this blog because it’s something I wanted to do for a long time. Realistically, I’ve always been a writer first and an artist second, and while I’m trying every day to improve my artistic ability (as you can hopefully tell by seeing Moron County’s evolving style), I certainly don’t want my writing skill to stagnate. So that’s what this blog is for.

Every week, most likely Monday, I’ll try to put something new here. As a warning, I have many interests, so there’s no telling what any particular blog post will be about. Maybe I’ll talk shop about Moron County. Maybe I’ll discuss videogames (either a specific game, or a genre of games as a whole- I’ve got a slew of thoughts on the Japanese RPG genre that need discussing, that’s for sure). Maybe I’ll discuss other comics I read, or comics in general (lots of thoughts there too). Hell, maybe I’ll even post a short story or two. There’s really no telling until Monday.

And that’s about it. Keep reading the comic, and I’ll have something intelligent to write about next week.