Even my computer recognizes the dangerous threat of Scientology on this planet. I’m glad to see Anonymous take up arms against a worthy target. I’ve hated this cult ever since I passed by one of their brainwashing facilities many years ago, promptly looked it up on the Internet, and realized what a batshit insane group of people Scientology is.

While the denial of service attacks are a nice touch, especially in regards to getting media attention, there is a more pressing problem. Actually taking down a vast financial institution. If you’ll allow me to weigh in, the goal is to find every legal method available to getting the Church of Scientology (here to referred as batshit crazy people.).

First, they don’t know who you are. You can walk in, take a free test. They certainly start you out at the free level. Sort of like PBS except for, at the three hundred dollar level, you get brainwashing instead of a useful tote bag. If they’ll give it to you free, take it. Also, recycle it later, no reason we can’t be nice to the environment. They have to pay for that material to be printed. The more you get, the more wasted printing costs. And while you’re there, why not go in for help with OCD? It certainly will excuse your need to flush their toilets multiple times and wash your hands a lot. The point is, if you can get it free from the batshit crazy people, get it.

Next, they’re already a paranoid organization. Why not help them along a little? Revenue for these batshit crazy people depends upon recruiting new marks to hose. How effective is recruiting going to be when they’re afraid that every person who walks through that door is actually a member of Anonymous? After the freebies run out, walk out, and make sure they know they’ve been had. Nothing destructive, nothing fancy, perhaps a few smart ass remarks. The early stages of recruitment depend a lot on their ability to look legit. It leaves a gaping vulnerability that can be exploited. The end goal is to make their recruitment a pain in the ass and hopefully force them to change methods that will cause actual potential recruits to be scared off.

Along with that, the more presence that can be kept outside their establishments the better. I’d imagine there’s a lot less people who would join the batshit crazy people if another group of people were outside letting them know just what the batshit crazy people are up to.

However, the biggest strength we have is that we are the people. If Congress can waste their time investigating baseball for steroids then they certainly have time to investigate the batshit crazy people for their actions leading to the death of their members, their mafia style organization, their attacks on free speech, their infiltration of the government to subvert the democratic process, and the harm they do to their members. The evidence is everywhere on the Internet, make sure the evidence is everywhere in your representative’s inbox. And since you’ve already gathered all the lovely evidence, it isn’t a stretch to conviently send it to the news media. Nothing makes a sensational news story like an investigation as to why nothing has been done despite the attempts of the batshit crazy people to infiltrate the government.

Most importantly, do not forgive, do not forget. They should expect you, until they are no longer around to expect.

Recently Scott Kurtz linked to PVP Makes Me Sad. So, naturally intrigued I went to visit and see what this was all about. Unlike some of the more, well, fanboish comments that simply seek to denounce any sort of criticism ever there were some things that I could legitimately see as something that could be improved upon. Yet, there were some things of which I would say that I really don’t agree too much with The Fake Scott McCloud on. That, and I’d also like to know his background in order to give some legitimacy to what he’s saying. Myself, I’m a creative writing major and working on my own comic. I think that to really provide a good criticism it helps to actually try your own hand at something, which is why I wonder what he does. Not saying that it makes his comments illegitimate, just easier to take account things I don’t agree with.

Now, a bit of perspective of where I come from. It’s my opinion that the most important part of any strip is the writing. I never even really thought about this until I started to get serious about starting my own strip. Two strips, Dinosaur Comics and xkcd were instrumental in this realization to me. XKCD may be known for the stick figure art style, but in reality, who really reads it for the art? Not me at least. The humour is in the writing. With Dinosaur Comics, you can’t even say you read it for the art. It’s the same image every strip with clever writing.

Like I said, I never thought too much about this until I went to start my own strip. One of my goals was to produce a strip that I would read. I don’t want to put something out that I myself would not enjoy. Knowing what I enjoy is only half of that. As Socrates would question of me, how do I know what I enjoy? To know what you enjoy you also need to know what you do not enjoy reading; so, I started looking at webcomics that I don’t read to try and figure out why I don’t read them.  The thing I really discovered is that the art really didn’t matter all that much as long as they put ten seconds into it so that it didn’t look like crap.  The thing that always turned me off was poor writing.  Most of the time it seem forced, contrite, and simply not natural.

If I were to really look at how much time I spent doing what on my strips I’d say that near 80% of it is spent on working on the writing.  I think that’s where a lot of strips go wrong, aside from this seeming fascination with talking animals (seriously, why do so many comics have talking animals?).  Being in a comic format doesn’t mean you should focus any less on the actual story or writing because you also have to worry about drawing as well. Honestly, there’s only two comics that I can say that I look at and actually spend time appreciating the art: Dresden Codak and Kiwis by Beat.  Simply put, learn to write as it’s more important.

Now that I’ve spent three paragraphs pointing that out I’ll actually address my problems with The Fake Scott.  I’d say that probably my biggest criticism of his criticism is when he takes on sarcasm.  While I agree with him on the weakness of the last line, I have a hard time agreeing with his points beyond that.  First, you can’t randomly have Brent or Cole say whatever the hell you want.  There’s four strips leading up to it.  There’s only two options, a reaction from Brent from the perspective of having overheard the conversation or a reaction from Cole trying to play it off that they weren’t talking about Brent.  Such left field comments as “sandwiches” simply would not be accepted given the strip.  It’s one of the things I’ve noticed throughout other criticism of his.  He has a tendency to remove pieces from the whole and critique them as if they are truly separate.  If you’re going to separate out pieces you need to remember that they are still part of the whole and going to have to work with the whole.

Also, as to the comments about sarcasm in the written word.  It’s not as hard as you would think.  Words tend to be drawn out more.  Adjectives, adverbs, and modifiers are also used more.  “Wow! Looks like I sure did pick the best man alright!” Now, as far as syntax goes it’s not the most proper ways to write a sentence, but for the case of how a human being speaks it fits.  Given the set-up it’s hard to mistake a sentence like that for being anything other than sarcastic.   The fault I find with the way Kurtz worded it is in “right best man.”  “Best man” already implies that it would be the best guy for the job.  The extra adjective doesn’t really provide anything to the line other than dead weight.

Now the next problem I really have with The Fake is that he seems to be a real sticker on punchlines and actual jokes.  PVP has never struck me as a major punchline/zinger kind of comic.  Sure, Kurtz sets up for punchlines, but they’re not exactly the most important part of the strip.  I’m not expecting to be laughing my ass of at his punchlines, mildly amused maybe.  I’ve never seen one that was just dead.  The reason for my weak expectations on the jokes is that the comic isn’t just a joke comic, it’s a narrative story.  We’re following characters along on a journey through their life.  We know them. We care about them.  It has a continuum and so it doesn’t have to constantly pull punches like Penny-Arcade or xkcd.

Again The Fake complained about the punchline  in the strip today.  The thing of it is, I really don’t see that punchline applying to a younger audience.  This is one of the reason I mentioned wanting to see The Fake’s credentials.  If he’s older then I put more weight on his comments on this punchline.  If he’s pretty young then I wouldn’t put as much stock in it as he hasn’t reached the age at which you realize that you are in fact doing things the same way your parents did.  Personally, I think Jade’s final dialogue works well and doesn’t ruin anything.  I believe it given her character and how she has interacted with Brent before.  Now, had she been more straightforward in her defence of Cole and more forceful in trying to get Brent to make amends then yes, the last line would have not worked.

The Fake Scott has a list of comics that he recommends.  As such, I recommend he broaden his spectrum to include all of them.  If you only focus soley on one strip then you’re going to miss a lot of ideas from the others that can be applied to the main body of work.  That and I’d say he should try to focus more on what he is actually trying to say than write continual negative critical responses to Kurtz’s work.

I added some spam bot protection to the forum.  So if you’re unable to register, please contact me so that I can figure out what the problem is.

I don’t know what it was over the break that suddenly shifted my writing.  I used to be writing mainly poetry and pretty much hated all my prose writing. Yet, I find myself quite annoyed suddenly with poetry and actually enjoying my prose.

This could have a bit to do with the fact that I’m annoyed with contemporary poetry.  For one thing, nature is getting quite boring.  After awhile it just becomes a meaningless drudge of uninteresting lines.  One thing I find severely lacking is any sort of levity.   Where’s the Dr. Seuss for adults?  After all, some of the most successful selling commentary of today is satire.

That being said, get with the funny poets.

http://www.grapplefruits.com/

Apples that taste like grapes.  I don’t know about you, but, when I’m craving that grape flavour I generally reach for a grape.  This has to be one of those products that falls under the why the hell did anybody think that this product was needed at all, ever.  Seriously, what person was sitting there eating an apple and went, you know what this needs, more grape flavour.  Com e on.