Enthusiastick Journal

Let's play a game:

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee!!

My selections come from off_coloratura:

A. This is one of two icons I have that are all about the Phillipine Monkey-Eating Eagle, an animal you have to respect based on its name alone. I like unusual animals, and as one of the world's largest eagles (it has a 7' wingspan!) the Phillipine Eagle definitely qualifies. Also they actually eat monkeys. The picture in question is delightfully ridiculous; the bird looks to me like it's smirking, and who doesn't like the look of a giant terrifying bird of prey that could eat your dog smirking at them? I find it useful for both snarky posts and snarky replies, so it sees a fair bit of circulation when I remember I have it.

B. I think this is my most recent icon, and it's taken from a series of interior photos I found of the House on the Rock. I first became aware of the House on the Rock when I read Neil Gaiman's American Gods and I've been quietly fascinated with it ever since. I needed something steampunk-y for when I make posts to steamncinders, and this was the first thing I found which fit the bill in a cool way. The effect is possibly ruined by being reduced to 100x100 pixels, but what can you do?

C. A classic, in my opinion. Before John Allison drew the web-fabulous Scary Go Round, he tried to break into the traditional newspaper syndicates with a strip called Bobbins. The archives used to be online, although they aren't really in any usable form anymore, much to my dismay. This dialogue balloon is from one of my all-time favorite Bobbins, in which Shelley has a pixie-spasm and pounces on Tim after Tim makes the (clearly spurious) claim that he is not a failure in love, but rather on a love hiatus, recharging for superior future love. It's such an utterly nonsensical turn of phrase, useful for so many occasions.

D. This is another theft from the brilliant John Allison, in this case a t-shirt design. In the heyday of Bobbins, one of the main male characters (I think it was Ryan, but I have a nagging suspicion it may have been Tim after all) wrote a fictional autobiography describing his life as a punk rock anarchist. He made excessive use of the totally excellent catchphrase "Tuppin' Liberty". This design appeared on a t-shirt alongside the catchphrase in the early days of Scary Go Round, when it still had a lot of crossover with the old Bobbins shtick. I chose this icon back when I first got a account, going abruptly from 3 icons to 15, and it doesn't see as much use as I'd like, but I'm neurotically incapable of deleting old icons, and so it persists, despite not really having a particular niche it fills.

E. Man, all of my early icons were stolen from webcomics. This is the artwork of the talented Faith Erin Hicks, from her first online comic Demonology 101. I was (and am) a big fan of this comic, and had a weakness for Mackenzie, the spastic and ridiculous secondary character friend of the main character. There's some truly excellent sequence during which the primary dialogue is full of weighty and important things, and then there's Mackenzie, ranting in the background about how she's got her eye on the (clearly) big evil characters. No one pays her any mind as she gets all paranoid and shifty-eyed and mutters to herself about how she will not only keep an eye on him, but keep "both freakin' eyes" on him. I tend to use this one when I am feeling Mackenzie-ish (i.e. spastic and ridiculous and paranoid) so rather a lot, really.

I had a good weekend, all things considered. Friday it was tear-your-face-off cold, so I hung around at sleetfall's apartment and was grateful for the relative warmth. Saturday I went to Vericon, and am thus able to add Shaennon Garrity, Jeffrey Rowland and Rich Stevens to the list of webcomics people who I have actually seen and interacted with in person. I suppose in all fairness I should also add Tallahassee Econolodge to the list as well, as she was present at the Saturday webcomics panel and confirmed for me that she has been known to wear a tiara to work. To which I said, and say, "awesome." Paul Southworth was there too, but as I don't read his strip I somehow don't feel qualified to comment on him.

They were all about what I expected, which is to say, fantastic and cool. Stevens was a little bit late for the panel, but made up for it by being consistently hilarious once he arrived. He also struck me as the sort of person who, despite a constant stream of jokes and cleverly-disguised nonsense, was actually very thoughtful and reflective in his answers. He's clearly very passionate about the strange medium that is webcomics and has some very interesting and obviously informed opinions, and if I were actually involved in the scene at all I'd love to pick his brain about it. I was briefly afraid I may have incurred his wrath forever when I admitted I didn't read his news posts, although I was later able to qualify that I partially chalk that up to them being "below the fold," which is to say I am too horrifically lazy to scroll down. In point of fact however I'm sure he rapidly forgot about the whole thing.

I’m feeling a little bit sniffly and sickly today (and so is my whole office, from the sound of it) and I’m not quite sure why, because I thought I was essentially over my cold. I’m used to persistent congestion in the Spring because of allergies, but the notion of it starting in late January is too grim to consider.

Alright, so 2006 is over. Finished. Its just a memory now. I can't get it back and, much as with high school, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to. A lot of bad stuff happened during my last trip around the sun, a lot of wasted emotions and a lot of time ill-spent. And much as Beltane and Samhain demarcate my year much more than the Gregorian calendar, there's something to be said for January as a good time to make a fresh start.

As an aside, I had a pretty rocking New Year's Eve at human_typhoon's place. I had good friends around me, and people I had just met who seemed perfectly friendly and pleasant. And I got drunk. Really drunk. In point of fact I am considering the possibility that I got too drunk, which is kind of a big deal for me. But I digress.

Websnark is back. demiurgent has explicitly stated a goal of daily content in 2007. (I'd settle for less and would like to write an entry here every M-F, but I'm not calling that a New Year's resolution or anything.) Of course, he's claimed that he was back before. And you know what they say about the best laid plans: just look at Gossamer Commons, which started with (in theory) a perfectly reasonable buffer. Am I willing to give him the benefit of the doubt anyway? Of course I am. As a big fan I always have been. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Let Burns Be Burns.

Narbonic is over. I was a latecomer to the Narbonic party. Despite demiurgent declaring it his favorite strip I've been reading it regularly for less than a year. And yet its closing had a pretty strong emotional impact for me, stronger than I suspect the forthcoming conclusion to For Better Or For Worse will. Which is weird, given that I've been reading Lynn Johnston for as long as I can remember. Part of the problem is that FBOFW has become so exceedingly predictable. The fire has forced Michael & Deanna to move into his parent's house; only a few months earlier John & Elly discussed moving themselves to a smaller house once April started university. Is there anyone who doesn't see where this is going? The son becomes the father. Ho hum.

Honestly the reason I keep reading might well be the shred of hope that Liz won't marry Anthony after all. I know it won't happen, I know their coming together is inevitable. That plot thread has become a lumbering, crashingly unsubtle thing, each advancement like the footfalls of a giant, wreaking havoc on what seemed to be a perfectly serene landscape and leaving heart-wrenching devastation in its wake. (Have I mentioned I don't like Anthony?) But it will end, this year I think, and I suspect Narbonic: Director's Cut will take its place in my heart. shaenon is every bit as dependable as a newspaper daily, after all. And even though I know how the story ends, I can spend the next few year's catching up on the wonderful little details I may have missed during my frantic marathon archive trawls.

In other news, Doctor Who is back, in more ways than one. Christmas marked the arrival of the second new series Christmas special, The Runaway Bride. I enjoyed it immensely, as much for the thirty-second series three trailer at the end of the broadcast as for the show itself. I look forward to seeing more of David Tennant as the tenth Doctor continues to develop. And yesterday the two-part finale for Torchwood aired, which I have begun downloading and will be watching at my earliest convenience. I have it on good authority that (SPOILER WARNING) the TARDIS-noise makes a cameo at the end of the series finale.

And Doctor Who alumnus (and ninth Doctor) Christopher Eccleston will be returning with Heroes on January 22nd, apparently playing a hero with invisibility powers who will become a mentor figure to Peter Petrelli (who human_typhoon insists on referring to as Jess, much as I did for the first few episodes. Its a Gilmore Girls thing.) I am filled to bursting with high hopes for Heroes continuation, although as with all things in network television I also have stomach-churning dread that it could turn awful at any moment. The network has apparently already intervened and tampered with the sexuality of secondary character Zach (friend and confidante of the Cheerleader, Claire Bennet), which doesn't bode well. Nothing gold can stay, but a man can dream...

And I know these things are ultimately trivial. But in more ways than one, there's a lot to look forward to in 2007.

And now for something completely different. Let's check in on some of them webcomic things I love so well. Three in particular, in alphabetical order by title:

First off its PvP... Been there. Oh man have I been there. I've said it before, but it bears repeating: let's hear it for girls!

Next we'll look at the world of Smithson, where I am forced to ask... how many weeks of updates can it possibly take for Chumuckaman to get wherever he's going?

And finally, over at the guilty pleasure that is Wapsi Square... Monica is wearing a shirt that says DORK, thus confirming that she is the perfect woman. (And OK, the seriously nice albeit cartoon biouxbies don't hurt.)

The biggest frustration with the recent blog embargo in my life is not that I'm making fewer entries. I'm unhappy about that, but it actually requires less effort, so it sort of balances out. My problem is that I'm not keeping up with my friends page nearly as well. I don't read entries as thoroughly, I rarely read things more than once, and there have been half a dozen comment-worthy things that have gone un-commented-upon (by me, anyway.) I miss y'all. Livejournal has been a huge part of my life.

But the times they are a-changin', and I needs must change with them. First to go is the notion I can actually chronicle the majority of "events" (such as they are) in my day-to-day life. It was nice while it lasted, but its just not manageable anymore. And the truth of the matter is I’m not sure anyone’s going to miss it, aside from me. I’m going to keep trying to make interesting entries, and I’ll keep relating amusing anecdotes when I have time. But the litanies, the weekend summaries and such... these things will have to go.

Some things, obviously, remain worthy of mention. I hit up Arisia this past weekend. Its been a while since I’ve been to a con; it was refreshing to be rather definitively Amongst My People. Now its true, my people are a socially awkward and unhygienic people. But it was comforting and friendly nevertheless. And while I was there I stopped by one of the webcomics panels, specifically one titled Webcomics Criticism: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. In fact, that’s pretty much the only reason I roused myself from my torpid state and went downtown.

I gather the panel was not as well-attended as some of the others, but given that it was in direct competition with the Arisia Masquerade that’s hardly surprising. I went because I wanted to see demiurgent and weds in the flesh, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that qcjeph was on the panel as well, alongside moderator Kelly J Cooper and Alexander Danner (both of whom may well have LJs, but I don’t know what they are.) There followed some erudite and occasionally spirited discussion. Allow me to speak for a moment about my impressions of people.

demiurgent was all that expected, only more so. He made some reference during the discussion to being a "self-identified schlub," and that’s more or less the mental picture with which I entered the room. What I saw instead was someone who delightfully embodies that Catch 22 geek trait: enthusiasm. He spoke eloquently, fervently even, about the things in which he believed. But he did so in more or less the same fashion as your junior high science teacher. He struck me instantly as the sort of person I’d love to count as a friend.

weds didn’t talk much, so I didn’t get nearly as good a sense of her (although that in and of itself probably speaks volumes.) I must confess I would not have been unduly surprised if she hadn’t spoken a word, actually. But she and demiurgent played off of one another frankly spectacularly on those occasions when she did speak up. They make an interesting contrast to say the least, and the fact they’re a team (in multiple senses of the word) is... compelling, I think is the word I’m going to use.

(Side note: the Arisia program bio made some joke about her not having a discernible accent, due to the whole Canada-Britain-America thing. Which I bought, utterly, until such time as she said the word "process." As a New Englander I have been conditioned to expect that word to have a nice, wide-mouthed "ah" sound. PRAHHHHH-cess. But she chimed in just like a Brit with a long "o." PROHHHHH-cess. It was so glaring it actually startled me.)

qcjeph was not what I expected at all... only in hindsight I’m not sure why that is. I guess I somehow had the sense, based on little more than his newsbox entries by the comic, that he was a shy or retiring person. I suppose, in all honesty, I expected him to be a lot like Marten. Which he is, but it took seeing him in person for me to realize that’s because there’s a lot of him in Marten and not the other way ‘round. He had an exceptional sardonic wit and a nice dry sense of humor, such that virtually whenever he opened his mouth he had the entire room in stitches. Which only makes sense, really, given the comic he writes.

Cristi was there as well, which means that I finally understand what demiurgent was talking about in that one journalistic snark I love so well.

Anyway, after the panel was over I ambled up, intent on shaking the hands of the people behind the ‘Snark. I wanted to tell them that I love what they do, that I hoped they kept on keepin’ on. Only... I was trying so hard not to mewl like the fanboy that I am that I have no idea what I said to either of them. I blacked out. I can only hope I did not prattle on too much. I didn’t bother speaking to qcjeph as well, although I probably should have. All of the panelists had a somewhat weary "second night of the con" look about them, and despite my overwhelming desire to be spend more time around them, even just listening to them talk (yes, I know, I am a spoonfed, get over it), I couldn’t quite bring myself to bother them. Attempting to forcibly interpose myself into their conversations just seemed hopelessly crude.

There’s this thing Nick Hornby talks about somewhere in the middle of High Fidelity. He’s nattering on about fetish properties, about how record collectors waste away entire days just looking for something worth buying. And how when one finally gives up in disgust and just buys the last thing they were even considering, one exits the store in a hurry with a sort of giddy rush and a desire to do something substantive. I have discovered, unsurprisingly, that being in the presence of thinkers and writers whose work I really respect has much the same effect. I wanted to be like them -- more than that, I wanted to stand in their ranks as an equal. And that meant going out and employing my brain to its utmost, at a time when it felt positively atrophied from disuse. It was nifty.

(X-posted to the snarkoleptics community.)

So I'm minding my own business yesterday, and I happen to stop by Websnark just in time to catch up with a snark titled The Snarkographia Webcomicka. And then almost immediately I had to back up and head over to Jon Rosenberg's blog, so that I had a good grasp of the context in which demiurgent was snarking.

And then I had to check the clock on my computer, to confirm that it absolutely was not April Fool's Day. And it wasn't; I had not entered some sort of time warp, I had not missed Christmas, its still late December. I read through Eric's snark feeling dazed, almost as though I had whiplash.

Jon Rosenberg wrote that? Seriously?

I'm not going to go too deeply into my own response, because it mirrors demiurgent's (although mine was at least several notches less pretentious... kidding, kidding). Call me a spoonfed if you like, and I'll concede the point. Eric has already said more or less what I was thinking, probably with greater clarity than I would have. I admire his relentless unassailable use of logic -- logic I happen to agree with. Most of all I admire his restraint.

But there is one point I want to address. Its quoted in the snark in question, but its kind of lost in a block quote, and never directly addressed. Rosenberg writes:

In the worst cases, webcomics bloggers have used their bully pulpit to launch their own nascent webcomics initiatives.

I have to take a deep, cleansing breath before I type a response to that. I'll give Rosenberg the benefit of the doubt -- he's a good guy, after all. I'll assume that's not specifically a jab at Websnark. After all, just because its the alpha and the omega of webcomics criticism in my tiny, self-centered universe doesn't mean there aren't other folks out there engaging in this behavior. So for the moment I'll endeavor to respond civilly, as though Rosenberg were addressing all the people who "launch their own nascent webcomics initiatives" from the "bully pulpit" of a blog.

Even making that assumption, that's a mean-spirited and spiteful thing to say. I disagreed with the essay, but I was willing to accept it as just a differing point of view, right up until that line. That one line sticks in my craw something fierce. Its downright bitchy.

In my view this all comes back to a debate that was most recently centered around Orson Scott Card, and commented on by both Queen of Wand's creator Aerie and Something Positive's RK Milholland. The debate, in its simplest form, is about whether what an artist does away from his or her artwork should influence the viewer's appreciation of said artwork, of the thing itself. I come down pretty firmly on one side of that debate. I don't care if an artist is a sociopath serial-rapist compulsive-arsonist nazi, really -- if he makes beautiful works that move me, then they are beautiful works that move me, and nothing changes that.

Admittedly, that's the same side of the argument that Mike, the snivelingest of sniveling jerks from S*P, eventually comes down on. Take that as you will.

If Jon Rosenberg really cares about webcomics as a medium, then what he should care about is the art itself. That's what he wants, isn't it? For people to think of webcomics as art? It shouldn't matter a whit whether the initiatives flow from bright-eyed youths with big hopes and dreams or from jaded webcomics veterans who have been part of "the scene" since its inception. In point of fact, he should want both. And he doesn't, and I can't help but see that as petty and small-minded.

In closing, let me just say this: I love the Dumbrella guys. I love them to death. Jon & John and Jeff and R Stevens are among my favorite webcomics creators. And I guess this is just simple proof that you can love the work, and disagree with the artist. And it breaks my heart a little to do so, but I do.