Bees Love Truth

Well, it's not a question of being aimed at me or not; it's the 'she's a genius and also terribly hot, but no one admits this because of a pretend character flaw' thing. Dishonesty, perhaps?
At first I thought (as in one of the role-playing strips) that her RP self was the one with the tits (which would have been fun), but then I realised that no, that was just her.

Oh, the little movie-monsters? Fun, indeed. I do like a lot of things about the strip.

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graydon.livejournal.com

So email the author and educate him about how female chatacters don't need to be underwear models with purple anime hair to be sympathetic. Maybe also throw in a suggestion that he practice drawing adult males who are neither boys nor old men.

There are things to like in the art and storytelling, but ... yeah. Also: transhumanism? For real?

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I never feel comfortable critting people on the net; I think often crits are such delicate things that even in person you can easily come off as assy (instead of legitimately constructively critical), and really with just text it's even more of a dicey thing.
And honestly half my problem would be summed up by 'STOP OBJECTIFYING SMART LADIES PLZ THX'.

It is amusing that Zappa's 'Fembot in a Wet T-Shirt' is playing right now.

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seems a me he's just a kid, a young 'un not aware of the choices he's making.

I was thinking how nice it would be to draw like that... but if I only put a comic up once every two months I'd probably be able to.

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ha also maybe she's ACTUALLY directly based on some chesty half-asian (but "low-charisma") chick he knows. THAT'D SHOW YOU

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OLDEST DEFENSE IN THE BOOK

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also why does mr north link to that when he could link to my comic since I handed him my goddamn cards on saturday

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I do not know! Maybe he will do so soon.
You should allow me to stink it up with a guest strip.

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mmcirvin.livejournal.com

I had a similar reaction when I first saw that comic, but whenever I have this reaction I come up short and ask myself if it is feminism or just prudery, so it's good to have outside confirmation.

The one webcomic I really like that has a lot of cheesecake in it is John Allison's Scary-Go-Round, which generally seems to dance this side of the pissing-me-off line; his pretty females are for the most part real characters.

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I'm definitely demanding in regards to female characters, but I don't think it's too much to ask that 'PLUS THEY'RE REALLY HOT' not always be on their char sheets.
I tried a few years ago to get into Scary-Go-Round and couldn't do it; has he gotten better at differentiating the characters via their dialog? I remember them all being strangely similarly sassy and witty.

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mmcirvin.livejournal.com

The overarching sass is still there, but he's gotten better at it, yes.

In appearance, too--his archives are an interesting journey from total artistic incompetence to a considerable degree of skill. Back when the strip was called "Bobbins" the characters gradually went from hideous to cute, but they still all looked pretty much the same, in part because he was using heavy computer assistance and I think he was assembling them from similar pieces. Then in the "Scary-Go-Round" era he very gradually learned how to make them look like individuals, which has been interesting to see.

(The thing that bothers me about "Questionable Content" is that every single character looks the same to me. Even the men and women look the same except that the women have breasts attached.)

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Questionable Content has variable breast size! How can you say that they're all the same?!

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man talk about a good example of poor understanding of how to come up with a character, too. HA HA OCD LADY LIKES TO PLAY DRUMS why do i still read that strip

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mmcirvin.livejournal.com

Come to think of it, I think "hideous to cute" was Allison's own description.

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Hi, I'm the guy who does Dresden Codak. A friend of mine was reading this and she made me reply because she doesn't like my comic either. Originally the only reason the Kimiko character was attractive was because since I spent so much time drawing each comic, I figured I'd make her pretty because I had to look at her for such long intervals, and I didn't feel like looking at someone deliberately homely. Also, I'm not very good at drawing people and it's a lot easier to do either idealized forms or really cartoonish ones, but I'm trying to get away from that now.

As far as character goes, Kimiko's major "flaw" is that she overanalyzes things to such a degree that she never achieves anything, which I think is the foundational vice of the Intellectual archetype. In every comic she "loses" at whatever she's trying to accomplish. Most of the earlier stories are little thought experiments with no continuity, and I haven't done enough comics to really flesh out any of the characters yet, so we'll see where it goes.

Again, sorry you don't like the comic. I'm trying to make it better, though.

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Aww, man, I didn't mean to discourage you or anything. Your stuff is so fun! I'm glad you're still trying to improve.

I don't quite think that your overanalysis concept is coming across; I really did object to that more than to the hypersexualization. Are you trying to make her unable to act due to overthinking? Because, really, she's a little active for that to be the case (even in a RP situation).

The sexy-hot thing: I think a friend of mine once said that it's a good idea to keep 'porn' separate from most other forms of entertainment. The problem with having a sexpot sort of character is that it pushes the objectification angle sort of hard, devaluing their other attributes. And when their other attributes are way more interesting, that's a shame. Know what I mean?

Sorry to be a big jerk. I suspect it's one of those 'but it's so almost great!' situations where the shortcomings are more annoying because of the surrounding matrix of good stuff.
Which is no excuse for me being a jerk, of course.

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Well, like I said, there really haven't been many comics yet, and I'm only now figuring out what I want to do with the characters (the first run didn't even have main characters). This new Hob storyline is hopefully going to kind of establish actual personalities for the characters. Also, it's not really about Kimiko being unable to act, but rather that she takes action but is constantly thwarted by her surroundings or by herself. Prior to the Hob story, she's pretty much just an embodiment of persistent inquisitiveness who is never allowed to "win". Those comics are more about exploring abstract ideas that I like than they are about portraying a deep character. Even after I flesh out Kimiko, the comic will still ultimately be about playing with ideas more than being character-driven. That isn't to say I want wooden and uninteresting characters, but that I'm just not interested in dramatic or personal content.

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That's cool; I don't think soap opera relations are necessary (or wanted) or anything; it's just that, as you say, fleshing-out probably is.

I don't think I really noticed the disallowed-from-winning concept. Maybe this is less meaningful due to the episodic/concept-driven single story nature of the beast. Failure is meaningless to those who have no continuity (no need to live with results of failure). Unless it were somewhat more structured and repetitive, I guess. If you're playing her more like a platonic concept than a human, maybe she needs more opportunities to show that? (Obviously though, as you say, you haven't gotten to do so many comics.)

I did notice that your characters were looking a lot better (more individual, less showy) later on. Continue to rock, of course.

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As far as failure goes, Kimiko does get turned into a tree, upstaged by a Jungian clone of herself, killed by her own rocket pack, beaten up by The Author's minions, deported from her subconscious, and invents a way to see the future only to find out she ends up soulless and alone. It's never meant to be serious, obviously, but it mostly has to do with my opinion that tragedies are funnier than comedies. Having bad things happen to a character is one of the most classical ways of getting your audience to empathize with them.

Whether or not I succeed at this is another story, and clearly with you guys it isn't the case. Oh well, I'll keep trying.

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No, no, I mean, I read it, I understand; it's just that I'm saying that the failure doesn't _stick._ Do you know what I mean? She doesn't have to deal with the consequences of any of them. Being turned into a tree isn't permanent, presumably she gets to sleep again, etc.
I completely am down with your viewpoint; I'm just saying that a major component of failure is consequences.

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In the context of the comic, though, I don't think showing consequences to getting killed or turned into a tree would be very meaningful. The focus isn't so much on how Kimiko deals with failure, but rather how these failures come about. They're self contained illustrations of personal folly, like a Twilight Zone episode or something like that. Kimiko may act these out for us, but ultimately each of those stories isn't about her.

Okay, I think I'm done overanalyzing my own dumb comic. I need to get back to drawing the next one. :)

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Good enough, thank you for commenting. I appreciate it.

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dragonspring.livejournal.com

Oh hey. Happy you-know-what-day!

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