More disappointment

[zustifer]

I want to like this webcomic, which is reasonably well-drawn, amusingly-conceived, and very clever, but... the protagonist. I am made irrationally angry by heterosexual male creators who insist on mary-suing (Okay, not quite mary-sue; what's a term for this? Galatea-ing?) up their female pinups characters with all the positive attributes they can possibly think of, but oh noes she is too smart and therefore socially awkward in an adorable way! That is not cute at all, sincerely! It is also totally irrelevant that she is half-asian and has big tits for some reason!
False character flaws. What a burden. It troubles me that this kind of shit mars up the potentially really pleasant surface of an otherwise fun work.
I mean, for serious, check out the too-small button-down halfway down, as well as the obnoxious sleep-splay-boobs on the shot immediately to the left. COME ON.

Comments

Re: Sorry

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Sorry

[dresdencodak.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Sorry

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Sorry

[dresdencodak.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Sorry

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

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.

Re: Sorry

[dresdencodak.livejournal.com]

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. :)

Re: Sorry

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

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