Adjoodbidja Web Comics!

Latest

Archive

Forum

Home

The Daily Talking of Things

Ramzo the Monkey (2007-08-13 15:50:47) Wasn't this comic totally not worth waiting 11 months for? The saddest part is that I had this comic drawn a very, very long time ago, before the site ever went down, certainly before I stopped posting AOR. The simple fact of the matter is that I was just far too lazy to work on it, so I never ended up making it. Reading back on these comics, I'm pretty disappointed in them. They ended up being much more standard fantasy then I could see myself wanting. I mean, I could maybe see myself writing a story like this as early as 5 years ago, but not more recently. Did I really start this comic in late 2005? I am ashamed. The problem is that fantasy (and this is something I don't like to admit as I actually am a fantasy fan), is essentially the equivalent of the "mindless action flick" for sci-fi fans. This is rather ironic as a great deal of mindless action flicks are disguised as sci-fi films in order to give them the pretense of actually not being mindless action films. This facade always ends up falling on its face, however, no matter how pretentious its beginnings. The Matrix films would be a perfect example of this. Despite the fact that the song is about musical artists, I can' help but be reminded of the song "Fedallah's Hearse" by Propagandhi. In it, they claim that other artists "assign profound meaning to the meaningless curious that decorate [their] sets within extraordinarily mundane fictions," as well as "cluttering [their] language with so much deadwood that no amount of pruning will reveal their intense and protracted campaign of saying nothing at all." In other words, they're being "poetic," essentially, in order to disguise the fact that they don't really have anything to say. This is, over all, what Fantasy novels are. Authors in the genre spend a great deal of time thinking up maps, cities, spires, and the rules and workings of the world's magic, and then spend no time whatsoever coming up with actual story. The story is always the same: some pre-destined hero rises up from nowhere and, with the help of some friends and some enchanted artifacts, slays the unquestionable evil that is destroying the land. It's as simple as that. You have your races that are unquestionably evil (goblins), and your races that are always purely good (humans). Granted, several fantasy writers tend to try and appear more "grown-up" by adding in human characters that have become twisted and malicious even while trying to act like they're working for "the greater good." Over 90% of the time, however, these people are simply controlled by the great evil (and the rest of the time they turn out to BE the great evil), so it's not really anything different in the end. You have your characters that are unwaveringly evil, and your characters that are unwaveringly good. So you all this work and effort that goes into world-building, but all of it is just a sheet pulled over your eyes to cover the fact that there's no real message here. It's simply imaginative entertainment. I guess, what I'm trying to say is that I want this comic to be something more, something greater, and so far mostly all its been is generic, and I'm not happy about that. I want more than ever before to simply do away with this story. I mean, 42 pages now? It hasn't gone anywhere. This was the most pathetic attempt to actually do something worthwhile that I can think of. I'm going to work on bringing it to as rapid a close as I can manage. I'm sorry, I talk too much, but it's been a really long time.