Of Questionable Authority

Blawg

2011-07-29T09:37:00.000-04:00

Really? I haven't posted anything in over a year? That's just remarkable.

I feel there should be some kind of trophy for that.

SPAM

2010-03-08T17:58:00.000-05:00

Thanks for keeping this blog warm with the anonymous comments. Fourteen on the last entry? That's astounding. Good work.

Something Like "Uhhhhhh!"

2009-10-25T02:17:00.000-04:00

You don't really start to miss having a sound card until you've tried to read lips during a porno.

[Review] Batman: Arkham Asylum

2009-10-08T03:18:00.001-04:00

Merriam-Webster defines headspace as the area above a liquid in a closed container. I define headspace as the area behind the lips and teeth. You would be right in thinking that this has precious little to do with Bruce Wayne, except for the fact that Batman: Arkham Asylum can blow me.

These are Batman's lips.

It’s generally accepted that B:AA is the greatest Batman game since that one where you tied a sheet around your neck and tried to beat up your friends. I feel this is indisputable. Writing that, however, does nothing to quell the burning desire within me to take something beautiful and twist and mangle it until it’s a heap of bleeding flesh and red hair. Get it? That’s what Joker did to Barbara Gordon. B:AA gets it, because you’ll spend half the game talking to the Oracle.

Batgirl after The Killing Joke.

The story picks up with Batman having just stopped Mark Hamill from doing something hilarious to the mayor. He drives recklessly down city streets and arrives at Arkham Asylum, Labyrinth for the Criminally Insane, designed by the Criminally Insane. He mentions on multiple occasions that he knows Joker is up to something and would never give himself up this easily before turning to the camera and comically shrugging his shoulders while saying, “WHAT ARE YA’ GONNA’ DO?” in a cartoon voice. Joker uses brute force to realistically overpower half the guards in Arkham while his goons cleverly take care of the rest. It’s up to Batman and Commissioner Buff Bagwell to stop him. OH. SHIT.

Gordon looks bigger when not standing beside a brick wall.

The game progresses and you beat up some punks and the Riddler effs with you through the whole game and you never once get to see him or find out how he managed to hide trophies on ledges hundreds of feet over solid ground without access to so much as a step ladder. I’m not even going to call into question how he managed to drum up the raw materials to make the trophies. Or how he got the time to hide them in the hundreds of secret passageways no one else seemed to know about. I guess these circumstances would be harder to accept if the standard Arkham guard’s uniform wasn’t a bright green suit with black question marks all over it.

One of the things I hate most about this game is the lack of a mini-map. I wouldn’t be bothered by it if Arkham didn’t consist entirely of M.C. Escher paintings filled with raving lunatics who are inexplicably well-trained marksmen. Rocksteady Studios, the developer, expanded on this concept by including a fun mini-game. Here’s how to play:

1. Enter any part of the game world.

2. Pause the game to bring up the map and orient yourself. Exit the pause menu.

3. Turn in any direction--north, south, east, or west.

4. Pause the game again.

5. Turn around, you idiot.

The art style for B:AA is best described as a mix between Hot Topic and something else that is shitty. In fairness, it works for me. I like the horror elements the setting incorporates, and considering the textures in the game all fall between rust and dirt, they play that hand extensively. When I played Resident Evil 2 as a kid, I remember being terrified. I was young and it was a game that, if you lost, you were treated to not only a game over screen, but also your character being eaten to death. To fight back the trauma, I imagined what it would be like to play through the game as Superman. He’d be punching the shit out of every zombie he laid eyes on—assuming he didn’t just use those eyes to melt their faces the second he saw them.

Anyway, playing B:AA is kind of like that. It’s a little haunting, but you don’t get scared, because you’re fucking Batman. It also helps that you’ll spend the whole game fighting glowing blue skeletons. You fight so many fucking skeletons in this game they should have called it Sinbad: Arkham Asylum.

See, Rocksteady decided to handle Batman being the World’s Greatest Detective by implementing a system called detective mode. That’s probably the most sensible thing you’ll have read in this whole review. At various points in the game, Batman is meant to backtrack to areas he’s already visited to flip on his Blue Vision and scan the area for traces of bourbon vapor and, more believably, fingerprints. It works. It’s fun. Until it isn’t.

Arkham Asylum, the hellish labyrinth that it is, features no less than nine hundred vents for Batman to crawl into, four hundred weak walls for Batman to destroy, and eight thousand enemies modeled to wear the exact same colors as the floors and walls they patrol along. The trouble is that playing the game without the aid of detective mode will force you to miss three quarters of all of those ridiculously inflated figures.

Detective mode is such an intense feature, it turns structural abnormalities into highly noticeable shimmering ice, renders Looney Tunes characters holding wooden signs shaped like arrows pointing toward all the hidden vents, and lets Batman see through walls. Only one of those things is a lie. Oh, and it also turns everything blue.

Actual gameplay footage.

That’s the inherent problem with the feature. No longer can you simply play to enjoy the combat and the setting. Every new area you enter begs you to put on detective mode and never, ever take it off lest you risk missing some crucial piece of the game. And you will put it on. It takes all the hard work the artists and level designers put into the game inside a paper bag and writes FUCK OFF on it with a Sharpie. I wasn’t kidding about those skeletons, either.

Condition: Trick or Treat!!

When you enter a room full of enemies with guns (the red skeletons) try to pick them off without using detective mode. You can’t do it. You’ll take out one guy just as another guy rounds the corner and blows your cocky ass to pieces. The game is nearly unplayable without the ability to see through walls. Just like real life.

Also like real life, when you get about three quarters of the way through and decide you can’t take it any longer, you can simply put the controller down and walk away. That’s what I did. The choice is in your hands. You can be a quitter and keep playing B:AA or finish the game by not playing it ever again.

I give Batman: Arkham Asylum, 3 out of 4 stars.

On Templates

2009-09-23T20:17:00.000-04:00

I discovered today that the majority of Blogger templates are made by the same sort of people that create garish neon signs for storefronts. The rest are made by murderers.

Instead of battling with glossy web 2.0 code and images for the next three weeks, I've decided to go with Minima Black. You'll recognize it as the very same template in use on popular industry blog Everyone Else Uses This. Dot com.

But at least there's an image in the header. It's the small things.

Stange and Wonderful Things

2009-09-10T12:06:00.002-04:00

There is every chance in the world this blog could be undergoing some changes in the near future, not unlike the time you first noticed hair where there should be no hair, or at the very least, hair where there was no hair before. Hair.

Equally likely are the odds I'll neglect to write anything remotely insightful for publication here for a period of several more months.

You just never know with this guy.

Singularititties

2009-03-19T02:33:00.002-04:00

Sure, I might not update this site, but I just wrote a pretty rocking theory on multiverses.

So you can go ahead and put that in your pipe. Smoke it. You know, whatever.

Ass.

Edit: You can not name your sci-fi skin flick Singularititties, it is mine.

Right.

2008-11-26T11:56:00.002-05:00

in b4 'shit i havent posted in a month'

Yeah, it's like that.

Election Day

2008-11-04T17:01:00.002-05:00

Which is something this post isn't about.

This thread over at Digital Webbing is a perfect example of how to be a subpar creator and then right out of the gate refuse to even consider getting better. You know, if that's the kind of thing you'd be interested in learning.

The thread gets out of control, of course, which is awesome. It's like showing up to a rally and then some assholes start pulling out guns. Sure, you didn't do any shooting, but you're still getting arrested.

I will confess to a small amount of scumbaggery, though. But only a dash.

I'M NOT BUSY

2008-10-29T14:20:00.004-04:00

There are going to be days where you're not going to get anything done. Today is one of those days. Yesterday was one of those days. The day before that was, yeah, one of those days. And here's why!

Determined to be abandoned in Nebraska, this child has recently started screaming at me for reasons unknown. Let's examine the facts.

1. Elliot screams when I open a PC game.
2. Elliot screams when I stop sitting next to him.
3. Elliot screams when I try to sleep (have sex with) his mother.
4. Elliot screams when I try to write.

I almost included a fifth point, but I'm not sure we know each other well enough for me to get away with a joke about child molestation. Maybe next time!

To be honest, he really only makes a scene late at night when I'm more interested in sleeping and less interested in remembering that I'm a parent. Fortunately, shoving bottles of disgusting formula into his face is usually enough to quell the fires burning inside him. This is no longer adequate. Today, he rolled out the second phase of his attack strategy.

Halfway through his afternoon feeding, he began wailing uncontrollably, announcing his plans to strike preemptively from this point forward, stripping me of my passive ability to steel myself against his bullshit.

Despite his repeated attempts at getting me to introduce him to that cruel mistress Abusive Head Trauma, I've remained steadfast and unwavering in my commitment to parenting by non-parenting.

While initially successful in catching me off-guard, his mission has since failed, and the levees have been rebuilt.

His fatal error was in not realizing that I have iTunes.

I'M BUSY

2008-10-16T00:51:00.007-04:00

Writing, writing some other stuff, flatting, more writing, child rearing.

Excuse the lack of updates here, I've had a full plate lately. I could talk about the latest presidential debate, or tell you to vote for change, but I'm not going to. In fact, I strongly advise against it.

You should now pretend this text is really an image spoofing Obama's 'Change' campaign, only it's a picture of McCain with the words 'Status Quo' which is what you should be voting for to keep in line with the idea of voting for change (that you can believe in) only that's not what you're doing, because the picture we're discussing clearly asks for the opposite.

Was that annoying? In the continuing days, as the crippling blog drought continues, think of reading the same tired updates again and again as a gift. In a sea of fat nerds telling you why Obama kicks McCain's ass and the opposite, when you just want to know why Ultimates is always late, I'll remain an island of impartial discourse.

And then there's this:

We're thinking of taking Zeitgeist in a new direction.

Adventures in Scripting

2008-09-15T00:24:00.009-04:00

There was a script page here!

It was a gag!

It's gone now!

Exclamation points!

Doubling Up

2008-09-14T21:06:00.015-04:00

Continuing the streak of bad advice you shouldn't listen to, I present the following:

Collaborating is hard. In my experience, the odds are stacked against the very concept. After all, when you have to worry about the sensibilities of anyone besides yourself, you're in danger of losing sight of what made the project interesting to you in the first place. If your version of Ragmar the Unholy is a potty mouthed zombie priest and your partner's just wants to be loved, this is a very serious problem.

It should almost go without saying that, to avoid this, you should try like hell to only work with people that have interests in line with your own. Unfortunately, this isn't always possible. If you're lucky enough to command such vast influence as to have your choice of working with whoever you want, that's great, but it's not a practical assumption. More often than not, you'll have to get used to absorbing the ideas of your co-writer or artist (or both) and interpreting them in a way that makes sense to you. In fact, for broke writers, which must be just about all of us, the offer of collaboration and partnership is one of the few things we can use as bait for unsuspecting artists¹.

And now to be completely hypocritical, I'm going to say that while collaborating is hard, it is completely something you should do. Hey, you might as well get used to it now, and if you can survive the burnout associated with working with someone that is truly terrible at what they do, you'll only come out a stronger writer on the other side². You should also teach yourself to look at artists as more than pencil wielding slaves, there is every chance they'll know something you don't, and you can learn from that.

This is all figuring that the story you're collaborating on is, of course, your story. What do you do when the story isn't your own? This is a different situation entirely, and one I can also shed some light on.

It's important to keep in mind that there are generally two types of people you'll find yourself working with--those that truly want to work together and make a better story, and those that can't handle the story on their own, but want to use you as a means to an end. Of course, there are also assholes who don't actually care what you think and expect you to do as told, but if you find yourself in the company of an artist or writer like that, well, you know. Fuck that guy.

You're obviously better off working with option one, but I can't speak to how often that'll happen. There's probably a list a of people you imagine you'd be able to work with, but you'd be surprised how wrong you might be. Wording that a different way, it might be shocking to discover just how shallow the talent pool is.

Option two brings more headaches. These situations tend to not work out, and you'll usually find that your ideas come second to those of the conceptualist. Maybe it's your technical ability they're after, or maybe it's the way your ass looks in those jeans, but odds are you're going to get fucked.

That's not to say working under even the best of circumstances can't be challenging. Can you imagine how boring it would be if your partner took everything you said as gospel? Part of the appeal in collaborating, at least for me, is the constructive criticism. If you can do no wrong, you won't be getting a whole lot of that³.

Also, when you're writing someone else's characters, there's always (or at least usually) going to be an expectation that you don't screw it up. There exist certain universes where Batman is instead 'The Goddamn Batman' and Robin ceases to be 'The Boy Wonder' and is instead a 'retard', but for the average person, this isn't going to cut it. The strong willed, quiet hero can't suddenly morph into Indiana Jones, even if that is your writing style. This is another one of those rules that should be common sense, but there are occasions when it's actually pretty hard, especially if you've been writing a certain way for a long time. The good news? Learning to adapt and subscribe to new schools of thought will only make you better at what you do.

It's for all of these reasons, and probably a thousand or so more, that I can't stress enough how important communication is. Communication before the project, during the project, and every other conceivable stage. When at all possible, learning as much about your collaborator and their interests/quirks can be a lifesaver⁴. Seeking out those who will actually know what the hell you're talking about is as important as just finding the talent.

Remember, it's easy to get excited about an idea. It's somewhat harder to make sure your excitement doesn't blind you to a potential disaster. Losing time while slowly losing faith in what you do just isn't fun. These things are all avoidable, and it gets easier with experience⁵.

1 That, and a strong jaw.
2 Or, in perhaps rarer circumstances, you might quit writing for a year.
3 In fact, this is disasterous, and has to be responsible for the glut of writers and artists who believe they're the shit when they aren't. Friends and family will never be a good judge of talent, unless they do the very same thing you're asking them to critique.
4 I swear I'd have never even started if I knew he was a terrorist.
5 Of which I have none.

Cutting

2008-09-06T15:26:00.000-04:00

The original title of this post was going to be Circumcising Your Script, but I figured the connection between trimming script pages and cutting off part of a baby's dick is, at best, weak.

Instead, I've settled on Cutting, which I guess has as much in common with removing precious detail as slicing up your arm to My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade.

Lengthy introductions aside, I'm referring to the practice of going at your script with a butcher's fury for any number of reasons. Too long, redundant, just plain stupid--if you're a first time writer, this will happen to you. I can't speak for seasoned veterans, but it's ridiculous to imagine anyone could ever get to a point where they thought the first draft was the best draft.

Well, okay, you might think you've got it done in one, and you might think I'm an idiot for suggesting you'd ever need to make with the snip-snip all over your writing. But, uh, you're wrong. While I can assure you that I am an idiot*, this has very little to do with it. Editing is an unfortunate reality. In comics, with truly fucked up space constraints, it's even worse.

The silver lining, if I had to identify one, is that there isn't enough time to be hyper-critical of your own work. And while there is always enough time to make your script as lean and tight as possible, working with a deadline drastically cuts how much of it you can spend reading and rereading your script, cutting it, rewriting it, and doing it all over again.

When a project lacks boundaries, the odds are high you'll overthink it. There comes a time when it has to be good enough, even if it isn't great. That sounds like bullshit, but it's true--unless doing the same thing over and over forever is your idea of a party.

Summing it up? Edit your shit. Write as tightly as you can. If your character has a blood pact with a demon from the Netherverse (which is like hell, but in space), tell that story. Layers are important, but not if it the cost is too high. If the reader really wants to know why Vandrake Killdriver commands an undead army, don't force a new character that only you give a shit about on them in the next issue. Use this approach when you write your dialogue. The first thing to go will nearly always be that bitching knee slapper you thought up in the bathroom, so save yourself the trouble.

* Sike! I'm awesome.

Addendum

2008-09-02T04:02:00.000-04:00

The egg salad was great, baby, please don't hurt me no more.

Conventions

2008-09-01T21:31:00.000-04:00

Can we go ahead and agree to stop building tension by having characters wait for file transfers? Cool, thanks.

Projects! (Not low income housing.)

2008-08-30T23:10:00.000-04:00

Can't believe I left this sitting here for over a year. Actually, no, I'm lying. I just don't see the point in blogging.

1. No one cares what you did all day/week/month.

2. Your opinions don't matter.

3. The URL doesn't have Myspace in it, so no one is coming to visit, anyway.

So, what's left to talk about? Not a whole lot--unless you're totally awesome. Am I? Well, I don't like to boast. But this baby I rescued from his abusive father does*1:

Thanks, kid!

Let's get down to business. (What does that even mean?) I'm a writer, or trying to be, though I guess there isn't much indicating that around this here blog. Now you know. I've been writing comics, the devil's first media, for a few years. With the rules I listed above in mind, you should now be painfully aware that you're more likely to learn what I'm fooling around with at any given minute than what I had for dinner*2.

So what am I fooling around with? Bob Rivard. But not his penis*3!

A couple of years ago, I met Bob on Digital Webbing.com. He was looking for a few mercenaries to rescue his wife from Vietnamese pirates, and I agreed to sign on. It wasn't until much later I found out he was an artist. Soon after, I found out he was a bastard. Don't let him fool you. They say if you whisper Bob Rivard into a pool of still water six times, you'll turn into a pillar of salt. Side note? He was fucking Lot's wife.

We spent a long time talking about different projects, before finally laying down some solid work on Zeitgeist, Bob's creator owned book. It wasn't easy getting to this point either. Bob had to run through three different writers, and I had to stop coming up with shitty ideas. We've got a strong first script, with more on the way. That really hinges on Bob letting me put wizards in issue two, so we'll see what happens. Right now, it's strictly World War II time traveling espionage action.

In the meantime, we've started working on Type 1, a science fiction anthology. It deals with mankind branching out into the Solar System, sort of leading up to humanity collectively becoming a type 1 civilization. Since the spirit of a type 1 civilization is built on free trade and sharing, we've decided to get other artists and writers involved. We're keeping a loose continuity in place, so there's no pressure for stories to connect. They just have to be good.

There you go. Pretty busy, lately. And now it'll make a little more sense when Nazis and spaceships start appearing around here.

*1The kid is mine. I can assure you he is of the Not Abused variety of baby.
*2It was egg salad, and every bit as disgusting as you'd imagine.
*3I don't know if it's cool for me to talk about his penis. Also, Bob is responsible for the fire breathing newborn in my last post, as well as the shark/cheetah/black mamba hybrid (chesnark) tiled in the background of this page. Adorable? Sure. But so are bear cubs. Ask Timothy Treadwell how that worked out. For more of Bob's art, you should check out his page, conveniently linked to the right.

Secrets

2008-08-30T21:28:00.000-04:00

In reality, I am a fire breathing baby Pokey Man. A Flame Asshole.

Tits are my only weakness. Or, if you're easily offended, you can substitute pale olives.

Traveler

2007-08-12T07:05:00.001-04:00

I've got a project coming along that doesn't actually have a name yet.

That's not very exciting, since no one reads this blog and by "coming along" I mean "might get scripted."

But oh are there ideas...No really, this one could actually end up getting written. You'll see.

Maybe.

EDIT: Sike!

Actually, this project got canned many months ago during my quest to suck less.

Really?

2007-05-18T14:57:00.001-04:00

I've noticed that my last two entries have comments attached to them letting me know that my blog is "nice" and that I should visit their blog about Mozilla Firefox.

I am not going to do this.

Thanks for the spam.