14 minutes into a new year. I know it means nothing but for a few solar calculations, but what the heck. May the new year bring you all prosperity, in whatever way that means to you.
I wrote this some time last year for my webcomic column. I recently reread the strip and remembered why I love it so much.
Somewhere between marriage and raising his young son, Paul Taylor, of Minneapolis, still finds time to write and regularly update his comic, Wapsi Square. Mr. Taylor updates five times a week, and doesn't miss a day, which is quite a rarity in the world of webcomics.
Wapsi Square is an archaeological whodunit. The main character is Monica Villarreal, an art history and anthropology major working for the university museum, and her own antique shop. While working at the museum, Monica accidentally releases Tepoztecal, the Aztec god of alcohol. The weird takes a turn for the weirder when Tepoztecal summons into her life a chimera in the form of three drunken college girls. Slowly a story unfolds in front of her involving the pasts of these “golem girls”, Tepoztecal, and Monica's friend, Shelly Wahnee.
The story progresses slowly, and Mr. Taylor devotes a lot of time to character development. Each character has their own story that is both separate and entwined with the main plot. Monica is my favorite character. She is cute and a little naïve, but intelligent, a dedicated friend, and easygoing. One of the most memorable moments in the comic comes from her walking into a dangerous looking bikers joint, and becoming friends with everyone there because her grandfather was some kind of Harley legend. The only character more lovable than Monica is her dog, Dietzel.
The story can often be cute, and sometimes funny. However, it is not all fun and games. The three golem girls that make up the chimera are very powerful and something terrible happened to create them. Should they remember, they may massacre everything surrounding them. Add an evil spirit that seems to be trying to twist their emotions, and the strip can actually get quite creepy.
When I looked back at the beginning of the strip, I realized I had forgotten how long it has been going. There is plenty of back reading, and Mr. Taylor's art goes through some interesting changes along the way. Wapsi Square is best suited for readers who are looking for a character centered plot line. The humor is subtle, but a dedicated reader will find it there, hiding within a compelling story. Anyone who starts this will be hooked, I promise. Everyone, go read Wapsi Square, support Paul Taylor, and enjoy his wonderful story. http://www.wapsisquare.com/index.html
My column from two weeks ago. Thanks to my buddy Motoma for introducing me to this comic.
I have always regretted that, while I write for a Canadian paper, I rarely manage to write about Canadian comics. Therefore, it is with great joy that I present Butternut Squash, though in truth the location really has little to do with the comic at all. However, all things being equal, readers get to see people pay for coffee with Canadian money!
It is hard to put a finger on what I love about BNS. It does not feature an intense storyline, deep characters, or anything approaching insight. BNS is, frankly, fun and shenanigans. The comic seems semi biographical, and the main characters, Ramon and Rob, are the artist and writer respectively. In addition is their friend Vince and his dog Cola, their friend Even who describes himself as a “sweet little Jewish boy from South Africa” and a “Brooklyn bad boy at hear,” and their friend Krista.
BNS is a comic of charming yet sophomoric humor. It has more than its share of jokes about sex, or lack thereof, picking up, drinking, and flirting with cute women at the coffee shop. A popular source of humor is Brunhilda. I won't say much about her except that she is so tall she never appears completely in any single panel. Other sources of humor are Ramon's obsession with masturbation, Rob's love of bacon, and the calling into question of the sexuality of various characters in various situations.
I might be considered hypocritical for for endorsing BNS after savaging Schweppes and Justin last year for some of the same themes. It is true that Butternut Squash is not a comic for everyone. The easily offended will find their attitudes disgusting and, in some cases, downright sexist. Their friend Krista, for instance, wanted to be bumped to the head of the list of real life friends appearing in the comic, and it is suggested the price of this was a blow job (though I doubt it went down like that in real life). What I believe is her next appearance is her drunkenly flashing one of the characters. Despite this BNS has redeeming value. The characters may be obsessed with sex but they are presented as generally defective human beings. Because of this, it is hard to take things they say seriously. As long as you don't mind a little stupid guy humor, BNS will have you in happy fits of giggles. So check it out at http://www.butternutsquash.net/
SuperQuiz I did for my school paper's humor section. I give up on the formating issues.
Midterms are here! Your best midterm snack is:
A.) Peanuts. I like to keep my mind sharp.
B.) Count Chocula with coffee in lieu of milk.
C.) Who has time to eat?
D.) Floor polish and balsa wood.
E.)Your overachieving roommate's brains - that works, doesn't it?
My favorite teacher is the one who:
A.) Speaks clearly and doesn't jump from topic to topic.
B.) Puts notes online so you don't have to go to class.
C.) Sprinkles lectures with sacrilege and profanity.
D.) Speaks in tongues.
E.) Dies before the midterm.
I joined a “co-curricular” group today:
A.) The “we miss Katie Beaton” fan society.
B.) Air guitar champions. Rock on!
C.) The “cooking with balsa wood” club.
D.) Self defense using small hairless rodents.
E.) The “whacking people wearing crocs over the head with a cricket bat” fitness group. Seriously, they had it coming.
It's _______ Lupus:
A.)
Often
B.) Not
C.) Sometimes
D.) Without a doubt
E.) Hopefully
Balsa wood has many uses:
A.) Building little airplanes to “entertain” your teacher.
B.) Repairing holes in your balsa wood.
C.) Print your essays on sheets of balsa wood. Your teachers will love it.
D.) Good for eats!
E.) “Now in Original and Bar-B-Q. Balsa Crisps: Because everyone wants to eat wood.”
The shortest measurable period of time is between:
A.) The time the teacher says "were are almost out of time" and half the class has packed their bags.
B.) When you have “plenty of time” to do that assignment and “damn it, why is it taking so long to print?”
C.) When the season begins and the Mount A. football team has suffered its first defeat.
D.) When a football player reads this and I'm found tied around a street lamp.
E.) Actually, he will probably just write a letter.
Products we hope to God are never made:
A.) Edible Jock Straps.
B.) Balsa Crisps.
C.) Skunk Burgers.
D.) A box that wastes most of your time and cripples your ability to interact socially. Oh shit...
E.) Do it yourself coronary bypass kits.
Products we really want to see made:
A.) Jet powered unicycles.
B.) Soft pore cornflakes...cuz, you know...
C.) Self writing term papers.
D.) Mmmm... Pornflakes.
E.) Balsa Crisps. Because some of us just really want to eat wood.
So, Dumbledore is gay:
A.)
Who cares?
B.)
Yeah, it's Harry Potter.
C.)
No, jackass. I meant Rowling said that he was homosexual. And I
like Harry Potter.
D.) Great, this validates a whole new generation of slash fiction writers.
E.) Hundreds of teen girls are crying out in anguish because it wasn't Harry and Draco.
The funniest possible last joke would be:
A.)
A reference to Charlie Hunter, Sodexho, or hot naked Greek guys.
B.)
The quadratic formula.
C.)
The one about the plumber and the twenty foot python...
D.) A description of the mating practices of baboons.
E.) Did you say something? I was gnawing on this tree...
This weeks column in my school paper.
Sandra K. Fuhr is my hero. When I first started this column, Matt Lane suggested a rubric with which to judge each comic. I resisted based on the idea that I wanted to talk about each comic, not just grade it. But I lied. In some ways, Friendly Hostility is the standard by which I judge all other comics. It was one of the first comics that I was introduced to. It had only started a few months before and was fresh, sexy, and wonderful. Now, it is still wonderful and it has picked up a few new adjectives to replaces fresh and sexy.
The main characters of Friendly Hostility are Kailen “Fox” Maharassa and Collin Sri'Vastra, two best friends who were side characters in Sandra's previous comic, Boy Meets Boy. By the end of Boy Meets Boy, which you all should go read right now, Collin and Fox had pretty much become the central focus, so Ms. Fuhr started anew. Friendly Hostility opened with a short series called Problematic, working as an introduction to Fox's as of then unseen family. Readers get to meet his mother, Nefertari, and his father, Padma, as well as Ibrafim, usually called Rafi, Padma's best friend who manages to loose Fox's baby older sister to cannibals. Then, after a few months of introduction to the family, the story begins.
Unlike Boy Meets Boy, which was based very much around slapstick humor and jokes about sexuality and identity, Friendly Hostility is based on family and relationships between different people. Fox and Collin struggle with school expenses, Nefertari struggles to keep Padma from “upgrading” the toaster (it usually involves a car battery), and Fox's sister, Fatima, struggles to get Rafi to teach her to cheat at cards. The characters are deep and involved but fun and quirky. Bootsie is Collins slave that he won in a poker game. The Demon is a demon that lived in their fridge and now lives in the boiler room. He is called Demon because his real name causes nose bleeds. He is also a nurse.
I find myself wanting to tell every story in Friendly Hostility. There are truly too many wonderful moments to describe. Like Penny and Aggie, the comic leaves one attached to the characters, treating them as real people in your mind. The story can be outright funny, making you laugh and giggle all at once, and yet sweet and touching at the same time. Sandra describes herself as coming from a large tight knit Mexican family, and in some ways that is what Friendly Hostility is about. In other ways, it is just about madness. Go see it at http://friendlyhostility.com/
My column this week in the Argosy
It should be clear by now that I judge webcomics based on characters, story, and art, in that order. Penny and Aggie has all three of these in abundance all mixed up with high school romance, conflicting personalities, and epic battles of wit and will. The story is powered by the phenomenal writing of T. Campbell and the excellent art is by Point-Verte New Brunswick's own Gisèle Lagacé. Ms. Lagacé's art works in unison with Mr. Campbell's writing to make characters that make one forget that it is just a comic.
Penny and Aggie is hosted by a group that bills itself as collecting comics about teen life. It is true that the characters are in high school but Penny and Aggie is far too sophisticated and complex to be summed up as a teen romance or soap opera. While it is done in a sort of soapdrama format with episodic storylines and a focus on characters over events, it escapes being a “soap comic” by avoiding overly dramatic scenes and by the sheer depth of characterization. The title characters are Penny Levac, a wealthy and fashionable young woman, and Aggie d'Amour, who is an outcast by choice and self styled political activist. The two are sworn enemies as one can only have in high school, each at a loss to understand the others motivations. They each have loyal friends who both back them up and challenge their assumptions, and there are plenty of side characters to follow. Unlike many comics with a large cast, Campbell and Lagacé keep track of their characters and devote time and attention to lovingly crafting each into an individual.
The story follows the girls through their battles and occasional alliances, but it also branches into the lives of their friends and family. Aggie's father is a widower of three years, and has recently met a woman he thinks he wants to start dating. Penny's best friend, Sara, is struggling to keep her identity from being nothing more than the best friend of the popular girl. Within the various storyline are the usual high school politics and competitions.
Penny and Aggie is somewhat reminiscent of Betty and Veronica in art and theme. However, Penny and Aggie is far removed from the fanciful and ultimately Utopian world of Archie Comics. Despite being wealthy and fashionable, Penny is, along with Aggie, one of the high school's top students. Despite her desire for social justice, Aggie is not always the hero, and can be as flawed as the often self centered Penny. Even Rich, Penny's one time love interest, does not stay within the stereotype of the too cool to care bad boy.
I have to recommend Penny and Aggie to everyone. It is everything a good webcomic should be, with regular updates and an excellent story. The included sample is a perfect example of the comic, representing the coming to a culmination of several stories, as well as being an example of the interactions of the characters and the wit of the author. The girl in black is Sara, who has long been convinced that Aggie, with the peace sign on her belt, is in love with Penny, and vice versa. The girl with the multicolored hair is Lisa, weird in her own right. You are missing out if you skip this one, so check it out at www.pennyandaggie.com/
This is an op-ed piece I wrote for the Argosy on language.
I am about to propose something vastly out of character. I am going to propose that we make a change to the English language.
People who know me know that I am extremely conservative when it comes to English. In my first year I had several friends who only half affectionately called me Mr. English because I constantly corrected their mistakes. Therefore, what I am about to suggest is, for me, a huge deviation from my standard mode of being.
We have all heard teachers tell us, usually in a rightfully world weary voice, that we should not use “they” as a gender-neutral singular pronoun. Nor, we are told, should we use “their” as a gender-neutral singular possessive pronoun. These teachers are correct, of course. To use “they” and “their” that way is completely incorrect according to the laws of English.
These laws were formed at a less enlightened time when the default gender was male. The universal human could be represented as “he.” It was standard, after all, to refer to the race of “man.” This has, of course, changed. Indeed, few would argue that this change is not for the better. However, this change came, it seems to me, without any serious look at the linguistic side of the matter. Now that the masculine can no longer stand in as the universal human, we are left with the awkward situation of being forced to circumvent our clumsy and archaic system of gendered pronouns.
As it stands, in conversation we are perfectly used to and accepting of “they” and “their” as gender-neutral pronouns. However, in official and academic writings, this is frowned upon. Perhaps it is time, then, to give this one up and accept it.
Consider a situation where something must be discussed using hypothetical gender-neutral people. For example: “When a person must tell another person something that makes him or her uncomfortable, he or she will often try to segue it into conversation by bringing up a topic that he or she has in common with the other, hoping that pleasant conversation will...etc.” I'm making it up as I go, but my point is clear and that was not an extremely murky situation to begin with. It only involved two people. There are other ways to go about writing it, but all of them are clumsy and break up the flow of the writing. In short, they make the writing ugly.
A few new words must be created to reflect the current state of our language as related to gender. We could make words up, of course, but why bother? We already have several words we are used to using in every day speech. I am very cautious about letting anything slip in language, desperate to to cling to English As It Is for as long as it can be clung to. This once, however, I think we should embrace change. It will make our language that much more beautiful.
My one attempt at poetry. This was a final project for AP English in my senior year. It was supposed to sum up the year as a whole. I apologize ahead of time for the Sestina. They are very difficult and I claim no skill with verse. Also, I'm missing the rhyming couplet. Oops.
“In a Restaurant of High Prestige”
Tristram Draper
In a restaurant of high prestige, four
men meet to discuss their lifelong career.
A scientist, and a bureaucrat, an
artist of the arts, a scholar of books.
A discussion ensues of careers and
who’s is worth more to man and humankind.
Says the Scientist:
When man was young he knew but none of life
he credited God with that not yet known.
Priests used this to control the lower class.
Aristotle taught us what is science,
science brought freedom to all the masses
and cast the priesthood from the power seat.
Now man was free to rule in the high seat,
man kind in control of his fate and life.
The priesthood lost control of the masses.
Science, the key to open doors not known,
and the priesthood was replaced by science
and by knowledge became the “mystic” class.
Our power we used to teach lower class.
Students heard us lecture from the stage seat.
Mesmerized by secrets of science,
man began to learn the secrets of life.
When, to science, the universe was known
then we became savior to the masses.
We learned medicine to cure the masses
and taught hygiene to save the people class.
To themselves, each, their destiny was known
to rule themselves on their own ruling seat.
To the people we gave meaning to life,
and they learned to trust our mighty science.
Modern Civilization owes science
for enlightening the unwashed masses
and giving them power to control life.
Required attendance to science class-
have knowledge poured into them in their seat,
and add to society and be known.
So I declare that it should be well known
society should give thanks to science,
and the people sitting in their car seat
know that cars were a gift to the masses,
as is that used by the non science class.
You all owe science for your very life.
Says the Scholar:
You dare!
Oh, you presume!
We made you literate,
we educated scientists.
Worthless!
Says the Bureaucrat:
We take what scholar taught and science learned,
make use and turn it into money earned.
You make building blocks of society,
we place those blocks and make thing go smoothly.
We must use what you made and have given,
what scholars have written down with their pens
what science has found of our jumbled life
without us the world would be chaos and strife.
Says the Artist:
Oh, how I love to watch you all argue.
I hope that you know that you are all wrong.
And yes that is true for each one of you,
artists built the culture t’which you belong.
You need the people to be any use.
And guess who created that teaming throng?
Surely you know whom I am talking about:
Artists who have made the masses devout.
And then while they talk a Figure appears.
He stares at them but they do not notice.
Then: a premonition!
They turn towards Him, and they stare.
He stares.
Stare.
And then just when they think they can stand the gaze no more…
He blinks!
The scientist jumps,
his hand hits his glass,
and it does not react.
All scientific theory collapses.
The Scholar is speechless,
the first time in his life.
His pen is out of ink,
his books crumble to dust.
From the Bureaucrats hand,
(gnarled and arthritic)
Bang!
His old heavy ledger falls down to the floor!
Each page comes unbound
and takes to the breeze,
and his whole system is torn down around him.
Though he try to run,
hide from it all,
the artist as well
is now doomed to fall.
His brushes go dry, his painting all fade,
no one remembers his name or his life.
So (says the Figure),
So ephemeral, so brief.
All their work stolen
by Time, the great thief.
All they built has fallen to dust,
In the blink of my eye, Eternity.
For my last column for this October I am going to take a moment to discuss gender tropes and related issues in webcomics. Gender portrayals are actually an issue in mainstream comics and this carries over into webcomics, mainstream comics often being the inspiration for many webcomic creators.
This is most obvious in superhero comics where women are often portrayed wearing skin tight outfits in poses strait out of pornographic magazines. The root of this problem, I believe, comes from the fact that comics generally show an idealized world. Whether this is an ideal held by the writer or artist, or whether a more cultural one, the problem seems to be how men and women are idealized. Women are often shown in submissive poses, or with their chests thrust out. All too often they are drawn with enormous breasts the likes of which almost do not exist in nature
It is argued by some that women are not singled out for this type of representation. Indeed, while women may have abnormally large breasts and unnaturally thin waists, men tend to have gigantic muscles and enormously broad shoulders. However, while a male character may be “beefcake,” he is powerful in his sex appeal. On the other hand, women are often presented as submissive or vulnerable, even seductive in an almost demonic sense. While, in superhero comics especially, a woman's nipples can be seen through her shirt, a bare chested man almost never has visible nipples. If a man's crotch has a bulge to it, this only serves to emphasize his power. Women, then, are idealized as objects while men are idealized as agents.
The fact that many webcomic artists are amateurs spending their free time to work on their projects often, though not always, spares webcomics from this particular issue. However, these categories sadly carry in other ways into more than one webcomic I have encountered. The biggest problem I see is female sexuality as written by male authors. In its most innocent form, it is simply tongue-in-cheek fun poking at romantic interactions between men and women. Unfortunately, many male authors go down the path of eroticizing female sexuality to the point of fantasy. This is especially the case when it comes to lesbianism (if that is even an ism). With a few exceptions, notably Penny and Aggie, which I have the pleasure of reviewing next week, I cringe when I see a male author trying to portray a lesbian. Too often it becomes a portrayal of a little boy fantasy. I am particularly weary of seeing the bisexual nymphomaniac. Flipside's Brion Foulke, I'm talking to you.
A final thing to mention is the use of rape as a story device. Rape is often used as a short cut to add depth to a character or plot, and to create conflict and motivations. The problem is that the results are almost always shallow and tasteless, belittling the experiences of actual victims. Sometimes it is used to try to deal with the issues involved, but it is difficult to do this is a way that is sensitive to all experiences and emotions. It is inadvisable even to use it as a way of dealing with one's own experiences, as it is such an emotion laden subject. In general, unless one is a therapist trained to deal with such things, it is advisable to steer away from the subject of sexual assault all together.
This is not to say that all webcomics handle gender badly. Indeed, the community is often very open minded, and many authors use their comics to explore issues of gender and sexuality, a few noteworthy ones being Abstract Gender, Misfile, and El Goonish Shive. Gender is fun to play with, just be careful about what games you play.
