I’m working on redoing the whole setup of this website so that it runs entirely out of WordPress (right now it still uses mostly static HTML). This means that it may be somewhat unstable over the next couple days. Patience.

I’m a bit late to the game on this, but I still feel the need to say something, because this is important. The issue is this: fans are being abused. The history is long and familiar: fans create derivative works, and copyright holders force a takedown. Granted, much fan-produced work is of little interest to others, but occasionally fans produce strong, original content that seizes the attention of the rest of the fanbase. These works present the source material in arresting and creative ways, building on the original while not detracting from it. As many have pointed out, these “derivative works” should be protected under the “fair use” exception, and yet copyright holders persist in ordering takedowns of fan-produced works, claiming infringement.

This hurts everyone–including the copyright holder. I will elaborate.

What led me to write about this was the expulsion of SF Debris from YouTube. For those of you unfamiliar with him, Chuck “SF Debris” Sonnenburg is an amateur reviewer of Star Trek episodes (among other things) and has for several years been creating video reviews using his trademark combination of silly jokes and insightful analysis. Prior to the takedown, he had posted reviews of over a hundred episodes of Trek on YouTube, including multi-part reviews of all the films through First Contact. Unfortunately, as Sonnenburg uses clips from the shows to illustrate his points, CBS views him as being no better than a pirate, and effectively forced him to remove his entire archive–the product of years of work–from YouTube.

While Sonnenburg is in the process of transferring to blip.tv, which attempts to protect its users from these kinds of claims, this nonetheless is a setback for him, as he now has to reprocess all these clips before he can bring them online again. This is also unfortunate from the standpoint of his fans, because we no longer have access to most of his archive. And, finally, this is bad for CBS, too. Here is what the studio fails to realize: fans are providing free advertising. I first found Sonnenburg’s work while looking for information regarding Voyager’s most notorious episode, the infamous “Threshold.” (In which Tom violates the laws of physics, turns into a salamander, and has salamander babies with the  captain.) Sonnenburg had already posted a three-part review of the stinker at that point, and I was delighted by it. Naturally I began watching more of his reviews, and as I did so I was reminded of the fact that, flawed though it is, I actually kind of like Voyager. Suffice it to say I have since bought three seasons of the show (3, 4, and 6, which my research leads me to believe to have the best good/bad episode ratio). I likely would not have done so if not for these reviews.

When fans produce derivative works, they are not violating a copyright. They are celebrating the source material, and this can only lead to good things for the copyright holder. Fans are a precious, precious commodity, and persecuting them is perhaps the stupidest thing a creator can do. By eliminating sources of discussion within the fan base, they risk destroying the fan base altogether, and the fan base is, of course, where the money comes from. Honestly, who else is going to buy old episodes of Voyager anymore?

I will continue tuning into blip.tv every Saturday to see the new SF Debris reviews. I have faith that they will continue to be funny and insightful even as the Star Trek franchise continues its forty-year nosedive. And if CBS has a change of heart and allows him back onto YouTube, and they make more money thereby… too good for ‘em, I say.

Dalton’s description of his comic gives some insight into the amount of thought he’s put into it: “A Mad Tea-Party began as an attempt to write my own … Japanese sci-fi manga. Japanese sci-fi … seems imbued with a deep trauma left over from the Second World War. Rather than the triumph of science or ethical certainty found in the West, we find morally questionable wars, a loss of identity, and razed cities.” If Dalton’s intention was to create a world ravaged by war, he succeeded. The world of MTP is recovering from a lengthy skirmish with robots from outer space (never a good thing), in which armies of genetically-engineered super soldiers (”genies”) were deployed. The comic takes place well after the war, though, in an era when the genies have retired and the world is slowly trying to establish a new normalcy. Dalton sets the scene through numerous well-drawn establishing shots, all drawn in a meticulous ligne-claire style. Background information about the history of the war is relayed through an interpolated comic drawn in a more traditional manga style. It’s a nice gimmick, although I’m not sure how necessary it actually is. The world-building of MTP is strong and consistent, definitely a step up from many other SF webcomics I’ve read.

When your setting is a politically-unsettled world ravaged by intergalactic war, who will your characters be? Many possibilities come to mind: obsolete genie soldiers, government leaders, revolutionaries… the possibilities are endless. Dalton takes the unexpected path and chooses as protagonists a teenage girl and her kid sister. I had a professor once who said that the protagonist should always be the person who hurts the most; that is, the person who is most badly wounded by the world around them. Dalton’s characters fit this technique nicely. Matilda and Constance are the children of two genie soldiers. They have inherited some of the engineered traits of their parents, including the tell-tale red hair and (in Constance’s case) photographic memory. Unfortunately for them, the world has come to distrust the genies and wants rid of them. Our protagonists, being nominally genie but lacking any military background, are subject to the discrimination of “normal” people and targeted by fascist political groups. Constance’s total recall nonwithstanding, the girls consider themselves normal, and want nothing more than to be accepted as such.

It is understandable, then, that Matilda falls into the trap set for her by the fascist New Youth movement, a coalition of teenagers engaging in terrorist tactics in order to rid the world of the groups they view as undesirable (namely, extraterrestrials and genies). New Youth members are easily identifiable by their uniforms, which consist of all-black clothing and stupid hats. A member of the group begins dating Mathilda, but unbeknownst to her, this is all an elaborate scheme to kidnap her. The New Youth are but one of several political cults which we encounter throughout the comic. Another is the Maldivians, which appear similar to real-world hippies, with the exception of a violent stance on non-humans. Many of these groups would seem strange in a real-world context, but within Dalton’s mythos they are quite comfortable and plausible. It is a testament to his world-building ability that he can make me believe in these seemingly-contradictory groups.

The storytelling, unfortunately, seems a bit stiff in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. There’s nothing obviously wrong with it; the pacing seems just about right and the dialogue isn’t overly long, and yet the comic tends to feel a little draggy at times. My guess is that the problem lies in the story’s lack of direction. While I can understand the characters’ motivations and the overall intent of the story, I can’t quite say exactly where the story intends to go. Is MTP an epic with humble beginnings, or does it continue to be a relatively small-scale family story? I think part of the problem lies in the slow update schedule of a webcomic. A large paper-bound work like Jeff Smith’s Bone is able to increase its scope slowly because the reader is able to move through it fairly quickly, but with only five chapters of MTP available online, its arc is difficult to guess at. While Dalton’s world-building and characters are strong enough to keep me reading, it would be nice to have some idea of where the story is going.

Before I get off the subject of the story, I do want to note that I greatly enjoy the character of Roger Anyodrubax, the extraterrestrial New Yorker. He’s good fun, and the fact that he turns out to have a shady past just makes him that much better.

The art in MTP is overall quite nice. It’s all in black and white, shaded with what looks to me like a combination of marker and pencil, but I may be wrong. The linework is mostly uniform weight, which gives it an almost European feel. This is part of what’s neat about MTP: despite its heavy borrowing from manga, it ultimately reads as a fusion of multiple traditions. The shading does leave something to be desired, though. It looks a bit streaky in places and has a tendency to dull down to a uniform gray that hinders any perception of depth. Some atmospheric perspective and greater contrast would work wonders. Still, it’s a minor quibble, and I enjoy the art despite this. That said, must it be posted so darn small? Really, Mr. Dalton, you could start posting it in higher resolution any time. We won’t complain, honest.

At first I was somewhat distracted by the way that Dalton draws people, but I’ve gotten used to it over time (I’ve been following this comic for a while now). Still, they do seem to exist in a kind of Uncanny Valley of drawing, being fairly accurate in figure but having slightly peculiar faces. The characters’ expressions can also be a little stiff, as can their poses, but Dalton can often render subtle expressions as well. Overall I would call the character art good enough… it could use some improvement, but in all honesty there probably aren’t any artists who have mastered character drawing. Even Will Eisner can look kind of odd at times.

At this point I think I’ve probably established a reputation as the guy who always wants to talk about the typography, so here: there’s nothing wrong with the type in MTP. The font choice is a little unusual but I am grateful it’s not Anime Ace or one of these other overused fake handwriting fonts. I’m not a big fan of center-justified text, but if it must be used, Dalton’s approach is the way to do it: lines of very similar lengths fitting comfortably and neatly into their balloons. To those of you lettering on a machine, please look at what this man is doing. Follow his example. Delete Anime Ace from your computer. Now.

In summation, MTP is a very good comic. It has strong worldbuilding and characterization on top of attractive art, and Dalton combines different comics traditions like a master. It’s a smart comic by a smart guy. Do take a look at it.

Incidentally, this is the second comic I’ve looked at this year that uses Lewis Carroll as a framing device. How about that?

Anyway, the link, if anyone is curious: http://about.me/john.allie

I’ll add more nonsense to it later.

Some background: The first things I produced related to Realm were two pages of color vector-graphics comics. I made these the day after I first had the idea to do a humorous fantasy comic. Already then the title was Realm (the one factor which has never varied), but nothing else was remotely similar. As you can imagine, there was no planning whatsoever. I had the idea in the evening and I was vectoring (do you have a better verb?) the comics first thing the next morning. There were no developed characters, plot, setting, or anything that you might expect in any kind of quality production. As such, it only lasted for two pages, which is pretty pathetic when you remember that some of the comics I drew as a young teenager, such as The Terrible Troubles of Unlucky Freddy and Robin Hood 2002, got several times that. And Unlucky Freddy even got to go to space! What a gyp, huh, original Realm characters?

I rushed into the original Realm for a number of reasons: 1) that was how I started all my projects at the time, and 2) I wanted to start a webcomic. Sunrise was still a year away (only a year? jeez) and the idea of a fantasy serial I could plug various storylines into appealed to me. I was also reading a lot of old Bloom County comics at the time and I thought that I might be able to make it topical somehow. In retrospect, that was a terrible idea and I’m lucky that I didn’t try that.

So once the first attempt proved to be a disaster, I decided I had better plan ahead a little bit this time. It was then that I developed the first version of these thrilling characters:

D and Harding. Zilch too. Harding was described with phrases like “Always looks like an idiot but doesn’t realize it” and “He thinks he is heroic . . . but he is not.” Beyond that his character was not developed. D was described as “evil, scheming,” “only trusts herself,” “takes advantage of everyone.” Beyond that her character was not developed. Zilch was described as follows: “Wants to be knighted more than anything. However, his cowardice, incompetence, and occasional recklessness prevent him from doing anything noteworthy.” Huh. Is that a motivation I see there? It just may be.

So what do you think happened next? Well, you can probably guess. I vectored two pages of Realm starring D and Harding (Zilch was introduced on page 2) and then stopped. Incidentally, they were practically identical to the original pages with the exception of the revised characters, so it should be no surprise that it worked no better the second time around.

For a while I stopped working on Realm completely, partly because I was working on Sunrise. The idea stuck with me, though, and little by little it began to develop. In 2009 I finally started to go about working on it the right way, with lots of rough sketches and story outlines. I didn’t start drawing again until I was confident that I had the whole storyline established. This was in stark contrast to before, when I was just trying to “wing it” with no storyline at all.

You know what happened from there. I drew the first issue, posted it online, and then this year I posted the second issue, the one with D and Harding in it. As you probably recall, I stated then that I wasn’t going to post any more Realm until I had the entire storyline worked out.

Well, writing is really hard, you can guess what’s been happening since then. I’ve been working on developing the storyline, as promised, but it hit two snags named D and Harding. (Did any of you predict this during my long introduction?) These “characters,” carried over from the earlier DOA attempt, were so vaguely defined that I was having a really hard time writing for them. Their introduction in Issue 2/Chapter 1 was dull and uninteresting (the only highlight being the delightfully insane Captain LaRusse) and highlighted the inherent problem of these characters: namely, that they were not characters at all. They had no motivations, personality quirks, flaws, definition… pretty much devoid of anything that qualifies as “character.” This made them almost impossible to write for, especially in a context of humor. Zilch, however, was still working fine, as he was the only one who actually had definition. He, by contrast, is very easy to write for and is usually pretty funny. So, to cut it short, D and Harding are history.

So yesterday I began approaching these characters the way I should have the first time. I attempted to create characters who were similar enough to D and Harding that they can replace them while minimizing the amount of revision needed. This was challenging, in part because they must also be developed enough that they will, y’know, actually work. I’ve been studying the excellent webcomic Spacetrawler very carefully, because it is doing with science fiction what I am with fantasy. (Both are humorous stories about characters from Earth tasked with solving the problems of other worlds.) Spacetrawler’s human characters each possess specific traits which define their actions. Pierrot wants to see equal rights extended to every species in the galaxy. Dmitri sees interstellar space as an opportunity to seek out new forms of pleasure. Dustin takes every opportunity to extend his own power and influence. It works quite well, and I’m learning a lot. (I’m also laughing a lot, because, as I’ve established, Spacetrawler works quite well. Full disclosure: I got sidetracked for nearly half an hour reading past pages while writing this essay.) So, in the above image you can see my early attempts at revising these characters. None have names yet (except the one on the far right, Sheila, but she’s actually slightly older, dating back to my embarrassing Bechdel test analysis a while ago).  I won’t go into their personalities right now, but suffice to say I won’t be writing any more until I’m certain that they are ready to handle it.

So, in conclusion, Realm has been an interesting experience. It’s taken a long time to reach the point that it’s at now, and there’s still a lot to be done. While things like this feel like setbacks, since it takes a lot of time to replace a character with another, at the same time they’re actually just an extension of the writing process. Realm has evolved a lot, and it will continue to evolve until I can finally declare it finished.

Will there be more online soon? I can definitively answer no. I shouldn’t have put it online to the extent I already have, and what you’ve already seen will undoubtedly change significantly in my revision process. In the meantime, watch this space. There will be more about Realm as it develops.

I’ve been experimenting with powdered graphite. The white is Conte crayon. The paper is simple brown butcher paper, which (I discovered) clings to graphite powder and will not let go of it even with rather vicious erasing.

The “pony” I found by the side of the road some months back.

Freewheel is the story of Jaimie, who we see at the beginning riding in a boxcar, until her brother snaps her out of what seems to have been a daydream. We see that she has been working on drawing some sort of hideous knight-demon-monster-thing, which her brother describes as “beautiful.” How many pages into this comic are we again? That’s right, two pages, and we already have established the following bits of information:

1. This comic will involve riding on freight trains
2. The principal character is named Jamie and she has a brother named Jack.
3. Jamie is a dreamer
4. Jamie has a brother who she gets along well with
5. Jamie has a taste for the macabre

Yes. This is how character construction should be. Crucial bits of information should be established as quickly as possible. The more we can see into a character’s personality, the more quickly we can be engaged in her story. I’ve lost track of how many comics I’ve seen where I still can’t keep track of the characters’ names and personalities by the hundredth page. Please, please follow Baillie’s example here. It doesn’t matter how exciting your opening is; if we don’t know your characters, we will not care. And look, Baillie still got to start with somebody riding on a freight train–you can have it both ways if you play it right.

So let’s jump a few more pages ahead. We find out that Jamie and Jack are in the care a of cruel foster parent. Then we’re back to the train and Jamie reveals that Jack is missing. Now I know what some of you are going to ask: John, why are you praising these rapid developments that you criticized so harshly in your reMIND review? Well, here is why: When establishing plot, time is of the essence. You do not want to force your readers to slog through dozens of pages before letting them in on what’s going to happen. And, in fact, the opening of reMIND works perfectly well in this regard. We learn the principal characters’ names and the plot hook (Victuals’s disappearance) right away, giving us reason to keep reading. However, there is a difference between rapidly establishing plot and rapidly resolving plot, and therein lies the difference between reMIND and Freewheel. The latter sets up all its major plot points right away, then returns to a more reasonable pace when actually pursuing them.

So, while we’re on the subject, the plot of Freewheel is as follows: Jamie and Jack’s parents disappeared from their lives under fairly mysterious circumstances, and thus they’ve been in foster care for some time prior to the beginning of the story. However, after Jack too disappears, Jamie embarks on a road trip to find him. At first she’s all alone, but she soon falls into the care of a secret hobo underworld filled with surreal twists and turns. Its backstory and realization is quite well-developed too, reminding me of Tom Siddel’s– aw, phooey. I promised myself this review would be my first not to refer to Gunnerkrigg Court.

Anyway, let’s say a few words about stories set in worlds filled with mysterious secrets. Earlier I drew a comparison to Hans Rickheit, because he works in a very similar vein. In his new webcomic Ectopiary (which I was planning to review this month, before El Santo beat me to it, the sly devil), a small girl goes to live in a fairly ordinary-looking (if somewhat creepy) old house. As most of the trappings are fairly realistic, some of the bizarre and downright gruesome things that happen later are much more powerful than they would be otherwise. By layering weirdness in between layers of normalcy, a story can lull us into a false sense of security, and those things that depart from reality appear in stark and disturbing contrast.

Freewheel uses this technique to great effect. At first the story seems realistic, and then whimsical. Its more twisted side doesn’t really appear until Jamie is sent into a mysterious cave. Despite numerous warnings about the cave’s dangers,  seeing the wall suddenly attempt to absorb Jamie’s arm is still one of the most jarring moments of the comic. It’s that instant when your brain suddenly realizes that there is something really, really bad in this world, something deeply evil hiding beneath the more carefree skin. This twist is what really hooked me on this comic, and luckily it has plenty more in store. Jamie’s adventures begin to feel like a modern re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, filled with bizarre creatures and wacky characters. But no matter how carefree the plot may feel at times, you always remember that The Darkness is lurking somewhere, and that is what keeps you clicking through the pages.

Before we move on to say a few words about the art, I must make an admission, dear readers. When I reached the newest page of this comic I was very irate. I may have even furiously clicked the dead Next link a few times in case it might magically work again. Sometimes reading webcomics feels like starting a book only to discover that half the pages are missing.

So, on to the artwork. As I said before, it’s very nice. Baillie’s drawings are not always perfect, but they’re attractive and certainly above average for webcomics. Baille mostly shades by hand, and she uses the effect well, her crosshatching both moving with the form and creating beautiful textures on the surface of the picture plane. The one gripe I have is that the webcomic is at too low a resolution (500px wide) to do justice to the linework. I may have to buy the printed editions just so I can see it properly…so perhaps this is actually a very shrewd marketing decision on the part of Ms. Baillie. Well played.

I mentioned earlier that Freewheel plays with formal elements. Baillie doesn’t confine herself to a strict system of panels and dialogue like many cartoonists (such as myself, unfortunately) tend to do. She frequently has pages which are nearly diagrammatic (above), or in the form of elaborate montages. Even when she uses more traditional panel layouts she’s not afraid to break them up with unusual shapes or sizes. There aren’t enough webcomics artists who are comfortable treating each page as an art object in and of itself.

Now a word about the typography. Baillie is obviously hand-lettering all these pages, and as you’ve probably guessed, that makes me very happy. I’ve seen a lot of computer lettering, and while some of it is adequate, I’ve seen very little (if any) of it that I would describe as great. We don’t see hand-drawn type very often any more, and comics, as a largely hand-drawn medium, are an ideal place for it. Sure, computer lettering is much easier, but at what cost? Would this page have the same power if it was lettered digitally?

In summation, Freewheel is really good. It’s not perfect, but its problems are negligible. The story has plenty of mystery and intrigue. The characters are fun and unique. The art is elegant and the page layouts are refreshingly original. My main complaint pertains to that Next button, which preferably should go all the way to a page that says THE END in nice hand-drawn letters.

Overall impression: Positive
(I am discontinuing the number-based rating system. I found it difficult to evaluate things that way and I have a strong suspicion that I would have ended up rating everything as above average.)

Well, after using the above image as my online avatar for years, I’ve decided it’s finally time to change. It’s nothing against you personally, Rustosaurus the Mondrian Fan… I still think you’re quite charming, actually. I just don’t feel that you really represent me all that well anymore, especially since redesigns to the website have made it more and more distant from your example. So, with a heavy heart and a sense of tradition violated, I now begin the transition to the following:

The Rustosaurus is dead! Long live the Rustosaurus!

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Media: Sumi ink brush drawing with digital color. See original linework here.