Previous News10.18.2009 - Terrence Marks:I recently got a book, How to Write Funny. Why? I've been thinking about comedy lately. For instance, if you read the comics I've written you'll find no puns.I'm rather proud of that, actually.
I was afraid there might be something important that I was missing, though. I felt a bit embarrassed buying it. I also felt embarrassed about feeling embarrassed; did I think I knew everything about writing comedy? Was I so good that nobody could teach me anything? Of course not. So I started reading.
It turns out my first instincts were right. The problems are many. There are many different types of humor writing. Writing a humorous article is different from writing a stand-up routine, which is different from writing a novel that contains humor, which is different from writing a funny TV script, which is different from writing the kind of book that ends up in a bookstore's humor section. All of those are different from writing a comic strip, of course, and I'm not sure which is the closest. This point is made by a number of people thoughout the book. The book appears to be about writing humorous magazine articles, judging by the to the credentials of the contributors. Most of the examples were from movies they gave were from movies and were mediocre when migrated to print. It proves their point, I suppose, but teaches nothing.
There is also a difference between writing about how to be funny, writing and trying to be funny, and recollecting things you wrote which were, you assure us, hilarious if they were to be reproduced in the proper context which cannot appear here. The first few essays appear to concentrate on the last of the three. The first mentions, in passing, a dull scholarly work on the nature of comedy that contains details on the types and techniques employed. I would have liked that. That was, in fact, what I was looking for.
One of the authors insisted that all humor comes from failure on the part of the characters, and the harder they failed, they funnier it would be. This is untrue. It makes for worse stories as well; if you'll notice my Discworld Book Ranking a few back, you'll notice that I enjoy stories starring Commander Vimes (who succeeds very often) more than stories starring Rincewind (who does not succeed very often).
Another gave a variety of examples in which I could discern no humor whatsoever. It was like being in middle school English again - given a book of poetry, assured that it was all top notch, and the merit of it not being obvious or explained. It broke my sense of humor. I spent the next few hours unable to see any comedy in anything. I wasn't really sure humor existed. At that point, I put the book down and didn't pick it up again.
I tried returning the book, but I didn't have the receipt. Then, I tried giving the book back to the bookstore, because I didn't want it but I can't bear to throw out a book. They slipped it back into my bag when I checked out. I tried giving the book away and I failed. And, contrary to what that other guy said, it wasn't funny.
10.14.2009 - Terrence Marks:Remember how I mentioned jury duty a few weeks ago? Isabel got called in, so comics are delayed a bit more.It's not just a matter of the time we'll spend in court. As I've mentioned occasionally, I work the night shift. We're practically nocturnal. Our day begins around 1PM and runs into well into the night. Court, however, begins at 8:30 AM, which means that the next few days are going to involve some extreme schedule-changing, which isn't conducive to us doing much anything.
10.10.2009 - Terrence Marks:We're catching up on comics. We've just posted Final Battle Adventure Online: The Role-Playing Game (pt 1), to the NamirDeiter.net Library. Who's in it? We've got characters from all of our comics - and I do mean that - sitting down and slinging dice.We were running a bit behind on the bonus comics, so rather than backdate this we've added it to the library. Yes - it's another bonus book! We've got at two more parts written, and still more to come. They'll be posted as the bonus books for September and this month, respectively.
And, if you donate this month, you'll get access to it!10.08.2009 - Terrence Marks:YSiF and ND have been updated! We've got more comics in the queue, including a rather nice selection for NamirDeiter.net!10.06.2009 - Terrence Marks:Free books!Not our books, mind you. When I was on my Terry Pratchett spree, I wound up with extras of
Jingo, The Truth, Thud!, and Thief of Time. I figure that somebody ought to read them, and I have no business keeping two copies. Email me at if you want them. All books have been spoken for - thank you and keep reading!10.04.2009 - Terrence Marks:Final Fantasy XI - I got a free trial. I downloaded the 500 MB installer and ran it. Half an hour later it finished. Then it updated. The updating took ten hours. The game didn't look like it should take ten hours to update.The website mentioned a new tutorial quest. I couldn't find it. It took me five minutes to figure out how to walk (you hold the mouse button down and drag in a direction. Dragging it too far moves the camera). The interface is entirely mouse controlled; I couldn't get the keyboard to do anything. After half an hour I figured out how to open the map (clicking the scroll wheel opens a menu - what a country!). The town was large and the town map was mostly featureless. After another half-hour, I found a weapon seller. He had one item, a pickaxe. It cost four times the starting money. Either I didn't get any money from the enemies or didn't know how to pick it up.
To their credit, this was the first game without gold spammers. I credit their proactive GM staff.I got a few missions. You get told what to do by an NPC. Once. No quest log. If you don't remember the exact fantasy name of the NPC you need to talk to, or if you put the game down for a week, you're out of luck.
I fought a huge wasp. After a few rounds of punching it, it said "you cannot see the enemy". Did it blind me? Did I press a button that did something? Did it just move out of my field of vision? No idea.
Anyhow, after two hours, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. Talking to NPCs took about three tries. Walking involved bumping off walls and having the camera spin lazily around me - no, I couldn't find a "lock camera" setting. I'm sure that the game is playable; there were a few people there and the game seems to be moderately popular. It's possible that the retail version included very good instructions (which makes me wonder why the free trial didn't go out of its way to do the same). There's a "tutorial" in the launcher program; however, if you switch to a different window the game ends. This was actually useful; I never found out a "quit" button, so I gave up and hit alt-tab.10.03.2009 - Terrence Marks:So, what has updated? Not comics right now. We're working on those. Here's what we do have:The Fan Center has three new pieces by Dan Wheeler!
The Final Battle Adventure Online Design Blog has been updated.
My blog is updated, with a review of Final Fantasy XI that I wrote a year ago (and was sure I had posted). I don't imagine that the game has changed much between now and then.
In the meantime, we are both working on comics. Isabel is making excellent progress; she got a month of comics written today. Me?...well, I'm working on comics too. Honest. Come back tomorrow. We'll have something new for you.