Previous News10.26.2009 - Terrence Marks:And we've got two more comics up! Sorry they're late. We wound up getting Isabel a new desk today, which required us to disassemble her old setup, build the desk, get everything set up, and re-assemble everything else. We just got the cables plugged back in, so we can finally update. Enjoy!10.24.2009 - Terrence Marks:Sorry about the lack of update on Friday. I've mentioned that October has not been a kind month to us. I have a very bad cold. In the last few days, I've gone from can't-sleep-because-of-congestion to can't-sleep-because-of-coughing, which I hope means I'm getting over it. Unfortunately, the writing I'm doing at the moment isn't of publishable quality. Sorry, folks.10.20.2009 - Terrence Marks:If you follow this blog, you've probably noticed that I enjoy listening to myself complain. So, what do I enjoy?Firstly, I picked up Terry Pratchett's new book, Unseen Academicals. I've read the first two-thirds of it so far, while I've been waiting for Isabel's jury duty. It reminds me a lot of the Witches series in tone* or, to be especially precise, the bits of Maskerade before Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg got involved. That was my favorite part of Maskerade, so I'm enjoying this book very much so far.
Secondly, I played through Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box. The puzzles seem more balanced than the first game's. It's hard to find puzzles in that narrow range between "can solve it by looking at it" and "will never solve it".
Thirdly, I recently discovered Top Gear. It's a British TV program. It's kind of like Mythbusters, only they break cars instead of myths. To grab a random episode summary from their website: "We build a big ramp and test cars from various nations to see who can jump the furthest. "
Regarding my previous post:
Firstly, there are a few puns in Unlike Minerva. Walt Kelly made complex, beautiful wordplay look easy. It isn't. I stopped doing them because I realized I was better at everything else. And I do mean everything. Tree-lifting. Disarming bombs. Telepathy. I'm better at any of them than writing puns.
Secondly, regarding failure and comedy, there was a recent You Say it First story, Lockout. Brisbane gets locked out of his apartment and one of the guys from the lounge tries to pick the lock When I first wrote it, he failed. He said something like "Well, I guess I never really learned how to pick locks in the first place". Then I immediately rewrote it and now I realize why. Not just because it's funnier if he succeeds, but because he's got a lot of character development in those comics. He's worked a series of interesting odd jobs, he's a bit jealous of Brisbane's marriage and career, and he's got stories to tell, but nobody stops to listen. But if he didn't open the lock? If he was just playing at it? Then he'd be a clown and none of it would matter. So he opened it.10.18.2009 - 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!