John Lynch's Blog

DS versus PSP

2007-01-02T13:43:00.000+11:00

Over at slashdot they had an article on the upcoming year the DS and PSP will have. Being an RPG fan living in Australia, I have very specific tastes on games and so whether or not 2007 is a good year for either handheld for me is another story.

For the PSP I get to look forward to:
* Crisis Core - I'm a FFVII fan from when it was first released. How could I not be interested? Well easy, it looks like they did away with turn based/ATB/anything not too action oriented battles.
* Jeanne d'Arc - A strange enough idea I'm willing to take a closer look at reviews when it comes out.
* Tales of Destiny 2 - The PS2 version wasn't released in America, I don't see why the PSP version will be.
* Tales of Phantasia - Another remake, but this one seems worth it. I also don't have the GBA version yet.
* Tales of the World - I would be interested if its released in Australia.
* Valhalla Knights - Despite its combat system, I'm interested. If its released in Australia.
* Wild Arms XF - I'm interested if its released in my country.

So yeah, not exactly the best line-up so far considering only one of them is guaranteed for Australia, the one I don't want.

The DS on the other hand has no region coding and so any American game is one I can play. For it I can look forward to:
* Dragon Quest IX - I'd like to find out more. However current info points to an action type combat system which is one I dislike. So while I do want more info, my hopes aren't too high.
* Final Fantasy III - Australia hasn't got this yet, but will next year. So I'm looking forward to it.

* Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings - I was quite surprised to see this when looking at 2007's line-up for this post. But I'm definitely interested.
* Pokemon Diamond and Pearl - This is the big draw for the DS for me. And given it has online functionality I'll be able to trade. As a 22 year old pokemon fan, I don't know anyone in person who is a fan.
* Vandal Hearts - Vandal Hearts was the first game I ever played on the PSX, so I'm a fan.

* Archaic Sealed Heart - Sounds interesting, if its released in America.
* Heroes of Mana - I've never gotten interested in the Mana series, but I'd like to check this out as I enjoy good strategy RPGs. However the story will be the final determining factor. That and if its released in America
* Final Fantasy Tactics Advance2 - a Sequel? I'm there.

So the DS has a much better line up due to the fact I can import American games. However is 4 games enough to make me fork over $200? Probably not. However 6 is. So which get released in America and which get developed in the future will determine if I get a DS. The PSP on the other hand is a system my brother owns so the cost of entry is $0. But while I will get one or two games for it, I don't see myself getting more then 1 or 2.

Something Positive on Hell Houses

2006-11-01T17:50:00.000+11:00

I don't think this webcomic is too appropriate to post here (considering I'm getting linked to from Myst Blogs which AFAIK tends to aim towards being family friendly) so you may wish to skip this post. However I found the storyline starting on this page and continuing for 8 pages to deal with a touchy topic in a very thought provoking manner (although it's got the requisite tasteless jokes so be warned ;)).

What it deals with is a phenomenon called a Hell House where (typically evangelical) Christians create a haunted house showing the horrors of sinning with the hopes of convincing people to convert. I'd like to think that such attractions can be done tastefully and in an enjoyable manner, but if they are the Something Positive storyline doesn't feature one of those. Instead it shows how people who have the best of intentions (and the strip does show them as having good intentions. It would have been easier to villify the people running the hell house) can be misguided.

I felt that the strip showed why it's important to have compassion and patience with people who have differing beliefs (even if those beliefs would force you to convert if they were made law ;)). What I liked best though was one of the "victims" of the hell house was a Christian themself. But although he was Christian he disagreed with pretty much every single belief held by those running the hell house. I also felt the last strip was very good. It shows that not all Christians have the same beliefs, and they'll go about their beliefs in completely different ways.

Although one point I didn't necessarily agree with was in the final strip someone comments on how Christians don't typically admit to being a Christian unless they're also saying how much better they are then non-believers. As a non-Christian I haven't found that to be the case, although it is a common portrayal of Christians in recent times. However even with that page having that point, I'd say the final panel made that page the most enjoyable for me. I don't think the character in the final panel is praying in the hopes that all Christians would stop behaving in such a manner. But instead praying that the minority of Christians that do, will "see the light" and instead go towards a closer version of Christianity that the character believes in. Or at the very least that the misconception that Christians are typically people that always go around saying how much better they are then others will be replaced with something that's closer to the truth. And given the comment by the creator of Something Positive's on the main page, I'd say that interpretation is correct (although I don't agree with the tone of the comment he made. It's fairly standard fare for Something Positive ;)).

This is so my mother

2006-10-30T15:20:00.000+11:00

This is so my mother. Not that I've proposed to anyone. But this is my mother when it comes to ANYTHING good happening to me. For instance I do well in the HSC (the final test in high school that determines what university you're eligible to enter) and her response is "Is it a mistake" followed by "Did you cheat?"

I use to play soccer, and when I once got an award her response was "Now how did that happen." Recently I did well in an assignment, her response was "Wow, the people that failed must have done poorly."

So yes, that is so my mother. Right down to the thinking I'm gay in the previous strip.

Journal Entry #3: I gotta jump where?

2006-09-21T17:16:00.000+10:00

The rope bridge isn't on the way to the Library, however I was right in that the way to the library is the right direction. In fact, it's in the Library Courtyard, over the cliff. At first I thought I had to jump off the cliff, but instead you just have to get really close to the edge. When I jumped off, I was unable to get a steady line-of-sight because I was shaking too much. Thankfully I linked out without any harm.

Now I head to the Great Zero courtyard to return my KI marker. Although I will never understand what sort of XYZ system these KIs use. I understand Z (being evelation). However the XY are still a mystery to me.

So I turn on the Great Zero, and it is an impressive sight. Everything's spinning and turning and flashing. But what now?

I headed to the Great Zero Observation Room and the book there doesn't help any... Hmm....
OH! I got it. What were those co-ordinates from Zandi? I'll head there.

So I head to the Ferry, figuring it's near there. I start heading to behind at the docks, but realise while it is the correct direction, my evelation is way too low. So I head to the pub and I'm right, but I need to walk through the wall a bit more, which obviously means, Tokotah Alley. So I head there, and when the Great Zero light passes me some lights appear. But I'm one digit off in my evelation. I'm at -82, I need to be at -81. I jump off when it passes me, however as I fall and link away, I realise my error. I didn't need to go down, I needed to go up. So I return.

I tried once, but I move out of alignment every jump, and I had made a few practice jumps so I was out of alignment.

Jumping up didn't get me high enough, I had to do a running jump through the light. The light that drew a symbol that I thought was associated with the Path of the Shell. Have I already begun my journey in Yeesha's Path of the Shell?

I linked to an area by jumping through the symbol into what I thought was a new Age, as the Great Zero co-ordinates do not work. But a link has appeared in my D'ni book in Relto, so perhaps I'm merely out of range.

Journal Entry #2: Starting on the Great Zero Markers

2006-09-20T17:01:00.000+10:00

I have my KI and I have entered D'ni since my last entry. I made some goofs with using my KI but the few people there were patient. It's very quiet at the moment. Almost dead. I have completed Teledahn and I was favoured with a sighting of Shroomie. Only a far off one though. I tried taking a KI shot but you can't make it out. I haven't finished Yeesha's original journey, don't have much interest in doing so.

I have entered Phil's Relto, and read Sharper's latest journal. I know, terrible me invading their privacy. And yet, I don't really feel that guilty. I'm starting the Great Zero marker mission.

60143, 1001, -70 is for the balcony in the Bevin Hood overlooking the classroom courtyard.

57325, 110, -79 I suspect is near Tokotah Alley. The third number does refer to evelation as I suspected. As I went up the stairs at Tokotah Alley, it decreased so the Great Zero must be above me. I suspect I need to go up another flight of stairs. The numbers decreased as I went through the courtyard until they suddenly changed to be in the 60,000s as I neared the King's circle thing.. I'm thinking by the time I reach the rope bridge the co-ordinates should be pretty close to what I need. But for now, I'm returning to Relto for a break.

Journal Entry #1: I return

2006-09-12T20:31:00.000+10:00

It was over two years ago that the DRC disbanded, and I was understandably upset. So much so that I returned home and left D'ni, never to return. Until today.

I had given away my Relto linking book when the DRC disbanded, to someone who was just entering D'ni. I thought to myself, why not? It was uplifting to think that something good was coming from me leaving D'ni. But that meant I haven't been able to journey to D'ni whenever I felt like it.

So a few months ago I finally decided to get ready and to take Yeesha's journey once more. The DRC have returned to D'ni, with plans on track once more to get explorers down into the caverns. I finally left my plane today in New Mexico and hired a taxi to Zandi's land (the taxi driver said to me when I gave him Zandi's address, "huh. Normally people just call that place the Cleft. Never have been able to get a straight answer from any of them though. Y'all a bunch of kooks if you ask me" which brought a grin to my face).

When I rocked up to Zandi's land I climbed over his fence (and missing the journey cloth there) and ran to him. Said a few words to him, he didn't remember me of course. Although he was still listening to that terrible Peter Gabriel song. Yeuch. Perhaps next time I'll bring a CD for him, try to get him to broaden his taste a bit.

It was amazing to walk through the Cleft, where Ti'ana and Atrus grew up. I was able to get Yeesha's message playing easy enough (remembering most of the procedure from last time), I was also able to find all of the journey cloths (although I do worry about the skeleton and telescope being there, outside all the time). I missed all but the one near the fence. I needed Zandi to remind me of that one.

I headed into the tree, looked at the Bahro glyphs (and wondered once more, what the imagers symbols mean. Are they a bahro language?). I got my Relto book and linked to another universe once more. I'll never get over what an amazing rush it is.

I opened up one of the pedestals, which just happened to be the Teledahn one, and headed there straight away. I walked around for a quick bit, although you'll have to remember I just flew in from Australia so I'm pretty tired from jet lag at the moment. It looks very much the same, dangerous in some parts, and yet, the DRC has said this Age is open to the public. I wonder if there are barriers that weren't there today (because some explorer took them for fun or a restoration engineer removed it because he was working on the Age). I should remember to ask one of the DRC if I see them around.

I'm pretty tired after running around the Cleft (I really hate those bridges though. I do not have a head for heights) and the plane trip, so I'm going to get some sleep now. But I couldn't return to D'ni (even though I've yet to reach the cavern) without making a post. I'll try to remember to use this blog to post my journal entries, I'm not using it for anything else after all.

New Blog

2006-02-06T23:31:00.000+11:00

I've got a new blog over at Deep-Magic. They suckered me into a subscription with their special, subscriber only issue. I'll post here when I make a new post over there (like I'm doing now with my e-book post), and use this blog for non-book related stuff.

Firefox extensions

2005-12-21T00:16:00.000+11:00

I've finally gotten around to adding my extensions, so here's a list of the ones I have now.

EditCSS
This is a great extension that allows a page's CSS component to be modified on the fly. While the changes won't automatically be saved and published, it's great for anyone who has to make webpages. It was very useful with making some tweaks to this blog.

Compact Menu
This is the second best extension I've seen for Firefox. It allows me to chose which elements appear in my menu, and let's me shrink my menu down to one button (as I don't use the menu often this is fine for me), allowing me to free up more screen space. This is one extension I can't live without.

Antipagination
This lets multiple comic pages (that are in a row in a comic's archive) to be displayed in one page. I've never gotten the Slideshow to work, and many webcomic archives simply aren't suited to it, but it is useful for those few that are suited to it, nonetheless.

Ook
A bug in Firefox means that anytime the right-click button is pressed when in the bookmarks menu, the bookmarks menu then becomes inaccessible until Firefox has been restarted. However this extension puts a bookmarks menu in the context menu, so I can still access them that way. Very useful for me.

Greasemonkey
The extension that caused all the problems for me earlier today, but THE most useful extension I've got. It allows people to create "extensions" in JavaScript (that can be installed and uninstalled without restarting Firefox) for specific pages, or the web in general. It's main feature is editing content on a website server-side. I've used this to replace many of my Firefox extensions, but there are many user scripts that just aren't available as extensions by themselves.

Twilight Agency returns

2005-12-07T13:28:00.000+11:00

Twilight Agency has been on a hiatus for a couple of months as the married Team Dean and L. Graf created a small buffer and dealt with life. Well they're finally back and things are off to a great start.

A little bit of background info can be found here, but in a nutshell, it's set in an Earth where in 1992 (that was in the future when they began work on the comic back in 1991 ;)) where Earth began to be warped into resembling it's counterpart Fey, a parrallel world where mythical creatures such as elves, giants and centaurs are common place. The comics follow the adventures of Nick, Nathan and Zee as they try to live life in a reality that has changed from what they once knew. In the comics they've formed a small business that takes on small jobs (such as dealing with pest infestations of a "mythical" kind). And to help them travel from job to job, is their A.I. controlled vehicle that is made up from nanobots and has state-of-the-art technology.

However a new member recently joined the cast. The A.I. that controls their state-of-the-art vehicle has only been pretending to be a lowly A.I., but is in fact a digital djinn. Whatever that means. And just before the hiatus the comic ended with a kaboom that could possibly kill two of the main cast members (yeah right ;)).

So I've understandably been interested in finding out what the heck the digital djinn is, and how the main cast members survived the kaboom. Well I'm getting one of my two questions answered (the main one really, because main cast members not dying is pretty old hat). And that brings us to the latest updates for Twilight Agency. We're getting the background of the digital djinn (Mphee or Morphy is his name), and we'll presumably find out how he went from being a regular old djinn (which is kinda like a genie, except there's no lamps or wishes) to a digital one. It should be quite interesting.

Twilight Agency consists of two types of stories. The webcomic which has been one continuous story from day one, split up into chapters. And text stories, which deals in the background. Because Mphee's origin story is a background one, we're stuck with text stories. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the text stories, a lot more info can be put into them, and they're well-written. But... well they're text. I'd just love to see them told as a comic. But, as long as it's updating, I'm not going to be too picky. So go check it out, the latest text story requires absolutely NO prior knowledge. It sets itself up extremely well. You won't be sorry for giving it a go.

A Schlock Milestone

2005-12-05T16:20:00.000+11:00

A hell of a lot of things have been happening in the webcomics happening in the webcomics community lately, so I'll be spending the next few days commenting on them.

One of those things is Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary reached his goal of 2,000 continuous days of posting a webcomic the other day. That's posting a strip every day for over 5 years. That's dedication. And quite frankly, I don't know how he managed it. He had to create 7 strips a week (with three times as much content on Sundays), go to work (he's now managed to make a living off Schlock Mercenary, and rightly so), spend time with his wife, and being a morman I assume he went to church on Sundays at the very least, so that killed Sunday mornings to work on the comic. How he managed to find the time in a day to do the strips and all that other stuff I don't know. Many other webcomic artists have tried and failed at 5 days a week, some such as Penny Arcade have managed to keep a regular schedule of M-W-F, but even they had to resort to filler some of the time.

But not Howard Tayler. No matter what's been happening in his life, he's updated every single day for over 5 years now, and there's no sign he'll stop. The only person whose come close to updating every single day is Chris Crosby of Superosity. I believe he managed 2,163 continuous days before finally missing an update. But there's no indication that Howard will suffer from the same fate, so once he reaches that milestone, I think he'll hold the title of most days updated continuously.

But to merely comment on the fact Howard reached a milestone wouldn't do that day's strip justice. Because he revealed he is going to address an issue he had previously left hanging. An issue I really want to see addressed. I won't say what that is, to find out you'll have to start reading Schlock Mercenary. You can start at the latest "book". Howard's good like that, in that you can pick up with any book, and the previous things that happened that you need to know for that book will be explained. But for the full-effect, it's really best you start at the start.

A Mystery Month

2005-11-21T18:39:00.000+11:00

Over at Comixpedia they're having a Mystery Issue this month, with a review of my own for the first time. I reviewed Femme Noir of Supernatural Crime and a long story short, it wasn't my thing. I was expecting a new and original comic, instead I got an old and rehashed one (although it does have some good points as my review points out).

Some of the other articles put up today are:

Faith in Science: Detective Stories In A Confused World, by T Campbell - A look at the problems faced by creators of work in the Mystery genre. A good read for anyone, not just webcomic creators. He brings up a lot of good points, and explains why shows like Lost have to be so cryptic with their clues.
The Essence of… Whodunnit by Ping Teo - A humorous graphical look at the rules of Whodunnits. I liked this, mainly because if it were a mystery it would be ridiculous. And I have seen work like that.

Some of the other articles published this month so far are:

Modern Humor Authority by Kristofer Straub - Always good for a laugh.
Welton Colbert vs. Digital Strips by Ryan Estrada - What's this got to do with mystery? Well that's the mystery there. Actually, not everything in a particular issue is on theme.
Through the Looking Back Glass by Erik Melander - another piece with nothing to do with mystery, but interesting nonetheless. It looks at the changes webcomic sites have undergone recently in their attempt to get money from webcomics.
An Introduction to Writing Mystery Webcomics by Alexander Danner - I found this one inspiring. Yeah, I get too many ideas. At the moment I have something like 10 ideas, and this article gave me idea #11. It's unlikely anything will come from it, but it's there now.

So yeah, definitely worth checking out if you're a fan of the mystery genre.

School == no update, but so does lazy.

2005-11-16T19:20:00.000+11:00

Well it's been quite a while since I last updated this blog. Over a whole month to be exact.

So what have I been up to in that time? On the school front I completed 3 assignments and 3 tests. The one mark I've been given was for an assignment (lazy gits of teachers I've got) and I did pretty good.

On my webcomic front I had to go on hiatus from The Queen's Land to study for my tests (which, while sucks, school comes first). However while that happened, the host I was with (Gutterflycomix) died and is no longer online. However thankfully a good friend of mine Sheri was kind enough to let me host my site on her website (again). And so I've decided to take this time to remake my website using WordPress. That way I don't have to provide any code for RSS or anything like that. So we'll see how that goes :D I'll also be taking the time to move this blog over to the Wordpress site as well, although that won't be a heavy priority. Getting the webcomic back on the web will be.

In webcomics in general, I haven't made any mention of the Webcomic Collective Blank Label Comics except to mention the webcomic telethon they did. They're a group of 9 people who have been very successful in the webcomics community (as such things are measured anyway). Not only did they all (except possibly one) willingly leave Keenspot but at least one of them is able to live off his own webcomic, while another is being forced to continue a comic he finished a year or two ago, because his readers won't stop throwing money at him.

I can't say for sure when I started reading their work, but I've been a fan of Greg Dean's Real Life for many years now and I'm pretty sure I started reading Paul Southworth's Ugly Hill pretty much straight away. As of making this post, I currently read 13 out of the 14 comics (and the reason I'm not reading 14 out of 14 is because there are a lot of archives to get through beforeI've caught up with some of the webcomics).

But it's also been a hub for change this past couple of weeks (and as they Do talk amongst themselves, you have to wonder if it were planned). A few months ago, Greystone Inn finished
and Evil Inc. began. Well a couple of days ago it was officially announced, and not everyone had clued into what had happened already. I guess I knew ahead of most because I'd been going through the website very carefully for research for Comixpedia and had found the news.

Another change was the announcement that Checkerboard Nightmare would be no more (as a webcomic anyway). I was a tad annoyed by this, as I had been making my way through it's archives, but it happens. Fortunately though, Kristopher Straub (it's creator) will continue to work on Starslip Crisis, which I'd begun reading a while ago.

Another big change was Melonpool which has been since 1996! In webcomic years that makes it ancient. However (and I could be wrong with this information), at the moment it has only garnered 4,000 readers! It was around before the greats like Penny-Arcade and Userfriendly, and yet it hasn't gained more then 4,000 readers. So Steve Troop announced a universe reset (where the webcomic would be relaunched, and made in such a way that no previous information would be needed so anyone can hop on board), and to empthasize the point, he removed the archives from online. Now removing the archives is NOT something you do. ESPECIALLY if that archive is 9 years old. But he did it, and more then a few fans were annoyed. I on the other hand was fairly happy.

I've hopped on board with Melonpool and I'm very glad I did. One of the problems he had had in getting readers was they didn't want to read the archive. So he fixed that. And so far, you haven't needed to be a reader of old to understand what's going on. Although I will admit I'm not completely new. I had read some of the strips as well as part of a "new reader guide" so I know a little bit of what happens. I was planning to begin reading the archives after my test next week, so he kinda stopped me. So I bought 3 of the books that are available, and when the newest one is released I'll buy the other 3. I really enjoyed what I saw with the old Melonpool, so I want to read the rest of what happened (which is the majority of the 9 years worth of strips).

And one last thing, I began reading Schlock Mercenary after it recently joined Blank Label, and I'm nearly finished (up to July 2005 of it's 5 year history) and I've enjoyed every bit of it.

That's it in the big news. Hopefully I'll update this a bit more.

Monkey law guest strip

2005-10-07T15:17:00.000+10:00

(Click image for full-sized monkeyness)

Well my guest strip for Monkey Law was posted today. And he was even kind enough to link to my comic (even though I didn't ask him to, or give him my details). I made it around the time that an article had been published on the extinction (and further endangerment) of various species of ape within two generations. It had a long list of things that can be done to stop this from happening (which I briefly touched on) and when I read it all I could think was "that's nice. None of it will happen though."

Monkey Law's a great little comic that has political humour. And while it has a lot of humour about drugs that I don't agree with, it's still enjoyable. So go check it out, at the worst you'll have wasted 5minutes of your time.

School + Webcomic = Busy, busy, busy

2005-10-05T13:00:00.000+10:00

So it's been a while since I've updated this. This is because I've been doing webcomic and school work. Mostly school work. My comic did finally start updating though. Out of my 12 comics I had to make in a month's time, I made 7. Which aint the greatest actually (although if you include guest comics I made 10 which is better). I do have 2 week's worth of strips, so that will be my absolute minimum. Of the 3 comics I need to do this week, I've done... 0. Damn school work!

Well, that's it for me. Not much of a post. But school work beckons.

Blackaby

2005-09-23T00:50:00.000+10:00

(click on the image for full-sized evil)

One of the recent comics I've begun reading is Blackaby. It's set in hell and isn't one particular story. Instead it's a collection of shorter stories (that I'm guessing will eventually create one overarching comic).

One way that it's particularly special is that the artist for it is fairly busy, so while she will be drawing more art then any other particular artist, most of the short stories that make up Blackaby will be done by guest artists, which is quite an interesting solution to the problem of having a writer with more free time then spare time. People like Sortelli from Elf Only Inn will be doing a story. Which is quite amazing for such a short comic.

I originally found Blackaby when the writer commented on a drawing I'd put up in the Comic Genesis forums. And having quickly read through it's archives, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Definitely worth checking out.

The elevator to the moon

2005-09-19T12:42:00.000+10:00

A company called Liftport has recently gotten FAA approval to create a prototype for a space elevator. While they'll only be travelling a mile from the ground, it's amazing to see yet another company working on making money to get stuff into space.

I had seen the LiftPort website a while back, and I thought it would never even get this far! With all of these companies working on getting into space (and in my opinion, many of them doing so partly because the head has always dreamt about going there), NASA isn't as important as it once was. With the Cold War fuelling the original space race, it's always been a bit touch and go since it ended. Arthur C Clarke imagined the governments playing a much more active role in space-travel in his 2001 series. And yet it's 2005, and the present is very different.

With the government working on ensuring no loss of life ever happens again because of the Columbia mistakes (I saw this on a commercial for a documentary with that quote coming from someone in NASA), I'm convinced the American government is setting it's space department up for self-detruction. Mistakes will happen people will die. If the airplane industry closed down shop everytime someone died in a plane, we would still be travelling by boat. So with NASA crippling itself, I'm damn glad that many companies are stepping up with ways to get into space and on what to do in space. Sure most of them will fail, but with so many seriously trying to do it, one of them is sure to succeed.

The ad... it haunts me.

2005-09-19T12:38:00.000+10:00

(click on the thumbnail for full-sized adness)

I kept seeing the above ad over at Comixpedia and it kept calling out to me to click on it. Now normally I'm not susceptible to ads, no matter how good they are. But there was something about the above ad that I just couldn't resist. So I eventually clicked on it, and I was glad I did.

Code Name: Hunter is a webcomic that has previously undergone 3 carnations (one as a text story, the other as a webcomic, the third one as a new take on the previous webcomic). And it's definitely not the worse for wear. It's set in our own world, with one small difference. At the end of WWII magic began to leak into the world once more. Oh, and all of the humans aren't human, but dogs.

The artworks good, and the story is quite interesting. I haven't read the original comic or the text stories (as they're full of spoilers), so I haven't got too much to go on. But from what I've seen, it's a keeper and I'll eagerly be following it as the tale unfolds. Although I just realised. It only updates monthly!

Will Nintendo survive the revolution?

2005-09-17T18:56:00.000+10:00

The console gamers have been abuzz with talk of the new controller for the next Nintendo console (which is being called Revolution), and it's control is certainly revolutionary.

I saw this article on it, and despite my first misgivings over it, after seeing it in action I can see that it's certainly going to be... interesting.

You use it by moving the physical device. If you're controlling a character, move the device and the character on your screen moves. At first I thought the A and B were too seperate from the diagonal control, but actually the A is right underneath it with the B and the underside of the control.

Just thinking about it a little bit (well, that and seeing it in action), and I can very quickly see the advantages. In the old sega mega drive days when I would play street fighter, trying to perform an attack was never easy (and mostly done on random luck) as it was a random combination of button pressing (down, left b, a). Now with this remote that should no longer be an issue. I can move my person by using the diagonal part, and attack (with a weapon such as a sword) by moving the remote itself.

When my brother got the webcam thing for his PS2, I thought it a gimmick that wouldn't go anywhere (and well, it hasn't :P). But my aunt saw it as a useful input device for any game. When a menu pops up, you move your hand and tap the air to select which one you want. I pointed out it wouldn't be easier or quicker, and she said no. But it wouldn't be harder or slower. And it would be more intuitive. This remote is more intuitive (I can't count how many times I saw my mum move the remote up when she wanted the character to move on the screen).

However an innovative idea isn't enough to sell the console. It needs the games. The innovative Nintendo DS hasn't used it's dual-screen to a very good advantage, most of it has been rather gratuitous. Here's hoping the Revolution will fare better.

Donkey Teeth Reruns

2005-09-16T10:41:00.000+10:00

(click on the comic for full-sized donkey-teeth)

Queen of Wands is a webcomic that actually finished in February 2005. I started reading it a few months after that. What I've been reading is the re-runs. Yup, a webcomic is actually able to do re-runs.

What's the advantage of reading the re-runs? Well I get it 7-days a week instead of the 3 that it was updating when it was being published. And I also get to see Aerie's comments on each comic, which is great as she dissects her own comic, I can not only pick up on things I had missed when I first read the comic (such as the "donkey teeth" in the first panel), but I get to see her thoughts on the artistic mutations she has over time, and what she felt were the advantages. Comparing the comic on the right to her first comic, and you can definitely see a massive change, and for the good.

Aerie is able to use the "infinite canvas" (perhaps digital canvas would be a better term) of the web in a useful way. Having begun creating my own comic, keeping text bubbles in a confined space is very difficult. So she did away with that by having a larger background in which the panels are confined in. But little things like the background blurring are also great to see compared with her older comics.

Can I use these tools in my own comic? I don't know, I haven't attempted to yet. But seeing someone who has learnt so much and reading her own thoughts is extremely helpful.

Traveling back in time to 1999

2005-09-15T11:12:00.000+10:00

(click on the comic for full-sized oldness)

I've been reading the archives for General Protection Fault, and they're actually not that bad. I've taken a look at GPF several times in the past, but each of those times I've read the first few comics, and it's seemed like another User Friendly rip-off. However a recent post by the creator got me intrigued once more.

At a blog I read often (Websnark), GPF has been criticized quite a bit as a failed attempt at the Cerebus Syndrome. The Cerebus Syndrome is when a comic is a gag-a-day, and attempts to move to a serious storyline. Eric Burns of Websnark was quite critical of GPF, because in his opinion it failed to be a good comic after the Cerebus Syndrome began. A few small snippets from an article by Eric Burns on GPF:

It was relationship humor. These were coworkers and friends trying to make a living and have a basically good life.

GPF was good. It was funny, and fun, and cheerful, with good characters who had funny situations grow out of their interactions. It was a geeky strip and a human strip all at once, and it didn't take itself too seriously.

But with the Flood, we had a wholesale abandonment of humor and lightheartedness. There was a terrible storm, there was a terrible flood. Dwayne's wife was having a baby. Nick charged out into the storm and dove into the flood to save someone even though he couldn't swim (an event rife with humorous possibility, but it was played morbidly straight). Darlington stated publicly that he intended for the Flood to say something about how each of the principals dealt with a crisis.

It sucked. I mean, it sucked hard.

You can read the full article here.

When I first read this, I actually got interested in it. Sure, he was saying it was bad, but I didn't see that. What I saw was him saying that it changed beyond the first few strips I had read. So it was definitely enticing. However school and laziness tend to get in the way, so I never did get round to it (except for reading a brief story in it's later years which was, okay. Nothing great, but not too shabby).

However recently I saw a thread on Comixpedia by someone doing a school essay on Cerebus Syndrome, and of course GPF was mentioned. In that thread, the creator of GPF Jeff Darlington made a post defending his "Cerebus Syndrome", here are some quotes:

One is the artist's perception of their own work, while the other is the average reader's perception. Obviously, these two views are very different, because the observer in each case comes to the artistic work from two different directions and sets of experiences.

GPF was meant to be from the beginning a work of growing depth and complexity. I cannot say that from the very first instance I drew my first sketch of the cast that I knew exactly where the characters would be now, years later, and in the future. However, I did spend over a year developing the strip and its concept before it went online, and during this time I scripted what ultimately became the first two and a half years of the comic.

In fact, if you care to really put time into such analysis, there are only two weeks in all of the GPF archive of purely "miscellaneous" strips not associated with a story. Everything else builds on what has gone before, if only for the establishment of a character's personality.

Of course, the true "Cerebus" instance that everyone thinks of (including myself) when they speak of GPF is Surreptitious Machinations. It was a bold experiment, and one I enjoyed, despite the occasional complaint from readers. I would do it again in a heartbeat. It was the culmination of four years of planning (five if you count that initial pre-Web year), of carefully placing plot thread upon plot thread, characterization upon characterization. Yet many readers saw it as a "abrupt change," a "sudden shift" from the comic's "true focus." But how could this be? I had carefully hidden hints in the strip for years before this, and I certainly had done many long, involved, and even dramatic stories before. To me, this was what GPF was meant to become. Was I too subtle? Was I being too gradual in building the story?

This was the last push I needed to get me to start reading GPF. The fact that he had planned for it to be serious, and had tried to drop plenty of hints was the last bit of incentive I needed. Partly to see if with my foreknowledge I could see if he had left plenty of clues, but mainly so I could see if I'd like it.

What have I found so far? Well, the stories so far are a little like what I'm planning for The Queen's Land, a collection of humorous situations with a cast of characters. However the big difference is that he planned to eventually move to a serious comic (with the humour, while still present, downplayed), whereas with The Queen's Land, I'm firmly making it a gag comic only, with little continuity. But aside from that, I'm not minding the story archs. Sure, it's a little like User Friendly, but the resemblance is actually fairly superficial.

I'm enjoying the Ki and Nick relationship, which is one of the obvious recurring story archs so far, which is where I'm up to at the moment. Eric Burns kinda ruined the ending for me, and the one storyline I read from 2004 also ruined it for me, but I'm still enjoying it. I'm looking forward to see how it gets to where it is now. At first I thought Ki manipulating Nick was a terrible storyline, but it isn't. How it came about was just a little careful playing. A light joke. But it eventually developed into something deeper. Which I guess is what the whole comic is, on a much smaller scale.

The only other obvious recurring story arch (so far) is Trudy being evil. And I don't like it very much. Sure the gags were funny at first, but now she's just coming off as two dimensional. But fortunately I found out in a forum post that Jeff develops Trudy's character. She does eventually become three-dimensional, which is good. Because I wouldn't want to read the entire comic with her being flat.

I'm only up to 1999. But so far, it's okay. There are hints that the comic will eventually deepen into something more. And all indications are, that the deepening will be a good thing. Sure people may have fallen in love with with the comic as it began, and didn't see the signs (which aren't very obvious and you do have to look for them), but I'm not one of those people. I knew from the get go that it would deepen into a story, and I'm chomping at the bit to get up to Surreptitious Machinations.

Back in my day we drove up-hill both ways!

2005-09-14T20:45:00.000+10:00

I saw a recent comment about how cars are getting so advanced these days, that people are forgetting how to drive.

And to that all I can respond with is "so?" As long as they don't get into a car they can't drive, what's the problem? It's like manual vs. automatic drivers. Quite a lot of manual drivers go on as if they're so much better because they drive a manual. How much smarter they are. As long as I can get from point A to point B without causing a car crash, I don't care what my car does.

All the new fandangled gadgets cars are getting these days are good if someone's willing to pay for them. Myself, I'm not. But really, who cares if it has all these gadgets? As long as having them doesn't hurt the driver.

I just don't get this superiority over driving. Myself, I eagerly await the day where my car will drive me from point A to point B and I won't have to worry about anything.

Being busy leads to laziness

2005-09-14T20:12:00.000+10:00

I haven't posted in 12 days, at first because I was busy, but it quickly lead to just being plain lazy.

The Webcomic Telethon I mentioned in my last post is underway, and they've reached $21,000 so far (that's American ;)). Which is simply amazing. I only ended up entering one comic (because I've been busy), and it's yet to show up, but keep an eye out for it. There's quite a few good comics that have donated to the telethon (such as this one).

I've been busy with school work, but I've also been busy with my webcomic, which is coming alright. I've got 4 comics done (I'm suppose to have 6 by this Sunday) so I'm on track with creating a buffer. I'm hoping to have 12 comics done by the end of the month. And sure they're a bit rough around the edges, but I'm learning.

I got a good deal the other day, where I was able to get 100% store credit on Robin Hobb's Shaman's Crossing. So I used the rebate to buy her Liveship Traders Trilogy. So I basically got Shaman's Crossing for free (as I was going to buy her Liveship Traders Trilogy anyway :D).
The Liveship Traders Trilogy is the second one in her Realm of the Elderlings universe. Having
recently finished her Farseer Trilogy (which I originally began reading YEARS ago), I have been looking for an excuse to buy the next Trilogy, so this was a good one. Although having said that, I've got 20 books I need to get around to reading. So I really should stop buying books :P But these "100% rebate deals" are very tempting (especially when they're on books I'd already planned to buy).

That's it for today. I hope school and the webcomic (and laziness) don't keep me from posting her more often.

Webcomic Telathon for Hurricane Victims

2005-09-02T13:33:00.000+10:00

Brad Guigar of Greystone Inn and organizer of the MDA Webcomics Telathon of 2002 has organized another telathon to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Hosted on Blank Label Comics, people will be publishing comics on a special website in order to raise funds for the victims of the recent disaster. All of the revenue generated from site advertising, donations and proceeds from merchandise bought through the site will be donated to the Red Cross to help in disaster relief. And anyone is welcome to submit comics for the cause, you don't need to be a webcomic creator. Click here for more details on how you can help.

I know I'll be submitting at least one comic (based on the characters of my future webcomic that I was keeping a secret :P). And feel free to spread the word (and you're welcome to copy the above paragraph word for word ;)).

BBC won't sue it's customers?

2005-09-01T09:06:00.000+10:00

It looks like the BBC has decided to respond to the demand for online content in a way that doesn't involve sueing it's customers. Instead it will be placing (at the very least some) of its content online. I think this is a much more positive reaction to filesharers. People sharing copyrighted material have been around forever, only recently have major companies decided it was time to sue them to the degree they are, instead of responding to the demand that's out there.

Is it illegal? Sure. But that isn't stopping people, and neither is sueing them. So it's good to see that the BBC have provided a legal alternative for people. I do wonder though if they'll use bit-torrent, and/or if it will only be available to people from the UK (or if I could download it as well). I'm also quite curious as to what (if any) DRM they'll ruin the download with.

Regardless though, it's good to see that companies are slowly getting the hint that the internet has changed how people want to access their entertainment. Now if only I actually liked some of the Brittish shows :P

The Prehistoric Mass Extinction

2005-08-31T08:20:00.000+10:00

The BBC had an article on a mass extinction in prehistoric times. It isn't talking about the demise of the dinosaurs, but instead a much earlier die-off 250million years ago. Back 250million years ago, there were animals not unlike now: Insects, arachnids, crustaceans, amphibians and reptiles. It also had trilobites which were the species of the time (more information here) and are extinct now (as far as I know).

The difference between us and them is that they were the first of their kind. Earth had never before known the large herbivores and carnivores of this time period, and as a result, it was highly unstable. The Earth was also much more active then, and thanks to a ton of volcanoes erupting over a few hundreds of thousands of years the C0₂ levels rose to inhospitable conditions of 10% more then it currently is. As a result, 90% of the wildlife died out. However it is possible that the trilobites actually died out due to the appearance of sharks and other fish. In fact, it's possible that the rise in C0₂ isn't truly the cause for the mass extinction. Merely because a computer model says it could happen, doesn't mean it did (or even really could). However if it did happen, it's truly interesting.

Much like the die out of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to become dominant, the massive die-out of the Permian period allowed the reptiles to rise and fill the new empty niches, the reptiles evolving into the dinosaurs we all know about.

It's amazing to think that the Earth has known these three distinct types of life, and that each demise resulted in the rise of another life-form. It makes you wonder, which life form will become dominant once us mammals die out (and based on the past, it's only a matter of time for us).