WordOwl

There’s been a few things going on over the last few days that have been interesting.

As I think I might have mentioned (or maybe not, I’m not sure without checking) I’ve been off doing other things over the last few days and I’ve actually had a few days where the comics were late going up. Yesterday was actually the worst day I think I’ve had in that respect but I got the issues around it sorted out, so I’m back on the top of my game.

In fact, this morning I was so on the ball I would have been the first one over on the xkcd forum to post a thread about today’s comic, had I had anything witty enough to say about it.

Today saw a flurry of changes for Flat Feet & High Heels, where John has moved the bonus strips around (they’re set in April 2008, and now are dated April 2008 in the archives), so I moved them in WordOwl too, plus added on the story lines that are now there.

I also did another batch of Melonpool; just hit strip 1300. I had to stop though; this block of strips is one I really need to read through in the book again (it’s part of Melonpool IV: Castaway) before I can really tackle the transcriptions, as we’re going through a time travel saga again. (We’ve already been to 2182 twice before in the archive, but due to events in 2002 (in book 4), an alternate 2182 gets created. Then, to add to it, events from 2000 lurch to this alternate 2182, back to 2000 causing a new 2000 timeline to occur. So I need to work out which strips feature: Roberta, Roberta II, Roberta III or Roberta IV, plus Old Ralphie or Old Ralphie II, plus an alternate J-LB8 in droid form.)

Like I say, I need to read the book. I may even end up making notes on who’s who (which I also did during the ‘It’s Walky’ crossover)

I’ve also kicked off with 20 transcriptions for the next comic to join WordOwl. I won’t reveal it here, but the fans of the three comics joining as we move into 2009 might already know (I vaguely remember posting about it in their forums in a moment of madness). I just needed a break from getting my head round Melonpool, so I did that instead.

But for now it’s time for bed. My sleep cycle is way messed up at the moment. This is actually the earliest I’ve gone to bed for several days… hopefully I’ll get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow and dig into more.

Well to this week’s Comic of the Week, and this week we take a look at what is probably one of the most popular, and definitely one of the most offensive and irreverent, comics out there at the moment: Cyanide and Happiness.

Unusually, this comic has four regular artists, Kris Wilson, Ron DenBleyker, Dave McElfatrick and Matt Melvin, all publishing under the umbrella of “Explosm”.

So, what’s it about?

Cyanide And Happiness is a gag-a-day with occasionally recurring characters, taking a long hard look at the idiocies of modern life and skewing the views of normality.

What’s the appeal?

Most of its appeal is that it peeks into life and skews our normal views, making it very good for the first-morning read of the day to remind you that life isn’t always normal.

It is also very irreverent, featuring various offensive attributes (strong language, violence, religion on occasion), but done in a way that makes the point, more often than not in a funny way.

The art style itself is also part of the joke, in a number of ways. Unlike some other comics - even those with fantastic art - Cyanide And Happiness doesn’t involve too much art in general. The side benefit is that the joke doesn’t get lost amongst irrelevancies and like other minimalist comics, relies more on its dialogue to make the point.

One of the on-going staples of Cyanide and Happiness are the recurring superhero characters, except that they are not particularly heroic, especially the perfectly-named SuperJerk. It’s just another facet of the subversive nature of Cyanide & Happiness.

The other appeal is that despite sounding like it should belong in the same category as Beavis and Butthead for humour and attitude, it somehow seems to retain a standing above that level.

Explosm itself also has a massive community, one of the largest linked with comics yet, and in some ways the comic is a side point to the forum, rather than the other way around; so much so that there is a fifth member of Explosm who primarily looked after the forums, and the site also hosts other material, such as Flash movies by the gang.

The one last appeal it has, though perhaps more tangentially, is the fact that it is viral in nature; not only do they provide the code from which to hot-link images, they also have a similar attitude at conventions. I had the joy of meeting the guys at the London Film & Comic Convention in July, and throughout the entire day I was there, their booth was consistently the busiest the whole day, except perhaps for a couple of the guests signing autographs. (Even the DeLorean parked in the front, straight out of the Back To The Future films didn’t generate as much of a crowd)

What about its history, and its future?

Cyanide And Happiness was founded in its current form sometime at the end of 2004, when Kris Wilson drew a few comics while ill, and the rest of the site evolved to showcase those comics. As time moved on the rest of the gang joined, all having come from other backgrounds, and the current line-up of comics evolved from early 2005 onwards.

The initial comics under the Explosm banner were Rob’s, a fact which irritated a lot of Kris’ earlier fans, however the comic has never felt as though it was parodying itself; indeed the style Kris originally set out for Cyanide And Happiness (even naming it from one of the early strips) proved a strong base on which to develop and grow in all directions.

As for its future, recent strips have actually been less offensive than some of their earlier ones, although the ones of the last few days have been a strong return to the style demonstrated by the gang in their earliest outings: a nice side-view at life with a side-helping of offense.

The forum is still heaving, and with a bonus comic out for Christmas (not to be added to WordOwl, however) and an ever-growing pool of strangeness from life to look at, it seems the future is bright for the Explosm gang.

Closing thoughts?

This is not, bizarre, the most offensive webcomic I have encountered, although it is consistently more offensive than others. Interestingly, despite the odd characters being so off-the-wall, I can see a strong resemblence to people I’ve known.

The only closing thought I do have, though, is that the gang have made it clear that if a reader finds it offensive, that is not their problem - plenty of other readers didn’t agree on the offense level. For example, Jesus is an occasional character, most notably in the Easter comics - promoting “Zombie Jesus Day”. Of course, this is bound to cause offense, but to others it demonstrates the apparent inanity of Easter, that it’s the irreverent celebration of someone being “undead”.

Great! Where next?

• Website: www.explosm.net/comics/
• Updates: Daily
• Created by: Kris Wilson, Ron DenBleyker, Dave McElfatrick and Matt Melvin
• My favourite line: “…thothe are thome fuggin good clothth.”

Next milestone, wahey!

It’s weird, I didn’t intentionally stop at 8,000, that’s just where I got to with Melonpool, but now it’s 4.38am and I really have to go do some other stuff before bed.

With a little luck I should get some more Melonpool done tomorrow pushing the count over the 1300 mark.

WordOwl is extremely proud to announce the addition of the latest comic’s archive to join: Locus, by Adam Black.

Featuring full-colour art, high octane action and more, Locus follows the adventures of the title character through a veritable minefield of punch-ups that put The Matrix to shame.

Not for the easily offended, or faint of heart, Locus has a tagline that definitely pushes it into the adult arena, with the comic catering for people that don’t just expect a gag a day from comics, but a deeper, thought-provoking storyline and art from an artist who worked on the KISS 4K comic books.

Locus updates Monday, Wednesday and Friday and should be considered 18+, if nothing else for the tagline, “Boobs, Blood, and Bad Language”

Gah, I say, and Gah again.

Today has been a weird day. Net result is that it’s only just today that I’m doing today’s strips and still no Comic of the Week column this week. I really think as it’s almost Thursday morning that this week I should leave it and do one next week. (Note to self: start writing these ahead of the game.)

In personal news, today was punctuated with buying a Christmas tree. It’s 7ft tall, has nothing on top since it’s only an inch from my ceiling (but that’s what we wanted) and is black. Nothing like being conventional here.

In other other news, another comic is joining WordOwl - I have 4 comics sat in the queue now behind Melonpool and Angst Tech, but this fourth comic is kinda special.

Since it only has 21 strips total so far, I’m going to bend the rules and insert it today if possible. For 21 strips, I might as well let it go since it’s not a huge deal really. But I still want to finish the other two before I start the bigger comics in the queue, that’s the only way it’s fair.

That said, I am now beginning to have doubts about the New Year deadline. The last few days have been hectic with real life stuff, which has made it awkward to get on with anything substantial, and I’ve been doing some projects that are reasonably urgent which have taken up the rest of my time.

If I have a reasonably uninterrupted schedule between now and New Year and can pull off close to 100/day without too much hassle I should make it with room to spare. But this is my life and I should know by now that plans never work out as planned. (I used to work with the IT team closely at my old job. I know that’s the case that deadlines invariably miss. Or as Douglas Adams once said, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they fly by.”)

But this comic can be sneaked in before I start on the juggernaut behemoths to follow. And already 2009 is shaping up to be a great year for WordOwl; I already know I’m looking at 20 comics to be made available, and with plans to do way more cool stuff.

Right. It’s been 3 days since I last posted, and yet again this week’s Comic of the Week is going to be late, but I have had other things going on that caused problems and needed dealing with.

Apart from the issues of my house being kind of messed up due to faulty plumbing, I’ve been working on some magicalness for Sphinx. I won’t reveal it yet, but it’s taken me several hours to put together and get to a stage where I’m happy with it. I know I’ve had a couple of days off from transcriptions, and I realise my original plan of having Melonpool and Angst Tech done by the end of 2008 is looking a little more remote, but I’ve just needed the last couple of days off to get my head round other stuff in real life.

But right now my brain actively hurts. I’ve been working with a package I’m really not familiar with and really not used to thinking the way it does; I write nice code normally, but the language doesn’t have half the constructs I use (it doesn’t even really have conventional IF type constructs, as it actually resembles assembler more than a higher level language) but the results have been good.

Tomorrow I have plans to work on some stuff in Python and Tk for a little while, also related to Sphinx, and possibly some work on the automated testing suite or perhaps the FAQ. I’m not sure what I’ll do yet, but those are all hot favourites.

I will try and get back into the swing of transcriptions pretty soon though and then I can move on to the next comics I have lined up, which are pretty fun and neat too.

But on that note I’m going to head to bed in a minute. Definitely time for bed, thought Zebedee.

The contents of Melonpool’s TUM III are also tagged now, and I’m written the modifications into the transcriber tool for TUM IV, so I can start transcribing that tomorrow. I would have started sooner but other stuff came along, as it usually does!

The blog does seem to be working out now, and although I’m still getting used to the all-change admin panel for 2.7, it’s not so bad I can’t get my head round it.

Anyway, “time for bed,” said Zebedee…

Current Mood: tired

Right, I think I’ve managed to get this done at last.

As I write this I should be using WordPress 2.7 on the live server, after having modified the two plugins I use to work better with 2.7. You’d be surprised how frustrated I got and, I am ashamed to admit, how much I was swearing. I’m not particularly au fait with WordPress’ internals at the best of times, but the changes to the admin panel were really driving me potty.

That said, I am beginning to like 2.7’s interface, I just wish it had been easier. Fortunately the changes should be OK depending on the changes made later via the ‘auto updater’. I’ve also uploaded all the new strip information for Melonpool now, so all of TUM II’s strips should reflect that. I’ll crack on with TUM III shortly.

Current Mood: frustrated

OK, I’ve been hard at work doing some work on Melonpool, although since yesterday I’ve only added two strips, taking me up to the end of the third book collection.

What I’m doing at this precise moment in time is adding ‘merchandise’ links - more specifically adding a link from the strips to where the books can be bought. It sounds irritating, but the good thing is that it also includes page references, e.g. which page in which book a strip can be found on. The first book collection (The Ultimate Melonpool) was done last night, and I’ve just finished notching it up on TUM II, so it’s just TUM III to do. Then I’ll crack on with more transcriptions.

In other news, WordPress 2.7 is out. That means I have to go back, and retest everything that is hooked into WordPress, specifically the blog, its plugins, and the links out to the front page.

One of the much-trumpeted features is the auto-updater. I hopefully don’t need to explain that this frightens me no end, especially if any plugins are in use.

I did a little advertising today; I finally made a group on the evil that is Facebook for WordOwl.

Anyway, unfortunately I have more important things to do than play with Facebook right now.