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Archive for ‘December, 2008’
31 results.
Good Morning, Folks-Welcome to December 08.
Recently, I requested a critique for “Johnny Saturn” on a certain forum, and several of my webcartooning peers were kind enough to offer their opinions. One such critique set me to thinking, though: It stated that many of our “Johnny Saturn” villains were evil for evil’s sake, and that we didn’t offer good reasons for them to be this way. This criticism centered on Tactical and Dr. Wissenschaft.
As much as I welcomed the critique, I have to respectfully disagree with this assessment. There is that old Stan Lee adage, that “there are no villains, just fallen heroes.” That same line of reasoning goes on the express that everyone is the hero in their own story, and every villain believes he’s on the side of the angels no matter how awful their deeds.
I don’t buy it.
Josef Mengele, the so called Angel of Death, is a loose inspiration for Dr. Wissenschaft. This should be pretty obvious to those of you who know anything about 20th century history. Did Mengele feel he was walking a moral high ground in doing the things he did? I doubt it. My guess is that he was all about the science, and that he was a total sociopath, devoid of any empathy for his victims.
Tactical, in his origin as a Balkan war criminal, is loosely based on any number of similar war criminals, both those that have been brought to trial in the Hague, and those that have yet to be apprehended. Did these men relish the slaughter they ordered and oversaw? Did they feel terrible about the massacres and rape camps? I doubt it. I think they performed their deeds in a misguided sense of nationalism.
Does every villain have some defining moment in their life when they become evil? An “origin,” you might say. Or, are they all sociopaths and psychopaths? This is the standard comic book way, but I don’t think it’s the real way. I think many of these people grow up in hell holes, and they grow up with cruelty. It’s what they know. They become inured to the suffering of others by their environment, and they learned cruelty as a second nature.
To put a point on it, many of the “Johnny Saturn” villains are simply those who put the ends before the means. If they want something, they will do anything to make it happen.
In the real world, we know some people are bad, and we neither know (nor usually care) what made them bad. The same rule applies to the “Johnny Saturn” villains.
Scott.<-->
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Hi, Folks!
This last Saturday night, I watched the Incredible Hulk, the re-launch of the series starring Ed Norton as Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler as Betty Ross, William Hurt as General Thunderbolt Ross, and Tim Roth as the Abomination. It should also be noted that Tim Blake Nelson as Dr. Sterns was delightful, and he stole the few scenes he got.
This movie was smart, fast, and well done, and they did us the great service of simply glossing over the Hulk’s origin and diving right into the story. They also made a point of adapting the 1970’s television show as much as they did the comic, taking what worked from the small screen version of the franchise.
↓ Read the rest of this entry…
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That’s a good question, one that Benita and I’ve bantered back and forth.
My position is that this comic is noir or at least nourish because of its moral ambiguity, urban setting, crime and criminals, and its celebration of doomed and/or fatalistic characters. We also have femme fatales, police, hard-luck heroes, brutal action, and gangsters (meta-villains, usually). Spire City is maze-like, all encompassing, a grimy urban chasm with no exits.
There are some ways that Johnny Saturn doesn’t fit the standard definitions of noir. For one, private investigators aren’t the main characters; police procedurals aren’t a plot standard for us; and the art is not high key chiaroscuro or black & white. Is that enough to disqualify us? I don’t believe so.
I’ve often stated that my personal specialty is noble, stoic characters with sad, fatalistic quests. As far as I’m concerned, Johnny Saturn is still as gritty and hardboiled as they come, so I’m sticking its noir title.
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Over at www.typealyzer.com, I checked out Johnny Saturn to see what personality type this site belongs to. I find this sort of interesting, because I have to imagine that this tells us more about the personalities of Comicpress theme author (Tyler Martin), and Phil Hofer, who has done a lot of work on this site, both in what you see out front and on the backend.
ISTP – The Mechanics
The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.
The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.
On Website Outlook, at http://websiteoutlook.com/, I discover that johnnysaturn.com’s Estimated Worth $1708.2 USD. Interesting information, but I’m not in the selling market.
Over at Quantcast, we get an interesting picture of our readership. According to www.quantcast.com,
58% of our readers are male, 42% female 51% of our readers are aged 18 to 34, 15% are age 12 to 17, and 18% ate 35 to 49 87% of our readers are Caucasian, 6% Asian, 3% African American, and 3% Hispanic 74% of our readers have no children, and 26% have children aged 6 to 17 33% of our readers make less than 30K per year, 39% make 30K to 60K, 18% make 60K to 100K, and 11% make more than 100K per year 34% of our readers have no college, 55% have college degrees, and 11% have advanced degrees. 2% of the readers here are big fans, 37% are regulars, and 61% are passer-bys. 33% of the readers visit this site from work, and 67% visit from home.I have to admit, I find all this information compelling. It doesn’t really change what I do, but it’s still neat to know.
Scott.
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Hi, Folks!
I’m actually ahead of schedule this week! I got next week’s episodes penciled, inked, and colored already! I rock! They just need lettering, and they are ready to head out into the world.
I’ve got a Zen Cart store installed, so we are almost ready to start selling stuff again. I’ve got to do some studying, because Zen Cart seems a little overwhelming, and the learning curve on it looks pretty steep. I’m going to watch some videos on setting it up tonight, so things are underway.
Benita has gotten our Johnny Saturn promo movie up and featured at Comic Book Trailers. This site, geared specifically for comic videos, is a pretty cool concept, and I suggest you check it out.
If you’ve noticed the really cool action, speed, and effects lines that I’ve been using in many of the Johnny Saturn episodes lately, they are the result of Manga Studio Debut 3.0, a very cool and inexpensive program that gives you insane levels of control over all those great effects. It also includes numerous patterns, and it may be used for drawing, inking, and lettering as well. You can see it in use on panel 1 of book 8, page 15; and book 8, page 13. I clearly am not a Manga artist, but I’m always happy to study it for techniques I can make use of in my own storytelling.
A service I really like right now is Scribd. Once you sign up, you can download all sorts of great articles or books for free. Last night, I availed myself of a Grant Morrison article that was originally written for the Disinformation Book of Lies.
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Earthsong by Crystal “Lady” Yates – www.earthsongsaga.com
I have been actively looking for new webcomics to read. I like fantasy stories, but I am very picky about those I follow on a regular basis.
One of the recent “discoveries” I made was Earthsong. It is definitely high fantasy and is about the war between two “planet entities”, one called Earthsong and the other, Beluosus. Beluosus was the planet spirit of a planet that is now dead and he has gone rogue in order to capture those from other worlds who have gained soulstones and thus powers. Those with soulstones are supposed to come to Earthsong for protection, but those who make it past Beluosus to get to Earthsong are instead recruited to fight for the protection of Earthsong, instead.
The people with soulstones in this story are from many different planets and there are many different powers involved, all varying in level from being about to make flowers bloom, to becoming a dragon, to being able to manipulate metal and to being able to see into the far distance. The main character, Willow, is a new arrival and the story starts out in a fight between Earthsong’s guard and those of Beluosus’. At first you are not sure who the good guys are and who are the bad guys, but one sides “wins” the right to take Willow with them.
From there the story unfolds and you learn about the history of how the stars made the planets and the planet spirits, how a plague was released among them, the choosing of Earthsong as the protector of the soulstone children, and the betrayal of Beluosus.
The art is a cartoony-manga style, the coloring is interesting and lovely, and the story is captivating and easy to follow. If you like high fantasy and enjoy a good, epic-level yarn, then I highly recommend this webcomic. Start at the beginning and read through the story thus far, then continue reading the story with me as it goes. I’m very curious as to what will happen next.
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Hi, All!
This review popped up in my incoming links, and I thought it was well written and thought out. In fact, I feel like the writer, Crackwalker, ‘gets’ our comic.
Johnny Saturn by Scott Story and Benita Story
(http://johnnysaturn.com/)
Superheroes have been seeing a renaissance since Hugh Jackman first popped his claws back in 2000. The potential of the genre has been increased as these stories have broken out of the confines of nerdy obscurity, and they have become familiar to a wider audience. There’s been an explosion of interest in masks and capes as people are cluing in to the huge potential of this storytelling form, a modern-day mythology that allows us to reflect on the big issues while delivering heroic thrills.
Many of these characters have been used and abused over the years. There are many superhero stories that don’t bother trying to reach for mythological greatness, but instead wallow in cheap commercialism. And there are very few that reach for the great height achieved by Alan Moore in Watchmen. Enter Johnny Saturn. It’s bloody, it’s rough around the edges, and it’s epic. Scott and Benita Story take the superhero story into a place that’s both dark & gritty while still being earnest & heartfelt.
The story begins with the funeral of Johnny Saturn, where are grateful city pays its respects to their fallen hero. We are introduced to a world that has superheroes as a part of its culture, as a combination of celebrity and additional level of law enforcement/national defense. This motif is familiar to those that read conventional comics from Marvel or DC. But rather than set up a status-quo and then return to it, the universe of Johnny Saturn evolves and changes as it progresses through the chapters.
The quality of the comic also evolves. I’ve said this elsewhere; for me, this is one of the joys of webcomics, the diamonds-in-the-rough. The joy of witnessing talent in a raw form, people working on something just because they love it. Johnny Saturn is a labour of love. This is evident in every panel. Part of what kept me clicking ‘next’ was the sense of urgency that is imbued into this work. The author was driven to create this comic, as driven as the titular character is on his mission of vigilante justice.
So yes, it’s a bit rough around the edges. Hell, it’s rough in the center as well. Professional work is always guaranteed to be of a certain level, but it’s also guaranteed to stay within certain boundaries. The plot of this comic goes out of bounds for the usual superhero story. Waaay out of bounds. I admit I was lost in the wilderness at some points. Not knowing what’s going to happen next is a kind of thrill that can be hard to find in printed comics. I would assert that this is a good thing, and it’s what makes this story transcend the bounds of popular fiction. It strives to become something more; if art is too strong a word, then literature at least.
Does it hit the mark? Not exactly, but it reaches for it. And that makes it well worth the price of admission.
posted by Crackwalker at 5:44 PM 
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