Simpsorama Review

To start I'll say I passingly enjoyed the Family Guy crossover. It was an episode of Family Guy. It had Family Guy writing. Half the time jokes hit, half the time they don't. When they don't, who cares? It's just Family Guy. Maybe the next line will be better. I mean, pretty much none of the Simpsons characters said anything funny, mostly because they all just reiterated their primary Flanderized schticks (Apu and Wiggum come to mind), but there were plenty of forgettable Family Guy laughs.
 Simpsorama, however, is Zombie Simpsons. With Zombie Simpsons writing. This is trouble. Seeing these two shows I love so much get unceremoniously dragging through the mud, I feel like the Grinch suddenly realising I care. So I've decided to walk through this episode in detail, partly for catharsis, and partly to definitively discuss what I dislike about Zombie Simpsons.

Rest assured that I was on the internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.

- The Futurama music kicking in with the "Simpsorama" title is cool in a cheap thrill, spectacle kind of way.

Tagline: A show out of ideas teams up with a show out of episodes.
Well, it certainly is apt [Apt!], but the wording feels a little clumsy to me. And I don't think merely pointing out these things is as clever as some comedy writers seem to.

- The couch gag has Homer and Hedonismbot moaning a lot. It's long and uncomfortable.
- Chalmers shoots Skinner with a spit wad for... some... reason. What?
- Nelson reiterates his father issues schtick (a symptom of a long running series).
- Next it's Milhouse's turn to say some things. The formula for this joke is that he makes a claim about himself and is immediately undermined by happenstance. It suffers from sloppy timing and being slapsticky in nature.

Skinner: Let me guess, you forgot to bring something.
Bart: I am shocked that you think I forgot.
Bart's response is oddly delivered and written, repeating Skinner's opinion back at him, as if we need reminding what it was. It's like there's just a huge lack of trying with this script writing. Hell, I'm pretty sure Bart has used that faux-innocent "Mrs K, I'm offended" attitude plenty in the past without regurgitating what we already know he's being accused of. Unnecessarily wordy dialogue is a shocking plague on this entire ordeal and Zombie Simpsons in general.

- Marge sixth senses her sandwich being desecrated. It's reminiscent of "Why'd you shudder just now?" which both plays a lot better and makes much more sense.
- That joke formula pops up again as Mr Burns says a thing and is immediately undermined by happenstance. This is a tired sitcom convention.
- And the very next scene opens with Kent doing it as well. He states a thing and immediately undermines himself.
- Bender makes some Bender noises as he falls out of the storm. I like Bender.
- Bart uses his Cartoon Facial Expression 101 half-down-eyelids-of-unimpressedness to make a snarky comment about America. Delivery is uninspired even for deadpan.
- Homer's reading a book with a funny-in-an-obvious-way title. The explanation he comes up with for the noise downstairs is far too stupid, but at least he doesn't seem to be a jerkass anymore. Y'know, for the most part.
- Homer mistakes a mirror (on his stairwell wall that he uses constantly) for a painting watching him, and Bart spends words to flatly (complete with eyelids) explain Homer's point of confusion. None of this is worth Homer's nonsensical punchline.
- Homer and Bart waste a bunch of time being afraid and not getting to Bender.
- Bart-does-the-same-thing-the-dog-just-did gag.
- Lengthy shot as the camera follows a rope across the basement ceiling to reveal Bart ridiculously hanging upside down as bait. [Think harder, Homer!]
- Bender emerges in shadow and Homer whacks him. Bender wastes no time in spouting his catchphrase, which Homer acknowledges. Unfortunately, being "meta" in very obvious and unsubtle ways isn't a free pass to clever writing.
- For some reason Bart's face fails to emote as he gives another weird delivery, this time antagonising Homer.
- Homer and Bender then literally take turns batting Bart around for way too long.
- Homer does a slow, tiresome "Oh. My. God." In my experience, this rarely plays well in what is meant to be a quick, snappy comedy setting.
- Bender belches fire at Moe's. Fanservice doesn't count as a joke.
- John DiMaggio makes some "dingity-dings" that clearly should have been "bippity-boops", but it's still worth a smile.
- Moe calls Bender "Blade Rummy". Now, I'm sure someone in the writers' room came up with that on the spot and was super proud of themselves, and good on you for it, but puns just don't play well in a scripted format. Save it for some form of social gathering.
- Bender is upset that he has no emotions. Futurama did it!
- Pin Pals shirts for no reason. Are people really suckered in by that "OMG I KNOW THAT THING" mentality? This is the Epic Movie brand of humour.
- Bender says "D'oh!" Meh, it was alright.
- Hah! Bromance. Current and hip, right? What a humourous and charming why does everything have to have a stupid name this isn't a romantic comedy. Ahem. It's just a lame variant on the old robo/romo joke.
- Next up, No-Fun Lisa with unimpressed eyelids out in full force is here to deliver the most egregious sequence of "meta" humour ever committed to film. She and Bart suggest that whoever designed Bender just lazily stuck an antenna on a drawing of Homer. Hey, guys, the kind of crap you jibe and joke about in audio commentaries doesn't cut it in an actual script. This isn't funny. It doesn't even make sense. This isn't like the Homer and Krusty situation. They just have the lightbulb head in common. That's literally it. Bender has no muzzle, no stomach, thin limbs, three fingers, footcups, etc. Lisa concludes by remarking "A little lazy, if you ask me" and Bart gives a smug knowing nod. Oh, you little rapscallions!
- Bender's impressive futuristic feat and "the Gs look like sixes" are perfectly fine gags.
- Getting very tired of characters expressing distainful attitudes with those half-down eyelids.
- John DiMaggio makes a wacky noise!
- Professor Frink rehashes some fifteen-year-old Futurama humour. [Try turning him off and on!]
- Lisa's question about the three laws is clunky at best.
- Homer now says multiple lines in his always hilarious loud-whisper-discreetly-filling-you-in-about-something voice. This never once becomes grating or tiresome, nor does it ever make me aware that I'm sitting here conciously waiting for a piece of dialogue to get done being said.
- Don't really care to wonder if Leela making a video call to the past makes any sense.
- So, the Family Guy crossover was largely about the two shows exploring each other, and the plot conflict was centered around their two mainstay beers. In contrast, this crossover is about ...rampant mutant rabbits. 'Cos that's a huge part of Futurama.
- Farnsworth explains some plot.
- Bender expresses outrage at the idea of stealing and is immediately undermined by himself. Jokes!
- We get a wordier version of Zoidberg's joke from the Futurama game. [I'm making a cameo!]
- Fry, Leela, and Farnsworth are sucked into the past, Bender gets shot in the head, and then his wound inexplicably and bafflingly heals on screen, Wolverine style. What? What were they even going for with that? Does being kind of easy to miss automatically qualify as funny now, regardless of how out of nowhere or inconsistent it is?
- Krusty calls Bender and co. freaks, and is immediately undermined by the freakish company he keeps.
- Oh, look who it is, Seymour Asses haplessly chucked in in some kind of forceful attempt to appeal to fans with something beloved, without any regard for why it is so. Seymour is special because of the story that encompasses him. Throwing a drawing of him up any old place with soppy music is a cheap grab for aduration by recognition. It has no meaning.
- Marge and Leela have an introduction scene because the female characters always have to interact in crossovers since they naturally have so much in common. All those, what, vaginas and whatever? Eitherway, they share a completely banal back and forth, Marge making a lame faux pas about Leela's eye [What's with the eye?] and Leela, instead of taking the joke in literally any other direction, disappointingly and predictably takes her turn to also misspeak in an even more laboured way about Marge's hair. [Awful, awful hair.] I again get that feeling of sitting around waiting for a piece of dialogue to be over so something else can please happen. But it keeps going with awkward uncomfortableness (which I don't think works in animation) and a shoehorned missuse of Leela's "Oh, Lord" catchphrase.
- The next exchange between Lisa and Farnsworth has a nice Futurama feel. [The hard part was getting the brain out!]

Bender: Kill all humans. Kill all humans.
Homer: Start with Flanders. Start with Flanders.
Drop the repitition and you may have had some impact. Even then, it's another uninspired mash-up joke. Did you guys know Homer doesn't care for Ned all that much? (endlessly reiterating tired concepts, symptom of a long (long) running series)

- Next, Fry gets one of his three lines and it's a pretty alright moment. Unfortunately, this is probably the only time he speaks to Bart (and I don't think he ever interacts with Homer) and that is so depressing I think I'm gonna cry.
- Now Professor Frink gets to do an immediately-undermining-myself joke and we hit unimpressed-eyelids critical mass with a stupid static shot of everyone staring disparagingly at Frink's hypocrisy. This has got to be one of the most overused and uncreative comedy beats of our time. Someone should have left a note in the writers' room that the novelty of Simpsons and Futurama characters being in the same frame isn't actually a good enough supplement for an interesting script.
- So Farnsworth says some plot, Marge and Homer eat up some very unamusing seconds exclaiming literally the very previous thing that was just revealed. I have to stress what afwul writing this is for a fast paced comedy.

Lisa: What a surprise, it's Bart.
And now Lisa (with eyelids) does the exact same thing! Why did she need to stick "it's Bart" on the end of that sentence? The line might be better if it was something like "What a surprise, Bart is the [some humourously worded description of Bart being ancestor to the creatures]." But no, she just says "It's Bart." I know it's Bart! I can plainly see! Tell me a funny!

- Bart makes a lame I'm-very-obviously-being-meta remark about doing the same jokes a thousand years later.
- The stupid split-second Scruffy suicide does not play at all. There's a lot of odd comedic timing throughout this episode and Zombie Simpsons at large.
- The Simpsons are sucked into the future and Marge needs to do a headcount and actually point and say numbers out loud before she can notice Maggie is missing. This serves to use up time because they evidently have nothing better to fill it with.
- Extended repeat animation sequence of Homer twisting the necks off the Bart mutants. It's funny because he's treating it like a mundane task. You can tell by his eyelids. And, ohp! What's this? He picked up the real Bart next! What hijinx!
- The atheist prayer gag is all fine and good I suppose, but a niggling part of me just wants to scream out that atheism has no rituals or dogma.
- Hedonismbot shows up and [sigh] isn't very funny. He even makes a pun. The problem, I think, with things like Hedonismbot or Randy is that all the magic they have evaporates as soon as the writers become aware of their popularity and use them intentionally. Randy's appearances in the Comedy Central era always had an air of "Hey guys, look, it's Randy! That funny character John does that you all like!" to them.
- Leela seems oddly off model. I think her top may have shrunk in the wash. Also her face.
- Lisa (eyelids) says she can manipulate Bart, Bart says she cannot, and is immediately undermined by ...things completely unrelated to Lisa. Odd. Classic misdirect?
- Chief Wiggum spits an extra "Happy?!" at Lou, because padding.
- LISAISSNIDETOBARTWITHEYELIDS!
- Sure toss in a holophonor.
- Madison Cube Garden is flung into space and everyone is happy. [This man wants to hit the ball too, and he does.] The Simpson children don't seem phased that they are in space.

Homer: I'll treasure it forever.
Bender: Lie detected.
This moment feels so laboured and uninspired and like it's a completely uncreative idea (long running series, etc.). [Now would you unhook me already? I don't deserve this kind of shabby treatment.]

- Bender is tossed in the basement and we get a Zombie Simpsons clawing-desperately-at-your-heartstrings ending.
- "My name is Kang, and this is my sister, Kodos." "Hello!"
- Closing has some nice sight gags, but Peter over the Gracie Films song was better.

Also he got a racecar. Is any of this getting through to you?

Awesome Disney Puzzle

Amazingly cool jigsaw puzzle we chanced to find.

Matt Groening Required Viewing

If you're looking to familiarise with Matt Groening's phenomenal animated sitcoms but it seems too mammoth a task, this is my personal recommendation on how to get all the essential nutrients while skipping the fluff.

The Simpsons (170 episodes out of 569)
[S1 E01] Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire
[S1 E03] Homer's Odyssey
[S1 E04] There's No Disgrace Like Home
[S1 E06] Moaning Lisa
[S1 E07] The Call of the Simpsons
[S1 E09] Life on the Fast Lane
[S1 E12] Krusty Gets Busted
[Season 2]
[Season 3]
[Season 4]
[Season 5]
[Season 6]
[Season 7]
[S8 E01] Treehouse of Horror VII
[S8 E02] You Only Move Twice
[S8 E05] Bart After Dark
[S8 E06] A Milhouse Divided
[S8 E08] Hurricane Neddy
[S8 E09] The Mysterious Voyage of Homer
[S8 E10] The Springfield Files
[S8 E11] The Twisted World of Marge Simpson
[S8 E12] Mountain of Madness
[S8 E13] Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious
[S8 E14] The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show
[S8 E15] Homer's Phobia
[S8 E16] Brother from Another Series
[S8 E18] Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment
[S8 E22] In Marge We Trust
[S8 E23] Homer's Enemy
[S8 E24] The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase
[S8 E25] The Secret War of Lisa Simpson
[S9 E01] The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
[S9 E03] Lisa's Sax
[S9 E09] Realty Bites
[S9 E17] Lisa the Simpson
[S9 E22] Trash of the Titans
[S10 E03] Bart the Mother
[S10 E07] Lisa Gets an "A"

Futurama (53 episodes out of 140)
[S1 E01] Space Pilot 3000
[S1 E02] The Series Has Landed
[S1 E03] I, Roommate
[S1 E04] Love's Labours Lost in Space
[S1 E05] Fear of a Bot Planet
[S1 E06] A Fishful of Dollars
[S1 E07] My Three Suns
[S1 E08] A Big Piece of Garbage
[S1 E09] Hell Is Other Robots
[S1 E10] A Flight to Remember
[S1 E12] When Aliens Attack
[S1 E13] Fry and the Slurm Factory
[S2 E01] I Second That Emotion
[S2 E03] A Head in the Polls
[S2 E04] Xmas Story
[S2 E05] Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?
[S2 E06] The Lesser of Two Evils
[S2 E07] Put Your Head on My Shoulders
[S2 E09] A Bicyclops Built for Two
[S2 E10] A Clone of My Own
[S2 E13] Bender Gets Made
[S2 E14] Mother's Day
[S2 E15] The Problem with Popplers
[S2 E16] Anthology of Interest I
[S2 E17] War Is the H-Word
[S3 E01] Amazon Women in the Mood
[S3 E02] Parasites Lost
[S3 E04] The Luck of the Fryrish
[S3 E06] Bendless Love
[S3 E07] The Day the Earth Stood Stupid
[S3 E10] Where the Buggalo Roam
[S3 E11] Insane in the Mainframe
[S3 E14] Time Keeps on Slippin'
[S3 E15] I Dated a Robot
[S3 E17] A Pharaoh to Remember
[S3 E18] Anthology of Interest II
[S3 E19] Roswell That Ends Well
[S3 E20] Godfellas
[S3 E21] Future Stock
[S3 E22] The 30% Iron Chef
[S4 E01] Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch
[S4 E02] Leela's Homeworld
[S4 E03] Love and Rocket
[S4 E07] Jurassic Bark
[S4 E09] Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles
[S4 E10] The Why of Fry
[S4 E11] Where No Fan Has Gone Before
[S4 E12] The Sting
[S4 E15] The Farnsworth Parabox
[S4 E16] Three Hundred Big Boys
[S4 E18] The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings
[S6 E07] The Late Philip J. Fry
[S7 E26] Meanwhile

My Orifices Cannot Take Any More Sexbang

I got very upset yesterday when I bore witness to garbage billowing out of a human's face at the end of the 15th episode of Game Grumps' Pokémon FireRed series, and so I wanted to share the following on here because evidently I feel quite strongly about it.

Here's the text of my YouTube comment:

Danny... what the fuck? What the fuck even are you saying with these words? "Some people are, some people aren't." Wow. So, hey, any lovelies out there who might be going through some body image issues at the moment, you're probably just unattractive. So sayeth our dearest Sexbang. Thank you, Danny. Also, all babies are adorable. Like, literally, the qualities that humans find cute are the qualities found in our young. I have no idea why you are specifying Asians at all. Did you just, like, take leave of all rationality for a few minutes there? I also like "There are lots of beautiful Asian people." as if that makes it okay that you just said some of them apparently turn out gross. Because what could possibly be more important than being physically beautiful?

Now, Danny would never, for example, single out an overweight woman in the street and tell her she's ugly. I know he would never do that. But apparently it's okay to offhandedly declare that some segment of people aren't attractive. I just don't see a difference between those two actions. Because when you say something like that in a public forum like Game Grumps, viewers with pre-existing insecurities will connect the dots, and it hurts just as bad.

I realise Danny's not out to hurt anyone, and I don't hate him as a person or anything. But this isn't the first straw. It would be cruel and extremely entitled to expect him to be a "replacement Jon" or something like that. He's just himself and that's fine, but I don't like it very much at all. So I guess I'm done now.

Praiser? I Hardly Know Her!

I was watching this video with Richard Dawkins and Ricky Gervais about religion, thoroughly enjoying being a preached-to choir, when Mr Gervais made a comment about agnosticism in regards to mythical creatures, as well as the existence of multiple different organised religions*. This gave me pause as I thought about how I really felt, and I ended up coming to some conclusions that I'd like to share here.
 Maybe I'm wrong here, but this is how I generally interpret the word agnostic: "Since there's no way of gaining any evidence either way, and believing in it does no harm, it's just not worth discussing or debating. To each their own." The only thing I really feel this way about** is the idea of something spiritual existing somewhere in the universe that we couldn't ever really feasibly find out about, nor would it have anything to do with our little speck of dirt. Something I will always debate and argue against at every turn, however, is religion itself. Organised religions, I believe across the board, preach ideas of sacrality and worship that I feel ultimately result in nothing more valuable than violence and hate.
 I was thinking about that Aussie radio DJ prank call involving the royal family that ended up driving the woman involved to suicide. I couldn't understand how being taken in by a harmless prank could cause a person that much mental anguish, but then I had a thought: she let down the Queen. This is obviously just a theory and entirely speculation, but what if she was raised in an environment where everyone just revered the royal family and the ground they walk on? That isn't really a religious example, but it's the same idea, and I really feel strongly that conditioning people to hold something sacred (like a book, for example) or worship someone on a pedestal like they are somehow higher or more important than anyone else, on a basic human level, whether it be a god, the Queen, the Pope or Tom Hanks, is terribly counter-productive to humanity. People do terrible things in the name of their god.
 And of course, this all starts at a criminally young age, or else it would have no staying power in the mind. Parents indoctrinate their children (and that is what it is) into whatever faith happens to be popular in the household when they're too young to even understand what thinking for one's self is, and by the time they've become rational, critically thinking adults, some people just never stop to look back questioningly on something that simply has been in their entire lives.

*To kind of respond to what Ricky Gervais said about agnostics, it's really just the one thing I mentioned that I feel that way about, and I'm certainly not walking around saying "Well maybe some made-made religions could be true I don't know!" (If you could read that last sentence in that voice you use when you're telling a story and you want someone to sound stupid, that would be great.) And I don't believe in auras, psychics, ghosts, goblins or Santa Claus for two reasons. One: they, too, were invented by people, and two: we can and have scoured the Earth and found nothing substantial.

**I'm not agnostic about Heaven, but I do think the basic idea is harmless and even beneficial***. I have no doubt that the simple belief in being able to meet your deceased loved ones again is what gets a lot of people through some of the tougher times. But even that can get twisted into a tool for manipulation when you start subscribing to a holy text. "Don't do this or you won't go to Heaven, blow up this and be eternally rewarded," etc. Not good times.

***This is a thing I made up today about the idea of Heaven.

My Writing Process

As I've been going through the initial writing process for Since It's V Day, I found it interesting to note how monumentally helpful a simple thing like a text editing program can be. I can't imagine the headache involved in trying to organise scenes written on paper, after you've jotted them down in the order they came to you. So I thought I'd detail here how I go about writing a story and why the easy functionality of WordPad is a fucking godsend.
 Basically what it comes down to is the ability to get the basic plot events marked down with several blank lines inbetween so I can easly insert content in its chronological place as it's formulated. Using this method I can begin to fill out the document with more detailed plot points and scenes, small bits of dialogue, character moments, descriptions and notes. It also helps to easily signify where I still have gaps in the sequence of events that require filling in.
 Now rather than set time aside for dedicated writing sessions, I'll usually just go about my day and, as I said in my last post, when an idea is new and exciting, it tends to fill my mind at every silent moment. This makes it easier for ideas for scenes and such to come more naturally as I mull over the plot, and I can simply insert them into the document as I go.
 Once I feel like I've got enough material, I'll begin stitching the scenes together, figuring out how they'll flow into each other, etc. Then, once most of the events and dialogue are written out, I'll go back to the top and begin systematically figuring out how each sequence will break down into comic panels, and begin producing the pages as I go. This is also how I wrote Two Guys Walk Into the Internet....

Since It's V Day

Something incredible has happened. Something amazing that I never imagined would happen to me, or rather, I often imagined would never happen to me. I... have had an idea. Yes, an idea. Phenomenal. But, as I say, it was a kind of idea I never thought possible. Not an idea for a joke, but rather something... else.
 I woke up at about 9pm last night, and for whatever reason, just lied in bed for a while, letting my mind wander. The tapestry of a small story began to weave itself into existence without permission. I considered it carefully, molding and refining it, and before long I knew I had to get up and write it down. Being new and intriguing, it filled my mind at every silence, and so ideas begat ideas, the story began to grow, and my excitement mounted.
 I've now just spent all night and day typing notes, thinking about characters and designs, and sketching out storyboards for a climactic scene towards the end of the story. A purely dramatic story is, once again, something I never even dreamed of attempting in all my days, so this will be completely untested water for me. Maybe I'll suck at it and it'll be terrible. But I'm not gonna find out by thinking about it.
 I'm making this post to mark down in the history books the day this project was birthed and pre-production began. I'll be quite interested to see how many superhero reboots have happened by the time this thing is done. This is a story called Since It's V Day.

Toby

                        

3x22: Through the Looking Glass

28. Screenshot Comic #1

A few years ago on IMDb's Lost board there was a little fad for a while where someone would make a comic strip template out of Lost screenshots and a bunch of people would take it and insert their hilarious captions. The dialogue for this first one jumped out at me pretty much as soon as I saw it, except for the third panel, which took a while to figure out, but I'm pretty happy with how it ended up. I'm glad I thought of something that actually uses Ben's pose, instead of just ignoring it and telling the story through dialogue.
 Also, the M&M's are peanut.

An Ode to Time Well Spent

There might be too much stuff on the internet. I've been finding that I don't write, draw, or even play games nearly as much as I'd like, and yet I still can't keep up with all the web content I want to. So these are the sites and serieses that I just can't fit in anymore. Maybe in twenty years I'll return to this post and see where all these great sites are at or ended up, but for now, there's just not enough time (well, for some kids, that is).

Cinemassacre
http://cinemassacre.com/
Ctrl+Alt+Del
http://www.cad-comic.com/
Explosm
http://www.explosm.net/
Irregular Webcomic!
http://irregularwebcomic.net/
That Guy With The Glasses
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/
Weebl's Stuff
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/
Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series
http://www.yugiohtheabridgedseries.com/
GamesRadar
http://www.gamesradar.com/uk/
Knox's Korner/The Benfer
http://thebenfer.com/
Hi, I'm a Marvel... and I'm a DC
http://www.youtube.com/user/ItsJustSomeRandomGuy
How It Should Have Ended
http://www.howitshouldhaveended.com/
MS Paint Adventures
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/
Red vs. Blue
http://www.youtube.com/show/redvsblue?s=1
Zero Punctuation
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation

742 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield, Minecraftia

Block with Greatness

My first night in Minecraft was spent by the soft, warm light of cooking sand, squatted in a hand-forged hole in the side of a hill. Over the coming days, this hill was slowly leveled and in its place sprung up a home of most stirdy brick. Already, life was quite comfortable, and I knew the next thing I wanted to do was start a large building project, as was the style at the time.

Lollipop Lane

I chose this subject because, it being a symbol of something I have great passion for, I figured I'd be less likely to become disenchanted and abandon the build. Plus, I could do a bunch of fun quotes and stuff.

"That should do it."

A perfectly cromulent quote.

The first step was to decide on a place to set up and turn it into a large area of flat grassland, and what better construction site than my own front yard? As I set to work steam rolling the neighbourhood, I found I suddenly had a lot of mind-numbingly repetitive time to contemplate the future. I figured I was gonna need a lot of wool down the line to dye pink, so I started making a habit of punching every white sheep I could see, as well as brown and light gray ones for the roof and driveway, respectively.

A Car Hole

Most of the land I wanted to clear out consisted of hills that didn't stray too far from sea level, but there was one mountain, which I sliced down the middle, completely mining away one half, and making a huge natural staircase from the other.

"My doctor says I have the wrists of an 80-year-old."

Soon enough it was time to place blocks. Taking in my hand more stacks of white wool than was probably ever necessary, I set to work, using the screencap included above as a reference image.

"Lisa's window is the next one."

Naturally, a lot of time at this point was spent standing around thinking, plotting and planning, placing blocks and taking them back again, seeing how things looked and staring at empty spaces to try and figure out the best possible design. This was definitely the most fun part of the project, by far the most involving, and is pretty much what makes any Minecraft build worth doing. Hence the Creative mode eventually making it into the full game.

"That's okay, the box is empty."

Once it was all done up in white wool the house looked a lot like one of Doc Brown's unpainted models. The only difference being that I had all the time in the world to paint it. And painting it meant lots of roses. Also bonemeal.

Bare Backside

At first I was going exploring for roses and using bonemeal to make pink dye, but before long, version 1.6 came about and suddenly I could grow my own roses where ever I pleased. And with that, Skeleton hunting by night became a long-term quest, while my days were spend scrounging up some clay, frying up some cactus, and keeping on the lookout for those brown and gray sheep.

"Remember, you can always find east by staring directly at the sun."

Once I got some pink dye going, I started taking out the white wall blocks and pinking them up, but then I realised I could get up to 4 wool from a single piece of dye by colouring and shearing sheep. So most of the white wool I'd already gathered ended up going in the incinerator.

The incinerator (on the right).

Eventually the only thing left to colour was the roof. By this point about 1% of the job had been done using brown sheep, but I was going to need a better method. Unfortunately, there wasn't one around, so I decided to put the build on hold until a more efficient method of gathering brown wool was implemented, whether it be wool regrowth on sheep, animal breeding, or a way of farming cocoa beans.

"We need some more vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice-cream!"

A little while later, 1.9 prerelease 2 became available, and as it turned out, sheep breeding was the way of the future. However, it turned out all sheep were born with white wool, so it was back to waiting, for the moment. It wasn't until the sixth 1.9 prerelease that I was delighted to hear that baby sheep had been updated to inherit the wool colour of one of their parents.

The Simpsons' House in Minecraft

I immediately started trying to round up a pair of brown sheep, which didn't take as long as I was expecting. Miraculously enough, two spawned together around the back of the Simpsons house. Since I was still in 1.8, I couldn't use wheat to lead them around, so I quickly captured them in a ring of fence and then, with some difficulty (those passive mobs are wily buggers), funnelled them into a pen closer to my home.

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

And so MineCon went down in Vegas, and at last the official release of Minecraft was here. I started a wheat farm and set to work breeding up a storm. The end was in sight now, but I soon learned that wheat grows very slowly. And here I thought my days of Skeleton hunting were over.

And that's the end of the story.

"Just don't look! Just don't look!"

Always the Last to Know (About My Own Affair)

More than the frustrating car chases, the poorly thought out interrogation system, or having to comb every inch of the environment waiting for the music to chime, the thing that annoyed me the most about L.A. Noire was the fact that Cole Phelps cheated on his wife and didn't tell me.
 I strongly believe that video games have the greatest potential for storytelling of any medium today, except, perhaps, for novels. With settings and themes as varied as any other medium, and little to no limits or guidelines on things like length, stories in video games can range from the latest wartime FPS to the most twisty-turny, convoluted JRPG you can think of.
 Now here's the part that's relevant to L.A. Noire. If you're going to tell your story through a video game, you need to take into account a very unique narrative element that you won't find anywhere else: the fact that you are the protagonist. From Pac-Man to Skyrim, video games are about assuming a role. Whether the main character is an empty shell for the player to occupy (Gordon Freeman) or a fleshed out individual with their own personality (Niko Bellic), the protagonist is always embodied by the player. It is for this reason that you ought to be privy to all your character's actions from the time the game starts onwards. Unfortunately, Team Bondi seems to disagree.
 In any other medium, the main character is their own entity separate from the audience. They are free to partake in events offscreen that may be revealed at a later time, usually lending to a twist. But since a video game actively places you in the lead role, withholding information that your character learns after the game starts is like keeping a secret from yourself.
 Even if a game's story is extremely linear and I have no control over my character's plot-related actions, I still want to be there when they happen, and to know why I'm doing them. I have no idea why Cole had an affair. Had he fallen out of love with his wife? Did he find some reason not to trust her any longer? Or was he simply smitten by Elsa? Maybe if they had shown that Cole and his wife were becoming distant or something, I would have at least understood where he was coming from.
 The other thing that I wanted answered was how long the affair had been going on for. Did it only happen once? Or had it been going on since that first time Cole visited the jazz club by himself? This leads me to the cutscene where Cole shows up at Elsa's home. I suppose it was designed as a hint at what was going on, but I certainly didn't think it would go where it did, especially since there had been no indication that Cole would ever want to betray his wife.
 Basically, as I've said, the last thing I want to see in a video game's story is ambiguity or omission of my player character's actions. I think this story would have worked better if it were anything but a video game.

We're Gonna Skip and Hold Hands

27. Big Brother

Why is there reality TV? Jersey Shore of all things has just started showing on 7mate. The promos boast hot tub promiscuity and general trashiness. Somehow I don't think this is what they had in mind when television was being invented. Part of me wants to talk at length about reality shows and why I do and don't like Big Brother, but another, more reasonable part just wants to say that The Mole is awesome and then never think on the subject again. So I will. The Mole is awesome.
 About the strip: I'm really happy with how the staging turned out. The view of the action is from the PoV of the diary room camera, which allows for some interesting shots of the character as he moves around in a static frame. This along with the BB watermark in the corner sets up the final panel, which is inspired by all those wonderful Simpsons stand by cards, particularly this one.
 The more I think about this premise, the more absurd it seems. Somehow this guy has made it onto Big Brother without ever realising he would be constantly filmed. Also, the diary room camera is the only one in the entire house that isn't hidden in any way, so it doesn't even make sense that he takes a little while to notice it. However, one thing's for sure: Greg is not loving himself sick.

Make It Up as We Go Along

25. IMDb's Lost Board

Back when Lost was still going on, I used to spend a huge amount of time on IMDb browsing the show's message board. As is the case with most forums, it didn't take long for an extremely tight-knit clique to form, and with it came a veritable laundry list of in-jokes and memes. One day I went to the (dead as it'll ever be) Via Domus board on GameFAQs and started posting a bunch of those memes in a thread. As of today, the thread is 338 posts long and locked because I ended up forgetting to bump it often enough.
 Why this ever became a Masterpiece, I don't know. It certainly doesn't meet my current quality standards, but I'm not about to go and change the numbers on all the ones after it, so here it is. In an attempt to compensate, I'm including the next Masterpiece in this same post.

26. LOST is Lost

These two Masterpieces kind of go hand in hand, anyway; this one is also inspired by the Lost board on IMDb. I suspect that the particular thread I ripped this dialogue from might have just been someone trolling, but people say similarly stupid things pretty much constantly on this here innernet of ours, and it still captured everything I was looking for. It even had that horribly tortured pun I've come to loathe so much.

Well There's Your Problem

24. MythBusters

I really love MythBusters. It's interesting, entertaining and generally a whole lot of fun. But there is this one flaw that I fear will irk me until the end of time. They go into that one room with a whole bunch of crazy crap on the walls, and start asking each other questions and acting ("acting" being used quite loosely here) like they don't know the answers. When they're out in the field actually doing something, they'll explain things to the camera almost constantly, and it's great. But then they (particularly the Build Team) always return to the Acting Room for one last review of their results.
 I don't know that there's much more I can say here without echoing the strip, except that I miss the original Buster.

Mais Oui? Mais Oui!

23. The Internet Adventure #3

 Two Guys Walk Into the In'ernet...

Episode 3: Lost in Translation

The first site on my Favourites list, and I apparently wasted no time in expressing my fondness for Tim Buckley's work, with no hint of irony or a joke of any kind. Perhaps not the best tactic for keeping people reading, but I still wouldn't take it out because, regardless of what some people think of Tim personally, his work has been a pretty huge inspiration to me, second only to that of Matt Groening.
 The other thing in this strip that I'm not 100% sure was a good idea is the curious Doorway of Unexplainedness, which pops up out of nowhere for no reason and somehow acts as a portal between webpages. The original plan was for Red & Yellow to literally go into my Favourites list as a means of hopping between websites, but I guess I decided it would be too much fuss to put together, so I came up with these Lanes Between-esque corridors which Red & Yellow immediately accept and trust without question. Then I was going to actually show them walking through these corridors, with various choice webpages projected on the walls, which I also decided would be too much hassle to put together, and scrapped it. In later episodes, the characters tend to travel via actual links anyway.
 And then, I was pretty much burnt out on the whole idea. With no direction and few ideas, there was pretty much no motivation to spend time working on it. I realised I needed a story. Of course, that meant writing one. Throughout that year I did come up with a few ideas, such as having a character from some famous web series play the villain (Dr Octogonapus, for example), having him kind of lurk in the shadows while Red & Yellow visit a TV Tropes page about villains, and emerging into view after they leave.
 Another idea was to have Red & Yellow find a time machine (also on TV Tropes) to go back in time where I could use screenshots from the Wayback Machine to have them explore the internet's roots. But with no actual conflict or goal to drive any of the characters' actions, I couldn't make a plot come together, and there was nothing to really get me excited about putting this beast back into motion. Until one night, sitting on the floor with my new puppy...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1: The Movie: The Game

"Fool me seven times, shame on you. Fool me eight or more times, shame on me." - Amy Wong

You can't get fooled again. EA only has one movie tie-in game left, and Deathly Hallows Part 1 is not a promising lead-in to say the least.
 The game starts with an awkward over-the-shoulder-on-rails-shooter section that has you knocking Death Eaters out of the sky from Hagrid's sidecar. Once you've arrived at the Burrow, the wedding is on and you can walk around and talk to various guests including Ron and Hermione who like to do a weird kind of backwards run thing if you get too close to them. At this point the game gives you a spell called four-points that is used to show you which way to go. Using this mechanic over something like a map seems very lazy, and the spell never seems to want to co-operate anyway. If you are facing in completely the wrong direction when firing the spell, it can be difficult to spot or even realise that it worked at all, which it sometimes straight up doesn't.
 During the attack on the wedding, the game's main focus gameplay-wise kicks in: third-person cover shooting, which consists mostly of standing around and mashing R2 while locked on to enemies. Cover is next to useless, the only time you'll need it is the few instances when there are too many enemies on screen at once. Otherwise, firing Stupefy at everyone and their Protego charms (they only prolong the inevitable) until they fall down will get you through. There are even points when you can simply run past enemies, the rather sad AI is powerless to stop you.
 After the wedding escape, the trio are hiding behind a building and Ron decides that a random person standing at the other end of the street might be a Death Eater, so Harry is tasked with making his way over there to check them out. Putting on Harry's cloak puts you in a first person perspective, which completely kills your peripheral vision, making it all the more difficult to dodge unsuspecting muggles who like to bump into you and make you start again. After navigating around people, poles and metal fence things, as well as standing still to wait for your stealth bar to recharge, Harry looks at the person for a second and somehow deduces that they are just another muggle. Your reward for reporting this shocking news back to Ron is having to repeat the task twice more, with Ron's suspects being further away each time. Turns out none of them are Death Eaters.
 After a few average (at least in comparison to the rest of the game) levels in Grimmauld Place and the Ministry, the trio find themselves tailing Dean Thomas and Griphook through the countryside. As if this shit wasn't tedious enough already, this portion of the game has you traversing Whomping Willows, Cornish Pixies, Snatchers and all manner of other bothers just to catch another snippet of Dean and Griphook's conversation. I'm reminded of a line from the PS1 Emperor's New Groove game, when they are tied to a log in a river: "This scene was much shorter in the film." And how.
 At several points in these wilderness sequences you come upon a boulder blocking your path. The solution is simply to blast it away with a spell. There's no challenge, it's impossible to fail at, and it serves no purpose other than to make an already tedious game that little bit longer.
 Speaking of making things long and tedious, there are a few times throughout the game when the story progression is interrupted by completely disjointed and unskippable side missions that all consist of some form of "Rescue muggle-borns and kill Snatchers/Death Eaters." One of these is set in the Ministry directly after the trio's daring escape and arrival in the woods. One throws unkillable Inferi at you to contend with while carrying out the mission. Another plops Harry in the middle of a deep cavern and tasks you to "Escape the dragon's lair!" with zero explanation for how or why he is there. There aren't even any muggle-borns to save, you just run past the AI impaired Snatchers and fire four-corners until you reach the exit. Not even the dragon can do enough damage to kill you before you've run right past it (the same goes for Whomping Willows).
 Once Harry and Hermione figure out how to destroy Horcruxes, Ron has a tantrum and fucks off. Anyone who has ever watched the Lion King and then gone and played the Pride Lands world from Kingdom Hearts II will know just how much changing a scene's music and lighting and such in the transition from film to cutscene can completely kill the atmosphere. Ron leaving and pretty much all of the story points in the game have this problem. Honestly, I don't understand why developers don't just use actual clips from films as cutscenes any more.
 So Harry and Hermione go on their merry way, sneaking muggle-borns out of Godric's Hollow and following creepy old ladies into creepy old houses. Eventually Ron comes back and it's time to destroy the locket. This is one of the most ridiculously frustrating boss battles I think I've ever seen. As the fight begins, the game informs you that "Voldemort's soul fragments are vulnerable to spells," subtly dropping the hint that you have to shoot the dozen or so black snakes that are in front of the locket. Only the problem is the locket has started lobbing smoke grenades at you in large numbers, which seem to take about 90% of your health in one go if you get too close. So already, standing still for even a second is out of the question. The second problem I had was that it was only after several failures that I realised you could run 360 degrees around the locket, which made dodging the grenades a little easier.
 Once you manage to off a few of the snakes, you start getting chased down by venom-spitting spiders, which would be manageable if you didn't need to run around dodging bombs and shooting snakes at the same time. The locket also switches to a squiggly laser beam attack that is much harder to evade. To compound the frustration, for some reason, every time I died and the level restarted I had a completely useless spell selected automatically, which became very annoying every time I forgot and tried to get a quick shot off on the snakes right off the bat. In the end the only way I could find to beat this boss was to keep a fair distance behind the locket and snipe at the snakes whenever possible.
 The next stop on the Plot Train is the Lovegood residence, which is both preceded and followed by a lengthy galavant through the countryside while defeating/running past enemies. The attack on Xeno's home is a survival level in which you have to defeat an endless wave of Snatchers and Death Eaters and not get killed until the game decides it's time to move on.
 The last level in the woods sees the trio ambushed by Scabior and a whole shitload of Snatchers. The game's helpful advice this time is "Survive the Snatcher attack." Now, to me, that means "This is another survival level so just sit tight and kill these dudes a bunch," which would make the most sense since the trio don't actually win against the Snatchers. But after several minutes of solid battle with constantly respawning enemies and leveling up about three times I started to wonder why it was taking so long and figured I'd better try casting four-points. Sure enough, there is a path you're supposed to take to reach the end of the level. I don't know if it's actually required to beat even a single Snatcher.
 The final battle in Malfoy Manor really is another survival level that has Bellatrix, Narcissa and Draco standing around shooting spells in your general direction while you run around like a headless chicken until the game has had its fill and kills Dobby.

Joined at the Hip

22. Conjoined

This Masterpiece seems rather small and simple compared to the somewhat grander scale of the last two strips. I stumbled upon the inspiration for this idea while constructing a previous Masterpiece (most likely one of those last two), copy/pasting and flipping images like a right lazy bastard, when I placed the flipped character's eye over top of its identical original. The rest, as they say, is bleeding obvious.
 The "hey" is something I thought was pretty funny, as if they've just met up and have not spent every waking second staring at each other.

I'm Feeling Lucky

21. The Internet Adventure #2

Two Guys Walk Into the In'ernet...
Episode 2: I'm Fee

Wherein the situation is assessed, and Yellow shows off his short temper for a moment. This strip was intended essentially to set up the then-planned series of only loosely connected in'ernet shenanigans. Not really having any idea what exactly I would or wouldn't be able to come up with going forward, I used the final line to kind of say, "Okay, maybe "epic journey" is exaggerating a little."
 The title of this episode used to be "Think of it Like an Adventure" or somesuch, which is absolutely atrocious, partly because it's a quote straight from the strip and partly because it's awkward and boring as a title. Then I noticed the Feeling Lucky button in the fifth panel. It's better than the alternative, at least. There have been a few times when I've sat for several minutes on the deviantArt submission page, a title the only thing still evading me.
 Also, did panel three just break the fourth wall? I think it just broke the fourth wall.

Let Me Google That For You

20. The Internet Adventure #1

Two Guys Walk Into the In'ernet...

Episode 1: Enter the Googlix

In this pilot episode, the two protagonists (for the purposes of this blog, let's unimaginatively call them Red and Yellow) first enter the internet, and they appear to be floating. Hereafter I decided it would be better to have the characters walk and climb across webpages. I had them floating here because I imagined their entering the internet like being trapped in a dimension that is devoid of anything. Specifically what I had in mind was the scene at the end of the first Futurama anthology where Fry, Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, Nichelle Nichols, Gary Gygax and Deep Blue are floating against an empty white backdrop.
 The Beat Panel Pals were selected to star in this series simply because I knew it was going to become something special, and so called for characters with a little something extra. And of course these guys had been the only Masterpiece characters so far to show real promise with a recurring role, so the choice was easy.
 I wish I could remember what it was that initially sparked this idea (it's possible the Print Screen button had a hand in it), because I think it's one of the best I've ever had, and it's certainly led to one of the projects I'm most proud of (at least in writing if not in art). Originally, the concept for this series was simply for Red and Yellow to travel from website to website cracking jokes and generally mucking about. Every strip or two would focus on a new website, and I was going to basically just work my way through my Favourites list. Not surprisingly, it got old fast, but I'll talk about that in a few posts' time.
 Something I've always expected due to this comic, but never received, is hate for using Internet Explorer. Maybe I just hang out on the wrong forums, but people usually seem to jump at the chance to dissuade anyone from using it for even another second. Also, my toolbar isn't a cluttered mess like in some people's screenshots I've seen, so it's at least aesthetically pleasing enough for webcomic purposes, regardless of IE's debated practicality.