lavaside rahi

I wish I had some...so far, the only thing coming to my mind is encouraging our sisters to get into comics. Maybe a Rosie the Riveter campaign for BZPower comics? "We Can Draw It!" I totally understand. In fact, Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics) has pointed out the lack of females in comics. What's the deal with comics? I could understand the idea that superhero comics are marketed to guys, but why do the funnies have this problem? (Of course, newspaper comics have the added problem that there's too many old geezers who won't retire... ) Unfortunately, I have forgotten you. I looked up your Calvin and Hobbes comedy, but I can't for the life of me remember our conversations. I believe we had them, I just can't remember them...(I feel so old...) Woo! More serious work is something else I'd like to see more of in the forum... Why...that's a suggestion so sane and reasonable it just might work!

Taking a break from the creator commentaries to go back to a more general topic - one I've touched on before but never with much depth, and that's the shortage of female comic makers on this forum. Prior to writing this, I looked at the personal profile of everyone who had started a topic in the comic forum that had been posted in the last 20 days - of the four pages of topics, only four people claimed to be female. This was actually slightly better than I was expecting - Miraka was the only one I knew of doing comics recently. But it was still a disappointing statistic. After all this time here, there are only two female comic makers I'm familiar with (I know that there have been way more than that, but there's only two I know of). The first is, of course, my old partner Lady Ervai. She was (and most likely still is, I just haven't had contact with here in a while) a very talented drawer who just brimmed with originality (or "weirdness" as she referred to it). I was very fortunate to have her as a partner in my, err, formative years. The second is the previously mentioned Miraka of Alternate Reality Inc., a series she started a couple of weeks after she joined BZPower. She is - and I can not emphasize this enough - insanely talented. Every other comic maker I know started off with really childish stuff - I did, Dark709 did, T-E did...silly, goofy, very poorly-drawn stuff. Not Miraka. She started her series with a level of humor and graphical skill I have never seen from a beginner. In the six months since she's started she's earned a well-deserved status in the comic forum. Now I don't want to come off as sexist; I know you can't determine an entire gender based on two examples. HOWEVER, I can't help but shake the feeling that we're missing out on a lot of great talent and potential when the vast majority of the comic forum is one gender. This is one of the last comics I did before the finale series, and I still stand by nearly all of what I said. When you have so many male comic makers, female characters seem to fall in one of two categories: they're either 1) the girlfriend of the main character (numerous examples of this - Chilly of Gavla, L'evia in mine) or 2) they fall into the "girly" stereotype of being love-struck teens who say "like whatever" all the time (Zacku of Dark709's comics is probably the best example). There's nothing wrong with using a character who falls into one of these categories of course, it's just that...well, those are the only two categories. The one part of that comic I'd probably take back is the comment about BZPower being "such a male-driven site". The majority of the site seems to be male, but I can find females playing significant roles in other parts of this site. I've seen plenty of females in the Artwork I forum and we have the likes of GaliGee in the library forums. Why doesn't the comic forum have that? I'm going to leave the rest to the comments forum. Thoughts? Arguments for/against? Solutions for getting more girls into comics?

And now, the #90s: --- This is VC's first appearance in the comics, and I decided to get the whole junior/old-timer feud started as soon as possible. In real life, our relationship was friendly, but the junior/old-timer feud was based on a real-life event - when Hunter of Visorak (mentioned earlier) started his series, VC posted some criticism of his comics which I felt was a little harsh at the time. VC had ended his post with the comment "Take it from an experienced comic maker like myself." When I responded to him, I pointed out that I was an experienced comic maker too by saying "Listen Junior, I've been making comics here longer than you have." I was joking, but understandably this didn't immediately come across as a joke. Hence, our friendship was born. Looking back, I feel like I emphasized this feud too much in the storyline, but I did get a few good story ideas out of it - namely, having the VC-LR feud playing a role and ultimately being resolved in the finale series. I really did steal from other comic makers at the time, though I think Dark709 was far and away my main target. I gave credit in the front post, but I still took stuff without his approval beforehand. I think the script for this one came from Jphyper (LE's brother; the one obsessed with Kanohi masks). This was done after Hurricane Katrina as a special comic encouraging people to donate, which is why Lady Evil appears in the comic (at the time, she only appeared in the movie). I actually created this with a sort of "Comic Relief" deal in mind, where I would get other comic makers to make their own comics encouraging donations as well. However, no one else really made anything, so the idea bombed. I guess I didn't have enough clout to pull off that kind of collaboration at the time. Ah, an old favorite of mine, which was pitched by Jphyper (although in this one, I wrote the script). The original "Who's on First" skit is just two guys (Abbott & Costello), so the main trick was figuring out how to adapt it so that four people could do it. I really am a Padres fan and they actually did go to the playoffs when this comic came out, but I think they were eliminated in the first round. Just as they always are... I like the idea of the BBC contests having receptions before the voting starts. Poor T-E... And yes, the last three panels are totally stolen from an episode of Spongebob Squarepants. I have yet to send Stephen Hillenburg the royalty check. Ugh...I'm no more of a fan of TV news now than I was then, but now I know better than to get preachy about it on BZPower. There's a time and a place for that kind of commentary, and it's called The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Thanks for the comments on the last post - I was feeling particularly bored today, so I thought I'd just right to the second post - today, the #80s: --- Ah, the Taifu vs. Larry series. My way of blatantly stealing Looney Tunes jokes. I love the "Hey, that was the Lawwy!" line at the end. Classic. One of the kookiest guest star comics I've ever made. That multi-colored text of Angela's took forever to make, but obviously I forgot to put it in the third panel. I'm not sure where I got the pictures in the last panel, but I'm sure at least one of them came from the Strawberry Shortcake website. I'm still pretty hard on Disney (which I distinguish from Pixar), but they've improved somewhat since this comic was made. But only somewhat... If this seems like a particularly "...Whaaaaa?" inducing comic, this was a script pitched to me by Kyeti. Unfortunately, he only sent me this one script and never bothered to finish writing the series. So remember: don't start a series until you know how it's supposed to end. I've never watched Dragon Ball Z, so I didn't know how the yellow hair was supposed to look. Even if I had watched it, I probably still wouldn't know how it was supposed to look. *whistles* Lotta stuff in this one... I'm not sure why LE keeps switching to her Rahkshi form and back. At the end she says it's a transform glitch...maybe I was confused if LE was still a Matoran or had become a Rahkshi full-time, and this is referencing that. Little bit of trivia: in the shot of the audience, those two people in the middle of the front row are supposed to be my parents. I would probably draw them very differently today... Another bit of trivia: The "Hey nommy no! Hey nommy no!" line at the end is from Tintin and the Picaros. LE deserves credit for both of these comics. Having now traveled through customs, I'm not sure why Kyeti didn't just declare his coffee beans. Man, look at those binoculars in the first comic. Highly realistic. It's as if Tarry's eyes are popping out his head! Again, LE gets credit for all of these. I made a reference to Living the Sprite Life in the second one, but I hadn't ever looked at the topic - I was just familiar with the name and thought it'd work well in a "We're in the money"-type song. I never switched to Chimoru, but given the lack of Razor Toa Metru sprites out there, I had to make an exception for this last comic.

Credit for this idea goes to Kahinuva - course, I did have a few moral qualms to deal with, namely that DVD commentaries can often ruin a movie for me; like sausage, learning how it's made can ruin the magic of the final product. However, I'm feeling bored, so I went through with it. I'm only going to pick out my favorites as I go through my old works. I'm starting with the #70s, just cause I feel like that's when my comics really started to come into their own (plus I'm too embarrassed to show my earlier work now). To follow along, (re)read the comic first, then the comment below. --- And my love affair with acronyms begins. Although to this day, "D.U.M.B." is easily the best acronym I have come up with, because it actually says something about the institution it refers to. Note that killer background in the last panel - this is what passed as a lot of work for me back then. It's pretty weird to look at these now, given the total lack of backgrounds and the overall sloppiness of the whole thing. You can also see that Larry/Tarry were still somewhat stupid back then, but they were starting to show their smarter sides... I love the story of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast, and really the last comic was just an excuse to get to this one. To this day, I still get chills when the radio reporter cuts off after the aliens fry him - if you haven't heard it yet, I highly recommend it. Also, note those highly realistic black UFOs in the last panel. Take a good look; those things must have taken tens of seconds to make. VC made a slightly different version where he selflessly added himself to the last panel. It's actually a lot funnier that way... This one's just weird. In trying to work a guest star into the ongoing radio station story, I work in a not-so-subtle message about the communist ways of BZPower (a subject I touched on in a much later comic) and Arro's characteristic of attracting girls. Back then, when guest stars would send me their bios, I made the mistake of trying to work everything they said into the comic. Hence, the mess you see before you. Nuju-Master of Stars is my younger brother. No, not that brother - Ben's my other younger brother. My youngest brother. But no matter which brother it was, dish night would be a topic of great argument. Hunter of Visorak was a big fan of mine's who did his own series, which was unique because he never, ever used sprite kits. --- Tell me what you think - if people like what they see, I'll post more of these. If no one comments, I'm going to figure interest in this is just too low to make it worth it.

In the first post, I compared the Razor-Rayg war of old to the Cold War, but recently a different analogy came to me: Warring Comic Families. (This has some basis in truth - I really did ask Dark to post in my topic when I was starting out - of course, he did it no questions asked.) ("Then we are agreed. The traffic in kits will be permitted, but controlled, and Dark709 will give up protection in the AII Forum – and there will be the peace.") (Superkid is in Razor here to show he isn't entirely going along with the Family... ) --- Back to more seriousness, Gavla made an interesting comment on the first post: I'd say there is some truth to this - and I don't want my first post to come off sounding like everything today is lovy-dovy with everyone holding hands singing Kumbaya...but group fights are usually far more personal and narrowly directed than the more far-reaching kit wars, and so they're often harder to spot - so given that I've only recently started paying attention to the Forum, would probably explain why I don't have a whole lot to say on the topic. I'd be curious what others have to say, though...

Then let us! ...What do you want to talk about? I'd say given people like Kahinuva, you can find more "serious" and plot-oriented humor in plenty of Chimoru series today - the irony here (and I had to dig through some old topics to figure this out) is that Kahinuva was directly inspired by NR, and NR was originally a RZMIK user - a group of people who often wouldn't touch anything that was in anyway associated with the slapstick cliches of Dark709 with a ten-foot pole. As I said, I grouped the RZ, Chibi, and Rayg users together for simplicity sake, because these groups often mingled and readily traded kits and techniques (Project Klinkerpoop and Psycho Dogs & Carbonated Beverages are fine examples of this). They were the united front against the cliches and childishness of Razor (and later Chimoru) users.

Recently I did an interview for The Three Virtues podcast, where I was asked some questions about the history of the forum. Realizing I am one of the oldest people in the Comics Forum today, and wanting to fulfill my narcissistic desires (hey, it is a blog), I decided to write a bit about general trends in the Comics Forum - subjects that are too general to fit into any specific topic on the forum itself. I don't know if there will be anymore blog posts along these lines - I think I'll wait and see what the reaction to this is. --- When I started getting popular, the comic community on BZPower (which had yet to become a separate forum yet) was pretty segregated; a surprising fact if you consider the comics forum of today. From my perspective, it seemed to be divided into two central camps: the Razors and the Raygs (not to downplay the significant number of Chibi and RZ users, but back then many of the elements that defined them were the same that defined Raygs, so the groups were often intertwined - for simplicity's sake, I will refer to that community here as the "Raygs"). The two central figures in this story were Dark709, the undisputed king of the Razors, and The Editorialist, who the Raygs frequently looked to. These were the superpowers who (to my knowledge) never interacted, but their followers could be seen fighting the occasional proxy battle - a Cold War of Comics. Though the superpowers themselves never spoke ill of each other - I once interviewed both of them when they were at the height of their popularity; here was their response when I asked each about the other: "He is very good at Sprite Comics. His humor is much more low key and not as crazy as mine, but he has very good comics, and the witty humor is great." -Dark709 "Dark709 and I started out about the same, Razor sprites and humor based on insanity and obsessions. Recently I changed sprites and have been changing my characters to not JUST be obsessed creatures. Dark709 and I, I think, take care of all kinds of humor of BZP. He takes care of insanity...I take care of the rest." -The Editorialist The differences between the two sides went well beyond the sprites they used. The fact that these two central figures inspired such devotion and loyalty meant that a fair amount of people copied off of one or the other, so the elements that separated Dark and T-E wound up separating Razors and Raygs as a whole. The basic difference was that Razors relied heavily on slapstick comedy, while Raygs were more likely to use more social commentary and situation comedy. That's not to say that Razors never made intellectual jokes and that Raygs never did slapstick (far from it - Raygs were still very likely to be seen using slapstick), but the initial battlelines were drawn. From there, a number of smaller elements could be incorporated into each side: food obsession jokes became the standard of Razors, biting social critique could be seen in Rayg series. When Dark started making his movie, those who followed him starting making their own. Raygs didn't need movies to tell epic tales - there were already a number of serious comic series in the forum that used the far less comical looking Rayg sprites. Dokuma's views of Razor sprites weren't particularly sympathetic... I was firmly in the Razor camp (in some regards I never left it), so trends that defined the Raygs managed to pass without me noticing. There was some overlap between the two groups, but the divide was there. There was even some open hostility between the two groups - I recall Raygs talking about how stupid Razor comics were, with childish jokes and tired gags like food obsession (which, I'm sorry to admit, was a stereotype that was often well-earned). While I don't remember any Razors speaking openly about Raygs, I myself thought of many Raygs as aloof (particularly given comments like the one above). They also seemed to be a rowdier bunch, far more willing to poke at the system and make jokes at Pohukai's expense, something I don't remember many Razors daring to attempt. My evidence for the "edgier" humor of Rayg series - by Nuparurocks and Dokuma of Project Klinkerpoop ...And the zaniness that was your typical Razor series - by Toa Jetice. When I did those interviews with Dark709 and The Editorialist, Dark had already made the Chimoru Kit, which was rapidly gaining popularity among the Razors, though there were still some who had yet to convert. Those interviews marked the last time I would actively pay attention to what was going on in the Forum for a long time; I started focusing solely on my own comics and a few old favorites. It wasn't until I finished my own comic series that I resurfaced - now that I didn't have to worry about making comics, I could take the time to enjoy what other people were doing. When I came back, I found that all the old battlelines seemed to have fallen apart. There were no more Razors left, and few people were still using the Rayg kit. Chimoru and the RZMIK had become the de-facto norm (although this new-fangled Xanistkit was gaining ground), and while many Razors converted to Chimoru and many in the RZMIK group had been close to the Raygs, the generational shift meant that the divisions were gone. Most importantly, the elements that defined the two sides had blended; Chimoru users were no less likely to use serious comedy or slapstick than their RZMIK fellows. RZMIK users who had used more edgy humor could be seen using Chimoru (Nuparurocks is the best example of this). Individual talent is and has always been the most important factor in the Comics Forum, but when I started out the kit you used said a lot not only about you, but who your fans were. It's surprising to see the situation today, where the kit you use plays a far smaller role than it did back then. At some point while I wasn't paying attention to the forum, these two sides intersected and all these elements became more intertwined. The battlelines are gone, and I'm still trying to figure out how we got to where we are today. (As a disclaimer, let me point out that mine is just one perspective - one from a deliberately Razor point-of-view. If you are familiar with this subject, let me know your thoughts on this matter! I would particularly appreciate any knowledgeable viewpoint which contradicts anything I've said here - my recollections are as flawed as anyone else's and should not be taken as the sole truth on the matter.)

Reading topics like that always upsets me, because 1) I feel that sprite comics do count as art, and 2) the comics have their own forum now, so what's the big deal? It's like being someone in Artwork I and saying Short Stories are taking over. Ridiculous. But if Pohukai says we can't get rid of the forum then I don't think we have anything to be worried about, since he's the dude in charge of all the artwork forums. If he says it, it must be.

I usually overthink these sorts of things, so forgive me, but... If the ship is already sinking, then I don't understand why the terrorist still trying to keep control of it. Seems like the job is already done. Secondly, your "correct answer" doesn't make any sense to me. Unless I was some sort of ship engineer and knew the exact extent of the damage inflicted on the ship, I would have no way of knowing how long the ship would last. So there's no guarantee that I'll be able to get the ship to the island. And since when did I learn how to pilot a cruise ship?!? No, if it were me I would just head for the lifeboats. Be courteous to my fellow passngers and not take up too much room on the lifeboat, but otherwise just get the heck out of there.

Seconded. Really Mog, why noob speak? (Or at least something that looks like it.) I guees Mog has been taken...by the noob prince.

Fortuantly, I've never written "Close if dupe", but I have done almost the same thing. Like "Moderators please move if this is in the wrong spot" or "Moderators please close if this isn't right". Although the latter I've only done once or twice, I've still done it. Thank Onuki, I'll be sure to stop.

It's because comics have more in common with cartoons than real life. Really, the "insanity" comes from cartoons and sunday comic strips, where it's done in a silly way. It's not exactly something new being done only with the BZPower comics. It's been going around for a long time. Think Looney Tunes, which were made way, way back.

Behind the scenes stuff, definetly. Bulding tips are nice, but I like to see more about what goes on behind the closed doors.

Well, not all the people taking part are Tahu fans, some are haters too. But really, Tahu is the only Toa that has demanded the sheer amount of haters and lovers that he has, so he's a natural for a first holiday.

Lol you should see the "Describe The Avatar Of The Poster Before You" topic, it looks like somebody triple posted over and over and over again. XD Good times. No better description. Happy International Tahu Day, folks! I'd love an International Pohatu Day, but like Pohatu, I'll take things one at a time.

Aw, shucks... :blush: i hope that doesn't kill your sanity *stab* The WHATs? Suddenly, I have terrifying images of being crushed in the polls.... Then again, I'm always crushed in the polls.

Cool. I haven't gotten Book 3 yet, but from people have been (not) saying about it, it sounds great. Tell her to check out the zoo, if she has the time. Also, there's a really gorgeous nature center down in Chula Vista. Little-known, small, but the wetlands on the bay are very beautiful. When I lived there as a little kid, we went there several times. And when we take trips back to San Diego, we go there. Oh sweet! I was worried this Atlas would be a rehash of old descriptions, but looks like it will be worth getting! *jots down BUY INIKA* Don't worry Greg, I won't fail you. You have me word as a sailor! Not really. But then again, I live in the middle of nowhere.

Knew they had it in them. The Piraka are simply outstanding. Which reminds me, I STILL don't have Hakann or Avak! *sigh* I'm SO behind... Oooooohhh...I guess that means they won't have a cool lair like the Piraka, but then maybe that's a good thing for everybody else. WEB NEWS! WOOO! *when I shout that, it really sounds like "SPRING BREAK! WOO!" Try it. * NO WAY, dude! This is VERY good news! That's good to know. You know Greg, you should tape one of these things, then release it months later when all the facts and story info are widely known. Of course, that might be impossible... *writes in schedule* Buy. Books. :wakeup2: I get every single Bionicle book by you Greg, no exceptions. I don't get the Chronicles series, those are just boring(except for #4, I like that one).