http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/06/jackson.html

You know how I said the music industry ran itself out of business and Jackson could be used as a poster boy for that? Here’s an economist who is basically saying the same thing. Fascinating read, check ‘er out!

Well, the 2009 draft is over and done with in Montreal. Since I’m primarily a Canucks fan, here’s a recap of who the Canucks drafted,

FIRST ROUND – Jordan Schroeder (NCAA)

SECOND ROUND – Anton Rodin (Sweden)

THIRD ROUND – Kevin Connauton (NCAA)

FOURTH ROUND – Jeremy Price (CJAHL, committed to NCAA)

FIFTH ROUND – Peter Andersson (Sweden)

SIXTH ROUND – Joe Cannata (NCAA)

SEVENTH ROUND – Steven Anthony (QMJHL)

Now, there’s some interesting things going on with the decisions that Gillis made in his second year at the draft table. At first glance is the number of players that had either played in the NCAA last year or are committed to college hockey next season, which should tell you something about Mike Gillis’ drafting philosophy. As well, the Canucks only drafted two players who were born in 1991, Andersson and Anthony, with all the rest being players who were late 1990 births (and weren’t eligible last season to be drafted) or were passed up in 2008’s draft. What these two points signify to me is that Gillis has probably read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, which talks about what it takes to be successful. I recommend that if you’re looking for some light non-fiction to pick up his book. At any rate, Outliers makes a point that the truly successful people aren’t folks who were ‘born’ talented, ie, they were gifted with some sort of attribute, but rather, that talent was refined through practise. Gladwell makes mention of 10,000 hours of practise as a benchmark, indicating that people who put in that amount of effort on something are more likely to succeed than someone who drifts by on raw talent. Since Gillis targeted players who were older than some of their other draft compatriots, as well as players who were committed to the NCAA (a league where players are typically regarded as being more mature, but also take a little longer to develop), it indicates to me that he’s looking for prospects that have had more time to develop and put in ‘practise.’ It’s an interesting edge and one that is testament to Gillis being committed to player development: any edge he can get, he’s going to try and take.

Another general statement to take out of this year’s draft is that, despite Gillis stating that he felt that there was a serious need for getting some solid 2 way defensemen into the system, he didn’t let position dictate who he drafted, opting instead to go with skill over position. Again, this is different from previous draft years, which typically saw the Canucks going after players they ‘needed’ in the system rather than more potentially lucrative options. The Luc Bourdon selection, which saw the Canucks pass up on Anze Kopitar, is perhaps the most glaring example of this. While Gillis may be looking for players with whom he wants to maximize their development, he’s also wanting to go after skilled players, choosing to refine the raw skillsets that already exist with the players he’s selected, rather than trying to draw out talent that may not exist.

As for specific Canuck selections, I’m personally very excited about the selection of Schroeder. I was able to keep tabs on him this past season as he played for the Minnesota Golden Gophers (as I was keeping dibs on Canucks prospect Patrick White, who also plays for the Gophers) and was intrigued that a freshman, and a rather small freshman at that, was pivoting the team’s top line and doing an amazing job at it. There was also his infamous ‘Avery’ selection where he was asked at the Combine who he would pick to have dinner with out of Obama, Anna Kournikova or Sean Avery and he opted to pick Avery. He took a lot of flak for his decision, because Sean Avery is sharing the position of NHL Anti-Christ with Jim Basillie right now, but there wasn’t a lot of attention given to his reasoning, which basically equated to Schroeder wanting to pick Avery’s brain and learn about the game a bit more. It was an interesting choice and a smart choice, which I think is one of the reasons he may have appealed to Gillis.

Some other notes, for those who didn’t catch the draft, Bob McKenzie (one of TSN’s top analysts and a very knowledgable man when it comes to prospects) loved the selection and was singing Schroeder’s praises, along with Pierre McGuire (the more enthusiastic, ableit knowledgable, TSN analyst when it comes to prospects.) Of note, were that Schroeder was playing against high school students while in the eighth grade, he tested very well at the fitness portion of the draft combine, including coming in second at the bench press, and he led Team USA at last year’s Major Junior Tournament…which means the Canucks have Canada’s and America’s leading scorers from last year’s tourney in Cody Hodgson and Schroeder.

Another pick I’m interested in is the Canucks third round pick, Connauton. He’s the first player that fit Gillis’ identified positional needs of an offensive defenseman. He was ranked 7th overall of NCAA prospects, but he plays for a rather unheralded program, Western Michigan, which may have hurt his stock slightly. He’s another freshman who played rather well in his rookie season in the NCAA, so it’ll be interesting to see what becomes of him. Additionally, the Vancouver Giants have his rights and he may be joining the Giants next season, which is another positive to take from him, as the Giants have become rather adept at churning out solid prospects year in and year out.

Steven Anthony is the other draft selection I’m interested in, as he was a once highly regarded prospect that sort of fell off the radar as time went on. Speculation is that part of Anthony’s struggles came with the Saint Johns Sea Dogs coach Jacques Beaulieu, who was recently sacked. Beaulieu didn’t seem to be a big fan of Anthony, giving him very little icetime to work with, although when he was given icetime after Beaulieu was sacked, he really lit it up. What I really like about this selection, though, was that Gillis was proactive and opted to deal Shaun Heshka, a defenseman for the Moose who is an upcoming RFA, for a 7th round pick to nab Anthony. That’s called turning nothing into something, which is great. While Anthony looks to be a bit of a project player, he certainly has the skillset and, more than anyone else selected in this year’s draft, fits the bill of Gillis’ development approach and Gladwell’s Outliers concept of 10,000 hours.

So, Michael Jackson, as many of you have probably heard, passed away earlier today. Amazingly, this story has captured the attention of everyone who has a television. I guess the notion of a younger generation fighting for their freedom in Iran has become old hat.

Okay, I’m not trying to be a wet blanket. For better or for worse, Michael Jackson had an incredible impact on most people my age and older. Jackson’s influence on pop culture was immense, whether people knew it or not. Jackson helped to shape MTV and the music industry of the past 25 years or so, gave record label executives the idea that they could make huge piles of money by showcasing an artist. Unfortunately, there was something that was lost on most people when they tried to emulate Jackson’s success: the man was incredibly talented. The videos were used as a means of bringing awareness to Jackson, rather than serving as an ad. It’s an important distinction: initially, for Jackson, the videos were an exclamation point on an incredible product. If you took away the videos, you’d still have something amazing. For many artists that followed (and sadly, for Jackson as well) the video became representative of the artist. All polish and no depth. As I said, Jackson fell prey to this as well, as his career going into the 90s and onwards languished, despite even bigger and bigger budgets. It didn’t help that he became increasingly eccentric as time went on, becoming more renowned for his bizarre behaviour than for anything musical. I guess, you could say that Jackson could be seen as a microcosm of the music industry and, if you do, you have to wonder if this means if we can officially state that the ‘business’, as we know it, now has an official time of death.

I mean, honestly, think about it. The ‘majors’ have been losing more and more money as time has gone on, much like Jackson has. MTV has become more about spectacle and the bizarre than anything truly engaging or artistic, being more interested in foisting the likes of Steve-O or Speidi upon us (ironically, MuchMusic has gone to streaming non-stop Jackson related material since his death was announced. I’m unsure if the same can be said about MTV down in the States, but I find it to be incredibly sad that I was surprised to see such heavy coverage done for Jackson, particularly in this day and age. The last time I recalled this sort of 24/7 coverage being bestowed on a musician was with Kurt Cobain’s death) Both the industry and Jackson became embroiled in some ugly legal issues, mostly pertaining to money. For Jackson, it had mostly to do with bankruptcy, for the record labels, it had more to do with suing grandmothers and teenagers. There are a lot of parallels that can be made and, without meaning to sound incredibly ghoulish here, it is strangely appropriate that Jackson’s passing came when it did. A movement that he embodied and signified, far more than anyone else, has come to an end, just as he himself has passed away.

That’s without going into Jackson’s own personal issues, something which I think most people are unqualified to be doing. I did like what Bob Lefestz had to say in his e-mail newsletter, though: “He missed his childhood and now he’s gonna miss his old age. How fucked up is that?”

Photos of a famous author moving into his newly completed tower!

Get it? Because goats will eat anything!

Well, the long list for the Polaris Music Prize were announced June 15th and there are some interesting choices on it. For those who aren’t aware, the Polaris Prize is the Canadian equivalent to the Mercury Prize, over in England, with the idea of celebrating and giving awareness to Canadian music, regardless of genre.

I’m not sure what the point of releasing the long list is, beyond perhaps simple promotion, but it’s nice to see what albums are given serious consideration before announcing the short list. For a music nerd like me, it’s handy to be able to have a cheat sheet of Canadian music I might’ve been oblivious about, as I’m always getting stuck trying to find new music to listen to.

Since I’ve been snubbed as a juror for the Polaris Prize, I thought I’d give my own shortlist and plug some of the music I’ve been listening to as of late as well. Also, because doing ‘list’ posts are really easy to do and I am anything if lazy. Anyway, onto my shortlist!

Metric – Fantasies

I’d like to know what Faustian deal Emily Haines and company have made that lets them continue to keep cranking out absolutely solid records. This is Metric’s third release and they haven’t really missed a beat or slowed down at all. Quite amazing, really. Haines’ voice is part of the problem, really, as she’s capable of becoming incredibly intimate, drawing you in and making it seem like you’re the only one in the world she’s addressing. Her voice is capable of provoking a range of emotions, be it wistfulness, sincerity, desire, excitement, the whole gamut. I realize that I’m veering off into sounding like a reject from Pitchfork here, but her voice is just so flexible and I adore it.  She could read the phone book and I’d sit there stupidly, loving every minute. But that’s only part of it! The rest of the band are capable of providing insanely catchy hooks and just fit together seamlessly. It really is scary how well this band gels. As great as I think Fantasies is from top to bottom, I think that Metric will be shortlisted but will end up getting the Arcade Fire treatment: too big for Polaris’ britches.

Malajube – Labyrinthes

You’ve probably heard the music of Malajube before if you’ve watched any television in the past year or so, as one of Malajube’s songs was featured in a Rogers Wireless commercial. Whatever, Malajube are a great franco-indie band and continue the tradition of artists whom I enjoy who also sing in a language that I don’t understand (yeah, sadly, despite being Canadian I’m only fluent in one of our two official languages, for shame.) They write great poppy stuff that I can just listen to and have fun with, even though I don’t understand a word of what they’re saying. Reminds me of my days when I was interested solely in metal and punk rock. HAR HAR. There’s no real buzz on Malajube AND they’re Francophone, which could either help or hinder their chances with the award…honestly, the Polaris has only been around for such a short time it is hard to say. That said, I think that there’s more than a good chance that Malajube will get shortlisted and I would love it if this great band would get some greater recognition as a result.

Chad VanGaalen – Soft Airplane

I first got to see Chad VanGaalen when he opened for Matthew Good at a show in Calgary. I believe it was around 2004, which would’ve been about five years ago. Anyway, I was blown away by him, as he was a one man act, but he was able to capture the attention of most everyone in attendance and earned a huge ovation at the end of his set…something you don’t see very often with opening acts. It may have been that he was a local boy and there was a bit of civic pride at play, but I think it’s because VanGaalen is fucking awesome. If you like minimalist indie rock, you ought to check out Soft Airplane.

Joel Plaskett – 3

I was only casually interested in Joel Plaskett until I picked up Ashtray Rock back in 2007 and then I became hooked. Plaskett’s triple album is something that I’m just starting to get into, but I’m finding it quite enjoyable thus far. Perhaps I’ll write up a longer post once I’ve gotten a better feel for it. At any rate, Plaskett was shortlisted in 2007, losing out to Patrick Watson, so look for Plaskett to get the nod again, either setting him up to win the Polaris or to become the Polaris equivalent of ‘always a bridesmaid, never a bride.’

K’Naan – Troubadour

This is the only album on the list I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and listen to, but out of all the nominees listed thus far, I think K’Naan stands the greatest chance of taking home the prize. Why would I say such a thing before I get a chance to sit down and listen to his album (and believe me, that will be forthcoming very soon)? One, because the Polaris Award is seemingly about celebrating Canadian music, regardless of genre. Are we really going to see yet another Canadian indie rock group win the Polaris? And c’mon, k-os is fucking boring, if the award is going to go to a hiphop album, K’Naan is a great choice.

Anyway, my second reason for K’Naan getting the nod is because, while I haven’t listened to the entire album, I’ve been playing the hell out of ABC’s while I’ve been out and about. I love listening to up tempo music when I’m commuting, as I use my bike as my primary means of transportation and ABC’s is off the wall. If the rest of the album is half as good as this single, my God.

The third reason that I think K’Naan stands a good chance of getting the Polaris is because of his background. Canadian music is more about music that is made in Canada: we’re a multicultural nation and it should be reflected in that. K’Naan was born and grew up in Somalia and his aunt (thank you, Wikipedia) was a rather well known Somali singer. That sort of background is part of what makes Canadian music great: it’s part of what you’re bringing to the table. You aren’t ascribing to preconceived notions of what music ought to be like. If there isn’t any room for you at the ‘table’, well, dammit, we’ll make room for you.

So yeah, those are my 5 choices of potential albums that are going to get shortlisted for the Polaris. The full list of 10 will be announced July 7th, and I’ll try to have more to say about K’Naan before then!

Sorry for the lull in posts, folks. Parents visiting from out of town and moving create a lot of time that gets eaten up that could have been used for the Internets. I guess that’s what this whole ‘having a life’ thing is about. Anyway, I’m settled in, so we are no longer experiencing technical difficulties and posts should be coming up in short order.

Cheers!

Came across this while watching the Stanley Cup Finals tonight.

I’m usually not one for crass commercialization, but I would so be buying tickets for a movie adaptation of this.

So what do you get when you mash a World of Warcraft fanfic together with elements of 8 Bit Theatre, Drizzt D’Urden and a writer of an established Mary Sue webcomic? Why, you get Looking For Group, yet another gaming webcomic that is inexplicably popular despite the fact that it is a rather bad strip.

LFG is the brainchild of the two guys who also write/draw Least I Could Do, another terrible webcomic that has been savaged by others for being a horrible, unfunny, Gary Sue, misogynistic turd. Amazingly, their biggest claim to fame in webcomic sins aren’t of their own creation, rather, it’s being behind Blind Ferret Entertainment, the, and I use this term about as loosely as possible, ‘animation’ studio that brought us this (click for the full effect):

Yup. If you were wondering who were the idiots that unleashed the most poorly animated piece of crap this side of the CD-i, look no further. Blind Ferret apparently came to light as a result of Sohmer’s burning desire to see his other masterpiece animated. And really, given the exceedingly high quality that this company is known for and the artists/writers Blind Ferret has worked with in the past, surely LFG is one of the gems in the Internet’s set of Crown Jewels…right?

Well, while LFG isn’t as bad with the blatant wish-fulfilment and unfunny jokes about sex that LICD is notorious for, that’s like saying you don’t beat your girlfriend, rather, you simply get angry while playing video games and accidentally lash out at the closest human being who isn’t entirely sick and tired of your bullshit. Who happens to be your girlfriend. Okay, I’ve run that one into the ground. While you might be lucky enough to come across a baby alligator or something equally cool amongst all the waste that is the free flowing deluge of sewage that is the Internet’s webcomic community, you are far more likely to come up with something that looks like a baby’s leg, but smells a whole hell of a lot worse. And is made out of shit. Which brings us to LFG.

I’ve never really bothered with being a regular LFG reader. Unlike my other webcomic review with GU Comics, my experience with LFG has consisted of reading the first few comic strips going ‘this is fucking stupid’ and then accidentally lashing out at the person who recommended I check out the site. Total time wasted? About 5 minutes. So, in the interest of fairness and in order to delay getting around to doing any actual work at my job and thus actually justifying the paycheck that is given to me in these tough economic times where other people are not so lucky, I sat down and tore through the first 200 strips of LFG’s roughly 250 comic strips. I figure that would let me see if the strip truly is as bad as I initially made it out to be, or whether I was being unfair in my 5 minutes of looking at the damn thing. I mean, the least I could do (GET IT? HA HA HA) is actually examine the damn thing before I dismiss it ocmpletely.

Sadly, LFG is just not that good. The comic originally started off as a ‘comedic’ strip before it got ’serious,’ which is sort of like being a staff writer who gets tasked to work on a ‘very special’ episode of Blossom: it doesn’t work very well. I’ll say that it’s been handled better than Tim Buckley’s abortive attempt at veering into Seriousville, but then again, you could say the same thing about Michael J. Fox performing neurosurgery. I didn’t really notice any sort of dramatic shift in tone whilst reading through,  although the strip started moving away from being completely nonsensical to only slightly nonsensical, so there’s that. Anyway, I said at the top that LFG reads as a WoW fanfic and, after going through the first 200 or so pages of this webcomic, I stand by that assertion. Having dabbled in World of Warcraft and now guaranteeing the fact that I have just doomed myself to never having a girlfriend again, I’m familiar with the universe and have paid attention to the lore because I’m an idiot that way. While I haven’t read any of the books (and I seriously doubt that will change anytime soon) I am familiar with the basic plotline of the War of the Ancients trilogy. You know, the one that had a bunch of time travelling and characters going back in time and, okay, your eyes are glazing over so I’ll shut up.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: generic group of fantasy characters go back in time to a mighty elvish empire right before ‘the fall.’ Said empire seems to be carved entirely out of white marble. Said characters go back in time to stop some poorly defined tragedy from befalling the world, interact with mysterious draconic characters and then are flung back into the future having made things better.

Oh, but apparently I’m mistaken. According to the comic’s official Wikipedia page, the very existence of which makes me contemplate suicide: “outside of artistic similarities, the strip’s plot bears no resemblance to the Warcraft setting and Sohmer has stated that it is set in an independent universe.” As if we needed further proof that Wikipedia is full of shit. Despite being completely different from WoW, there’s constant parody going on with the fantasy genre and “pop culture references in medieval guise abound.” Gee, you’re right. World of Warcraft never references anything pop cultural or parodies the genre itself at all, boy oh boy. How silly of detractors to think as much.

At least I think that there’s parody and pop culture references ‘abounding’ in LFG, as nothing is ever really all that clear, which brings me to my biggest complaint with this webcomic: it is written fucking horribly and trying to figure out the ‘plot’ of this story is annoying for someone who isn’t a devoted fanboy who will gobble up anything that is thrown up without question. Look, I know that fantasy writing has a reputation for being shit, despite there being a ton of talented and smart authors out there, but there’s also a large portion of fantasy out there that is complete and utter crap. Sohmer happens to fall into the latter category, being guilty of coming up with nonsensical dialogue, plots that don’t make a ton of sense, relying FAR too much on having crap happen ‘off screen’ and basically using every single goddamned fantasy cliche in the book and running it into the ground.

Evil empire looking to conquer the world? Check.

Honorable (but fucking retarded) ignoble savages? Check.

Dwarves that speak in Scottish accents? Check.

Gnomes that love to tinker? Check.

Ancient prophecies up the fucking wazoo? Check.

Ancient prophecy that revolves around a MacGuffin? Check.

And on and on and on. I imagine if you were to open up TV Tropes and randomly select a page and then randomly select a LFG comic you’d, more likely than not, get a match. And before anyone tries to tell me that that’s the point of the comic, I’d like to thank you for pointing out the obvious, but LFG is apparently a ’serious’ webcomic now, so you can only play the parody card so much before your ’serious’ story becomes a joke.

But Jesus Christ, the writing is the major reason why this webcomic is terrible. From the very early stages of the comic, we have a bar fight that magically shifts to the characters being in the middle of the woods, with zero explanation as to how they got there. Sohmer has absolutely zero sense of pacing, tension, drama, whatever you want to throw out, he’s not catching it. You build up this confrontation, set things up for a fight and then…PHEW, glad we lost them! That just reeks of shitastic writing. Think that’s an isolated incident? Here’s another example. Here, we have the Bad Guys, with the utterly creative name of Legion, are in pursuit of our heroes. For some reason. We’re not sure how they know where they are, but who cares, dammit, this is about ACTION. So, the captain of the ship gets her crew ready for battle…and then goes on to brag about how her ship is so fast, they needn’t worry about battle in the next strip. Again, shitty writing that breaks up the story and makes it look like 9 year olds doing a reenactment of the old He-Man cartoons. Here’s yet another one. Up to this point, readers have been given the impression that this person is ALSO wanted by the Legion, but, hey, that annoying thing called a plot is getting in the way, so let’s just handwave our way through it to make way for the author’s insipid storytelling, because, really, details are Fucking Stupid. Here’s yet another great example.  There’s some sort of epic fight going on between two groups and the main characters are down in some CATACOMBS. We see them descend underground and yet here we see the roof caving in and griffons and soldiers who were previously fighting a massive army are now suddenly duking it out with these guys and oh god my brain. To quote the great philosopher Stefani: this shit is fucking bananas.

Another great example of this is when Richard (and, believe me, more on HIM in a moment) is banished to the ‘Plane of Suck’ (LOL!) and is robbed of his magical powers…only not, because…well, it’s never really explained. NOTHING is explained at all, which makes reading this thing a fucking chore because you have to simply accept shit happening. Deus ex machina is Sohmer’s favorite tool as a writer  and to hell with  constructing a narrative that makes any sort of goddamned sense. There’s also a point at the very start of this strip where Benny is expected to pony up some gold to the Bad Guy…which then magically turns into something called the Sword of Truth somewhere along the way. That last bit can be a bit of a nitpick, as this once again goes back to the argument that this was originally a ’silly’ webcomic that turned into a ’serious’ one and hey, maybe things weren’t planned out. Regardless, this serves as evidence that Sohmer doesn’t plan things out at all and is flying by the seat of his pants. Awesome!

As well, it seems that the only way that Sohmer knows how to advance his plot, if he’s not using offscreen methods or simply ignoring what he’s already written in favor of whatever current direction he wants to go in, is through battle or wholesale slaughter and again, I can appreciate that in a fantasy comic strip, where you expect to see a lot of fighting going on, but this again goes back to pacing problems. If you keep building up epic battle after epic battle with NOTHING else going on in between you’re going to have your audience get burnt out and disinterested because, well, if you’re having sex with two Swedish supermodels every night, how long does it take until it becomes routine and boring? So then you go out and try and spice things up. Maybe some handcuffs. Next thing you know, you’ve got a Doberman tearing off your private bits and your entire family has stopped speaking to you. Same principle here. You don’t want to be having these huge armies fighting each other all.the.goddamned.time because it winds up giving you the exact opposite result you were hoping for. Yeah, great, hack and slash is awesome, but mix it the fuck up for once and try to resolve your plotlines in ways other than HURR DURR STABBITY STAB STAB, which, if you think about it, is also how the majority of the plots are resolved in LICD, so really, he’s experienced zero growth as a writer. Hurrah!

Then there’s story details which are just completely illogical. Take the situation where some village is besieged by elementals. Somehow, the fact that some of these elementals are made out of fucking fire is irrelevant, because, hey, what the fuck good is fire when you’re laying siege to a settlement?

To be fair, these problems with the plot could be explained away if we were provided with interesting, dynamic and compelling characters. Unfortunately, this is yet another area where LFG falls far short. Let’s start with arguably the most recognizable character of the bunch, who has taken on a sort of cult following amongst fans: Richard. Fucking Richard. I can see the appeal with someone like Richard: evil sociopath who thrives off being a complete bastard. Why, it worked so well, it’s actually been done before. You see, Richard is nothing more than a thinly disguised ripoff of Black Mage from 8 Bit Theatre, essentially being the same damn character used for the exact same purpose. But see? He does a hadoken AND a shoryuken, so he’s like, totally different from Black Mage, so it’s cool.

Then there’s Cale’Anon, an elf who dual wields swords and has a pet panther. Oh, and he’s also the only non-evil member of his particular group of elves. At least, that’s what we’re told, as we’re never really SHOWN exactly how evil these elves are, outside of laying siege to this one castle. But yeah, that TOTALLY doesn’t sound familiar. At all. Because that’s what Sohmer would lead you to believe: that Drizzt was very clearly NOT an inspiration for Cale’Anon. Despite this strip initially starting off as a parody of fantasy and fantasy gaming. Despite having AD&D having a clear influence with the strip. But yeah, Cale’Anon is totally not a Drizzt clone. And Richard is totally not a rip off of Black Mage!

What else is there? Well, there’s the fact that the dialogue can be laughably bad. Here’s some examples:

His hair, like a helmet. Pubes? Like a wheat field.

Unfortunately, the script was lost on its way overseas to the Korean animation studio!

“We shall do well with bauble, eh!”

As for the so-called humour of the strip? Well, there’s Rickroll jokes roughly 2-3 weeks after that particular fad had officially jumped the shark? Or a 300 joke? Or ripping off 8 Bit Theatre’s whole burning down orphanages joke and running it into the ground? If you’re going to have a running gag, at least make it your fucking own and not one blatantly stolen from someone else. Yeah, there’s not a lot of humour to be had. Oh, there’s the utterly fucking hilarious attempts at geek humour, such as implying that elves might be, LOL, EFFEMINATE. Or there’s such a horrible, hamfisted attempt at shoehorning in a joke that it comes out as being absolutely retarded. The worse thing about all these attempts at humour? More often than not, you see the characters being drawn laughing at the jokes. Now, I might be out to lunch here, but I view that sort of thing as being something you just don’t do. Drawing your fucking characters cracking up at your jokes shows either how much of a big fucking ego you have or how much of an insecure dipshit you are.

With Sohmer, though, you have to assume that he’s completely and utterly full of himself. Nevermind the ridiculous wish fulfilment that goes on in LICD, we have a guy who thinks that he’s King Mother Fucking Shit because he happens to update his webcomic and posts garbage like this:

On the frontpage of LFG’s site. For those curious as to what the link is, here you go. What kind of arrogant shitheel does this guy think he is? Sign a petition because, damn it, I should be writing a comic book put out by a professional company that has standards. Also, how’s that for fucking irony? He’s bitching about people’s sense of entitlement in the post immediately preceding it. Wow.

He’s also made comments where he thinks he should get into the video game business because LFG has been so successful. Yeah, I’m right there with you, if only a) your previous attempts at branching out into other forms of media weren’t affronts to God and b) your source material wasn’t so pisspoor.

As for the artwork? Lar DeSouza is pretty good and is great at mixing things up, although there’s the odd misstep here or there. Nothing really to get bent out of shape over, though, and completely understandable when you’re working on 2 different comics at a time. The cartoony look isn’t really my cup of tea, but I’m not going to hold it against him. He’s a good artist and is capable of cranking out some solid stuff. Hopefully he’ll keep up the good work with someone who can actually write. Honestly, the art is not the major problem with this comic. The biggest problem is the proliferation of B^U syndrome that’s going on, with character faces, but given that he’s capable of drawing in multiple perspectives, can draw things like feet (something which King B^U is incapable of doing)  it’s a minor quibble and can be chalked up to a stylistic choice. Is it a good one? No clue, but the art is something that just doesn’t appeal to me all that much.

And honestly? LFG could be a much better comic if there were an editor kicking around or if Sohmer actually exercised some planning and self-editing himself. It’s a problem that plagues a LOT of online material, be it webcomics, writing in general or other mediums. There’s no real quality control process for people. Whereas an actual comic book will have a ton of people looking at a single work, there’s a lot of crap that proliferates online because there’s no attempt at revision or editing. A lot of the problems that I found cropping up here would have easily been picked up if there was someone else going over things behind the scenes looking at things with a critical eye. Given that Sohmer gives the impression that he’s incredibly full of himself, though, I highly doubt that will happen anytime soon. Hence, shitty webcomic.

Yeah, I’m flat out just going to abort this one. It’s not coming out as I wanted it to and, despite having spent an inordinate amount of time working on it, I’d rather put this on hold rather than continue with it.

Sorry for all my legions of non-existant fans.

Also, hello to everyone who has come over from Finish The Book, George! I was very surprised to see myself linked to by the two gents in charge over there. Hope you enjoyed the rant on Martin and found the rest of the site amusing!
Got some content coming later today, woop woop!

Craigslist never fails to bring the funny. A short, concise ad, but one that is completely baffling.

Must be experienced with horoscopes and sex toys?

Three years experience? What, is that to prevent the horoscope writers fresh out of school from annoying you?