COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 298

Scenes of a Life in Isolation

School starts next week for me, so at least I'll be getting out of the house again. I haven't wanted to, considering how it's cold outside and then there's all that pesky snow... so mostly I've been sleeping late, watching TV, and playing Final Fantasy IX. And wandering around the Internet. It's weird how just a few years ago not leaving the house was essentially a vacation from the comics scene, but now staying home and going online is like locking yourself in a small room with thousands of screaming fanboys. Oh, the stupidity of it all. And the headaches!

So, what have I been doing with myself online? For starters, I've added another web comic to the list of things I read regularly. It's called Elf Life (www.elflife.com), and it reminds me of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, especially in the way it pokes fun at modern society by dropping anachronisms left and right. The art is rather nice, and each strip loads fast, a big plus in my 36.6 connection world.

Another comic that didn't go over as well with me was Little Gamers (www.littlegamers.org). It's been recently added to the GameSpy collection of comics (including Dork Tower, which is my current fave in print), but somehow the humor comes off very stilted. The strip is similar to South Park, with cute little Sanrio-ish kids mouthing off for the audience. Except the writer can't seem to decide whether the characters are supposed to be 10 or 20, which makes a big difference in how funny the jokes come off. There's also the fact that this any every other new gaming strip online is inspired to some degree by Penny Arcade, so they're beginning to wear thin on me.

Speaking of Penny Arcade (www.penny-arcade.com), they resdesigned the front page, and it's pretty freaking cool. Except it takes way too long to load, which chokes up my system every time. I wrote the guys in charge and they told me they're working on fixing it. I'm surprised I even got a response - usually complaints like that get ignored, especially now that we're in the age of broadband. I'm definitely grateful to them, and hope this isn't an isolated incident.

Which actually, it isn't. This week my boyfriend finally got a response from David Rees, the creator of a mini-comic called "My New Fighting Technique is Unstoppable" which was extremely popular with my particular group of friends last summer. Yes, last summer. My boyfriend wrote the guy back in July, and he finally responded here in January. Better late than never, I guess. Apparently Rees is working on two sequels, the first of which will be out in Spring. I don't see what is taking so long, considering how most of the illustration is clip art - a key part of its twisted brand of humor.

I've been trying to get people I know to read Planetary - the latest issue just blew me away. I am such a Warren Ellis junkie. A friend of mine did buy the TPB, and we now share a mutual admiration for Elijah Snow. The two of us are also big Kabuki fans, so there was also the latest issue of Scarab to talk about. It's finally getting somewhere, stuff is finally happening now, so I'm not wasting $2.95 an issue, Mack has rewarded my patience with bang for the buck. So how long will I have to wait for another issue?

It's been an interesting week in comics for me. There a few other things that I suppose I can wait, because I've occupied you long enough and I have to be getting to work. Time for everyone to go out into the world now... what could possibly happen?