11/17/07 [Abel #106] - Good enough excuse...

[Zina]

WAY TO FAIL, AMBER. WAY TO FAIL.
THIS ONE COMIC HAS RUINED EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD. THANKS A LOT.
I'm leaving.
*gets in car*
*drives away*

[Amber Williams]

*shrugs* I guess that would be the case...if the story was actually over.

[Kenji]

Zina is far too whiny.
She makes her own cheese, its so bad.

[Manawolf]

That I can believe, and these are merely the words of a critic who is getting a little impatient with it all.  You've basically spent the last three strips killing time and not really presenting anything the reader didn't already figure out.

At least you didn't do one of those stupid "Start from the ending" beginnings, those really don't work for comics, as you do that at the first page, and then suddenly your fans are up to page 500 and are still waiting for it all to come together.

Prime Example: "Black Tapestries"

Then again that comic already took a hit when the author used their "furry" avatar to explain that it wasn't a "furry" comic.

[Amber Williams]

I sort of gathered your impatience when the last few update responses were nearly ALL IN CAPS and telling Aniz to get to the point.

This is, unfortunately, one of those parts that will translate a lot better when people are reading it straight through...rather than 1 a week.  It's an undesired side effect that when you do a comic where you only get 1 page a week, you feel the pressure to make sure every. single. page. is something dramatic and actiony and resolving things.  But in hindsight, it will end up making the story seem incredibly choppy and rushed when you read through it all a second time.

[Manawolf]

All the more reason mechanics like "Starting from the ending," don't work with webcomics.  Many movies, books, and even video games have pulled off the story mechanic splendidly, but unfortunately, when you've got a 100+ strip webcomic that started from the end on strip one about a year or two ago, it's start to grate on the fan's nerves.

[Omega]

A one way to fix this problem, would be to show your comic in larger pieces. But that's like fixing a leaking pipe by replacing it with a ridiculous long pipe, where the solution becomes a bigger problem. When you get to read only a strip per week, one can easily loose the idea of the story and become bored with it. Personally, I hold all my rights to diss Amber's way to run her comic as long as I'm not paying her to do it.

[Sunblink]

The final and most important question to any story: Why.

You leave that out, and you throw away the chance of having a timeless classic and instead end up with a wrinkled and decrepit old granny of a plot.

You're only showing the frailty in your writing, Amber.  Not giving us reason only leads to suspicion and thoughts of you simply doing it for the hell of it, which is never a good idea when trying to make something serious.

You've thrown yourself out of "Jack" quality, and down into the dumps of "Better Days" stupidity.

That seems like an unnecessarily harsh assessment. The story isn't over yet--apparently not by a long shot--so don't assume that things have hit the fan in terms of quality yet. To be perfectly honest, I thought it was a bit of a cop-out, mostly because I kept expecting some enormous explanation, but I'm not accusing Amber of losing all quality and damning this comic to the pits of hell for it. There's still a possibility we could still find out Aniz's motivations.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Insert Witty Name]

Personally, I think effectively saying  "You want an apology? Life's a bitch, deal with it." fits perfectly with what appears to be Aniz's true character (which of course may be yet another facade).  Anyway, I like my web-comics densely plotted and full of twists, I eagerly await futher developments. Keep up the good work!

[Sid]

*browses over the two pages so far*
Oh my, it certainly looks like Abel's Story is an emotional boiling place yet again...

I just got two observations:
1) Aniz is still looking damn snappy in his black/red combo.
2) Very powerful comic in terms of storytelling. This may actually be my fav strip of the past ten or so, at least in terms of pacing/power.

[Naldru]

I would like to present a few observations.

Amber has been putting out at least one Abel story a week.  (She may have missed a week here and there but there was also a week where she put out multiple strips in one week.)  That's pretty good compared to many web comics out there where I've been waiting a few months for the last weekly update.

Abel certainly hasn't implied that cubi are rational beings with good reasons for what they do, and he's probably the one with the best perspective.  Devin has also implied that his past actions weren't desirable.  I fear that the real reason that many people don't randomly kill people who pass them on the street has nothing to do with morals, but with the fact that they fear getting caught.  And the fact that we catch them and put them in jail is based on law, not morals.

I'm not sure that the pacing is any worse than the Dragonball episodes where a single fight would be spread over ten episodes.  I'm willing to wait and see what happens.  If I wasn't, I would go read something else.

I'm sorry if this seems a little rambling.

[Damaris]

Manawolf, if you don't like it, then stop reading it.

Because I don't like your whining, and am tempted to make it so that I don't have to read it anymore.

[Goatmon]

Hate to say it, but...Aniz has a point. >_>

The final and most important question to any story: Why.

You leave that out, and you throw away the chance of having a timeless classic and instead end up with a wrinkled and decrepit old granny of a plot.

You're only showing the frailty in your writing, Amber.  Not giving us reason only leads to suspicion and thoughts of you simply doing it for the hell of it, which is never a good idea when trying to make something serious.

You've thrown yourself out of "Jack" quality, and down into the dumps of "Better Days" stupidity.

Shut up.

[superluser]

You're only showing the frailty in your writing, Amber.  Not giving us reason only leads to suspicion and thoughts of you simply doing it for the hell of it, which is never a good idea when trying to make something serious.

You've thrown yourself out of "Jack" quality, and down into the dumps of "Better Days" stupidity.

Just no.

You've basically spent the last three strips killing time and not really presenting anything the reader didn't already figure out.

This is your only good point, and it's not a valid criticism of this particular strip.

Some portions of any well-told story are going to be very boring, but you've always got to make sure that you're moving the story forward.  What are the elements of a story?  Aristotle lists the following:

Plot - what the characters do
Character - who the characters are
Thought - theme
Diction - the author's vocabulary
Melody - how well the chorus sings
Spectacle - the special effects

Obviously, literary theory has changed, but the first three are still valid today.

I had a criticism of Abel 105 that I never got a chance to flesh out which was essentially that plot, character and thought were not advanced in any way, and thus the story is essentially marching in place.  The one question, why, could have taken up one panel, instead of the four that it does.

That's not true of Abel 106.  Abel asked why, and we had to see Aniz's response, and Abel's reaction.

In addition, is this a hint that Aniz may be conflicted as a character?  Because I think he'd be the first character in the series that has internal conflicts.  Other characters may be pulled in different directions, but by the time we meet them, they're pretty sure that they're right.

[Naldru]

First, I would like to point out that I'm not defending Aniz's actions.

During the 1930's, there were many people in Germany, Russia, and Poland who believed that it was moral to kill Jews.  In Northern Ireland, there were many Protestants who believed that it was moral to kill Catholics and many Catholics who believed that it was moral to kill Protestants.  Morals are what you personally believe, and different people have different morals.  Based on that, you could say that morals are flexible.

When you base laws on morals, you end up with situations like the one where it used to be illegal to celebrate Christmas in Massachusetts.  (This was a Protestant versus Catholic issue, where the Protestants considered Christmas a papist plot.)  Many people believe that it is immoral to base laws on morals.

Ethics are what groups establish as being appropriate behavior, which is not necessarily the same as being moral.  Different groups have different sets of ethics.  If the members of ACLU were to write down a set of ethics, it would probably vary from what would be written by a group of policemen.

Laws are what the government establishes as rules of behavior, with stated punishments for violations of the rules.  They differ from laws and ethics.  Some things can be ethical but illegal while others could be legal but unethical.

Choosing animal society as an example may not be the best choice.  Although animals will take action against those who attack members of their own pack, members of other packs are often considered fair game.  This type of thinking also applies to a number of human cultures.  Gang members frequently view it as immoral (according to their own morals) to attack members of their own gang, but view it as perfectly acceptable to kill members of other gangs for no reason other than the fact that they are members of another game.

The fact that you felt like it was considered a perfectly valid reason for killing somebody if you were the Czar of Russia in the 1800's.

As I stated before, Furrae appears to follow the principle of weregild as shown by Mikelo's discussion of the legal system.

You're getting into the area of metalaw, a subject on which many doctoral dissertations have been written.

[Damaris]

BTW- please stop discussing Manawolf's comments.  He's already been yelled at, and I don't want to hear the "but I'm only responding" excuse.

[Goatmon]

Yeah, it's probably just beating a dead horse at this point.  And I opened with a comment on the strip itself, before responding to him, at least. 

[bill]

You just did the exact thing you were told not to do. What the hell.

[Goatmon]

I guess I did, technically.  My bad.  >_>

[Darkmoon]

Time to bring out the Great Stick of Bannination!



Hey kids! Would you like your own Great Stick of Bannination?! Of course you would! Well, now you can get your through this special offer. All you need to do is eat select Kellogs Brand cereals and mail in the box tops along with $2.50, a self addressed stamped envelope, and your soul.

This offer will end soon, so you better act fast!

[bill]

Goatmon has died. He will rise again in 24 hours. Never forget his brave sacrifice.

[superluser]

BTW- please stop discussing Manawolf's comments.  He's already been yelled at, and I don't want to hear the "but I'm only responding" excuse.

After reading Bill's comments, I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but it really needs to be said.

I thought that a central concept of the forum was to provide constructive criticism (both positive and negative) of the works associated with it.  Of course, just because criticism is allowed doesn't mean that you can come in and bash something, dismiss it because it's not something else, and generally be hostile to everyone and everything.

I'm just concerned that we may lose the ability to make constructive criticism of anything in the forums, and I was hoping to pare off the incendiary comments and leave something salvageable that could be used for some real criticism, and to be sure that we weren't feeling some sort of chilling effect where any honest evaluation of negatives would be seen negatively.

Oh, and to him who shall not be named--here's a preemptive response to anything else you might say in this thread.  Shut up.  Actually, the real response would be something that you said earlier and were censored for.

[bill]

You'll notice that Manawolf isn't banned. Goatmon is, for not following instructions (He was on a steep slope as it was, for prior violations). As far as Manawolf, unless it's outright trolling, nobody will get banned for criticism. Manawolf's first comments were overly incendiary, rather than constructive. As it was on a very thin line from being outright flaming, they were yelled at, and dealt with. Since it was highly unlikely that Manawolf's intent was to troll, he wasn't banned, but told to turned it down, harshly.

If you want to say something along the lines of "This comic was rather weak, because of x", fine. If you want to say "God, this sucks, it was much better when x", or "What the hell is wrong, this is horrible, you didn't do y", then no. It's a matter of tone.

Incidentally, the reason that people were told to stop discussing his comments was not to quash criticism of the comic, or anything, but to prevent a flamewar from happening. If you don't like the comic, feel free to post so.

[Sienna Maiu - M T]

Time to bring out the Great Stick of Bannination!



Hey kids! Would you like your own Great Stick of Bannination?! Of course you would! Well, now you can get your through this special offer. All you need to do is eat select Kellogs Brand cereals and mail in the box tops along with $2.50, a self addressed stamped envelope, and your soul.

This offer will end soon, so you better act fast!

But... then I would have to eat breakfast

[Alondro]

Ninjas rule.   

*time to end the seriousness and start a new pirate-ninja war*   

Well since you mentioned it....  *watches a ninja spin his sword around fancily* ........  *fills the ninja full of blunderbuss, the ORIGINAL Boomstick*

*the ninja was actually a log jutsu clone!  The real ninja sneaks up from behind and delivers a devastating Thousand Years of Pain attack!*  Kudos to the Narutards who know this extra-special technique.   

[Dannysaysnoo]

Ninjas rule.   

*time to end the seriousness and start a new pirate-ninja war*   

Well since you mentioned it....  *watches a ninja spin his sword around fancily* ........  *fills the ninja full of blunderbuss, the ORIGINAL Boomstick*

*the ninja was actually a log jutsu clone!  The real ninja sneaks up from behind and delivers a devastating Thousand Years of Pain attack!*  Kudos to the Narutards who know this extra-special technique.   

I don't, does that separate me from the other Narutards?

[Kuari]

*the ninja was actually a log jutsu clone!  The real ninja sneaks up from behind and delivers a devastating Thousand Years of Pain attack!*  Kudos to the Narutards who know this extra-special technique.   

OW!!!!  What the *BLEEP*, you *BLEEP*ing stuck your fingers up my....  GOMU GOMU NO JET GATLING GUN!!!!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Some of the comments in this thread have been stripped out and moved to a Philosophy thread.

http://clockworkmansion.com/forum/index.php/topic,3764.0.html

I did my best to separate things carefully, but there will be some overlap. I apologise, but no, I'm not going to move them back, either.

Not unless you bribe me. ;-]