Zero Punctuation reviews webcomics

[Redtech]

You don't need money, artists are meant to be poor, it's in the job description.

[TheWhiteWilSmith]

True, once you add money to the equation you've officially become a sellout.

Long live the welfare check and tax deductible art supplies!!!

[Redtech]

Wait, you get tax deductable?!
Englandshire blows so hard sometimes.

On topic, reading the comments page for the Zero Punctuation review is pretty amusing. I'd almost argue he should tag up with YWSANSFB but that might be something that causes the begining of the apocalypse or whatnot...

Guess what I would find? I suppose it was inevitable.

[MixedMyth]

Another awesome English-descended Australian with a killer hat.

- Joel Fagin

I'm tell you, he's your evil twin! Or your good twin. Or maybe just eviler twin?

[SergeXIII]

Well, as a dude who does one of these let me say that I agree with most of the stuff Yahtzee said that day, and personally most of the points he made are things I'm trying to get out of the habit of, like including myself though sometimes you need to use it in order to get the joke across. One thing I've been mulling over for some time is how a comic could treat gaming in a way that promotes the "gaming as art" agenda Yahtzee mentions, and I'm not too sure to be honest. Gaming, while oft a rollercoaster of moods and sentiments, is ultimentaly a form of entertainment and as such is difficult to express in any way other than a celebratory maner. A drama about gaming wouldn't work too well unless it was a drama in a game but thats another story all together. Unfortunetally Yahtzee did little to point me in the direction I desperataly wish to take my own comic (I personaly would wish to end it as it was essentially practice for me, but believe it or not people actually read it) other than to avoid being like CAD, but honestly I the ego of Tim Buckly required to even attempt such a thing is supernatural, I mean its unfathomable to me how any level headed person could concieve that putting a miscarage in a humor comic would be a good idea. Its something one doesn't even encounter on serious dramatic web comics. A lot is required to justify it and prevent it from seeming tastless and Tim Buckly is no where near man enough to pull that off.

But anyway, I enjoyed it.

By the by, I'm pretty sure the mention of Comicgenesis has something to do with the fact that Yahtzee had a comic here back in the 90s.

[McDuffies]

Can't be, CG (nor Keenspace) didn't exist in 90s.

[Komiyan]

Yahtzee's old comic, which is indeed hosted here.

[KWill]

Ah, hence the hypocrisy awareness. =P

[IVstudios]

One thing I've been mulling over for some time is how a comic could treat gaming in a way that promotes the "gaming as art" agenda Yahtzee mentions, and I'm not too sure to be honest. Gaming, while oft a rollercoaster of moods and sentiments, is ultimentaly a form of entertainment and as such is difficult to express in any way other than a celebratory maner. A drama about gaming wouldn't work too well unless it was a drama in a game but thats another story all together.

How about a story about a videogame designer's internal struggle to create a great game wile living in a culture who views what he creates as childish and unartistic.

Bam.

[TheWhiteWilSmith]

How about a story about a videogame designer's internal struggle to create a great game wile living in a culture who views what he creates as childish and unartistic.

Sounds like my plight with webcomicking in general...

[Dr Legostar]

Yahtzee's old comic, which is indeed hosted here.

i had been trying to figure out why a comic which ended years ago had popped back up to the top of the CG ranks.

[SergeXIII]

One thing I've been mulling over for some time is how a comic could treat gaming in a way that promotes the "gaming as art" agenda Yahtzee mentions, and I'm not too sure to be honest. Gaming, while oft a rollercoaster of moods and sentiments, is ultimentaly a form of entertainment and as such is difficult to express in any way other than a celebratory maner. A drama about gaming wouldn't work too well unless it was a drama in a game but thats another story all together.

How about a story about a videogame designer's internal struggle to create a great game wile living in a culture who views what he creates as childish and unartistic.

Bam.

Okay, prepare yourselves for my thoughts on gaming as a medium for art. Things like beautiful graphics and excelent writting are nice, but they arent the heart of the matter here. When you are making an argument of the significance of a medium you need to focus on something unique to the medium. You need to focus on how a movie can present a story in a different fashinon than, say, a book in such ways as presenting suspence in a unique way (I appoligise for a lack of examples here, I'm not too into movies), or how music can have a dramatic affect on ones emotions that brings new life to the messages hidden in the lyrics (when those messages are more substatial than "I like to dance!", "I like butts!", or "I like sex!" i.e. anything but pop)

The unique aspect that video games introduce is in immersion. Immersion is not unique to the medium, you can definetally do this with a good book or lose all sense of place when watching a horror movie enhancing the terror, but the way one experiences immersion in a video game is impossible to achieve in another medium. This is the result of being in control of what happens in a game, this introduces sensations such as responcibility, regret, and relief and what not to the picture. To explain this in a basic way, the terror one feels in a horror movie and a horror game is quite different. In a horror movie we have no control over the fates of the characters, and as such no real stake in it. When we are afraid in such a manner it is mainly out of trepidation over seeing something gorey, out of sympathy for the characters, and out of an odd fascination with the gore. In a horror game these aren't absent, but one loses the sense (with appropriate immersion) that the bad things are happening to an actor on stage, and instead happening to an extension of ones self and ergo is more intamate. This is why a game like Silent Hill can be so scary when, in all honesty, nothing is really happening to your character most of the time. They're just in a place where they can be harmed, and the game is pulled off in such an excellent way that one can be immersed enough for this to be scary where as a movie would need more action to function (case in point play a Silent Hill game and then watch the movie and then compare the action in both). Remeber tank controls in Resident Evil? This is a classic control scheme meant to make controling the on screen avatars a bit more difficult, making the player feel weaker and more vulnerable to the dangers around.

This, I belive, is where video games break into the realm of art, by bringing an audience a new form of experience.

[Paul Escobar]

Can't be, CG (nor Keenspace) didn't exist in 90s.

Sat Jan 02, 1999

One of the above is false!

[IVstudios]

*Stuff*.

So then what you mean to say is that you want to create a comic that immerses the reader the same way a videogame does, no that you want to create a comic promoting the idea of "games are art"? Or that you want to create a comic about games as art that is as immersive as the games you are talking about? or that you want to make a videogame about a comic artist who wants to make a comic about making a videogame? Or you want to make a comic that is as immersive as a videogame about making a videogame that is as immersive as a videogame… Madness? This is SPARTA

I am confused about what you want, and judging by the fact that you even brought it up, I'm guessing you are to?

[SergeXIII]

The point is that gaming allows one to experience something in a way unique to its own medium. It isn't graphics, it isn't music, it isn't writting, its how it all comes together to form a unique way of experiencing the author's vision, and as such is difficult to express as art outside its own medium, something thats pretty common amongst other art forms. Like, try and express music as art in the form of a non abstract comic. Aside from the subculture surrounding it you'd have the same difficulty expressed here. This is what I'm talking about.

[Dr Legostar]

The point is that gaming allows one to experience something in a way unique to its own medium. It isn't graphics, it isn't music, it isn't writting, its how it all comes together to form a unique way of experiencing the author's vision, and as such is difficult to express as art outside its own medium, something thats pretty common amongst other art forms. Like, try and express music as art in the form of a non abstract comic. Aside from the subculture surrounding it you'd have the same difficulty expressed here. This is what I'm talking about.

also it allows us to kill nazis. or aliens, sometimes aliens.

[Redtech]

And *Insert racial sterotype here*.
Death to the Cybermen, I say.

I'm wondering if the Metal Gear solid comics that came out on the PSP were any good, considering they were comics as a game...based on a game itself.

[Cope]

Can't be, CG (nor Keenspace) didn't exist in 90s.

Sat Jan 02, 1999

One of the above is false!

The latter is false. Some sort of glitch reset everyone's joindate to 1999 when the forums were changed to phpBB sometime in 2002.

[Jesusabdullah]

It was a metaphorical nineties, anyway.

[KittyKatBlack]

I think he was talking too fast, or I was laughing too much, but I missed the CG reference. Where was it?