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Post by bisected8 on May 26, 2009 22:30:56 GMT
Ah the shift to seriousness. Inevitable in any webcomic... Unless it began in a serious mood, as "Gunnerkrigg Court" did (opening with a young girl coming to a mysterious and creepy boarding school, discovering that she has a second shadow, and having to help it across the river separating the school from the dark and equally mysterious and creepy forest). I don't know if there's such a thing as a Reverse-Cerebus Syndrome or any examples of it - though if Tom ever lets his head get turned by the praise for the sequences involving Dr. Disaster, Boxbot, Robox, etc. to the point where he decides to revolve the webcomic around them rather than around Annie's adventures and explorations.... IIRC, Cerebus Syndrome only applies when it wasn't seriosu to begin with. ;D Then again, another Dr. Disaster style comic would be cool... ;D
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Post by Babble-jargon Bill on May 26, 2009 22:58:56 GMT
If Doctor Disaster ever gets his own webcomic, I hope, nay, demand that he have a sidekick named Captain Catastrophe.
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Dentrala
Full Member
"I absolutely did not expect thiiiissss!!"
Posts: 156
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Post by Dentrala on May 27, 2009 0:37:50 GMT
I wouldn't say it has turned serious... >.>
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Dentrala
Full Member
"I absolutely did not expect thiiiissss!!"
Posts: 156
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Post by Dentrala on May 27, 2009 3:23:39 GMT
...
I never realized how humorous this story is if you actually read City Face with the voice of Van Diesel. (Try Polo as Oprah... That's fun too.)
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Post by Mezzaphor on May 27, 2009 4:49:02 GMT
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Post by Count Casimir on May 27, 2009 5:58:35 GMT
Mezzaphor you hurt my head as usual.
Hi everyone I'm back and I know every single one of you missed me bunches right?
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Post by Yin on May 27, 2009 6:52:37 GMT
My lad, this is the point at which everyone stares into corners and pretends they noticed you'd been gone.
Also City Face is plenty more observant than we thought.
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Post by bisected8 on May 27, 2009 9:11:48 GMT
If Doctor Disaster ever gets his own webcomic, I hope, nay, demand that he have a sidekick named Captain Catastrophe. "Captain" isn't really a sidekick name though. Wouldn't it be something along the lines of "Chaos Kid"?
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preus
Full Member
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Post by preus on May 27, 2009 9:15:22 GMT
When I saw today's strip, I immediately thought of this
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Post by Ulysses on May 27, 2009 9:22:01 GMT
City Face reveals the crushing truth about humanity. We are all drunken pidgeon-killers.
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Dominic
Junior Member
touched by his funk
Posts: 65
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Post by Dominic on May 27, 2009 9:47:07 GMT
When I saw today's strip, I immediately thought of thisAh, thank you. Hadn't listened to Lehrer in far too long. Awesome ^^
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Post by todd on May 27, 2009 10:42:50 GMT
IIRC, Cerebus Syndrome only applies when it wasn't seriosu to begin with. ;D I wrote (and meant) "Reverse-Cerebus Syndrome" - that is, when something serious changes its mood and becomes far more comedic.
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Post by Tom Siddell on May 27, 2009 12:27:35 GMT
Might there be less confusion if people talked about stuff without referring to retarded TVTrope-isms and just explained what they meant?
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Post by Uncle Putte on May 27, 2009 12:52:30 GMT
This may sound naive, but... are there people who actually stomp pidgeons? The thought alone is a wee bit disturbing. Drunk or not, that's awfully petty.
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Post by bisected8 on May 27, 2009 12:52:33 GMT
I did both...
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Dominic
Junior Member
touched by his funk
Posts: 65
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Post by Dominic on May 27, 2009 13:35:22 GMT
This may sound naive, but... are there people who actually stomp pidgeons? Now I know I can get pretty close to them in the right cities, but I can't imagine a pigeon allowing a loud drunk to get close enough :/ Ducks, on the other hand... Stupid, stupid creatures. Lots of them like to cross bike roads in my area (there's a few through/past small bodies of water) and they have a nasty habit of crossing, getting halfway, seeing you, going back. I've managed to accidentally bike right over one more than once. They always lived, though! Stupid, stupid ducks.
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Dentrala
Full Member
"I absolutely did not expect thiiiissss!!"
Posts: 156
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Post by Dentrala on May 27, 2009 13:56:17 GMT
But I love pigeons. And bisected, >C
I've seen people feed pigeons so they could kick them. It's rather cruel, doing that to such a noble and elegant creature.
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Post by rylfrazier on May 27, 2009 14:20:08 GMT
Might there be less confusion if people talked about stuff without referring to retarded TVTrope-isms and just explained what they meant? Thank god someone shares my hatred of stupid trope talk. Just say "this comic is taking a serious turn". Thank you very much.
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Post by bisected8 on May 27, 2009 14:23:29 GMT
Might there be less confusion if people talked about stuff without referring to retarded TVTrope-isms and just explained what they meant? Thank god someone shares my hatred of stupid trope talk. Just say "this comic is taking a serious turn". Thank you very much. I did. No one forced you to click on the link.
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Post by Mishmash on May 27, 2009 14:25:12 GMT
Once again City Face has depressed me... do people really kill pigeons when they are drunk? That is so horrible I want to cry.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE City Face, I guess I am just jarred by my own naivety.
On a lighter note: can't wait to see this big dance scene!
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Post by rylfrazier on May 27, 2009 20:55:46 GMT
I did. No one forced you to click on the link. And no one forced you to keep talking tropes after your first link to the trope web page. I'm not trying to be hard on you. I really just hate that trope crap. IMO it's a glib and belittling way to describe the writer's craft. Imagine you write an awesome story about a guy losing his true love, then finding her. Now imagine that instead of talking about the story, people just said "oh, I see you're using the Princess Bride trope, followed by the Happily Ever After trope" (note, I have no idea if these are real tropes - I hate that website [note 2: PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME IF THEY ARE]). It takes something which required thought, effort and heart and reduces it to something that sounds simple and formulaic. It also seems like the use of geek terminology for it's own sake, and I've never been that fond of "inside" language. Just a personal pet peeve. I don't have anything against you as a human being, that trope crap just gets on my last nerve.
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Post by Casey on May 27, 2009 21:13:31 GMT
I kind of have to agree with Tom and Ryl here. Even if it isn't the point of TVTropes to do so, it does sort of imply that all creative work is formulaic and that isn't really fair. Authors in all media try to differentiate themselves by subtly playing on differing nuances on what might be called a standard story element, and if a person reduces that work to just referring to it by those story elements, it completely overlooks the hard work they have done to -differentiate- their work from those very tropes.
And, most egregious to me, is that the entirety of City Face is clearly a parody, and yet this was brought up by someone seriously trope-analyzing City Face.
I would also like to point out that it is human nature for anyone who knows something that the average person does not know (in this case, trope-ology) to "show off" that knowledge and make inside-references that only others with the same obscure knowledge would understand. In this sense, the conversation reminded me of overhearing two trekkies argue about the nuances of the Klingon language at a convention. Not trying to be harsh, but frankly, it is rude to speak a foreign language in front of a bunch of people who don't also know it.
As a final note, I find it ironic that the original trope-y claim was that "City Face is now becoming serious" when in fact it is not, but, ironically, the only thing that has become serious is this discussion thread ABOUT City Face... which I think completely misses the point--or illustrates the point, depending on your point of view--of City Face in the first place.
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Klex
Full Member
[REDACTED]
Posts: 170
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Post by Klex on May 27, 2009 21:36:47 GMT
Since when is TVTropes the devil exactly? Yes, all creative work IS formulaic, it's impossible to do anything without tropes. I can link to one and only one precise page that is, for me, the core of the website - if you don't want to click, the key phrase is "Some tropes are used because they work". "Insiders" vocabulary is used because it's fun and covers phenomenons that aren't immediately described by common expressions. If you go to the page of a precise work to see its list of tropes, it's because you enjoy that work, and eventually want to know what else use similar devices. I dare you to find real harsh critic on the site ; because doing so is completely missing the point.
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Post by bisected8 on May 27, 2009 21:45:48 GMT
I wasn't actually being serious when I said it was getting serious...
Not that I mean that in a bad way.
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Post by Babble-jargon Bill on May 27, 2009 21:48:11 GMT
...getting back to City Face,
I like the profile of CF in the first panel, spinning around and trying to puff out his neck feathers, especially since I have seen it in real life and it comes off more as a sign of lunacy than a sign of attraction. I'm starting to think that maybe all City Face has to do is just talk to the lady pigeon, instead of trying to do some crazy dance.
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Post by bisected8 on May 27, 2009 21:51:04 GMT
...getting back to City Face, I like the profile of CF in the first panel, spinning around and trying to puff out his neck feathers, especially since I have seen it in real life and it comes off more as a sign of lunacy than a sign of attraction. I'm starting to think that maybe all City Face has to do is just talk to the lady pigeon, instead of trying to do some crazy dance. ...good idea. I hope not. I want to see that big dance number.
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Post by Aris Katsaris on May 27, 2009 22:13:56 GMT
Since when is TVTropes the devil exactly? There's nothing wrong with TV tropes when discussing works of fiction in MASS. There's nothing with categorizations when discussing categories. There's something HORRIBLY wrong with using TV tropes when discussing particular developments in particular piece of work. If you have a daughter you love, you don't address her as "11-year old blond little female human". You respect her by calling her by *name*, you speak to her as a person, you don't speak of her as she's a mass of different combined formulas. Even if that's actually true for all of us. There's nothing wrong with statistics and formulas in their place. When discussing *groups* of people, *groups* of things.. When using them on particular pieices, now, it's instead terribly belittling, terribly insulting, terribly annoying. No, it's not Cerebus. It's CITY FACE. Know it's name. Discuss it for itself. If you want to discuss it in the context of other works then discuss IT in context of other works. That's not what happens when you invoke TV tropes. When you do that, including in this thread now, the tv-tropers start discussing the tropes in general, and completely stop ignoring the particulars of the actual webcomic. "Inevitable in any webcomic" my ass. Yes, quote TV tropes enough, and you'll start believing such nonsense. But it's not true, it's not even relevant. I observe it functioning more as a sort of arrogant game: See who can reduce the webcomic into the most tropes. See who can chop off the victim into the most pieces and name all the little chopped off pieces of flesh.
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Post by todd on May 27, 2009 22:14:46 GMT
Sorry about that; I hadn't realized that the term was used only at TVTropes. (Though I probably should have emphasized the "Reverse" part of the term so that it wouldn't be missed.) What I was speculating about was the possibility of webcomics (or other stories) that start off serious and then become more comedic as time goes on.
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Post by Casey on May 27, 2009 22:20:09 GMT
"Insiders" vocabulary is used because it's fun ...for the insiders.
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Post by tyler on May 27, 2009 23:48:29 GMT
I like bringing up Chekhov's Gun when it's appropriate, because I agree with the principle. I hate, at the end of any creative work, if I think "What was the point of X?" Because if X wasn't adding to the experience to the point that I wonder why it was there it doesn't belong. However, turning every discussion of creative endeavors into jargon-filled Tab-A/Slot-B crap makes the whole thing dull. I've browsed the site, I was amused by it. Wouldn't say it's the devil, but it shouldn't be a replacement for our own creativity.
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